It arose incidentally to the Methodist evangelism, in an effort on the part of Philip William Otterbein, of the German Reformed Church, and Martin Boehm, of the Mennonites, to provide for the shepherdless German-speaking people by an adaptation of the Wesleyan methods.

Presently, in the natural progress of language, the English work outgrew the German.

It is now doing an extensive and useful work by pulpit and press, chiefly in Pennsylvania and the States of that latitude.

The reasons for its continued existence separate from the Methodist Church, which it closely resembles both in doctrine and in polity, are more apparent to those within the organization than to superficial observers from outside.
The organization just described arose from the unwillingness of the German Reformed Church to meet the craving needs of the German people by using the Wesleyan methods.

From the unwillingness of the Methodist Church to use the German language arose another organization, "the Evangelical Association," sometimes known, from the name of its founder, by the somewhat grotesque title of "the Albrights." This also is both Methodist and Episcopal, a reduced copy of the great Wesleyan institution, mainly devoted to labors among the Germans.
In 1792 was planted at Baltimore the first American congregation of that organization of disciples of Emanuel Swedenborg which had been begun in London nine years before and called by the appropriately fanciful name of "the Church of the New Jerusalem." FOOTNOTES: [210:1] Quoted in Tiffany, p.