DOMINES AND SCHOOL-TEACHERS 87

reached Amsterdam, however, he received from
the Chamber a letter of stinging rebuke, informing
him that "the consciences of men ought to be free
and unshackled, so long as they continue moderate,
inoffensive, and not hostile to government." The
Chamber, after reminding the Director that tolera-
tion in old Amsterdam had brought the oppressed
and persecuted of all countries to that city as to an
asylum, recommended Stuyvesant to follow in the
same course. Herewith ended the brief period of
religious persecution in New Netherland.

The amiable Domine Megapolensis who ac-
quiesced in these persecutions came over to the
colony of Rensselaerswyck in 1642 in the service of
Kiliaen Van Rensselaer. He was to have a salary
of forty guilders per month and a fit dwelling that
was to be provided for him. So the "Reverend,
Pious, and learned Dr. Johannes Megapolensis,
junior," set sail for America "tq proclaim Christ
to Christians and heathens in such distant lands/5
His name, by the way, like that of Erasmus, Me-
lanchthon, ^Ecolampadius, Dryander, and other
worthies of the Reformation, was a classical form
of the homely Dutch patronymic to which he had
been born.

Apparently the Reverend Johannes was more