Page:Augustine Herrman, beginner of the Virginia tobacco trade, merchant of New Amsterdam and first lord of Bohemia manor in Maryland (1941).djvu/126

 gave away much and at times when he could ill afford to do so. His kindness in receiving Sluyter and Dankaerts under his roof is proof of his generosity; particularly so when he was repaid by only slander of himself and family.

As to religion Herrman was likely much in advance of his day. So far as we know, he kept to the Protestant faith. His life was contemporary with an age that ushered in countless religious sects, each professing the true doctrine of salvation, condemnning the rest as unchristian. It was an age of blind bigotry and an incapacity toward toleration and understanding. Men of education were wont to turn away from all religious discussion and build up their own theology upon that type of philosophy that appealed to them most. His liberal tendencies in religious matters Herrman no doubt received from his parents, whom we suppose to have been among the leading Protestants of Prague. While in New Amsterdam he and his family were members of the Dutch Reformed Church and here his children were christened. On his manor Herrman erected a small chapel where he and his family and servants worshipped and assembled for prayers. It was called St. Augustine’s chapel. Dankaerts’ statement that Herrman was a “very godless person” probably reflects less on Herrman than it does on the Labadist diarist.

Perhaps the outstanding attribute of Augustine Herrman’s personality was his normal and rational attitude toward life in general. In an age torn on the one hand by religious persecution and fanaticism and on the other by material greed, he was among the few of the seventeenth century Americans who stand out and above the petty trivialities that troubled men’s minds. Because it did so, it is instructive for us today to read of his life.