Under the Dongan charter the limits of the city were included in an area of one mile upon the river and three and a half miles westward. It was not only the centre of social life and the metropolis of trade, but also the home of religious authority. When the Dutch church was organised there in 1640, it was the only one on the northern part of the river that had a regular ministry, and until after 1700 there was no settled domine north of Esopus except the pastors at Albany and Schenectady. The early ministers at Albany were Domines Megapolensis, Schaats, Dellius, Lydius, Van Driessen, Van vSchie, Frelinghuysen, Westerloo, and Johnson. Megapolensis, "the pious and well learned," was the first

An Old Dutch Town domine located in Al])any. He arrived in 1642, and the church that was erected for his use stood l)ack of the fort on what is still called Church Street. The use of this building was discontinued in 1656, when the congregation moved to another edifice, occu])\-ing the intersection of State Street and Broadway. This house was occupied till 1806, when it was torn down, its bells, furniture, and some of the materials being used in a new edifice. Early in the eighteenth century the Dutch church owned all of the city west of Broadwa>' and south of Beaver Street. It was then and for long afterwards known as the Pasture; indeed, the name is not unheard to-day, even as the leather district in Manhattan is still called the Swamp. The streets that intersect the Pasture bear the names of the old Dutch domines, Westerloo, Lydius, etc. When one stands upon some eminence -- as the tower of the Capitol -- and looks out over the city at its numerous churches and imposing cathedrals, he wonders whether Domine Megapolensis would be able to discover amid all those labyrinths of brick and stone the place where he expounded in Low Dutch the ])rincii)les of Cahdnism to a congregation of hardy pioneers.