'!(ffffill{ li;l(,;i;il!l;Iii BR 516 ,M3 1916 Macfarland, Charles S. The churches of the Federal council The Churches of the Federal Council BOOKS BY Charles S. Macfarland The Spirit Christlike. The Infinite Affection. Jesus aiid the Prophets. Spiritual Culture and Social Service. Christian Service and the Modern World. Books Edited and in Part Written by the Author The Christia7i Ministry and the Social Order. Christiajt Unity at Wo7^k. The Churches of the Federal Council. The Churches of the Federal Council Their History, Organization and Distinct- ive Characteristics and a Statement of the Development of the Federal Council EDITED BY » OHTlXl^lfi CHARLES S. MACFARLAND General Secretary of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 1916, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street Foreword THIS volume has been prepared in response to a large and increasing demand for such information as it contains in brief and simple form. The federation of thirty Christian denominations naturally raises the inquiry as to their points of likeness and diversity. Such a volume necessitated composite authorship, because each denomination should be portrayed by one of its own rep- resentatives, with freedom of expression in setting forth the values of each. It also appears that in each of the statements contained herein certain distinct characteristics are set forth which, as a matter of fact, are found to be more or less common to other denominations. The prevailing sense in all is that of a unity far greater than the diversity, and thus we find in these state- ments themselves an exhibit of the need and practicability of the federation of these bodies for the multitude of tasks which can be done better by cooperation than in separation. Each chapter, again, sets forth, as a more or less distinct trait of the denomination described, the desire to realize the Kingdom of God rather than to build up a denomination, and while each emphasizes the peculiar contributions of the de- nomination described, these thirty sketches constitute a more or less sustained argument for cooperation. One can see clearly the possible adjustment of autonomy and corporate action, in- dividuality and social solidarity, liberty and social adaptation. These bodies have all federated fully and officially in the Federal Council, with the exception of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in which there still obtains some difference of opinion relative to Christian federation, which it is believed does not 5 6 FOEEWOED indicate an essential difference of general view regarding the spirit of fraternity and fellowship. At the last General Con- vention of the Protestant Episcopal Church this division of view-point was indicated by the fact that the House of Deputies voted by a large majority for full relationship with the Federal Council, on which action, however, the House of Bishops was divided or doubtful, and in which it failed to concur. The final action of the General Convention was as follows : " Resolved, That the General Convention of the Prot- estant Episcopal Church hereby records its gratitude to Almighty God for the growing sympathy and closer re- lations between bodies of Christians, as evidenced by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in Amer- ica ; but the strong conviction of this Church is that the ideal of our Lord for His people is organized unity in one body ; realizing, however, the desirability of Chris- tian cooperation, where practicable, without the sacri- fice of principle, this Convention expresses the opinion that the Commissions on Christian Unity and on Social Service may appoint representatives to take part in the Federal Council." It should be said, in this connection, that so far as the prac- tical aspects of the matter are concerned, the relationship is little different from that of the other Christian bodies, and the Federal Council has received delegates from the Protestant Episcopal Commissions upon the same basis as the delegates from its other constituent bodies, and has received from them the same loyal service. This is also true of the federative movement in general, the difference in relationship being largely determined by locality and individual preference on the part of pastors and churches. The various chapters were prepared by the following con- tributors : The Baptist Churches, North, Rev. Albert G. Lawson, FOEEWOED 7 Chairman of the Baptist Delegation of the Federal Council. The National Baptist Convention (Colored), Rev. Henry K. Carroll, Associate Secretary of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. The General Conference of Free Baptists, Rev. James E. Howe, former Dean of Cobb Divinity School. The Seventh Day Baptists, Rev. Arthur B. Main, Dean and Professor of Theology, Alfred Theological Seminary. The Congregational Churches, Rev. Charles Sumner Nash, President Pacific Theological Seminary. Dis- ciples of Christ, Rev. Peter Ainslie, President Commission on Christian Union, and former President of the National Con- vention. The Christian Church, Rev. Milo True Morrill, Secretary for Foreign Missions. The Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. Edward S. Lewis, Associate Editor of Sunday School Publications of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Rev. Wilbur F. Tillett, Dean of the Biblical Department of Vanderbilt University. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. John T. Jeni- fer, Historian of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Bishop Alex- ander Walters, member of the Executive Committee of the Federal Council. The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America, Rev. James Arthur Martin, Secretary of the South Georgia Annual Conference. The Methodist Protestant Church, Rev. Lyman Edwyn Davis, President of the General Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church. The Presby- terian Church in the U. S. A., Rev. William H. Roberts, Stated Clerk and former Moderator of the General Assembly. The Presbyterian Church in the U. S., Rev. R. C. Reed, Professor of Church History in Columbia Theological Semi- nary. The United Presbyterian Church of North America, Rev. John McNaugher, President of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. The Reformed Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., Professor Frank A. Jurkat, Professor of Hebrew and Church History in the Reformed Presbyterian Seminary, Cedarville, 8 FOEEWOED Ohio. The Welsh Presbyterian Church, Rev. William H. Roberts, American Secretary of the World Presbyterian Al- liance. The Reformed Church in America, Rev. Mathew Kolyn, Professor of Historical Theology, Western Theological Seminary. The Reformed Church in the United States, Rev. James I. Good, Professor of Reformed Church History, Cen- tral Theological Seminary. The Reformed Episcopal Church, Rev. Duane Wevill, Secretary of the Board of Home Missions, Pastor of the Church of the Redeemer, Baltimore, Md. The Evangelical Association, Rev. Augustus Krecker, Professor of Practical Theology, Schuylkill Seminary. The United Evan- gelical Church, Rev. A. Stapleton, President of Bible Confer- ence Society, and Educational Aid Society of the General Conference of the United Evangelical Church. The Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Rev. Josiah P. Landis, President of Bonebrake Theological Seminary. The Mennon- ite Church, Professor C. Henry Smith, Professor of History, Bluffton College. The Moravian Church, Rev. W. N. Schwarze, Professor of Church History, the Moravian Col- lege and Theological Seminary, Bethlehem, Pa. The Friends, Professor Allen D. Hole, Chairman of the Executive Commit- tee of the Five Years' Meeting. The Evangelical Lutheran Church, General Synod, Rev. J. A. Singmaster, President of the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, Pa. The German Evangelical Synod of North America, Rev. J. Horstmann, Editor of the Evangelical Herald. The Prot- estant Episcopal Church in the U. S. A., Rev. Harry Ran- some. Rector of Christ Church, Media, Pa. The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, Rev. Charles S. Macfarland, General Secretary of the Federal Council. It should be borne in mind that these contributors do not present these sketches as official representatives. Men were selected simply because of their familiarity with the history and life of their denomination. Therefore it is altogether probable FOEEWOED 9 that some things may be claimed, and some other things left unclaimed by the writers, to which other representatives of the denomination would take exception. In fact, the diversity to be found within a denomination is often as striking' as the di- versity between denominations themselves. This Handbook suffers the inescapable deficiencies of com- posite authorship, the sketches not being made after a common pattern. We can readily catch, however, the significant ele- ments in denominational diversity and easily sense the spirit of unity witnessed in them. This is the purpose of the book, and the student who wishes to go farther can secure his infor- mation through the bibliographies suggested. In the main the contributors have evidently sought to emphasize those things which have been popularly misunderstood and have omitted matters on which there is common and adequate knowledge. The various writers were simply asked to state the case for their denominations. It is to be noted that in several instances two of these de- nominations have sprung from the same source. Such divi- sions, however, relate mainly to matters which are now merely records of history and which do not make points of division at the present time. Other divisions^ notably illustrated by the Lutheran bodies, are due to racial distinctions. In the main these various denominations are measurably the product of the religious genius and the powerful personality of some one man, although undoubtedly in such cases the man may have per- sonaUzed the conscience of the group. It is interesting to note that we sometimes find two denominations alleging with equal insistence that they stand for the same particular principle. They all seem to have arisen in part as expressing the demand for liberty and tolerance. Quite likely these sketches will all be adversely criticized by some members of each denomina- tion, thus illustrating the diversity which often prevails to a greater extent between two particular wings of one denomina- tion than does the unity of either one of these denominations. 10 FOEEWOED In the case of one particular communion the contributor asserts its distinctive qualities with considerable emphasis, and yet the editor happens to know of a particular local church of that denomination which is made up of people who brought their letters from nine other denominations, only two persons bringing letters from a church of this particular denomination. The church in question is an unusually harmonious one, and seems to experience no difficulty in adapting itself to the larger interests of the denomination. It would undoubtedly have added to the interest of this volume if these bodies could also have been considered in re- lated groups. The coming together of certain groups of these denominations is, however, a movement more or less in the interest of organic unity, and belongs in that sphere rather than that of federation, although the relationships of the two movements are apparent. At the present moment, moreover, there are several intersecting movements in this direction and negotiations are now taking place between several such groups, looking towards organic unity, so that it would be difficult, either to prophesy the future, or indeed to fix the present status of this aspect of church unity. Therefore it has seemed best to treat the whole question in this volume within the scope of federation. The Editor. Neiv Yorkf igi6. Contents Constituent Bodies of the Council PAGE I. The Baptist Churches, North . . • ^5 II. The National Baptist Convention (Colored) 24 III. The Free Baptist Churches .... 28 IV. The Seventh-Day Baptist Church . . • 35 V. The Congregational Churches ... 43 VI. The Disciples of Christ .... 50 VII. The Christian Church ..... 57 VIII. The Methodist Episcopal Church ... 65 IX. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South . 72 X. The African Methodist Episcopal Church . 81 XI. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church 86 XII. The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America . . . . . '9' XIII. The Methodist Protestant Church . . 97 XIV. The Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. .102 XV. The Presbyterian Church in the United States 114 XVI. The United Presbyterian Church of North America . . . . • .119 XVII. The Reformed Presbyterian Church (General Synod) . . . . • • .127 XVIII. The Welsh Calvinistic Methodist (or Presby- terian) Church . . . . • ^34 XIX. The Reformed Church in America . . .137 XX. The Reformed Church in the United States . 148 XXI. The Reformed Episcopal Church . . .156 II 12 COITTENTS XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVIl. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. XXXI. The Evangelical Association The United Evangelical Church The United Brethren in Christ . The Mennonites .... The Moravian Church The Friends .... The Evangelical Lutheran Church The German Evangelical Synod . The Protestant Episcopal Church {Represented in the Federal Council by Com- missions on Christian Unity and Social Serviced) The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America ..... i6i 173 179 187 195 210 218 226 237 244 W P H l-H H (/> o u •i? ^ C/3 O t— • H o Q _^ CM r^ a -_,,-,,rv?ofn,-iinLftC0<:0 0) o )-i .S.Su-< o c C/2 o .2 C^ 3 Z2 m tn .2 fl ."ti i^ .i2 ifii t3 t3 o o § ri ^ o Xi -g .'^ .2 O (13) c 'i^ "i^ "S Tl "^ S '-l CJ ^- <^ X 3 2 5 ■■5^6 a> o a> (L) o Pi 1-1 -o -o Q i2 2 S -ti '^ l_ ^ C u > "p J- ^ '-' ^ o .0 .0 ^ O 1) !L) a; — %^^^f^pip<^^^ 0) *-* *i o tic >^ ?-. **- ^ ^ s 3 PP!^ 14 STATISTICS OTHER STATISTICS (^Compiled by Rev. Henry K. Carroll) Baptist Churches, North National Baptist Convention (Colored) . . . Free Baptist Churches * Christian Church ....*• Congregational Disciples of Christ Friends German Evangelical Synod Evangelical Association Lutheran Church, General Synod Mennonite Church, Gen'l Conference. . . . Methodist Episcopal Church Methodist Episcopal Church, South .... African M. E. Church African M. E. Zion Church Colored M. E. Church in America . ... Methodist Protestant Church Moravian Church Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A Presbyterian Church in the U. S., South . . Protestant Episcopal Church Reformed Church in America Reformed Church in the U. S Reformed Episcopal Church Reformed Presbyterian Church (Gen'l Synod) Seventh-Day Baptist Church United Brethren Church United Evangelical Church United Presbyterian Church Welsh Presbyterian Church Total Enrollment Foreign Officers, Teach- Home Missionaries ers, Scholars of Sunday-Schools Missionaries 701 ' 1,109,102 1,583 (1913) 6 1,054,449 500 12 93,500 30 637 757,873 1,952 252 1,257,639 545 100 70,314 24 134,660 99 27 164,648 613 57 301,822 247 11 t 16,889 8 1,245 3,867,755 t 4,000 372 1,707,817 t 2,148 75 272,213 (1913) 35 267,250 250 (1913) — 359,409 No Infor' mation (1912) 19 150,653 t38 120 17,572 27 1,226 1,329,409 2,578 325 284,193 §420 485 527,346 1,200 136 123,508 209 64 316,053 190 — 9,848 — 2,000 5 11 5,619 40 61 410,237 t317 21 131,082 290 291 160,958 292 (1913) 3 10,972 1 * Rev. Alfred W, Anthony reports that no statistics apart from the Northern Baptist Convention can be given ; that union of the two bodies is well advanced. f Scholars only. X This includes ministers who are supported in whole or in part from home mission funds ; but not missionaries employed by the several annual conferences. § Does not include missionaries supported entirely by presbyteries. The Baptist Churches, North SINCE men differ in nature, education and experience their divergent religious views are tributes to independ- ent thinking.* Baptists honor a nickname coined in ignorance, and cherish our history as a bush aflame with God. He who imagines we came from "John the Baptist," and that we treasure a single asset, * A generation ago we had in Russia about eighty churches with 3,029 members, and now it is reported that there are over a thousand churches with nearly one hundred thousand members and the growth continues. Yet in this year A. d. 1915 the Rev. Wilhelm Fetler, one of the noblest of men, and a most eloquent preacher, is sentenced to Siberia and then permitted to come to America, but banished from Russia for the crime of preaching the Gospel. 20 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL of earnest spirits and the melting of hearts before world tasks our variety is fused into unity. Beginning in America about 1639 with a handful and never having had help from immigration, our latest figures show 37^371 ministers, 52,410 churches, and 5,932,364 members. We have also fourteen seminaries, one hundred colleges and universities, and ninety-seven academies or high schools. For organized work we have a Northern ^ and a Southern Conven- tion, delegated bodies, meeting annually, a General Convention where both the North and the South are represented, meeting triennially, and a World's Alliance meeting quadrennially. Each state has its convention and there are associations, of smaller groups of churches, meeting annually ; but one and all are simply missionary in character, alike in doctrine and order, and without the least authority over any church. Having no courts for creed revision we have no heresy trials. What have we done for Unity ? Credit to us the new start in modern missions by Carey, and that in Bible translation our missionaries have been among the foremost ; the plan for the British and Foreign Bible Society is called the oldest, though twelve years earlier, in 1792, the Rev. Morgan J. Rhys, a Welsh Baptist, started at Moleston a foreign Bible work, and in 1785, knowing nothing of Raikes, Deacon William Fox or- ganized the first Sunday-School Society in England ; the for- mation of the London Sunday-School Union of which a Baptist was the secretary for half a century ; the International Lesson Committee's greatest organizer and its first secretary were Bap- tists ; from us came the Baraca and Philathea classes, the first primary department, the first chair in a theological seminary for distinctive Bible School study, and the first well endowed woman's college. The Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, the Laymen's Missionary Movement and other sig- nificant movements had from the first some of our best leaders. 1 The seal of our Northern Convention carries this motto ; Matthew xxiii. 8-12 — Freedom — Union — Service. THE BAPTIST CHURCHES, NORTH 21 The honorary secretary of the Federal Council, the Rev. E. B. Sanford, in beginning his effort, had no truer coworkers than some of our best known ministers. In reform matters we have always been torch-bearers. The early Washingtonian temperance movement, of eighty years ago, began in Baltimore with men converted under Jacob Knapp; the first paper wholly devoted to temperance. The National Philanthropist , was established at Boston, in 1826, by the Rev. William Collier, a city missionary; President Wayland, of Brown, Governor Briggs, of Massachusetts, for the North, and Governor Lumpkin, of Georgia, for the South, were temperance leaders in the earliest days, while the Boston Baptist Bethel has, probably, the oldest church temperance society with weekly meetings in America.* The largest sum ever given for general education is thirty-three millions ; of this fund more has been given many times over to others than to us and, in addition, the same Baptist created a Foundation of one hundred millions for world betterment. After sixty generations of division, if we would unite Chris- tians, we must begin close to the center with a common spirit rather than with a common divisor, whose highest power will afford full freedom for the individual, as its highest action will be in love and loyalty to a person. "Jesus is Lord " is both creed and experience in the New Testament, for in the Holy Spirit only can one say, "Jesus is Lord," and there is ample freedom for all who thus accept Him. If the good in us is of God and the good in our brethren is of God, what should hinder our immanent God from having right of way in us all, and our spiritual culture from passing over into spiritual comradeship where liberty and unity meet together. From Roman tax-gatherers and from fiery spirits who killed such, Jesus chose two to be with Him. Simon the zealot and Matthew the publican, socially and politically wide 1 At the Bethel may be seen a Pledge Roll as large as a barrel signed by scores of thousands, mainly sailors, and from every nation of the globe. 22 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL apart as the poles, were cemented into one through common love and loyalty to Jesus. Not quantity of service but the quality of him who serves counts with God. As pioneers of the rights of man in religion our views readily find a place in the current thought and speech of every age. *' Vital rehgion is always vernacular in language, thought- vehicle, and application, ' ' and Baptists have a present message for the world's needs : — so to state the Gospel that no man is left out on account of birth or training ; so to preach Christ that He satisfies all man's spiritual needs ; so to lift churches out of the maze of outgrown words and rites into the early simplicity so that they must become the constructive forces of society. When spiritual democracy seeks a voice, and social movements need a religious interpreter, he may best serve who has never bowed the knee to State or Church. Teaching a baptism that modern scholarship calls the fullest symbol of the new life in Christ, but also teaching that salva- tion never rests on rites or doctrines, and that each man, free to follow his conscience, is of supreme worth before God, fits us to meet the people in revolt against priesthood and super- stition. Our stand for an open Bible and the Lordship of Christ, for simplicity in religion and freedom from fiat creeds and bodies, for regenerate church membership, independency in Church and State, and the principles of democracy, fits us to carry the Gospel home to men thinking scientifically and to Christianize the forces that are remaking the world. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL "A Short History of the Baptists," H. C. Veddcr, D.D. American Baptist Publication Society. "A Century of Baptist Achievement," A. H. Newman, D. D. American Baptist Publication Society. " History of Anti-Pedobaptism," A. H. Newman, D. D. American Baptist Publication Society. THE BAPTIST CHTJECHES, NOETH 23 " A Restatement of Baptist Principles," P. L. Jones. Amer- ican Baptist Publication Society. " The World's Debt to Baptists," J. W. Porter, D. D. Baptist Book Concern, Louisville, Ky. " Axioms of Religion," E. Y. Mullins, D. D. American Baptist Publication Society. II The National Baptist Convention THE National Baptist Convention represents a very large body of Negro Christians in the United States, indeed the largest. There have, of course, been Negro Baptists in the South from the beginning. White Baptists, who have always been numerous in that section, cared for the religious interests of the slaves in the years before emancipation ; but the results of the Civil War required Negro Baptists to assume the responsibili- ties of their own church maintenance and development. As they emerged from the condition of slaves they had no trained preachers or teachers, no schools of their own and few churches. They had gone to the churches of their masters and worshipped under the same roof with them, either in the gallery or in seats reserved for them in the rear. After the war they must first of all get houses for their families, and then houses for their con- gregations. The first separate church of Colored Baptists was formed in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1785, afterwards dis- banded and then reorganized. The oldest church of continu- ous history was organized near Savannah, Georgia, in 1788. Its first pastor was a slave. In the early years of the nine- teenth century Negro Baptist churches sprang up in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and elsewhere ; but the number of such churches was comparatively small down to the period of the Civil War. Associations, consisting of a group of churches and min- isters, state conventions, and general conventions, came natu- rally into existence. The National Baptist Convention is the outcome by consolidation of a number of conventions of a 24 THE NATIONAL BAPTIST CONVENTION 25 general type. i. The New England Missionary Convention; 2. The Consolidated American Missionary Convention ; 3. The General Association of Western States and Territories ; 4. The Foreign Mission Convention of the United States ; 5. The American National Baptist Convention ; 6. The Educational Convention. The process of merging went on until the Na- tional Baptist Convention, dating from 1895, came to represent the entire list of general organizations. The Lott-Carey Con- vention of Foreign Missions, formed in 1897, became in 1906 a district convention of the National Baptist body. This Convention, which meets annually in various popular centers. North and South, has the oversight of the general de- nominational interests of the Negro Baptists. It receives and acts upon reports of its boards of home and foreign missions, education, publication, Young People and National Baptist Benefit. The Foreign Missions Board, which cultivates fields in Africa, South America, and the West Indies, has its head- quarters at 624 South Eighteenth Street, Philadelphia, Pa. The Board of Home Missions, which, with the assistance of the Southern Baptist Convention, supports thirty-two mission- aries in the Southern States, has its office in Little Rock, Ark. The Educational Board looks after the interests of the academies, colleges and other educational institutions created by the denomination. The Baptist Benefit Board seeks to raise money for the help of retired and disabled ministers, and the families of deceased ministers. The Board of Publication, with its headquarters in Nash- ville, Tenn., supplies Negro Baptists with hterature, Sunday- school, young people and general. The Board of the Baptist Young People's Union has its office at Nashville, Tenn. There is also a Woman's Convention, which reports to the National Convention. 26 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL The National Convention has two classes of members: 1. Churches, Sunday-schools, or other organizations which pay a fee of five dollars a year are entitled to send representation ; 2. Individuals, who pay one dollar a year or ten dollars for a life membership, may sit as delegates. Their associations, like all other Baptist associations, are for conference and advisory action. The oldest of them is be- lieved to be the Wood River Association of Illinois. So far as known the oldest association in the South was formed in Louisiana in 1865. According to the census of 1906 there were then upward of 571 associations, very few of which were in the North — only about thirty. As showing the distribution of these bodies, Alabama and Georgia each had eighty, Mis- sissippi sixty. South Carolina fifty-two. North Carolina thirty- nine, and Virginia thirty-three. The smallest association had less than 200 members, the largest — Shiloh — in Virginia, 27»834. Of members, or communicants, the census of 1906, which included all Negro Baptist churches, associated, or unasso- ciated, North or South, gave 2,261,607, of which less than 125,000 were credited to New England, New York, New Jer- sey and Pennsylvania, to the North Central division, including Kansas and Missouri, and to the Pacific States. The states reporting the largest numbers were Georgia, 333,943, Virginia, 268,206, Alabama, 259,825, Mississippi, 240,982, and South Carolina, 219,841. These five states contained an aggregate of 1,322,797, or nearly sixty per centum of the entire number. There were, by the same authority, upward of 18,000 churches, 1 7, 1 1 7 ministers, and 17,832 church buildings which, with their sites and furniture, were valued at ;^24,437,272. The Convention does not report any statistics of members or churches ; but according to compilation made by the American Baptist Year Book from association returns the membership is considerably below the census figure for 1906. For estimates of the strength of the denomination in 19 14, see statistical ex- THE NATIONAL BAPTIST CONVENTION 27 hibit elsewhere. In the absence of anything like complete and authoritative returns by the denomination itself only approxi- mate figures can be given. The Convention has, with the generous assistance of the Northern and Southern Baptist bodies, developed an educational system, including academies and colleges. There are twenty- one colleges, of which the American Baptist Home Mission Society controls twelve, and thirty-six secondary schools, of which the Northern Society supports nineteen. The Southern Baptist Convention is assisting the National Baptist Convention to establish a theological seminary at Memphis. The Publication Board at Nashville has a plant valued at ;^30o,ooo, and provides the denomination with Sunday-school literature. Of Negro Baptist papers. The National Baptist UnioHt Nashville, The Christian Banner^ Philadelphia, and The American Baptisty Louisville, are among the foremost. In matters of faith, the churches of the National Baptist Convention do not differ essentially from those of the Northern Baptist Convention. They advocate the same principles and follow the same polity. At the meeting of the Convention in Chicago, 111., in September, 191 5, there was a division growing out of the in- corporation of the National Convention, and the opponents withdrew and held a separate convention. Ill The Free Baptist Churches THE first Baptist Church recognized in English history was of the General, or Free Baptist order, and ante- dated the first Particular Baptist Church by a score of years. For a long period the General Baptists constituted the larger and more influential part of the English Baptists, and therefore we should expect that, among the earliest Baptist Churches in America, no small number would be of this per- suasion, as in fact they were, the church planted by Roger Williams being properly reckoned as the first. With numerous churches centrally located, they gave early promise of a large denominational growth in our country, a promise that only needed fulfillment to have taken away any occasion for the rise of the Free Baptists as a separate people. But this golden opportunity was not improved. The General Baptists aimed to be a spiritual people, aimed at simplicity and meekness, declared that the poor, the simple and despised are more likely to understand spiritual things than those who de- pend on human learning, clung to crude forms of worship, neglected to educate and support the ministry, and conse- quently in a progressive age fell so far behind that, at the end of one hundred years of existence, though their churches were not few, they were yet weak and too little associated to be easily recognized as a distinct denomination. In ignorance of these Baptists, and innocent of any sectarian design, Benjamin Randall, in 1780, at New Durham, N. H., organized a church that, by the grace of God, proved to be the first of the Free Baptist denomination in our land. At this time the Congregational Church in New Hampshire 28 THE FEEE BAPTIST CHURCHES 29 was an established state Church, for which meeting-houses were built and pastors supported by a tax laid on " all tolls and rate- able estates." Some freedom seems to have been allowed if a town wished to choose its minister from another denomination ; but Congregationalists were so many, and members of other churches so few, that rarely was such a selection made. It was made, however, at New Durham, when Randall was invited to settle in the place. The call and its acceptance were significant, for during four years the people had been nurtured under the high standards of the state Church. The clergyman whom Randall was asked to follow was liberally educated, and brought to the sacred office a degree of culture to which Randall was a stranger. With a meager intellectual outfit, a Baptist and unordained, the contrast between the two ministers was made plain. Benjamin Randall Randall was born in New Castle, N. H., in 1749. For nine years he went to sea with his father, who was a sea captain ; for three years he was apprenticed to a sail maker in Ports- mouth ; then, becoming of age, he returned to New Castle and began business. The next year Whitefield came to Ports- mouth, and there preached his last sermon. He was eagerly heard by Randall, but heard with disfavor and opposition. What the great evangelist's pleas failed to do was done by the sudden report of his death. It brought Randall to his knees, and to be an aftermath of Whitefield 's ingathering. On con- fession of faith, he joined the New Castle church, remained in it four years, then became a Separatist, next a Baptist, and through some travail of soul, at the age of twenty-seven, a preacher. After preaching here and there for two years, he went to New Durham, making that the radiating center of dis- tant, as well as of local Christian work, and to this feature of his work the Renaissance of the Free Baptist Church at his hands was due. 30 CHUECHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL Forced Into Being With scrupulous care Randall drew his sermons from the one homiliarium, and therefore was surprised to find them, by some Baptist ministers, charged with heresy. Challenged pub- licly to defend them, he accepted the challenge, but only to find himself in the end disowned for his errors. He believed in free will and a universal atonement. In perplexity over certain texts, after prayer about them^ he fell into a trance in which all his difficulties were cleared away, an experience that through life he greatly valued. There were a few ministers who endorsed Randall's views and were naturally drawn closer to him ; and by them, at New Durham, he was ordained as a Baptist minister. Then, disfellowshipped by his Calvinistic brethren, he pro- ceeded to organize a church. Nor did it seem prophetic of any great career awaiting him that, after two years' residence and labor in New Durham, he could collect but a little flock of seven for union in the church. Not many of the irreligious had responded to his appeals, nor had many of the Congrega- tionalists been proselyted to the Baptist faith. Feeble, however, as was the church at its beginning, it proved to be a living branch of the true vine, for by the end of the year it had added twenty more to its membership ; and these, together with the far larger number of converts elsewhere gained, made an aggre- gate sufficiently great to signalize 1780 as the year from which to date the birth of the denomination. The Pioneer Ministers There were allied with Randall seven ministers who may be called the pioneer propagandists of Free Baptist faith. They recognized him as a leader of the church that had to be, but they, as well as he, brought to pass the reality and constant increase of *' Free Willers." These ministers were a class by themselves, marked by their own ideas and ways. With one exception they were unlettered men, and in general intelli- THE FEEE BAPTIST CHURCHES 31 gence did not much excel the better part of their congregations. However, they were religious men, and looked on religion as something other than morality touched with emotion, even as a conscious and glowing experience. Christian life meant life at the inmost center of moral being ; begun at conversion, devel- oped both in secret and by enthusiastic public confessions, and answering to the most vivid descriptions on the sacred page. They aimed to be apostolic, and like the apostles refused to be shut up to any one locality. Fired by an unquenchable ardor they sought out places where Christ was not preached, or religion was neglected, and there exalted the Saviour of the world. Invading the slumbering parishes of the state clergy, and holding conventicles in groves, barns, kitchens, school- houses, or in such meeting-houses as were not shut against them, they compelled men to hear the glad news of salvation. It is true that, like revivalists of this day, they sought to con- trol the will through the feelings. To that end they cultivated a style, tones, facial expressions that stirred the emotions. Like Paul, they "warned men night and day with tears"; and, weeping themselves, so spake that they were wont to melt their hearers until scarcely a dry eye was left among them. The promise of the Spirit to the apostles when brought to judgment was interpreted to mean the pledge of the same gift to disciples as they preached ; and hence these men became indifferent about exact preparation for the pulpit, and intolerant of the symbols of such preparation in the hands of others. Then, too, since it was God who spoke through them while preaching, they looked for hearers to be immediately converted. To them conversion was little else than the Kingdom of Heaven taken by violence. Conviction, distress, struggle, darkness, surrender, the dawn of faith, then the rapture of a new-found joy ; these were the approved psychological stages of the soul's birth from on high ; and while the speaking went on all these feelings could be experienced. Perhaps, under some magnetic preacher, convicted sinners might fall insensible, and- when 32 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL consciousness returned, begin to praise God aloud in the pres- ence of the congregation. Such interludes breaking in on the worship were to these preachers sweetest music. Charges of fanaticism they could not escape. Enthusiasm characterized all their assemblies, and sometimes in excess. But their cause, which was the cause of Christ, could not thus be compromised ; and if, at any time, earnestness ran to ex- travagance, these devout men soon held it in check, and turned approaches to disorder into the ways of spiritual advancement. Such was the first generation of Free Baptist preachers ; and such the finger-marks of the builders left on the rising church for time to efface; such, too, the means by which, in the country places of Northern New England, converts, churches and ministers of the Free Baptist faith, at the time of Randall's death in 1808, had become a people five thousand strong. The Free Baptist Faith It was at first thought that the Scriptures were a sufficient rule of faith and practice, and that no other creed was needed ; but, charged with heresies, the church was led to publish a confession of faith. As this is orthodox in every article, it will be of interest here to attend only to the tenets in which it disa- grees with those of some of the other Baptist bodies. From one of them it differs in accepting the Nicene symbol in respect to the divinity of Christ ; from another, in regarding saving faith as fiduciary rather than historical, as antedating instead of being simultaneous with baptism, and as securing forgiveness independently of baptism; from a third, by hold- ing the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath ; from a fourth, in finding only two ordinances enjoined by our Lord, and in viewing the government of the church as originally democratic. From the regular Baptists, for more than a cen- tury, the Free Baptists were kept apart by preferring the early Greek to the Augustinian, or the Arminian to the Calvinistic theology ; by recognizing pedobaptist as Christian churches ; THE FEEE BAPTIST CHUECHES 33 by the practice of Christian in place of sectarian communion at the Lord's Table. Their special contention, however, has had to do mainly with the first and last of these tenets. To the Free Baptist mind the teachings of Calvin, under the hand of the most adroit and cunning technical builders, has never been framed into harmony with the great structural truths of Christianity. The five points are a glaring misfit. To the Free Baptist mind, also, it is ethical, logical and Christian to concede to other Christians what they are asked to concede to it — the right of private judgment; and from that premise it is difficult to drav^ an inference against the validity of pedobaptist churches. This position, endorsed by British Baptists, few of the regular Baptists here openly approve ; nor do all Free Baptists, but enough for it to be counted as one of their characteristics. It always has seemed to Free Baptists an axiom that whom the Lord fellowships at His table His followers should welcome there in His name; and by such Christian fellowship Free Baptists have enjoyed the consciousness of oneness with all who love our Lord, and added to their alliterative signal cries of Free Will, Free Grace, Free Men, one other like note. Free Communion. An Honorable Record The triennial General Conference, made up of representa- tives from all the yearly meetings, has given the denomination a^voice, and a voice that, on many subjects before the churches of the country, has been heard. By this means the entire Free Baptist Church has spoken and gone on record against slavery, for total abstinence, for an educated ministry (but not to the exclusion of untrained men called of God to preach), for mis- sions at home and abroad, for the right of woman to a free exercise of her powers in the church ; and last, a most signifi- cant record, for union with the regular Baptists. Having outgrown the crudities of her early days, the Free 34 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL Baptist Church has come forth with a beauty that has won many proposals. To none but that of the Baptists could she listen. In 1905 they launched the idea of a union. It was presented in so frank, liberal, cordial, attractive a guise that it was given much serious thought, was considered on every side, finally was accepted, and the marriage recently consummated. We need not go into details further than to say that the terms of union were so Christian that three-fourths of the resident members of the Free Baptist churches, having the question pre- sented to them, voted in favor of it. Equal cordiality was expressed by the Baptist constituency. Consequently the General Conference, after due deliberation and prayer, clasps the proffered hand, and seals the contract by transferring all its educational and missionary funds, except as hindered by testa- mentary terms, to the treasury of such funds among the Baptists. Adjustments to the new relationship have not all yet been finished, but move apace. Time is required for some associ- ated or separate churches, in different parts of the country, to remove barriers and get together. The General Conference will remain until all interests can be harmoniously merged. But the record of the Free Baptists as a distinct people, though a few minor items later may be added, has been written. Not without many a longing, lingering look behind, yet with gladness that she can thus so far make answer to the Lord's prayer for the unity of His people, she passes into the Baptist family to share henceforth the history of the Baptists. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL The one best book would be, " History of the Freewill Bap- tists," by Rev. I. D. Stewart. It has long been out of print. «* The Life of Benjamin Randall," by F. L. Wiley, American Baptist Publication Society, 191 5, will best answer for the general reader who wishes to know for what we stood as we entered into union with the General Baptists. IV The Seventh-Day Baptist Church Introduction BEING congregational in polity, we have no man or group of men clothed with authority in matters of faith and practice. But the writer of this chapter was ap- pointed by the Commission of the Executive Committee of our General Conference ; this appointment was confirmed by the Conference itself at its meeting in August, 191 4; several friends have made helpful suggestions ; and the manuscript was approved by the Board of Directors of our American Sabbath Tract Society. The statements here, therefore, may justly be considered fairly representative. The wish of the editor, as I understand it, is that these chapters shall consist of just and plain statements of truth and fact generally accepted among us, and without argument or proof. To this plan the writer will endeavor to conform with all possible conciseness and clearness. More of detail may be needed because the reader is not as likely to be acquainted with our history and doctrines as in the case of larger and better known bodies of believers. History Jesus was a Sabbath-keeper, not after the manner of Pharisa- ism or Mosaism, but in the liberty of the New Covenant. The Apostle Paul preached to many Sabbath -keeping Gentile worshippers of God, who were quite as ready for the Glad Tidings as the Jews. However and whenever Sunday came to receive Christian regard and to be called "Lord's Day," the Sabbath also was 35 36 CHUECHES OP THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL long kept in the Church, and there are historical reasons for be- lieving that Christendom was never without Sabbath-keeping Baptists in the period preceding the Reformation. In connection with the Reformation the Sabbath and be- lievers' baptism got a new hold upon the moral judgments of men ; and these principles spread with spreading Protestantism on the continent and in England. Buchanan, in "Researches in Asia," writing over one hundred years ago, tells of the religious, moral and industrial worthiness of Seventh-Day-keeping Christians whom he found in Armenia. In England several Sabbath-keeping Baptist churches were organized in the seventeenth century, the present Mill Yard Church being the oldest. These numbered among their min- isters and leaders such men as the martyr, Rev. John James, of whom Dr. Thomas Armitage said, " The blood of John James the martyr alone is sufficient to perpetuate the Seventh-Day Baptist Church for a thousand years"; Dr. Peter Chamberlain, phy- sician to kings and queens ; the scholarly and popular Stennetts ; the wealthy merchant, Joseph Davis; Nathaniel Bailey, the lexicographer; Thomas Bampfield, speaker of the House of Commons under Richard Cromwell; William Tempest, bar- rister and poet ; and the late learned William H. Black. This division of the Protestant movement seemed likely to make much progress, notwithstanding opposition and perse- cution, when the theory was launched that, not the authority of the papal Church, but the fourth commandment, should be placed under the Christian Sunday. Out from this theory came the Puritan Sabbath. The first church to be organized in America was at Newport, R. I., in 1672. From this point, and from New Jersey, our people spread West and South. Among our leaders we number Governor Samuel Ward, patriot and statesman, member of the Continental Congress, and friend of Washington; and, not to mention others by THE SEVENTH-DAY BAPTIST CHUKCH 37 name, governors, state and national legislators, philanthropists, lawyers, bankers, merchants, scientists, physicians, writers, scholars, educators, temperance reformers, inventors, and manufacturers. These things are not mentioned in the way of boasting, beyond the claim that notwithstanding real or supposed hindrances our people have tried to keep their feet on the earth and among men of thought and action. Organization Inevitably, perhaps, we have been individualistic and inde- pendent ; but we are slowly growing away from extreme individualism. Our annual General Conference is an advisory body made up of somewhat informally appointed delegates from the churches, and the members present from the Seventh-Day Baptist Mission- ary, the American Sabbath Tract, and Seventh-Day Baptist Education Societies. The Conference, once an independent body, and the three incorporated societies, have been, in a large degree, merged. The societies report to the Conference ; and the Conference approves their budgets and nominates their officers. Later, each society holds a formal and legal meeting, at which little is done beyond ratifying these nominations. Ministers are usually ordained by local councils ; but, now. Conference is generally asked to approve of such ordination, and to furnish the one ordained with credentials as a minister of the Gospel, approved, representatively, by the entire de- nomination. Seven associations, meeting annually, cover the territory of the United States. These are little more than religious conventions held largely with reference to the good of the given district. Education We have always been the friends of higher education. Most of the academies that we were instrumental in establishing, ni 38 CHUECHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL the earlier years, have given way to the modern high school. But we have two colleges, one in Wisconsin, one in West Virginia ; a university, and a theological seminary, or school of theology and religious education, in the State of New York. The following are a few totals taken from the report of our education society for 1913-1914 : Value of buildings and equip- ment, owned or controlled, over ;^45o,ooo; endowment, over ^530,000; income and expenditure, over ^130,000; teachers, eighty-five; students, over one thousand. If we should include permanent funds devoted to missionary and other philanthropic work, we could report considerably over a million dollars set apart for education and missions. These schools are not and have never been sectarian, in the narrower meaning of that word. They were founded and have grown in a prevailing denominational atmosphere ; but their administration, instruction, financial support, and student- patronage have been, in some real sense, interdenominational. Their doors have been wide open, with equal rights and priv- ileges, to all who desired and were prepared to enter. Evangelism and Missions Wherever we have been well known, and judged in the light of our dominant spirit and purpose, as in America, England, Holland and China, we have been recognized and fellow- shipped as evangelical Christians. We are not Jesuitical in method, or Judaizing in religion, or materialists in philosophy ; but disciples of the New Covenant in Jesus' blood. In England, Sabbath-keeping Baptist ministers have served First-day Baptist churches, and presided over Baptist associa- tions ; and one of the Stennetts was chosen to address the British throne on behalf of dissenting Christians. In Holland, the Rev. G. Velthuysen, Sr., was called to leadership in gospel temperance work ; and his son, for ef- ficiency, acknowledged in Europe and America, as a great THE SEVENTH-DAY BAPTIST CHUECH 39 moral and social reformer, has been "decorated" by the queen of the Netherlands. In China, our missionaries are treated as fellow-workers in the spread of the one Gospel of Christ ; and our senior missionary, the Rev. Dr. D. H. Davis, of Shanghai, has been chairman of an interdenominational board of translators, and a kind of counsellor-at-large for other missionaries and missions when they were in trouble. When the First Baptist Church of Newport, R. I., was broken up by the fortunes of the Revolutionary War, our pas- tor temporarily shepherded the scattered flock. In 1808 the following utterance went forth from our confer- ence in defense of the then, though not now, generally prac- ticed " close communion " ; ** Dear Brethren : " We do not blame you for loving Christians of any denomination, for we find many sweet and comfortable hours in joining with our First-day brethren in the worship of our God ; yet, for the sake of good order and discipline in God's house, we think it necessary to take up the cross in that one point, that is, to withhold our external fellowship, in token that we do not fellowship error. We hope you will see the propriety of our conduct, and put on charity for us." Our evangelism has not been'proselytism ; and it is probable that a few thousand members have been added to the churches of other denominations through the labors of our own evan- gelists. We have done a little missionary work in other lands ; but our principal foreign mission efforts have been in China, where we began work in 1847. The following are a few totals from the report for 1913-1914 : Two ordained missionaries, with their wives, and two women teachers at Shanghai. Two women medical missionaries at 40 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL Lieu-oo, who ministered to over 5,000 different patients, be- sides teaching the Jesus doctrine. Boarding and day schools, with 178 pupils. And two churches with a membership of eighty-three. Doctrines The fact that our theological and ethical views are essen- tially the same as most of those held by the constituent bodies of the Federal Council, and like those of the great Baptist de- nominations, save in one particular, renders a full statement of our doctrinal position quite unnecessary. Philosophically, our belief is that while all great ancient re- ligions have had sacred times as symbols of religion, the He- brew prophets and lawgivers alone have held to holy days in connection with and as helpful to an ethical monotheism. This, with the added light of the fourth chapter of Hebrews, the epistle itself being a philosophy of religious history, is the basis of our doctrine of spiritual Sabbathism. ** The Sabbath, like other Hebrew institutions which were not originally con- fined to Israel, assumed among the Hebrews a new character, being stripped of its superstitious and heathen associations, and being made subservient to ethical and religious ends." Scripturally, we hold that there is no authority for the abro- gation of the Sabbath principle, or for the substitution of the so-called Christian Sabbath. Historically, while we believe that no time can have in itself moral qualities, the seventh or last day of the week is the only day that, in the Bible, or in sentiment, or experience, has vin- dicated its right to be the one great time-symbol of our holy religion, and the one sacred earthly vase in which to preserve the Sabbath idea as a witness for Him who created the heavens and the earth ; and a visible sign of the believer's Sabbath- rest in Jesus our Saviour. Practically, we go to our Lord, not to Mosaisra or Levitical- ism, to learn how to keep the Sabbath spiritually, ethically and socially. THE SEVENTH-DAY BAPTIST CHUECH 41 Conclusion We are in full sympathy with the campaign for a weekly day of rest for hand and brain toilers ; indeed, some of us favor a five-day industrial week. Legislation on behalf of the Sunday probably began with Constantine ; and in our opposition to Sunday laws we do not wish to break down a Sabbath conscience. We are simply opposed to such religious legislation, in the firm conviction that the things of religion, including the Sabbath and the Lord's Day of the Church, belong to the realm of instruction, conscience and freedom. Our principles are spreading more widely than many sup- pose, both among other Sabbath-keepers, and among those who do not observe the seventh day ; but our statistical numbers are small, never having quite reached, I think, 10,000. We have a hand and heart of fellowship for all who, with a real Christian experience through Hving faith in Christ as Saviour and Lord, are honest seekers after more and more knowledge of truth and duty, and have thus become members of the Church of God, the spiritual body of Christ, of which the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America is, at present, the greatest organized manifestation. We therefore appreciate with real satisfaction, and desire to reciprocate heartily, the fraternal courtesy shown to us as members of the Council, with whose spirit, purpose and grow- ing work and influence, in the coming Kingdom of God, we are in warmest sympathy. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL " The Seventh-Day Bapdst Memorial." " Manual of Seventh-Day Baptists," by Geo. B. Utter. " History of the Seventh-Day Baptist General Conference," by James Bailey. 42 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL " Proceedings of the Seventh-Day Baptist Council," held in Chicago. " History of the Sabbath and the Sunday," by A. H. Lewis. "Jubilee Papers." " Seventh-Day Baptist Handbook," by A. H. Lewis. " History of the Seventh-Day Baptists in West Virginia," by Corliss F. Randolph. " Seventh-Day Baptists in Europe and America." (Two volumes of over fifteen hundred pages, and the most complete history of the denomination yet published.) " Bible Studies on the Sabbath Question," by Arthur E. Main. Bound Periodicals, covering nearly one hundred years. " The Seventh-Day Baptist Year Book." For information concerning these and many other publications address The American Sabbath Tract Society, Plainfieldp New Jersey, U. S. A. The Congregational Churches THE body of churches which first took the Congrega- tional name and developed the Congregational polity arose in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries out of a revolt in the Church of England against unregenerate membership and control by the state. There were two distinct parties in the revolt, the Puritans who sought to reform the church from within, and the Separatists who withdrew to form a new and pure church upon the simple model rediscovered in the New Testament. Sporadic instances are recorded of Sepa- ratist congregations as early as 1567, meeting covertly and harried by the officers of Church and State. The first churcli to maintain permanent life was the one organized in 1602 at Gainsborough. To this church came, in 1604, the Rev. John Robinson, thenceforward until his death in 1625 the leading minister in the Separatist movement and the Pilgrim migration to New England. In 1605 or 1606 Pastor Robinson and a section of the Gainsborough church withdrew, by amicable division, to Scrooby, where they worshipped in the manor- house of William Brewster. Persecuted by the government, the Scrooby church emigrated in 1607 or 1608 to Holland and settled in Leyden. There it made a considerable growth, but could discover no prospect of extension, nor even of permanent independence. Hence was formed, through profound and prayerful deliberation, the momentous purpose which, in 1620, led the Pilgrim company, a heroic portion of the Scrooby- Leyden church, across the Atlantic in the Mayflower to begin, 43 44 CHUEOHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL at Plymouth, Massachusetts, the settlement of New England and the development of ecclesiastical and political democracy, a free church in a free state. At Plymouth was established the first Congregational church in America. From time to time for nearly ten years it received accessions from the church in Leyden. Its minister was a layman, William Brewster, from Scrooby, Pastor Robinson remaining in Leyden. It admin- istered its own affairs, in the complete freedom from external control which it had dared so much to achieve for itself and the world. Not until 1629 was a second church formed in the new land and the beginnings of church fellowship essayed. The Puritans of England, who had multiplied and acquired standing, but had effected little towards a spiritual reformation within the established Church, began in 1623 an emigration to New England, distinct and separate from that of the Pilgrims. The movement acquired volume and force in 1628-1630, and by 1640 more than 20,000 had arrived. They founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, whose center grew into the city of Boston. In 1 634-1 636 two prominent churches of the colony removed to the fertile valley of the Connecticut River and formed the Connecticut Colony, in and around the present city of Hartford. In 1637 another Puritan company sailed from England and the following year established the New Haven Colony. Thus New England Congregationalism en- joyed four distinct centers of development. They were all es- sentially homogeneous, yet each contributed to enrich the resultant administrative forms in both Church and State. The first formulation of the Congregational polity was pub- lished in 1582 by the Rev. Robert Browne, whose tracts on this subject entitle him to high honor among the founders of Congregationalism. His exposition of the new order was so democratic as to be in advance of his day, and Congrega- tionalism in both England and New England practiced for a century the less radical form put forth about 1590 by the Separatist martyr, Henry Barrowe. The Puritans carried to THE COIsTGEEGATIONAL CHURCHES 45 the new world the firm purpose to remain in the Church of England, yet their churches, beginning at Salem with the second church in America, embraced the freedom and adopted the independent polity of the Pilgrim Church of Plymouth. Ecclesiastical differences between Pilgrim and Puritan disap- peared. Sincere Christians covenanted together, elected of- ficers, installed pastors and administered all church affairs, independent of external control. Their ordained ministers constituted a single order of equal rank. Their deacons were laymen. Their sacraments were baptism in any form, includ- ing infant baptism and the Lord's Supper. Such, with liberty in non-essentials, is the character of the churches which have composed, since earliest New England, the Congregational denomination in the United States. For two centuries Congregationalism was mainly confined to New England, even its own adherents accepting the notion that the wide spaces westward called for stronger forms of or- ganization. About 1840 an extensive growth began which has carried Congregational institutions into all parts of the country. The dissipation of Congregational forces and resources by lavish contributions to other denominations was checked. A Congregational consciousness has arisen, which has both mul- tiplied numbers and invigorated fellowship. The esprit de corps continues, however, less binding than that of many other branches of the church and the growth correspondingly slower. The last statistical tables (19 14) give 6,093 Congregational churches in the United States with 763,182 members. The Congregational churches have grouped themselves for fellowship and service under the following forms. The churches and ministers within a convenient area are organized into a district association. Independently of such associations, the churches and ministers in each state constitute a state confer- ence. The organization for nation-wide administration is the National Council of the Congregational Churches of the United States, There are seven national missionary societies : 46 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL The American Board, the oldest foreign missionary society in the United States ; the Congregational Home Missionary So- ciety ; the American Missionary Association ; the Congrega- tional Church Building Society; the Congregational Educa- tion Society ; the Congregational Sunday-School and Publish- ing Society; the Congregational Board of Ministerial Relief. There are three Woman's Boards of Missions active in foreign work, and a Woman's Home Missionary Federation composed of thirty-three woman's state home missionary unions. All these missionary societies, hitherto voluntary and independent, are now entering into constituent relations with the National Council. Besides these permanent bodies Congregationalists have from the beginning made large use of local councils, made up of any number of churches and ministers called to- gether for specific purposes precisely stated in the letters of in- vitation. Such councils, having no permanent life, and hav- ing therefore surrendered important functions to the district associations, will continue to render advisory service of the highest value in the adjustment of difficulties and in all sorts of cases requiring expert counsel. Distinctive Characteristics The Congregational polity is based on the principle of the immediate and unlimited communion of the human soul with God. It holds this true for every individual and every group of sincere Christians. Each and all may enjoy at all times the fullness of the divine gift. Nor is official responsibility substi- tuted at any point for personal obligation. In this polity, per- haps more than in any other, the purity and prosperity of the Church and the progress of the Kingdom are made dependent on individual character and initiative. Such dependence would be vain and ruinous save on the further principle of a regenerate membership. Accordingly, this has been from the beginning the central working principle of the Congregational polity. None should be church-members, THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES 47 mutually trusted and jointly responsible, save those genuinely inwrought by the Spirit of God. In renewed and consecrated hands all spiritual affairs are safe and progressive. Among Congregationalists all lapses from this principle have been local and temporary. It has been another article in the Congregational faith that persons thus renewed and animated from on high will be im- pelled to seek enlightenment and culture. Nor would a right heart be sufficient equipment for wise and effective administra- tion. The trained mind and cultured spirit must bear the main burden. This led Congregationalists from the beginning to demand a cultivated ministry and to provide for general education. Ever since the founding of Harvard College in 1636, Congregationalists have been foremost creators and sup- porters of higher institutions of learning. The effects have registered in the character and work of their churches. If other denominations have surpassed the Congregational body in winning large numbers to Christ, the latter has sought to excel in the culture of Christian character. The autonomy of the local church has usually been con- sidered the most distinctive characteristic of the Congrega- tional body. If this was originally adopted on the authority of the Scriptures, it was derived also from the principles of regenerate and intelligent membership. Composed of genuine, educated Christians, led individually and collectively by the Spirit, every local church is competent to conduct its own affairs. In early Congregationalism this principle was carried perilously near to sheer independence. Congregationalists ob- tained this freedom at a great price and have been correspond- ingly sensitive over it. Not until recently, if even now every- where, has mutual confidence reached the tranquil faith that the independence of the local Congregational church has been achieved and is to be calmly taken for granted in whatever denominational advances or union movements. Congregational church fellowship is voluntary in all its forms. 48 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL The system is characterized by the absence of authority. Not even in the local church will authority to act independently of the membership be delegated for a single year to a session or other official body. The local field is so limited and compact that the membership can administer its current affairs as a direct or pure democracy. The larger fellowship bodies are so extensive that Congregationalism as a whole has perforce become a representative democracy. , But nowhere does the system admit authority of a higher body over a lower, a right to legislate, enforce measures and coerce to action. Each Congregational organization — local church, district association, state conference. National Council — is free and sovereign in its own distinct sphere. And all union of the lower bodies to form a higher, and all cooperation in the larger forms of work, are voluntary and unconstrained. Yet is the centripetal force real and unifying. Congregational fellowship is substantial and inspiriting. And this is the day of its enlargement. The Congregational aim now is, given personal freedom and local independence securely established, .to develop the most in- clusive, inspiring and productive fellowship. Congregationalists have always believed their simple forms to be nearer than those of any other polity to the church life of the New Testament. They find in the teachings and ex- amples of Scripture not a prescribed and exclusive scheme of organization, but large principles whose complete expression produces this thoroughly democratic polity. Those principles must not be abandoned, but their embodiment is subject to such modifications as shall keep it adjusted to changing conditions. Thus Congregationalists hold their polity to be a thing of growth. Other polities they esteem as effective modes of organ- izing true Christian churches, while believing that in religion, as in the state, the promise of the future remains with the freest and simplest forms. Holding a position so broadly fraternal, as their history proves, they readily cooperate in a spirit of mutual respect and good-will with churches of other denomina* THE CONGEEGATIONAL CHURCHES 49 tions and other polities, and they join eagerly in all movements towards illustrating on wider fields the essential unity of all followers of Christ. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL The best popular descriptive volume is " Congregationalists in America," by Dr. Dunning. This may be supplemented by " Congregadonal Administra- tion," by C. S. Nash. VI The Disciples of Christ LITTLE more than a hundred years ago a movement arose in the Presbyterian household out of a desire for freedom in the practice of catholicity of religion. It sought for the union of all Christians upon the personaHty of Jesus Christ. It discarded all denominational names and human creeds, taking the name *' Christian " or ''Disciple of Christ," and having no book of authority save the Holy Scrip- tures. Its leader in Kentucky was Barton W. Stone, and its leaders in Pennsylvania were Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander. The times, however, appeared not to be ripe for such a movement and these men and others were thrust out of the Presbyterian Church. Stone and those associated with him maintained an independent course, not affiliating themselves with any other communion, but the Campbells and those asso- ciated with them, fearing that they might become the nucleus for another communion, sought affiliation with the Baptists, and after nearly twenty years of uncertain fellowship with that com- munion, they were again thrust out. They faced the inevitable necessity of becoming a separate communion, against which they protested. The movement under the Campbells and that under Stone, being similar in their aims, consolidated. Most of Stone's associates followed his leadership into the union, so that Kentucky at once became the stronghold of this union movement, as well as Ohio, where Walter Scott, a Scotch Presbyterian, had become associated with the Campbells and was an evangelist of great power, with crowds attending his ministry. 50 THE DISCIPLES OF CHEIST 51 In 1809 Thomas Campbell issued a lengthy document en- titled '^ Declaration and Address," which was addressed '' To all that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity throughout all the Churches." In this he affirmed, "That the Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally and constitu. tionally one ; consisting of all those in every place that profess their faith in Christ and obedience to Him in all things accord- ing to the Scriptures, and that manifest the same by their tempers and conduct and of none else, as none else can be truly and properly called Christian." It was an earnest and gentle appeal for the union of all Christians and proved an epoch-making document in the annals of Christian union. From him came the familiar slogan " Where the Scriptures speak, we speak ; where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent." On the passage of the decree of the Dover Baptist Association of Virginia in 1832, which marks the separation of the Disciples from the Baptists, the history of this movement for peace in the Church may be said to have its beginning of a separate existence. In 1835 a union was effected with those Christians under Stone and for the next few decades the mes- sage for the union of the Church as presented by these leaders swept with phenomenal power throughout the country, es- pecially in the western states, where great meetings were held and thousands identified themselves with this simple faith. Agreeing with evangelical Christians on the great funda- mentals of our common faith, they sought a basis for union by eliminating those things as tests of fellowship about which we differ and by uniting on those things on which there is a universal agreement. So their message had nothing to do with the formation of a new creed, even if the new movement did develop into a new communion against their wishes. They sought to embrace the great catholic principles upon which all Christendom was agreed. They believed that conformity to those principles would lead believers out of the confusion of denominationalism into the peace of a united Christendom. 52 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL The catholicity of their message may be summed up under five heads : ( i) The catholic name. They recognized Christians among Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans and all others who confess Jesus as Lord and Saviour, but these names were divisive and perpetuated division, which appeared to be in opposition to the prayer of Jesus and the teach- ings of the New Testament writers. Even the name Roman Catholic was not catholic, for the term ''Roman" destroyed its catholicity and made it provincial ; neither was the Holy Catholic Church a proper designation, *' catholic" not being a noun but primarily an adjective. The Scriptures furnish the only catholic names for believers, and these are, for the indi- viduals, "Christians," ** Disciples," " Disciples of Christ," ''Friends," etc., and for the organization, " Churches of Christ," "Church of God," "the Church," "Christian Church," etc. So to the Disciples there were no other names to wear but the catholic names of the Scriptures, which all be- lievers and Churches used in a secondary sense. The Dis- ciples sought to make their use primary and so they have worn no other names and have urged other believers to do likewise. (2) The catholic creed. All the communions had separate creeds. The Presbyterians had their Westminster Confession of Faith ; the Episcopalians had their Thirty-nine Articles ; the Methodists had their Articles of Religion and Discipline ; the Baptists had their Philadelphia Confession of Faith, etc. It was not a question whether these creeds taught truth or error. They were master productions and registered thought, but they were divisive and not catholic. Presbyterians would not ac- cept the Thirty-nine Articles, nor would the Baptists accept the Methodist Discipline. For the Disciples to have sought to in- troduce a compromise creed would have been the height of folly. They were seeking for a union basis on catholic principles. So they went back to the beginning of the Church, when the simple creed was the confession of the Messiahship and Lordship of THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 53 Jesus and the commitment of their lives in obedience to Him. To those expressing a desire to follow Christ they did not ask so much what they believed as whom they believed. Conse- quently every person deciding for Christ was asked to affirm publicly his belief in Jesus as the Christ, the only begotten Son of God, implying their commitment to Him as Lord and Saviour. This was catholic ground, for all believers accepted the fact of Christ. So the Disciples gave their allegiance to the simple creed that expressed faith in and obedience to the per- sonality of Jesus Christ and they sought to have all believers do the same. (3) The catholic book. Every communion accepted the Scriptures as containing the Word of God. Upon this there was no dissent, but the various communions had their systems of theology as tests of fellowship and these were divisive and destructive to the peace of the Church. These systems of theology could be made schools of thought and against this the Disciples made no dissent, but to make them tests of fellowship was provincial and opposed to catholicity. Since all agreed upon the Scriptures, why could not the Scriptures alone be sufficient? They appeared to have been largely so for the early Church. Why should they not be for the Church in modern times ? Besides, the distinctive message of Protestant- ism was justification by faith, sole authority of the Scriptures, and the right of private interpretation. The Disciples, believ- ing heartily in these principles, pushed them to their ultimate conclusion and consequently beyond Protestant creeds and systems of theology, claiming the Scriptures to be sufficient for the rule of Christian life, which was expressed in the phrase of Chilling worth : '' The Bible and the Bible only is the religion of Protestants." Again they were on catholic ground, and taking the Scriptures as their only book of authority they sought to persuade others to take this catholic book as their sole authority. (4) The catholic mode of baptism. The Campbells, Stone 54 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL and others in the early history of the Disciples were pedo- baptists, but they had committed themselves to a catholic policy for the union of the Church. They had a hard struggle on the baptismal question, for all their training was in the principles of pedobaptism. But finally seeing no other course for peace in the Church than to take that mode of baptism which is recognized by all Christians, they were rebaptized by immersion and forthwith urged all believers who sought for Christian union to adopt this mode of baptism. (5) The catholic brotherhood. Thomas Campbell had affirmed, " That division among Christians is a horrid evil. It is anti-Christian, as it destroys the visible unity of the body of Christ as if He were divided against Himself, excluding and excommunicating a part of Himself. It is anti-Scriptural as being strictly prohibited by His sovereign authority and as a direct violation of His express command. It is anti-natural as it excites Christians to condemn, hate and to oppose one another who are bound by the highest and most endearing obligations to love each other as brethren, even as Christ has loved them." With this conception they sought for wider fellowship than any communion allowed, although sometimes they faltered here, but the ideal ever remained in the minds of the leaders. Jesus had said, " By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another." To love the brotherhood and that brotherhood to be confined to the members of one com- munion, was opposed to the principles of Christ, but the brotherhood includes all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and obey His commandments. It was- a catholic fellowship that had in it the prophecy of the union of the divided House of Christ and bore fraternal greetings to all Christians. With this message of evangelical catholicity and Christian fraternity they pleaded for Christian union and advanced with this as the chief ensign upon their banners. They felt that these things must be said. There could be no other apology THE DISCIPLES OF CHEIST 55 for their separate existence. While these utterances are now being made by many in the various communions, however, in those days no communion would tolerate their proclamation. The Disciples were not slow in proclaiming the message of primitive Christianity as it appeared to them, and herein lies much of the secret of their rapid growth. They saw that the peace of the Church was necessary to the fulfillment of the prayer of Jesus when He said : ''I pray . . . that they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." With little more than eighty years' history as a separate people, they number alone in the United States 1,500,000, with churches also in Canada, Australia, England, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Russia. Their mis- sion stations are in China, Japan, India, Korea, Tibet, Turkey, Africa, Cuba, Jamaica, Mexico, South America and the Philippines. They have something less than forty colleges scattered over the United States, Bethany College, W. Va., which was founded by Alexander Campbell, being the first college in the world that made the Bible a text-book like any other book in a college curriculum. Their national convention, which meets annually, is known as the "General Convention of Churches of Christ," and in all the states of the Union their churches are organized into annual conventions, known usually as the state conventions of Churches of Christ and sometimes as the state convention of the Christian Church. The government of their churches is congregational, their officers being ministers, elders, deacons and trustees. Many of their men have been first in the annals of American history and English history as well, and have made valuable con- tributions to the political and educational life of their nations. With the Disciples the union of the Church and the evangeliza- tion of the world are inseparably connected. It is a matter with them of great rejoicing that the whole Church is begin- 56 CHUECHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL ning to see that the union of Christians is as much in the pro- gramme of Christ as His death on the cross and His resurrec- tion from the dead. It must come as sure as the tides ebb and flow. It devolves upon every believer so to cultivate peace in the Household of God that his life shall be a faint echo of the life of our Lord, whose we are and whom we serve. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL "The Story of a Century," by J. H. Garrison. Christian Board of Publication, St. Louis. " History of the Disciples of Christ," by W. T. Moore. Revell. " Historical Documents Advocating Christian Union," by C. A. Young. Christian Century, Chicago. " The Life of Alexander Campbell," by T. W. Grafton. Chrisdan Board of Publication, St. Louis. " Alexander Campbell as a Preacher," by A. McLean. Revell. "The Message of the Disciples for the Union of the Church," by Peter Ainslie. Revell. VII The Christian Church FROM three schismatic movements came the founders of the Christian denomination in America. James O' Kelly and thirty ministers of Virginia and North Carolina withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal Conference held in Baltimore, Md., in 1792, when ministers were refused the right of appeal to conference, and the following year or- ganized the " Republican Methodist Church." A year later, in Surrey County, Va., they changed their Church's name to "The Christian Church," dispensed with all statements of doctrine except the Scriptures, and modelled their church or- ganization after the pattern they found in the New Testament. Several thousand persons seceded from the Methodist Cliurch within two or three years and joined the new movement. About the same time Dr. Abner Jones and Elias Smith, of Vermont, were undergoing mental tortures on account of Cal- vinist Baptist doctrines and unscriptural church organizations, and finally broke with the Baptists, Jones about 1792, and Smith about 1803. Dr. Jones organized *' Christian Churches " in Lyndon, Vt., in 1801, and Hanover and Piermont, N. H., in 1802. Smith formed his first "Christian Church" at Portsmouth, N. H., in 1803. These men had no appreciable following of seceders, as O' Kelly had, but gathered ministers and churches by revival efforts. In southwestern Kentucky a remarkable revival broke out in 1 801 under the labors of James McGready and other Presby- terian preachers. Among visitors who were greatly impressed was Barton W. Stone, who carried the flame back to his Cane 57 58 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL Ridge congregation and soon witnessed there the greatest revival of them all. Many were converted. This and subse- quent revivals resulted in irregular church proceedings and irregular preachers of then heretical doctrines among the Pres- byterians. A test case was instituted in the Washington Presby- tery against Richard McNemar, the apparent failure of which aroused the Kentucky Synod to take a hand ; and when the case was evidently going against McNemar, he and several others withdrew from the presbytery and formed the new Springfield Presbytery. Barton W. Stone at once became leader of the group, whose pulpits had been declared vacant by the Presbyterians. The new Springfield Presbytery was dissolved in 1804, and by Rice Haggard's influence the name ** Christian Church " was adopted, together with the freedom the new denomination in Virginia had espoused. Hundreds deserted the Presbyterians and followed their pastors into the new organization. When the Herald of Gospel Liberty , started by Elias Smith in Portsmouth, N. H., September, 1808, reached the South and West, informing the Christians of Virginia and Kentucky that a similar body existed in New England, correspondence opened up the way for union at once, and the three bodies coalesced, still calling themselves <*the Christians," or the "Christian Church," which has been the name ever since. While, therefore, the initial movement was due to secession from Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians, during all the subsequent years the denomination has been built up chiefly by the legitimate fruits of revivals. Indeed, the Christian denomination for fifty years was one of the most remarkable revival movements the country has ever known. In propagating the cause the men named above, and many others quite as deserving of mention, began to urge that ordinary denominational names were divisive, and that the dropping of all such names and assumption of '* Christian Church " as the only and sufficient title would greatly promote harmony and THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 59 unity among all followers of Christ. Furthermore, those men conceived it their God -given mission to work for harmony and unity, and for more than one hundred years the Christian denomination has consistently practiced that tenet by fellow- shipping all Christians, and advocating unity with more or less unanimity. Again, our fathers conceived that creeds and articles of faith tended to divide, while simple adherence to the Scriptures would greatly tend to unify. Hence they have been guided solely by the Scriptures in belief and polity, allowing all to read and interpret for themselves. They have been loyal to God, to Jesus Christ, and to the Bible. In Kentucky '* union " became a great slogan among the Christians, and Barton W. Stone was the foremost apostle of that doctrine ; but the same cry echoed throughout the denom- ination, and has appeared in all its literature. Stone insisted on the name "Christian," but encouraged actual union. For example, largely by his influence, the Disciples of Christ and the Christians in Lexington, Ky., united in 1832, having agreed to lay aside all differences and meet on common ground. When Stone removed to Jacksonville, 111., about 1834, he would join neither the Christians nor Disciples of Christ until they united and became simply '' Christians." In his paper. The Christian Messe^iger, from 18 26-1 844, he per- sistently preached union. By this man's influence the Disciples of Christ through the West call themselves " Christians " and the ''Christian Church," and much confusion of the two denominations has resulted. Since 1808 the Herald of Gospel Liberty has advocated unity. A very ably conducted journal called The Christian Palladium, published in New York State from 1 832-1 862, preached unity and union, but not merging of denominations. The Christian Sun, published in Virginia and North Carolina from 1844 to the present, has maintained a position similar to that of the Palladium. Probably these and other periodicals 60 OHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL of the Christians have borne an honorable part in bringing in the day of Christian fraternity. At first the Christians cherished a vain hope that their cause would find ready response from people of other denominations ; hence they tried to live in fellowship with other people, and long neglected the institutional side of Christianity — organizing churches and Sunday-schools, erecting church buildings, found- ing schools and colleges and publishing plants, and so on. But being shut out of fellowship, and yet determined to propa- gate their principles, they had to organize and build. They held countless revivals, and some of their ministers saw thousands converted, but so neglectful were they of gathering fruits of the labors that probably three-fourths of the converts joined other churches. They regarded the ushering in of a day when all Christians would fellowship each other as of much greater importance than building up a great denomination. The organization of ministers and churches into conferences began in 1804 in Kentucky, and continued rapidly for seventy- five years. Very jealously did our fathers guard against any- thing that would render conferences instruments of tyranny or oppression. Records were sometimes destroyed lest they be distorted into creeds. Not less apprehensive were they about the United States Christian Conference, dating back to Wind- ham, Conn., 1820, reorganized in 1832 as the Christian General Convention, and since 1858 called American Chris- tian Convention, meeting quadrennially to plan and advise about the denomination's general enterprises. Just as soon as this convention was delegated a modest amount of authority, denominational coherence and effectiveness increased. Again, when the Christians came to send their sons and daugh- ters to fitting schools and academies, they had the alternative of patronizing what they deemed sectarian denominational schools, or of establishing their own schools. With them it was not a mere question of avoiding sectarian teaching and bias, but of maintaining a broad Christian fellowship. A THE CHEISTIAN CHUECH 61 multitude of academies sprang up, of which four typical ones may be named : the New England Christian Literary Institute, first located at Andover, N. H., in 1857, later removed and finally brought back, now called Proctor Academy and owned by the Unitarians; Starkey Seminary, founded in 1840, and still in existence at Lakemont, N. Y. ; a private school by Rev. J. R. Holt in Alamance County, N. C, which later became Graham Institute, then Graham College, and finally gave way to Elon College in 1889; Le Grand Christian Institute, in Iowa, founded in 1865, now Palmer College, Albany, Mo. When the Christians planted their first college, Antioch, at Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 185 1, under the presidency of Hon. Horace Mann, the question of sectarianism and broad fellowship was up. Proposals to connect a theological school with it were bitterly opposed by some for fear that the denomi- nation's ministry might become narrow and sectarian, although how that could happen one can hardly guess now. The ne- cessity of an educated ministry overcame all opposition, and finally the Christian Biblical Institute was chartered in 1868, endowed and located at Eddytown (now Lakemont), N. Y., then removed to Stanfordville, N. Y., and finally to Defiance, Ohio, in 1907. It was purposely named "Biblical Institute," for dogmatic theology and kindred studies were to be elimi- nated, and thorough Biblical study was to take their place. Dogmatics seemed to be connected with creeds and to bias in- terpretation of Scripture ; but the curriculum mapped out by President Austin Craig, D. D., a man of remarkable and recog- nized scholarship, was calculated to induct students into pro- found Biblical lore without dogmatic squint. During all these years the union idea has been perennially fresh and vigorous. Sometimes it was called ''unity," some- times "Christian union " to emphasize the spiritual side of it, sometimes "organic union" when the actual merging of de- nominations was under discussion. From 1818 to 1887 there was more or less courtship between 62 CHUECHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL the Free Baptists and Christians in New England and New York. Actual proposals were made and brought before the general conference or convention of both bodies, but it all proved nugatory in the end. Union between the Disciples of Christ and the Christians has been agitated somewhat since the famous Kentucky ** union," although that event cost the Christians more than eight thousand members. In New York a conference was held in 1874 when definite terms were agreed upon, but the matter dropped there. Unitarians and Christians cooperated in founding Meadville Theological School in 1843, the former furnishing most of the cash. Thereupon union talk was indulged in in Illinois, Wis- consin and Pennsylvania, and President Stebbins of Meadville even became president of the American Christian Convention. Loss of Antioch fully dissolved relations between the two de- nominations. Subsequent to 1869 the Christians and the Christian Union brethren projected and consummated union in Iowa and Ohio. In the former state the churches gravitated back to their re- spective denominations ; but in the latter there are still minis- ters and people among the Christians who came from the Christian Union. Actual merging of the Christians and Congregationalists was bruited in Michigan back of 1880. It actually fell out in the course of years that some churches exchanged denominations, but there was no union. A similar agitation was started in New England in 1893, ^^^ g^^ before the American Christian Convention in 1894, but nothing came of it. And lastly the Christians shared in the four-denomination conference on union held in Pittsburgh in 1903. Again the results were better acquaintance, but failure to accomplish the thing desired. The Christian denomination has grown slowly for reasons already indicated. By the year i860 it had churches and THE CHEISTIAN CHURCH 63 conferences in Ontario and New Brunswick, in nearly every state east of the Mississippi, in Iowa, Missouri and Texas. Since then it has extended into Kansas, Nebraska and Wash- ington, and has scattered churches elsewhere. It was esti- mated to have 67,000 members in 1874. The United States census of 1906 credited the Christians with 1,149 Sunday- schools, 1,379 churches, and 110,117 church members. On this basis they ranked sixteenth among the denominations of the country. The above figure did not include 1,110 mem- bers in Canada, for since 1820 the denomination has been international. There are now seventy-one active conferences. The church membership reported in 1914 was 113,887. This denomination has made marked advancement educa- tionally in recent years, and to-day has two institutions of academy grade, one theological school, and five colleges. All but two of these schools have new buildings and equipment, and promise of great future usefulness. Our people have been interested in all great reforms. They were divided over slavery, but united again in recent years. They have always been actively opposed to the liquor traffic. They opened Antioch College to men and women, white and colored alike. They were the first in modern times to ordain a woman to the Christian ministry, and may now be forgiven if they generally favor woman suffrage. Their organized missionary work did not begin until about 1872, and is still in its infancy. No people rejoice more than the Christians in the broad Christian fellowship exhibited by most denominations to-day, and none are freer in extending fellowship. Until recently their denominational machinery has not been sufficient to en- able them to share adequately in the great interdenominational movements characteristic of the present generation ; but per- fected organization is now giving them a fitting representation in nation-wide religious and social enterprises. A large publish- ing house, with denominational headquarters, has been estab- 64 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL lished in Dayton, Ohio, where a general publishing business is conducted. But recent development has not obscured the early purpose of the denomination to help bring all the followers of Christ into harmony, fellowship and cooperation, both by precept and example. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL " A History of the Christian Denomination in America," by Milo True Morrill, M.A., D.D., Secretary for Foreign Missions. The Christian Publishing Association, Day- ton, Ohio, 191 2. VIII The Methodist Episcopal Church Origin and History THE Methodist Episcopal Church in America is the outgrowth of the evangelical revival of the eight- eenth century in England. In the year 1739 eight or ten persons deeply concerned about their own spiritual wel- fare came to John Wesley in London. A weekly meeting was the result, at which Mr. Wesley conferred and prayed with these and with many others who joined them. This was the rise of the United Society, first in Europe and then in America. Their own expression of their Society was, " A company of men having a form and seeking the power of godliness, united in order to pray together, to receive the word of exhortation and to watch over one another in love, that they may help each other to work out their own salvation." Societies like this spread throughout England and Scotland and Ireland, and subsequently became the Wesleyan Churches of Great Britain. The brothers John and Charles Wesley were graduates of Oxford University and presbyters of the Church of England. Their original purpose was to promote a movement for per- sonal godliness within the Church of England, and such it was at the beginning. The time was ripe and the soil of Great Britain was ready for this evangelical movement. Other ministers and many lay preachers came to the aid of the Wesleys. In the year 1766 Philip Embury, Wesleyan local preacher from Ireland, began preaching in New York City and formed 65 66 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL a society of Methodists, which is now the John Street Church. Another local preacher, Thomas Webb, a captain in the British Army, soon joined him and also preached in the city and vicinity of New York. About the same time Robert Straw- bridge from Ireland settled in Maryland and preached and formed societies in Frederick County. In 1769 John Wesley sent to America two itinerant preachers, Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor; and in 1771 two others, Francis Asbury and Richard Wright. Their labors were signally successful, so that by the close of the Revolutionary War the number of travelling preachers was about eighty, and of members in the societies about fifteen thousand. Most of these American Methodists were members of the Church of England, but there was alienation from the mother country in religion as well as in politics. When the independence of the United States was acknowledged by the treaty of 1783, the American Methodists were unwilling to continue in the Anglican com- munion. Mr. Wesley approved their desire to organize a church of their own. He declared that these Methodists *' were totally disentangled both from the state and the English hierarchy." He added : *' They are now at full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the primitive Church, and we judge it best that they should stand fast in that liberty where- with God has so strangely made them free." As his children in the Gospel, they appealed to John Wesley for advice and help, and he responded by ordaining Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey as presbyters for America ; and also by setting apart by prayer and by the im- position of hands the Rev. Thomas Coke, Doctor of Civil Law, a presbyter of the Church of England, to be a superin- tendent "to preside over the flock of Christ in America." He also commissioned Dr. Coke to ordain as joint superin- tendent with himself the Rev. Francis Asbury, then general assistant for the American Society. Mr. Wesley also pre- pared for the American Methodists ** Articles of Religion" THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH 67 and a " Sunday Service," both abbreviated from the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. At a Conference opening in Baltimore, Md., December 24, 1784, sixty preachers met Dr. Coke and his companions. The plan of Mr. Wesley was submitted to them and was unan- imously and heartily approved. They organized a Method- ist Episcopal Church and adopted the Articles of Religion and the Sunday Service prepared by Mr. Wesley, adding to these Articles one containing a recognition of the new civil govern- ment and inserting in the Ritual a prayer for the supreme rulers of the United States. They also enacted laws neces- sary for the government of the new church. Francis Asbury was elected to the episcopal office jointly with Dr. Coke, by whom, with the assistance of several presbyters, he was duly consecrated a bishop. Others were ordained deacons, and thirteen were elected elders, and either then or soon thereafter were duly ordained, two of them for missionary work in Nova Scotia and one for like work in Antigua, in the West Indies. Thus the Methodist Episcopal Church is seen to be dis- tinctively an American organization. The Wesleys were never connected with it, but remained in the Church of England until their death. Organization and Work The membership has grown to more than three and a half millions. More than twenty thousand preachers are officiating in its pulpits. Its church and parsonage property amounts to two hundred and forty millions of dollars, and its annual con- tributions for ministerial support are more than seventeen rail- lions of dollars. There are more than thirty-six thousand Sunday-schools, with nearly four hundred thousand officers and teachers and four millions of scholars. Its publishing house is known as The Methodist Book Concern, with headquarters in New York and in Cincinnati, 68 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL and branch houses in Boston, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City and San Francisco. Its total sales amount to over ten millions of dollars annually. Its publications are books, magazines, religious weeklies and many forms of Sun- day-school literature. The Church is active in missionary work. Its Board of Foreign Missions dates from 1819, and is prosecuting work in Africa, China, Japan, Korea, India, Malaysia, South America, Italy, Mexico, France, the Philippines, Madeira, Bulgaria, Russia, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. It has something over twelve hundred missionaries in the field, assisted by over ten thousand native workers. Its re- ceipts and disbursements amount to more than one million of dollars annually. The Board of Home Missions and Church Extension is operating in the pioneer regions and in the cities and else- where in the United States. This society is also administer- ing an income of more than a million dollars annually. The Board of Education is looking after the interests of the various institutions of learning under the care of the Church. Of these there are ninety-eight colleges and universities, with real estate and equipment amounting to about thirty millions of dollars and endowment funds nearly as large. About forty thousand students are in attendance at these institutions. The Board of Sunday-schools establishes new schools in neg- lected neighborhoods, aids needy Sunday-schools on the frontier, in rural sections and in congested city centers, sup- ports Sunday-schools of the foreign field, and is responsible for the supervision of the entire Sunday-school work of the Church at home and abroad. It conducts institutes of religious educa- tion, in which particular attention is paid to the training of teachers and the organization and development of existing schools. The Freed men's Aid Society has been in operation since 1866. Its work is the establishing and maintenance of institu- THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH 69 tions of learning among the Negroes of the South. Its income is something over half a miUion dollars and is distributed among twenty-two institutions, attended by about seven thou- sand students. The Epvvorth League is the young people's organization of the Church. Its object is the promotion of intelligent and vital piety among the young people, training them in works of mercy and social service and in world evangelism. Its work is con- ducted through devotional meetings, study classes and insti- tutes and a weekly paper. The Methodist Brotherhood is an association of men or- ganized to utilize and develop the men of the Church in relig- ious and social service and to reach and win the unchurched men and boys. The Methodist Temperance Society is organized for aggres- sive temperance work throughout the country. Its head- quarters are in Topeka, Kan. The Deaconess work has grown rapidly in recent years. There are now eighty-one Deaconess Homes in successful operation, with sixteen training schools. Over one thousand Deaconesses are constantly employed in the work of the Church. Besides these there are thirty-eight Deaconess Homes in foreign countries. The Methodist Episcopal Church is maintaining seventeen hospitals, nineteen Homes for the Aged and twelve Orphanages and other children's institutions. In most of this work the women are actively interested. Also, the Women's Foreign Missionary Society, with its head- quarters in New York, registers over two hundred thousand members and administers over one million dollars a year. The Women's Home Missionary Society, with headquarters in Cincinnati, reports one hundred and thirty- seven thousand members and administers over eight hundred thousand dollars a year. The Methodist Episcopal Church is episcopal in its govern- ment. It has twenty-eight bishops who are general superin- 70 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL tendents, and eight missionary bishops whose superintendence is restricted to that particular field of work. The churches in the United States are divided into areas of episcopal supervi- sion, the resident bishop being assigned by the General Con- ference to his area for a period of four years. He is not re- stricted to this, but makes it his special charge. The governing body of the Church is the General Confer- ence. It is composed of delegates elected once in four years by the Annual Conferences. The last General Conference was held in Minneapolis in 191 2. It was composed of eight hundred and nineteen members, representing one hun- dred and thirty-two Annual Conferences. These delegates were ministers and laymen in equal numbers. Men and women enjoy equal political privileges. The General Confer- ence exercises legislative, judicial and administrative functions. The ministers of the Church are grouped in the Annual Conferences, where each has his membership and is responsible for his character and service. The Annual Conference has no legislative authority. The Judicial Conferences are assembled from time to time to try appeals from judicial findings of the Annual Confer- ences. The Quarterly Conference is the official body of the local church. Its personnel is determined by law, and the district superintendent presides over it. Doctrines and Polity The theology of Methodism may be characterized as Arminian. Its chief opponent has been Calvinism, in opposi- tion to which it has strenuously preached the doctrines of free will, free grace and the witness of the Spirit. The Methodist Episcopal Church has been distinctly broad in its theological attitude. While laying due emphasis upon the doctrines com- monly called orthodox, it has placed the chief stress from the beginning upon Christian character and Christian service. It THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH 71 has been strong in its defense of the Protestant principles of the right to read the Bible, the right of private interpretation and of freedom of conscience, and its constant disposition has been to allow large liberty in non-essentials. It has always been active in evangelistic work. It has promoted revivals and opened the door of hope wide before the erring. It is prominent among the Churches in its prosecution of religious education. Its Sunday-schools are large and active. By means of effective organization and grading, with extensive and carefully edited lesson literature and an increasing number of trained teachers, it is seeking to evangelize the young and train them for the service of the Church. Its relations with sister Churches are cordial. Through vari- ous forms of federation, and cooperation in reforms and other Christian work, it seeks that fellowship which will not only accredit itself to the Church but to the world which it is trying to serve. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL The best informational book for the popular reader describing our denomination is the " Methodist Year Book." We have other larger books, but they speedily become very much out of date. Our " Year Book " is issued at the beginning of each calendar year and contains a large number of facts concerning the denomination. It is published by the Methodist Book Concern. IX The Methodist Episcopal Church, South THE history of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as an organization separate and distinct from the Methodist Episcopal Church, began in 1844, when the Church was divided into two branches. Up to that time the history of the two Churches is one and the same, and the reader is referred to the chapter on the Methodist Episcopal Church for numerous important facts common to both branches of the Church which need not be repeated here. The beginning of Methodist preaching in America about 1764 in a " Log Meeting House" on Sam's Creek, Maryland (about twenty-five miles from Baltimore), by Rev. Robert Strawbridge, an Irish emigrant, and in New York City in 1766 by Rev. Philip Embury,^ also an emigrant from Ireland ; the beginning of the ''Annual Conferences" of the preachers in 1773; the organization of the Methodist Societies in this country into the Methodist Episcopal Church at the *' Christmas Conference" of 1784, when Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury were elected and set apart as the first bishops or general superintendents ; and the marvellous extension and growth of the Church which followed this important event and continued uninterrupted for sixty years — are facts of common interest to all branches of American Methodism, which need only to be referred to here as the historic background of what is said concerning the Meth- odist Episcopal Church, South. 1 The question as to priority of the work of Strawbridge and Embury is in dispute and a commission has been appointed by the Methodist Episcopal Church to make an historical investigation. — The Editor. 72 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH, SOUTH 73 Cause of the Division of Episcopal Methodisim The three largest Protestant Churches of this country (Meth- odist, Baptist, and Presbyterian) have long been divided into Northern and Southern branches, and it is quite impossible to understand these divisions without a reference to American slavery ; and this is necessary notwithstanding the fact that slavery came to an end fifty years ago, and that there are now many hopeful signs of a union of these divided Churches in the not distant future. Any country cursed with human slavery is doomed to strife, both civil and religious, until the evil is abol- ished. Slavery was always regarded by the best people in the South, as well as by those in the North, as an evil that must be abolished. The question, the answer to which divided the Church and the nation, was how to abolish it, and how to han- dle the situation while the public sentiment of the nation was being brought to the point of demanding that the slaves be freed. More and more, leading Methodists in the North came to feel that the only way for the Church to free itself from respon- sibility for this evil was to forbid its ministers and members from owning slaves on penalty of excommunication. Southern Methodists were equally sure that if the Church took this ac- tion, it would result in destroying the influence and perhaps the very existence of the Church in the slaveholding states, and would certainly bring to a speedy end the great work that was being done by the Methodist Church in the South among both slaveholders and their slaves. By 1844 the differences of opinion on this subject had become so radical and so irrecon- cilable that the General Conference decided that a division of the Church was the only course that could be pursued which would preserve the peace and the autonomy of Methodism both in the North and in the South. Organization and Growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South In pursuance of the plan of separation adopted at the Gen- eral Conference of 1844, representatives of the Church chosen 74 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL by the various Annual Conferences located in the Southern States met in a Convention in Louisville in May, 1845, ^^^ with great unanimity organized the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The first quadrennial General Conference convened in Petersburg, Va., in May, 1846, being presided over by Bishop Joshua Soule and Bishop James Osgood Andrew, who had cast in their lot with the Southern Church at the time of the division. Rev. William Capers and Rev. Robert Paine were elected to the episcopacy at this Conference. This Conference took all the steps necessary to put the machinery of the Church in run- ning order. About twenty Annual Conferences and 450,000 communicants fell to the Southern Church under the plan of division. The Church grew with marvellous rapidity both in numbers and in influence from the time of the division until the Civil War (i 861-1865) which resulted in large losses and in the withdrawal of nearly all of its colored members. That it recovered quickly from the effects of the war and continued its rapid growth is shown by the fact that within fifty years from the close of the war it has reached a membership of two million. Doctrines of the Church Most of the cardinal doctrines of Methodism are held in common with all evangelical Christian Churches. In 1784, when Mr. Wesley ordained Dr. Thomas Coke and sent him to this country to organize Methodism, he placed in his hands an abridgment of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. These abridged Articles of Religion, twenty-five in number, constitute the basis of Methodist theology, in so far as it is in general agreement with that of other Protestant Churches. Mr. Wesley's sermons are regarded as doctrinal standards. Among the doctrines peculiarly characteristic of Methodist faith and most emphasized in Methodist preaching may be mentioned the Fatherhood of God as distinct from the divine Sovereignty emphasized in Calvinistic theology, the unlimited atonement of METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH, SOUTH 75 Jesus Christ making possible the salvation of all men, the moral free agency and accountability of man by virtue of which he determines his character in this life and his destiny in the life to come, the witness of the Holy Spirit testifying to the regen- erate believer of his acceptance with God, the possibility of apostasy, and the attainability by grace of entire holiness and perfect love. The preaching of this evangelical type of theology with earnestness and zeal has made Methodism intensely evan- gelistic ; and no branch of world-wide Methodism has shown the happy results of the faithful preaching of these doctrines more truly than the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Conferences The most characteristic feature of the polity of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is the <' Conference." The work of the Church is done largely through its various Conferences, of which there are five, as follows : (i) The Church Conference ^ composed of all the members of any local church. (2) The Quarterly Conference, which meets four times a year and is com- posed of the pastor in charge of the church, and any other resi- dent preachers, whether local or travelling, who may be connected with the Church, licensed exhorters, and all the male members of the Church holding an official position, such as stewards, trustees, class leaders, superintendents of Sunday-school, etc. The presiding elder is ex officio chairman of the Quarterly Conference. (3) The District Co?iference, which meets but once a year and is composed of all pastors having charges in the district and of all preachers, whether travelling or local, residing within the district, and of certain lay delegates elected thereto by each Quarterly Conference. The District Confer- ences have on an average some twenty or more pastoral charges in them. They are presided over by a bishop, or, in his absence, by the presiding elder. (4) The Annual Con- ference meets once a year, as the name indicates, is composed of all travelling preachers living and working in its bounds and 76 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL of certain lay delegates elected annually by the District Con- ferences, and is presided over by a bishop. The bishops meet in May of each year, and distribute the Annual Conferences among themselves, each bishop as a rule having from three to six conferences to preside over. (5) The Getieral Conference meets quadrennially and is composed of an equal number of clerical and lay delegates elected by the various Annual Con- ferences, the number of delegates which each Annual Confer- ence is entitled to being determined by its size. The General Conference is the one and only lawmaking body of the Church. It is presided over by the bishops in turn. It elects quad- rennially the general agents, secretaries, editors, etc., and also elects, from time to time, as many bishops as may be needed for the general superintendency of the Church. The Itineracy The second most characteristic feature of Methodist Church polity is its itinerant ministry. Preachers are distinguished as local and itinerant, or travelling. When any one feels called to preach and makes application to the District Con- ference for license, he is, after passing a satisfactory exami- nation, granted the same and becomes a local preacher. He may remain a local preacher, or he may join an Annual Con- ference and by so doing become an itinerant or travelling preacher. Every travelling preacher must belong to an Annual Conference and receive his appointment from the presiding bishop annually. A travelling preacher is supposed to give his whole time to the work of the Christian ministry, and to re- ceive his support from the Church in return for his labor. A local preacher, on the other hand, chooses his own vocation and supports himself, but is supposed to preach only so often as opportunity offers and as he may find it convenient to do so. If a travelling preacher does not wish to take an appointment to pastoral or other ministerial work from the bishop, he may withdraw from the Annual Conference and return to the rank METHODIST EPISCOPAL OHUECH, SOUTH 77 of a local preacher at any time. A travelling preacher cannot be returned to the same pastoral charge more than four suc- cessive years. The itinerant system gives every effective travel- ling preacher a pastoral charge every year, and supplies every pastoral charge with a preacher — there are no unemployed preachers and no pastoral charge can remain long vacant. Bishops hold office for life. They choose their own places of residence, but each bishop receives from the college of bishops annually the assignment of Annual Conferences over which he is to preside for the year. CONNEXIONAL BOARDS AND INTERESTS The general direction of the more important interests of the Church is committed to certain '' Connexional Boards," the members and executive officers of which are elected quadren- nially by the General Conference. The interests committed to these connexional boards are as follows : (i) Sunday-schools, (2) Home and Foreign Missions, (3) Education, (4) Church Extension, for the building of new churches, (5) Young People's organization known as the Ep worth League. (6) The Board having charge of the publishing interests is known as the Book Committee. The leading publishing house of the Church is located in Nashville, Tenn., with branch houses in Dallas, Tex., and Richmond, Va. It is the largest publishing house in the Southern States. All the connexional boards have their headquarters in the publishing house at Nashville, Tenn., except the Church Extension Board, which is located in Louisville, Ky. A general book editor, whose duty it is to examine and approve all the volumes which may be issued by the publishing house, also has his headquarters in Nashville. Every four years, immediately following the adjournment of the General Conference, a revised edition of the official volume entitled "The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Epis- copal Church, South," is published. The *' General Minutes," published annually, contain the names and appointments of all 78 CHUECHES OF THE PEDEEAL COUNCIL the travelling preachers of the entire Connexion for the year ; also the latest statistics for all the interests of the Church. Among the important and influential periodicals issued by the publishing house maybe mentioned The Methodist Review ^ pub- lished quarterly, and The Christian Advocate^ issued weekly, while each of the Boards issues a publication devoted mainly to its own interests. The literature of the Sunday-school De- partment is widely circulated. Many of the Annual Confer- ences, either singly or jointly with other Conferences, publish a weekly religious paper. Most of the Annual Conferences have well-equipped colleges both for men and for women, many of these among the best in the South. The Church has two recently estabhshed connexional universities (Emory and Southwestern Methodist) with schools of theology, located respectively at Atlanta, Ga., and Dallas, Tex. They report property valued at from three to four million dollars each. There are success- ful missions in Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Japan, China, and Korea, with a total membership in all these fields of over thirty thousand. Statistics The following statistics, taken mainly from the published re- ports for 1913-1914, will indicate the size and strength of the Church in its various activities ; Bishops, effective 12 Bishops, superannuated 2 Travelling Preachers, effective 7»I26 Travelling Preachers, superannuated and supernumerary 997 Local Preachers 4>833 Members (not preachers) *>993>253 Total Ministers and Members 2,006,209 Annual Conferences 50 Presiding Elders' Districts 320 Pastoral charges 6,421 Local Societies (preaching places) 19,676 Churches (Houses of Worship) I7>040 Value of Houses of Worship ^53*609,799 Epworth Leagues 3*838 Ep worth League Members 133,108 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH, SOUTH 79 Sunday-Schools 16,650 Sunday-School Teachers and Officers 131,972 Sunday-School Scholars 1,497,718 Parsonages 5»592 Value of Parsonages ^11,948,700 Raised for Foreign Missions 1912-1913 ^925,000 Raised for Home Missions " " ^721,400 Church Extension Collections " " JlS2i6,i28 Paid for Presiding Elders' Salaries 1912-1913 .... ^623,100 Average Presiding Elder's Salary 1912-1913 ^i,944 Paid for Pastors' Salaries 1912-1913 ^4,727,000 Average Pastor's Salary 1912-1913 ^736 Paid for Salaries of Bishops ^75,100 Salary of a Bishop ^4,800 Number of Colleges and Universities 51 Number of Other Institutions of Learning 125 Students in Church Colleges and Universities . . 12,200 Students in Institutions Other than Colleges and Universi- ties 14.187 Number of Teachers in all Schools 1.912 Value of Buildings and Grounds of all Schools .... ^14,500,000 Amount of Endowment of all Schools $8,750,000 Assets of Publishing Houses $1,308,610 Orphanages (nine) valued at $1,000,000 Hospitals (six) valued at $4,650,000 Organic Union Now that slavery has been a dead issue for the past fifty years, and the dissensions engendered by the Civil War have had time to heal, many are very naturally asking the question why should not the two branches of Episcopal Methodism in America come together again. It may be said in reply that the cordial interchange of fraternal messages and messengers that exists between the Churches, the adoption and use of a com- mon order of public worship, a common catechism and a com- mon hymnal, a joint commission on federation working to- gether in the interests of fraternity, harmony, cooperation, proper division of territory and distribution of forces, these and other circumstances of like import are significant and indicative of organic union in the early future. They at least caused the late General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (May, 191 4), to feel justified in outUning a plan for 80 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL union to be submitted to the next General Conference (1916) of the Methodist Episcopal Church. This overture expresses a preference for " The Methodist Church " as the designation of the united Church. The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was the first of the constituent bodies of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America to take official action approving the plan of federation adopted by the Inter- church Conference on Federation in New York, in 1905, and the first president of the Federal Council was a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL The one official book of Methodist doctrine and policy is the ** Book of Discipline.'* Dr. Gross Alexander published in 1 894 a ** History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South," as one of the American Church Series. There is a little book entided " The Methodist Armor," by Dr. H. T. Hudson, which is more widely circulated than any other book, but it is meant more particularly for young people who have just joined the Church. It ex- plains our history, doctrines and polity in a way well suited to their needs. It was published in 1895 by the Methodist Publishing House, Nashville. X The African Methodist Episcopal Church IN the year 1787 Richard Allen, a Negro, and a few others in Philadelphia, Pa., seeing the deplorable condition of the people of African descent in America, were moved to organize an African Methodist Church Society for their better- ment, with an eye to the need of enlightenment and the uplift- ing influence of the Gospel of Christ. Representatives from small religious societies of similar ex- periences and intent, from New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, sixteen in number, convened in Philadelphia, April, 18 16, and organized the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and on the nth day of April, Rev. Richard Allen, who had been ordained seventeen years before by the Rev. Bishop Asbury of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was unanimously elected and solemnly ordained to the episcopal office, to superintend the affairs of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was the first Negro bishop ordained in America. It was at this convention that the African Methodist Church assumed its organized connectional form. It adopted as its motto, *' God our Father y Christ our redeemer ^ 7nan our brother'' Hence its mission to all mankind. Starting out on an evangelizing mission from God with this spirit and intent, the Church, through self-help and friendly aid, has increased its membership in the United States to 625,000 : in the mission fields to 25,000. It has organized 6,500 churches, with 6,554 pastors ; 6,437 local preachers with 2,748 parsonages. Its Sunday-schools have 231,828 pupils: 5,851 instructors and 150,000 books in their libraries. There are 2,000 Young People's Societies of Christian Endeavor. 81 82 CHUECHES OP THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL Organizations It has organized seventy-nine Annual Conferences, twenty- four General Conferences, and ordained thirty-nine bishops to the episcopal office ; fifteen of whom are now active, with one retired — Bishop B. T. Tanner. The Mission Fields and Work These Annual Conferences supervise work in the United States, Canada, South America, West Indies, Hayti, San Domingo and West and South Africa. Two conferences arc held in Liberia, Rt. Rev. William H. Heard, D. D., Resident Bishop, living in Liberia, West Africa. Five Annual Confer- ences are held in South Africa, Rt. Rev. John Albert Johnson, D. D., Resident Bishop, Capetown, South Africa. Educational Work The African Methodist Episcopal Church has sixteen educa- tional plants in the United States, including nine below col- lege grade ; five colleges and four universities. It has two church parochial schools in the West Indies, one in Demarara ; eighty-two day-schools in South Africa, with 4,230 pupils. There are about 4,730 pupils enrolled in the schools and mission fields. Departmental Agencies and Work The African Methodist Episcopal Church Book Concern is in Philadelphia. The Christian Recorder is situated here also, the oldest Negro journal in the world. At this same location The African Methodist Episcopal Review is published. The Department of Missions is located in New York. The Women's Parent Mite Missionary Society has head- quarters in Philadelphia. The Women's Home and Foreign Missionary Society headquarters are in Atlanta, Ga. Each of these departments has branch societies in every Annual Con- AFEICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH 83 ference, as well as foreign work, and is under a board of rep- resentative district managers. The Church Extension Department and the Department of Finance are in Washington, D. C. The Sunday-School Union Publishing House is situated in Nashville, Tenn. The head- quarters of the Allen Young People's Christian Endeavor De- partment is here also. Its secretary edits The Allen Chris- tian Endeavor organ. The Educational Department is at Waco, Tex. The Southern Chrislia?i Recorder is published at Columbus, Ga. ; The Western Christian Recorder at Kansas City, Mo. ', The Georgia African Methodist 2Md. The Woinen^ s Missio7iary Herald at Atlanta, Ga. The Bureau of History is situated in Chicago. Benevolent Economics The African Methodist Episcopal Church has no millionaires, nor much wealth among its membership, being composed chiefly of plain but industrious people, but out of their penury they collect and expend annually for missions, home and foreign, ^100,000; for education ^125,000, and for general church funds through its financial department dollar-money about ;^20o,ooo. This does not include moneys for local ex- penses, for church indebtedness, or ministerial support. Doctrines, Rules and Sentiments The African Methodist Episcopal Church believes in and practices the doctrines, the rules of government and forms of worship of Episcopal Methodists. It is in union and co- operation, in sentiment and effort with all churches and bodies which labor for the evangelization of the world and the uplift of all mankind. Its bishops, preachers and laymen are public spirited and lend effective aid for civic and social betterment of the people, irrespective of race or color. Its councils and conferences send to and receive fraternal 84 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL delegates and greetings from many of the leading church bodies and other federations. The Church labors to enlighten the people through the Gospel of Christ and Christian education ; to inspire the principles of good and useful citizenship in the Negro race — fealty, loyalty, self-respect, manly independence and cooperation ; and by means of organized efforts to in- culcate the virtues of industrial thrift through self-help and friendly aid. This Church originated the doctrine and practice of in- dustrial education as early as 1845, before there was a Hamp- ton or a Tuskegee. Among the noted useful and prominent characters who have labored and arisen out of this body of Negro Christians may be named Richard Allen, the founder and bishop. Rev. Daniel A. Payne, pastor and bishop, apostle of Chris- tian education and an urgent advocate for a trained Negro ministry, founder of Wilberforce University, of which he was for many years president, having as his associates Rev. John G. Mitchell and Elder James A. Shorter. Rev. John M. Brown was a promoter of Christian missions in 1864. Rev. Henry M. Turner, of Georgia, was a mission preacher and organizer among the freedmen of the South. He was ap- pointed by President Lincoln, the first colored chaplain in the United States Army. He is a writer, author and the senior bishop. Chaplain Wm. H. Hunter was an eminent clergyman and general officer in this body. Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett, the historiographer of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Society of Christian Endeavor, an executive member of the World's Parliament of Religions, which met at Chicago in 1893, ^"^ ^ personal friend of President William McKinley. Rev. William T. Vernon, college president, educator and register of the United States Treasury. Frederick Douglass, the orator, patriot, statesman and philan- APEICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH 85 thropist, arose from this Christian body and was laid to rest from among them at Washington, D. C. Prof. W. S. Scarborough, president of Wilberforce Uni- versity, writer, Greek author and member of the Philological Society of College Presidents, is a distinguished layman. The Evangelist Amanda Smith, and Fanny Jackson Coppin, the educator, had their membership among this body of Negro Christians. This body of Christians, South as well as North, has included men and women of marked gifts, attainments and activities in every field of useful pursuit. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL ** History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church," by D. A. Payne, 1891. " Apology for African Methodism," by B. T. Tanner. " The Budget," by B. W. Arnett. " The African Methodist Episcopal Discipline." The African Methodist Episcopal (Quarterly Review, All to be had at the African Methodist Episcopal Book Con- cern, 631 Pine Street, Philadelphia. " The Centennial Retrospect," History of the African Meth- odist Episcopal Church. African Methodist Episcopal Sunday-School Union, Nashville, Tenn. XI The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church OWING to proscription on account of color which was exhibited in the Old John Street Methodist Church, New York City, about sixty of the colored members withdrew in October, 1796, and formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which about twenty years afterward added to its title the word Zion, some of its leading founders being James Varick, Abraham Thompson, Francis Jacobs, William Brown, Peter Williams, June Scott, Samuel Poynter, Thomas Miller, William Hamilton, George E. Moore, Thomas Sipkins, David Bias, George White, Thomas Cook, John Teesman, George Collins. The first board of trustees was composed of Francis Jacobs, President ; George Collins, Secretary ; Thomas Miller, Treas- urer; William Brown, Peter Williams, Thomas Sipkins, and William Hamilton. The first licensed local preachers v/ere Abraham Thompson, June Scott, Thomas Miller and William Miller. The first ordained elders were Abraham Thompson and James Varick. The first bishop was James Varick, who exercised the function of his ofiice from 1820 to 1828. The following is the address of the founders : Founders' Address *' To the Members of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in America. " Beloved Brethren : We think it proper to state briefly that, after due consideration, the official members of the 86 A. M. E. ZION CHUECH 87 African Methodist Episcopal Zion and Asbury Churches, in the city of New York, have been led to conclude that such was the relation in which we stood to the white bishops and conference relative to the ecclesiastical government of the Afri- can Methodist Church or Society in America, that so long as we remained in that situation our preachers would never be able to enjoy those privileges which the Discipline of the white Church holds out to all its members that are called of God to preach, in consequence of the limited access our brethren had to those privileges, and particularly in consequence of the difference of color. " We have been led also to conclude that the usefulness of our preachers has been very much hindered, and our brethren in general have been deprived of those blessings which Al- mighty God may have designed to grant them through the means of those preachers whom He has from time to time raised up among them, because there have been no means adopted by the said bishops and conference for our preachers to travel through the connection and promulgate the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ j and they have had no access to the only source from whence they might have obtained a support, at least, while they travelled. "Under these circumstances they believed that the forma- tion of an itinerant plan and the establishment of a conference for the African Methodist preachers of the United States would be essential to the prosperity of the spiritual concerns of our colored brethren in general, and would be the means of ad- vancing our preachers who are now in regular standing in con- nection with the white preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, whenever it should be found necessary, for the advance- ment of the Redeemer's Kingdom among our brethren, to bring forward for ordination those who are called of God to preach the Gospel of our Lord, which may be done from time to time, according to the best of our judgment of the necessity thereof, and not according to the method which it is natural to suppose S8 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL that our white brethren would pursue, to determine upon the necessity of such ordination. " We are under strong impression of mind such measures would induce many of our brethren to attend divine worship, vwho are yet careless about their eternal welfare, and thereby prove effectual in the hands of God in the awakening and con- version of their souls to the knowledge of the truth. " And whereas Almighty God, in His all- wise and gracious providence, has recently offered a favorable opportunity whereby these societies may be regularly organized as an evangelical African connection, we have therefore resolved to embrace the said opportunity and have agreed that the title of the connec- tion shall be the African Methodist Episcopal Church in America, and we have selected a form of Discipline from that of our mother Church (with a little alteration), which selec- tion we recommend to you for the Doctrines and Discipline of our Church, hoping that the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls, the all-wise and gracious God, will be pleased to approve of the above measures and grant that we may obtain and pre- serve those privileges which we have been heretofore deprived of; that thereby we may unite our mutual efforts for the pros- perity of the Redeemer's Kingdom among us and for the en- couragement of our colored brethren in the ministry. ♦'Earnestly soliciting your prayers and united endeavors for the same, we remain your affectionate brethren and servants in the Kingdom of our ever adorable Lord, ** Abraham Thompson, James Varick, William Miller." Statistics The Church has eight bishops, 148 presiding elders, 2,100 active ministers, 821 deacons, 1,235 local preachers, 585,000 communicants, 3,100 churches; property valuation, $6,454,- 000; parsonages valued at ;^384,ooo. It has 2,334 Sunday- schools with a membership of 232,801. A. M. E. ZION CHUECH 89 The first place of worship of this new independent organiza- tion was a carpenter shop. In 1800 a lot was purchased at the corner of Church and Leonard Streets, upon which the first African Methodist Episcopal Zion church was erected. The organization was incorporated February 5, 1801. From this humble beginning we have progressed until to-day we have eight living bishops, twenty general officers, seven distinct de- partments, twenty-one schools, of which the most prominent are as follows : Livingstone College, Salisbury, N. C. ; Atkin- son College, Madisonville, Ky. ; Dinvviddie Industrial and Agricultural College, Dinwiddle, Va. ; Clinton College, Rock Hill, S. C. ; Greenville College, Greenville, Tenn. ; Lomax and Hannum College, Greenville, Ala. ; Lancaster Normal and Industrial School, Lancaster, S. C. ; Walters' Institute, Warren, Ark. ; Edenton College, Edenton, N. C. ; Zion Insti- tute, Mobile, Ala. ; Eastern North Carolina and Industrial Academy, New Berne, N. C. ; Macon Academy, Macon, Ga. The Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Society is under the control of the women of the Church. There are missions in West Africa, in Brewerville, Liberia, Cape Coast Castle, Kwitta and a number of other points in the Cape Coast Colony. There are missions also in South America and the West Indies. In May, 1868, the General Conference struck from the Dis- cipline the word "male," thus being the first Methodist de- nomination to admit to all constitutional privileges in the Church her female members, on an equal basis with the male members, and in May, 1896, Mrs. Julia A. Foote was ordained a deacon by Bishop J. W. Hood at the New York Conference. In the same year Mrs. Mary J. Small was ordained a deacon by Bishop Alexander Walters at the Philadelphia and Baltimore Conference. Some of the most distinguished colored men and women of America have been members of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, including Frederick Douglass, Phyllis Wheatly, 90 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL Dr. J. C. Price, founder of Livingstone College and one of the greatest orators the race has produced, Hon. J. C. Dancey, collector of the Port of Wilmington and Recorder of Deeds of the District of Columbia. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church has been a member of the Ecumenical Conference of Methodism since its organization, in 1881, and has affiliated with the Christian Endeavor movement since 1893. It has had membership in the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America since its organization. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church believes in Christian Unity, which fact it has demonstrated by its close affiliation with the evangelical denominations of America. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL " A Century of Zion Methodism," by Bishop J. W. Hood. " The History of the A. M. E. Zion Church," by Bishop J. J, Moore. XII The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America THE Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America was organized by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, December 15, 1870, at Jackson, Tenn. The plan was perfected in Memphis, Tenn., in May, 1870, in the General Conference session of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The first bishops elected were William Henry Miles, of Louis- ville, Ky., and Richard H. Vanderhost, a native of Charleston, S. C, who at the time of his election was a pastor in Georgia. The Church was organized with 68,000 members who were, at the time of organization, worshipping with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The present membership is upward of 250,000, with seven bishops. The history of this Church has been unique. It grew out of a membership of 225,000 men and women who belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. They were con- verted in the days of slavery, under the preaching of white missionaries and colored ministers of their own. Within two years after the war more than 150,000 of them went to the Methodist Episcopal, the African Methodist Episcopal, and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches. The transferring of this number of members in so short a time created much unrest and caused much agitation among a people who had just emerged from slavery. The three Churches above named established themselves in the South immediately after the war. They were located very 91 92 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL largely in the cities, while the greater number of colored Meth- odists were in the rural communities. With the flocking of the colored people to the city from the large plantations where master and slave had worshipped together, they found these other Churches there and naturally sought shelter in them. After the organization of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church there was much feeling against it on the ground that it was organized by the ex-master and for that reason it was not in position to do real Christian service for the ex-slave and his sons. The opinion that it was not sound in origin was upper- most in the hearts of both layman and leader of the other Churches. Some of the local pastors preached in their pulpits that it was destined to lead the Negro back into slavery. Others held that Christian manhood could never be well developed in an institution which had so humble a beginning. The agita- tion growing out of these opinions was kept up for a quarter of a century. While many souls were gained for the Kingdom, it must be remembered that one of the chief facts which has characterized the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America is that its ministry was for more than twenty-five years combating the charge of wrong leadership. The early leaders — Bishops Miles, Vanderhost, Holsey, Lane and Beebee — held that the Church was not a state institution and was not political. Its mission was to gain souls and to help the state fight evils on a general plane in that it urged each man to live a high life and to keep the Golden Rule. On the other hand, they believed that the best whites of the South were godly men and thus sincere in their motives, when offering to organize the colored element into a distinct body while cooperating with them in helping to direct the forces of Christianity. There- fore, they accepted the proposition of organization and future cooperation in good faith. While the controversy was kept up for years the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church grew in favor with the other Christian bodies in proportion as the North and South better understood each other. If the Church COLOEED METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 93 was made conspicuous because of early opposition, it has lived to see the time when the former antagonists have commended the early leaders of both the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America as men of great foresight. These leaders, though ridiculed by both white and black. North and South, were laying the foun- dation for church unity upon a basis that is quite likely to be permanent. While these two bodies have been distinct in houses of wor- ship and general administration they have understood each other, and the strong have helped the weak. Many utterances at the General Conference of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church at St. Louis, Mo., in 19 14, were to the effect that the relation of the two Churches was providential. These utter- ances came from the representatives of each denomination. The growth of the Church has put the entire race in a position to be studied and helped in the South and throughout the na- tion. It has put in shoulder-touch such eminent characters as Bishops Galloway, Pierce, Miles and Holsey. Their private counsels have not stopped in the confines of the two Churches but have given rise to a sympathetic study and help of the South- ern Negro in many ways. A pamphlet entitled " Bulletin of Na- tional League on Urban Conditions among Negroes" has as a motto: ''Not alms but opportunity." This League has Northern and Southern headquarters. The Southern headquar- ters is in Nashville, Tenn. The striking feature of the League is that it has the Southern women of the Missionary Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, connected with its so- ciological work. It also has Paine College cooperating with it. While its work is national and interracial in scope, in so far as its operation in the South and with the Southern Methodists is concerned, it grows out of the long and friendly relation of these two Churches and their leaders. The growth of this Church in its cooperative and liberal views has been the means of having the first Southern white mission- 94 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL aries to take up work in Africa among our forefathers. These missionaries are Bishop W. R. Lambuth of the Methodist Church, South, and Prof. John W. Gilbert of the Colored M. E. Church in America. (a) Ministry If the leaders have brought about much harmony, the local ministry has meant much in different communities in helping to spread the Kingdom because of willingness to seek and work with the Southern white minister. This Christlike spirit on the part of the pastor of the Colored Methodist Church and the responsive spirit of the white brother have caused many a church house to be erected and many souls saved. The two ministers knowing and understanding each other as they have, meant much for the white steward and the black steward in both church and business. So often, on the other hand, the white Methodist women have done much in behalf of the col- ored element that would have been impossible had not this unity and cooperation existed in the origin of this Church. (b) Educational Cooperation A striking illustration of one race being helped by another intellectually is found in the school work of the Colored Meth- odist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Thus far the school work is not noted for the large number of schools or for their superior work to that of other Negro colleges, but rather as showing what the South can and will do to train leaders for the pulpit and schoolroom for a needy people. Paine College, Augusta, Ga., is one school in the United States of a high grade where the Southern white man because of religious cooperation is the greater part of the fac- ulty. For nearly thirty years this school has been in existence. It opened its doors with a white president in the person of Dr. Morgan Calloway, who stayed only a short while. He was suc- ceeded by Dr. Geo. W. Walker, who came in the noonday of COLOEED METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH 95 his life and taught there for more than twenty-five years. He studied the students while they in turn studied this high toned and scholarly Christian gentleman. The school, being under the auspices of the two Churches, is financed by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, almost entirely. The faculty is al- most equally divided. The school stands for the highest and best training for the Negroes. While the Negroes were going almost wild over an industrial and limited training in a large measure, President Walker was heroically urging the best train- ing for black Americans. He urged in an educational meeting in 1908 in Atlanta, Ga., — ''You send missionaries to China and Japan and urge them to accept the best training ; why not give it to a people raised in this country, who have been true to its flag, and who have our religious standards ? " Many ed- ucators advocate theories but never realize their dreams. This educator, however, was very practical as is shown in the strong men he turned out for service in the Colored Methodist Epis- copal Church. Note the work of this pioneer school as shown in some of its strong men. By way of example we mention Bishop Randall Albert Carter and Dr. John Wesley Gilbert, both products of this cooperative church school. Bishop Carter served in the ministry for more than twenty years, represented the Church in many large and national, as well as international gatherings and always with credit. Dr. John W. Gilbert took an advanced course in Brown University, from which he won a scholarship to Athens, Greece (American School of Classics). He was the first Negro from America to have this distinction. He is re- garded as the best Negro Greek scholar, especially when esti- mated from the standpoint of modern Greek. He taught Greek and German for more than twenty years at Paine College and from there he was the first missionary of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church to Africa. He is a man of great ability, en- ergy and culture. He has not only taught in this institution, easily making his chair one of the strongest in the state or 96 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL South, but he has worked harmoniously with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in this country. He has raised large funds for the schools of the Church, and has been the means of pushing the general work of cooperation between the two Churches. This would have been impossible had he not under- stood these people through training and constant contact. If the two Churches had produced only Bishop Carter and Dr. Gilbert as examples of what cooperation will do in man-build- ing, they would have done much for both races. If the Colored Methodist Church has cooperated as a distinct body with the Southern white Church it has sought to do the same with the other Churches of the race. Bishop Miles in 1874, just four years after the Church was organized, urged fraternal relation between the Colored Methodist bodies gen- erally. The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church appointed a committee in its General Conference in 1874 to draw up reso- lutions on fraternal relation or organic union. The time, how- ever, seemed not to have been ripe for this. Finally, this branch of the Methodist and Christian family has found that much of its worthy history has grown out of co- operation with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. On the other hand, its work has been one of struggles to convert men and women to better living. Its policy seems to be more and more aimed at a broader affiliation with all denominations. At its General Conference of 1 914 at St. Louis, its response to the visitation of Dr. Macfarland, the General Secretary of the Federal Council, was appreciative and without limit in its cath- olicity of spirit. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL "History of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America," by Bishop C. H. Phillips, published by the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church Book House, Jackson, Tenn. XIII The Methodist Protestant Church THE Methodist Protestant Church is the outgrowth of a controversy in the Methodist Episcopal Church on the subject of the mutual rights of the ministry and the laity. That controversy had continued for a number of years, and its climax was reached in the expulsion of those who publicly favored lay-representation. These excommuni- cated reformers, then grouped for the most part in Baltimore, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, became the founders of the Method- ist Protestant Church ; and the first constitutional convention, following a period of evolution under the name of Associated Methodist Churches, was held on the second day of Novem- ber, 1830. As with other denominational families in America, the Methodist Protestant house was divided against itself on the question of slavery; but, unlike other separated bodies, the Methodist Protestants were happily reunited in a few short years. The controversy between the two sections came to a climax in 1858, when the representatives to the General Con- ference from the non-slaveholding states, instead of repairing directly to Lynchburg, Va., the meeting-place of the General Conference, met in extraordinary convention in Cincinnati, and sent commissioners to Lynchburg with a memorial asking for such a revision of the constitution of the Church as would satisfy the sentiment of the North on the great issue of the hour. But, although the Methodist Protestants of the South were by no means a unit in the defense of slavery, the Mary- land Conference having repeatedly declared against the insti- 97 98 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUl^CIL tution, beginning with its first session in 1831, passionate conviction on both sides was too unyielding for compromise, and two denominations resulted, by the natural evolution of circumstances. Both wings of the divided Church retained the name, "Methodist Protestant," until 1866, when the Northern branch, through the terms of a basis of union with the Wes- leyan Methodist Church, became known simply as The Meth- odist Church. The only considerable result of the nominal union with the Wesleyan Methodists was the final acquisition of Adrian College, now one of the foremost educational insti- tutions of the denomination. The Methodist Protestants of the South also acquired, during the period of separation, the well-known educational unit of that section, the Western Maryland College ; and these two centers of learning, Adrian and Westminster, were among the chief factors of influence which led to the reunion of the North and the South into the one Methodist Protestant Church, thus giving to American Christianity the first example, if not the only example, of the complete union of Churches separated by that great Rock of Divisions, the humanitarian issue that caused and accom- panied the Civil War. The happy reunion took place in the city of Baltimore, in 1877, the separate conventions of the two denominations meet- ing on the eleventh day of May, and the union being finally consummated, with every token of loyal enthusiasm, on the sixteenth day of May. This union was in every sense com- plete and genuine, the final harmony leaving not an echo of the few notes of discord which accompanied the tuning of the various parts. And no district units of the whole denomina- tion entered more loyally into the final union than the four Southern conferences which had originally voted against the union. The greatest achievement of the Methodist Protestant Church has doubtless been wrought through the recognized THE METHODIST PEOTESTANT CHUECH 99 influence of its principles in the later development of Ameri- can Methodism. But despite the overshadowing competition of the larger denominations of the same family, the Methodist Protestant Church has made very encouraging progress, espe- cially during the last two or three decades. The total member- ship is about two hundred thousand, and there are twenty-nine regular conferences, besides a number of mission-conferences, the latter including a growing conference in Japan. We have also five colleges, one of which has developed into a university, besides a well-established theological seminary. The missionary activity of the Methodist Protestant Church, though beginning somewhat late, has been, during the past few years, a very important factor in the work of the denomination. Besides a conference in Japan, a mission station has been established in China, and our home mission- ary work is centered in many cities, and reaches out into the pioneer regions of the country, with an ever- widening oppor- tunity and an increasing spirit of benevolence on the part of the people. But the individuality of the Methodist Protestant Church is not dependent upon lay-representation alone ; and while, in all the great symbols of the Christian faith, this body corresponds to all the others called evangelical, embracing with them all the fullness of the Apostles' Creed, its elementary principles are de- signed to lay hold upon those specific rights and privileges, the conservation of which history has shown to be essential to relig- ious liberty. These elementary principles admit but one order in the ministry of the Church, establishing presbyterial equal- ity as well as equality between the ministers and the laymen : "The pastoral or ministerial office and duties are of divine appointment, and all elders in the Church of God are equal ; but ministers are forbidden to be lords over God's heritage, or to have dominion over the faith of the saints." They hold the Church to a basis which is preeminently Christo-centric and Biblical, as distinguished from everything merely tradi- 100 CHUECHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL tional or ceremonial ; " Christ is the only Head of the Church, and the Word of God the only rule of faith and conduct." They proclaim and conserve the right of private judgment in matters of religion : *' Every man has an inalienable right to private judgment in matters of religion, and an equal right to express his opinion in any way which will not violate the laws of God or the rights of his fellow men." They guard most sacredly the privilege of communion with the people of God, relieving the matter of church fellowship from every semblance of autocracy, and making it conditional only upon the substan- tial things of faith and piety: ** Church trials should be con- ducted on gospel principles only ; and no minister or member should be excommunicated except for immorality, the propaga- tion of unchristian doctrines, or for the neglect of duties en- joined by the Word of God." They recognize the integral nature of every society of believers in Jesus Christ ; recognize such society, when assembled for religious worship, as a Chris- tian Church of divine institution, vesting therein the right of local self-government: "A Church is a society of believers in Jesus Christ, assembled in any one place for religious worship." These elementary principles reveal at once the historic de- partures and the essential conformity of the Methodist Protes- tant Church. Steadfastly orthodox, and yet progressively orthodox, our people ask indeed for the old paths, but they walk forward therein, and not backward. While justly proud of their heritage, they do not live in the past, nor build their temples among the tombs. They cherish the mutual rights for which their fathers contended ; but, having acquired those rights and having transmitted them to others, and having also witnessed the pervading triumph of their principles in other communions, they do not fight over again the old battles, nor preach the non-essentials of an accepted polity. The Methodist Protestant Church is responsive, with all windows open wide, to the new and blessed era of inter- denominational fellowship ; and such a work as that of the THE METHODIST PEOTESTANT CHUECH 101 Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America lies along the straight highway of our ideals. All Methodist Protestants, whatsoever the varying shades of opinion or tempera- ment that may distinguish them, are in ready and profound sympathy with the spirit of union now abroad in the Christian world. Their principles must abide with them, and every path in which they walk must make room for all their cherished liberties, and even for their battle-flags ; but Methodist Protestants have entered into the vision of their Lord, and are looking forward to the glad time when the discordant creeds of Christendom shall be united in the one school of the great Teacher. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL "History of Methodist Reform," by Drinkhouse. ** History of Methodist Protestant Church," by Bassett. " Non-Episcopal Methodism," by Colhouer. ** Founders of the Methodist Protestant Church," by Col- houer. " American Methodism : Its Divisions and Unification," by Neely. XIV The Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. I. History AMERICAN Presbyterianism as a whole is as diverse in its origin as are the peoples who have blended to form the American nation. The earliest American Presbyterian Churches were established in New England, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, from about 1630 to 1680, and were in large part of English origin, their pastors as a rule being Church of England ministers holding Presbyterian views. The English Presbyterians in the colonies combined at an early day (1680-17 10) with Scotch and Scotch-Irish, French and Welsh elements, to form what is now known as the Presby- terian Church in the United States of America. The Rev. Francis Makemie, of Ireland, was the apostle of American Presbyterianism, settling in Maryland in 1683. He succeeded in bringing into organic unity the scattered Presby- terian Churches in the middle colonies, the first Presbytery being organized in March, 1706, at Philadelphia, Pa. The ministers were seven in number, representing about twenty-two congregations, located in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. Five of the seven ministers were university and college men, and the other two were well-educated per- sons. The growth of the colonies so added to the membership of the Church that in September, 171 6, the presbytery trans- formed itself into a synod with four presbyteries. A great number of the immigrants at this period were from Scotland and from the north of Ireland. Confessional and govern- mental standards were adopted in 1729, when the General 102 PEESBYTEEIAN CHUECH IN THE U. S. A. 103 Synod passed what is called the Adopting Act, by which it was agreed that all the ministers under its jurisdiction should adopt the Westminster Confession as the confession of their faith. In the same year the Synod denied to the civil magistrate power over the Church, and also the power " to persecute any for their religion." In 1745 questions of polity as to revivals and ministerial education produced a division, the parties being known as " Old Side " and " New Side." In 1758 the divided bodies reunited upon the basis of the Westminster Standards pure and simple, the Church then consisting of ninety-eight ministers, about 200 congregations, and 10,000 communicants. It was during the period of this division that the ''New Side" established the institution now known as Princeton University, for the purpose of maintaining an educated ministry. In 1768 John Witherspoon was called from Scotland, and installed as president of Princeton. He was a member of the Continental Congress, and the only clerical signer of the Declaration of Independence. The open- ing of the Revolutionary struggle found the Presbyterian Churches to a man on the colonial side. The Presbyterians of New England, owing to local causes, were not connected ecclesiastically with those of the other colonies. There were fully eighty-five Presbyterian congrega- tions in that region in 1770, and in 1775 the Synod of New England was erected, but was dissolved in 1782. This Synod was reconstituted in 191 3, and has now fifty-two churches. With the restoration of peace in 1783, the need of further organization was deeply felt. The General Synod, in 1788, again adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith, with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and in addition a Form of Government, a Book of Discipline, and a Directory for Wor- ship, all of which were declared to be the Constitution of the Church. Certain changes were made in the Confession, the Catechisms, and the Directory for Worship, in the line of liberty in worship, of freedom in prayer, and above all of lib- 104 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL erty from control by the State. The General Assembly was es- tablished as the governing body and first met m 1789, at Phila- delphia, Pa. The most important movement in the Church after the adop- tion of the constitution was the formation in i8oi of the '' Plan of Union " with the Congregational Associations of New Eng- land. It remained in force until 1837. What is known as the Cumberland separation also took place during this period. It was caused in large part by the '' great revival " of 1800. The Presbytery of Cumberland ordained to the ministry, under the pressure of the need for preachers, persons who, in the judgment of the Synod of Kentucky, were not qualified for the office either by learning or by sound doctrine. The controversies between the two judica- tories resulted finally, in 18 10, in the establishment of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. About the year 1825 the peace of the Church began to be disturbed by controversies respecting the Plan of Union and the establishment of denominational agencies for missionary and evangelistic work. The party opposed to the Plan of Union was known as the " Old School," and that favoring it as the " New School." Questions of doctrine were also involved. The '^ Old School " majority in the Assembly of 1837 brought the matters at issue to a head by abrogating the Plan of Union, by the excision of four synods in New York and Ohio organized in part under the Plan of Union, and by the establishment of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. When the Assembly of 1838 met, the " New School " com- missioners protested against the exclusion of the delegates from the four exscinded synods, organized an assembly of their own in the presence of the sitting assembly,''and then withdrew. During the period of separation both bodies prospered. The two Churches were happily reunited November 12, 1869, at Pittsburgh, Pa., on " the basis of the standards pure and simple." PEESBYTEEIAK CHUECH IN THE U. S. A. 106 A division of the Church was brought about also by the Civil War. In May, 1861, the Old School Assembly met at Philadelphia, Pa. Dr. Gardiner Spring of New York offered resolutions, among other things professing loyalty to the Federal Government. These resolutions were passed by a large major- ity, and were the alleged reason for the organization of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America. Upon the cessation of hostilities in 1865, this Church took the name of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, and is commonly known as the Presbyterian Church, South. Since the year 1870 the Church has made steady progress along all lines, and its harmony was seriously threatened only by controversy (i 891-1894) as to the sources of authority in religion and the authority and credibility of Holy Scripture, a controversy which terminated in the adoption by the General Assembly at Minneapolis, Minn., in 1899, of a unanimous de- liverance affirming the loyalty of the Church to its historic views on these subjects. The work of the organization of women for general missionary and other benevolent work was begun in 1870 by the establishment of Women's Foreign Missionary Societies. There are now boards in existence also for work in Home Missions and Missions for Freedmen. These Women's Boards have brought a new and highly efficient force to bear upon Christian enterprise. In 1875 the General Assembly entered as a leading factor into the "Alli- ance of the Reformed Churches throughout the World holding the Presbyterian System." In 1888 a centenary fund of ^^605,000 was raised, which was added to the endowment fund of the Board of Ministerial Relief. In 1900 the Twentieth Century Fund was organized, and resulted in raising in two years for congregational and general purposes over ^i 2,000,000, In 1 901 the Evangelistic Committee was formed, through whose efforts a decided uplift has been given to spiritual con- ditions, not only within the Presbyterin Church, but also among many other denominations. The Presbyterian Brother- 106 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL hood was organized in 1906 for evangelistic and social pur- poses, and includes fully 60,000 men in its membership. In 1906 reunion with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was accomplished. The Church entered heartily into the organi- zation in December, 1908, at Philadelphia, Pa., of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, composed of thirty denominations, having about 17,000,000 communicants, and representing a majority of the Christian people of the United States.^ The growth of the Church is shown by the following table. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, U. S. A., 1640 to 19 15 Year Minis- ters Churches Communi- cants Benevolent Contribu- tions 1640 5 10 12 19 177 183 1,080 2,140 1,690 1,181 1,860 1,453 2,577 1,545 2,656 1,523 2,859 1,555 2,381 1,848 6 18 22 40 431 449 1,770 2,865 2,343 1,286 2,512 1,555 3,487 1,542 3,531 1,482 3,686 1,466 2,740 1,631 1690 1705 1717 1789 1800 1825 1837 1838 0. S. N.S. 1849 0. S. N.S. 1859 0. s. N.S. i860 0. s. N.S. 1862 0. S. N.S. 1869 0. S. N.S. 1,000 1,500 3,000 18,000 20,000 122,382 220,557 177,665 100,850 200,830 139,047 279,630 137,990 292,927 134,933 303,289 135,454 258,903 172,560 ^852 2,500 12,517 281,989 369,371 764,668 266,574 657,412 250.577 319,761 208,842 1,346,179 753,953 * The writer of this chapter was chairman of the Executive Committefc of the Interchurch Conference of 1905, which conducted the negotiations resulting in the organization of the Federal Council, and was chairman of the Executive Committee of that body for its first quadrennium. — The Editor. PEESBYTEEIAN CHUECH IN THE U. S. A. 107 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, U. S. A., 1640 to 1915 ( Continued ) Year Minis- ters Churches Communi- cants Benevolent Contribu- tions 1870 4,238 4,526 446,561 2,023,956 1880 5»o44 5,489 578,671 2,262,871 1890 6,158 6,894 775.903 4,286,180 1895 6,797 7,496 922,904 3.637.105 1900 7,467 7.750 1,007,689 3,602,883 1901 7.532 7.779 1,025,388 4,111,959 1902 7,617 7.748 1,045,338 4,419,809 1903 7,703 7,822 1,067,477 4,557,478 1904 7,762 7,933 1,094,908 4,643.745 1905 7,750 7,980 1,115,662 5.155.228 1906 7,848 9,118 1,158,662 6,329,237 1907 9,031 11,082 1,341,492 5.785,637 1908 8,951 10,017 1,300,329 5,869,105 1909 9,023 9,997 1,321,386 5,806,511 1910 9,073 10,011 1,339.000 6,135.982 1911 9,128 10,051 1.354,453 7.768,943 1912 9.274 10,030 1,380,058 7.113.273 1913 9,410 10,090 1,415,872 7,278,758 1914 9.536 10,130 1,458,085 7,725,935 1915 9,685 9,996 1,513,240 7,952,900 II. Doctrine The Churches holding to the Presbyterian polity have de- veloped in the course of their history such a natural relation to one great type of Christian doctrine that the words Calvinistic and Presbyterian are to a large extent synonymous. The controlling idea of the Presbyterian or Calvinistic system of thought, both theoretically and practically, is the doctrine of the unconditioned sovereignty of God. By this sovereignty is meant the absolute control of the universe in all that it contains, whether visible or invisible things, by the one supreme, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent Spirit, for wise, just, holy and loving ends, known fully alone to Himself. This divine sovereignty finds practical expression in the Presbyterian system through its organizing principle, the sovereignty of the Word of God as the supreme and infallible 108 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUI^CIL rule of faith and practice. The Presbyterian system accepts and incorporates, as a perpetual binding obligation, only those principles and regulations which can be proved to have a divine warrant. Since 1729 the Westminster Confession of Faith and Cate- chisms have been the doctrinal standards of the Church, with the exception that the chapters dealing with the civil magis- trates and the state were modified in 1729 and 1788, so as to conform to the American doctrine of the absolute separation of the Church from control by the State. In 1903 the Confession was revised in several particulars, and chapters thirty-four and thirty-five were added, respectively on "The Holy Spirit," and "The Love of God and Missions." The revision ac- complished in 1903 was for the expressed purpose of the dis- avowal of certain inferences drawn by persons outside the Church as to the doctrines of the Church on God's eternal decree, the love of God for all mankind, and His readiness to bestow His saving grace on all who seek it. The Church also then officially declared that all persons dying in infancy are included in the election of grace, and are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, " who works when and where and how He pleases." The great majority of the min- isters and members accept heartily the Church's doctrinal stand- ards as containing the system of doctrine taught in Holy Scripture. III. Government The administrative or governmental Standards of the Church were adopted by the General Synod in 1788, and consist of a Form of Government, Book of Discipline, and Directory for Worship. These Standards have been from time to time amended and modified, though they are still substantially as first adopted. Prior to 1788, Stewart of Pardovan's Collec- tions of the Laws of the Church of Scotland were accepted as authoritative. The Presbyterian Polity, or government, as expressed in PEESBYTERIAN CHUECH IN THE U. S. A. 109 these Standards, it is maintained, finds clear warrant in the Holy Scriptures. One of its chief sources was the Jewish ecclesiastical system of the time of Christ, excluding the priestly element. The general features of this system were, it is believed, adopted by the primitive Christian Church, modified in matters of detail by apostolic authority. The elders of the synagogue became the elders of the Christian congregation (Acts xiv. 23) ; the chief ruler of the synagogue was probably reproduced in the episcopos or parochial bishop ; the local sanhedrin was modified and established as the presby- tery ; and the Great Sanhedrin was the prototype of synods, general assemblies, and councils. The principles of the government of the New Testament Church, as applied in Presbyterian Government, result in views of the Church, her officers and judicatories as follows ; the universal Church consists of all persons who profess the true religion, together with their children ; the power of the Church is simply declarative and spiritual ; there is but one order in the ministry ; ruling elders, elected by the congrega- tions, are united in the government of the churches with min- isters ; and the temporal affairs are managed by deacons or trustees. The judicatories or church courts in successive order are (i) the Session, governing the particular church, and con- sisting of the pastor and the ruling elders ; (2) the Presbytery, governing all the congregations within a limited territory, and consisting of all the ministers and one elder from each congre- gation j (3) the Synod, consisting of at least three presby- teries, exercising supervisory authority over both presbyteries and congregations, and consisting of both ministers and elders, and (4) the General Assembly, having supervisory power over the general interests of the whole denomination, and constitu- ting the bond of union, peace and confidence. The power of these church courts is both legislative, executive and judicial, and the higher courts have authority over the lower courts, in accord^nc? with the terms of the Constitution of the Church. 110 CHUECHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL The Presbyterian Church holds that the terms of admission of members into the visible church are the same as the con- ditions of salvation revealed in the Holy Scriptures, viz. : be- lief on the part of the applicant in one God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the divine and all-sufficient Saviour, joined with the declaration of a sincere purpose to lead a life acceptable to God in Jesus Christ. No church has a right either to add to or take from these terms or conditions. Church members as to their con- duct are under the control of the Session of the particular church, providing, however, that every member deeming him- self aggrieved may appeal or complain to a higher court. IV. Worship Presbyterian worship is based as to its character on the facts that a human priesthood is unknown to the New Testament and that the only priest of the new dispensation is the Lord Jesus Christ. Ministers are not priests, but preachers. Sacerdotal- ism, therefore, whether in connection with the sacraments, or enforced liturgies, or priestly vestments, has no place in the worship of the Presbyterian churches. The sacraments are simply ordinances, wherein by sensible signs Christ and His benefits ''are represented, sealed, and applied to believers.'* Prayer is the free intercourse of the soul with God, and is therefore to be voluntary. Ministers are not mediators be- tween God and man, possessed of a delegated divine authority to forgive sins, but simply leaders of the people in all that con- stitutes the worship of and fellowship with the triune God. True worshipers worship the Father neither in Samaria nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth. God is nigh to every penitent and believing soul. By its doctrine the Presbyterian Church honors the divine sovereignty without denying human responsibility; by its polity it exalts the headship of Christ while giving full de- velopment to the activities of the Christian people ; and in its PEESBYTEEIAN CHUECH IN THE U. S. A. Ill worship it magnifies God while it brings blessing to man, by insisting upon the right of free access on the part of every soul to Him whose grace cannot be fettered in its ministrations by any human ordinances whatsoever. V. General Statements The missionary, evangelistic and benevolent work of the Presbyterian Church is conducted by nine boards, the names of which, with the dates of organization, are as follows : Home Missions, 1816; Education, 1819 ; Foreign Missions, 1837; Publication, 1838 ; Church Erection, 1844; Ministerial Relief, 185s; Freedmen, 1865; Colleges, 1883; Temperance, 1912. The total contributions to these great causes in 191 4 amounted to ^7>725,935- The theological seminaries for the training of ministers were established as follows : Princeton, N. J., 1812 ; Auburn, N. Y., 1819; Western, Allegheny, Pa., 1827 ; Lane, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1829; McCormick, Chicago, 111., 1830; Kentucky, Louis- ville, Ky., 1853 ; German, Dubuque, Iowa, 1856 ; Biddle (for colored students), Charlotte, N. C, 1868; German, Bloom- field, N. J., 1869; San Francisco, Cal., 1871 ; Lincoln (for colored students), Pa., 187 1 ; and Omaha, Neb., 1894. The statistics of the seminaries for 191 5 are as follows : professors, 88; other teachers, 38; students, 817; total endowments, ^^12,297,633. The whole Church reports for 1915 39 synods, 292 pres- byteries, 9,685 ministers, 42,205 elders, 9,996 churches, 1,513,240 communicants, and contributions for all purposes, $27,785,036. The records of the Church are complete from the beginning, and consist of the records of the General Presbytery, 1 706-1 7 1 6, of the General Synod, 171 7-1 788, and of the General Assembly, 1 789-1914, each in printed form. The Minutes of the General Assembly and the Reports of the Missionary and Benevolent Boards are issued annually. 112 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL The Home Missions of the Church have been continuously upon the frontier of the advancing civilization of the American people. The Foreign Missions of the Church are found in fifteen different countries, and have in the churches connected with them 133,713 members, and 154,139 Sabbath-school scholars. These are not included as a rule in the church statistics. The Presbyterian Churches of Brazil, China, India, Korea, Mexico and the Philippines are daughters of the Ameri- can Church. The latter Church was made independent in 1 914, and accounts for the seeming decrease in number of churches in 1915. The ministers and congregations of the Church have been steadily essential factors in securing the moral and spiritual as well as the material welfare of the Republic. Their influence has been decided upon the political interests of the land, for both the Church and the nation are direct products of the same great reformation of the sixteenth century. The Church has furnished Revolutionary leaders, such as John Witherspoon, and also Presidents of the United States, such as Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleve- land and Woodrow Wilson. In heathen and other lands the Church has exerted a quiet but mighty influence in elevating the standards of morality, in sanctifying the family relation, in introducing the element of fraternity into human relations, and above all in bringing to bear upon great masses of men and women the divine power which accompanies the Gospel of Jesus Christ. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL " Records of the Presbyterian Church, 1705-178 8," with the Minutes of the General Convention, 1 766-1 777, and Indexes, edited by Rev. William H. Roberts, D. D. 8 vo., Iviii., 248. Phila., 1904. *♦ Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., 1 789-191 5." 8 vo., 53 vols. PEESBYTEEIAN CHUECH IN THE U. S. A. 113 "The Presbyterian Digest, 1907," complied by Wm. E. Moore, D. D., with Supplement, 1 898-1906, by Wm. H. Roberts, D. D. 8 vo., pp. Ixi., 1,190. Phila. E. H. Gillett, *« History of the Presbyterian Church." 8 vo.. 2 vols. New York, 1873. C. A. Briggs, "American Presbyterianism." 8 vo., cxliii., 373. New York, 1885. R. C. Reed, D. D., " History of the Presbyterian Churches of the World." 12 mo., pp. 408. Phila., 1912. William H. Roberts, D. D., " Manual for Ruling Elders and Other Church Officers." 12 mo., pp. 477. Phila., 1914. Charles L. Thompson, D. D., *' History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States." 8 vo., pp. 424. New York, 1895. Robert E. Thompson, D. D., " The Story of the Churches. The Presbyterian Church." 12 mo., pp. 312. New York, 1903. E. W. Smith, D. D., "The Creed of Presbyterians." 12 mo., pp. 223. Phila. Thomas Murphy, D. D., " The Presbytery of the Log College or the Cradle of the Presbyterian Church in America." 8 vo., pp. 526. Phila. J. A. Hodge, D. D., "What is Presbyterian Law." 12 mo., pp. 606. Phila. Robert E. Thompson, " The Historic Episcopate." 12 mo., pp. 317. Phila., 191 3. William P. Breed, D. D., " Presbyterians and the Revolu- tion." 16 mo., pp. 205. Phila., 1876. Charles Hodge, " Systematic Theology." 8 vo., 3 vols. New York. Henry B. Smith, " Christian Theology." 8 vo., pp. 630. New York, 1886. A. A. Hodge, " Outlines of Theology." 8 vo., pp. 522. New York, 1883. XV The Presbyterian Church in the United States O (i) ^^^\ RIGIN. This Church owes its existence to the strife which divided the country in 1861. Previ- ous to that time it had been a part of the Old School Presbyterian Church. When the General Assembly met in May, 1861, seven Southern States had already passed ordinances of secession and had organized a new government. The delegates, who composed the Assembly, were divided in their allegiance. The atmosphere was charged with political excitement, and during the proceedings of the Assembly a paper was introduced by Dr. Gardiner Spring of New York pledging the Assembly to the support of the Federal Govern- ment at Washington, D. C. A protest was entered by Dr. Charles Hodge against this action on the ground that "the General Assembly had no right to decide the political question to what government the allegiance of Presbyterians, as citizens, is due, and to make that decision a condition of membership in our Church." The Presbyterians of the South, sympathizing with the views of Dr. Hodge, severed their connections with the Old School Assembly, and proceeded by orderly steps to organize a separate Church. Delegates appointed by forty-seven presbyteries met in Augusta, Ga., on the nth day of December, 1861, and constituted a new Assembly, electing Rev. Benjamin M. Palmer, D. D., Moderator, and Rev. Joseph R. Wilson, D. D., Stated Clerk. This first Assembly published an address to the Churches of Jesus Christ throughout the world giving two rea- sons for the course taken. Separation was (a) necessary in the interest of peace and Christian charity ; and (/^) it was accord- 114 PEESBYTERIAN CHUECH IN THE U. S. 116 ing to historic precedent to make the limit of the Church correspond with the limit of the nation. A new national organization logically involved a new church organization. (2) Method of Growth. The forty-seven presbyteries forming the new Assembly contained about sixty-five thousand white communicants. During the four years of war, the Church shared the disastrous fortunes of the country. Its energies were expended in keeping alive the things that remained that were ready to die, and in furnishing chaplains for the armies. Its only means of growth in this period was by accretions. In 1863 the Independent Presbyterian Church, a small brother- hood in North and South Carolina, was received into the Southern Assembly. The same year a union was effected with the United Synod of the Presbyterian Church, a communion of about 12,000 members which had separated from the New School Assembly in 1858 on the subject of slavery. In 1867, two presbyteries were received from the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, and one from the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. The next year, the Synod of Kentucky transferred its membership from the Northern to the Southern Assembly, and in 1874 a large part of the Synod of Missouri did likewise. The absorption of these various bodies brought in about 282 ministers, 490 churches, and 35,600 communicants. After these unions the Presbyterian Church in the United States embraced the vast majority of all the Presbyterians from the Potomac River to the Rio Grande, and from the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico, and has ever since constituted a remarkably homogeneous and harmonious body. (3) Missionary Work. The Church did not wait to recover from the desolations of the war before beginning to recognize in a practical way its duty and privilege to take part in world- wide evangelization. It planted its first mission on foreign soil in Brazil in 1869. Since that time, with growing strength it has constantly enlarged its work, until now it is sustaining prosperous missions in seven countries, viz. — Brazil, Mexico, 116 CHUECHES OF THE PEDEBAL COUNCIL China, Japan, Korea, Africa, and Cuba. The Church sup- ports on the foreign field 335 missionaries besides a large number of native workers. Its income for this cause for the year 1914 was ^^561, 179, an average per member of ^1.80. An extensive Home Mission work is prosecuted with great and growing vigor. The largest field of operations is on the western borders of Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma. But a work of increasing interest is rapidly developing among eleven different nationalities of the immigrant population scattered throughout the mining regions and cities of the South. The total expenditure of the Church for its Home Mission work in 1914 was ^480,971. (4) Other Agencies. The Church conducts a publishing business with headquarters in Richmond, Va., owning its own plant valued at ^150,000. In connection with this is a Sabbath School Department which furnishes a splendid literature for use in the Sabbath School, and also publishes The Missionary Survey , a magazine covering all the various departments of the Church's benevolent activities. Linked with the work in Richmond is a book depository at Texarkana, Tex. The volume of business for 1914 amounted to ^^227,- 475, yielding a net income of $11,307. Ministerial Education and Relief are combined under one executive agency at Louisville, Ky. There are at present 513 candidates for the ministry in the schools of the Church. Many of these are aided through a beneficiary fund which has an annual income of about $30,000. The Church is raising an endowment fund of $500,000 for aiding infirm ministers and dependent families of deceased ministers. Of this amount $323,000 is in hand, and there is reason to believe that the whole sum will speedily be com- pleted. Until recently a distinct work was carried on for the colored people, but this has been placed in the general category of home missionary work. There are two general lines of activity PEESBYTEEIAN CHUECH m THE U. S. 117 in behalf of the negroes. One is school work, and the other is mission work, usually conducted by individual congregations. Stillman Institute, named in honor of Rev. C. A. Still- man, D. D., in testimony of his great interest in the colored people, is prospering at Tuscaloosa, Ala. A number of the students trained in this school are laboring with marked success in the Congo Free State, Africa. Many Sunday-schools are established and manned by white churches. Two colored presbyteries, one in Alabama and one in Mississippi, are in con- nection with the General Assembly of this Church. They per- sist in maintaining this connection, notwithstanding the General Assembly has advised their withdrawal, thinking they might de- velop more rapidly and more normally if they would undertake to stand alone. Sensible of their need of the nourishing care, and the wise supervision of the Assembly, they will not listen to a separation. (5) Theological and Other Schools. The Church has five seminaries for training ministers, viz. — Union Seminary, Rich- mond, Va. ; Columbia Seminary, Columbia, S. C. ; the Divinity Department of the Southwestern Presbyterian University, Clarks- ville, Tenn. ; the Texas Theological Seminary, Austin, Tex. ; and the Louisville Seminary, Louisville, Ky. This last is jointly owned by the four synods in Kentucky and Missouri, two of which are in connection with the Northern Presbyterian Church and the other two are in connection with the Southern Church. Besides these theological seminaries, there are within the General Assembly, under control of the various sessions, pres- byteries and synods, twenty-seven colleges, twenty academies, thirty-one mountain schools, and twelve orphans' homes and schools. These schools have under their tuition 10,346 pupils, employ 733 teachers, own 402 buildings, and have in their libraries 237,744 books. The property value of all the schools, including the theological seminaries, is ^7,285,506, and the aggregate endowments are ^3,899,979. The specific causes which gave birth to this Church have 118 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL long since passed away. The relations between it and the Church of which it once formed a part are of the most cordial character, enabling them to cooperate in many forms of Chris- tian service. Both Churches, however, have undergone con- siderable modifications, and these furnish to the minds of many sufficient reasons to justify continued separation. It is believed that by maintaining an independent existence the Southern Church, without weakening the bond of love and of inner spiritual unity which binds it closely to all evangelical Churches, can bear a more effective testimony to certain principles which it greatly prizes — such principles, for example, as strict con- struction in the use of creeds ; the exclusively spiritual mission of the Church; and the absolute authority of the Bible as the infallible word of God. In a word, the Church believes that it owes a duty to doctrinal conservatism which it can best dis- charge by maintaining its autonomy. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL The author has written a book on the history of the Presby- terian Churches of the world, and one chapter is devoted to our Southern Church. He has also written a sketch which is published in the " New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge." Apart from these sketches there is nothing recent. The only elaborate history of our Church is by Rev. Thomas C. Johnson, D. D., published by the Christian Literature Company, New York, in 1 894, and a work of distinct merit. XVI The United Presbyterian Church of North America THE United Presbyterian branch of the Christian Church in America is of greater age than at first appears. Though constituted in 1858, its ancestry on this continent goes back more than a hundred years earher to the colonial period. It descends from two Presbyterian bodies in Scotland which are conspicuous in the religious his- tory of that land. By one line the United Presbyterian Church issues from the Covenanters of the seventeenth century, whose contendings and sufferings in behalf of the truth of the Gospel and liberty of conscience will live forever among the heroic traditions of the Kingdom of God. Almost destroyed at the disastrous battle of Bothwell Bridge, the Covenanters maintained their existence and fellowship, under a relentless persecution, by societies for Bible study and prayer. When Presbyterianism was estab- lished again by the Revolution of 1688, the great majority of the Covenanter connection refused to accept the ecclesiastical settlement then made, because it acknowledged the king as the supreme earthly head of the Church and ignored some of the most memorable attainments of the past. Under a strong con- viction of duty they elected to stand outside the General Assembly, and, at length, in 1743 they were organized as the Reformed Presbytery. Large numbers of these testifying people came to America during the persecuting reigns of the Stuarts. Very many more came afterward. In 1751 the Rev. John Cuthbertson, sent by 119 120 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, landed in this country and took up an itinerant ministry among the scattered groups of Covenanters in Pennsylvania. A presbytery was formed on March lo, 1774, at Paxtang, near Harrisburg, Pa. By another line, the main one, the United Presbyterian Church is descended from the Associate Church in Scotland. While those in whom the covenanting spirit burned did not enter the National Church, there were some very like them who grew up among its adherents. It was not long until this element was confronted with the rapid progress of unsoundness in the Church and with grave wrongs in its administration. The doctrines of grace were coming to be slighted, being re- placed by the teaching of a barren morality and a rationalistic view of the deity of Christ. Moreover, the yoke of patronage weighed heavily. This consisted in the appointment of pastors on the mere nomination of titled lay patrons who were land- owners. Often no regard was paid the membership in the choice; and sometimes unworthy and obnoxious men were forced upon the people in spite of their earnest remonstrance. This state of things led to the formation of the Associate Church. A group of evangelical men in the Establishment preached and protested against prevailing corruptions and the grievance of patronage. For this they were subjected to dis- cipline. Failing to find redress they seceded, and in 1733 formed the Associate Presbytery. This was the beginning of the Secession Church, which has had a marked influence on the life, thought, and literature of the Scottish nation. The movement grew rapidly. Soon it was extended to America, where, at "some point on the eastern slope of the valley of the Susquehanna, the Presbytery of Pennsylvania was organized on November 2, 1753, ^^^^» some years later, in May, 1776, the Presbytery of New York. These two kindred Churches, the Associate and the Re- formed Presbyterian, now transplanted to American soil, had so much in common that, in the new circumstances in which THE UNITED PEESBYTEEIAN CHUECH 121 they were placed, they drew nearer each other. They were pervaded by the spirit of the revolution against Great Britain, and felt the necessity for a Church entirely independent of for- eign control and free to adapt itself to American conditions. Beginning in 1777, conferences were held, and at last, on June 15, 1782, the Associate Reformed Church came into ex- istence, the name adopted being commemorative of its origin. This step, instead of blotting out previous divisions, as had been fondly hoped, multiplied the number of Churches, mak- ing three instead of one. All of the organized Covenanter con- gregations and their pastors went cordially into the union, but most of the little isolated societies of this faith did not. Min- isters from the Scotch Reformed Presbyterian Church came to the aid of the dissenting remnant, and the Covenanter Church in America was rebuilt. There were Associate Presbyterians also who stood aloof from the union of 1782. They objected that it did not do justice to the Associate Testimony in some matters and that the mother Church in Scotland had not been consulted. In consequence, the Associate Church continued, and soon filled up its depleted ranks through Scotch and Scotch-Irish immigration. Until 18 18 it was under the over- sight of the Associate Synod of Scotland, though this was little more than nominal ; thereafter the tie was simply fraternal ; in 1852 all relation ended. The Associate and the Associate Reformed Churches were blessed and prospered. Guided by the drift of population, they pushed into the new territory that had been opened up west of the Alleghany Mountains, and congregations were formed more rapidly than they could be furnished with pastoral workers. Both Churches had high ideals as to an educated ministry. Accordingly the Associate Church in 1794 es- tablished a theological seminary at Service, Beaver County, Pa. It was the second denomination of the land to take such action, having been preceded by the Dutcli Reformed Church. In 1805 the Associate Reformed Church founded a seminary in 122 CHUKCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL New York City, the third oldest in the United States. In pro- viding for the needed supply of competent ministers other theological institutions, and also collegiate, were planted from time to time. Notwithstanding the fact that the two Churches were greatly occupied with home missions, owing to the number of destitute places urgently applying for aid, they developed an early interest in foreign work. This led ultimately to the loca- tion of a mission in the Punjab, India, by the Associate Church and of stations in Syria and Egypt by the Associate Reformed Church. The Associate and Associate Reformed Churches existed apart for three-quarters of a century. Yet there was no " mid- dle wall of partition " between them. They were alike in doctrine, worship, government and discipline, the only points in dispute being of a minor nature. The hurtfulness and wrong of separation becoming deeply felt, negotiations were inaugurated looking toward making the two Churches one. Finally, in 1856, the Associate Synod proposed a basis of union which was accepted by the Associate Reformed Synod in 1857, and on May 26, 1858, in Pittsburgh, Pa., the union was consummated formally. The organization into which the two Churches were then brought was called " The United Presbyterian Church of North America," the idea of union being incorporated in the title. This union was not the birth of a new Church, properly speaking. It was but the reorganiz- ing of two closely related Churches of common history. The Associate and the Associate Reformed Churches live on in the United Presbyterian Church. What was distinctive in their views and usages the United Presbyterian Church continued to hold dear ; their colleges, seminaries, and foreign missions it inherited ; their traditions and records it proudly appropriated as its own. In agreement with the union contract, the United Presby^ lerian Church adopted the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, the venerable creed of English-speaking Presbyte- THE UNITED PRESBYTEEIAN CHUECH 123 rianism, but with the Confession revised on the subject of civil magistrates, so as to assert clearly the entire spiritual independ- ence of the Church. There was framed a distinguishing Testimony also of eighteen articles, containing the declarations of doctrine and order on which it was desired that emphasis be laid. This Testimony and the other standards named continue unamended substantially. Subscription thereto, however, while prescribed for those admitted to the ministry and eldership, is no longer asked from the rank and file of the Church ; the present membership covenant confines itself to an avowal of belief in the Scriptures as the Word of God, the infallible and only rule of faith and practice, together with the engagements by which one is committed to the Christian life. A survey of its witnessing principles will show that the United Presbyterian Church cherishes sound experimental views of religion, and particularly that it places heavy stress on the old pillar doctrines of grace. It affirms the sufficiency and fullness of the provisions God has made for the need of a fallen race through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, the Eternal and Only-begotten Son, and the renewing and sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. Echoing its Associate forefathers, it teaches that the Gospel contains a free, unlimited offer of salvation to all sinners alike. The United Presbyterian Church is known for its insistence upon the plenary, verbal inspiration of the Bible. This it esteems to be a truth of the first magnitude. Its strong, un- faltering declaration is that the sacred books of canonical Scrip- ture are on every page the product of divine causality, and are our one inerrant and authoritative source for the knowledge of the revelation of God made to men. The United Presbyterian Church is an earnest advocate of the kingly claims of Jesus Christ as Mediator, pleading for an ampler recognition of His headship in the Church and for His coronation as the Ruler of nations. The undivided dominion of Christ over the Church was that for which both lines of / 124 CHUECHES OF THF FEDEEAL COUNCIL Scottish ancestry battled, and it abides true to the memorable past in maintaining that Christ alone appoints ordinances in the Church and legislates for it. Moreover, together with Covenanting brethren it proclaims the sovereignty of Christ in civil government, and stands for the settlement of all moral questions in national and community life by His revealed will. The enthronement of Jesus as Lord of all is, therefore, a denominational watchword. Another feature of the United Presbyterian Church is its em- ployment of the Psalms of the Bible in the direct praise of God, to the exclusion of all uninspired compositions. It de- clares that the immortal songs of the Holy Spirit, with their measured language of religious feeling and devotion, are the only songs divinely intended for worship. By its position and practice it exalts the matchless hymn-book of the Temple, the hymn-book of Jesus and the Apostles, the hymn-book of the Huguenots and Covenanters and Puritans. Three additional characteristics of the United Presbyterian Church claim attention : its attitude toward oath-bound secret- ism, its principle concerning sacramental fellowship, and its ad- vocacy of public covenanting. Though it does not, as formerly, bar from its membership those identified with secret oath-bound societies, yet the article in the Testimony stands unchanged. Such orders are condemned as often Christless in ritual and teaching, as prejudicial to brotherhood in the Church, as being a door into entangling worldly alliances, as interfering with freedom of conscience by imposing an obligation to obey a code of unknown laws, and as violating the sanctity of the oath. With the purpose of safeguarding the Lord's Supper and its own profession and discipline, the United Presbyterian Church has held to restricted communion, as opposed to both latitudinarian and close communion. However, in the exercise of the dis- cretionary powers lodged in sessions the Church is gliding in- sensibly into what is virtually open communion, it being com- mon to invite to sacramental privilege those who are members THE UOTTED PEESBYTEEIAN CHUEOH 125 of sister evangelical Churches. Even so, the right and the responsibility of sessions to control the administration of the Lord's Supper and to refuse admission thereto remain. The United Presbyterian Church witnesses also to the value and duty of social covenanting. As it may be deemed timely, God's people in their collective capacity are to engage in re- newals of their dedication to Him whose they are and whom they serve. Retaining the sturdy character, the conservative spirit, and the positiveness of doctrine of its ancestry, the United Presby- terian Church is also noted for its aggressive Christian activity. As regards world-wide evangelism, its liberal and well-directed policy has put it in the place of recognized leadership among the Churches. Its three foreign fields are located in the Pun- jab, India, in Egypt, and in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and in each of these fields the Lord of the harvest has bestowed a fullness of blessing. In home missions also the United Pres- byterian Church has had equal interest, striving to do its whole part in taking possession of the American Republic for Christ and His Kingdom. It was one of the first denomina- tions to gird itself for service among the emancipated Negroes of the South, and its labors in this sphere continue to be prose- cuted with unabated fidelity and abundant success. It had much to do in putting before the Churches the Men's Move- ment. From it largely has come the Every Member Canvass, now so widely adopted. It was a pioneer in the development of young people's societies and of organized women's work. To a degree almost unmatched it has dealt faithfully and fear- lessly with the great reform questions which have enlisted Christian sentiment and effort, taking a radical attitude of sup- port with reference to every one of them. In the matter of ed- ucational enterprise there is less to be said. Here it has lagged as compared with its advancement in other directions, for its five colleges and two theological seminaries remain imperfectly endowed. Notwithstanding this fact, these institutions are 126 CHUECHES OF THE PEDEEAL COUlsrCIL training their students in accordance with present-day standards and meeting the Church's need. The United Presbyterian Church, with its homogeneous, re- liable ministry, with its substantial, earnest-minded people, with its heritage of truth, its working efficiency, and its experience of revival, is looking forward with confidence. Free from sec- tarian temper, cherishing tenderness of sympathy with all Christian brethren, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, believing that there is ^'one Lord, one faith, one baptism," it enrolls itself among the evangelical Churches which are bent on winning the future for Christ. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL "The American Church History Series," Volume XI, pages 145-255, by Rev. James B. Scouller, D. D. " Presbyterians," edited by the Rev. George P. Hays, D. D., pages 425-450, article prepared by the Rev. W. J. Reid, D. D., and the Rev. A. G. Wallace, D. D., LL. D. ** Tenth Anniversary Memorial Volume of the Young People's Christian Union," pages 5-27, an article by Rev. John McNaugher, D. D., LL. D., entitled "The United Presbyterian Church — its Origin and Mission." " The Church Memorial," by Rev. R. D. Harper, D. D. '* Manual of the United Presbyterian Church of North America," by Rev. James B. Scouller, D. D. " Manual of the United Presbyterian Church of North America," by Rev. W. M. Glasgow. XVII The Reformed Presbyterian Church ( General Synod') THE Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod, distinguished from the Reformed Presbyterian Church Synod by the word ''General," is also known as "New School," ''New Light," and " New Side " ; while the Synod Reformed Presbyterians are known as "Old School," "Old Light," and "Old Side." The formation of the two synods resulted from the disruption of 1833, previous to which the Church was known as " The Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States of North America." Both branches are called "Covenanters," from their maintenance of the Scotch Covenants of Reformation days. The term " Reformed Pres- byterians," sometimes misunderstood, does not imply a superior form of Presbyterianism, but rather "Reformed" and "Pres- byterian " ; that is, a denomination originating in the Refor- mation period and Presbyterian in its form of church govern- ment. The Presbyterian Church, also called The Church of Scot- land and the Reformed Church of Scotland, was founded in 1557 by John Knox and his followers, and in 1560 its Confes- sion of Faith was established by Act of the Scotch Parliament. In 1580-1581 the famous National Covenant was drawn up by command of the king, renouncing popery and engaging to de- fend the Reformed faith. After a long period of turmoil, and opposition from the crown, the Presbyterian constitution was established by law in 1592, the king having preferred Episco- palianism. In 1603 King James Stuart ofScotland became also 127 128 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL king of England ; and he and his successor, Charles I, labored zealously to uproot Presbyterianism in Scotland. By the in- fluence of King James, the Assembly of 1610 adopted Episco- pacy. Charles' efforts to make the Scotch Church Episcopalian provoked a national resistance which issued in the National Covenant of 1638, which was an agreement by all classes to re- sist by force the introduction of bishops and the prayer-book. The Assembly of 1 638 abolished Episcopacy and restored Pres- byterianism. In 1642 the Civil War in England between king and Parlia- ment began. To buy the aid of the Scotch, Parliament decided to make the English Church Presbyterian. This was consum- mated by the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, the sign- ers taking the oath to labor for *' the preservation of the re- formed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, wor- ship, discipline, and government, . . . the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doc- trine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the Word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches," and to endeavor ** to bring the Churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of church government, direction for worship, and catechizing. This era, 1 638-1 649, is called the Second Reformation. With the execution of King Charles in 1649, England entered upon the era of the Commonwealth, with Oliver Cromwell as ruler of the British Isles. Charles II now landed in Scotland to regain his father's throne, and on his taking the oath to the Covenant and agreeing to rule as a covenanted king, the Scotch enthusiastically flocked to his^ standard. Cromwell, however, routed him and drove him into exile. Cromwell dismissed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and forbade it to meet, but in other respects left the Church free to do its work, so that up to 1660 it flourished exceedingly. THE EEFOEMED PEESBYTEEIAN CHUECH 129 In 1660 Charles II was restored to the throne of England and a new era commenced. Up to this time Covenanter and Presbyterian had been synonymous terms. Now the diver- gence begins. Both Covenants were abolished at the Resto- ration, and their adherents were severely persecuted. Those who forsook the Covenants for any reason and bowed before the royal wrath were the ancestors of the Presbyterian Church as finally established in 1690. Those who maintained the Covenants and therefore were persecuted were the Cov- enanters, the ancestors of the Reformed Presbyterians. The Covenanters were all Presbyterians, but not all Presbyterians were Covenanters. Naturally the martyrs of the persecution period, 1 660-1 688, were all Covenanters, and it is an anach- ronism to claim them for the Presbyterian Church. Charles II, despising his covenant oath, induced the sub- servient Scotch Parliament to declare the headship of the king over the Church, to pronounce the Covenants null and void, and, in short, by a number of acts, to bring everything back to the year 1638, before the meeting of the General Assembly of that year. The Scotch Church was made Episcopalian, a full prelatical regime was put into operation, and all ministers not falling in with the new order of things were deprived of their charges. Three hundred and fifty ministers thus suffered in obedience to conscience. The era of persecution, 1660-1 688, is a dreary and terrible one, and we must refer the reader to special volumes upon the subject. About 20,000 suffered death or ut- most hardships for their faith in Christ, among whom 7,000 went into voluntary banishment, 2,500 were shipped to distant lands, 800 were outlawed, 680 killed in battle, 500 murdered in cold blood, and 362 were executed by forms of law. Be- tween spells of persecution would come spells of indulgence, granting a stoppage of persecution to those who were willing to compromise somewhat between Episcopacy and the Cov- enants, until the active resistant Covenanter ministers were worn down to a very few. Among these was Richard Cam- 130 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL eron, who issued the Sanquhar Declaration renouncing alle- giance to Charles II and declaring war on him, and who was therefore hunted down and killed at the battle of Airsmoss ; Donald Cargill, who was hanged for excommunicating the king ; and James Renwick, the last martyr of the Covenanted Reformation. But in 1688 the Stuarts were driven from the throne of England, and with the accession of William of Orange came the act of Toleration which put an end to relig- ious persecution in Great Britain. A general reorganization in both religious and political matters now took place in both England and Scotland. Will- iam, King of England and Scotland, allowed each country to choose its own form of church government. England chose Episcopacy, Scotland chose Presbyterianism. In 1690 the Scotch Parliament passed an Act of Settlement, abolishing prelacy and adopting the Westminster Confession. The Church Assembly was composed of men of all shades of relig- ious belief, persecutors, persecuted, and neutrals. The Cov- enants were ignored, and Erastianism (the subservience of the Church to the State) was established. At this point the Pres- byterian Church of Scotland, as distinct from the Covenanter or Reformed Presbyterian Church, enters upon its existence. From this time on the Covenanters, adhering to the Cov- enants, claimed the pre-revolution martyrs as peculiarly their own. The Covenanters or Cameronians stated that the ends of the Covenant had not been attained, and being deadly op- posed to Erastianism, withdrew from the Presbyterian Church and organized themselves into a society for religious purposes. For sixteen years they were without a minister, until in 1706 Rev. John McMillan acceded to them from the Presbyterian Church. After many years of labor. Rev. Thomas Nairn joined him, and in 1743 they constituted the Reformed Pres- bytery in Scotland. For a century the Church grew rapidly, but to-day is very small, nearly all of its members having joined either the Free Presbyterian or the United Presbyterian THE EEFORMED PRESBYTEEIAN CHUECH 131 Church of Scotland, two Churches which themselves have lately united to form the United Free Church of Scotland. The Reformed Presbyterian Church in America In the early part of the eighteenth century, Reformed Presby- terians began to emigrate to America and endeavored to main- tain a clear testimony for the full attainment of the Scottish Reformation. In 1743 they met at Middle Octarara and renewed the Covenant. In 1798 a presbytery was organized in Philadelphia. In 1800 it enacted a law that no slaveholder should be a communicant, a position always maintained. This was the first Church to do so. In 1806 they published a testimony entitled "Reformation Principles Exhibited by the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States of America," giving a history of the Church and a statement of its doctrine. While conceding honor where honor is due, they did not hesitate to criticize the Federal Constitution. It makes no recognition of God or of the Mediatorial Sovereignty of Christ. Therefore they declined to swear allegiance to it, to vote, or to perform any civic act that might be construed as a recognition of the government. Why did they maintain the principles of the Covenant on American soil — a Covenant that had been made for the British Isles only ? First, because their view had expanded, so that they now saw that Messiah's Kingdom extended over the whole earth. Secondly, because Episcopalian and Presbyterian im- migrants were advocating Episcopacy and Erastianism, which the Covenanters felt themselves bound to attack wherever advocated. In 1809 the one presbytery was divided into three, and a synod established — the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States of North America. During the next twenty years it became evident that some of the ministers were disposed to modify their views regarding the attitude of the Church toward the civil government. This with other 132 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL minor causes resulted in a disruption of the Church and the formation of two distinct synods in 1833, called respect- ively the Synod and the General Synod of the Reformed Presby- terian Church, as stated at the beginning of this article. The Synod maintained that voting under the Constitution involves immorality. The General Synod maintains that voting does not involve immorality, a position that makes it so near like several other American denominations as to dim its individu- ality. The General Synod has twenty ministers, seventeen con- gregations, and about 2,000 communicants. It has a college at Cedarville, Ohio, and a seminary there also, recently removed from Philadelphia. The fact that America has never had an established Church, and the fact that the Federal Constitution forbids any political discrimination on account of religion, puts a different phase on the doctrine that it is the duty of all Christians to labor so that the "Kingdoms " of this world may become the Kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ. The phrase is coming to be employed in a spiritual-figurative sense ; namely, to convert nations by converting individuals ; and then perforce the nations will be Christian. Experience has shown that union of Church and State (government) has always ended in the Church becoming the servant of the State. The Declaration and Testimony of the Church contains thirty-three articles, which maintain the cardinal principles of Calvinism, Election, and so forth. It stands for the Crown Rights and Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ as Ruler of nations. The Covenanters have not accepted the Revised Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church. They main- tain Social Covenanting, and Close Communion, limited to those whom the Session invites. They maintain the exclusive use of the Psalms for worship. Lastly, the General Synod in 1907 reaffirmed its pronouncement on secret societies as follows : ** Resolved that General Synod reaffirms her position for- THE EEFOEMED PEESBYTEEIAN CHUECH 133 bidding not only pastors and elders, but also members of our Church, to have any connection with, or membership in oath- bound secret societies which are immoral or unmoral or which deny the divinity of Jesus Christ." BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL ** Reformation Principles Exhibited by the Reformed Presby- terian Church in the U. S. A., an Historical View.'* Charles T. Dillingham and Co., New York, 1892. " The Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland," Rev. Mathew Hutchinson. J. Menzies and Co., Edinburgh, 1893. XVIII The Welsh Calvinistic Methodist {or Presbyterian) Church IT is necessary, in connection With the American branch of this Church, briefly to describe the rise and growth of the mother Church in Wales. The Church was, in origin, independent of, and, in organization, prior to, English Methodism. The Welsh Methodist revival, properly so called, began in 1 735-1 736, through the earnest ministry of Howell Harris, Daniel Rowlands, and Howell Davies ; the first a lay- man, the two latter Episcopal clergymen. The work of Welsh religious reform was carried on at first wholly within the Estab- lished Church. The first society was organized at Erwood, in Brecknockshire in 1 736 ; and the first general association was held at Watford, Glamorganshire, January 5 and 6, 1742, two years and a half prior to the first conference of English Methodists, convened by Wesley in London. The moderator at the Watford Association was, by invitation, the Rev. George Whitfield. From 1751 to 1762 the denomination grew but little, owing to internal dissensions, but in 1 762-1 763 a great revival welded the conflicting factions into an indissoluble union. The year 1785 was signalized by the accession of the Rev. Thomas Charles, of Bala, whose great work was the organizing of the denominational Sabbath schools. The study of the Scriptures in these schools, by the whole church, led to a demand for Welsh Bibles beyond the then means of supply, and, as a consequence, to the formation in 1801 of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The formal act of separation from the Established Church was forced upon the denomination by its rapid growth. Communion in the few parish churches 134 WELSH CALVmiSTIC METHODIST CHUECH 135 having ' ' Methodistic " rectors became impossible to a body numbering its members by tens of thousands, and ordained ministers were but few in number. In the general associations held at Bala, and at Llandilo Fawr, in 1811, twenty-one persons were therefore ordained to the office of the ministry by ministers who had been themselves episcopally ordained, and a separate church organization was established based upon the Presbyterian Polity as that of the New Testament. In 1 813 the Home Mission Society was organized for work in the English districts bordering on Wales. In 1823 a confession of faith was adopted. In 1839 a theological seminary was established at Bala, and in 1842 another at Trevecca. The work of Foreign Missions was carried on until 1840 in connec- tion with the London Missionary Society ; but since that date the Church has maintained missions of its own in Khassia, India, in Brittany to the Breton kinsmen of the Welsh, and in London to the Jews. The last step in its organization was taken by the constitution of the General Assembly at Swansea in 1864. The Church is in numbers, influence and Christian work the foremost Church of the Principality. Welsh immigrants came to the American Colonies in con- siderable numbers during the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies. As early as 1690 a Welsh Presbyterian congregation was gathered in the Great Valley, Chester Co., Pa., and was ministered to after 1 700 by the Rev. David Evan, who was the first licentiate educated by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. The Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church in America is, however, directly connected with the Church of the Principality. The earliest separate congregation in the United States was established at Remsen, Oneida Co., N. Y., in 1826, and the first presbytery was held on the loth of May, 1828. The Synod of New York was established in the same year, the Synod of Ohio in 1832, that of Wisconsin in 1844, and that of Pennsylvania in 1845. A General Assem- bly was erected in 1869, and has been represented in all of 136 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL the Councils of the " World Alliance of the Presbyterian Churches.'* The Church conducts home mission work through a com- mittee, and sustains jointly with the Church in the mother land foreign mission work in India. The doctrines of the Confession of this Church are in sub- stantial agreement with the doctrines of the Westminster Con- fession. The word ''Methodist " in its name is, therefore, to be understood as defining not a form of doctrine or polity, but methods of Christian life and work. The Confession is published both in English and Welsh. The Church uses no liturgy, and its services are simple, characterized by earnestness, and conducted, as a rule, in the Welsh language. A monthly denominational magazine, The Friend from the Old Country ^ of which the Rev. William H. Roberts, D. D., was for a long time editor, has been sus- tained for more than seventy years. The younger members of the congregations, as a rule, connect themselves, in time, with the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, so that the Welsh Church is largely composed of older per- sons, and recent immigrants. Statistics (19 14) Number of Synods, .... 6 Number of Churches, - . - . 147 Number of Ministers, . - - - ^2 Number of Communicants, - - - 14,231 Number of Sabbath School Scholars, - - 10,594 BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL " Welsh Methodism," by John Hughes. 3 vols. 1 851-1856. (In Welsh.) "Welsh Calvinistic Methodism," by Williams. 1892. Annual year books of the denomination. XIX The Reformed Church in America History and Development AMONG the Churches that trace their origin and lineage to that great spiritual revival known as the Reforma- tion, the Reformed Church in America holds an hon- orable place. Not fully established until 1581, she was still young when Hendrick Hudson sailed up the river that bears his name, in 1509, and had but just adopted a complete statement of doc- trine in the famous Synod of Dort, in 1618-1619, when the West India Company took possession of Manhattan Island in the name of the Dutch government, and called it New Amster- dam. True to the tradition of their fathers the Dutch colonists brought their religious convictions and customs with them to these shores ; among the first were the schoolmaster and "the visitors of the sick," and it was not long before a pastor came to them from the Netherlands, and a church organization was effected in 1628; this may not have been the first Protestant church in this Western world, but it certainly was the first church of the Presbyterian order. The first minister was the Rev. Jonas Michaelius, who was sent out by the Classis of Amsterdam under the auspices and at the expense of the West India Company. As the colony grew, churches were established in Brooklyn and other parts of Long Island, as well as along the Hudson River and in New Jersey; until at the time of the surrender of 137 138 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL New Amsterdam, in 1664, there were eleven churches and seven ministers in the province. With the coming in of the English there was begun a de- termined attempt to establish the Episcopal Church as the official Church of New York. No stone was left unturned to bring this about ; but the Dutch had refused to surrender till their religious liberties had been guaranteed ; and although they were much opposed by the English governors, they main- tained their rights and extended their Church as opportunity offered. In the further development of their church life the Dutch people had many obstacles to overcome, and their growth was not rapid. One difficulty was the peculiar relation which the Church sus- tained, on the one hand, to the Classis of Amsterdam, and on the other to the West India Company ; for nearly a century and a half they had no ecclesiastical independence; this handi- capped them in the matter of church extension, and in the ex- ercise of discipline, but was a special drawback in connection with the supply of ministers for the new churches, as they were established ; no minister could receive a license except from the Classis of Amsterdam ; the expenditure of time and money involved was so great that it was not possible to supply the churches with pastors. When after a long struggle there seemed to be a well-founded hope that a fair degree of ecclesiastical in- dependence was to be granted, a bitter controversy arose within the Church itself with reference to this issue, the conse- quence of which was that the life and activity of the churches was much interrupted, and their development was seriously checked. Another difficulty with which they had to contend arose from the introduction of the Enghsh language into the public services. While the Dutch had no love for the English, and were very tenacious of their own tongue, they stood face to face with the fact that each succeeding generation retained less THE EEFOEMED CHUECH IN AMEEICA 139 familiarity with the old language than that which went before, and it became increasingly difficult to retain the young people for the Dutch Church, while the exclusive use of the Dutch language was insisted on in the public services ; the result was that many went over to other Churches, especially to the Episcopal Church. The Revolutionary War also made serious inroads upon the growth of the Reformed Church, inasmuch as the territory in which she operated suffered more severely perhaps than any other in the colonies from the devastation of war ; in the struggle for national independence the descendants of the Dutch took a very prominent and honorable part, but the war absolutely checked for the time being the development of the Church. It may be added that for many decades thereafter there was little or no immigration of people from the Netherlands, and the Churches were dependent upon natural increase for their growth. All of these causes, except the war, continued to operate for many years, so that other branches of Protestantism and even of Presbyterianism outstripped the Reformed Church, and while it enjoyed prestige and produced many distinguished men in Church and State, it remained relatively a small denomina- tion. A new impetus was given when in the middle of the nine- teenth century (1847) a very considerable immigration set in from the Netherlands, which has continued to flow, as a more or less steady stream, up to the present time. Under splendid religious leadership prosperous colonies were established in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and other states in the Middle West, reaching now to the Pacific slope. The Churches established in these various colonies now con- stitute the Particular Synod of Chicago, comprising 240 churches, 30,000 communicants, and contributing during the past year more than ;^5oo,ooo. 140 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL The entire Church now has a little more than 700 churches, with 774 ministers, and 127,000 communicants, 24,500 catechumens, 800 Sunday-schools with an enrollment of 129,- 000. It gives over ^500,000 annually for benevolent objects and last year raised a total for all objects of ^2,500,000. The Church comprises thirty-six classes, or presbyteries, divided in four Particular Synods, known respectively as the Synods of New York, New Brunswick, Albany and Chicago. The highest ecclesiastical body is the General Synod which meets annually in June. , Characteristics I. The Reformed Church has always strongly emphasized education f especially as related io preparation for the Christian ministry. The early colonists brought their schoolmaster with them, and it was always expected that the minister would be educated and able to educate others ; the men that came to minister to the little churches in the provinces were university- bred, and this requirement was never relinquished ; the Church insists upon an educated ministry and prescribes a college and seminary training. The Reformed Church was perhaps the first to make provision for distinctively theological training in this country. Failing in the attempt to establish a chair of Theology in Kings College, now Columbia University, and at Princeton, they established an educational institution of their own at New Brunswick, N. J., calling it Queens College, in 1767, and in connection therewith and as a crown thereof, a theological chair, whose first incumbent was the Rev. Dr. John H. Livingston, who was also president of the college during the latter years of his long and useful life. He has been called **the father of the Reformed Church," as by his signal ability and conciliatory spirit he was able to bring order out of chaos and peace out of dissension, and to organize the denomination into an aggressive force. When, as the result of the later immigration, the Church was THE EEFOEMED CHURCH IN AMERICA 141 established in the Middle West, the first thought of the leaders was to plant an academy, which has grown into a strong col- lege,^ and a theological seminary ^ has been added, and academies have been established as feeders to these institutions, in Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. 2. A second characteristic of the Reformed Church in America is its conservative theological positioti. As the name implies, it holds to the Reformed type of Protestant theology, as represented by John Calvin. In common with all the old Reformed Churches, it makes the Bible the only rule of faith and practice. But it accepts certain summaries or statements of revealed truths, which are known as its confessions or creeds \ these were drawn up *< when the Reformation spirit was in the fullness of its youthful vigor, and are considered useful as a guide to the organized efficiency of the Church." Of these the Reformed Church accepts three : (a) The Belgic Confession, prepared in 156 1 by GuidoDe Bres of Belgium, assisted by Calvin and other prominent leaders of the Reformed Church in the Netherlands, France and Eng- land. This Confession, which presents under thirty-seven articles a carefully prepared statement of our doctrinal belief, was finally adopted by the great Synod of Dort, April 19, 161 9, as the doctrinal basis of the Reformed Church, and as such was brought over and retained as the creed of the Re- formed Church in this country. (b) The Heidelberg Catechism, orginally composed for the Protestants of the Palatinate in Germany, in 1563, but early adopted by the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands for the purposes of instruction. It is not a complete system of doc- trine, but a brief treatise, in catechetical form, concerning the doctrine of salvation, in which the Apostolic Confession, the Law, the Sacraments and the Lord's Prayer are explained ; it arranges its matter under this threefold division : 1 Hope College and the Western Theological Seminary at Holland, Michigan. 142 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL (i) The misery of man caused by sin ; (ii) God's plan of deliverance from sin ; (iii) The Christian's gratitude for this deliverance. In this manual of instruction the subjective and experimental side of the Christian life are emphasized, and many of its statements have been regarded as among the most beautiful gems of religious truth extant. This is the most popular of the three symbols. (<:) The Canons of the Synod of Dorty which set forth the faith of the Church in regard to the questions raised in the Arminian controversy ; it is a document consisting of five articles, now popularly known as " the five points of Calvin- ism." " It stands as a monument on the battle-field, where the fiercest struggle for the settlement of the great principles of the Reformation in Holland took place." These standards in- dicate the conservative theological position of the Reformed Church. 3. But another characteristic of the Reformed Church is its catholicity. While continuing true to the great principles of the Reformation, as they were annunciated by Calvin, it has sought *'to keep clear of an offensive bigoted orthodoxism." It has cultivated a charitable spirit with reference to those hold- ing other views ; its confessions are of a moderate type, laying supreme emphasis upon the personal acceptance of Jesus Christ, and on the new life resulting from fellowship with Him. Says Dr. J. D. Burrell, " The Reformed Church stands for catholicity. Not for a spurious catholicity, or so-called * liberalism,' which involves a compromise of both truth and principle. At that point there can be no compromise. . . . It is intensely loyal to its honorable traditions. It stands for truth, for broad catholicity, for holy zeal. Its people, undis- turbed by strifes and jealousies, can sing with heart and under- standing : ' Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.' " Says Dr. F. S. Schenck of New Brunswick Seminary : THE EEFOEMED CHUECH m AMEEICA 143 " The character, training and history of our Church draw us into fraternal relations with other denominations. Our cus- toms and usages, while precious to us, do not lead us to criti- cize or interfere with the customs or doctrine, government or worship of our sister Churches, but on the contrary tend to a hearty union and cooperation with them in the worship and work of the Church universal ; we look at the values we have in common and strive together to glorify God and to bless man- kind. We also cultivate a spirit of sympathy and cooperation with the undenominatical agencies of the Church, and heartily support the Bible and Tract Societies, the Young Men's Chris- tian Associations and kindred organizations." 4. Another distinguishing characteristic of the Reformed Church in America is i/s missioiiary zeal and activity. Both its domestic and foreign work are prosecuted with vigor, and have been very successful. While its home work is directed chiefly to the Hollanders and Germans in the West, it does a splendid work among the Indians of the West and Southwest, and among the mountain whites of Kentucky, and is carrying on aggressive work among the Jews in and about Chicago, the Japanese in New York, and has begun to reach out among the Italians, Hungarians and Poles. In this effort it is true to the noble old type. Mega- polensis, the first pastor at Rensselaerwyck (Albany), preached to the Indians even before Eliot began his famous work, and all the old churches of the colony were deeply interested in the spiritual welfare of the people around them. In foreign missions the Reformed Church has always shown a special interest and taken a leading part. The Board of Foreign Missions, now in the eighty-second year of its ex- istence, operated through '* the American Board of Commission- ers for Foreign Missions " for the first twenty-five years of its existence, but for fifty-nine years has worked independently and with signal success. The first missionary of the Reformed Church was Dr. John 144 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL Scudder, who went to Ceylon in connection with the Ameri- can Board in 1819; since then ** the Scudders " have been a feature of the Reformed Church, especially upon the mission field. The missions now operated by the Board are five : («) The Amoy Mission, China, is the oldest, having been begun in 1842. It occupies exclusively a district in the province of Fukien, containing about six thousand square miles, and a population roughly estimated at three miUions. The first church building erected by Protestants in Amoy, for Chinese worshipers only, was built by Mr. Pohlman, and still stands as his monument. The mission force, occupying four principal stations, con- sists of thirty missionaries, for whose work ^34,000 are ap- propriated. {b) The Arcot Mission, India, was organized in 1853 by three sons of Dr. John Scudder ; forty missionaries are now connected with it ; its field, in which no other mission is found, is in the Madras Presidency, and embraces 8,333 square miles, with a population of 2,400,000 ; it has nine principal stations and two hundred out-stations j the appropriations for this work amount to ^68,000. (/) A mission to Japan was begun in 1859, when the Rev. G. F. Verbeck and the Rev. S. R. Brown with Dr. D. B. Simmons sailed for that empire. The North Japan Mission has a force of twenty-one mission- aries; it occupies five principal stations with forty-two out- stations; appropriations, ^41,000. (d) The South Japan Mission has its field in the large southern island of Kiushui. Fifteen missionaries occupy five stations ; appropriations, ^30,000. ((?) The Arabian Mission was established as an independent and undenominational mission for special work among the Mohammedans in 1889; it was adopted by the Reformed Church in 1894; it has access to a population estimated at THE EEFOEMED CHUECH IN AMEEICA 146 1,600,000; in this field, where there is no other mission, there are thirty-three missionaries ; appropriations, $34,000. Sum??iary : Missionaries representing the Reformed Church, 141 ; these occupy twenty-seven separate stations, and, in association with the native agency, 320 out-stations. There are 700 native helpers ; forty-six organized churches with a membership of over 6,000, who contributed last year about ;^ 1 5, 000 for the maintenance of their own work. In the twenty hospitals and dispensaries 140,000 patients were treated last year. The Board of Foreign Missions administers funds, con- tributed by churches and individuals, which now approximate $300,000 annually. The Reformed Church has been called ** the Gibraltar of orthodoxy and the Klondike of missions." Dr. Francis E. Clark, on his return from a recent trip around the world, said : "I have made a canvass of the mis- sionary stations wherever I have gone, and nowhere have I found anything superior to the work which is being done by the Reformed Church in Japan, India, China and Arabia; the success of your missionaries is a proverb. And they them- selves, your Verbeck, your Scudders and Zwemers and Cham- berlains and others, are mighty men of God." The Reformed Church holds itself subject to orders in the conquest of the world for Christ. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL Dr. E. T. Corwin, recently passed away, was the historian of our Church par excellence. I name his contributions first of all ; in fact, if any one will consult these, he will be in- troduced to all the rest of the sources, and will find that he scarcely had need to go any farther. Edward Tanjore Corwin, D, D. ; "A Manual of the Reformed Church in America " (i 628-1 902). Fourth Edition ; revised and enlarged. Published by the 146 CHUECHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL Board of Publication of the Reformed Church in America in New York, 1902. ** History of the Reformed Church in America," in the Church History Series, Vol. VIII, 1895. *' Original Documents on the Colonial History of New York and New Jersey," in six volumes, published by the Legis- lature of the State of New York, under the direction of the State Historian, Hon. Hugh Hastings; 1900-19 10. I will next mention two volumes in the preparation and editing of which Dr. Corwin had a prominent part. Next to his own "Manual," I consider these the most informing of the books that I shall name: " Centennial Discourses," a series of sermons delivered in the year 1876 by the order of the General Synod of the Re- formed Church in America. Published by the Board of Publication of the Reformed Church in America, New York, 1877. " Centennial of the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church in America," 1 784-1 884. Board of Publication of the Reformed Church in America, New York, 1885. David D. Demaresty D. D. : " History and Characteristics of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in America." Published by the Board of Publica- tion of the Reformed Church in America, New York, 1856. "Notes on the Constitution of the Reformed Church in America." Same publisher, 1896. I would include the " History of the Reformed Church in the United States," 1 725-1 792, by Rev. James I. Good. Published by Daniel Miller, Reading, Pa., in 1899. (The early history of the German Reformed Church was closely connected with that of the Dutch Church ; hence the value of this book in the study of the history of our own Church.) For a short resume of the history of the Reformed Church in the Netherlands, which needs to be known to understand the history of our Church in this country, the following is valuable : THE REFOEMED CHUECH IN AMEEICA 147 "The Reformed Church in the Netherlands," 1340-1 840; short historical sketches by Rev. Maurice G. Hansen. Published by the Board of Publication of the Reformed Church in America, New York City, 1884. J. R. Brodhead: " Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York." Albany, 1856. E. B. O'Callaghan: "History of New Netherland." Published in New York in 1855. " Documentary History of the State of New York." Albany, 1850. Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer : " History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century." Dr. Frederick Zwierlein : ** Religion in New Netherland." Thesis for degree at Uni- versity of Louvain (Roman Catholic), 19 10. These I believe to be the most reliable sources in the English language for the study of the history of our Church. The first essential is acquaintance with the history of the Re- formed Churches in Europe, particularly in the Netherlands. XX The Reformed Church in the United States THE Reformed Church in the United States traces its origin back to the Reformation and claims to be the direct descendant of Zvvingli at Zurich, Calvin at Geneva, and of the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism, Ursinus and Olevianus at Heidelberg. It was founded by Germans and Swiss, who came to America in the early part of the eighteenth century. Its history is divided into three parts: I. The Period of the Coetus; II. The Period of the Synod; III. The Period of the General Synod. I. The Period of the Coetus (i 725-1 792) The first congregation was founded by Rev. John Henry Hoeger at Germana Ford, on the Rapidan River, Virginia, in 1 714. This congregation afterward removed westward and founded what are now the Reformed Churches of the Shenan- doah Valley. But Pennsylvania was the early stronghold of the Church. Rev. Samuel Guldin came to America in 1710, but although he occasionally preached, yet he seems to have done nothing toward organizing the Church. The Church owes its first organization to a layman, John Philip Boehm, a schoolmaster who lived east of Norristovvn, Pa., at Witpen. He was assisted in this by another schoolmaster, Conrad Templeman, near Lebanon. Boehm, owing to the lack of ordained ministers, was asked by the Reformed people to hold religious services and perform ministerial acts. He after some hesitancy complied and organized three congregations, Falkner Swamp (east of Pottstown, Pa.), Skippack, up the Perkiomen 148 THE EEFOEMED CHUECH IN THE U. S. 149 Valley, and White-Marsh, north of Philadelphia, in 1725. In 1727 he also organized the congregations at Conestoga (near Lancaster) and Tulpehocken (near Lebanon). These congre- gations adopted a constitution drawn up by him. In it the creeds are the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort, and the congregational organization was presbyterial. In 1727 Rev. George Michael Weiss came from Heidelberg to Pennsylvania and founded the congregation at Philadelphia. The coming of Rev. Michael Schlatter in 1746 led to the completed organization of the Church. He came over, ap- pointed by the Reformed Church of the Netherlands, with in- structions to organize the German Reformed congregations of Pennsylvania. With great energy and diligence he travelled through Pennsylvania, Maryland, and even Virginia and led to the organizations of a coetus at Philadelphia, September 29, 1747, in which were four ministers and the representatives of twelve charges. A coetus did not have the authority of a classis or presbytery, for this coetus was under the authority of the Classis of Amsterdam in Holland. It did not have the right of separate jurisdiction (could not ordain) without the au- thority of that classis and its actions were reviewed by it. In 1748 the second coetus was held at Philadelphia, which com- pleted the organization by adopting a constitution which was Boehm's constitution of 1725 somewhat enlarged. Like it, it made the creeds of the Church to be the Heidelberg Cate- chism and the Canons of Dort, and its government was pres- byterial. Mr. Schlatter went back to Europe, but returned in 1752, bringing with him six young ministers sent by the Re- formed Church of the Netherlands. These were followed by others sent over by the same Church. The coetus continued under the control of the Church in Holland until 1792. Dur- ing that time the Holland Church sent over thirty-eight min- isters and spent about ^20,000 on the Pennsylvania Churches. During that period the Church spread south as far as South Carolina and Georgia, and north and east into New Jersey, 150 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL New York, and even to Nova Scotia, though the more distant congregations were never connected with the coetus. In 1792 the coetus virtually declared itself independent of the Church in the Netherlands owing mainly to the difficulty of corre- spondence across the ocean. II. The Period of the Synod The first meeting of the synod was held at Lancaster, April 27> 1793- By the adoption of a new constitution it became independent of Holland. The statistics of the Church at that time were twenty-two ministers, one hundred and seventy- eight congregations and about fifteen thousand members. The first problem before the synod was the change of language from German to English. This led to conflicts in some of the congregations, notably Philadelphia and Baltimore. It was finally solved, after many years of controversy and much loss to the denomination, by the gradual introduction of the Eng- lish language into the church services. The second problem before the synod was the supply of ministers. In 1820 the synod which had just divided itself into classes decided to found a theological school, but owing to various difficulties the theological seminary did not open until 1825, when it opened at Carlisle with Rev. Lewis Mayer, D. D., as the theological professor. In 1824 the Ohio classis broke away from the Pennsylvania Synod on account of the right of ordination, and founded the Ohio Synod (1824-1863). In 1822 the Free Synod of Pennsylvania separated, but returned in 1837. In a similar way an independent synod was formed in Ohio (1846-1852). In 1838 the Ohio Synod also tried to found a theological seminary at Canton, Ohio, but it failed, as did a similar attempt at Columbus ten years later. In 1850 it founded Heidelberg College and Theological Seminary at Tiffin, Ohio. In 1841 the Church observed a centenary year and raised considerable money for benevolent objects. The common custom of the Church was catechization, although THE EEFOEMED CHUECH IN THE U. S. 151 there had been revivals in the Church from the beginning. And from 1 8 29-1 844, a revival wave spread over the Church, out of which came a number of aggressive movements such as the founding of Sunday-schools, missions (home and foreign) and publication interests. In 1844 the liturgical controversy began. Rev. John W. Nevin, D. D., and Philip Schaff, D. D., were the leaders in it. Dr. Nevin became professor of the theological seminary at Mercersburg in 1840, and Dr. Schaff in 1844. The inaugural address of Professor Schaff in 1844 began the controversy. It was entitled ''The Principle of Protestantism," and was at- tacked in the Eastern Synod by Rev. J. F. Berg, D. D., for its Ro- manizing tendencies. In 1847 the Mercersburg Theology was formulated by Professors Nevin and Schaff, the former publish- ing "The Mystical Presence" and the latter, "What is Church History." Out of Mercersburg Theology grew a liturgical movement which began to show itself at the Eastern Synod in 1847. In 1852 the synod took more radical action ordering a liturgy to be framed not only on the basis of the Reformed liturgies, but of the early liturgies of the Christian Church. In 1857 this " Provisional Liturgy " was pubhshed. Gradually a severe controversy arose in the Eastern Synod about its use. This controversy was temporarily allayed by the Tercentenary Jubilee of the Heidelberg Catechism in 1863. This began with a large convention at Philadelphia, January, 1863, and continued until May, 1864. During the year a tercentenary offering for church benevolences was made which amounted to about ;^ 100,000. III. The Period of the General Synod In 1863, in connection with the Tercentenary celebration, the Eastern and Ohio Synods united to form a General Synod, whose first meeting was held at Pittsburgh, November 18, 1863. One of the first questions that came before it was the liturgical. It ordered the Eastern Synod to revise the Provisional Liturgy 152 CHUECHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL and later permitted the Ohio Synod to publish a low-church liturgy (1869). The Eastern Synod then published the Order of Worship in 1867. The General Synod permitted both the Order of Worship and the Western Liturgy to be used, but neither was adopted constitutionally by being sent down to the classis for adoption. This liturgical controversy was ended in 1878 by the appointment of a Peace Commission by the Gen- eral Synod, which was later ordered to draw up a liturgy, and finally the Directory of Worship was adopted by the General Synod (1887) and by the classes as the official liturgy of the Church. The period of the General Synod since the Peace Movement in 1878-1887 has been characterized by a large increase in the missionary and benevolent activities of the Church. Home missionary work began to be organized in 18 19 by the appoint- ment of a missionary committee by the Eastern Synod. In 1826 a missionary society was formed and in 1832 a missionary board. In 1845 the Ohio Synod elected a missionary board. These boards of the Eastern and Ohio Synods were united in one board by the General Synod in 1863, but the Home Mis- sionary Board did not become very active until 1889 to 1892. Since then its work has greatly grown. It reports (19 14) two hundred and eleven missions, of which sixty-six are German, ten Hungarian, three Bohemian, and one Japanese. Out of the home missionary work grew foreign missionary activity. The Eastern Synod in 1838 selected the first foreign mission board. This labored in connection with the American Board up to 1865 in the support of Rev. B. Schneider, D. D., at Aintab, Syria. In 1878, after the Peace Movement, the Board was reorganized by the General Synod and Japan was chosen as its field. The first missionary was sent out in 1879, followed in 1883 by Rev. J. P. Moore, now the senior mis- sionary in Japan. In 1885 the mission united with the Presby- terian Churches (North and South) and the Dutch Reformed Church in forming <*The Church of Christ in Japan." In THE EEFOEMED CHUECH IN THE U. S. 153 1 90 1 China was chosen as a second missionary field, and a mission established in the Province of Hunan by Rev. W. E. Hoy, D. D. It reports (19 14) about fifty missionaries and about 2,500 church members. The third agency of the General Synod is the Board of Publication and Sunday-School Work. The first publication of the Church was in 1827, the Magazine of the German Reformed Church, changed later to The Reformed Church Mes- senger. In 1840 the Eastern Synod started a printing estabhsh- ment at Chambersburg, Pa., which was burned down in the Civil War by the Confederates, and the publication establish- ment was removed to Philadelphia. In 1848 Ohio Synod established a Board of Publication which published The Christian World, now The Western Missionary. In 1840 a German church paper was started, now The Refortned Kirchenzeitung, published at Cleveland. In 1849 The Mer- cersburg Review was begun, later changed into The Refortned Church Review. In 1858 the German Synods started a publi- cation movement which built up the Central Publication House in Cleveland, Ohio. The Reformed Record was started at Reading, Pa., in 1888. This Board of the General Synod also supervises the Sunday-school work of the Church. The first Sunday-school was organized in the First Church, Philadelphia, in 1806. In 1887 the General Synod reorganized the Sunday-school Board and elected as a general secretary Rev. Rufus W. Miller, D. D. The fourth board appointed by the General Synod was on Ministerial Relief. The oldest society in the Church was a society for the relief of ministers and their widows founded in 1775. It has been enlarged and is still doing excellent work. In 1905 the General Synod elected a Board of Ministerial Relief, which supplements the work of the other society. Besides these agencies directly connected with the General Synod there are others more directly connected with the synods. First are the educational institutions of the Church. There are 154 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL three theological seminaries, the Reformed Theological Sem- inary at Lancaster, Pa., the Central Theological Seminary at Dayton, Ohio, and the Mission House at Franklin, Wis. There are also a number of colleges, as Franklin and Marshall at Lancaster, Pa., Heidelberg at Tiffin, Ohio, Ursinus at Col- legeville. Pa., the Mission House at Franklin, Wis., Catawba at Newton, N. C. There are also female colleges and other educational institutions. Orphans' homes have been founded at Womelsdorf, Pa., Greenville, Pa., Fort Wayne, Ind., Crescent, N. C, and near Littlestown, Pa. There are other benevolent institutions, as hospitals and deaconess training schools. The Reformed Church in the United States belongs to the Calvinistic or Presbyterian family of churches. Many of its ministers, however, have emphasized Zvvinglianism rather than Calvinism. Its creed is the Heidelberg Catechism. Its govern- ment is the presbyterial. Its courts rise from the congregation, through the classis and synod, up to the General Synod. Baptism is by sprinkling, and the Lord's Supper is generally observed by the communicants coming forward and standing at the chancel. Confirmation is practiced as a public act of confession of faith. In worship the service is semi-liturgical ; that is, the Sabbath services are generally free (although a number of congregations use a liturgical service), but all use liturgical forms for the occasional services, as sacraments, marriage, ordination, etc. As to church union it has always been favorable. Like its founder, Zwingli, who held out his hand to Luther at the conference at Marburg in 1529, the Reformed Church has always been irenic. Several efforts have been made for union with other Churches. Three efforts have been made to unite it with the Reformed Church in America or the Dutch Reformed Church (in 1844, i874> 1888-1890) and such an effort is now being made by committees of both Churches. The Churches are so much alike in name and organization THE EEFOEMED CHUECH IN THE U. S. 155 that it is to be hoped a union will be effected. In 1908-19 14 committees on union were appointed between the Presbyterian Church (North) and our Church, but the effort failed. The Church is a member of the Alliance of the Presbyterian Churches holding the Presbyterian System, and of the Council of the Reformed Churches, and of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, and has for a number of years been in delightful correspondence with other denominations. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL " The Historical Handbook of the Reformed Church in the U. S.," by Rev. Prof. James I. Good, D. D. Pub- lication and Sunday-School Board of the Reformed Church, 191 5. XXI The Reformed Episcopal Church THE student of church history does not fail to discern that, in the Anglican Church, at the Reformation, were two distinct and opposing lines of thought and practice. One was Evangelical ; the other. Sacerdotal. One was Protestant ; the other, Roman. Those two lines of oppos- ing thought have been in that Church ever since. It is not unnatural that they also found their place in the American branch of the Anglican Church, the Protestant Episcopal Church. When the influence of the Oxford Revival became pronounced in the Protestant Episcopal Church, there began in that Church a period of conflict between the parties of oppo- site tendency — Low and High, Evangelical and Sacerdotal, Protestant and Roman. The culmination of this conflict came in the fall of 1873. The Rt. Rev. George David Cummins, D. D., assistant bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky, being in New York City for a meeting of the Evangelical Alliance, participated in a celebra- tion of the Holy Communion, with ministers of other Churches, in a Presbyterian church. " It was a bold and manly recognition, on the part of one of the highest dignitaries of the Protestant Episcopal Church, of the full ministerial authority of non-episcopal orders, and the value of non-episcopal sacraments. But the flood-gates of reproach were opened upon the bishop who had thus stepped out of the beaten track heretofore pursued by the overseers of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Convinced that there could be no such liberty of action peaceably permitted in the 156 THE EEFOEMED EPISCOPAL CHUECH 157 Church in which he had preached Christ for nearly thirty years, he determined to end all controversy by a voluntary withdrawal from the office of assistant bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Kentucky, and from the communion of that Church itself. ''His letter to Bishop Smith, the presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in which Bishop Cummins an- nounces his intended course, distinctly asserts that he with- draws in order to ' transfer his work and office to another sphere of labor.' He adds, ' I have an earnest hope and confi- dence that a basis for the union of all Evangelical Christendom can be found in a communion which shall retain or restore a primitive Episcopacy and a pure Scriptural Liturgy, with fidelity to the doctrine of Justification by faith only — Articulus Stantis vel Cadentis Ecclesicd — a position to which the Old Catholics in Europe are rapidly tending, and which has already taken a definite form in the " Church of Jesus " in Mexico.' " On the second day of December, 1873, the new Church was organized in the city of New York, with Bishop Cummins as its presiding bishop. In one sense it was not a new Church, but the old Episcopal Church. In his opening address, at the First General Council, Bishop Cummins said : "We have not met to destroy, but to restore; not to pull down, but to reconstruct. . . . And one in heart, in spirit, and in faith with our fathers, who at the very beginning of the existence of this nation sought to mold and fashion the ecclesi- astical polity which they had inherited from the Reformed Church of England, by a judicious and thorough revision of the Book of Common Prayer, we return to their position and claim to be the old and true Protestant Episcopalians of the days immediately succeeding the American Revolution. And, through our ancestors, we claim an unbroken historical con- nection, through the Church of England, with the Church of Christ from the earliest Christian era." The first formal document put forth was the following Dec- laration of Principles, adopted on the day of organization : 158 CHUECHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL The Reformed Episcopal Church, holding *'the faith once delivered unto the saints," declares its belief in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God, and the sole Rule of Faith and Practice ; in the Creed ''commonly called the Apostles' Creed"; in the divine institution of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper ; and in the doctrines of grace substantially as they are set forth in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. II This Church recognizes and adheres to Episcopacy, not as of divine right, but as a very ancient and desirable form of church polity. Ill This Church, retaining a liturgy which shall not be imperative or repressive of freedom in prayer, accepts the Book of Common Prayer, as it was revised, proposed and recommended for use by the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, a. d. 1785, reserving full liberty to alter, abridge, enlarge, and amend the same, as may seem most conducive to the edification of the people, "provided that the substance of the faith be kept entire." IV This Church condemns and rejects the following erro- neous and strange doctrines as contrary to God's Word : Firsts That the Church of Christ exists only in one order or form of ecclesiastical polity : Second^ That Christian ministers are "priests" in an- other sense than that in which all believers are "a royal priesthood " : Third, That the Lord's Table is an altar on which the oblation of the Body and Blood of Christ is offered anew to the Father : Fourth, That the Presence of Christ in the Lord's Sup- per is a presence in the elements of Bread and Wine : Fifth, That Regeneration is inseparably connected with Baptism. THE REFOEMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH 159 The practice of the Church is in harmony with these prin- ciples. Possessing the Historic Episcopate it yet seeks the fellowship of all Protestant Evangelical Churches, exchanges pulpits with their ministers, and unites with them at the Lord's Table ; it commends any bishop, presbyter, or deacon who desires to leave it, to another Evangelical Church, with its prayers and love; it denies the necessity of the reordination of ministers coming to it from another Church ; it invariably receives to its membership by letter, or other satisfactory evidence, communi- cants of other Churches, dispensing with confirmation unless desired. Rejecting the dogma of the priesthood of the minister of Christ as unscriptural and dangerous, leading to many super- stitions, it strikes the word priest, as applied to the minister, from its Ordinal and Prayer-Book, and knows but one priest, Christ Jesus. Holding the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion as ordained by Christ, it regards the Sacraments as institutions divinely appointed, and as means of grace, because they repre- sent the truth ; but repudiates the theory that they convey a grace peculiar to themselves, and which is not common to other divinely appointed means. Giving first place to its historic liturgy, it allows and encour- ages the union of extempore prayer with its liturgy, and values meetings for social worship, in which the laity participate, as promoting the spiritual growth of churches. "Such, in history, doctrine, and worship, is the Reformed Episcopal Church. Its members are not a vast multitude, but they remember that when the Lord had ascended up on high, and His only Church was at Jerusalem, ' the number of the names together was about an hundred and twenty. ' " Confident in the Scriptural character of their liturgy, and recognizing the growing love of liturgical worship among all Protestants, they believe with the deepest convictions of their 160 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL souls that, without trenching upon the special field of any of the older denominations of believers, there is a far-reaching work for them and the Church of their love," BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL Price : " The History of the Reformed Episcopal Church,' published by James M. Armstrong, Philadelphia, 1902. XXII The Evangelical Association IN the apostolic age Paul and Apollos were both great preachers and leaders. Their methods and style of preaching might differ, but they were one in their aims, one in their devotion to Christ, one in their conception of the Christian life, and so it came to pass that while Paul planted and Apollos watered, God gave the increase, and the Church realized that " both he that planteth and he that watereth are one." Denominational groups, dividing into many branches, grew in other countries in a like manner from the ''plant of re- nown," Christ Jesus. This has not destroyed the effectiveness of the Gospel, but spread it abroad in a multiplicity of activi- ties and variety of forms. The Evangelical Association is such a branch, an integral part of the great Church, whose origin and segregation were so manifestly of God rather than of men that its legitimacy cannot be reasonably questioned. Its roots extend down into the vital life of organic evangelism, while its activities developed in a well defined field of service. We be- lieve it was called into being for a specific purpose, and en- titled to be vitally incorporated with the great body of the Church universal. The Evangelical Association traces its origin to the labors of Jacob Albright, the son of a German immigrant, among the German citizens of Eastern Pennsylvania, in the beginning of the nineteenth century. In the estimation of some this may not be an origin to be proud of, for it is not unusual to refer to the "Pennsylvania Dutch" in derogatory language. To i6i 162 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUKCIL disparage them, the rudest specimens are selected and placed side by side with the most refined examples of another race, and then we are bidden to " look upon this picture and that.'* The spirit of charity leads us to believe that this may often be ascribed to a lack of knowledge as to the true character of these sturdy people. They have had no truthful expositor of their peculiar traits, quaint customs and traditions, religious and other praiseworthy characteristics. Almost every other part of the land has been worked over in literature, philology and social customs. The books on folk-lore and descriptions of life and custom in New England, the South, and West, are legion, and talented authors have brought all that is best in those peoples to the favorable notice of the country. No such champion has yet appeared in literature in behalf of these Americans of Teutonic descent, and therefore they are often underrated and spoken of with disparagement. It is conceded that the earlier generations were uncouth and knew nothing of Chesterfieldian etiquette, and in their manner of speech were frank even to rudeness. It is also admitted that although they were of Pietistic blood, and came to this country to seek greater religious liberty, after the Revolution there was a great deterioration in morals among them. They did not entirely cast off the religion of their fathers, for they regarded an unbeliever as a moral monster ; but they drifted into formalism, and thence to lax morality and open ungodli- ness, so that a religious renovation became necessary to rede- velop the nobler traits of Teutonic character. It is not within our province to detail all the facts relating to their moral and spiritual elevation, but our historians furnish abundant evidence that the Evangelical Association bore no insignificant part in the reestablishment and further advance- ment of religion among these people. Jacob Albright, the founder of our Church, was born near Pottstown, Pa., May 7, 1759, and grew to young manhood with few opportunities or outward inducements for spiritual THE EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION 163 self-culture. The people among whom he lived were worldly minded, and had lost all their spiritual vitality. Piety was almost unknown, liberalism in thought and indifference to the moral code were almost universal. They were spiritually dead, and Sabbath desecration, intemperance and immorality were common, and hardly a show of godliness remained. After Albright became the father of a family, several of his children died in early youth within a brief period, and in the sorrow of his heart over their loss, and through the funeral sermons of a pious minister of the German Reformed Church named Anton Hautz, he was led to seek Christ, and experienced the definite change of heart which we term conversion. Naturally we trace the origin of the evangelical movement which resulted in the organization of the Evangelical Association to this vital experience of Jacob Albright. It is the real key to the type of religion for which this Church has always stood, for its founder had an intense zeal for souls, prayed much, and studied deeply the needs of the people. He was impressed with the spiritual destitution of his German brethren and had a burning desire for their salvation, and so, in the same year that William Carey, the pious English cobbler, went to India as the first missionary of modern times to the heathen, Jacob Albright, the pious Pennsylvania German brick and tile maker, rode forth to preach the Gospel to his own race and tongue in Eastern Pennsylvania. It soon became evident that he was a chosen vessel, and he was known far and wide as a flaming evangelist. He preached in private houses, in market-places, in barns, meadows and groves, and, if opportunity offered, in churches, extending his labors west of the Susquehanna, and then through Maryland to Virginia, looking up the German settlements and establishing appointments. It will thus be seen that I. From the beginning the Evangelical Association has been essentially a missionary Church. This has been the very heart of the organism, as shown by its origin and develop- 16i CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL ment. The missionary zeal of the founder was enkindled in the hearts of his successors. In 1813 missionaries were sent to New York State to the German settlements and then to Canada, and in 18 16 to Ohio, and the period from that date to 1840 was one of territorial expansion. Westward the star of empire took its way, and Bishop John Seybert became a worthy successor of the founder of the denomination, and he with other pioneers found many open doors and hungry hearts, and from this time forward there was a steady advance. The Church grew in influence, her borders were extended and her horizon widened until the Pacific coast was reached, and out- posts established from the great Canadian Northwest to the Lone Star State in the South. As a matter of course the chil- dren of these German settlers, east and west, grew up under American influences, and were moulded in speech by the public school system, so that there has been a marked transi- tion to the English language, and many congregations are ex- clusively English. But this change of language has not cur- tailed our sphere of influence, but given us opportunities to enlarge the field and enter open doors that would otherwise have been closed to us. It perhaps never occurred to Jacob Albright that the movement begun under his ministry was to become international in its scope. Yet fifty years after he began to sow the seed of the Word it was transplanted to Germany, born largely from a desire of immigrants that their relatives in the fatherland be brought in touch with our re- ligious system. From thence it extended to Switzerland, where a conference was organized in 1879, and in 191 1 a missionary was sent into Russia and established a mission in the city of Riga. The Japan mission was established in 1875, this being the first heathen mission of the denomination, the first missionaries being the Rev. Frederick Krecker, M. D., the Rev. A. Halmhuber, and Miss Rachel Hudson. We now have a conference with its Seminary and Training School for Women and other necessary adjuncts for effective work. In THE EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION 165 1903 a mission was established in China, in Shenchowfu in the Province of Hunan, where valuable property has been ac- quired, schools founded, and native evangelists are being trained. The city of Tungranfu in the Province of Kwei- chow has since been taken up as the headquarters of a medi- cal mission, and a hospital and boys' and girls' schools established. In addition, Pusi, Shenchi and Chupu have been chosen as out-stations, and are being manned by native Chinese workers. Thus it will be seen that this denomina- tion, growing up '* as a root out of dry ground," having no form nor comeliness, often despised and rejected, and yet ever true to the purpose of its founder, has shown that its mission- ary spirit and motive lends itself readily and energetically to the great concerted modern movement for missions. 2. The Evangelical Association has stood four-square for her insistence on private and public morals. It was instituted as a protest against the lax practices of the day when immoral- ity flourished and the bottle and glass were in nearly every home. A pastor coming from New York said it was difficult to make pastoral visits for a day without becoming at least par- tially intoxicated. The Book of Discipline, which contains the fundamental law of the Church, setting forth its principles and the regulations which control it, as well as the genius which determines its form and method of government, has always contained a prohibition clause, forbidding the manu- facture, sale or use of liquor in any form. In the present day movement for good citizenship this denomination has been a pioneer, all the essential principles of that movement being found in her constitution. Long before the Methodistic divi- sion of 1844 this Book of Discipline contained a clause forbid- ding slavery, and in every other movement for the moral uplift of humanity she has taken her place on the firing line, and sounded no retreat. The condition of admission into the Church is an earnest desire to be saved from sin and involves a complete renunciation of what are known as the society sins 166 OHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUKCIL and ungodly amusements of the day. The system of jurispru- dence is simple and effective. The Church aims to correct and suppress that which is evil, to regulate the disorderly, and to exclude the unruly and criminal. The purpose of her disciplinary administration is the reformation of the offender, the vindication of the Church from the responsibility and re- proach of evil and the maintenance of her pure character. On all the great moral issues of the day her voice rang out in clarion tones from the beginning, and this dominant note in her life enabled her to fall into line with every concerted move- ment of the Church universal for the moral elevation and social welfare of man. 3. The Evangelical Association was born with a great love for the common people. Their salvation and welfare have been the burden of her heart from ' the beginning. The founder was a working man of humble occupation, and sought those of his own class wherever he went. Deeply aware of his want of educational preparedness, he shrank at first from the very thought of a ministerial career, for he had an exalted conception of the holy office. But his sympathy for those in moral destitution around him led him to pray that God might raise up godly men to preach the pure Gospel to them, little thinking that God would answer that prayer by sending him. But when the " woe is me " came upon him, from sheer timidity he went to the humble class among whom he had been reared. As the Church grew and multiplied, not a few of her sober, industrious, thrifty people found that God was prospering them in house and in store, but they have not forgotten "the rock from which they were hewn," and their hearts and purses are always responsive to work among the masses. The church Discipline has always contained a clause that "the pews in our churches shall be forever free," and there has been no classification of worshippers in this respect. Nearly five hundred deaconesses in Germany and Switzerland are employed in hospitals and homes, ministering mostly to THE EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION 167 the poorer classes, and it is not at all surprising that on An- nual Conference Sunday it is not unusual to have a congrega- tion of two thousand, or two thousand five hundred people, many of whom have walked long distances, assemble to hear the preaching of the Word. The common people have always heard our preachers gladly, and in the great united effort on the part of Christendom to again reach the masses our denom- ination will gladly become a factor spontaneously and by virtue of her past relations to the working man and his family. Cer- tainly we do not think of underrating the professional classes. In all that pertains to material prosperity in the United States and Canada there are those among our people who have '* made good." Names and facts could be cited to show that in college and university ; in legislative and political employ ; in com- merce and agriculture ; in manufactures and mercantile pur- suits ; in medicine and theology and pulpit oratory ; in the arts and sciences; in every avocation that demands intellectual ability or ingenious skill our people have been the peers of many of their fellows. But they would not be true to the tra- ditions of the Church founded by the humble tile-maker, Jacob Albright, if they turned their backs upon the poor and lowly, when the Master whom they serve was constrained to say of Himself, '' The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." 4. The Evangelical Association has always taken an interest in the stranger within our gates. The Mayflower of German immigration was the British ship Concord, which brought the first colony to this country in the autumn of 1683. They settled in the province of William Penn. This tide of settlers from the Fatherland grew so large that more than 30,000 fam- ilies came in between 1727 and 1776. They were practically all Protestants, and from one of these the founder of this de- nomination sprang, and among their descendants he began his labors. As already stated, his Church to-day is being rapidly 1C>8 CTirKCIIES OF THE FEDEKAL COUNCIL forced into English in America. A large part of her members prefer English, — in fact, many of the young people can no longer understand the language of their yxirents sufficiently to be able lo woi^ihip intelligently and to editication. Further- more, the Cluirch feels the world-wide call ; she claims the divinely accorded right and feels the duty to preach in any tongue the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make known among all nations the glory and grace of God. She has been faithful in one tongue, and is praying that God will gi\-e her rulership in many others. And thus it happens that although she established her first inunigrant missions at the [-wrts of Rdtimore, Philadelphia and New York for the Germans, at the present time she is just as eagerly taking up the work among the Italians who have been swarming to our shores ; and in Wellsville, Ohio ; Chicago, Milwaukee, Racine, and Bethlehem the sons and daughters of sunny Italy are being Christianized and indoctrinated by our faithful missionaries and teachers and are being added unto the Church. It is this breadth of sympathy for men of all racc^ that qualities us for the great work of fe(.1erateci Christen- dom. We realize that although held in abeyance tem^x>rarily by the Eurojx\in w;ir, the invasion of America by the nations of Europe will continue to go on at a stupendous rate. Never before has the world seen anything like it. And many of these foRigners ha\-e Ixx'u coming without vital religion, without Christ, without the Bible, and ha\-e come to stay. Among them an? those who are willing to recei\-e the Gospel. Their children are forging to the front in our public schools, and in some instances taking honors. The downward drag of their national sins is fearsome and furious. But we need not falter, for we triumph ** not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lor! of Hosts." And the spirit of holy dar- ing will help us to win, joining with our sister denominations in any mo\-ement that will hasten the day when the <• knowleiige of the Lord shall coN-er the earth as the waters cover the sea," THE EVANGKLICiiL ASSOCIATION 169 for it is better a thousand folil to preach the Gospel in five hundreci tongues than in one only. An arlificial organic union to effect this purpose would mean such a toning down of denoininalional cluiraclerislics, such a modification of long-tried ellicient government, sucli a recast- ing of inetliods wliich have proven invaluable, as must result in the loss of a marked, robust individuality and of consequent ineHiciency. The solution of the problem lies in fraternal co- operative union among the denominations by which there can be secured a wise economy of resources, a massing of forces in any crisis or along any lines of i)ublic reform, but in which the organic eflectiveness of denominational individuality of life and mellunls is nevertheless retained. The Evangelical Association possesses such an individuality, as is evidenced by its polity and doctrine. Mer polity is ag- gressive. Her restless energy gives birth to new institutions, modes of organization, and improved methods of work as the progress of Cliristianity requires and the needs of the human race demand, and yet always keeping in harmony with her own constitutional character. 1 ler forms and governmental structure are stable and firm, and yet possess sullicient elasticity to enable the legislative and executive powers to api)ly her forces and direct her energies to all classes, thus maintaining her life and authority under all exigencies, and adapting her work to the social and political customs of any clime or nation. The de- nomination is not hierarchal, neither is it congregational, but avoiding either extreme has adopted the Episcopal and con- nectional form of government. Without arrogating to herself any superiority over other branches of the Christian Church, it may be allowable to say that for her s[)irit and purpose this form is the wisest and best. The Episcopacy is a general superintendency, not a separate order nor being ordained as such, elected for a term of four years only, but eligible to reelection. None of the bishops has a permanent diocese, for they are jointly responsible for the 170 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL oversight of the whole connection. They preside at general and annual conference sessions, appoint the preachers to their charges, serve on the church boards, ordain preachers, and travel throughout the whole Church to preach and oversee its spiritual and temporal interests. Next to them in authority are the presiding elders who are elected by the Annual Conference, and assigned a certain portion of its territory known as a dis- trict, and have the responsible oversight of its preachers and official lay members. There are two orders in the ministry, deacons and elders, who are assigned to the churches annually, within a limited term of seven years. The clergy are all members of an Annual Conference, of which there are twenty-five in the denomination. From these delegates are chosen every four years to constitute the General Conference, which is the supreme court of law and the final arbiter of all controversy. This body selects the gen- eral officers, examines and passes upon the transactions of An- nual Conferences and publishing houses and various boards, and controls all the affairs of the denomination at home and abroad, including all the affiliated organizations, such as the Woman's Missionary Society and Young People's Alliance. There is lim- ited lay representation in the Annual and General Conferences. Every congregation or circuit also has a Quarterly Conference to control its local affairs. It is not a delegated body, but is composed of the official members of the parish. The itineracy is the keystone to the arch of our whole economy, and by its aggressive zeal, variety of methods, power of adaptability and heroic self-denial has exemplified applied Christianity under all conditions of life, by the promulgation of sound doctrine, the observance of spiritual worship, the maintenance of strict dis- cipline, and the edification of all the members into a building of true holiness. As to doctrine, in common with the orthodox Church, the Evangelical Association holds and asserts that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of THE EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION 171 God, of infallible truth and divine authority. The interpreta- tion is according to the Wesleyan system, the founder having been associated with members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the early days of his Christian experience. The Articles of Faith and the catechism are a succinct compilation of orthodox doctrine from this point of view. The facts and truths which belong to the Scriptural account of sin and redemp- tion form the staple of all our preaching. We believe that, in our restless and agitated nation, in these days of bustling activity, there is too little real doctrinal preaching. The day was when Churches were much more concerned than at present about the truths conveyed, and much less about the garbs of truth. Doctrine, rather than speaking, was what drew the audience. We maintain that truth is the life-blood of piety, without which we cannot maintain its vitality or support its activity, and so the ambition of our ministry has always been to preach of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come until the sinner trembled, and cried out, " What must I do to be saved?" Annual revival meetings area feature in every congregation, and in many communities the old-fashioned *' bush-meeting," and the camp-meeting with primitive tents are still in vogue. Without any attempt at display, whether in ritual, worship or work, our people take a short cut and move with a swift pace to reach the goal, avoiding those irreverent methods which bring reproach upon the fair name of Christian- ity, and holding up the divine Christ so that He may draw all men unto Him. Thus we have gone out to possess the land from an humble beginning, until our ministry and missionaries have gone two- thirds of the way around the globe, the evening and the morn- ing twilight meet, and no longer does it grow entirely dark within our denominational bounds. And as a Church we see no evidences of degeneracy or decay, of atrophy or lassitude in our ecclesiastical being. We are not in our decrepitude, but in our early vigor. A future glowing with auguries of hope 172 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL and promise beckons us onward. With that devout reverence which is the heritage of our Germanic origin, and acknowledg- ing the God of our fathers in all our ways, we are praying to be permitted to transmit our church name to posterity un- tarnished in splendor, increasing in brightness, and illuminat- ing the pages of our history with all that is noble and of good report. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL " Albright and His Co-Laborers," by Bishop R. Yeakcl. " Bishop Joseph Long," by Bishop R. Yeakel. " History of the Evangelical Association," two volumes by Bishop Yeakel. " Evangelical Landmarks," by Bishop S. C. Breyfogel, D. D., LL.D. " Life of Bishop Seybert," by Bishop S. P. Spreng, D. D. " Congress of the Evangelical Association," by Rev. G. C, Knobel, M. A. " Flashlights on Evangelical History," by Rev. A. Stapleton, D.D. All of the foregoing may be had at the Publishing House of the Evangelical Association, 1903 Woodland Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio. XXIII The United Evangelical Church THE United Evangelical Church traces her origin to the labors of the Rev. Jacob Albright over a century ago. This good man was born of German parentage near Potts- town, Pa., May i, 1759, and died May 18, 1808. He was a Lutheran both by parentage and confirmation, but according to his own account he was destitute of a saving acquaintance with Christ and in consequence spent years in a very unhappy spir- itual condition. After his marriage soon after 1790, he located in Earl Town- ship, in Lancaster County. At that time there was a consider- able awakening in that region through the labors of the Method- ist and United Brethren pioneers. About 1793 Albright passed through a season of severe doi- mestic affliction by which he was made the subject of saving grace through the labors of the Reformed evangelist, Rev. Anthony Houtz, and others. He then united with the Method- ist Church and was given "exhorter's license." He was prac- tically a lay evangelist. He was greatly impressed by the low spiritual condition of the Pennsylvania Germans and resolved to devote himself en- tirely to their betterment. There seems to have been no favor- able denominational opening for the carrying out of his dis- tinctive mission, and he therefore, in 1796, entered the field as an independent evangelist. In 1800 he organized a number of his adherents into "classes," and in 1803, having secured two young men as assistant evangelists, he held a General Assembly at which tirn^ he was declared to be "a true evangelical min- 173 174 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL ister of the Gospel," and was ordained as such. Plans were also made for the furtherance of the work. In 1807, having gained several more assistants, and the work having spread considerably, he held the first " conference " at the house of Samuel Becker near Schafferstown, Lebanon County. There were present five itinerant and three local preachers, be- sides twenty class officials. An episcopal form of church gov- ernment was adopted on the recommendation of Albright, and he was directed to prepare a " Book of DiscipHne " and Arti- cles of Faith. Albright did not live to give his adherents such a work, as he died six months later (May 18, 1808), and the book was com- piled and published by his successor, Rev. George Miller, in 1809. Miller also published a short biography of Albright this same year. It was not Albright's purpose to found a new denomination, but after his death his followers continued the work along his chosen lines with the result that organization followed as a mat- ter of course. Several attempts were made to blend the incipient Church with one of the older evangelistic bodies but without success. The one great bond that held the followers of Albright together was the trend given them by the founder, namely, the evan- gelization of the Germans. This distinctiveness of mission was lost sight of by the giving way of the German to the English language. In 1816 the first General Conference was held. This body adopted the name " The Evangelical Association " in place of the so-called "Albrights," by which the connection had been known. During this year the first church edifice was erected, a printing house established at New Berlin, Pa., and a line of literature provided that marks the real beginning of denomina- tional life. As early as 181 2 a missionary was sent to the state of New York, Virginia in 18 14, and Ohio in 18 16. A large portion of the Church becoming English, a full line THE UNITED EVANGELICAL CHURCH 175 of English literature was provided. The German work, how- ever, was continued among the immigrants in the large cities and in the West. Missionaries also were sent to Germany and Switzerland, and a number of large German conferences were formed. Organization of the United Evangelical Church In this age of interdenominational fellowship and broad- mindedness, it would seem ill advised to give a detailed ac- count of the causes that led to the division of the Evangelical Association and formation of The United Evangelical Church. Suffice it to say that the difficulties were not of a doctrinal character, but grew out of serious differences of opinion respect- ing the legality of official acts of bishops and legislative bodies. A large minority which afterward crystallized into the United EvangeHcal Church held that the actions indicated were not only undisciplinary, but also subversive to the very genius of the Church. The difficulties culminated at the General Conference of 1887, held at Buffalo, N. Y. At this time the dissenters to a certain action formulated a protest signed by almost one- half of all the delegates present. The body unwisely refused to receive and record the protest in accordance with parlia- mentary practice. The protestants felt that they could not con- sistently submit to this subversion of their rights and carried their contention to the conscience of the Church. The Church was now divided into a "Majority" and "Minority" camp; conferences and congregations ranging themselves in one or the other. In 1 89 1, Dr. H. K. Carroll, editor of the religious depart- ment of the New York Independe7it, now an Associate Secre- tary of the Federal Council, with other prominent churchmen, sought to bring the factions together by arbitration. To this the "Minority" agreed, and four hundred and forty-one ministers signed a paper agreeing to submit to an impartial 176 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL decision. The laity, in General Convention assembled, also concurred. All these overtures the " Majority " spurned and the *' Minor- ity," deeply conscious of the integrity of their cause, and with humble dependence in God, turned from the troubled past to a brighter and more hopeful future. The first General Confer- ence of the "Minority" was held in Philadelphia in 1891. Pending the outcome of litigation, the old denominational name for the time being was retained. At this conference Rev. Rudolf Dubs, D. D., LL. D., Rev. Wesley M. Stanford, D. D., and Rev. Charles S. Raman, were elected as bishops. The *' Minority " maintained a publishing house and church organs in both the English and German languages, not, however, under official control. In 1894 the first regular General Conference was held at Naperville, 111. By this time the division was complete. The conference adopted the name '' The United Evangelical Church^^ to designate the denomination. The publishing house at Harrisburg, Pa., hitherto conducted by a syndicate, was taken over, as also The Evangelical^ published at the latter place, and Die Zeitschriff, published in Chicago. These were made the official organs of the Church. A new Book of Dis- cipline was adopted which properly represents the faith and polity of the Church, and safeguards the interests of all in a satisfactory manner. The Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary and other so- cieties that had been organized were adopted as church institu- tions. A Board of Publication was created and a full line of denominational literature established. Activities of the Church (i) Membership. Owing to the adverse causes elsewhere mentioned, the growth of the United Evangelical Church has not been very rapid. Nevertheless the increase has been of a most substantial character. There are at this time (1915) ten THE UNITED EVANGELICAL CHUECH 177 annual conferences with an aggregate membership of over eighty-seven thousand. A considerable number of congrega- tions, especially in the West, still use the German language. (2) Publishing House. The publishing house of the Church at Harrisburg is one of the largest and best equipped of its kind in the state. Its assets are over three hundred tliou- sand dollars. Besides the church publications it does an enor- mous job printing business. It is virtually the headquarters of the Church. All active preachers are agents of the house. (3) Missionary Work. This is one of the strong features of the Church. The Home and Foreign Missionary Society and the Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Society are the chief agencies in carrying on the work. Both societies have auxiliary branches in all the conferences. The Young People's Missionary Society and Mission Band are under the care of the Woman's Missionary Society. The missionary con- tributions of the Church for 191 3 were ^114,000. (4) Education. The Church maintains two colleges. Albright College at Myerstown, Pa., serves the educational needs of the Eastern conferences, and Western Union College at Le Mars, la., serves for the West. The Church places a high value on education, and the con- ferences have a much higher standard for applicants for minis- terial orders than formerly. (5) Other Activities. The Keystone League of Christian Endeavor is an integral part of the General or Parent Society, and the Church has a representative on the trustee board of the General Society. The Church maintains a Benevolent Society for the aid of disabled ministers and their families. Deaconess work is carried on successfully since 1907. Some of the con- ferences maintain Ministerial Aid Societies for the support of disabled ministers ; Educational Aid Societies for the support of deserving ministerial students ; Bible Conference Societies for the study of the Scriptures and systematic Christian work ; the School of Methods for the furtherance of the missionary 178 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL cause; Historical Societies for the preservation of historical materials. In 1915 ''The United Evangelical Home" was established at Levvisburg, Penn. The Chmch stands pledged to every line of Christian service, actively cooperating in all Temperance and Reform Move- ments. She quite early joined hand and heart in the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL Owing to the recent separation of the United Evangelical Church from the Evangelical Association, the early history of the former is necessarily bound up in that of the latter. Since the separation there has been pubHshcd in the interest of the United Evangelical Church, " Evangelical Annals," by Rev. A. Stapleton, brought out by the Evangelical Pub- lishing House, Harrisburg, Pa., in 1900. Also " Flashlights on Evangelical History," by the same author, pubHshed by the Evangelical Publishing House, in 1908. The " Life and Times of Rev. Jacob Albright," same author and publisher, will shortly appear throwing light upon an important period in the history of this Church. Tne official books of the Church as regards doctrine are " The Evangelical Discipline," and *' Evangelical Catechism," by Rev. Jacob Hartzler. XXIV The United Brethren in Christ THE Church of the United Brethren in Christ arose in the latter part of the eighteenth century, in Eastern Pennsylvania and Maryland. It did not spring from any schism or doctrinal or ecclesiastical controversies. The chief agent in the founding of the Church, Philip William Otterbein, for many years had no thought of originating a new denomination, but providential circumstances, through a suc- cession of years and events, gradually and almost imperceptibly led to the final organization. The elements which primarily fused into the United Breth- ren denomination were partly Reformed and partly Mennonite. Philip William Otterbein was an ordained minister in the German Reformed Church, and Martin Boehm, a co-laborer, was an approved preacher among the Mennonites. Another of the earliest leaders was Christian Newcomer, who was also a Mennonite, first a lay preacher, but later ordained by Otterbein. To make more clear the circumstances which led to the or- ganization of this Church as well as its distinctive character- istics, brief biographical references will be useful. Otterbein was born June 3, 1726, in the town of Dillenberg, in the Duchy of Nassau, Germany, now designated as Wies- baden, lying south of Westphalia. His native town was the seat of a prominent Latin school, in which his father, a German Reformed minister, was a teacher and over which for a time he was rector. William's education was begun here and further carried on in the then celebrated Reformed School at Herborn, a town three miles south of Dillenberg. This school, though 179 180 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL in one cyclopaedia termed a university, was scarcely of that rank. From it Mr. Otterbein graduated in the theological department in 1748, and soon after became a preceptor in the school. It is said that the faculty at this time consisted of men not only eminent in learning but also distinguished for a prac- tical apprehension of the spiritual character of true Christian- ity. Thus the influence of the institution was joined to that of a pious home in determining in him that noteworthy spiritual life and power which marked his subsequent career. A year or two later he was ordained to the office of the holy ministry in the Reformed Church and was appointed a vicar at Ockers- dorf, a village near Herborn. His earnest spirit may be in- ferred from his anomalous procedure of establishing a weekly prayer-meeting in his church, a form of service almost unheard of and by many esteemed as fanatical, if not shameful. His position of preceptor at Herborn and that of vicar at Ockers- dorf he continued to maintain until 1752, when he came as a missionary to America. The year before that a Rev. Michael Schlatter had come to Herborn seeking for missionary recruits for the destitute Reformed Churches in America. Six young men volunteered, Mr. Otterbein being one of them, to go to distant America for Christian service. The faculty at Her- born, in their letter of recommendation, referred to him as " the truly reverend and very learned Mr. Philip William Otterbein." It is worthy of mention that not only was Otterbein's father a minister, but his grandfather, his own five brothers, and his eldest brother's four sons were all ministers of the Gospel. The Otterbeins, it will be seen, were a family of decidedly religious and ministerial predilections, which were nourished in William's case by his training in the school at Herborn, where under the guidance of two or three of the professors, were studied the theological writings of Vitringa and Lampe, two eminent Dutch divines, who in turn had been greatly in- fluenced by Johannes Cocceius, another Dutch divine, of whom it was said that " he was a man mighty in the Spirit and far in THE U:N^ITEB BEETHEEN in CHEIST 181 advance of most men of his time in the apprehension of the work of God in Christ ; " who " based his theory of hfe on the Bible j" all of whose teachings had a highly Biblical rather than speculative tinge, whose " peculiarity was not scholastic, but Biblical." The pietism of Spener, which in spirit and method was a struggle after purity of heart, and not that of ecclesiastic an- tagonism or controversy, was also influential at Herborn, and Dr. Doddridge's work on the <' Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul" and his "Sermons on Regeneration" were also given respectful attention. Learning of the spiritual destitution among the Germans in America, he determined to devote his labors to them, and in the spirit of a true missionary he bade his native land and his beloved mother farewell, arriving in New York in July, 1752. He and his companions came as German Reformed ministers to labor in the needy German Reformed Churches in this country, but it is noteworthy that they were supplied with the necessary outfit and partly supported, not by the Reformed Churches of Germany — on account of their poverty and pos- sible indifference — but by the Dutch Reformed Churches of Holland. This ecclesiastical breadth and generosity must have contributed to beget and foster in Otterbein that subsequently manifested spirit of liberality and non-sectarianism which were so marked in him and his co-laborers, both lay and ministerial. Otterbein served Reformed Churches in Lancaster, Tulpe- hocken and York, Pa., and in Frederick City and Baltimore, Md. It is well known that during the latter part of the eighteenth century the state of religion and of morals was at a very low ebb in this country. Skepticism, deism, even atheism became generally prevalent. We are told that '' about the time of the American Revolution, French deism culminated in atheism ; atheism and naturalism in materialism. Doubt soon became almost universal and scoffing burst into a "scream of maniac rage." The sophistical and scurrilous writings of 182 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUI^CIL Voltaire, Rousseau and Thomas Paine were everywhere read, Paine' s works being all the more influential on account of his prominent and useful labors in favor of political liberty. Many of the most prominent men were avowed skeptics. Infidelity and laxity of morals are always mutually reactive. Accord- ingly it is but natural to hear of the deluge of immorality which threatened to undermine the very fabric of society. A Presby- terian Synod in 1778 deplored '*the lamentable decay of vital piety," "the gross immoralities increasing to an awful de- gree." Intemperance, gambling, duelling, profanity, insub- ordination, licentiousness, vulgarity, everywhere not only pre- vailed but abounded. It is, therefore, only natural to hear that "great laxity of morals prevailed " in some of the congre- gations which Otterbein served, and that " he found it necessary to rebuke sin boldly," and that this conflict with the prevalent spiritual apathy and vices would induce a thorough inspection of his own moral and spiritual equipment, to see how he him- self was qualified to cope with the situation. In connection with this a circumstance occurred upon the delivery of one of his searching sermons which drove him to his closet, where after a prolonged struggle he obtained a fuller experience of the "regenerating power of the Gospel and a more satisfying witness of the Spirit to his personal salvation." His preaching and labors soon took on a highly evangelistic character, and he made visits to places near and more distant to preach and invite men and women in the church to a more vital relation to the Lord, and sinners to an immediate surren- der to the Saviour. The Mennonite preacher, Martin Boehm, a man of like spiritual life and earnestness to Otterbein, was similarly en- gaged in seeking to promote conversions and a higher type of piety. Otterbein hearing one of Boehm' s plain forceful ser- mons and earnest appeals was greatly moved, and rising as the preacher was about to take his seat, and warmly embracing him, exclaimed, " We are brethren," which is thought finally THE U:N^ITED BEETHKEN in CHEIST 183 to have suggested the name for the new organization which presently resulted. These men afterward labored much together in evangelistic meetings and in visiting isolated and destitute localities. Other devout men joined them in their labors, among them George Adam Geeting, born in Germany and reared in the Reformed Church, and converted in one of Otterbein's meet- ings; and Christian Newcomer, a Mennonite already men- tioned. In the meantime Otterbein had become pastor of an inde- pendent Reformed congregation in Baltimore City, but continued his itinerary labors. No small success attended these efforts. Numerous local societies were formed and the good work spread through the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Vir- ginia. " Great meetings," as they were called, were annually appointed, when Otterbein would lay before the brethren the importance of the ministry and the necessity of the utmost en- deavors to save souls. At one of these meetings it was agreed to hold a conference to consider how they might increase their usefulness and also conserve the results of their labors. The first Annual Confer- ence was held in Baltimore in 1789. Those joining with these leaders in these religious efforts now included, besides German Reformed and Mennonites, some Lutherans, Dunkards and a few Methodists. At an Annual Conference held in Maryland in 1800 they formed themselves into a society to which they gave the name " United Brethren in Christ." William Otterbein and Martin Boehm were chosen to be superintendents to promote the work among all the local societies. The increase of members and ministers soon seemed to require the adoption of some general regulations and rules. Previously, at the Conference of 1789, a brief general confession of faith was agreed upon, manifestly the work of Otterbein, and some disciplinary rules were also drawn up. The first General Conference was held at Mount 184 CHUEOHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL Pleasant, Pa., in 1815, when the Confession of Faith and rules were slightly amended. The first Constitution was adopted in 1 84 1. This Constitution contained an article forbidding mem- bership in any secret society, and one forbidding all future change of the Confession of Faith. From 1849 onward there was regularly legislation on the subject of secret societies, the efforts to carry out which in practice caused much, often rather violent, agitation. Many churches were disrupted. The num- bers who opposed this rigid position rapidly multiplied, until in 1885 a Commission was appointed to revise both the Con- stitution and Confession of Faith. Their work was carefully done and presented to the membership for approval or dis- approval in November, 1888, after nearly three years of dis- cussion. Both were adopted by a majority of more than 47,- 000. The result was announced at the General Conference in 1889, and the revised Constitution and Confession declared adopted. Thereupon one bishop and fourteen delegates withdrew, and organized a General Conference, and proceeded to legislate under the old Constitution. Their following of the member- ship numbered probably 25,000. There followed a period of litigation, this small body claim- ing that they as adhering to the old Constitution and Con- fession were the church, and hence the property was theirs. In every state where suits were instituted the cases were carried to the Supreme Courts, and in every case but one the decision was given to the '* Liberals," who had made the changes. The new Constitution still has a modified section on secret societies, and the discipline a qualified law, but the whole question has in practice been relegated to the regions of silence. In doctrine this Church holds to a qualified Arminianism. The polity is composite, combining presbyterial and congre- gational elements with a dash of the episcopal. The chief officers, though popularly called bishops, are not bishops at all in the episcopal sense. Their official powers are very limited, THE UNITED BEETHEEN IN CHEIST 185 scarcely equal to those of the presiding elder, except as their position gives weight to their acts and counsels. They are superintendents or presiding elders with larger districts. The Church recognizes only one order of ministers, namely, elders. The presiding elder who superintends part of a conference district, or in some case a whole conference, is elected only for a year at a time, and the bishop, so-called, for four years. There are three grades of conferences, the Quarterly, the An- nual, and the General. The first has specified jurisdiction over the affairs of a charge, which consists either of one church or several churches ; the Annual Conference embraces all the charges within a more extended territory, as a state or less ; the General Conference is the only legislative body and ju- diciary, which meets quadrennially, to legislate and transact other business for the whole Church. In all these bodies the constituent membership consists of clerical and lay repre- sentatives, a very fair example of Republicanism. The United Brethren Church has always been liberal in its sympathies and fellowship with other Churches. Its com- munion table is open to all true believers in Christ ; the mode of baptism is left to the choice of the applicant ; it has from the first participated in the broad movements of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, in the Christian Endeavor movement, in the National and World Sunday-School activities, has always taken a pronounced position on temper- ance, slavery, the white slave trade and other reforms, and is now negotiating with a sister denomination of kindred theological faith and ecclesiastical practice for organic union. In point of faith she is evangelical Arminian, holding to the necessity of regeneration, the privilege of assurance, single order of ministry, itinerant method of ministerial supply with the privilege of being continued in the same pulpit an indefinite number of years. The present membership is about 341,000 with a Sunday- school constituency of about 445,000. 186 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL Having begun among the Germans, the present shows but one German Conference with about 2,000 members. The value of churches and parsonages is now about ^14,500,000. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL *« History of the United Brethren in Christ," by Rev. D. Berger, D. D. United Brethren Publishing House, Dayton, Ohio, 1897. " History of the United Brethren in Christ," by Rev. H. G. Spayth, 1 85 1. " History of Church of the United Brethren in Christ," by Rev. John Lawrence, 1861. "Life of Phihp WiUiam Otterbein," by Rev. A. W. Drury, D. D., 1884. XXV The Mennonites THE Mennonite denomination is an outgrowth of the Anabaptist movement of the early sixteenth century. The Anabaptists formed a radical wing of the Zwinglian reform movement in Switzerland which, originating in 1523, later spread throughout the Rhine valley in Germany and Holland. Among the principles they advocated were : 1. Voluntary church membership, composed of men and women of adult years who sought admission into the Church because of a regenerated life. They therefore opposed infant baptism, and insisted upon rebaptism upon confession of faith, hence the name. 2. Complete separation of Church and State. 3. Refusal to bear arms and to use force in the settling of disputes. 4. A rather literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount, including opposition to the oath. 5. Entire religious toleration. Among the early leaders of the movement in Switzerland were Conrad Grebel, Felix Mantz, and George Blaurock who first entered protest against the state church system of Zwingli in a public disputation held at Lucerne, Switzerland, in 1523. From this time on the movement spread rapidly throughout Northern Switzerland and the Upper Rhine regions, principally among the artisan classes, but occasionally prominent noble- men and churchmen joined the ranks. The changes which they advocated were so far reaching that active propaganda 187 188 CHUECHES OF THE PEDEEAL COUNCIL was suppressed and the leaders were persecuted. By 1535 all the early leaders had lost their lives. It was at this time that Menno Simons, a native of Friesland, and a recently converted monk, espoused the Anabaptist faith, and by virtue of his great organizing ability so dominated the movement in Holland and Northern Germany as to leave it his name *' Menist," which in America has become Mennonite. The first Mennonites to come to America were a band of thirteen families, including several German Quakers from Holland and Northwestern Germany, under the leadership of Francis Daniel Pastorius, a Pietist. They founded German- town, Pa., in 1683, the first German settlement in America. A few years later, from 17 10 to 1720, a considerable number of Mennonites and others from the German Palatinate settled along the Conestoga River in what is now Lancaster County, Pa. From these two parent settlements a number of colonies have emigrated, for they usually have settled by colonies, into Western Pennsylvania, the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, Ohio and Ontario. From 1820 to 1850, a period of heavy European immigration, a number of Mennonites also came to America from Alsace-Lorraine and Switzerland. These settled for the most part in Butler and Allen Counties, Ohio, Adams County, Ind., and Central Illinois. Beginning with 1874 and lasting to 1880 occurred the third and most extensive of the Mennonite imm.igrations to America. These last were the Russian Mennonites who in 1789 had settled in Southern Rus- sia from Prussia upon invitation of Catherine II to escape oppressive military service. In 1870 the attempt of the Rus- sian government to deprive them of their military exemptions caused thousands of them to seek an asylum in America. Large settlements were made upon the raw prairie lands of Manitoba, Southern Minnesota, Dakota, and Eastern Kansas and Nebraska. Although a number of small colonies were established by the earlier communities, yet the localities above mentioned are still the chief centers of the Mennonite people. THE MENNONITES 189 In matters of faith and doctrine the American Mennonites of to-day have departed very little from the fundamental princi- ples of the Anabaptists. Owing, however, to the fact that they settled in colonies and to the prevailing congregational system of church government with no unifying organization, the main body has been broken up into numerous smaller branches dif- fering principally only in minor practices and customs. The entire membership of all branches in the United States and Canada is approximately 80,000, divided into the following branches : I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 II 12 13 Old Mennonites 20,000 General Conference 15,000 Mennonite Brethren in Christ . . . 8,000 Wisler Mennonites 1,900 Reformed Mennonites i>7oo Brueder Gemeinde 5,000 Church of God in Christ 600 Mennonites in Manitoba 8,000 Amish Mennonites 8,000 Amish Mennonites (Conservative) . . 1,650 Amish (Old Order) 4,500 Defenceless Mennonites 1,100 Illinois Conference of Mennonites . . 2,000 The Mennonite denomination is composed largely of rural congregations and partly for that reason none of the branches have been aggressive in missionary and educational work until recently. At present, however, most of the branches are actively engaged in carrying on all kinds of aggressive Chris- tian work. Last year the denomination through its several boards supported eighty-five foreign missionaries. It also sup- ports three colleges, one of which includes a theological seminary. The General Conference wing was the first to enter both the missionary and educational fields. The movement, as its name indicates, was an attempt on the part of a few of the more pro- 190 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL gressive spirits in small isolated congregations to organize at least the more liberal and progressive of the congregations for active united Christian work. One of the first acts following the organization of the General Conference in i860 was to form a Foreign Missionary Society. It was not until 1880, however, that the first missionary was sent to the Hopi Indians. Since then three stations have been established in Central Province, India, and one in China. The Old Mennonites established their first foreign mission in India in 1898. The present force at this station consists of twelve men and women. A new station is to be opened the coming year in South America. The Mennonite Brethren in Christ maintain stations in Armenia, Africa and China. The Illinois Conference of Men- nonites, together with the Defenceless Mennonites, maintain a station in the Congo in Africa. All the above mentioned branches support a number of Home Missions in the large cities. The other branches of the Church have no Mission Boards of their own but the Amish Churches generally con- tribute to the work of the Old Mennonite Board. In educational work the Mennonite Church as a body has taken little aggressive interest until within recent years. Here too the General Conference took the lead. The first institution of learning was established at Wadsworth, Ohio, in 1868, and was known as '' The Christian Educational Institution of the Mennonite Denomination." The experiment lasted only ten years, however, when the doors of the institution had to be closed for lack of support. In 1882 the Kansas Conference of Russian and German Mennonites established at Halstead, Kan., *' The Mennonite Seminary," which in 1893 was trans- ferred to Newton, Kan., and which has since developed into an up-to-date flourishing college with fifteen instructors and an attendance of two hundred and fifty students. The Old Mennonites established Goshen College at Goshen, Ind., in 1904. This institution is an outgrowth of a prepara- THE MENNONITES 191 tory school founded in 1895 at Elkhart, Ind. The present attendance is 256 (Jan. i, 1916) in the college, academy, and normal school departments. The latest institution to be founded is Bluffton College, at Bluffton, Ohio. This institution is an outgrowth of Central Mennonite College, largely a preparatory school, founded in 1900 by the Middle District Conference of the General Con- ference. In 191 3 a group of fifteen trustees from five of the branches of the Mennonite denomination were selected to re- organize this school into Bluffton College which was to provide for three departments, — College of Liberal Arts, Mennonite Seminary, and Conservatory of Music. The five cooperating branches are the General Conference, Defenceless, Illinois Conference, Mennonite Brethren in Christ, and the Old Men- nonite. Some of these conferences heretofore had no affiliation with any college and none had a seminary. The organization of the board is a self- perpetuating body chosen from these five branches, but the conferences interested are granted the right by the constitution to select the board members representing their branches if they so desire. The first Bachelor's degrees are conferred this past year (1915) upon a class often. The present enrollment in the three departments is 230. Throughout the West are located a number of preparatory schools controlled by different branches of the denomination. Among these are Tabor College at Hillsboro, Kan. ; Mennon- ite Collegiate Institute, Gretna, Manitoba ; Hesston Academy, Hesston, Kan. ; Freeman College, Freeman, S. D. ; and Moun- tain Lake Preparatory School, Mountain Lake, Minn. The earliest Mennonite church paper was published as a private venture in 1852 by Rev. J. H. Oberholtzer, one of the founders of the General Conference at Milford Square, Pa., and was called Religioser Botschafter. The Conference now maintains at Berne, Ind., the Mennonite Book Concern which publishes The Meniionite, Bundesbote, Kiiiderbote and religious supplies. The Old Mennonite Church controls the Mennonite 192 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL Publishing House at Scottdale, Pa., which is a recent outgrowth of the Mennonite Publishing Company of Elkhart, Ind., a pri- vate publishing establishment founded by J. F. Funk in 1864, and which for many years published the Herald of Truth and Herald der Wahrheity which have since been merged into the new paper issued by the Mennonite Publishing House, called the Gospel Herald. This house also publishes The Christian Monitory Rundschau^ and a number of religious books and Sunday-school material. The other branches of the Church own no publishing establishments but several issue church papers. The Mennonite Brethren in Christ have issued since 1877 the Gospel Banner y now published by the Union Gospel Publishing Company, Cleveland, Ohio. The Bethel Publish- ing Company at New Carlisle, Ohio, a private concern, pub- lishes Sunday-school literature for this branch. The Christian Evafigel, published at Normal, 111., is the organ of the Illinois Conference of Mennonites. The Defenceless Mennonites pub- lish a small paper at Gridley, 111., which is called Heilsbote. The greatest need in the Mennonite denomination is still that of a more determined cooperation in carrying on the various lines of Christian activity. There are still thirteen branches of the denomination working through four Mission Boards, three Educational Boards and five Publication Boards. The doctrinal differences of these divisions are slight, consisting for the most part of differences in customs and minor practices. The twelve bodies could at least easily resolve themselves into two, one a conservative and the other the progressive group. There are a number of forces, however, which are making for a greater working unity among the different branches of the denomination. A significant assembly was the ** All- Mennonite " Convention held at Berne, Ind., in 1913, at which were represented all the more important wings of the Church. The questions which were discussed all dealt with the problems common to the entire denomination. Provision was also made to hold another convention in 191 6. It is alto- THE MENNONITES 193 gether likely that these conventions will greatly promote co- operative effort along all lines of active Christian work. Bluffton College, as already stated, is an attempt at co- operation among several branches in the field of education. The most effective movement, however, for the unifying of all the forces is the General Conference movement which was founded in i860 for the unifying of effort in the fields of mis- sions, education, and publishing interests. The movement naturally appeals most to the more progressive wings and is continually gaining strength and prestige. The General Conference has always stood for the heartiest cooperation with' other denominations in the carrying out of practical Christian work and for several years has had a repre- sentative in the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL Krehbiel, H. P., " History of the General Conference of Mennonites of America. '* Mennonite Book Concern, Berne, Ind., 1898. Funk, John F., " The Mennonite Church and Her Ac- cusers." Mennonite Publishing Company, Elkhart, Ind., 1878. Smith, C. Henry, " The Mennonites of America." Pub- lished by the Author. Bluffton, Ohio, 1908. Brons, Anna, *' Ursprung, Entwickelung und Schicksale der Altevangelischen Taufgesinnten oder Mennoniten." Norden, 1891. Cassel, D. K., " Geschichte der Mennoniten." Philadelphia, 1890. Pennypacker, Samuel W., " Historical and Biographical Sketches." Philadelphia, 1883. Wedel, C. H., " Abrisz der Geschichte der Mennoniten." Newton, Kan., 1904. 194 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL Van der Smissen, H., " Geschichte der Mennoniten." Mcnnonite Book Concern, Berne, Tnd. Horsch, John, " The Mennonites." Mennonite Publishing Company, Elkhart, Ind. Eby, A., " Die Ansiedlung und Begriindung der Gemeind- schaft in Canada." Milford Square, Pa., 1872. Eby, Benjamin, " Kurzegefasste Kirchcngeschichte der Taufgesinnten oder Mennoniten." Elkhart, Ind., 1868. Grubb, N. B., " The Mennonite Church of Germantown." Philadelphia, 1906. Hartzlcr, J. S. and KauiFman, D., " Mennonite Church His- tory." Mennonite Publishing House, Scottdale, Pa., 1905. Miiller, Ernst, " Geschichte der Bernischen Taufer." Frau- enfeld, 1895. " Mcnno Simons* Complete Works." Translated from Dutch by J. F. Funk. Elkhart, Ind., 1871. Musser, Daniel, *' The Reformed Mennonite Church." Lancaster, 1873, XXVI The Moravian Church THE constitution, character and conduct of any or- ganization, whether religious or secular, are largely determined by its history. This general principle holds good of the Moravian Church. Like most Protestant Churches, this body traces its origin to a revival of experi- mental religion. The revival occurred in an interesting coun- try, amid stirring events, and exerted determinative influence on the character of the Church which proceeded from it. Bohemia was the scene of the noteworthy awakening. This land is one of the smallest of the world's famous countries. Lying diamond shaped in the heart of Europe, it has with good reason been styled *< the key " of that continent, for it occupies an important position in Europe's military annals and religious history. To the southeast of Bohemia lies the much smaller margravate of Moravia. The two have substantially the same history. They are one by the ties of fortune and misfortune. Into the territory embraced within the borders of these two lands there came in the fifth century the Czechs, a vigorous and high-minded people, the most gifted of the Slavonic tribes. Remnants of earlier inhabitants they either dispossessed or sub- dued. The missionary interest of Christianity reached out to them about the middle of the ninth century. It proceeded from both the Latin and the Greek Churches, a little earlier from the former but with much more vigorous expression from the latter. Cyrill and Methodius, sent out by the Greek Church, became the apostles of the Bohemians and Moravians. 195 196 CHUECHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL They translated the Scriptures into their language and estab- lished many churches. A marked feature of their work was the use of the language of the people, not only in giving instruc- tion but, also, in public worship. Thus was laid the founda- tion for that national church feeling and the liberal principles that thenceforward distinguished the Bohemians and Moravians. They were animated by a spirit akin to that which later mani- fested itself as Protestantism. Roman pontiffs were not indif- ferent to these developments. On the ground of the prior claims of the Latin Church, they sought to bring the Bohemian and Moravian Church under their supremacy. Eventually, their zealotry was crowned with success. The Greek ritual fell into disuse, the vernacular was no longer employed in public worship. But the impression left in the minds of the people in favor of the use of the popular language for religious purposes was never effaced. The hearts of the people clung to the cus- toms of the fathers. They were ready at any time to welcome a reformer, particularly when the powerful Roman Church be- came very corrupt. In due time the reformer appeared. His name was John Hus. Under his guidance — as is well known because his life is a part of universal history as truly as is the life of Luther, of Calvin, of Zwingli, of Wesley or of Cranmer — the intellectual and religious movement in Bohemia of the fourteenth century was turned into the channel of a national reformation. The martyrdom of Hus precipitated the long and sanguinary Hussite Wars. The brave Bohemians fought for national independence and religious liberty but were overwhelmed because divided among themselves. What was left of the several parties at the end of the conflicts was constituted the National Church of Bohemia, enjoying certain concessions granted by the Romish hierarchy, such as the Lord's Supper in both kinds and the use of the vernacular in public worship. Amid the confusion and violence of the times, there were devout men of God who did not take up arms, nor meddle in THE MOEAVIAN CHUECH 197 political commotion, nor give way to fanaticism. They fostered apostolic teaching, discipline and fellowship, true to the prin- ciples and practices of the Bohemian reformer, as set forth in his public preaching and in his writings. They were the genuine followers of Hus and furnished the seed of the Unitas Fratrum. Dissatisfied with the semi-Romish National Church, they longed to work out their own salvation. They were en- couraged by Peter Chelcic, an earnest layman and forcible writer, who protested with all the vigor of a Puritan against the corruption of the times, investigated the great questions of the age with independent mind, acknowledged no authority but the Scriptures and whose system subordinated the doctrinal to the practical. This man exercised formative influence on their aspirations. His counsel led them to retire from Prague to the estate of Lititz, a hundred miles to the east, and begin an im- mediate reformation. There in the midst of the dense forests, under the shadow of the Giant Mountains, they founded their settlement in 1457. Primarily, the idea was to form a Chris- tian Association rather than a new sect. Hence, the name Brethren, and, subsequently, the Unity of the Brethren (Unitas Fratrum), was adopted. Seclusion did not result in the cloistering of their interests. They were continually joined by like-minded persons. This, together with their lofty aim and the compulsive force of persecution on the part of the corrupt National Church, prompted them to place their organization on a more solid basis, both in doctrine and in practice. They were staunch people and true. As their organization gathered strength, they recognized that they had something worth the keeping and that they sustained weighty obligations over against their day and generation. Hence, they considered the propriety of separating entirely from the National Church and instituting an independent ministry. The latter they secured by episcopal consecration, in 1467, through the good offices of the Waldenses. That was the only form of ministry then known. The validity of it, as secured by the Unitas Fratrum, 198 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAIj COUNCIL the Roman Catholics and the Calixtines, as the members of the National Church were known, never questioned. Four principles were adopted by the members of the Unitas Fratrum as the basis of their union, (i) The Bible is the only source of Christian doctrine. (2) Public worship is to be conducted in accordance with Scripture teaching and on the model of the Apostolic Church. (3) The Lord's Supper is to be received in faith, to be doctrinally defined in the lan- guage of Scripture and every authoritative human explanation of that language is to be avoided. (4) Godly Christian life is essential as an evidence of saving faith. Gradually, the Unitas Fratrum attained to complete organi- zation. A well ordered polity was worked out. It is interest- ing to note that a form of government began to take shape be- fore the episcopate was introduced. It tended towards the con- ferential form. While the episcopate in the Ancient Unitas Fratrum was endowed with administrative function, the confer- ential idea was never entirely overshadowed. Numerical in- crease of the membership was rapid. When Luther appeared, the Unitas Fratrum embraced about four hundred parishes and two hundred thousand members. Its activity was diversified. Ecclesiastical resources were developed in various directions. The native genius of the Church continually asserted itself in practical evangelism. A thorough educational system was developed to fight ignorance, the fruitful mother of sin and error. Colleges and theological seminaries were established. A confession of faith was elaborated. Hymn-book, catechism and Bible were given to the people. The Unitas Fratrum en- joys the distinction of having been the first church to put a hymn-book into the hands of the people. The first edition bears the date 1501. It, also, has the honor of having been the first to translate the Bible into the Bohemian vernacular from the original tongues. In preparation for this monumental task some of the most gifted youth of the Church were sent to German and Swiss universities in order to attain thorough knowledge of the THE MOEAYIAN CHUECH 199 Greek and Hebrew. From the young men thus trained, eight scholars were selected as translators. After fourteen years of indefatigable labor, they completed their work in 1593. Their version was called the Kralitz Bible, so named from an estate belonging to a nobleman, a member of the Church, who bore the cost of the undertaking. Modern Bohemians declare the style of this version to be unsurpassed. Several times reprinted in later days, the Kralitz Bible has furnished, word for word, the text of the Bohemian Bible published by the British and Foreign Bible Society. While building up their own organization, the Brethren did not neglect to cultivate a sincere spirit of fellowship with other evangelical Christians. At the beginning they sought for some body of people maintaining true faith and an uncorrupted priesthood, with whom they might make common cause. But they found none. When Luther became known, they entered into friendly relations with him and maintained them, with some interruptions, to the end of his life. Even more cordial were their relations with some of the other reformers, notably Calvin and Bucer. In their intercourse with these men they benefited in the matter of clearer definition of doctrine and taught them, in turn, important lessons in ecclesiastical discipline. In 1570 they formed with the Lutherans and the Reformed of Poland what may be termed the first evangelical alliance, based on the instrument of agreement known as the Consensus of Sendomir. *' Man proposes, God disposes." From the pinnacle of prosperity the Unitas Fratrum was plunged, in the inscrutable Providence of God, into the depths of adversity. The disas- trous counter reformation, which set in with the reverses of the Thirty Years' War, all but crushed the organization of the Unitas Fratrum. There was left only the Scriptural " rem- nant." This from an expression used by John Amos Come- nius, famous educator and the last bishop of the Ancient Unitas Fratrum, came to be called the *' Hidden Seed." The tradi- tions of the Church and the means for reconstructing its pecul- 200 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL iar organization were preserved fresh and sound, for Comenius perpetuated the episcopacy by regular consecration and em- bodied the principles of the polity, the teaching, the work and the discipline of the Church in his comprehensive, descriptive work, entitled *' Ratio Disciplinse." The *' Hidden Seed," was ready to germinate, when the proper time should come, and grow to a mighty tree, stretching its branches to the utter- most parts of the earth. The *' Hidden Seed " was transplanted to Saxony. There Herrnhut became the rallying place for the descendants of the Brethren, many of whom came from Moravia and thus gave the name Moravian Church to the modern Unitas Fratrum. The ancient discipline, handed down by Come- nius, was introduced ; the venerable episcopate was received at the hands of the two last survivors of a line of seventy bishops, extending from 1467 to 1735, and the Church of the Bohemian and Moravian confessors, concealed from human eye for three generations, renewed its youth like the eagle's. As this was the beginning of a new epoch in the history of the Unitas Fratrum, it marked, also, the inauguration of a development different in many respects from that of former times. The remnant of the Church, having been transferred to a foreign land, found itself in the midst of the territory and influence of the Lutheran State Church. Within the latter body the pietism of Spener constituted, at this time, a leaven of righteousness and endeavored to enliven the dead orthodoxy then prevailing. Count Zinzendorf, who became the leading bishop of the resuscitated Unitas Fratrum, was by birth a Lutheran and by conviction devoted to the pietistic movement. Through him and through other noteworthy men who identified themselves with the Moravians the work of renewal of the Church on the old principles was invigorated by an infusion of new life from the evangelical Church of Germany, and by Zin- zendorf the Brethren were induced to accept the favorite pietis- THE MOEAVIAN CHUECH 201 tic idea of liltle churches within the Church — ecclesiolae in ecclesia. He strove to build up the venerable Church in such a way as not to interfere with the rights and privileges of the State Church. In carrying out this principle, he did not allow the Unitas Fratrum to expand as other churches expanded, but established exclusive Moravian settlements in continental Europe, Great Britain and America, in which religion controlled not only spiritual but also social and industrial interests and from which the follies of the world were excluded. On prin- ciple, the Church was kept small, while its members undertook such extensive missions in heathen lands that they were recog- nized as the standard bearers in this work, established schools and began the so-called Diaspora Work or Inner Mission among nominal members of the State Churches of Europe. This not only prevented numerical increase of the communicant membership in Germany, Great Britain and America but proved, also, in the event, to be an impracticable ideal, partic- ularly in America. In this country the necessity of assuming the distinctly denominational forms of effort, under which Christianity has usually developed, became more speedily apparent and brought about a reshaping of the Church's activ- ity on the lines of the Ancient Unitas Fratrum. True to their traditions, the Moravians of the eighteenth century and subsequent times have cultivated fraternal feeling towards other religious bodies. Besides the connections men- tioned above, they have enjoyed practically helpful relations with the Episcopal Church, particularly in Great Britain. Their intimate association with the Wesleys and their followers is a matter of common knowledge. In connection with the Presbyterians, they prosecute work in one field of foreign mis- sionary endeavor in Australia which admirably illustrates missionary comity. One of their earliest efforts in Pennsylva- nia was to establish an alliance of several Protestant bodies to meet the religious needs of that colony through convocations known as the " Pennsylvania Synods." 202 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL A Church with a history so rich in experiences of divine favor, in zeal of unselfish evangelists and teachers, in testimony of martyrs is possessed of a distinct churchly consciousness. To indicate this, the brief account of its origin and develop- ment has been an historical requirement. This clear churchly consciousness resides in its noble traditions, its finely balanced constitution, its faithful witnesses, its Scriptural discipline and its beautiful customs. These several features embody the idea of the Church as held by the Moravians, the idea that has enabled them to be a power for good at home and abroad and that has kept them, though geographically widely distributed, a Unity of Brethren in doctrine, practice and work. As the brief historical outline could but imperfectly set forth that idea, a word concerning each of its salient characteristics is in order. I. As regards doctrine, the resuscitated Moravian Church has never put forth a formulated creed in the sense of present- ing a single document bearing the name of a confession of faith ; this because the Moravian Church did not wish to add another dissenting creed to the many " orthodox " creeds al- ready in existence and because they felt that any humanly compiled credal instrument would, in the nature of the case, be imperfect and might prove a hindrance to progress in the knowledge of divine things. At the same time, they point to several works which bear the authority of their General Synod and set forth the doctrines they teach, viz., "An Exposition of Doctrine," by Bishop Spangenberg, *'A Catechism for the Instruction of Youth," a chapter on doctrine in <*The Synodal Results" and the ''Easter Morning Litany." From these it appears that the Moravian Church is, as respects doctrinal be- lief, in substantial agreement with other evangelical churches. Its teaching, recognizing the Scriptures as the standard of faith, centers in Christ. The doctrinal platform, reared by the founders and elaborated by their successors, is broad and the views maintained thereon are liberal, according to the principle of the fathers : *' In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty. THE MOEAVIAN CHUECH 203 in all things charity." The creed of the Moravian Church is elastic but not lax. Its fixed symbols are few, but they are positive. They are all subordinated to the truth learned from Christ, to whom as true God and true man is assigned first place in doctrine. II. The polity of the Church tended from the first to the conferential form, giving marked prominence to the headship of Christ, as the source of all authority, in all its proceedings. The conferential idea, prominent in the organization of the Ancient Unitas Fratrum, was perfected in the resuscitated Church, whose form of government was determined before the episcopate was reintroduced. Its fundamental principle is that all ecclesiastical affairs are collegiate and to be conducted by boards. This principle is consistently carried out. As a body the members of the Moravian Church are governed by the General Synod which meets in Germany. This supreme legislature consists of the Unity's officials, representative bishops of the Church, elected delegates of the independent provinces and representatives from the mission fields. The General Synod legislates on all matters common to the whole, the church constitution, doctrine, discipline and the foreign missions. Its elected executive board carries out its decisions and exercises general superintendence in the intersynodal pe- riods. The independent provinces have each a constitution of their own, providing for provincial synods whose resolutions are binding upon all church boards, congregations, ministers and members of the respective provinces, providing, also, for executive boards elected by and amenable to the Provincial Synods, empowered to carry out all rules, regulations and prin- ciples adopted by Synod and authorized to initiate such meas- ures as may be deemed necessary in the practical work of administration. One of the American Provinces, covering large geographical territory, is divided into districts, whose synods deal with all matters of purely district interest. III. The ministry of the Moravian Church consists of the 204 CniJRCIIES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL three orders, derived from the Ancient Unitas Fratrum, dea- cons, presbyters and bishops. Moravians prize episcopal suc- cession as a valuable inheritance, as one of the principal links which cement the former and tiie present Unity, and as the historic form of the Church's organic life. But General Synod has, also, laid down this among fundamental principles. " The office of Bishop imparts in and by itself no manner of claim to the control of the whole Church, or to any part of it ; the ad- ministration of particular dioceses does not, therefore, belong to the bisliops." They are represented in General Synod, have seat and vote at the Provincial and District Synods, but their office carries witli it no ruling power in the Church. Their function is ordination of ministers. Their office, more- over, is defined to be " in a peculiar sense that of intercessors in the Church of God." They wield spiritual influence. Thus the episcopacy is cherished as a valuable part of Catholic tradition, but it is not regarded as embodying all of Catholic tradition with respect to government and discipline. This view has allowed the Church to enjoy the advantages of a conferciUial form of government. It has enabled it to recog- nize the validity of Presbyterian ordination. It has planted the Church on the comfortable ground of historic organized fellowship of Christians and secured to it a heritage of spiritual liberty. All bishops and ministers receive special commission from Synod or appointment from the Executive Board for the offices they severally hold. Negotiations for api)()intments or changes are conducted by ministers and boards of congregations or of institutions through the Executive Board of the Province, by whom every minister is appointed and every ministerial posi- tion controlled. In a very real sense, therefore, bishops and ministers of the Moravian Church in the positions they occupy represent the entire Church and not merely the local congre- gation. IV. The discipline of the Church is built upon the prin- THE MOKAYIAN CHUECH 205 ciple that evidence of personal piety must be added to pro- fessed adhesion to creed as a necessary condition to member- ship. It abhors a dead faith. Its purpose is to secure the welfare of the Church as a community, that Christian order and practice may be preserved and that the spiritual life of the Church may not be disturbed, and, furthermore, to seek the spiritual welfare of the members. It is exercised not only in reproof, correction, suspension or exclusion of members but, also, in the training and education of souls in the Christian life. The standard of discipline is high. It is not always maintained in its purity, but the effort is constantly made to exercise it according to the law of Christ and the spirit of Christian fellowship. V. The ritual of the Church is very comprehensive. Its forms are rich and varied. They are well suited to fulfill their purpose of giving all the people an opportunity to participate in an orderly and hearty manner in the services of the sanc- tuary. The formularies are adapted to the regular Sunday worship, special occasions, and to the observance of the chief festivals of the church year, as well as to the memorial days noteworthy in the ecclesiastical history of the Moravians. They are very full of the person and of the offices of Christ. Their employment in no wise involves an inhibition of ex- temporaneous prayer, abundant liberty being secured in this respect. Indeed, it may with truth be said that the Moravian ritual seeks the golden mean between order and uniformity, on the one hand, and liberty and flexibility on the other. These are, in brief outline, the distinctive elements embodied in the Moravian idea of the Church. Presenting individual traits of character, they represent peculiar interpretation and application of the old Christian principles of Christology and Fraternity. They show so broad an appreciation of the Church as would make her denominational life separate but not sectarian, a life of uniform good fellowship with her neighbors, yet distinctive enough to maintain forceful indi- 206 CHUECHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL viduality, a life that retains its normal features but blends with the color, form and strength of every living part of the temple "whose builder and maker is God." The attitude of the Moravian Church towards other Christian bodies was expressed at the last meeting of the Synod by the following letter : '* The Executive Co7nmittee, Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America^ the Rev. Fraiik Mason North, D. Z>., Chair many the Rev. Charles S. Macfarlatid, D. Z>., Sec- retary. ** Brethren : The Synod of the Moravian Church, convened at Nazareth, Pa., June i8-July i, 191 3, requested its President to make fraternal reply to the communication addressed to it by the Federal Council, and to transmit copies of the preambles and resolutions adopted in reply thereto to the Executive Com- mittee. <* As president, it was my pleasant duty to arrange for the presence at, and ray privilege to present to, the Synod of the Moravian Church, the Rev. Dr. Macfarland, Secretary of the Federal Council, as also to provide for the proper considera- tion of your communication and of his address. *' In following my instructions, now, I discharge a duty and enjoy a privilege equally valued in notifying the Council's Executive Committee, with which I have been associated since its organization, of the action taken by the Moravian Church and in availing myself of the opportunity of assuring you that in all matters falling within the scope of the Council the Mora- vian attitude is most cordial and the Moravian spirit most fraternal. " That a larger and a more effective cooperation on our part has not been achieved, and that support more tangible and substantial has not been evidenced, must be attributed solely to the numerical smallness and the circumscribed sphere of the Moravian body. However, notwithstanding appearances, our THE MOEAYIAN CHUECH 207 denomination desires to maintain the closest relations to and to display the keenest sympathy with every endeavor that may be put forth by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. **The action of the Moravian Synod, which it was voted to convey to your body, is contained in the subjoined quotation : — " * Whereas, Following in the steps of the Evangelical Alli- ance, there are at the present time two movements tending towards Christian Unity, the one being the proposed World Conference on Faith and Order, the other the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, *' ' Resolved, That this Synod reaffirms its position on Chris- tian union, which reads : *' The fathers and founders of the Brethren's Church, in the century before the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, in the interest of what they accepted as the Faith of Christ and His apostles, secured for themselves the Historic Episcopate and organized as a church of Christ. This Church in all the centuries of its ex- istence and activity, in all parts of the Christian and heathen world, has maintained a position of most cordial recognition and of fellowship with brethren of other churches of different names and forms of government." *' ' Whereas, The World Conference on Faith and Order is an international movement and approaches the Union of Chris- tendom from the standpoint of an organized Christianity, which states and adheres to its positive beliefs and proceeds in its administration along lines of established order, and " * Whereas, This movement should receive the hearty sup- port of the Moravian Church, as long as it is in accordance with the foregoing resolution and in no wise becomes schis- matic, and " ' Whereas, The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America is a national organization which approaches the union of Christendom from the standpoint of common re- 208 CHURCHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL ligious and social needs, which may be met by common ac- tivities on the part of the various churches, working sepa- rately and conjointly, be it, therefore, " * Resolved, That we express our interest in and our sym- pathy with both the planned World Conference on Faith and Order and the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, in so far as they recognize their common purpose and do not conflict with one another in its attainment. " < Resolved, That Synod urges the Governing Boards of the individual churches to do all in their power to cooperate with the Federal Council whenever opportunity offers.' ** Believing that both your communication and your repre- sentative have contributed much to the strengthening of the bonds of fellowship between the Federal Council and the Moravian Church, and praying that efficient cooperation may ever increase, " I beg to remain, in the name and in behalf of the Synod of the Moravian Church in America, "Very sincerely, your brother, (Signed.) ** Morris W. Leibert.** BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL " The Moravian Manual," published by the authority of the Provincial Synod of the Northern Province of the Mora- vian Church in America. Times Publishing Company, Bethlehem, Pa., 1901. ** The History of the Church known as the Unitas Fratrum or the Unity of the Brethren," by Edmund de Schweinitz, S. T. D., Bishop of the Unitas Fratrum or the Mora- vian Church. Moravian Publication Office, Bethlehem, Pa., 1885. ** A History of the Church known as the Moravian Church or the Unitas Fratrum or the Unity of the Brethren, dur- ing the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries," by the Rt. Rev. J. Taylor Hamilton, D. D. Times Publishing Company, Bethlehem, Pa., 1900. THE MOEAYIAN CHUECH 209 **A History of the Moravian Church," by the Rev. J. E. Hutton, M. A. Second Edition, revised and enlarged. Moravian Publication Office, London, 1909. *' John Hus, the Martyr of Bohemia, a Study in the Dawn of Protestantism," by the Rev. W. N. Schwarze, Ph. D. Revell, New York, 191 5. The last two are popularly written. XXVII The Friends THE Friends Church came into existence in England as the result of an effort, on the part of a group of spiritually- minded men aiid women, to realize in the seventeenth century the essential phases of Christian expe- rience as known to the followers of Christ in the first half of the first century of the existence of the Christian Church. The early Friends had no intention of organizing a new sect when they began to meet together in groups separate from others who professed the Christian faith. They began to meet together first, to hear the preaching of the men and women who were the leaders of the movement, and later they continued to meet together in the effort to test by experience the truth of the doctrines which they had accepted, and which were to them, and to the people of England generally, in many respects wholly new. The Founder Among the leaders of the movement, one may properly be said to be the founder of the denomination, not only because he was one of the first to perceive the fundamental truths which had, to so great a degree, been lost sight of, but also, and chiefly, because he possessed unusual keenness of spiritual insight, unusual perseverance in his search after truth and ex- ceptional wisdom in dealing with all classes of men ; such a man was George Fox, who was born in Leicestershire, Eng- land, in 1624, and who died in 1691. The Name The name "Friends Church " is one which has come to be applied only within recent years; the groups of men and 210 THE FEIENDS 211 women who first met together to practice the then new doc- trines called themselves merely ''Friends," taking the name from the words of Christ, " I have called you friends," because they wished to be in reality friends of God, and to be known as such. When, however, it became apparent that a some- what permanent, formal organization would be necessary in order to guarantee the continuance of favorable opportunity to carry out the new doctrines of worship the name, ** The Re- ligious Society of Friends," was adopted, in this way record- ing the original purpose of the founders, that a new sect or denomination should not be created. The differences in be- lief and practice, however, which attracted men and women in the beginning, did not permit them to return to the older organizations, and the religious society which resulted became, in fact, a new denomination long before the suggestion was made that the name "Society" should give place to "Church." Indeed, the official and legal name of the Friends Church in most places still remains, " The Religious Society of Friends." Beliefs With respect to the great fundamental doctrines of the Church, the Friends hold views which are essentially the same as those now held by the other evangelical denomina- tions. Of the differences in belief which exist, the greater number prove, on final analysis, to be due to the different em- phasis which Friends place upon some particular phases of Christian truth. The degree of difference expressed by this different emphasis on particular phases of truth has not, how- ever, been the same in all periods of Friends' history. In the beginning, some of the distinguishing views of Friends were so little known that their recognition was, in reality, a redis- covery of the truth. Some of the phases of the truth which the Friends have felt called upon to emphasize particularly are : I, That the Holy Spirit exercises an immediate and per- 212 CHUECHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL ceplible influence upon the consciousness of every human being, — upon that of the sinner to convince and convict of sin, and, as the Gospel is known, to point him to Christ the Saviour ; and upon that of the beUever to be his light and guide, his comforter and sanctifier. 2. The certainty that to every person is given, as a part of his human endowment, (i) the ability to follow righteous- ness, and (2) illumination, to some degree, as to what practical righteousness is. 3. The possibility, therefore the privilege, of communion with God without the mediation or assistance of any human agency whatsoever ; that is, the priesthood of every individual Christian believer. 4. The infinite value, in God's sight, of every human soul ; therefore, the equality before Him of every individual of what- ever race, ruler or ruled, male or female. Practices As a result of holding these beUefs, together with the pro- found conviction that truth accepted must seek prompt and full expression in action and deed, many practices became prevalent among the Friends, which, to a greater or lesser de- gree, have distinguished them from other Christian denomi- nations. As was to have been expected, some of these prac- tices persisted after the conditions against which they were a practical protest had radically changed ; but others seem to the Friends to be still demanded not so much as formerly on account of differing practices among other Christian bodies, as because there seems to be a perpetual and general need for the exempli- fication, in this way, of the fundamental truths of Christianity. Without attempting to distinguish between those practices, which have lost, to some extent, their original significance, and those which it is believed are still the expression of truth vitally important for our time, the following list is given as containing some of the more important of the practices among Friends : THE FEIENDS 213 1. The practice of giving to silent congregational worship an important place in the activities of the meeting. This practice is an outgrowth of the belief that each worshipper can approach God for himself, together with the additional belief that when a body of Christian believers comes thus into the presence of God, there is made possible a perception of truth which cannot come to one who is engaged in worship alone. 2. The non-use of the rite of baptism with water, and the eating of bread and drinking of wine as an act of worship. 3. The organization of congregations without paid pastors. This was at first the universal rule, though now many congre- gations of Friends give regular support to a pastor. A tend- ency has appeared quite recently to regard the pastor more as an organizer and director of the religious forces of the community than as a leader in the meeting for public worship, though he may fill the latter place also. 4. The recognition of women as ministers on an equal foot- ing with men. 5. The use of plainness of speech and dress. 6. The refusal, on conscientious grounds, to take oath to make more sacred or binding any statement that may be made. 7. The refusal, on conscientious grounds, to bear arms or to take any other active part in military organization. 8. The advocacy of many great reforms such as the aboli- tion of slavery, the prohibition of the liquor traffic, the substi- tution of arbitration for war as a means of settling international disputes, opposition to capital punishment, and the improve- ment in the care of criminals and the insane. In all of these great movements Friends have worked energetically, often being among the first to recognize the need. Organization Monthly Meetings. The unit of organization for managing the business of the church is the Monthly Meeting, so named 214 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL because the meetings for business meet regularly once each month. Frequently a Monthly Meeting includes only the members of a single congregation, though in many cases a Monthly Meeting includes two or more congregations located near together. The Monthly Meeting alone has power (i) to act upon requests for membership from those who have not before had membership in any church ; (2) to pass upon certificates of membership issued by other denominations transferring rights of church membership to the Friends ; (3) to disown members, that is to expel from the church ; and (4) to transact certain other parts of the business of the church, as for example the appointment of trustees who shall hold for the church the real estate belonging to it as a congregation. Many other phases of church work are regularly assumed by the Monthly Meeting acting usually through committees, but many of these duties are also assumed by other organizations of the church as well. The title given to the chief officer in the Monthly Meeting is Clerk. The same term is used for the chief officer in the other groups organized for business named below, that is, Quarterly Meetings, Yearly Meetings, and the Five Years' Meeting. At the time of sessions for business, the clerk is the presiding officer. Quarterly Meetings. Monthly Meetings situated near each other are associated together for the purpose of consulting in regard to phases of church work which may offer special diffi- culty to the local congregations and to gain the strength which comes from widening the circle of acquaintance of the indi- vidual members. The name Quarterly Meeting is given to these associations of local churches because the meetings are held once in each three months. Quarterly Meetings have certain legislative powers and power to pass upon certain cases of appeal from the action of the constituent Monthly Meetings. Yearly Meetitigs. Similar to the association of Monthly THE FEIENDS 215 Meetings to form a Quarterly Meeting is the association of Quarterly Meetings to form a Yearly Meeting. The area covered by a Yearly Meeting is, in general, comparable to the area covered by one of the states of the Union, though in some cases more than one Yearly Meeting exists within a state and in some cases the meetings in two or more states are included in one Yearly Meeting. The sessions of a Yearly Meeting usually occupy about a week once a year, and while given original powers in only a limited number of cases, the influence of these annual meet- ings is very great. A certain number of members is appointed by each of the constituent Quarterly Meetings as official repre- sentatives or delegates, but freedom of discussion and the right to a voice in acting upon any subject are accorded to any member of any meeting in the Yearly Meeting whether ap- pointed as a delegate or not. In most Yearly Meetings formal voting to determine the wish of those present is not practiced, the consensus of opinion being inferred by the clerk from the voluntary expressions made. It has not usually been the cus- tom of Friends to consider a proposition as passed if there is decided, conscientious objection from a considerable number of those present even though those thus objecting constitute a minority. The Five Years' Meeting. Thirteen of the American Yearly Meetings, including approximately three-fourths of all in Amer- ica who bear the name of Friends, have associated themselves together in an organization with limited legislative powers, for the purpose of unifying and strengthening the work of the sepa- rate Yearly Meetings. This larger organization has its head- quarters in Richmond, Ind,, and meets once in five years, its sessions occupying in all about one week of time. It is made up of delegates appointed by each Yearly Meeting in number proportionate to membership. A General Secretary has been appointed, and Central Boards for each of the important de- partments of church work; some of these Boards have ap- 216 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL pointed general secretaries to have charge of the work of the department, and to cooperate with committees appointed for the same branch of work in the constituent Yearly Meetings. The Five Years' Meeting appoints from its membership a committee to represent Friends in the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, and is, therefore, the organiza- tion through which Friends in America cooperate with the other evangelical denominations. Different Groups Called Friends Variations in belief and practice among the Friends themselves have given rise to three different groups, known as Orthodox, Hicksite, and Wilburite Friends, respectively; in addition, there are a few isolated congregations which do not consider themselves as belonging to any of the foregoing. The names, Hicksite and Wilburite, are derived from the surnames of the two men who were prominent at the time when the divergence in belief in two respective lines was developing; the name Orthodox was given because the views held by this group were considered by those who used the name originally as being more nearly in agreement with the doctrines accepted by the other evangelical denominations. The number of members in each of the groups is approxi- mately as follows : Orthodox 100,600 Hicksite 19,600 Wilburite 3,900 Others 200 Total in America 124,300 The Five Years* Meeting is made up entirely of ** Ortho- dox ' ' Friends, and includes nine-tenths of those classed under that name. THE FEIENDS 217 BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL " Beginnings of Quakerism," by William C. Braithwaite. " George Fox," by Prof. Rufus M. Jones. " History of Friends in America," by Prof. Allen C. Thomas. " The Quakers in the American Colonies," by Prof. Rufus M. Jones. " A Quaker Experiment in Government," by President Isaac Sharpless. " The Rise of the Quakers," by T. Edmund Harvey. "The Story of Quakerism," by Elizabeth B. Emmott. " The Society of Friends, Its Faith and Practice," by John S. Rowntree. "Uniform Discipline of the American Yearly Meetings," 1 90 1 Edition. Any of the above can be supplied by the Central Office of the Five Years* Meeting of the Friends in America, Rich- mond, Ind. XXVIII The Evangelical Lutheran Church THE Evangelical Lutheran Church claims to be a part of the Catholic Apostolic Church founded by Christ. Its specific name was given to it in the German Ref- ormation, inaugurated by Martin Luther when he nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, October 3^> 1517- The American branch had its origin in 1632, when Luther- ans came from Holland as a part of the Dutch colony which settled on Manhattan Island, now occupied by the City of New York. The second arrival of Lutherans in America was that of the Swedes in 1638, fifty years before William Penn's famous treaty with the Indians. They made their first settle- ment where Wilmington, Del., now stands, and built their blockhouse, in which divine service was held and which was named Fort Christian. They purchased from the Indians a tract of land extending from the mouth of Delaware Bay north- ward to the Falls of Trenton and westward to the Susquehanna near York Haven, embracing the State of Delaware and the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania. The first church in the latter state was built at Tinicum in Delaware County, in 1646. For various reasons Swedish immigration ceased for two hun- dred years. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, how- ever, several million Scandinavians have arrived, and consti- tute a large part of the population of the northwestern states, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and especially Minnesota and North Dakota. The history of the German branch of the Lutheran Church 218 THE EVANGELICAL LUTHEEAN CHUECH 219 begins with the arrival of the Palatinates in Pennsylvania in 1680. The first church was built by them at Falkner's Swamp in Montgomery County, in 1700. During the first half of the eighteenth century over 60,000 German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania. These people, however, were without any adequate spiritual care or supervision. In 1735 there were only eight ordained Lutheran ministers in the American colonies, and of these only one was in Pennsylvania. It was not until the arrival of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, a young pastor from Halle, in 1742, that the Lutherans in America were properly organized. He assembled the first Synod, the Ministerium of Pennsyl- vania, in Philadelphia on August 26, 1748. It consisted of six ministers and twenty-four lay delegates. From these feeble beginnings the Lutheran Church has grown to be a mighty host, numbering 2,437,706 communicants, having over 9,688 ministers and 15,112 congregations. This vast number represents a constituency of not less than ten millions, or one out of every ten of the population of the United States. Three-fourths of the members belong to four general bodies — The General Synod, The General Coun- cil, The United Synod, South, and The Synodical Conference. There is no one general organization comprising representa- tives of all these bodies and of the independent synods. The Lutheran Church in America is well equipped with various educational and benevolent institutions. It supports twenty-nine theological seminaries, forty-one colleges, fifty-five academies, ten young ladies' seminaries, nine deaconess mother houses, fourteen immigrant missions, fifty-seven orphans' homes, forty-three hospitals, seventeen hospices, forty-four homes for the aged, and eleven home finding societies. It issues two hundred and seventy separate periodical publications, of which twenty-eight are weekly. Extensive mission work is carried on in the home as well as in the foreign field. The form of Lutheran church government is essentially re- 220 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL publican. The congregation is the unit and sends its pastor and lay delegate as representatives to the Synod which meets an- nually. The district synods elect representatives to the respect- ive general bodies. The source of authority is the individual congregation, which however delegates very important functions to the Synod, and binds itself to certain general regulations made for the common good. Gradually the district synods and the general bodies have acquired greater power through the centralizing process which has grown but of the administration of the missionary work and the publication interests. In Scandinavia the episcopal form of government obtains, but the Bishop is simply Primus inter pares. In the Lutheran Church everywhere the ministry is an office and not an order. Its polity, therefore, is incidental and not fundamental. Any form of government which recognizes the laity and the parity of the ministers, and proves itself efficient, is admissible. There are no present indications of a desire to depart from the existing form, which is believed to be in entire harmony with New Tes- tament teachings, as well as with the genius of our American institutions. The Lutheran Church believes that the deepest devotional spirit is fostered by dignity and order in public worship. It has always been a liturgical church, but not in a rigid way. It provides forms of service and worship to be used by the con- gregation and also by the pastor in the performance of minis- terial acts. Three of the general bodies some years ago adopted a Common Service, which is based on a consensus of the pure Lutheran liturgies of the sixteenth century. It is a beautiful and appropriate service, which may be adapted to the needs of any congregation. From a doctrinal standpoint the Lutheran Church in America is very conservative. The ''new theology," ''reconstruction in theology," "radical criticism" and "revision of creeds'* have made but a feeble appeal. Indeed, alarmed by departures from the faith in other denominations affected by the above in- THE EVANGELICAL LUTHEEAN CHUECH 221 fluences, it has become increasingly conservative. It holds firmly to the Bible as the Word of God, believing that living faith can be maintained only by adhering to the plain teach- ings of the Sacred Scriptures. The theology of the Lutheran Church is essentially a Chris- tology. Christ is the center. Through Him God has ap- proached us and through Him we approach God. God is not simply Supreme Will to the Lutheran, but Infinite Loving Will. Redemption rather than Sovereignty is the key-note of his be- lief. He is very jealous of the doctrine of the Person of Christ, who to His eternal Divine Person joined a human nature, form- ing an indissoluble divine- human personality. The Lutheran Church believes in salvation by grace through faith, and not by works. Human nature is absolutely impotent, through the corruption of original sin, to save itself, or to con- tribute anything to its salvation. The Lutheran Church, therefore, rejects every form of Pelagianism, whether it lurks in some perverted form of Protestantism, or in Romanism. On the other hand it denies the teaching of Calvinism as far as it pertains to the limitation of salvation to the *' elect " who have been foreordained to salvation by an inscrutable decree, regard- less of foreknowledge of their character and faith. The Lutheran Church, while absolutely denying any virtue to the sacraments as opera operata, holds them to be means of grace coordinate with the Word of God, and not merely signs or symbols. It believes that the infant children of be- lievers should be baptized, thus making them partakers of the covenant of grace. It also believes that the divine-human Christ is really present in a supernatural and sacramental way in the Lord's Supper and is therein received by the faith of the communicant. The Confessions of the Lutheran Church are embraced in the Book of Concord. The first part contains the ancient Ecumenical symbols, viz.. The Apostles* Creed, The Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed. The second part contains 222 CHUEOHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL The Augsburg Confession, The Apology, The Large and the Small Catechisms of Luther, The Schmalkald Articles, and the Form of Concord. The Augsburg Confession, presented at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, is the oldest and the most generic of all modern confessions, and the source of some of them, especially of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. Luther's Small Catechism has become a classic, and is probably the most widely used manual of religious in- struction extant. The Form of Concord, published in 1580, clarifies the Lutheran position in simple and irenic language. The Confessional attitude of the Lutheran Church in a moderate and widely accepted form has been expressed recently by the General Synod in its revised Doctrinal Basis, as follows : "With the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Fathers, the General Synod receives and holds the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the word of God and the only infallible rule of faith and of practice ; and it receives and holds the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as a correct exhibi- tion of the faith and doctrine of our Church as founded upon the word." The same body also incorporated into its Constitution a recognition of the other symbols of the Book of Concord *' as expositions of Lutheran Doctrine of great historical and inter- pretative value, and especially commends the Small Catechism as a book of instruction." The attitude of the Lutheran Church towards other denomina- tions needs some explanation. The oldest of the general bodies, the General Synod, founded in 1826, acting on the principle of evangelical comity, has always maintained friendly relations with other religious bodies, especially with such as most nearly approach it in practice and polity, and exchanges fraternal delegates with several of them. It has also been allied with interdenominational movements for the spread of the Gospel, the better observance of the Lord's Day, the suppression of THE EVANGELICAL LUTHEEAN CHUECH 223 vice, and the improvement of public morals. It is represented in such bodies as the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. The attitude of the General Synod is quite exceptional in this respect. None of the other general bodies have followed its example. All true Lutherans freely acknowledge that there are many Christians outside of its own fold. The name Lutheran is merely an incident ; the important matter is the truth. Any one who receives the truth as it is in Jesus is a Christian. But this truth must be carefully guarded, and to hold fellow- ship with denominations whose creeds come into conflict with the Lutheran confessions seems to these Lutherans to be a denial of the faith. Hence they are exceedingly conservative, and have adopted stringent rules, such as ''Lutheran pulpits for Lutheran ministers, and Lutheran altars for Lutheran com- municants." Moreover, the non -English Lutheran bodies, whose members do not come into close personal contact with the people in purely English churches, naturally are unconscious of any pressing need of unity with non-Lutheran bodies. They have little in common with them in language, usages or tradi- tions. Their respective tasks seem to be diverse also. The Lutherans have a great work in caring for their own kindred who come here from other lands. Their peculiar calling is to gather in those of their own household of faith; and when these are diverted to other folds alienation rather than unity ensues. Lutherans are not given to proselyting, and con- sequently detest it exceedingly. The theological positions of other denominations, as revealed in trials for heresy and in the action of bodies which license young men for the ministry, in spite of their rejection of doctrines which seem to Lutherans to be fundamental, make the latter somewhat wary. The denial of the validity of infant baptism, adherence to the Jewish Sabbath as the Christian day of rest and worship, the rejection or a low view of the sacra- 224 CHURCHES OF THE FEDEEAL COUNCIL ments, the rationalistic view of the Bible and other errors cannot be ignored by Lutherans in the interest of a mechanical cooperation. They believe that intimate fellowship is impos- sible amid such serious diversity of opinion. Moreover, many of the methods and practices of other denominations are so entirely at variance with the usages of the Lutheran Church that her people cannot cordially join in "general movements" of a so-called evangelistic or social character. There is also great hesitancy to invade in any organic capacity the domain of the State. While the Lutheran is a loyal citizen, believing in all that stands for public welfare, he holds that the function of the Church is spiritual rather than political. It is its business to build men up in nobility of character, and thus fit them for holy living and right action in every sphere of life. All these things conspire against present enthusiasm in the Lutheran Church for that larger ideal unity which will some day prevail. It wishes to avoid the inevitable conflict which a forced cooperation would precipitate, preferring to maintain a true unity of spirit with all lovers of Christ in all denomina- tions. For the present, the obvious course to be pursued by the different branches of the Lutheran Church in America is to seek a closer alliance with one another. An immediate organic union is not in sight, but a federation between several of the bodies is not an impossibility. Until the latter is attained the prospects of sympathetic cooperation with non-Lutherans are not encouraging. There are many hopeful signs of a better understanding between the several Lutheran bodies. Two of the Norwegian Synods have recently united. Three of the general bodies are now using a *' Common Service" and are about to publish a Common Hymnal. General conferences now and then bring together in an informal manner representatives of six or eight THE EVANGELICAL LUTHEEAN CHUECH 225 bodies. The foreign missionaries, especially in India, are already in a practical state of federation. The above statements are intended to be explanatory of the general attitude of the vast majority of Lutherans in America. The General Synod, which embraces only one- seventh of the Lutheran communicants, is a constituent of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America and is represented on its Executive Committee and its several Commissions. The General Synod believes that it in no sense compromises itself nor surrenders its distinctive character as a Lutheran body by cooperating with the Federal Council which embraces thirty denominations, having a membership of seven- teen million members. As long as the Council shall adhere to its declared purpose and shall avoid what might be termed particularistic and sectarian, it will commend itself not only to the General Synod but to thousands of individuals in other Lutheran Synods, and will continue to be a mighty force for righteousness, not only in the nation but also in the whole world. BIBLIOGRAPHIC MATERIAL "A History of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States," by Henry Eyster Jacobs. Published by the Christian Literature Company, New York, in the American Church History Scries. «* The Lutherans in America," by Dr. E. J. Wolf, Published by J. A. Hill & Co., New York. XXIX The German Evangelical Synod THE German Evangelical Synod of North America stands in the United States for the fundamental pos- itive and progressive principles of German Evangel- ical Christianity established in 1817 by the union of the Re- formed and the Lutheran elements in Prussia. In the next quarter century some of the ministers and members of that body came to the United States, and in 1840 at a settlement near St. Louis, Mo., the first organization was formed. It was called the German EvangeUcal Church Association of the West. This body expanded, and changed its name to Synod of the West in 1866. In 1877 the body known as the German Evangelical Synod of North America came into being. It works particularly among the German people, although English as well as German is used in many churches and especially in church literature. The Synod has nineteen districts in which annual assemblies or conferences are held. The General Conference, consisting of ministerial and lay delegates from the district synods, is quad- rennial. For information as to its officers, its benevolent and educational institutions, and similar matters, the reader may consult the Federal Council Year Book of 19 15. The statistics for 191 5 will be found in the table of the constituent bodies of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America in this volume. Next to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified the ideal of Christian unity is the chief aim of the organization and activity of the German Evangelical Synod of North America, and the name " Evangelical' ' was chosen 226 THE GEEMAN EVANGELICAL SYNOD 227 with this purpose in view. Its derivation goes back to the very origin of Christianity and in common with all true Christian Churches, the Evangelical Church preaches the cross of Christ as the sole and sufficient means of taking away the sins of the world. The roots of Evangelical theology lie deeper than the doctrinal discussions of the sixteenth century, or the petty dis- putes and wrangles of the seventeenth ; they are nourished only by the pure water of life that flows from the foot of Calvary. Like Paul, the Evangelical Church is determined not to know anything save Jesus Christ and Him crucified as the central truth of the ages. In view of the infinite vastness of the theme and the tragic urgency of mankind's need she aims to waste no time on non-essential differences of doctrine or organization, but confines herself to the message of salvation through faith in the grace of God in Jesus Christ as meeting every religious and social need of every individual and every nation. The position of the Evangelical Church is: One great message for humanity's one great need. What must I do to be saved ? As long as men differ as to race, language, temperament, and individuality, different denominations will always be needed to express the different aspects of Christianity. To claim the word Evangelical for one of them does not imply that the others are less or not at all evangelical ; every Church that proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Saviour and Lord of men is essentially evangelical. The right to that appellation, however, is automatically forfeited to the extent that a narrower point of view is emphasized at the expense of the broader, the sectarian at the expense of the catholic. And where so many voices represent the things that have separated, the message that goes beyond sectarian differ- ences and emphasizes the inherent unity of the Church of Christ surely has a right to be heard. The larger the cross of Christ looms up the more the differences of doctrine fade into insignif- icance ; as the barriers and divisions that have so long separated the children of God disappear, there becomes apparent the one 228 CHURCHES OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL flock and the one Shepherd, and the way is opened up for the realization of the Master's glorious ideal, << That they may all be one." The German Evangelical Synod bases its plea for unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace among the Churches of the German Reformation on Biblical and historical arguments, both Df which seem to present the idea of Christian unity as natural and inevitable. The Biblical Basis The idea of the unity of the children of God is fundamental to divine revelation. The Old Testament knows only one theocratic congregation, regarding the later division into two kingdoms as apostasy and corruption, and the New Testament knows only one Christian Church. No saying of Christ or His apostles can be made to sanction, much less to authorize, more than one Church. The Master knows only of one flock and one Shepherd (John x. i6), and it is His purpose to gather to- gether into one the children of God that are scattered abroad (John xi. 52). His last prayer for His disciples includes the petition that not only the disciples themselves but all that be- lieve on Him through their word may all be one (John xvii. 20). And Paul also, though he came into contact with many people of different races and nations and with many radical difl'erences of opinion, nevertheless knows only^«