to be the great city of the West, invested in lots there instead of in Chicago.

In the first planting of Congregational churches in this State and in the West, peculiar and unexpected obstacles were encountered. The Plan of Union entered into in 1801, by Eastern Congregationalists, with the Presbyterian General Assembly, worked against them. In the early settlement of Illinois it was assumed that there was no occasion for organizing Congregational churches; that its polity, good for New England, was not adapted to the heterogeneous population of a new country. It was even It was even claimed that Congregational churches had no right to exist on this field. Moreover, prejudices were kindled against Western Congregational ministers and churches as radicals, fanatics, unsound in the faith and unworthy of fellowship by Eastern Congregationalists. This was one reason why there was no Congregational church established in Chicago until 1851 -four years after I came to the State. Yet there were living here hundreds who came with letters from the Congregational churches of New England, but united with Presbyterian churches and were the bone and sinew of those churches. A single fact of personal experience will illustrate the extent and unjust character of this prejudice against Western Congregationalists. In 1856 I attended as a delegate from the Illinois General Association, the Massachusetts General Association at Dorchester. A few days before the meeting of the Association, the New York Evangelist published a communication charging that the Congregational churches of the West were doctrinally unsound and radical, not worthy of the fellowship of the New England churches, who were more in harmony with New School Presbyterianism. The Puritan Recorder copied the article and endorsed it. In presenting the salutations of the Illinois Association I alluded to the article and said that it seemed to me a very strange thing, that when nine-tenths of the Congregational ministers in the West were those who had been

converted in New England, united with Congregational churches there, had been educated in New England colleges and New England Theological Seminaries; and a very large proportion of the membership of these churches had come directly with letters of recommendation from New England churches; that the simple transportation of these ministers and church members, across Lake Erie and Lake Michigan, should work such a marvelous change in their Christian character and belief as to make them unworthy of the fellowship of the churches from which they immigrated. And added, that an experience of nine years with those Western ministers and churches, qualified me to say, that I believed that they were as orthodox and worthy of the fullest confidence and fellowship as the Eastern churches. The editor of the Puritan Recorder being present, replied, that the young brother from the West need not feel so badly about what is said. He says that Western Congregationalism is as good, as sound in the faith and worthy of fellowship as the Eastern. I think so, too, and a little better, but that is not saying much for it. This feeling was gradually and happily changed for the better of all parties after the abrogation of the Plan of Union by the Albany Convention in 1852. The Congregational Convention, held in Michigan City in 1846, was influential in preparing the way for this result.

It has been a mooted question which was the first Congregational church in Illinois. Several have claimed the honor. The facts are, that the church in Mendon was organized in February, 1833; the church at Naperville, in August, and that of Jacksonville, in December of the same year. The church at Quincy was organized as a Presbyterian church, Dec. 4, 1830, and became Congregational in 1833. The church at Princeton was organized in Princeton, Massachusetts, in 1831, and removed the same year to Illinois. So that organized Congregationalism in the State dates from 1833; but at first its growth was very slow, for the reasons which I have

given, although thousands of Congregationalists were annually immigrating here from the East. In 1835, there were only ten Congregational churches in the State. When the General Association was organized in 1844, there were two local associations, embracing 64 churches, 48 ministers and 2,432 members. In the minutes of the Association for 1890, there are reported 13 local associations; 280 churches; 312 ministers and 32,731 church members.

It was two pioneer Congregational ministers from Illinois, Asa Turner and William Kirby, who first explored the territory of Iowa and preached the first Congregational sermons in that State.

WHAT DID THESE PIONEER MINISTERS DO?

With great wisdom and self-sacrifice, they planted and nourished into vigorous life Christian Colleges, Academies and Female Seminaries, which have been fountains of rich blessings in the past and give promise of still richer blessings in the future. Illinois, Knox and Beloit Colleges; Whipple, Dover, Princeton and other academies; Monticello, Jacksonville, Rockford and Galesburg Female Seminaries, are largely the fruit of their planning and their labors. And, perhaps, it is not too much to add, Chicago Theological Seminary, for although established since 1850, it numbered among its foremost and efficient founders some of the earliest pioneer Congregational ministers of Illinois. The names of Dr. Bascom, Pres. Sturtevant, W. Carter, Asa Turner, N. C. Clark and T. M. Post, will readily occur to those familiar with its early history.

Illinois College, established, as we have said, in 1829, by a band of students from Yale Theological Seminary, coming to the State with that express end in view, although not strictly a Congregational college, yet nearly every one of its founders, its Presidents and early Professors, were Congregational ministers, and it was established when the whole population of the State was

less than one-fourth of the population of Chicago to-day, and when Chicago itself was a mere hamlet of a few score inhabitants.

The germ of Knox College was first planted in 1834, by a mixed colony, which settled in Galesburg. In its establishment and support, it had from the first the hearty co-operation of the pioneer Congregational ministers who were largely represented in its Board of Trust.

In like manner, the pioneer Congregational ministers of Illinois had an important part in the establishment of Beloit College and Rockford Female Seminary, the former opening its doors to students in 1847 and the latter in 1849. Such men as Dr. Bascom, Rev. N. C. Clark and Rev. R. M. Pearson, represented the State in the earliest conventions called to consider the question of establishing such institutions, and although the College is located just over the border line in Wisconsin, it has from the first been recognized as truly belonging to Illinois as to Wisconsin.

Rev. Theron Baldwin, one of the Yale band, was the founder and first President of the Monticello Female Seminary, probably the first institution in the State, for the higher education of women. From his fertile brain also originated the College Society of which he was the wise and efficient secretary, and which has done more than any other agency in planting and sustaining Christian colleges in all the great empires of the West.

Thus were the pioneer Congregational ministers of Illinois true to the traditions of the New England fathers in providing for and fostering the higher Christian education.

Dr. J. E. Roy gives this interesting fact of the agency of Dr. Baldwin in securing the charter of Jacksonville College, and incidently also of Shurtleff and McKendree Colleges. "In 1830, when Mr. Baldwin was a Home Missionary at Vandalia, then the capital of the State, he applied to the Legislature for a charter for Jackson

ville College. It was refused. One of the members saying, that if they granted the charter at all he was in favor of restricting the corporation to one-quarter section of land, for otherwise these college men would use their immense funds in buying up new land in the northern part of the State, and then put on tenants at will, and finally sway the political destinies of Illinois. Afterwards, Dr. Baldwin, being reinforced by Dr. Edward Beecher, made another application for a charter. By this time the Methodists and Baptists were on hand for college charters. So the three institutions formed a ring. They took the bill which the Jacksonville men had framed by a modification of the charter of Yale College. The chairman of the Senate committee on education was Col. Thomas Mather, then of Springfield, but a man of Congregational training, under Rev. Dr. Porter, of Farmington, Connecticut, father of Pres. Porter, of Yale College, and the bill was committed to his care. Dr. Baldwin says that he spent two days in writing out an argument to show the safety of literary corporations and read it in the hearing of the Senate committee and of the Methodist and Baptist friends. The committee agreed to adopt it as their argument on the bill, and the result was the securing of charters for Illinois, Shurtleff and McKendree Colleges."

The two leading founders of Iowa College, Rev. J. A. Reed and Rev. Asa Turner, were pioneer Congregational ministers in Illinois before they entered upon their work in Iowa.

WHAT DID THESE PIONEER MINISTERS DO?

They labored for and in revivals, many of them of great power and widely extended influence. The pages of the Home Missionary for those years furnish most interesting reports of protracted meetings held in groves, in school-houses and in barns; of revival efforts and revival results; of conversions and the gathering of converts into churches. Many of these pioneer missionaries