CHAP. IV.] FRUITS OF MISSIONARY LABOR. 147 tion of what Missouri was destined to be-what it would have been years ago but for negro slavery prompted Mr. Flint and his associate, Mr. Giddings, to great and toilsome and incessant labor for years, amidst all the hardships and dangers of that wilderness country.* In 1818-19 Mr. Giddings wrote to the trustees of the Connecticut Missionary Society that he had preached regularly at St. Louis every Sabbath except the fourth in each month, when he preached in the country, and that there appeared more than usual attention to religion in the place; "a number were deeply distressed on account of their sins, and some were rejoicing in hope that they had met with a saving change;" and, furthermore, that the people of St. Louis were about to erect a house for the public worship of God. "People in the country," he continues, "are surprised at the alteration in St. Louis within two years; and alterations for the better are visible in almost every place where missionary labors have been bestowed."† As an evidence of this improved state of things, it is stated that seven churches had already been formed in the Territory, one of which had a pastor and another a minister residing among them, but the other five *It is related that Mr. Flint would sometimes travel, on foot, a distance of eighty miles in the course of the week, through the wilderness, and that he had crossed the Missouri river sixteen times in seven weeks. Punoplist, xv, 123. - + Panoplist, XV, 124. were dependent altogether on missionary supplies. The most distant churches were one hundred and forty miles apart.* To these churches frequent additions were made, and more laborers in the field were imperatively demanded. This was the report from the Territory in 1819. The same year the Rev. John Matthews was commissioned by the Connecticut Society to labor six months in Missouri as their missionary.† The Rev. Edward Hollister was employed in 1822, and wrote a very interesting account of his labors in Missouri. He says, among other things, that he had on one occasion received six applications to preach in different neighborhoods; one signed by thirty-four persons.‡ Thus the New England Congregationalists, after having explored the country, and ascertained its wants and its importance, never ceased their efforts for the religious improvement of Missouri, though after about 1826-32 their work was done by other hands at their expense. In 1826 the American Home Missionary Society was formed in the city of New York, by delegates in convention from thirteen different States and Territories, representing the Congregationalists, the Presbyterians, the Reformed Dutch and Associate Reformed churches. Ibid. + Panoplist, xvi, 225–26. Christian Spectator, January, 1823; Miss. Herald, xix, 59–60. CHAP. IV.] AUXILIARIES OF A. H. M. S. 149 The design was to have the society thoroughly evangelical but entirely undenominational, and equally ready to support missionaries of any of the associated denominations. It was to be a National Institution, to which the various State and other home missionary organizations were all to become auxiliaries, and through which they were to dispense their contributions in aid of new and feeble churches and in support of home missionaries all over this country. The first annual report of this National Home Missionary Society was made in May, 1827. At that time none of the New England home missionary societies had become auxiliary, except that of the Londonderry Presbytery, in New Hampshire. The next year (1828) the New Hampshire Missionary Society, the Massachusetts Missionary Society, the Hampshire (Mass.) Missionary Society, and the Vermont Domestic Missionary Society, all became auxiliary. In 1829 the Rhode Island and Maine societies followed, and in 1831 the Domestic Missionary Society of Connecticut became auxiliary; but not until 1832 did the venerable Connecticut Missionary Society-the foster-mother of the Western churches surrender her life-long work of sending missionaries to the "Western country," after having been actively engaged in it for about forty years, and having sent into the field more than two hundred missionaries, who had rendered six hundred years of ministerial service, had formed probably five hundred churches, established numerous schools, and scattered Bibles and religious books and tracts by tens of thousands among the destitute of our Western country.* The several denominational societies having given up to the American Home Missionary Society the responsibility and superintendence of the missionary work in the Western States and Territories, that society at once assumed this responsibility, and entered vigorously on its work. This was a union, undenominational work-on paper; but, like other union enterprises into which New England Congregationalists have been drawn, the men and the money necessary to carry it on were to come largely from New England Congregationalists, while the direct profits of the business were to accrue chiefly to Presbyterianism. A great and good religious work was indeed done by the American Home Missionary Society in Missouri; though nearly or quite every church which it organized in the State was made over to the Presbyterians. In 1832 the society had twelve or thirteen mis *The Connecticut churches were actively engaged in home missionary work in 1793, through the General Association of the Churches; but the Connecticut Missionary Society was not formed until 1798. In 1825 this society claimed to have employed one hundred and eighty missionaries, and paid them for time equal to the services of one man five hundred years; and to have distributed nearly 50,000 Bibles, tracts and other religious books; and notwithstanding all this liberality of expenditure, the society then had a fund of $25,000 in hand for further use. CHHAP. TV.] WORK OF A. H. M. S. IN MO. 151 sionaries in Missouri, every man of them engaged in building up Presbyterian churches. And in 1850 the society was supporting, in part or entirely, thirty-three missionaries in that State, all engaged in the same denominational work, and not one Congregationalist among them all; or rather, not one man who did the appropriate work of a Congregationalist in church building. And yet, for fifteen years after the American Home Missionary Society was organized, New England contributed nearly one half of all the money which was used by that society. And even this does not show anything like the full indebtedness of the Western churches to the unselfish generosity of New England; for, besides all that was contributed directly to the missionary treasury, a broad and deep stream of contributions was during all this time steadily flowing from the New England churches westward, to build meeting-houses, establish schools, endow colleges, and generally to provide the West with the various institutions of learning and religion which had made New England what she was.† *The total receipts of the American Home Missionary Society for fifteen years, from 1826 to 1841, both included, were $981,306, of which New England churches paid $460,748, which is less than half by $29,905 only. †The work of soliciting money from the Congregationalists in New England for Presbyterian churches in Missouri began as early as 1824; when the Rev. Salmon Giddings, once a New England Congregationalist, came East to collect money enough to finish the meeting-house in St. Louis, which had been begun |