aggregate membership in the four churches of more than nine hundred souls 933.

It was seven years from the time that the First Congregational Church of St. Louis was formed before another of the same order appeared in Missouri. On the 29th of November, 1859, a Congregational church was instituted in the flourishing little city of Hannibal, Marion county, about one hundred and fifty miles above St. Louis, on the Mississippi river, now a great railroad centre. This church, at its organization, consisted of twenty-four members, half of whom were men. They were obliged to send to St. Louis and to Illinois for an organizing council. Dr. Post went a hundred and fifty miles to preach the sermon on the occasion; but all the other members of the council were from Illinois.

This church, vigorous at its birth, grew steadily in numbers and efficiency, year by year, numbering forty-seven communicants in 1863; eighty the next year; ninety-one the year following; one hundred and thirty-seven in 1867; two hundred and sixteen in 1871; and two hundred and fifty-nine in 1878-79. But this does not tell the whole story about Congregationalism in that neighborhood; for, according to the report of the General Association of Missouri, in 1870, Hannibal had then become the centre of no less than sixteen Congregational churches, all of which have sprung up since 1864.

Between the years 1860-64, both included,

CHAP. IV.] RAPID INCREASE OF CHURCHES. 163

there were Congregational churches organized at Canton and at La Grange, both German; and at Bevier and New Cambria, Welsh; and at Kidder, half way between Hannibal and St. Joseph, towards the Missouri river. But it was not until 1865 that our New England institutions began to find much favor in Missouri. That year there was a very marked multiplication of our churches in the State; fourteen or fifteen springing into life during that single year. About the same number of new churches appeared on our minutes the year following; and the list continued to grow, though less rapidly after 1866, until 1874, when there had been formed, in all, eighty-seven Congregational churches in Missouri, four of which were Welsh churches, and four were composed of Colored people. Since that date seven new churches have been added to the list; but so many have been disbanded or been merged in other churches that the whole present number (1878-79) is but seventy-one, and their membership is three thousand three hundred and ninety-one, and the number of their ministers forty-seven.*

Congregationalism, though it has at last won

*I am indebted to the Rev. E. B. Turner, Superintendent of Home Missions in Missouri, for valuable information about the progress of Congregationalism in that State. Also, to the invaluable statistical tables of the Congregational Quarterly, without which the important statistical details in this history would have been given only at a cost quite appalling.

its way into Missouri, has had to fight for it. First, it had Presbyterianism to contend with; an opponent which itself had been nourishing and strengthening in the West for nearly forty years, until indeed this opponent had come to claim that it had a sort of prescriptive right to that field. Then there was that terrible foe to all free institutions-slavery-which had triumphed over nearly every other attempt to establish Congregationalism within its realm. And finally came the Civil War, waged in defence of slavery, with all its disturbing and destroying agencies; from the exasperating and ruinous effects of which it will require yet many years fully to recover. The Congregationalists, being generally Unionists, were of course objects of special dislike during the continuance of the war, and have since had to encounter much of the prejudice which lingers in the Southern heart against the North, and especially New England. But Missouri is a grand State, abounding in noble rivers, in immense and valuable forests, in fertile soil, in the richest treasures of coal and useful minerals, with iron enough above ground to furnish a million tons a year for two hundred years. All this, with its central position relative to the whole country, must make her ultimately one of the very chiefest of the American States,* if she can but gather to her

* See a brief but comprehensive sketch of Missouri as a home missionary field of great promise, by Rev. E. B. Turner, Su

CHAP. IV.]

A CONGREGATIONAL COLLEGE.

165

bosom a sufficiency of enterprising and hardy and intelligent men such as have peopled the nonslave-holding States on either side of her.

In point of fact, evidences of improvement and progress are already to be seen all over the State. Missouri is growing in population, in wealth, enterprise and all that gives importance to a State; while the intelligence, the standard of morals and of true religion among the people generally has been materially raised; and best of all—and a help to all the churches have been experiencing the blessings of religious revivals.

As early as 1865, a General Association of the Congregational churches was formed, and among the earliest works of the body was a vigorous movement to provide facilities for a thorough Christian education in the State under the general auspices of these churches. A committee was raised, funds were collected, the town of Kidder, on the Hannibal and St. Joe railroad, was selected as the best location, a lot of land was given by the Kidder Land Company, and a fine, large fourstory brick building, for college purposes, was erected and well finished. It had in 1878-79 the Rev. Samuel D. Cochran, D.D., president, and six teachers. This institution is in the northern part of Missouri, where it is much needed; but it has

perintendent of Congregational Home Missions in Missouri, in The Home Missionary and Pastor's Journal, Vol. XLIV, pp. 1–4 ; also XLIII, p. 66, and XLIV, p. 67-; and Annual Report Am. Home Miss. Society for 1873, p. 75-.

no endowment, and its usefulness is seriously affected in consequence.

Another Congregational college- or rather Christian college, under the special guardianship of the Congregational churches of Missouriwas established in 1873 in the southwestern part of the State, at Springfield, the county seat of Greene county, the business centre for southwest Missouri and northern Arkansas and the eastern portion of the Indian Territory. It derives its name from S. F. Drury, of Olivet, Michigan, the most liberal benefactor of the institution. It is designed for both sexes, and comprises a collegiate department, with five courses of four years; a preparatory department; a normal department of two years; a model school of three years; and the Missouri Conservatory of Music, chartered in 1875. It has for president the Rev. N. J. Morrison, D.D., and a corps of ten teachers, and in 1875-76 had three hundred and four students in the several departments. In 1878-79 its college department alone had fifty-eight students.

From what has now been written, it appears that Congregational churches and institutions are now established in this old slave State as they never were before in any Southern State, with every indication of permanency and prosperity. There is now no good reason why Missouri, a free and prosperous State, should not ultimately be the home of hundreds of free churches and tens of thousands of free men and women for the Northern and Eastern States.