CHAP. XIII.] REVIVAL STATISTICS. 507 a fair proportion were among the Congregationalists, as were the converts. In 1841-42 there were powerful revivals in some sections of New England; in the course of which it was estimated that the conversions in Boston alone must have numbered four thousand souls. The Great Awakening of 1857-58, as it has been called, must be fresh in the memories and hearts of very many. During that period there were revivals in eighty-eight towns in Maine, forty towns in New Hampshire, thirty-nine in Vermont, one hundred and forty-seven in Massachusetts, thirty-six in Rhode Island, and a large number in Connecticut; and all through the South and West there were extensive revivals.* Dr. Humphrey, one of the most cautious writers on revivals, in speaking of 1858, while deprecating the prevailing custom of proclaiming "sudden and surprising conversions," and the too common practice of hasty admissions to the churches, still says, "The work is glorious, and has brought a rich revenue of praise to the Redeemer;" and adds: "Perhaps the number of the truly regenerated has been larger in the last year [1858] than in any former year." † The Congregational Year-Book for 1859 fur * Great Awakening of 1857-58, by William Conant, pp. 378, 426-35. ↑ Revival Sketches, by Rev. Heman Humphrey, pp. 283–84. nishes a list-confessedly very incomplete-of one hundred and thirty-four revivals in Congregational churches in twelve different States and Territories during the year preceding - Massachusetts and Connecticut leading the list, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and New York following next; and in this are notices of revivals in Amherst, Dartmouth, Middlebury and Yale Colleges. From 1861 to 1864, the country was absorbed in the Secession War, and the work of the Spirit of God in converting men was not very manifest, though there were local revivals of interest in some towns in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. In 1865-67, however, revivals of considerable extent were enjoyed in some sections of the country; and the work continued with greater or less power to 1870. The effect of the revivals from 1857 to 1860 on the Congregational churches appears in the reported increase of our churches from twenty-three hundred and fifteen in 1857 to twenty-five hundred and eightythree in 1860-a net gain of two hundred and sixty-eight churches in four years; while the number of our church members rose from two hundred and twenty-four thousand seven hundred and thirty-two to two hundred and fifty-three thousand seven hundred and sixty-five-a net gain of over twenty-nine thousand communicants; which was but little more than one third of the actual additions to our churches during those years. During the four years of the war we CHAP. XIII.] AM. HOME MISS. SOCIETY. 509 gained only one hundred and thirteen churches and seven thousand six hundred and fifteen church members-not an average of three new members to a church the country over. In 186570, six years, we gained three hundred and ninetyeight churches and forty-three thousand church members, though the whole number added to our churches was more than one hundred and fortynine thousand.* Perhaps the annual reports of the American Home Missionary Society for the past ten or fifteen years furnish as satisfactory and reliable pictures of the religious condition of Congregationalism in the United States as can be obtained from any one source. This great national society was formed in 1826 by a union of Congregational, Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed home missionary societies, to do the common work of these evangelical associations; and it continued its beneficent union work until about 1862-64, when the Presbyterians finally withdrew entirely from the society, that they might more efficiently do their own purely denominational work. This withdrawal of funds and coöperation from the American Home Missionary Society left more than seven hundred missionaries then on the society's list, and more than fourteen hundred congregations, to be supported *See Statistical Summaries of Cong'l Churches for the years 1857-78, in the Cong'l Year-Book, 1879. and directed by the Congregationalists alone. It was a great burden-suddenly thrown upon them to do alone the work of three denominations. But Congregationalists are not unaccustomed to liberal giving and grave responsibilities; and bravely accepted the burden and responsibility thrown upon them. The receipts fell off about forty thousand dollars in the years 1862 and 1863; but then they began to rise; and in 1865-66 they were more than two hundred and twenty-one thousand dollars, or twenty-seven thousand six hundred dollars more than the society ever received in a single year previous. From 1863 to 1877, both years included, the receipts averaged yearly two hundred and fifty thousand four hundred dollars; producing an aggregate, for fifteen years, of three million seven hundred and fifty-six thousand dollars. Thus thoroughly have the Congregationalists adopted this great national society as their own; and the work which it has done the last fifteen years has been emphatically for Christ and Congregationalism. And now let us see what its reports for these past fifteen years tell us of our religious history. This Society has now nearly a thousand missionaries under its care 996 in 1878. This is about forty per cent. of all the Congregational ministers in pastoral work in the United States. And these missionaries are distributed over thirtytwo States and Territories, are the pastors of twelve hundred churches, and the teachers of two CHAP. XIII.] REPORTS OF THE A. H. M. S. 511 thousand two hundred and thirty-seven congregations and missionary districts. Now, as the whole number of Congregational churches in the United States was but three thousand six hundred and twenty in 1878, these missionaries have charge of just one third of all our churches, or nearly one half of all the churches which had ministerial supplies in 1878-2,716; and if we add to the missionary churches the congregations to which they preach in which there is no church organization, we shall see that our home missionaries are preaching habitually to two thousand two hundred and thirty-seven congregations which is four hundred and seventy-nine only less than the number of churches in the land which have pastors or stated supplies. This being the state of the case, it is apparent that the Reports of the American Home Missionary Society must furnish a very reliable index to the state of the Congregational churches of this country; and now let us see what these tell us of the work of God in our churches for some ten years last passed. We have before us the record for all the time the society has been a Congregational institution, but will omit the years already noticed. In 1870 the revivals reported by the society's missionaries were seventy-three, the conversions three thousand four hundred and seventy, and the additions to the churches six thousand four hundred. The report for 1871 is ninety revivals, twenty-nine hundred conversions, and |