and its second at Boston in 1899. Arrangements are now (1906) being made for a third council to be held in 1908.

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Missionary Agencies.-The benevolences Congregationalism have called into being a large number of denominational agencies. In the United States organized home missions began with the formation of the Missionary Society of Connecticut, in 1798, and the Massachusetts Missionary Society in 1799. Similar local societies have been formed in the States where Congregationalism is strongly represented, and they serve as auxiliaries to the national Congregational Home Missionary Society, founded in 1826, to which a large share, not merely of the westward extension of Congregationalism, but of the maintenance of the feebler churches in the older States, is due. A second society by which Congregational effort is carried forward within the territory of the United States, Porto Rico, Alaska, and the Hawaiian Islands, is the American Missionary Association, organized in 1846 by anti-slavery sympathizers, which now maintains an extensive educational and evangelistic work, chiefly among the negroes of the South, but also among the mountain whites, the Indians of the West, the Eskimos of Alaska, and the Chinese of the Pacific Coast. The Congregational Education Society, founded in 1815, has for its work the strengthening of schools and colleges in the newer portions of the land, and the assistance of worthy and needy candidates for the ministry. The work of the Congregational Church Building Society and of the Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society is indicated by their titles. Congregational foreign missionary effort reaching forth from the United States is under the direction of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, founded in 1810, and now carrying on work in India, Turkey, China, Japan, Micronesia, Africa, Austria, Spain, and Mexico. In Great Britain the work of home missions is under the charge of the Congregational Church Aid and Home Missionary Society, and that of foreign evangelization of the London Missionary Society, founded in 1795. Canadian Congregationalism has its own Foreign Missionary Society.

sided over by many of the prominent pastors of New England; and among such instructors Jonathan Edwards, of Northampton, Mass.; Joseph Bellamy, of Bethlehem, Conn.; Charles Backus, of Somers, Conn.; and Nathaniel Emmons, of Franklin, Mass., were conspicuous.

The immediate cause of the establishment of theological seminaries, in the modern sense of the term, in America, was the passage of Harvard College to the control of the party soon to be known as Unitarian, in 1805. Deprived thus of control of their chief seat of ministerial training, the conservative Congregationalists of eastern Massachusetts began at once to plan for separate schools of theological instruction. Two independent designs for the establishment of a theological seminary-the one begun by representatives of the older type of New England Calvinism, and the other by men of the Edwardean sympathies were happily combined, after much effort, in 1808, and resulted, in September of that year, in the establishment of Andover Theological Seminary, at Andover, Mass. Conspicuous in the teaching force of this institution, from its foundation to his resignation in 1846, was Leonard Woods, its first professor of theology; while Moses Stuart, from 1810 to 1848, was eminent for his services in the study of the Old Testament and in introducing the theology of Germany to the knowledge of American students. Even more conspicuous as a theological leader at Andover was Edwards A. Park, who taught in the institution from 1836 to 1881, and, from 1847 to the year last mentioned, occupied its chair of theology. Andover Seminary under its first instructors occupied a theological position which represented a union on broad and generous lines of the various shades of conservative New England opinion, in opposition to the Unitarian movement of its day. Under Professor Park the Edwardean theology was even more emphasized and developed. For twenty years past Andover has been distinguished by a cordial welcome to the newer phases of theological discussion, especially as developed in Germany.

Theological Seminaries.-In order to secure a proper training for their ministers, the early New England Congregationalists established Harvard and Yale, and the course of instruction in both of those institutions of learning was long regulated by the design of equipping men for the ministry. But by the first quarter of the eighteenth century the ordinary course of collegiate instruction was increasingly felt to be inadequate for the needs of ministerial training, and the result was the foundation at Harvard, in 1721, of the Hollis professorship of divinity, and the beginnings of a similar professorship of divinity at Yale in 1746a professorship that was not fully established there until 1755. Even more influential in the ministerial training of the eighteenth century than the instruction of these professors, was the custom, which grew into increasing prominence as the century went on, of taking a few months of training supplemental to the college course, under the guidance of some eminent pastor, before applying for ministerial licensure. Such household theological seminaries were pre

VOL. V.-19.

A second theological seminary was that established at Hampden, Maine, in October, 1816, but which was removed to Bangor, Maine, in 1819, where it has since continued, and from which place it takes its name. Its most eminent theological instructor in the past was perhaps Enoch Pond, whose connection with it extended from 1832 to 1870.

In 1822 the corporation of Yale College-now Yale University-carried into execution a plan hich had been entertained by them for a considerable time, by establishing a department of theology in the college, which has since been known as Yale Divinity School, and is a coordinate department of Yale University. Its first professor of theology, from its foundation to his death in 1858, was Nathaniel W. Taylor, whose type of doctrine, though belonging essentially to the historic Edwardean school, yet modified the characteristic teachings of that school in some particulars to such an extent as to receive the name 'New Haven theology,' and subjected its author to much criticism from the stricter representatives of the Edwardean party. Other conspicuous teachers of the Yale Divinity School have been Eleazar T. Fitch, from its foundation to 1852; Samuel Harris, professor of

systematic theology from 1871 to 1895; Timothy Dwight, professor of New Testament Greek from 1858 to 1886, and president of Yale University from 1888 to 1900; and George Park Fisher, its professor of Church history from 1861 to 1901.

The differences of opinion awakened by the theology of Nathaniel W. Taylor, already alluded to, led to the foundation of a school at East Windsor, Conn., in 1834, then called the Theo logical Institute of Connecticut, but much better known as Hartford Theological Seminary since its removal to Hartford in 1865. Its founder and first professor of theology was Bennet Tyler, who occupied its most conspicuous chair till 1857. The chief leader among its later instructors was Chester D. Hartranft, who became president in 1878, and under whom its curricuium and equipment were greatly developed. He was succeeded in 1903 by William D. Mackenzie. Almost contemporary with the founding of the Hartford Seminary was the establishment of a theological department in connection with Oberlin College, opened under the title of Oberlin Theological Seminary, in 1835. Its most distinguished instructors have been Charles C. Finney, the eminent revivalist, whose services to it continued from 1835 to 1875; and, since his death, James H. Fairchild, who was connected with Oberlin College, as an instructor in various departments, from 1838 to his decease in 1902, and held the office of president from 1866 to 1889. Oberlin is at present distinguished by the hearty reception there given to the theology of the

Ritschlian school.

The growing needs of the Middle West led to the organization, in 1854, and to the complete establishment in 1858, of Chicago Theological Seminary, an institution prevailingly conservative in its broader evangelical type of theology, of which it has long been a leader in a region which looks to Chicago as its centre. Conspicuous in its teaching force have been Samuel C. Bartlett, its professor of biblical literature from 1858 to 1877, when he became president of Dartmouth College; Franklin W. Fisk, its professor of sacred rhetoric from 1859 to his death in 1901; and George N. Boardman, its professor of theology from 1871 to 1893.

The Pacific Theological Seminary was established at Oakland, Cal., in 1869, and is now located at Berkeley, in the same State. The est of the congregational theological schools was organized at Atlanta, Georgia, in 1901.

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The Congregational College of Canada was founded in 1830 as a 'Congregational Academy,' at Toronto, and was removed to Montreal in 1864, where it is now located as a theological school in affiliation with McGill University.

It will thus be seen that of the American Congregational theological seminaries, Yale and Oberlin are departments of a university or a college; two others, Montreal and Pacific, are affiliated or in close geographical connection with universities; and four, Bangor, Hartford, Andover, and Chicago, are independent foundations. While some of them originated in doctrinal discussion, and they still represent in several instances somewhat dissimilar points of view, the general tendency of modern Congregational development has been to an increasing similarity in doctrinal position and in methods of instruction, so that good fellowship instead of

schism exists among all these theological seminaries at the present time.

In Great Britain, as in America, theological education has long commanded the attention of Congregationalists. Soon after the passage of the Toleration Act by the English Parliament, Congregational and Presbyterian Dissenters about London established a 'fund' to aid feeble churches and to educate candidates for the pastoral office (July 1, 1690). The union of representatives of the two polities proved but temporary, and in 1695 the 'fund' was divided, and a Congregational Fund Board' organized. This board still exists. By its influence, and that of eminent Congregationalists like Philip Doddridge, many academies' and 'colleges' were organized in the eighteenth century. These had, at first, the twofold object of training an educated ministry and of providing a general education for lay students who were debarred from university privileges by their 'dissent' from the Establishment. To some extent these two aims are still sought by the Congregational 'colleges' of Great Britain; but with the removal of disabilities from the pathway of Nonconformists who are seeking a general education these 'colleges' are laying increasing and in some instances exclusive emphasis on ministerial training. They correspond to the 'theological seminaries' of the United States.

The Congregational 'colleges' of Great Britain, at the present time, are the following: (1) New College, London, tracing its origin to 1696, and now affiliated with the University of London. (2) Western College, Bristol, founded as the Western Academy, in 1752. (3) Yorkshire United Independent College, Bradford, dating from 1756. (4) Cheshunt College, Cheshunt, founded by the Countess of Huntingdon at Talgarth in 1768, and now affiliated with the University of London. (5) Hackney College, founded by Rev. Matthew Wilks and Rev. George Collison at Hackney in 1803, and now at Hampstead. It is affiliated with the University of London. (6 Lancashire Independent College, Manchester, founded at Blackburn in 1816. (7) Mansfield College, Oxford, founded as Spring Hill College at Birmingham in 1838, and greatly strengthened by its significant reëstablishment at Oxford in 1886. (8) The Congregational Institute, Nottingham, opened in 1861. (9) The Congregational Memorial College, Brecon, combining a number of institutions, the oldest of which dates from 1755, and giving special attention to Welsh students. (10) Bala-Bangor Independent College, Bangor, dating from 1843 Theological Hall of the Congregational Churches and largely Welsh in its constituency. (11) The in Scotland, Edinburgh, tracing its origin to the Congregational Academy founded at Glasgow in 1811. Congregational students are also supported by separate funds in the Presbyterian College at Carmarthen. In 1901-02 the students in the various institutions numbered 361.

History.-Modern Congregationalism had its rise in the discussions consequent upon the English Reformation. Its earliest advocates may properly be described as forming the radical wing of English Puritan Protestantism. But, besides the characteristics which they shared with the Puritan party, they showed several non-Puritan peculiarities. They denied the existence of a National Church; they denied that church-mem

bership belonged to all baptized inhabitants of the kingdom; they held each church competent to regulate its own affairs. These peculiarities are so similar to those of the Continental Anabaptists, that some influence from Anabaptist sources in Congregational beginnings seems probable; but the dissimilarities existing between Anabaptists and Congregationalism are so considerable that this influence must have been indirect and unconscious. The founders of Congregationalism thought they were simply reproducing the system of the New Testament. Though a church essentially Congregational in organization existed in London as early as 1567, Congregationalism first came to significance in the work and especially in the writings of an erratic but earnestly reformatory young graduate of Cambridge, Robert Browne. Convinced that reforms such as he desired were unattainable within the Establishment, Browne organized a Congregational church at Norwich in 1580 or 1581. Compelled to seek refuge in Holland, Browne put forth several tracts in 1582, in which he urged the duty of immediate separation from the Church of England — a characteristic that gave the name 'Separatists' to these early Congregationalists. He also set forth Congregational principles with great distinctness. 1587 Congregational preaching by Henry Barrowe, a London lawyer, and John Greenwood, like Barrowe a Cambridge graduate, had gath ered a following in London and brought upon its teachers and disciples the hostility of the Government. The organization of a Congregational church in London, in 1592, was followed by the martyrdom, by hanging, of Barrowe, Greenwood, and John Penry, in 1593, and the exile of the greater portion of its membership, who found a home in Amsterdam with Francis Johnson as their 'pastor' and Henry Ainsworth as their 'teacher.'

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Meanwhile a movement to secure earnest Puritan preaching was begun, about 1590, in the country region of their residence some 150 miles north of London, by Richard Clyfton, rector of Babworth, and William Brewster, a layman of Scrooby. Ecclesiastical opposition deepened the movement into Separation, and it was stimulated by the coming of Rev. John Robinson, in 1604, and Rev. John Smyth, apparently the following year. Churches were formed on the Congregational model at Scrooby and Gainesborough, probably in 1606, though the year is uncertain. Governmental opposition compelled both to seek refuge in Holland, and that of Scrooby, with Robinson as its 'pastor' and Brewster as its 'ruling elder,' found a home at Leyden in 1609. Thence a minority of its membership emigrated to New England in 1620, founding Plymouth, now in Massachusetts, in December of that year. Here the Separatist colony passed through severe struggles successfully under the leadership of Brewster, and with William Bradford, Edward Winslow, and Myles Standish as its foremost men in civil affairs.

lishment of a Puritan colony at Salem in 1628. Acquaintance with the Plymouth Separatists brought recognition of the large similarity of their views, and when a church was formed at Salem, in 1629, it was organized on the Congregational model. The example thus set was followed in the formation of the succeeding Massachusetts churches. The flood tide of Puritan immigration ran strong till the political situation altered in England in 1640; and it brought to New England such men as John Winthrop in 1630, Rev. John Eliot in 1631, Rev. John Cotton in 1633, and Rev. Richard Mather in 1635, giving to Massachusetts a strong and numerous Congregational population. Slightly divergent views regarding the extent of the franchise, combined with an ardent desire to secure a fertile territory, and more personal motives, led emigrants from Massachusetts under Rev. Thomas Hooker and John Haynes, to settle in Connecticut in 1634-36; and in 1638 another company, under Rev. John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton, founded New Haven. In 1643 the four Congregational colonies united in a confederacy for mutual protection.

This 'Pilgrim' emigration, as it was called, was Separatist, and Plymouth Colony numbered only about three hundred in population by the close of its first decade. It would have amounted to little had it not been unexpectedly and greatly reinforced. The policy of Charles I. impelled English Puritans to seek new homes across the ocean, and the result was the estab

The settlement of New England was followed by a time of planting and developing institutions. The right to vote was restricted in Massachusetts to church members from 1631 to 1664, and in New Haven from 1639 to 1665. No such limitation ever obtained in Plymouth or Connecticut colonies. Schools received the early attention of the settlers, and the founding of Harvard in 1636, followed by the establishment of Yale in 1701, bore witness to the desire for a learned ministry always characteristic of Congregationalism, and were evidences of that interest in education which marks the denomination to the present day. Congregational polity was expounded in treatises by Cotton, Hooker, and Mather, and authoritatively defined by the Cambridge Synod in 1648. Missionary labors among the Indians, begun in 1646 by John Eliot in Newton, Mass., and by Thomas Mayhew on Martha's Vineyard, were considerably successful, resulting, by 1674, in six churches, and bringing about 4000 savages in some measure at least under the influence of the Gospel, though these results were robbed of permanence by the dying of the Indian race. The chief intellectual monument of this missionary activity is Eliot's Indian version of the Bible of 1663. The most important internal discussion of seventeenth-century New England Congregationalism was that regarding the 'Half-Way Covenant' the question being whether persons who had themselves been baptized infancy because of their parents' church-membership, could in turn bring their own children to baptism when they themselves were subjects of no conscious regenerative change. The decision of a meeting of Massachusetts and Connecticut ministers at Boston in 1657, and of a convention of the Massachusetts churches in 1662, was that such baptized, but not consciously regenerate, parents could bring their children to baptism and transmit the church status they themselves possessed, but could not come to the Lord's Table or vote in church affairs. Hence the nickname half-way.' Though never universally adopted, the Half-Way Covenant was practiced by most New England churches till about the opening decade of the nineteenth century.

Though the majority of the Puritan party in England remained Presbyterian during the seventeenth century and controlled the Westminster Assembly, English Congregationalism had five sturdy champions in that convention; and in the army, as well as among the people as a whole, it grew in favor as the struggle against the King continued. Under the sympathetic rule of Cromwell it reached its widest extension in seventeenth-century England. After the Restoration it suffered the disabilities imposed on Dissenters in general, until partially relieved by the Toleration Act of 1689. Yet, in spite of the labors of such men as Isaac Watts and Philip Doddridge, and the founding of 'academies' for ministerial as well as general training, the course of English Congregationalism in the eighteenth century, like the religious life of England as a whole, was one of spiritual decline, until awakened by the new spiritual impulse that came forth from the great Wesleyan revival. Quickened thus, the Congregational churches of England grew in numbers throughout the latter half of the eighteenth century, awakened to fresh zeal for missionary service at home, and a new interest in missions abroad, and became increasingly conscious of their denominational unity and desirous that that unity should find expression.

In America, the latter half of the seventeenth and the three opening decades of the eighteenth century saw a steady decline of the spiritual enthusiasm in which the churches of New England had been planted. New England life grew provincial in every respect. From this state of relative decadence the churches of New England were powerfully aroused by a series of 'revivals' beginning at Northampton, Mass., under the ministry of Jonathan Edwards in 1734 and extending throughout New England in 1740-42, in connection with a visit of Rev. George Whitefield. The movement, known as the 'Great Awakening,' stirred the spiritual life of the churches profoundly, but was so accompanied by physical demonstrations and other evidences of excitement as to lead to much division of judgment as to its merits. Partly owing to this division, and partly in consequence of the distraction accompanying the struggle for the political possession of Canada and for American independence, the 'Great Awakening' was followed by a period of comparative religious inactivity, lasting till about 1790.

debate again attracted attention and was stimu lated by a great series of 'revivals,' beginning about 1790, it was found that a considerable number of Congregational churches had drifted out of sympathy with historic Christianity. Under the lead of men of ability like William Ellery Channing, the 'Liberal' movement strengthened, while the cleavage between it and more conservative Congregationalism grew to separation. The year 1815, when Unitarian' became the popular designation of the new Liberal' denomination, may be assigned as the approximate date of the schism; though Harvard College had come under the recognized dominance of the 'Liberal' party in 1805. The Unitarian division was almost strictly local, but wholly or partially involved about one-tenth of the Congregational churches then existing in the United States. The loss of Harvard College as an agency for ministerial training led the conservative majority of the churches to seek new methods of ministerial education. As a result, theological seminaries were opened at different places and times. See section Theological Seminaries.

The second half of the eighteenth century, however, witnessed the rise of a native modification of the historic Calvinistic theology--the 'New England Theology'-under the leadership of Jonathan Edwards, father and son, of Samuel Hopkins, Joseph Bellamy, and Timothy Dwight. This theology won its way gradually, and by 1800 was dominant in Connecticut and Vermont, and largely represented in the rest of New England. Parallel to this Edwardean development, though with much smaller following, there ran a 'Liberal' movement, represented especially in eastern Massachusetts, and corresponding to similar modifications of doctrine among the Dissenters, especially those of Presbyterian lineage, in England. This Liberal' theology, already manifest in the preaching of Jonathan Mayhew and Charles Chauncy before the American Revolution, was little discussed during the excitement of that struggle; but when doctrinal

Congregationalism entered Canada by way of Nova Scotia in 1753. There was a feeble church in Newfoundland as early as 1645, which died and was not revived, and Congregationalism did not reappear there until 1775.

The beginning of the nineteenth century was marked by a rapid broadening and deepening of the activities of American Congregationalism. The rise of home and foreign missions has already been indicated in speaking of the benevolent agencies of Congregationalism. With the settlement of the West, Congregationalism ceased to be confined to New England and the adjacent sections of New York. Its spread was at first slow, because of a distrust engendered by the Unitarian schism, as to its adaptability to meet frontier conditions, and a lack of denominational consciousness which led to ready affiliation with Presbyterianism. But through the efforts of men like Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, of New Haven, denominational consciousness was awakened; and, from the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, the planting of distinctly Congregational churches and colleges in the West has gone rapidly forward. This westward extension was greatly aided by the Albany Convention of 1852. After the Civil War, Congregationalism entered the South, but has never had a relatively large following in that section of the United States.

Congregationalism during the nineteenth century has witnessed a gradual theological development. The Edwardean school was ably carried on in somewhat divergent directions by Nathaniel W. Taylor at Yale, and by Edwards A. Park at Andover. By the middle of the century the influence of Horace Bushnell was becoming felt in a direction away from the Edwardeanism then dominant. And the last two decades have seen increasing welcome given to what is popuiarly termed the 'New Theology.' This tendency has met with strenuous opposition; but the division of feeling has at no time been sufficient really to threaten the denomination with schism. Nineteenth-century American Congregationalism has had its conspicuous preachers in abundance, of whom Lyman Beecher and his son, Henry Ward Beecher. Charles G. Finney, and Richard Salter Storrs may be mentioned as illustrations. It has been ready to adopt new methods of Chris