Cornell University Library BX7231 .D26 Pilgrim faith, by Ozora S. Davis. olin 3 1924 029 457 284 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029457284 THE PILGRIM FAITH ,<: SS ft THE PILGRIM FAITH BY OZORA S. DAVIS President of Chicago Theological Seminary THE PILGRIM PRESS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO COPYRIGHT, 1913 BY LUTHER H. CARY THE' PLIMPTON TKESS MOBWOOD'MASS-V-S-A GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED TO FIVE CONGREGATIONS OF THE PILGRIM FAITH SOUTH: ST. JOHNSBURY, VERMONT FIRST: SPRINGFIELD, VERMONT CENTRAL: NEWTONVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS SOUTH: NEW BRITAIN, CONNECTICUT NEW FIRST: CHICAGO, ILLINOIS PEEPACE In a few years the three-hundredth anni- versary of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth will be celebrated. In anticipation of this event, and for its own sake as well, it is fitting that an estimate of the achievements of the Congregationalists in America and of their representatives in foreign lands should be made. This is un- dertaken in the following pages. No at- tempt has been made to write a history of the churches that hold the Pilgrim Faith nor to discuss the form of church govern- ment which they maintained. Nor has the subject been treated exhaustively. Many events and names have been omitted, not be- cause they have been forgotten, but on ac- count of space limitations. We have endeavored to give prominence to those movements and leaders which represent in a typical way the genius of the Pilgrim Faith and exemplify its contribution to the spirit- ual history of the last three centuries. The writer is a lover of the faith and or- der of the Congregationalists and this book is necessarily colored by the enthusiasm of a reporter who rejoices ia the heroic achieve- Preface ments of the noble souls whose deeds he records. The human element in the story has been kept constantly in mind ; the report has been cast in the terms of concrete narra- tive and incident in order that it may be vivid and interesting. Chicago Theological Seminaet, August, 1913, CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I The Origin and Definition of the Faith 3 II Three Centuries of Service • . 21 III The Faith in Evangelistic Action 41 IV The Faith Founding the Free State 59 V The Faith and Education ... 79 VI The Faith on the Frontier . . . 107 VII The Faith and the Undeveloped Eaces 129 VIII The Faith in Foreign Lands . . 151 IX The Faith and Christian Theology 173 X The Faith in Literature .... 191 XI The Faith and Its Leaders . . . 211 XII The Faith and Universal. Brother- hood 245 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Departure of the Pilgrims from Delfts- haven, July, 1620 . . , . Frontispiece FACING FA.am The Manor House at Scrooby 4 Plymouth Rock 22 Graham Taylor 42 Charles G. Finney 42 Dwight L. Moody 42 Francis E. Clark 42 Josiah Strong 42 The Mayflower Compact 60 The Founding of Harvard College ... 78 J. H. Fairchild 80 Timothy Dwight 80 Mark Hopkins 80 William G. Tucker 80 James B. Angell 80 Eliot Preaching to the Indians . . . 108 First Buildings, Fisk University, 1866 . . 130 Robert College, Constantinople .... 152 Syrian Protestant College, Beirut, Syria . . 152 Henry Churchill King 174 William D. Hyde 174 Cyrus Northrup 174 Ozora S. Davis If^ . . . . 174 , W. Douglas Mackenzie 174 Plymouth in 1622 178 List of Illustr ations rACINO PAGE Jonathan Edwards 192 John Cotton 192 Edwards A. Park 192 Leonard Bacon 192 Horace Bushnell 192 S. Parkes Cadman 196 NeweR Dwight Hillis , . 196 Frank W. Gunsaulus 196 Charles E. Brown 196 Charles E. Jefferson 196 Henry M. Dexter 212 Lyman Abbott 212 George A. Gordon 212 Newman Smyth 212 George P. Fisher 212 Gen. 0. 0. Howard 246 Samuel C. Armstrong 246 Henry "Ward Beecher 246 Washington Gladden 246 Amory H. Bradford 246 The Commission of Nineteen 248 I THE OEiaiN AND DEFINITION OF THE FAITH THE OEIGIN AND DEFINITION OF THE FAITH IT was Saturday, December 5, 1620. A cold, raw wind blew in from the sea and made the little group of men who were dry- ing their clothes around the fire on Clark's Island shiver, in spite of the bright sunshine. For three days they had been drenched with spray in their battle with high winds and angry waves. Now, exhausted, they were spending the day resting while they dried their stuff and made up their minds what to do next. For two weeks the Mayflower had swung at anchor in the shelter of what is now the harbor of Provincetown. Two weeks had been spent by the men in fruitless search for a place in which to build shelter for the loved ones who suffered daily from their confine- ment in the ship. Winter was approaching rapidly; rations were scanty and were fast diminishing. Many were ill on board the little vessel and some were dead, and upon this little group on Clark's Island lay the heavy burden of finding a permanent dwell- [3] The Pilgrim Faith ing place on land and that right speedily. The little company must have had hearts full of gratitude for the cheering sunshine of this Saturday and for the rest that the more clement weather and the needed relaxation brought, for it would enable them to pursue their, search with vigor on the morrow. But no ! They were not thinking simply of preparations to push on. For we read in Bradford's History that "this being the last day of the week they prepared there to keep the Sabbath." Few deeds in history are more worthy of a monument than this. These men were not unmindful of the stress upon them to find a home for those on ship- board. They shared with them the anxiety and the fear which the strange land had brought to them all. But in their hearts there was an impelling force, more mighty than the needs of the body — ^the need of their souls in their obligation to God. No bodily ease that they might gain could compensate for the sacrifice of obedience to their duty to worship God on the Sabbath and to rest from all labor. And so, to quote another historian, "On the Sabbath day wee rested," — a simple record of a sublime deed. It was in the shelter of a large boulder near the middle of the island, tradition tells us, that these pioneers of the Pilgrim Faith held their sim- ple Sunday worship. And it is fitting that [4] Definition of the Faith upon this boulder the Massachusetts His- torical Society should have cut the record of that day, ''On the Sabbath wee rested." This rook may well take its place with the more famous one at Plymouth, as one of the shrines to which followers of the Pilgrim Faith turn for inspiration. Whence came these sturdy people who had learned to value principle more than life? What were the sources from which the group under the rock on Clark's Island and the equally brave band in the May- flower drew their inspiration? Who had been their teachers and what were the great principles for which they dared so much? To answer all these questions in full would be a long and difficult task which would take us far back to the days of Wyclif and Hus. But we may well begin with the time of Henry VIII, whose restlessness under the authority of the Pope resulted in the Act of Supremacy, passed in 1534. By its pro- visions the King was made "the only su- preme head on earth of the Church of Eng- land." Thus final authority in the Church was taken from the Pope. This action, how- ever, did not make any change in the doc- trines of the Church, nor did it make the Church of England really Protestant. But since the days of Wyclif, Englishmen had been reading the Bible and there had developed in the minds of many of them a [5] The Pilgrim Faith belief in the right of every person to come into direct relations with his Heavenly- Father. There came to be a large group of men who wished to press the Eeformation farther, and their influence prevailed during the brief reign of Edward VI. Had Ed- ward lived, the English Reformation might have come more quickly than it did. When Catholic Queen Mary came to the throne, in 1553, a violent reaction set in and the leaders in the movement for religious liberty under Henry and Edward were driven into exile. They took refuge at Geneva and there they came under the in- fluence of John Calvin, who was preaching the principles of free government in church and state. Upon the death of Mary in 1558 Elizabeth came to the throne and immedi- ately revived many of the acts in relation to the government of the Church which had been passed under Henry and Edward. The exiles now returned home and pushed the work of reformation with new zeal. They soon became the leaders of a strong party which wished to "purify the church in England not only until it should be rid of all taiat of papal authority, but also purged of those false doctrines which lay behind the immorality of the people." They were not content merely with changes in government, but were passionately united also in the desire to accomplish a moral reformation. [6] Definition of the F aith From this fact they became known as Puritans. There soon arose a sharp difference in judgment as to how this reform in morals could be most surely accomplished. The Puritans believed that the best way was to remain in the Church of England and there work steadily and patiently to purge it of errors. The smallest party, however, held that the Church had grown so corrupt that the only way in which it could be reformed was by the separation from it of all those who loved it and accepted the new doctrines, in order that they might work from without for its. complete reformation. This small and very radical party became known as Separatists. They represented the end of a movement out of Eoman Catholicism through the Church of England and Puri- tanism into a devoted party which desired to carry the Protestant Reformation to its full and logical conclusion. When the Separatists attempted to meet for simple worship and to talk of their com- mon faith, they found that the law of Eng- land forbade them to hold any religious serv- ice which did not follow the ritual prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. An illegal meeting was called a conventicle, and the police were alert and severe in their efforts to prevent every such gathering. Bitter per- secution resulted. Undoubtedly the Sep- [7] The Pilgrim F aith aratists tended to become more intense in their convictions because of what they suf- fered. Oppression always results in such reaction. As early probably as 1567 a group of these Separatists was meeting secretly in London. In their defense they called themselves ''a poor congregation whom God hath separated from the churches of England, and from the mingled and false worshipping therein used. ' ' This congregation soon became scattered. Then came Eobert Browne, an erratic, gifted, and unfortunate man, whose writ- ings without doubt contain the first definite statement of the principles of church government used by Congregationalists. Browne's name was later given in derision to the Separatists and Shakespeare uses it contemptuously in this line : "I had as lief be a Brownist as a poli- tician." ^ Browne did not succeed in estab- lishing a congregation which could success- fully work out his priaciples and before his death he returned to the Communion of the Church of England. There are traces of Separatist meetings in London about 1587, and the names of three men became especially prominent in con- nection with them. Henry Barrowe, John Greenwood, and John Penry, we are told, suffered arrest and imprisonment about that 1 Twelfth Night, iii; 2, 34. [8J Definition of the Faith time for their Separatist doctrines. The Pilgrim Faith began as the Apostolic Church began — with the martyrdom of those who had seen the vision and would not surrender the truth that they had found. In these days when freedom is our birthright it is worth while to remember what a price was paid for it. In 1593 Barrowe, Greenwood, and Penrywere hanged because they would not give up their convictions, and their names abide as the first martyrs of Congregational- ism. The congregation whose leaders thus suf- fered death shared in the misery if not in the mortal end of their brave ministers. They were finally compelled to flee to Hol- land and at length reached Amsterdam, where their history was a stormy one. Up to the year 1603, when James I came to the throne of England, the general out- line of the Pilgrim Faith had been laid down and men had lost their lives in the defense of it; but no congregation had arisen whose leaders or members were wise and strong enough to furnish a successful example of the way in which a Congregational church could be governed and its work carried on. The reason is not difficult to understand. The idea of freedom in the church was new. It is no easy matter for a party or a person to meet the responsibility of newly-acquired liberty and it therefore took time for the [9] The Pilgrim F aith early defenders of the Pilgrim Faith to col- lect and train a congregation that was able to meet the test of full freedom in church government. Such a congregation at last was gathered in the little town of Scrooby in the north of England. Like almost every successful movement, this congregation owes its permanence in a very large degree to its leaders. Its members, to be sure, were far more stable and strong than were those of the earlier congregation, the history of which is so unhappy. They were for the most part farmers and they came from a region in which there seems to have been a high level of religious life. It was in their leaders, however, that these people were par- ticularly fortunate. William Brewster was the postmaster at Scrooby and lived in a large house where the people could come together for worship. William Bradford, a young man from a neighboring village, was later to become one of the noblest of colonial leaders in New England. John Eobinson, the pastor, was a learned, prac- tical, devoted minister. Led by these three men, this congregation at Scrooby became the first example of a permanent and suc- cessful church founded on the Pilgrim Faith. Their secret assembling, however, soon brought upon the band the hostility of the police. The meetings were broken up and [10] Definition of the F aith the members of the congregation were ar- rested ; so they, too, decided to go to Holland. This was no easy task, for they were for- bidden to leave the country; but in one way and another they escaped, and by 1608 had reached Amsterdam. A few months later they moved to Leyden. Leyden was still vibrating with the deeds of thirty years before, when the sturdy burghers, besieged by Philip of Spain and driven to the verge of starvation, had stood on her walls and hurled their defiance in the face of the Spanish king: "We will eat our left arms and fight with our right. "We will kill our wives and little ones and bum our towns before we will surrender our lib- erties." What they had done had been to open their dykes and flood their lands so as to enable the ships bearing relief to reach the town. Then King Philip, disgusted with such obstinacy, had returned to Spain to take up the pleasanter and more lucrative occu- pation of burning saints. How the tales of the heroism of these devout folk of Leyden must have encouraged the weary hearts of the Pilgrims and inspired them with new zeal for their sacred beliefs! The congre- gation increased rapidly now, until it num- bered nearly three hundred. A large piece of property was purchased and here Eobin- son and many of the families lived in close neighborhood. Eobinson came to occupy a [11] The Pilgrim F aitk Mghly honorable position in the city and was recognized as a leader in the theologi- cal discussions of the time. Many considera- tions, however, led the congregation to look eagerly toward America as the place of their permanent home. There was no reasonable hope of permanent growth for an English- speaking church in a foreign land. Their leaders were growing old. Their children were yielding to evil influences in Holland, entering the army, and forsaking the ideals of their parents. Also, the missionary mo- tive was strong in the congregation and America afforded an opportunity for mis^ sionary service. So, after careful consideration, it was de- cided that the larger part of the congrega- tion should go to America, leaving the older and weaker nainority with Pastor Eobinson with the idea that they follow when the new settlement should have been made and con- ditions should warrant the change. The church as a whole was finally to move; but only the stronger section was to go first. It was difficult, however, to make the busi- ness arrangements for such a movement. As a congregation of people out of relation to the Church of England, these Separatists were regarded as unwelcome colonists. King James was willing to go only so far as to give them verbal assurance that they would be tolerated as long as they behaved [12] Definition of the Faith peaceably in tlie new home wMcli they were trying to make for themselves. When so un- certain a royal sanction as the King's word has been secured, there remained the finan- cial arrangements for the voyage. The peo- ple were poor and were obliged to mortgage in advance their earnings in America. This they cheerfully did, so. eager were they to move to the new world. Finally all arrange- ments were completed, and the "Pilgrims," as they are called by William Bradford, left Delftshaven for England, One of the two ships in which they later sailed proved un- seaworthy, so it came about that the May- flower alone made the voyage from Ply- mouth, England, with one hundred and two passengers, most of whom were members of the Scrooby-Leyden church. It was a long, tempestuous journey; but there were stout hearts in the staunch little ship. William Brewster, William Bradford, John Carver, Samuel Fuller, and Miles Standish were the leaders. At last the voyagers reached Cape Cod, which is north of the place where they had intended to land. Such were the antecedents of the little group of Sunday worshipers under the boul- der on Clark's Island. Is it any wonder, then, that they consecrated by an act of su- preme devotion to God this first Sabbath spent in the new land they had come to pos- sess? On the 21st of December, 1620,— fif- [13] The Pilgrim Faith teen days later — the other passengers from the Mayflower landed at Plymouth and with those who had preceded them on shore set up for the first time in history a community in which all men should be free and equal. This is the brief story of the Pilgrim Fathers. That which carried them through suffering and exile was the body of convic- tions which we call the Pilgrim Faith. The Pilgrim Fathers held to a certain sys- tem of thought about God, — or theology, — and to a definite body of principles concern- ing church government, — ^polity. They be- lieved that their doptrines and their forms of government were both defined and com- manded in the Bible. They always moved out from their one source of authority, the Bible, in all their thinking and in all their practical conduct. The Bible, there- fore, was their only rule of faith and life. They sometimes spoke of their theological doctrines as their "faith," and of their prin- ciples of government, which they considered to be valid for church and state alike, as their "order." The Pilgrim Faith, as it is de- scribed here, includes both. At the beginning it ought to be made clear that the Pilgrim Faith never has been held in any changeless form. It has never been considered as a crystal. It has always been conceived as a living and growing organism. It has its power residing within it and there- [14] Definition of the F aith fore can take on fresh forms as new life manifests itself. We can speak truly of the Pilgrim Faith as a "living" faith. On the side of theology, the Pilgrim Faith was, at the beginning, defined in the terms of the teaching of John Calvin. The stand- ards of the Calvinists, — the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Shorter Catechism, and the Longer Catechism, which were pre- pared about 1648, — ^put into form that which from the first had been and for a long time continued to be the theological side of the Pilgrim Faith. This was the great system which gathers up the teaching of Paul, Au- gustine, and Calvin. It exalts God to the position of supreme Sovereign, and declares that the purpose for which the universe was created is to show the glorious perfection of God. It teaches the dreadful nature and the deadly consequences of human sin. It af- firms that God, in mercy, and because of the unmerited favor or grace which he shows to man, saves man from sin and keeps him in everlasting life. It makes Christ, the divine Eedeemer, the central fact in the saving process of God. It affirms the sovereign au- thority of the Bible as the rule of faith and life. These theological positions have been modified at different times in the history of the Pilgrim Faith. When John Eobinson bade farewell to the stronger part of his [15 J The Pilgrim Faith congregation at Delftshaven lie used certain very remarkable words; he charged the de- parting Pilgrims to remember that they must not simply "stick where Luther and Calvin left them, but go on to receive any truth that God should reveal to them"; "for," he said, "he was very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy Word." This puts clearly that spirit of the open mind and full and free inquiry which always has marked those who have held the Pilgrim Faith, The second part of the Faith has been con- cerned with the forms of government which the Christian brotherhood has power to or- ganize for itself. At first glance this might seem to be an unimportant matter, concerned with what is external rather than with what is essential. The form of popular gov- ernment, however, is always an expression of those great ideals and fundamental principles concerning freedom and justice which are held by the people, and it is most important to know whether those principles represent the ideals of freedom and brother- hood or are an expression of special privilege and caste. The men who defined the Pilgrim Faith had thought through the whole matter. They believed that God himself declared the principles of free government. They were convinced that the New Testament explicitly teaches the way in which a church should be [16] Definition of the Faith organized. The main outlines of their belief in regard to polity are as follows: Any com- pany of Christians uniting in a Covenant for religious worship and work is a true church of Christ. Therefore a church is not consti- tuted by any person or society that bestows rights or privileges upon a congregation of people, but a congregation bfecomes a church by virtue of the people's own voluntary as- sociation and their native right to claim their name and function. Every member of such a church has equal rights and privileges with every other member, except where common sense dictates certain differences in function due to age or especial qualification for pecul- iar service. These members together have all the power necessary to organize them- selves into a church, to choose their own of- ficers and determine official duties, and to govern themselves fully in all other ways. Therefore no body of churches may legislate or judge for an individual congregation, ex- cept in the way of giving free counsel, which has weight according to its wisdom and not because of any official authority possessed by the group of churches. No bishop may rule a Congregational church from without itself. It is a pure democracy, governing it- self ; it is responsible only to Christ, its sole, invisible Head. Among the independent churches, however, there is a strong bond of fellowship, which leads them freely to seek [17] The Pilgrim Faith one another's counsel in all matters of com- mon interest and importance. In settling their relationsMps with their pastors, in de- ciding cases of discipline, and in administer- ing their common work in cities, counties, states, and the nation, the churches must work together, although each is fully equipped to govern its local affairs. The way in which to represent the Pilgrim Faith in church government is to depict it as an ellipse. One focus stands for the inde- pendence of the local church and its full power of self-government. The other repre- sents the fellowship of the churches in coun- sel and in the common business of adminis- tration. When either of these is neglected the essential character of the Pilgrim Taith is impaired. When both are fully main- tained the Pilgrim Faith becomes efficient. More stress has been laid upon one than upon the other of these principles at differ- ent times in the history of the Congrega- tional churches and changes in the adminis- tration of church affairs have been made correspondingly. "More light" has broken forth, as Eobinson was sure that it would. Nothing, however, has ever removed the two ideals of democracy and fellowship from their central place in the consciousness and the practical activity of those who have held the Pilgrim Faith. [18] n THEEE CENTUEIES OF SEEVICE n THREE CENTUEIES OF SEEVICE THE three centuries of service wMcli tlie Pilgrim Faith, has rendered to the moral and religions life of the United States may be divided into three periods : I 1620-1740. The history of this period is confined almost entirely to New England and is concerned with the settlement of the colonies. The chief interest in this period is the discussion of the forms of church gov- ernment. II 1740-1850. This is a period of theo- logical interest. New conceptions of truth arise after the deep religious movement known as the Great Awakening, and the uni- form doctrinal positions of the Congrega- tionalists are much disturbed. III 1850-1913. The period of modern Congregationalism. This is marked by dis- cussions in both doctrine and government. It is a time of theological ferment and the adjustment of institutions to modem needs. The purpose of this chapter is to make a brief survey of the outstanding items of in- terest in each of these three periods. [21] The Pilgrim F aith The men and women wlio came to Ply- mouth in 1620 and established the Pilgrim Faith in America were as brave and devoted as any group that ever suffered for freedom and truth. During the first winter they- struggled against terrible physical hard- ships. More than one-half of their number died and the signs of the graves were re- moved in order that the hostile Indians might not know how sickness had depleted the colony. When the spring came and the Mayflower set sail for the homeland, not one of the little band of Pilgrims went back; strangers in a strange land, they watched the white sails disappear and then turned to their heroic adventure, bringing their land under culti- vation, and waiting for good news and rein- forcements from their comrades across the sea. It was a glorious beginning of the un- broken story of dauntless courage and un- wavering trust in God with which the Con- gregationalists have done their work as pio- neers in America. Meantime the Puritans in England also were fighting a hard battle for their prin- ciples. They came into collision with James I and his bishops on the matter of authority and were bitterly persecuted in the Church courts. The conflict grew more intense after 1625, when Charles I became king. The re- sult was that thousands of Puritans came [22] Three C enturies of Service to America between 1630 and 1640. They were influenced in this action in part by the reports that were received from Plymouth, The newcomers were from English families who were the very strongest in point of char- acter, ajid their leaders were ministers who had been educated at the universities. Their departure meant a very great loss to Eng- land, but it brought to America a high- spirited and noble type of colonist. The chief settlements of these later Puri- tans were in Massachusetts, They came to Salem and Boston and there founded their colonies. At the beginning they were staunch Puritans in their relations with the Church of England. One of their, leaders said: "We do not go to New England as separatists from the Church of England; though we cannot but separate from the cor- ruptions in it." When once they were in the new country, however, and when they came into contact with the men from Plymouth, they began to organize their churches on the Plymouth model and before long the New England Pur- itan churches were practically all indepen- dent of the Church of England ; that is, they had become Congregational in government. The influence which brought about this change, so far as we can trace it to any one person seems to have been due to Samuel Fuller, deacon and doctor of the Plymouth [23] The Pilgrim Faith clmrcli. It was he who probably convinced the Salem Puritans of the superiority of the Congregational order that was already work- ing successfully in Plymouth. The causes of the change are very obscure ; but the fact that the Puritans of Massachusetts became Congregationalists is supremely important for our story. It means that as the congre- gations of the New England colonies were organized they took the form exemplified at Plymouth and made this the prevailing type. From 1631 to 1664 the right to vote was limited in Massachusetts to church members. The two settlements within the present state of Connecticut were known as the Con- necticut and New Haven Colonies. The 'former gathered about Hartford and was composed of emigrants from Massachusetts, These people had grown restless because of that hunger for land which has constantly brought about the extension of the frontiers of the United States by pioneers. From 1634 to 1636 individuals and groups moved across the country to the Connecticut valley and soon Hartford, Wethersfield and Wind- sor were settled. The outstanding name in this colony is that of Rev. Thomas Hooker of Hartford. In spirit the Connecticut churches were more democratic than those in Massachusetts. This resulted in the intro- duction of democratic principles into the charter of the colony, as we shall see later. [24] Three C enturies of Service New Haven was settled by men chiefly from London under the leadership of Eev. John Davenport. The emphasis in this colony was on the authority of the Bible and the reign of the will of God in all the life of mankind. So the New Haven settlers or- ganized and governed both state and church according to their understanding of the teachings of the Bible. This form of organ- ization and government was a very close ap- proach to what is known as "theocracy," or the reign of God in the life of the people. Around these points — Plymouth, Salem and Boston, Hartford and New Haven — ^be- gan the growth of the Congregational churches in the early days of colonial New England. Each colony was characterized by its peculiar temper and its own expression of church life and government. The strong- est men in the churches, both ministers and laymen, were also the leaders in the state. In New Haven the right to vote was re- stricted to church members and the Congre- gational church was practically a state church. The problem of bringing these strong, in- dependent churches and colonies into prac- tical fellowship was from the beginning dif- ficult. Their members had sacrificed so much for their ideals that their individual character had become exceedingly pro- nounced. They felt obliged to defend not [25] The Pilgrim F aith only their forms of church government but also their political institutions, which they had set up under the sanction of royal char- ters. They had active foes with whom to contend in England as well as in America. Every form of excess and disorder was a source of danger to them. Consequently they assumed in their treatment of those who differed with them on religious and political principles a severity which is contrary to our modem conception of a Christian spirit. The persecution of Baptists and Quakers and the execution of persons condemned as witches in Salem ^ is a blot on what would otherwise be a 'clean page of generous and heroic struggle for freedom. This severity, however, is explained to a large extent by the fact that the opposition — ^much of which was excessive and disorderly in character — seri- ously menaced the royal state charters, from which the colonies derived their legal right to corporate existence. The sense of common peril and the force of a common cause necessarily drew the inde- pendent congregations together, and in 1637 the first general Council of the churches, or Synod as it was called, met in Boston. The expenses of the meeting were paid from the treasury of the Colony, an indication of the close relation between church and state. 1 Persons condemned as witches never were "burned" in Salem, as is so often stated. [26] Three Centuries of Service This Council is significant because it marks the first step in fellowship taken by the scattered churches. From that time to the present there has been constant move- ment in the ideals and the institutions of church government. Sometimes the princi- ple of local independence has been more strongly emphasized ; at other times the prin- ciple of fellowship has been exalted. Neither has ever been lost but the perfect adjustment has not yet come. A "Synod" held at Cambridge in 1647 adopted a Confession of Faith, thus accent- ing the doctrinal fellowship of the churches. Another significant Council in the interests of the spiritual life of the churches convened in 1679-80. Still more important was the Synod held at Saybrook, Connecticut, in 1708, which sanctioned a far closer association of the churches in "consociations." These were to take the form of standing councils, empowered to settle cases of discipline which could not be satisfactorily handled by the local churches. The decision of the conso- ciation was to be binding on the local church, except under certain rare conditions. This was carrying the principle of fellowship to an extreme limit, and marked a very close approach to the Presbyterian form of church government. Thus Connecticut came to rep- resent the principle of fellowship much more strongly than did Massachusetts, and its [27] The Pilgrim Faith sympathy with, the Presbyterian church be- came very pronounced. The bearing of this fact on the relation between Congregational and Presbyterian churches in home-mission- ary work will appear later. The Connecticut action did not go without protest. In 1710 Eev. John Wise published a book entitled "Vindication of the Govern- ment of New England Churches" which is probably still the best presentation of the fundamental democracy of the Pilgrim Faith, and has had a very marked influence on American political ideals. It represents the opposite position to that taken by the Say- brook Synod. Between these two points, back and forth, the movement of the last cen- turies has wavered. The first generation of New England col- onists were not able to transmit their moral and religious ideals unimpaired to their chil- dren. Trumbull, the historian of Connecti- cut, cites the witness of an eminent man to the effect that during the seven years in which he lived in New England he had never heard a profane oath or seen a person drunk. This condition changed rapidly however ; for Trumbull tells us that by the fourth genera- tion, — about 1730, — "throughout the colonies looseness of morals, drinking and the neglect of family and social religion were the rule rather than the exception." [28], Three Centuries of Service Then began the Great Awakening, the story of which will be told in Chapter III. It changed the religious condition of New England and sounded the key-note of the second period of our history. Out of the Great Awakening grew a dis- cussion of Christian doctrine which is known as the New England Theology. This is the unique contribution of the Pilgrim Faith to Christian thought and it is so important that an entire chapter will be devoted to it later. Except as it concerns the Great Awaken- ing and the beginnings of the New England Theology, the story of the second period (1740-1850) gathers around the political struggle of the Eevolution and the rapid ex- pansion of the country, especially by emigra- tion from New England, after stable condi- tions had been reached following the adop- tion of the federal constitution. The long struggle for national indepen- dence is the logical result of the attempt to realize the very ideals that the men of the Pilgrim Faith had brought to New England and built into their churches and forms of political government. As President John Adams said: "The principles and feelings which con- tributed to produce the Eevolution ought to be traced back for two hundred years, and [29] The Pilgrim Faith sought in the history of the country from the first plantations in America." ^ The establishment of churches according to the order of the Pilgrim Faith did not go on without violent opposition from the lead- ers of the Church of England. Arch- bishop Laud tried to force the authority of the English Church upon the colonists; and his successors sent their missionaries to New England to establish Episcopal churches in towns where there were already flourishing congregations of the Pilgrim Faith. This movement was opposed by the Congrega- tional leaders in the Colonies and this dis- cussion in the realm of the Church did much to turn the attention of the people to the re- lated question of the political authority of Parliament over the Colonies. This point is sometimes overlooked in the study of the forces that brought about the Revolution ; but it is recognized by students of the period as very significant. Ministers like Eev. Jona- than Mayhew and Eev. Charles Chauncey wrote and preached against ecclesiastical tyranny and their published works became one of the strongest influences acting upon the minds of the people in favor of political independence. The writings of Rev. John Wise of Ipswich were republished at the ex- pense of laymen and thus the great state- 1 Quoted in Dunnings, "Congregationalists in America," 1894, p. 266. [301 Three Centuries of Service ment of the principles of Congregationalism "was given new force in the political realm. When it came to the actual conflict of the Eevolution the part that the Congregational churches played in it was most important. The churches became places for patriotic as well as for religious meetings. It was in the Old South meetinghouse in Boston that the crowds gathered for public protest against the taxes levied upon the people who were not represented in the parliament that as- sessed them. From this church the men went out for the Boston Tea Party and pitched the chests into the Bay. The British soldiers showed that they regarded the churches as the centers of patriotic unrest, for their vented their spite against them whenever they could. The Old South in Bos- ton they used for a stable and riding-school. The ministers bore their part nobly in the army and at home. The action of Rev. Joshua Paine of the Congregational church in Sturbridge, Mass., is typical. He gave a fifth of his salary for the year to help buy the powder which the town was asked to fur- nish for the War. The proportion of Con- tinental soldiers who came from Congrega- tional churches may be estimated from the fact that in 1770 two hundred and ninety- four of the three hundred and thirty-nine ecclesiastical organizations in Massachusetts were Congregational. From the laymen of [31] The Pilgrim Faith these clmrches came the soldiers who fought the Eevolutionary war to a successful finish. From the beginning the Congregational- ists have been pioneers, and the desire for larger opportunity for themselves and their children has driven the families of New Eng- land farther and farther West. They have meanwhile been loyal to their ideals and in- stitutions. As a careful student of this move- ment from New England to the West says : "Yet even in their ambition, the frontiers- men from New England have not been un- mindful of the moral and religious side of life, for that has always been most firmly in- grained and most thoroughly characteristic of the Puritan and his descendants. There- fore, the emigrants carried with them their school, their church, and their town-meetiag; certain that their own institutions were best, backed by their conviction of their own keen- ness of judgment, aided by the conservatism which clings to what it knows by experience is good, they insisted upon the adoption of their traditional institutions in the newer states of the West.''^ The history of the Congregational churches outside New England from 1800 to 1852 is closely bound up with the operation of the "Plan of Union" between the Pres- byterians and the Congregationalists. This iLois K. Mathews, "The Expansion of New England," 1909, p. 261. [32] Three C enturies of Service is one of the most important episodes in the entire history of the Congregational churches in the United States. In matters of creed the New England Con- gregationalists were in close accord with the Presbyterians. Both accepted for substance of doctrine the Westminster Confession. The New England Theology was a modifica- tion of this rather than a break with it. The difference between the two denominations lay in the realm of church government; but in Connecticut the Congregational churches were organized into "Consociations" which had many of the practical features of Pres- byteries. Against this centralizing tendency there were strong protests, especially by Eev. John Wise in 1710 and 1717 and by Eev. Nathanael Emmons in 1802. The Congregationalists of Connecticut and western Massachusetts were in the closest sympathy with the Presbyterians of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and Congrega- tional pastors very often called their churches Presbyterian. After 1791 the Gen- eral Assembly of the Presbyterian Church and the Greneral Association of Congrega- tional Churches in Connecticut sent delegates to each other's sessions. After 1794 these delegates were given voting powers in the meetings of the sister churches. Later the same relation existed between the General Assembly and the Congregational Associa- [33] The Pilgrim Faith tions of Vermont, New Hampshire and Mas- sachusetts, continuing until 1837. Under these conditions the two denomina- tions were called upon to face a common home-missionary task under new conditions. Population was moving rapidly from Con- necticut into New York and Ohio. Here the pioneers met a stream of settlers, from Penn- sylvania especially, who were Presbyterian. The earlier movement into Vermont and New Hampshire had been almost entirely made up of Congregationalists ; consequently the home churches had sent their ministers to organize Congregational churches among Congrega- tionalists. In the farther West the con- ditions were changed. Both Congregation- alists and Presbyterians must be served by the home missionaries. As a result there came up in the Connecticut General Associa- tion of 1800 the question of adjusting the two forms of church government to mutual ad- vantage on missionary ground. A committee was appointed to meet representatives of the Presbyterian General Assembly to consider the matter. Finally there was worked out an agreement between the two bodies which furnished the basis for home-missionary work for a half century. It is known as the Plan of Union. It was designed to govern only the missionary activities of the two denomina- tions in their common work on the frontier. It was entered into in good faith and was fair [34] Three Centuries of Service in its provisions. It was kept honorably by both, parties. Its final issue ,to the material advantage of the Presbyterians was due to the conditions obtaining in the two denomi- nations rather than to any essential unfair- ness in the Plan itself or its administration. The Plan of Union pledged the mission- aries to promote sympathy and practical fel- lowship between Congregationalists and Presbyterians. If a congregation was found to be composed of members of both denom- inations, this fact was not to be regarded as an obstacle in the way of organizing a church and settling a minister. The form of gov- ernment of such a church was to be either Congregational or Presbyterian, as might be determined. The Plan provided for the rights of ministers and laymen who might not be in accord with the form of government adopted by the individual church of which they had become a part. For instance, if a Congregational church were to settle a Pres- byterian minister, it might still conduct all its business in the Congregational way; but if difficulty were to arise between the church or. any member of it and the minister, the case was to be referred by mutual agreement to the Presbytery or to a council consisting of an equal number of Presbyterians and Congregationalists agreed upon by both par- ties. A similar rule safeguarded the privi- leges of appeal to his Association on the part [35] The Pilgrim Faith of a Congregational minister serving a church governed by the Presbyterian form. The problem of discipline in the case of in- dividuals was handled by a standing com- mittee of the church, the judgment of which could be appealed. If the person under dis- cipline was a Presbyterian, he had the right of appeal to the Presbytery, and its verdict was final unless the church should sanction a further appeal to the Synod or General As- sembly. If the person under discipline was a Congregationalist, he had the right of ap- peal to the male members of the church, whose decision might be referred to a mutual council, if the person so wished. This was certainly as fair an arrangement as could be worked out on paper. It prob- ably would never have been accepted by either party if either had foreseen the future growth of the frontier territory where they were working or the future strength of the churches that were organized under its pro- visions. As a matter of fact, this Plan resulted gen- erally in the final production of Presbyterian rather than Congregational churches even where the original material had been Con- gregational. According to a careful esti- mate, by the operation of the Plan of Union two thousand churches which otherwise would have been Congregational were per- manently brought into the Presbyterian con- [36] Three Centuries of Service nection. Thus from the Hudson river to Illinois, with the exception of sections in Ohio, the Congregationalists worked for fifty years, sending men and money without measure into the field, and the result, so far as church organization was concerned, ac- crued almost entirely to the Presbyterians. This was not due, however, to any unfair practice on the part of the Presbyterians. They were simply alert and intensely loyal to their form of church government. On the other hand, the Congregationalists, espe- cially in Connecticut, from which the greater number of emigrants and missionaries came, were generally convinced that the Congrega- tional method of church government was not adapted to a new country and that the Pres- byterian system was the better for the frontier. The Congregational ministers who did not regard the difference between the two systems as essential, naturally joined the Presbyteries, which were stronger than their own Associations. In 1852 at Albany, N. Y., the Plan of Union was set aside by the Congrega- tionalists. It had been a great experiment and a noble failure. It is often referred to as the "Disastrous Plan." Materially, it was such for the Congregationalists; but the adjective is misleading. The plan was rather a noble attempt to realize an ideal which was impossible of attainment. [37] The Pilgrim Faith The third period in the history of the Pil- grim Faith in the United States is character- ized by a new self-consciousness and a sense of mission, which arose very largely in the Mississippi Valley. These were especially marked in Illinois and Iowa. Congrega- tional missionaries, sent out and supported by Congregational money worked through- out the country and the results of their la- bors accrued to the Presbyterians. The first distinctly Congregational church in Illinois was not organized until 1831. Twenty years later the first Congregational church in Chi- cago was founded. Men like Eev. Jtdian M. Sturtevant in Illinois, Eev. Asa Turner in Iowa, and Rev. Truman M. Post in Missouri stood for the Congregational churches in the new territory. In 1852 the Albany Council registered the beginning of a new life. It was the first Council representing all the Congregational churches that had met in the United States since 1648. Many of the most significant movements that followed the Albany Council in this last period will be touched upon in the later chapters. It is the period of the most ex- tensive growth, of the highest efiiciency in service, and of the most unified endeavor that the Pilgrim Faith has attained in its almost three centuries of continuous life in America. [38] Ill THE FAITH IN EVANGELISTIC ACTION Ill THE FAITH IN EVANGELISTIC AC- TION WHEN the Pilgrim Fathers decided to leave Holland for America they gave the reasons that influenced them to make the change. The concluding one, and without doubt in the minds of many the most impor- tant, was put, in the quaint language of Wil- liam Bradford, as follows: "Lastly (which was not least), a great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for the propagating and ad- vancing the gospel of the Kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world; yea, though they should be even as stepping- stones unto others for the performing of so great a work." This points to that fundamental conviction in the Pilgrim Faith which affirms that the individual Christian and the Church are united under a common obligation to extend the knowledge of the gospel of Christ every- where and among all people. So when the first report reached Eev. John Eobinson in Leyden that certain Indians had [41] The Pilgrim Faith been killed in a conflict with the Plymouth men, he wrote to them: "Oh! how happy a thing had it been, if you had converted some, before you had killed any."^ The story of all the New England churches confirms the statement that the extension of the gospel by preaching lay at the center of their activity. They were not seeking primarily to enlarge their membership, in- crease their influence in political and social affairs, or to gain for themselves any pe- culiar authority in the growing life of the colonies. Their very consistent purpose was to promote the knowledge of the gospel and make it a ruling principle in the lives of men. This underlying purpose in the Pilgrim Faith has found three avenues of expres- sion. First, there has been the steady effort of individual ministers and churches to keep the evangelistic note constantly clear in all their work. By services on special occasions and by the ceaseless culture of the children, they have kept the great motive in action. It is not possible to make a report of this kind of work; but this motive has always been held steadily by the churches that hold the Pilgrim Faith. Then there has been the constant activity of the evangelistic purpose in the missionary 1 Bradford, "Plymouth Plantation," 1898, p. 197. [42] CHARLES G. FINNEY GRAHAiAI TAYLOR DAVIGHT L. MOODY JOSIAH STRONG FRANCIS E. CLARK F aith in Ev ang elistic Action work of the churclies. At home and abroad they have followed the frontier and explored unknown lands in order that they might preach the gospel. This activity has been so remarkably prominent and successful that it will be surveyed in chapters vi-viii. Finally, the evangelistic passion of the Pilgrim Faith has found expression in great movements for the extension of the gospel and the conversion of men and women to Christ. As leaders of these movements there have arisen evangelists who have been men of unique power. About 1740 there began in New England a religious revival which has come to be known as the Great Awakening. This was important not only on account of the pro- found influence that it exerted upon the peo- ple at the time, but also because of its re- sults in the practical life and thought of the years that followed. The time covered by the Great Awakening was practically the ten years from 1734 to 1744: it was at its height from 1740-1742. For more than fifty years previous to the beginning of this movement, the religious life of New England had been in the grip of a cold and formal spirit. The earlier evan- gelistic passion of the Church had perished to a very large extent and there was an ex- cessive emphasis upon the external aspects of the religious life. In 1734 Eev. Jonathan [43] The Pilgrim Faith Edwards began a series of sermons in North- ampton, Mass., on Justification by Faith, the old doctrine in which the Eeformation had its origin. The effect was immediate and profound. Personal religion became the absorbing subject of conversation. New in- terest in the services and work of the Church was awakened; the people turned their at- tention especially to the matter of daily conduct, and their moral life was radically changed. The movement spread from Northampton through the Connecticut Val- ley and thence throughout New England. It passed onward also into New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The next step was the coming of Rev. G-eorge Whitefield from England to America to bear a part in the Awakening. Whitefield was one of the most remarkable preachers in the history of Christian evangelism. At this time he was a young man about twenty-five years old and in the prime of his powers. The reception given to his message in Amer- ica was enthusiastic. He preached in the South as well as in the northern states, but our interest lies in his tour of New England in 1740. People came by thousands to hear him. The highest officers of the state re- ceived him. The word "adoration" is the only term that adequately describes the popu- lar response to Whitefield 's personality and message. [44] F aith in Evangelistic Action There is preserved in Connecticut a manu- script entitled "The Spiritual Travels of Nathan Cole of Kensington," in which the author tells how he and his wife at a mo- ment's notice rode from Kensington to Mid- dletown to hear Whitefield preach. He had heard that Whitefield, who, it was said, was "like one of the old Apostles," had preached in New Jersey and New York and later had come to Boston and Northampton. "Then on a sudden in the morning about eight or nine of the clock there came a mes- senger and said, 'Mr. Whitefield ... is to preach at Middletown this morning at ten of the clock.' I was in my field at work. I dropt my tool that I had in mine hand, and ran home to my wife, telling her to make ready quickly to go and hear Mr. Whitefield preach at Middletown, then ran to my pas- ture for my horse, with all my might, fearing that I should be too late. Having my horse, I with my wife soon mounted the horse and went forward as fast as I thought the horse could bear, and when my horse got much out of breath, I would get down and put my wife in the saddle and bid her ride as fast as she could and not stop or slack for me except I bade her. And so I would run until I was much out of breath and then mount my horse , again. . . . We improved every moment to get along as if we were fleeing for our lives, all the while fearing we should be too late to [45] The Pilgrim Faith hear the sermon, for we had twelve miles to ride double in little more than an hour. ' ' As they approached Middletown they came in sight of the Hartford road. Mr. Cole says : "I saw before me a cloud or fog rising. I first thought it came from the great river,^ but as I came nearer, I heard a noise some- thing like a low rumbling thunder and pres- ently found it was the noise of the horses' feet coming down the road and this cloud was a cloud of dust made by the horses ' feet. It arose some rods into the air over the tops of hills and trees, and when I came within about twenty rods of the road I could see men and horses slipping along in the cloud like shadows, and as I drew nearer it seemed like a steady stream of horses and their riders, scarcely a horse more than his length be- hind another, all of a lather and foam with sweat. . . . Every horse seemed to go with all his might to carry his rider to hear news from heaven for the saving of souls." Later in their journey the eager travelers commanded a view of the "great river." Mr. Cole describes as follows the unusual scene that there met their eyes: "I saw ferry boats running swift back- wards and forwards bringing over loads of people. Everything, men, horses, and boats seemed to be struggling for life. The land and banks over the river looked dark with iThe Connecticut. [461 Faith in E v ang elistic Action people and horses. All along the twelve miles I saw no man at work in his field, but all seemed to be gone." The ministers were coming to the meeting- house as Mr. Cole and his wife arrived. Later he wrote this description of the great preacher and the effect of his sermon: "When I saw Mr. Whitefield come upon the [platform] he looked almost angelical, a young, slim, slender youth, before some thousands of people, with a bold, undaunted countenance. And my hearing how God was with him everywhere as he came along, it solemnized my mind and put me into a trem- bling fear before he began to preach; for he looked as if he was clothed with authority from the great God, and a sweet solemnity sat upon his brow, and my hearing him preach gave me a heart wound." These extracts from Mr. Cole's account give a vivid picture of scenes that were com- mon during the progress of the Great Awak- ening. The movement was attended by many scenes that offended the taste of some of the ministers. At the meetings there were some- times outcries from the audiences and in some cases certain of the persons in attend- ance lost consciousness; occasionally the preachers and converts became unduly severe in their criticism of those who did not agree with them. Jonathan Edwards found it necessary to write a defense of the move- [47] The Pilgrim F aith ment, and in it he frankly admitted the valid- ity of many points made by its opponents. He showed, however, that the prevailing con- dition of religious indifference and open im- morality in New England had been entirely changed for the better. Throughout all the Colonies he asserted a new temper had ap- peared, and men and women were deeply concerned with religion. They thought and talked about it universally. They had taken a new attitude toward the Church. Espe- cially was there a change in the frivolous con- duct of the young people, and those who had been fond of society gave their energies to nobler aims. Most notable of all, the men had given up drinking, profanity, and foul language; they were remaining at home rather than lounging in the taverns. There was a higher standard of honesty in busi- ness, less gossip and criticism among neigh- bors, and thousands had become happy in their assurance of a new life in Christ. There is no question that this was on the whole a fair report of the positive result of the Great Awakening. Edwards however was not its sole preacher in America. The Awakening called into ac- tion the strongest ministers in New England, and to it they gave their strength in full de- votion. The result was a very large acces- sion to the membership and power of the churches. It is impossible to determine ac- [48J Faith in Evangelistic Action ourately the exact number of new adherents gained at this time, hut the Great Awaken- ing was the most extensive evangelistic movement that New England ever has known. The years of the Eevolution and the time of political uncertainty that followed it marked the lowest point ever reached in the religious condition of the Congregational churches. This was followed by a very ex- tensive period of religious revival which is sometimes known as the "Second" Awaken- ing. The results of this were perhaps more permanent than were those of the Great Awakening, and it did not suffer from the excesses that marked the earlier movement. All New England and the Middle States were touched by the common spiritual impulse, and from 1791 to 1858 the activity continued. Evangelism never has ceased to be an es- sential part of the activity of the Congrega- tional churches. Only a few expressions of it, however, can be touched upon and only three of the leaders mentioned in the para- graphs that follow. One of the ministers who was fired with the evangelistic spirit was Edward Dorr Griffin, who, after a famous pastorate, became President of Williams College. Dr. Griffin wrote an account of the spiritual awakenings in which he bore a part, and reported that, in 1799, he could stand at his door in New Hartford, Conn., "and number fifty or sixty [49] The Pilgrim Faith contiguous congregations laid down in one field of divine wonders, and as many more in different parts of New England." Still more important ttan the work to which. Dr. Griffin refers, was a deep spiritual movement among the students at Yale in 1802. The religious condition of this insti- tution during the years following the Eevolu- tion had hecome deplorable. The opinions of French infidels and of Thomas Paine were almost universally accepted by the students and were accompanied by a flagrant moral life. G-ambling prevailed generally, together with a cynical disregard of all the Christian standards of conduct. In one class the ma- jority of the students had taken the names of French and English infidels, and were fa- miliarly known in this way to their college comrades. In 1795 Timothy Dwight became president of Yale College as well as professor of divinity and pastor of the college church. He was a man of great ability and his spirit glowed with the evangelistic passion of the Pilgrim Faith. There was a prevalent re- vival temper abroad in the churches but the college had not as yet been touched by it. Finally in the spring of 1802 the movement began in the college. Meetings for prayer were held by the students and personal work was done eagerly by the men to enlist their fellows in the Christian life. The results of President Dwight 's arguments and personal [50] Faith in Evangelistic Action influence against infidelity began to bear fruit and at last, during the final ten days of the college term, fifty students out of a total of about two hundred and thirty gave open ex- pression of their new religious purpose. The summer vacation scattered the men to their homes ; but they carried abroad the evi- dence of what had taken place in the College, and so the general revival movement was strengthened. In the end the entire life of Yale College was transformed. Another man who guided the Pilgrim Faith as it met the evangelistic test was Eev. Asahel Nettleton. He was born in Con- necticut and became interested in the Chris- tian life in the evangelistic awakenings of 1800. After graduating at Yale he desired to become a foreign missionary ; but the way did not open. Therefore he gave his life to evangelistic service at home and became one of the most successful workers in the field. He had rare gifts in dealing with men who were perplexed with intellectual doubts, and knew how to handle the opposition of scoffers. His work was done from about 1811 to 1844 and was confined chiefly to New England and New York, where he preached in churches, school-houses, taverns, and in the open air with great success. He said shortly before he died: "If I could see the Pilgrims, scattered abroad, who thought they experienced re- [51] The Pilgrim Faith ligion under my preaching, I should like to address them. I would tell them that the great truths of the Gospel appear more pre- cious than ever ; and that they are the truths that sustain my soul." Still more influential as an evangelist was Charles G. Finney, also born in Connecticut but brought up in western New York, whose long life of almost eighty-three years did not close until 1875. He was not reared in a Christian home and did not become a Chris- tian until he was nearly thirty years old. Immediately upon deciding to follow Christ he began a unique career of personal evan- gelism. He went out of his office, left his legal practice, and commenced to talk with his neighbors and friends about the Christian life. Then he began to travel and hold evan- gelistic services. He had received no train- ing as a preacher or theologian ; but because of his peculiar gift of directness his words had wonderful power. He possessed a re- markable faculty for personal dealing with individuals and was able to present the truth to the mind and the moral sense of men as few preachers can. With telling force he appealed to the conscience and called upon men to assert their will and to decide to fol- low Christ. He dwelt more, therefore, upon the power of the individual to choose than upon the mysteries of the divine grace in sal- vation, which was the common theme. Faith [52] F aith in Evangelistic Action was to him a matter of trust by a person in a Person. Mr. Finney's success cannot be explained better than by a sentence from one of his own reports of a meeting that he had conducted. "I let loose my whole heart upon them," he said. Without reserve and in deepest conviction of the truth of his message he threw himself into his work as a preacher and personal advocate of the gospel. The greatest evangelist of the Pilgrim Faith was Dwight L. Moody. It may seem perhaps too short a time since his death in 1899 to affirm his preeminence so confi- dently; but the farther we move from Mr. Moody's work, the greater it appears. He was a man of unique force of character and his preaching resulted in the conversion of thousands of people. He never was or- dained and remained "Mr." Moody to the end of his life. His work in Christian edu- cation was almost as great as was his service in the field of evangelism, for he organized Northfield Seminary, Mount Hermon School, and Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Mr. Moody was born in 1837, became a Christian in 1855, and died in 1899. He had a very remarkable talent for establishing relations of warm friendship with individuals. At the beginning of his business life as clerk in a shoe store in Boston he was not satisfied with the routine work of selling goods to pa- trons who came into the store; but he went [53J The Pilgrim F aith out after customers and soon liad a larger trade than any other clerk in the store. When he was told that he might teach a Sun- day-school class in Chicago if he would find the members for it, he immediately recruited a motley squad from the streets and pre- sented them for instruction. He rented four pews in church and filled them with young men whom he picked up even from the saloons, into which he went with a manly in- vitation which won the respect of rough drinkers. Thus Mr. Moody was the very finest representative of the true evangelistic motive which makes one person seek another in order to lead him to Christ. He became a successful and widely-known worker in the Young Men's Christian Association and the Sunday-school. In 1867, and again in 1872 he went to England. On the latter trip his preaching was followed by many decisions for the Christian life and it was arranged that he should return the next year. Thus began the series of "Moody and Sankey Mis- sions," in which Mr. Moody and Ira D. Sankey, the well-known singer and writer of gospel hymns, gqve their combined ejfforts to the work of evangelism. While engaged in this work in London, Mr. Mo'ody held two hundred and eighty-five meetings, attended by a million and a half people, within four months. Such men as Henry Drummond were enlisted in personal Christian service, [54] F aith in Evangelistic Action and younger men, like Wilfred T. Grenfell, the missionary doctor to the Labrador, be- gan their active religious life as a result of the message of Mr. Moody. The newspapers often called the Mission "vulgar" at the be- ginning but soon changed their attitude to one of friendly support. Mr. Moody con- ducted evangelistic campaigns in the United States also and with equal success. His preaching was plain, direct, and vivid. He based it all on the Bible. The meetings were free from the violent and hysterical expres- sions that marked the Great Awakening, and were a most wholesome and efficient expres- sion of the Pilgrim Faith in personal evan- gelistic action. During the past twenty-five years there has been a considerable change in the gen- eral point of view of Congregationalists con- cerning evangelistic activity. This does not involve the loss of the former emphasis upon the central importance of individual de- cision to follow Christ; but it has added a much stronger conception of what Professor Graham Taylor has called "Eeligion in Social Action," and it has also affirmed anew the worth of Christian nurture in the de- velopment of the religious life. Congrega- tional pastors like Eev. Charles E. McKinley and Eev. William Byron Forbush have been leaders in the most recent study of the re- ligious life of boys and girls. [55] The Pilgrim Faith The motive wMcli led to the organization of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor was essentially evangelistic. Eev. Francis E. Clark, then pastor of the Wil- liston Congregational Chnrch in Portland, Maine, found that the yonng people of the congregation needed to be provided with some avenue for the expression of their energy in common Christian service. He therefore organized a society in which they might work together for the cultivation of their own Christian life and especially in or- der to bring others to become followers of Christ. Thus was begun simply a movement which has spread around the world within a quarter of a century and has enlisted mil- lions of young Christians in personal service for Christ and the Church. The more recent emphasis upon social service in evangelism is not always under- stood. Sometimes it meets opposition from those who do not discern that it is simply the extension of the former individual ideal into wider social relationships, the appreciation of which is one of the characteristics of the twentieth century. The "Men and Religion Forward Movement" was an application of this later conception and an example of the most recent and most adequate expression of the evangelistic motive to which the Pil- grim Faith always has been loyal. [56] IV THE FAITH FOUNDING THE FEEE STATE IV THE FAITH FOUNDING THE FEEE STATE THE Pilgrim Faith never has been con- cerned simply with a world beyond the stars nor with a celestial city to be reached after death. It has been certain that men are to live together on earth in civil society and has thrown itself with practical wisdom and undaunted passion into the effort to create forms of civil government based upon its principles of liberty and justice. Every- where it has gone to work "to make the moral law the rule of life for states as well as per- sons."^ When we seek for the real begin- nings of the free state in America we must go back to Geneva and to the teachings of John Calvin. Indeed, as John Eichard Green has said, "It is in Calvinism that the modem world strikes its roots. "^ Out of it grew those great principles of democracy on which all the American states have founded their institutions and in which the iProude, "Short Studies on Great Subjects," p. 13. 2 "History of the English People," Vol. 3, p. 114. [59] The Pilgrim F aith federal government finds its warrant. The idea of a congregation witli the rights to gov- ern itself and to choose its own leaders passed over into the conception of a body of citi- zens with power to make their own laws, elect their own officers, and control their own af- fairs for the common good. One of the questions that has been most bitterly debated for centuries has been the relation of the Church and the State. So far as organization is concerned, modern forms of democratic civil government in the United States grew directly out of the Church. The Pilgrim Fathers had already learned in England and Holland how to organize a church on the basis of their fundamental principle that the congregation possesses in itself all the power necessary to elect its own officers and to prescribe their pow- ers. And so it came to pass that when the May- flower reached Provincetown, on Cape Cod, and the Pilgrim Fathers found themselves unable to make a settlement in the terri- tory where they had been given per- mission to land, they knew exactly how to proceed in meeting the situation. They had no right to discharge any civil functions ex- cept as they exercised the native political power resident in all men to create necessary forms of political government. In the cabin [60] Faith F ounding Free State of the Mayflower, November 21, 1620, they drew up and signed a civil agreement, just as they had formerly united in a religious covenant. This agreement became the basis of their civil state, and is commonly known as the ''Mayflower Compact." It reads as follows : "In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are vnder-written, the loyall Subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord King lAMES, by the grace of God of Great Britaine, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, &c. "Having vnder-taken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian Faith, and honour of our King and Countrey, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the Northerne parts of VIRGINIA, doe by these presents solemnly & mutually in the pres- ence of God and one of another, covenant, and combine our selues together into a civill body politike, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by vertue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such iust and equall Lawes, Ordinances, acts, constitutions, offices from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the generall good of the Colony: vnto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witnesse whereof we haue here-vnder subscribed our names, Cape Cod 11. of November, in the [61J The Pilgrim Faith, yeare of the raigne of our soveraigne Lord King lAMES, of England, France, and Ire- land 18. and of Scotland 54. Anno Domino 1620." They then proceeded to choose a governor under their covenant and the state was be- gun. This little constitution is a very sacred thing for more reasons than one. It was the earliest written document expressing the political aspect of the Pilgrim Faith in New England. Bancroft has said that "popular constitutional liberty" had its beginning with this Mayflower Compact. Thus by the action of forty-one men in the cabin of a little vessel riding uneasily in a Massachu- setts harbor a church organized a state in- stead of waiting to be organized by a state. So much had the conditions been changed since the earlier days in old England, when the church was made to depend upon civil authority. There is no better example of the way in which the Congregational churches and their pastors influenced the political life of the colonies than is seen in the case of Thomas Hooker and the constitution of the State of Connecticut. It was the year 1638 when Eev. Thomas Hooker of Hartford, according to the colonial custom, preached a sermon before the Legislature of Connecticut, or as it was [62] F aith Founding Free State then called, the General Court. In this ser- mon he laid down the general principles of those fundamental laws that were to govern the Colony under the constitution which the Legislature adopted formally in January, 1639. The story of the discovery of this sermon is most interesting. Notes on it were taken by Mr. Henry Wolcott, Jr., of Windsor, in a very peculiar shorthand. The little book containing them remained unread for nearly two himdred and twenty-five years, when it was finally deciphered and the full meaning given by a very distinguished scholar, Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, of Hartford. All we have now is the outline of the sermon which could easily be printed on a page four by six inches. The discourse affirms the principle that the foundation of all authority in the State is laid in the free consent of the citizens. It is by God's own gift that the right to choose public officers belongs to the people alone. They ought, indeed, to exercise this rigM according to the will and law of God as they know it. It is also within the power of the people fully to determine the limits of the authority of those magistrates whom they elect. This sermon was undoubtedly preached in great fullness of detail and came from the recognized leader of the Colony. Hooker was a man of commanding intellectual strength, eloquent in utterance, and the influence of this election sermon [63J The Pilgrim Faith upon the legislators who were called to draft the Constitution and frame the laws for the new Commonwealth was profound. It is in- teresting to notice that while the Mayflower Compact began with a reference to "our dread soveraigne King James," there is no such recognition of royalty in this sermon of Thomas Hooker nor in the constitution and laws that were framed according to the prin- ciples that he laid down. Each citizen was to perform his duties according to his concep- tion of the will and law of God, and for the fulfillment of that sacred trust he was re- sponsible to God alone. As Dr. Leonard Bacon says: "That ser- mon by Thomas Hooker from the pulpit of the First Church in Hartford, is the earliest known suggestion of a fundamental law, en- acted not by royal charter, nor by concession from any previously existing government, but by the people themselves." The influence of Hooker's sermon, how- ever, did not end with the Constitution and fundamental statutes of the State of Con- necticut. The principles which he defined and defended were wrought into the basic laws of other states and the national Consti- tution was modelled after the Connecticut document. John Fiske says concerning the Connecti- cut Constitution of 1639: "It was the first written Constitution known to history that [64] Faith F ounding Free State created a government, and it marked the be- ginnings of American democracy, of wMcli Thomas Hooker deserves more than any other man to be called the father. The gov- ernment of the United States to-day is in lineal descent more nearly related to that of Connecticut than to that of any other of the thirteen colonies." But it is through the direct influence of the ministers upon legislation that the energy of the Pilgrim Faith has been exerted in the creation of civic institutions. It was said that the principles which Eev, John Cotton preached from his Boston pulpit were wrought into laws by the members of the General Court, or Legislature of Massa- chusetts. So strong was the influence of the minister upon public opinion in early New England that he shaped the institutions of the state indirectly by every sermon. As Professor Charles F. Eichardson has said: *'It is not easy in these days of the inde- pendence of the laity, to estimate rightly the power of the ministers in early New England. Few Eoman Catholic priests exercise a more potent control over their congregation than did these ministers and servants of the First Churches of Boston, Salem, Plymouth, over their independent and democratic flocks. Theoretically, the minister was but one among the congregation, or rather the body of church-members; practically however, he [65] The Pilgrim Faith was a force in public affairs and in social order." ^ This political influence of the New Eng- land ministers is well illustrated by the case of Eev. Solomon Stoddard, pastor of the church in Northampton, Massachusetts, for fifty-two years, beginhing in 1672. These were the days when "the elders continued to be consulted in every affair of importance. The share they held in temporal affairs added to the weight they had acquired from their spiritual employments, and they were in high esteem." Jonathan Edwards was Stoddard's grandson, and he wrote regard- ing his grandfather: "The officers and leaders of Northampton imitated his man- ners, which were dogmatic, and thought it an excellency to be like him." The Indians, quickly appreciating this situation, often spoke of Mr, Stoddard as "the Englishman's God. "2 Toward the close of the eighteenth cen- tury one of the most significant documents in the history of the United States was ap- proved by Congress. It was known as the Ordinance of 1787 and created the territorial system of government, applying it to the great Northwest Territory out of which have been carved the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. This 1 "American Literature," Vol. I, 1887, p. 119. 2 Allen, "Jonathan Edwards," 1889, p. 39. [66] Faith Founding Free State mighty wedge of rich country lay in the em- brace of the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the Great Lakes, and the character of its moral standards and political control was vital to the entire nation. The Ordinance provided that the total area should be divided into territories, with the provision that when any one of these should contain sixty thousand inhabitants it should become a state with full rights: that is, these territories were to be regarded as "nascent states." Generous provisions were made for the support of edu- cation. Freedom of religious belief and wor- ship was granted to every citizen; trial by jury was assured to every criminal. Most important of all, the holding of slaves within the border of the Territory was forbidden forever. Thus was that great region saved to human freedom. Many hands helped in shaping the Ordi- nance and in appropriating the advantages that were offered to settlers under its pro- visions. The chief person, however, who worked for the final draft of the Act as it was passed and who also took advantage of its provisions in a practical way, was Eev. Manasseh Cutler, a minister-statesman of the type of Eev. Thomas Hooker and other New England leaders. He was a man of versatile powers. In 1771 he became pastor of the Congregational Church in Hamilton, then a part of Ipswich, Massachusetts, and [67] The Pilgrim F aith remained in that relation for fifty-two years. He served in the Massachusetts Legislature and in the national Congress, and was offered other important political appoint- ments which he felt oblig^ed to decline. His chief service to the State, however, lay in the fact that from his hand probably came the draft of the Ordinance of 1787. How far he foresaw the future of the great region to which this Act guaranteed a civil constitu- tion we cannot tell ; but the value of his serv- ice is none the less great. In speaking of this important piece of leg- islation, Daniel Webster said: "I doubt whether one single law of any law-giver, an- cient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787." ^ Theodore Eoose- velt says of it : " The Ordinance of 1787 was so wide-reaching in its effects, was drawn in accordance with so lofty a morality and such far-seeing statesmanship, and was fraught with such weal for the nation, that it will ever rank among the foremost of American state papers. "2 Iowa has often been called the "Massa- chusetts of the West." In the development of its civic ideals the men of the Pilgrim Faith have borne a part conspicuous enough 1 Quoted in John Fiske, "The Critical Period of American History," 1889, p. 206. 2 "The Winning of the West," V: 36. [68] Faith, Founding Free State to warrant the description. The immigra- tion by which Iowa was first peopled cam« from the South and from other sections of the country where Southern sentiment pre- vailed, quite as much as from New England. It was not until the slavery question had come into a place of prominence among national issues that immigration from New England was quickened and a great change took place. Instead of being democratic in politics and favorable to the extension of slavery, Iowa, under the superb leadership of Governor James W. Grimes, swung into line as a foe of slavery. This change was due primarily to the personal activity of the leaders of the Congregational churches. , ''They brought the New England conscience to bear upon the problems of the day and place, and by their untiring advocacy of justice and free- dom helped to mould the public feeling and determine the public attitude upon these questions."^ Eev. Asa Turner, one of the most individ- ual and forceful pioneer leaders that the Pil- grim Faith ever has produced, was undoubt- edly the man upon whose personal influence shifted the tide of events which issued in the election of Governor Grimes; an election that, in turn, materially influenced the or- ganization of the Eepublican party. Mr. Turner drafted on the back of a letter with 1 Douglass, "Pilgrims of Iowa," 1911, p. 292. [69] The Pilgrim F aith a pencil the terse "platform" which, was ac- cepted in the convention where the critical moment was passed and adequate support for Mr. Grimes as the gubernatorial candi- date was insured for governor.^ Mr. Grimes, who was then serving with great distinction as [United States senator, said in an address delivered in 1863 that he and public servants like him were made by the sentiments of such Congregational ministers and laymen as were gathered in the meeting of the Congrega- tional State Association, and also affirmed: "I am myself the foster-son of him whom you call Father Turner." Dr. William Salter was a member of the Iowa Band. In 1902 an oil portrait of him was unveiled in Des Moines in the gallery of the state Historical Society, the Hall of Fame of Iowa. In presenting this portrait, Hon. Frank Springer said : "His life represents the history of Iowa. He was a part of it; he helped to make it. ... In the times that tried our souls, when the sons of Iowa were offering their lives, he went into the field, preaching the gospel of patriotism, fortitude and good cheer, to our heroes at the front. In war and in peace, to the camp and to the hearthstone, he has brought to grateful thousands of Iowa's best and noblest sons and daughters the consola- tions, not only of religion, but of a charity 1 Magoun, "Asa Turner," 1889, pp. 287, 289. [70] Faith Founding Free State not bounded by any cbnrcb or creed, but broad as the precept of his Divine Master. There is scarcely a family in southeastern Iowa, among the pioneers who builded this state and their descendants, to whom at some time and in some way, his words have not been a comfort, and his presence a benedic- tion." In accepting the portrait. Governor Cum- mins said : "Not the politicians, not the captains of industry, not the leaders in great material enterprises of the state have made Iowa what she is, but men such as this, men of his char- acter and of his class, these are the men who have made Iowa a great, noble, peerless, Christian commonwealth. ' ' ^ Thus the sons of the Pilgrim Faith have wrought well for the civic welfare of the great commonwealths of the central West. There is yet another record of dis- tinguished public service in the shaping of the free state which continues the story that we have been following — the record of Joseph Ward. It was into the rough river town of Yankton, South Dakota, that he went from New England with his young wife, in 1869, There he began twenty years of service as minister, college founder and president, and eminent public servant which is among the illustrious stories of heroism in the history 1 Douglass, "Pilgrims of Iowa," 1911, p. 294. [711 The Pilgrim F aith of the Pilgrim Faith. "We are concerned, however, only with the personal contribution which he made to the Constitution of South Dakota and with his successful fight for state- hood under the sanction of popular liberty and against the opposition of selfish poli- ticians inspired by partisan greed.^ In 1879 the area of the present states of North Dakota and South Dakota composed Dakota Territory. The admission of a state to the Union was generally supposed to de- pend upon the passage of an enabling act by the national Congress, although Michigan had set an example of forceful independent action by herself adopting a constitution and electing officers, according to the fundamen- tal principles of Congregationalism, in 1835- 36. In 1879 a Thanksgiving dinner was served at the home of Rev. Stewart Sheldon,^ and there a group of men discussed conditions in the Territory and set in motion a most im- portant movement, which involved a ten- year's struggle. They determined that they would push resolutely for statehood, plan- ning to divide the Territory into two states iThe story of this struggle is told in a chapter of a manuscript, soon to be published, by Professor George Har- rison Durand, vice-president of Yankton College, under the title, "Joseph Ward, of Dakota." For the use of this manu- script the writer expresses grateful acknowledgment. 2 Father of Rev. Charles M. Sheldon of Topeka and brother-in-law of Joseph Ward. [72] Faith F ounding Free State and to secure the adoption of a constitution that would forever safeguard the value of the lands set apart by the federal government for the support of the public schools in new- states. These lands, whenever they should be thrown upon the market for sale, were likely to be sought as a prize for speculation and therefore it was desirable that a mini- mum price should be fixed for their sale, in order to conserve the funds for educational purposes. Opposition to the admission of one or two states formed from Dakota Terri- tory was inevitable becaiuse of political con- ditions at the time. Political sentiment in the Territory was against the ruling party in Washington, who would not permit the admission of states whose representatives in Congress would vote against them. Thus the rights of the people to self-government in a great territory were shamelessly sub- verted by selfish partisan politics. Joseph Ward was engrossed with his work in church and college, but the cause of popu- lar liberty and the guarding of the people's property called forth his utmost resources. One of his closest friends said: "He was emphatically a people's man, fav- oring everything that looked toward honest, free and fair government. He was deeply versed in New England polity, and was a profound believer in the fundamental and most fruitful principle of New England po- [73J The Pilgrim F aith litical institutions, local self-government." Inspired and led by Dr. Ward, the various movements outlined above were set in mo- tion. We cannot describe in detail tbe for- tunes of the campaign. Dr. Ward was al- ways in the forefront of it and was espe- cially active in the matter of the school lands. The principle that the people had the right and power to take the initiative and form a state government without waiting for an en- abling act from Congress sounds precisely like the propositions that Robert Browne and all other Congregationalists have constantly defended. To carry this principle into effect Statehood Clubs, uniting in a Citizen's Con- stitutional Association, were organized throughout the Territory. Thus was inaug- urated what has been called "the most meri- torious nonpartisan public movement ever begun in the West. " In it Dr. Ward was the leading spirit. In 1882 the first constitutional convention was held. The committee on resolutions set forth the purpose and importance of the meeting, using this significant sentence: "It is not boasting to say that in subse- quent generations men will quote the work of today as similar to that done by the Pil- grims in the cabin of the Mayflower when they put their names to the compact which was afterwards expanded into the Constitu- tion of Massachusetts." [74] Faith Founding Free State The resolution closed in these words, which are certainly from Dr. "Ward's own pen: ' ' In short the whole work of the convention has demonstrated as never before that the people are sovereign; that political parties are only convenient forms for carrying out the wishes of the people ; that the people are at any time stronger than any and all par- ties; that if occasion arise they know per- fectly how to act and are ready to act for themselves — ^not under the name of any party, but simply as the people. ' ' Dr. Ward was the author of the motto of the state of South Dakota, "Under God the People rule." This sums up the very spirit of the struggle for statehood which Dr. Ward led, for it was religious in its spirit and was grounded in unwavering faith in the rights of the people. The battle was won in 1889. Judge Bart- lett Tripp, one of the most influential citi- zens of South Dakota, who was in the move- ment from the beginning, has said fre- quently, "Joseph Ward was the prime mover in the whole thing." So the Pilgrim Faith exhibited in the Dakotas that power which it has shown from the beginning of its activity to shape the institutions of the state accord- ing to its ideal of popular liberty. [75] THE FAITH AND EDUCATION V THE FAITH AND EDUCATION ONE of the severest tests that the Pilgrim Faith has met — and met successfully — is concerned with its attitude towards educa- tion. It has been said that "ignorance is the mother of devotion." This the Pilgrim Faith has strenuously and steadfastly denied, maintaining rather that true culture is the friend of devotion and that knowledge is the safeguard of religion. An outstanding fact in the early history of the Congregational churches is that their ministers were men of thorough academic training and of unusual mental strength. The great majority of them were graduates of Cambridge and had received the best trail- ing that England could afford. They brought with them to America the funda- mental idea that a growing church can be effi- ciently served only by an educated ministry. This principle has remained unbroken among Congregational churches in America from the beginning of their history, and they have been consistently the founders of schools and the promoters of education. In [79]. The Pilgrim F aith many respects they are best characterized as "the Church that educates." In foreign missionary work, also, the importance of edu- cation has been emphasized. Congrega- tional mission stations around the world make use of the printing press, academic schools, and other agencies calculated to train mind and hand. It was inevitable that if there were to be common schools in the Colonies they must be created by the State, which was, we have seen, practically identical with the Church. Boston, Hartford, and New Haven all estab- lished common schools very early. In Mas- sachusetts in 1647 the Legislature ordered that as soon as any township should have fifty households it should appoint a teacher for elementary instruction and that when the population included one hundred families a grammar school should be established. Con- necticut followed this example. The idea of the Colonists in making these provisions was that through education the people might have a better knowledge of the Bible. Thus a re- ligious purpose lay behind the whole system of education. The business of founding a college in Mas- sachusetts was also attended to early. In 1636 the Legislature voted four hundred pounds for a "college." The new institu- tion was located at Newtown, the name of [80] TIMOTHY D WIGHT J. H. FAIRCHILD MARK HOPKINS JAMES B. ANGELL WILLIAM G. TUCKER The Faith and E ducation whicli place was changed to Cambridge, and when Eev. John Harvard left the college a donation of books, it was named "Harvard College" in gratitude to him. Thus Har- vard College was founded by the Congrega- tionalists in order that a learned ministry- might not fail them when those who then led them, should sleep in the dust. The first graduation was held in 1642, and from that time until Tale College was founded, in 1701, Harvard was the single source which con- stantly sent a supply of ministers into the service of the churches in New England. The college has grown into a university and is historically the most distinguished educa- tional institution in the United States. Early in the last century it became affiliated with the Unitarian movement, but it always will remain as the great College which the Pilgrim Faith founded at the beginning of its three centuries of service in America. A concrete example of the interest of the colonial leaders in schools is seen in the re- port of a prayer which Eev. John Eliot of- fered at the Eeforming Synod in 1679 : ''Lord, for schools everywhere among us! That our schools may flourish ! That every member of this assembly may go home, and procure a good school to be encouraged in the town where he lives! That before we die, we may be so happy as to see a good school [81] The Pilgrim F aith encouraged in every plantation of the country. ' ' ^ Even after the founding of Harvard it was necessary for students from New Haven and Connecticut Colonies to make a long and in- convenient journey to Cambridge in order to secure a college education. In 1701 the de- sire for a seat of learning closer at hand took shape in the organization of Yale College, A board of trustees consisting of ten ministers from the colony was appointed to begin a new institution in Connecticut. All but one of these were graduates of Harvard. For fif- teen years the school which they established wandered from place to place; there were only a few students and they lived in the house of the rector appointed by the trustees. In 1718 a permanent building was erected for the college in New Haven and it received its name in honor of Elihu Tale. It did not grow very rapidly, however, and in 1795, when Timothy Dwight became president, it had only about one hundred students, with president, one professor and three tutors. From that time until the present the College has steadily increased in numbers until it ranks as one of the greatest in the country. Harvard and Yale will always stand together as the visible sign of that passionate love for education which burned in the hearts of the founders of New England. 1 Mather, "Magnalia," 1855, Vol. 1, p. 551. [82] The Faith and E due atio n The education of Indian boys was not over- looked in the early days. Eev. Eleazar Wheelock of Lebanon, Conn., took a young Mohegan, Samson Occom, into the little school that he maintained in his own home. This was in 1743, The lad became one of the most widely-known Indians ever educated in America. The tale of Pocahontas breathes the atmosphere of romance and uncertainty ; but the story of Occom 's solid attainments and abiding work moves in the realm of fact and history. The success of the effort to train Occom in the "Wheelock home suggested the idea of bringing in other Indian boys and placing them under the direct influence not only of a school but also of a Christian family. Eleazar "Wheelock anticipated all the modern ideas regarding the influence of neighborliness in social settlements. We cannot trace here the story of this school ex- cept in brief outline. It remained in the Wheelock parsonage at Lebanon for a time and then moved into the wilderness to the north and located at the present town of Han- over, N. H. Here it finally developed into Dartmouth College, from which a host of trained leaders have gone forth into the so- called professions and into business. And this college grew out of the missionary pas- sion of a minister of the Pilgrim Faith. The story of the founding of Oberlin Col- lege is a thrilling record of self-sacrifice in [83] The Pilgrim Faith the effort to realize a great ideal. The vision came to definition first in the minds of two men, John J. Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart. Both were without liberal education or finan- cial resources, but both were profoundly impressed by the religious needs of the cen- tral West. Mr. Shipherd conceived the idea of a great Christian community with a school system designed especially to furnish ade- quate training, including courses in theology, to workers for the needy fields in the West. Even before a place in which to carry out the plan had been selected it was named after the great German pastor, Oberlin. A location was then found; funds and friends were secured in New England and New York. The enthusiasm of Mr. Shipherd accomplished almost incredible results and in 1833 a beginning was made. The forest was cleared, rude buildings were erected and school was opened. There were many char- acteristic features in the Oberlin system of education. The living was as plain as the thinking was expected to be high. At the beginning, board on the vegetarian basis cost the student seventy cents a week, while a charge of one dollar per week was made for board including meat at two meals each day. Manual labor was expected from all the stu- dents and was considered an essential ele- ment in keeping the body fit for mental tasks. [84] The Faith and Education Four hours was the amount of time regularly- allotted to physical work in each student's daily schedule. A Congregational church was organized in 1835. A theological de- partment was soon begun, and gathered its student body quickly from a large group whose abolition principles had made them unwelcome at Lane Seminary in Cincinnati. This incident indicates the general attitude and temper of the founders of Oberlin. Pro- foundly earnest men they were ; and although sometimes, during the early days, they as- sumed positions which were radical and im- possible to maintain, Oberlin usually took high and tenable ground in theology and on all moral questions. The cause of abolition found unwavering champions there ; the Col- lege was opened to negroes. Eev. Charles G. Finney had been deeply interested in the Institution from its earliest days and became one of its professors in 1835. Later he as- sumed the presidency, which he held until 1866. The missionary interest was strong in Oberlin from the outset. "Work was done for the fugitive slaves in Canada ; a group went from the College to Jamaica to work among the colored people; Oberlin men opened a mission in Africa in 1841; and two years later this educational outpost in Ohio sent ten men and women to preach among the [85] The Pilgrim Faith Indians in the Northwest. In the meantime Mr. Finney was carrying on his wonderful evangelistic work throughout the country. In the town of Oberlin the earnestness of the community was equalled only by that of the students. It was not uncommon for a recitation hour to be given up to a religious subject and almost annually the work of the College would be suspended for a time, while religious meetings were being held. One of the remarkable facts in the history of Oberlin is the rapid rise in its student body. Although at the beginning the College was in the wilderness, students came from great dis- tances to attend it. At the end of ten years its roll included six hundred names. In the history of our educational institutions there is hardly another case of such rapid growth. Except during the period of the Civil War the student body of Oberlin has been very large. Its work for the Kingdom of Grod has been consistent and effective and furnishes one of the noblest examples of the service rendered to the higher life of America by the Pilgrim Faith. As the Home Missionary movement worked its way westward, it carried not only the re- ligious passions of the early preachers and pastors, but also the educational ideals of the Pilgrim Faith. The zeal of the home mis- sionaries for education is illustrated by the words of Eev. Joseph Ward of South Dakota [86] The Faith and E du cation as he saw the rapid settlement of the Eed Eiver valley: "The whole valley is filling up with immi- grants. They are laying the foundation for a commonwealth larger than England, Scot- land, and Wales, and leaving out God. Dare we let them go on without the Bible and the spelling book?"^ When a group of Andover students decided to go West as the Iowa Band in 1842, Eph- raim Adams, one of their number, said, "If each one of us can only plant one good per- manent church, and all together build a col- lege what a work that would be." Eev. Asa Turner who was on the ground in the new country, had the same ideal and said to a member of the Band, "We must take steps to found a college. ' ' In 1844 the first plans were made by the little group of ministers for the establishment of an institution for higher learning in that frontier land. They were men on very small salaries and the money necessary for their undertaking must be raised aln^ost entirely in New England at the cost of hard labor and much self-sacrifice. Each of them, however, regarded the found- ing of the college as an essential part of their common work, and each gave generously out of his scant resources for its support. The first dollar contributed was laid down on the table by one of these ministers, who remarked 1 Shelton, "Heroes of the Cross in America," 1904, p. 237. [87] The Pilgrim Faith humorously: "Now appoint your trustees to take care of that dollar for Iowa College." In the diary of another of these missionary- educators is the record of a ride which he took on horseback through deep mud to Davenport in the interest of the College. These words from that account are significant : "If we had the requisite funds, we might soon make this institution a center of influ- ence. I promise to send up ten dollars to- ward meeting the present emergency." This epitomizes graphically the early strug- gles and the unselfish sacrifice of the founders of the western colleges. Cherishing de- votedly the ideals that the fathers of the Faith had set for them, they gave freely of money and of personal service. The horse- back ride through the mud and the pledge of ten dollars out of a meager sis-hundred-dol- lar salary were the fine evidences of dedica- tion to an ideal, and colleges throughout the West today bear the mark of such devotion and perpetuate the noble spirit of their founders. Shortly after the first steps toward the organizing of the new college had been taken, plans for its establishment were presented in a report submitted to the meeting of the Iowa Association of Congregational Churches. Here the importance of the proposed institu- tion as a source of supply for the ministry was especially emphasized, and a fund to pro- [88] The F aith and E ducatio n vide scholarships was called for. On the spot the ministers and delegates raised over seven hundred dollars. Similar to the records of Oberlin and Iowa are the histories of all the other colleges which the Pilgrim Faith has founded in the West. They have originated in the dream of brave and devoted men, the great majority of whom received their culture and ideals in the older institutions which the Congregationalists had established in New England. There is an unbroken succession of labor and sacrifice from the little company that organized the first common school and Harvard College in Massachusetts to the ministers and laymen of today. To the realization of their ideals men of the Congregational order have given their resources and their personal service without stint. Large sums of money have been contributed by the older and wealthier East to carry forward enterprises looking to the advancement of the New West ; but meas- ured by the standard of sacrifice and unselfish devotion the gifts of pioneers and home mis- sionary pastors bulk even larger. For these men gave generously and toiled faithfully in order that there might be colleges in which the Christian emphasis should be paramount, and which should supply the Church they loved with trained and efficient laymen and minis- ters for its future work. Their great desire was to give their sons and daughters an edu- [ 89 ] The Pilgrim Faith cation, not as an end in itself, but in order that the Kingdom of God might be established on earth. More than once a home missionary has been enabled to make an essential contribution to the system of public education in process of development in a new state ; but there is no finer example of such work than is found in the services rendered by Rev. John D. Pierce in Michigan. Mr. Pierce was a native of New Hampshire and went to Michigan with his young wife in 1831, when he began work as a home missionary in the western part of the State. There he held the first religious services ever conducted by a Protestant minister in all that vast region. As the young preacher went from house to house and traveled by rough trails into scattered settlements, continually meeting with hard- ships and personal danger, he was constantly thinking about the duty of the State to pro- vide the best educational resources for its young people. He found a congenial friend in General Isaac E. Crary and they often talked together about the provisions that ought to be made for education when the Territory should become a State. In 1835 a constitutional convention was called and a state constitution was agreed upon. This constitution recognized the supreme obliga- tion of public education and created the office of superintendent of public instruction. [90] The Faith and Education General Crary then brougM the name of Mr. Pierce to Governor Mason as the best man to be appointed to the new office. After an interview, the Governor appointed Mr. Pierce and the whole matter of public educa- tion was placed in his hands. This involved not only the planning of the new school system but also the management of the school lands, of which there were a million acres. Mr. Pierce went to work immediately on the problem of devising a system of common school and university education. The plan which he drew up was reported to the Legis- lature and approved by it in 1837. The sys- tem thus outlined by the home missionary minister has remained practically un- changed, as the educational plan for Michi- gan.^ It provided for the establishment of a free primary school that should be open to every child in the state: It also established a state university, in which higher education was to be furnished without tuition fees to residents of the state. Mr. Pierce encoun- tered no slight opposition to this part of his program and it was only slowly that the plan for a state university went into effect. It was finally carried out, however, on the gen- eral lines that Mr. Pierce proposed, and the foundations of the great University of Michi- gan were thus laid very largely by a man who 1 Thomas M. Cooley, "MicUgan," 1885, pp. 318 fig. [91], The Pilgrim F aith had seen the educational vision of the Pil- grim Faith. The service ' which Rev. John D. Pierce rendered to the cause of public education in Michigan is perhaps surpassed by the simi- lar work of Eev. George H. Atkinson in Oregon. Dr. Atkinson was born in New- buryport, Mass., in 1819, and was graduated at Dartmouth College and at Andover Semi- nary. His first appointment was to mission- ary work among the Zulus, but he was pre- vented from going to Africa and was later transferred to an assignment in Oregon un- der the American Home Missionary Society. This involved no less hardship than the jour- ney to Africa, for he and his young wife were obliged to sail by way of Cape Horn and the Sandwich Islands in order to reach their desti- nation. In Honolulu they were delayed three months waiting for a vessel bound for Ore- gon. Just before sailing they received the shocking news that their fellow missionaries, the Whitmans, had been murdered near Walla Walla. Undaunted by hardship and the prospect of a tragic end to their mission. Dr. and Mrs. Atkinson completed their jour- ney and reached Oregon in June, 1848, hav- ing been on the way since October of the previous year. There he served for twenty- five years as a Congregational pastor and then for seventeen years, or until his death, [92] The Faith and E ducation in 1889, as general missionary and mission- ary superintendent. When Dr. Atkinson went to Oregon lie took with him nearly two thousand dollars' worth of schoolbooks. He found that while there were in the Territory a few schools sup- ported by private subscription there were no free public schools and that there was no plan or appropriation for the establishment of any. More than that, there were strong men who were opposed to the inauguration of a public school system. But Dr. Atkinson went to work vigorously at the task of en- listing support for a plan of public educa- tion and with the backing that he secured was able to obtain from the Legislature of 1849 its sanction for a common school system in Oregon. He became the first school super- intendent of Clackamas County and served throughout his life in important positions on school boards and educational committees, carrying on all this work without in the least neglecting his duties as pastor and preacher. Dr. Atkinson was the prime mover in the establishment of academies and a college for the new territory. He was the practical founder of Tualatin Academy, and Pacific University at Forest Grove owes more to him as its founder and friend than to any other single individual. He is a shining ex- ample of those leaders of the Pilgrim Faith [93] The Pilgrim F aith who have cast themselves into every move- ment that makes for the common good and have conceived their ministry as including the whole higher life of the community and nation. Dr. Atkinson's motto was: "Ore- gon for Christ, and for Christ through all the channels of public and private charity." The Congregationalists have always been alert to the need of the Christian academy as weU as the Christian college and they have realized that the purpose of education is not merely to inform the mind but also to create character. The impressionable nature of youth makes it all the more imperative that the direction of life should be given before the college course is begun. Therefore pre- paratory schools, generally called academies, have been extensively organized and sup- ported under the initiative and direction of the Pilgrim Faith. In New England the great institutions at Andover, Mass., and Exeter, N. H., bearing the name "Phillips Academy," are conspicuous. The record of such schools as Kimball Union Academy at Meriden, N. H., St. Johnsbury Academy in Vermont, and others is brilliant. They have steadily furnished to the colleges a supply of students who have gone into places of dis- tinguished leadership in all walks of life. In the "West, also, the Congregationalists have maintained academies, sometimes in connec- tion with colleges and sometimes independ- [94] The Faith and E ducatio n ently. Kidder in Missouri, Weeping Water in Nebraska, Ward in South. Dakota are ex- amples of these Western secondary schools. What the future may bring to such prepara- tory academies it is not possible to de- termine, for the growth of the public high school supported by popular taxation may render impossible, even if it does not make unnecessary, the Christian academy sup- ported by private benevolence. It would seem, however, that the unfailing need of Christian leadership at the hands of both ministers and laymen would make the work of the Christian academy a permanent part of our essential educational equipment. Elsewhere we shall have occasion to refer to the work of Congregationalists for the education of the undeveloped races and in foreign lands ; it is fitting that we should re- fer at this point to the remarkable work done at Hampton and Tuskegee for the negroes and Indians and should show how the pri- mary inspiration for it came from the Pil- grim Faith. The unique element in the Hampton ideal was the manual labor and training that were made an essential part of the entire system of education. This plan, however, was not new, for it had al- ready been worked out successfully at Ober- lin and Mount Holyoke. With this fact Samuel C. Armstrong was familiar when he began to shape the plans for a school for [95J The Pilgrim Faith negroes at Hampton, Va. In 1867 he wrote to the American Missionary Association pro- posing that a permanent educational work for negroes should be begun on a fine estate, which was located on the shore of Hampton river and was then in the market. The As- sociation responded favorably, the land was purchased, and Armstrong became the head of the institution. Thus began one of the most famous Schools for negroes and Indians in America, the Hampton Normal and Agri- cultural Institute. In time it seemed best that the Institution should become independ- ent of the American Missionary Association ; but the School stands as one of the gifts of the Pilgrim Faith to the higher life of America. Out of Hampton has grown Tuskegee. Booker T. Washington, its founder and presi- dent, was trained at Hampton and there re- ceived the ideals of Gen. Armstrong. He has said definitely that the work of the Tus- kegee Institute is simply one of the results of the pioneer service of Hampton.^ The same general plan of industrial education has spread not only throughout the South but also into the West Indies and Africa. Thus widely has grown the educational influence of the Pilgrim churches. A few words only can be devoted to the educational work of the Pilgrim Faith in 1 Talbot, "Samuel Chapman Armstrong," 1904, p. 209. [96] TJie Faith and E ducatio n foreign lands. The Churcli that educates at home is the patron of schools and colleges in its foreign extension also. In the most recent history of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the agent of the Congregational Churches for carrying on its missionary work in foreign lands, there is given a list of the educational and philanthropic institutions that have been founded or inspired by the Board or its mis- sionaries.^ The list is almost startling in its proportions. It includes nineteen col- leges, fifteen theological seminaries, five in- dustrial schools, scores of kindergartens, and a large number of special training schools. Thus around the world has gone the influ- ence of the Church that founded Harvard College in the colonial days and is still edu- cating the people. In every school the essential factor is the personality of the teacher. The Pilgrim Faith has been preeminently successful in furnishing efficient and inspiring teachers in all departments of education. The list of college presidents, university professors, and teachers in all branches of learning who have come from the Congregational churches makes a muster roll of which the Pilgrim Faith is proud. We can speak of only a few of these educators and have chosen for our 1 strong, "The Story of the American Board," 1910, p. 501. [97] The Pilgrim F aith mention tlie names of men who represent the academy, the college, and the state univer- sity. It always has been customary to compare Thomas Arnold of Rugby and Samuel H. Taylor of Andover and the parallel is not in the least to the disadvantage of the Ameri- can educator. For Dr. Taylor was one of the greatest teachers of American youth. He was born in Londonderry, N. H., in 1807, graduated at Dartmouth in 1832, studied theology at Andover Seminary, and became principal of Phillips Academy in 1837. Here he reigned as master for thirty-four years, until his death, in 1871. His scholar- ship was most accurate. As a teacher he had a wonderful power of creating interest ^and inspiring enthusiasm for his subjects. His class-room has been described as a "tor- rent rushing onward to the sea. Every mind was on the alert. He knew how to in- cite and embolden (his pupils)." It was chiefly through his personal influence, how- ever, that his great work was done. He had the divine gift of understanding, leading, and inspiring boys. He possessed, moreover, a strong and unwavering devotion to his work. On the morning of his death he was urged to remain at home because of physical weak- ness, but refused to do so, saying, "My first duty lies with the school." A few minutes later he fell dead among the boys who were [98] The Faith and E ducatio n pressing into the room to attend Ms Bible class. It has become almost a proverb that "a college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a boy on the other." President James A. Garfield may or may not have said this; but the statement presents the central fact of college life. President Hopkins of Wil- liams College has been described as the per- fect example of "the college president as the father, teacher, counselor, and guide." He was all these during his long service in Wil- liams College. He became a tutor there in 1825, and in 1836 assumed the presidency, which he held until his death, in 1887. He was repeatedly called to other places but he chose to remain at the head of the college that he loved. Honors of every kind came to him — he served with especial distinction as president of the American Board — ^but his preeminent work was the guidance and in- spiration of college men. The distinguished alumni register of Williams College is the abiding witness to the effectiveness of Presi- dent Hopkins' life work. Men like Presi- dent Garfield were trained by him and gladly acknowledged their debt for the inspiration they had received from his devoted per- sonality. He was a worthy representative of the Pilgrim Faith. As these words are written, President James B. Angell is living quietly at Ann [99] The Pilgrim Faith Arbor, Micliigan, close by the university, the first outlines of which were sketched by home missionaries and in the growth of which Eev. John D. Pierce had so large a hand. Dr. Angell represents the contribution of the Pilgrim Faith to the up-building of the state university. He has been president of the University of Vermont and the .Univer- sity of Michigan and has rendered distin- guished service on a diplomatic mission to China and as Minister to Turkey. Dr. Angell 's interest in the work of missions al- ways has been keen and he tells in his "Reminiscences" how it was reported when he was nominated as minister to Turkey that the Sultan would object on the ground that the newly-appointed representative "be- longed to the denomination of Congregation- alists." The Sultan, however, had merely confused names, thinking that a "Congrega- tionalist" was one who belonged to the "Congregation of the Jesuits." When he learned of the mistake the objection was withdrawn.^ Dr. Angell 's hand has been laid firmly upon the university at Ann Arbor and he has guided its affairs with eminent success as a Christian educator. One of the great contributions which the Pilgrim Faith has made to education is in 1 "The Reminiscences of James Burrill Angell," 1912, p. 189. [100] The Faith and E ducatio n the sphere of college training for women. Here Mary Lyon was a pioneer and heroic leader. The story of her life belongs in the record of brave and beautiful souls that have made the world better. She was born in Buckland, Mass., in 1797, and began to teach at an early age. In 1837 she founded Mount Holyoke Seminary and she was its principal until 1849, when she died. It is estimated that more than three thousand pupils re- ceived instruction from Mary Lyon, and upon nearly every one she set the mark of her ideals and of her devotion to the service of Christ. There was a flavor of noble womanliness and beautiful sacrifice about Mary Lyon that her pupils never could for- get. They went out from the presence of her personal influence to engage in useful work like that of their teacher and friend and to carry abroad her spirit. The Mount Holyoke idea has been fruitful in the entire educational history of the country. One of the most precious results of Mary Lyon's work was the effect of her example on Dr. D. K. Pearsons, the great benefactor of the smaller colleges. Dr. Pearsons was living in Chicopee, Mass., when Miss Lyon was working out her ideals in Mount Hol- yoke Seminary. At that time she was a fre- quent visitor at the home of Deacon Chapin, whose daughter Dr. Pearsons married. Dr. Pearsons was familiar also with the quaint [101] The Pilgrim Faith figure of "Pa Hawks," a retired minister of unique personality, wlio used to go from town to town gathering anything that would help the girls in the new school. "It was the sacrifice, the heroism, and the enthusi- asm of the founders of what is now Mount Holyoke College that deepened and made permanent Dr. Pearsons ' interest in the edu- cation of poor boys and girls. ' ' ^ The fruit of this influence was millions of dollars which Dr. Pearsons later bestowed with lav- ish hand upon colleges. There have been great changes in the edu- cational system of the United States. The public high school, and the university main- tained by the state from the public funds, have grown rapidly and have made increas- ingly difficult the task of the Christian academy and college, which must depend upon the income from their endowment and the gifts of generous friends. But in spite of all the hardship which these Christian schools have suffered, they have made a contribution to the higher life of America which never can be too highly valued. They have estimated learning at its proper worth and have made Christian char- acter and ideals supremely important. Great laboratories and athletic fields are a valuable asset to an educational institution; but the insistence upon ideals, character, and 1 Williams, "The Life of Dr. D. K. Pearsons," 1911, p. 10. [102] The Faith and Education service to the Kingdom of God are still more important. Without them an education may be void of meaning or value. Many of the schools and colleges equipped by Congregational ministers have passed from denominational control, either by the churches or by governing boards dominated by Congregationalists. But this does not in any way alter the value of the work done by the Pilgrim Faith for higher education in the United States. In the Congregational Year Book for 1912 is a list of forty colleges which can be fairly grouped together because of their Congregational origin and history. Here we find the names of the great institu- tions of New England which have exerted a profound influence upon the country; here are included women's colleges like "Wellesley and Smith. Oberlin and Marietta are named in the list as well as a group of nineteen col- leges in the Middle "West. Piedmont, Eol- lins, Tillotson, Talladega, Tougaloo, and Straight in the South, and Pomona, Whit- man, and Pacific on the western coast are likewise mentioned. There are also eight theological seminaries and theological de- partments in colleges. This long and notable honor roll of edu- cational institutions established and main- tained by representatives of the Pilgrim Faith shows a wonderful result of self-sac- rifice and toil on the part of the Congrega- [103] The Pilgrim Faith tionalists. There is also an unbroken line of romance and heroism in the history of these institutions. Oberlin stands out as a cham- pion of freedom, while Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, is proving today by its service that the former faith still abides in the hearts of the Congregationalists who be- lieve in the value of higher education for all the people. [104] VI THE FAITH ON THE FEONTIEE VI THE FAITH ON THE FRONTIER THE Pilgrim Faith, as we have seen, has been filled with evangelistic passion. Its leaders have sought to carry the gospel into the new settlements as the frontier has constantly been pushed farther westward by the relentless land hunger of the people and the thrust of their desire to improve their economic condition. We have sketched already the general growth of the Congregational churches as the population has spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But there were certain dis- tinct features in the home missionary move- ment which show in a peculiar and graphic way how the Faith has met the challenge of hardship in following the frontier. From the beginning intrepid missionaries and bands of Christian workers have gone forward with the retreating frontier. At first, however, there were no regularly con- stituted "missionary societies," such as ex- ist today. The towns that were settled from eastern Massachusetts in the colonial period [107] The Pilgrim F aith did not require the watchful oversight of any- such organization, for they were composed in general of church members who organized schools and churches as they established new communities. These pioneers were for the most part Congregationalists and churches of their order grew up naturally in southern New Hampshire and southern Vermont; later, however, a sense of responsibility de- veloped among the original congregations. In 1774 the Connecticut churches discussed "the state of the settlements now forming to the Westward an^d Northwestward of us who are destitute of the preached gospel, many of whom are our brethren, emigrants from this colony." The "settlements" re- ferred to were those in New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. As a result of this discussion individual churches attempted to send their own pastors to the new regions for short periods, but the Eevolution came on and very little was done. When the War was ended, however, the congregations took the matter up in a larger way. The general Association of the churches in Connecticut commissioned nine pastors from the strong churches of the State to work, each for a period of four months, in the new settlements in New York and Vermont. Each man was paid four dollars and a half a week, and was allowed four dollars more for the supply of his pulpit. In this way the new communities [108] The Faith on the Frontier were served for a short time every year by ministers acting as missionaries. This plan called into service the strongest preachers of Connecticut and was a real test of their readiness to undertake arduous campaign- ing for Christ. They met the hardships of the wilderness cheerfully and did their work well. They were supported, however, either by individual congregations or by the churches of the State. In 1798 a Missionary Society was organ- ized by the State Association of Connecticut. The purpose of this Society and of a similar one organized in Massachusetts the next year was "to Christianize the heathen in North America and to promote the Christian religion in the Settlements of the United States." These "settlements" were outside the boundaries of both States, and the work of the new Societies, therefore, took their representatives first into Maine, New Hamp- shire, Vermont, and New York, then on into northern and southern Ohio and finally into the great States which were carved out of the Northwest Territory. In the religious docu- ments and discussions of those early days there frequently occurs the phrase, "the wel- fare of the regions beyond." In their at- tempt to promote this "welfare" the Con- gregational churches of Massachusetts and Connecticut sent their treasures of men and money without reserve to follow the move- [109] The Pilgrim F aith ment of population out of New England and into the Middle West. Between 1798 and 1807 all of the six New England States ex- cept Ehode Island organized societies to carry on such missionary work in the new territories, as well as to care for the feebler churches within their own borders. We have noted how the Presbyterian and Congregational churches developed their home missionary work for half a century un- der the "Plan of Union." The frontier ac- tivities of the Congregationalists from 1801 to 1852, therefore, are naturally colored by this plan under which the two denominations worked jointly in the territory to which the settlers were going. The reports of the mis- sionaries which were sent back to the home oflSces and printed in their publications are full of the records of adventure and hard work. For these men shared the pioneer life of the people and adapted their methods of service to the primitive conditions of the frontier. During the first thirty years of its work the Missionary Society of Con- necticut employed two hundred missionaries in the new settlements. There were no rail- roads, and when the preacher did not jour- ney on foot from settlement to settlement he traveled by stage, boat, emigrant wagon, or saddle horse. The early home missionaries in western New York and northern and southern Ohio were isolated more com- [110] The Faith on the Frontier pletely from their friends and kindred in the East than is the foreign missionary in these days of cables and express ocean steamers. The opening of the Northwest Territory under the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787 was a most important step in the de- velopment of a sense of home-missionary responsibility among the Congregational- ists. The settlement of southern Ohio was be- gun in 1788 when a boat which had been built for the voyage, and appropriately named Mayflower, landed at the site of the pres- ent city of Marietta with a little band of pioneers from the East. These settlers were patriotic and earnest' people and they im- mediately reserved land for a minister's house and set apart two townships for a uni- versity. The first Congregational church in Ohio was organized in Marietta in 1796. The part of Ohio lying along Lake Erie was known as the Western Eeserve of Con- necticut. Here worked men of heroic tem- per like Eev. David Bacon, laying the foun- dations of those "religious and literary in- stitutions" which the trustees of the Mis- sionary Society of Connecticut claimed would "sometime be reckoned among the brightest ornaments and purest honors of the parent state. "^ David Bacon was the 1 Clark, "Leavening the Nation," 1903, p. 42. [ 111 ] The Pilgrim F aith first missionary of this Society, going forth in 1800 "afoot and alone, with no more lug- gage than he could carry on his person. ' ' * His life was filled with hard and heroic serv- ice but he was made of the stuff to meet it bravely and well. It was hardly possible that state mission- ary societies could carry on successfully a national work such as was now opening up before the churches. These organizations werfe working earnestly but disconnectedly and sometimes at cross purposes, and hence were not meeting the opportunity efficiently. Moreover, it was necessary to have settled pastors rather than traveling missionaries in order to meet the needs of the congre- gations in mission territory. This in- creased the demand for a national organiza- tion, and in May, 1826, the American Home Missionary Society was formed by repre- sentatives of the Presbyterian, Eeformed, and Congregational churches. These de- nominations worked together for a time, but gradually the other partners dropped out and the organization finally became the Con- gregational Home Missionary Society. The organization was timely, for many of the churches that had been formed by the itiner- ant preachers were in straits and could be saved only by resident pastors, whom the 1 Bacon, "History of American Christianity," 1897, p. 247. [112] The Faith on the Frontier new national Society was now able to furnish. There is hardly a finer example of the swift movement and rich rewards of this frontier service than is seen in the early work in Illinois. In 1833, in the carpenter's shop of Fort Dearborn, Eev. Jeremiah Porter preached the first sermon ever delivered in Chicago. He lived to see the Columbian Ex- position of 1893, with its beauty and wealth, in the city that had grown from the little fort and the clustered cabins to which he had gone sixty years before. To Illinois journeyed the famous "Illinois Band," each member of which was commis- sioned by the American Home Missionary Society at the usual salary of four hundred dollars per year. There were twelve men originally in the group, all of whom had been trained in the best schools of New England. This little company of devoted ministers be- came the model fOr other Bands going into frontier service. Its members were com- mitted to a plan for founding a college as well as for organizing churches and preach- ing the gospel everywhere. The Band was formed at Yale in 1829, and eleven of its members carried out their purpose of going to Illinois. No little hardship was met with on the journey. To go from New Haven to central Illinois involved four to six weeks of travel by many kinds of conveyance, for [113] The Pilgrim F aith pioneer conditions prevailed everywhere. One of the most fruitful accomplishments of the Band was the planting of Illinois College at Jacksonville. Eev. J. M. Sturtevant was connected with this Institution for fifty-six years and Abraham Lincoln regarded its faculty and graduates as among his most valuable counselors. The work of following the frontier in Michi- gan and Wisconsin involved hardship and brought to light the heroism of the pioneer missionaries. This was the country of the great forests, and the wealth of the pine at- tracted the rough lumbermen and gave rise to the lumber camp, with its wild life and vexing problems. In Michigan the pioneers came into con- tact with English interests, and there was no slight stress of conflict before the possibility of statehood came within reach. Michigan displayed a sturdy spirit of democracy and an unwavering love of popular liberty which were worthy of the sons of the Pilgrims. It was a Michigan minister, Eev. L. Smith Ho- bart, who not only became the leader of the movement which brought Congregationalism to a sense of its mission in the State, but also inspired the revival of denominational loyalty which began about 1840. The rugged strength and the grim humor of these pioneers are typified by the case of Rev. Harvey Hyde, who delivered an address, [114] The Faith on the Frontier since printed, on tlie fiftieth, anniversary of the founding of the Michigan Association, in which he speaks thus of his early experi- ences: "Of personal hairbreadth escapes from sudden death my wife kept a record until she got to fifteenthly and then stopped. Twice from drowning, twice from being run over by a loaded wagon, the last time the hind wheel stopping exactly on my head, but utterly spoiling my best silk hat, and show- ing the blessing of a good stout skuU.^ The Territory of Wisconsin was formed in 1836 and the extension of home missionary activities into that region is due in large measure to a remarkable journey which was made by Eev. Stephen Peet, a Congrega- tional pastor, who traveled on horseback — riding about six hundred miles from Green Bay through Fond du Lac, Madison, and Beloit, to Milwaukee. The narrative of his adventurous undertaking was printed and was widely read. This served to quicken in- terest in the growth of the Territory and in its religious problems. Mr. Peet found vil- lages of two hundred and fifty and three hun- dred inhabitants which have now become large, prosperous cities. His narrative brought to the American Home Missionary Society — as the Congregational Home Mis- sionary Society was called at that time — 1 "The Congregational Churches of Michigan for the first Fifty Years, 1842-1892." Printed for the Association. [115] The Pilgrim Faith pledges of funds for the support of missions in the places that he had mentioned. Thus by the appeal of direct personal contact and by the influence of the vritten word Mr. Peet aided the missionary cause both spirit- ually and materially. And he was only one of the pioneers who impressed their lives profoundly upon the growing common- wealths of the interior. The next part of the country to be opened up was the Louisiana Purchase, out of which have been formed still greater states than the five which once composed the Northwest Territory. The most interesting and ro- mantic movement in this region was the jour- ney of the "Iowa Band" to the new country in 1843. Their field had been made ready for them to a certain extent by a very re- markable man, Eev. Asa Turner, a born pioneer, who loved the Territory of Iowa with an affection which amounted to a pas- sion. He believed in the future of the coun- try and was unalterable in his conviction that Congregational churches were necessary in that region. But little of it, however, was open before 1843. About all of the region that was known was a narrow strip of land about forty miles wide and two hundred miles long on the western bank of the Mississippi. The formation of the Iowa Band is full of interest. The idea in which it had its [116] The Faith on the Frontier genesis first arose in the mind of Horace Hutchinson then a senior at Andover Theo- logical Seminary. Mr. Hutchinson pro- posed that a group of men should go into the new territory", take possession of a large dis- trict, and work together as missionaries. Very little was said about the suggestion, but gradually a small group of. students became mastered by the idea and formed the habit of meeting late at night in an alcove of the Seminary library for prayer. They also studied carefully the problem of the most needy fields for the proposed work, consider- ing in turn Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wiscon- sin, and Missouri. This matter was finally settled for them, however, by a character- istic letter from "Father" Turner. This brought the light they needed on the situa- tion and they decided to go together to the Territory of Iowa. They were not ordained before leaving New England, preferring to wait for this act of consecration until they should be ready to enter upon their work in the fields of their choice. A farewell serv- ice for them was held in the South Church in Andover, and on Tuesday, October 3, 1843, they gathered at Albany ready for their journey. On the next day they took the train for Buffalo, where they spent Sunday, October 8, and on the evening of Monday they went aboard the steamer Missouri, upon which they had a most uncomfortable [117] The Pilgrim F aith journey to Chicago. Until Saturday night, October 14, when they landed at Milwaukee, they were seasick and storm-tossed. The steamer reached Chicago the next morning. There the Band took such conveyance as they could secure for the "West, obtaining trans- portation from some of the many farmers who had come to the city with produce for the autumn market and who, on their return, were ready to take passengers "for a con- sideration." It was on Monday, October 16, that the members of the Band left Chi- cago by different routes, for the long over- land journey to the Mississipi. On Tuesday evening, October 24, three weeks from the time when they had assembled in Albany to begin their travels, they gathered again in Denmark, in the new Territory of Iowa. They found abundant welcome in the homes of the pioneers and also in the log church and school-house. The timbers used had been hewn by hand. The shingles on the roof were hand-split. The seats were made of logs split through the middle and placed flat side up. The building was the center of the home-missionary work of the region and the progenitor of Grinnell College as well as serving for the meetinghouse of the first of the Congregational churches of Iowa. The ordination in 1812 at Salem of the five missionaries whom the American Board sent out later to work in India is not more worthy [118] The Faith on the Frontier of fame ttan was the ordination of these seven members of the Iowa Band in this rude little structure of logs on Sunday, November 5, 1843. The time will come when Denmark, Iowa, will be as much a shrine for Congrega- tionalists as Salem and Plymouth are today. For, simple though it was, that little cere- mony on the western frontier was tremend- ously significant. It was at once impressive, unique and momentous. There were hardly enough ordained ministers in the region to perform all the parts in the service. The charge to the candidates had to be assigned to a man who was not ordained and one of the young missionaries objected humorously to ''being charged by a brother who was not more than half charged himself." On the day after the ordination the Band gathered in the house of Father Turner and from that point Scattered to their different fields of labor. Outside the settlements the only thoroughfares were rude roads and bridle paths leading across dangerous river fords. Mails came in only once a month and opportunities for fellowship were few and infrequent. Nevertheless, in spite of dis- tance, difficulty of travel, and general hard- ship this devoted band of men kept up their relationship until the end. In the entire his- tory of American Christianity there is prob- ably no single group of men that has made a larger contribution to the growth of the [119] The Pilgrim F aith Kingdom of God than this company of mis- sionaries who made the long journey west- ward in 1843. It is natural to inquire why there has been but little extension of the Pilgrim Faith in the South. There are a few Congregational churches below Mason and Dixon's line, but they are widely scattered, being confined chiefly to the larger centers of population, and the fact remains that the Pilgrim Faith has not taken root in any organized form in the South. There are many reasons that help to account for this. The principal one is found in the historic attitude of the Faith toward human bondage. The Congrega- tional churches have stood so long and so strongly for freedom that they came into col- lision early with the institution of slavery and involved themselves at once in the sharpest antagonism with the leaders of the South. Consequently there has been little extension possible among the Southern States. This situation may be changed in time; but at present the North remains the great field of the Pilgrim Faith. Missouri lies on the border between the North and the South and there the progress of the Pilgrim Faith was slow on account of distrust in the minds of prominent men. The final establishment of the First Congre- gational Church of St. Louis was due to the work of Eev. Truman M. Post. To Dr. Post [120] The Faith on the Frontier the entire denomination is deeply indebted for his stalwart championship of the Pilgrim. Faith in the Southwest. He was clear and firm in his conviction that the form of church government which had been efficient in New England would "work" in the great West. The story of the early days in Kansas is full of the heroic elements of the Apostolic Age. The slavery question became the burn- ing issue there and Congregationalists did not hesitate when this principle was involved in any course of action. Their anti-slavery sentiments were positive and militant. In the struggle to determine whether Kansas should be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state a large and decisive part was borne by the settlers — men and women of the Pilgrim Faith — ^who had gone West from New England to turn the popular vote in the interests of freedom. In 1856 a "Kan- sas Band" was organized in Andover Semi- nary and four men went to the new state to lay the foundations of the Pilgrim Faith in churches and schools. One of them later be- came Superintendent of Public Instruction and the founder of the State Normal College at Emporia. Eev. Eichard Cordley has written the story of the early struggle in "Pioneer Days in Kansas," a book which rings with the notes of heroism and daunt- less faith in the midst of the fight for free- [121] The Pilgrim F aith dom. He has given this picture of the con- ditions in Lawrence: "The first sanctuary of Plymouth Church, Lawrence, was the 'Old Hay Tent,' consist- ing of two rows of poles brought together at the top, and the sides thatched with prairie hay. The room was also used as a general sleeping apartment, the trunks, bunks, and boxes of the lodgers serving for seats on Sunday. The minister had to build his own house. It was built of shakes. These were split from logs, and nailed to a frame, cover- ing sides and roof. It was well ventilated, but not blizzard-proof. A blanket of snow on the bed, and a carpet of snow on the floor were no unusual thing in the morning. The inmates wore their winter wraps while cook- ing over a red-hot stove, and water often froze on their clothing while their faces tingled with the heat of the fire. But it was 'like priest, like people.' They all fared alike, and there was no murmuring."^ The pioneer minister of Nebraska was Eev. Eeuben Gaylord. In 1855 with his family, he traversed the State of Iowa, en- during the winter journey with the greatest heroism and crossed the Missouri river on the ice, reaching Omaha on Christmas day. Mr. Gaylord has been called "the brave Christian soldier who brought Sunday into Omaha and the trans-Missouri country." 1 Cordley, "Pioneer Days in Kansas," 1903, p. 68. [122] The Faith on the Frontier If it were possible to crowd the details into the limited space permitted in this chapter, we could add to this record of Christian achievement in the Middle West items con- cerning pioneer work in Minnesota, the Da- kotas, and mighty Montana and could tell of hard conditions bravely met in Wyoming and Idaho. Colorado and Oklahoma also fur- nish abundant material to illustrate the heroism and romance of pioneer work in home-missionary service. One September day in 1836 a canvas- covered wagon and a little company of young men and women arrived at Fort Walla Walla in the Pacific Northwest. The leaders of the band were Eev. H. H. Spalding and Dr. Marcus Whitman, missionaries of the Pil- grim Faith to this great region. Twenty- five miles from the Fort they located their station, built their little cabins out of logs cut from the surrounding forest, and began their work for the Kingdom of God. The story of Dr. Whitman belongs in the record of achievement for the undeveloped races and will be told in some detail in the next chapter. He met his death in a terri- ble massacre but his example remained to eur courage rather than to deter those who fol- lowed him. Among these were Eev. and Mrs. George H. Atkinson, who came to Oregon soon after the murder of Dr. Whitman. They had [123] The Pilgrim F aith made a journey by way of Cape Horn and the Sandwich Islands, consuming nine months and meeting great hardship in traveling a circuitous route to their destination, which may now he reached directly from the East in a few days and with every convenience and comfort. Dr. Atkinson laid the foundations of the Congregational churches in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, and was a man of wide acquaintance with the resources and needs of the country. "When the Boston Board of Trade and the New York Chamber of Commerce would know of the prospects and possibilities of the far Northwest," says Joseph B. Clark,* "they passed by the politi- cal orator and the corporation promoter, and called on George H. Atkinson, the mission- ary, to instruct them. . . . His address be- fore the Chamber of Commerce is a history, a prophecy, and an oration in one." In 1890 the Yale Washington Band went out to the Coast. Their influence has been deeply impressed upon the life of the churches. California is an empire in itself and within its vast domain pioneer missionaries of the Pilgrim Faith have built well. Today the last frontier has been reached. The true Northwest now is in Alaska, and here the Home Missionary Society began its work at Douglass in 1899. The only room 1 Clark, "Leavening the Nation," 1903, p. 203. [124] The Faith on the Frontier available for the use of the Christian workers was a dance hall, and there, on the table where irreverent miners had been accustomed to gamble, the missionaries broke their sac- ramental bread in remembrance of Christ. The work has been pushed also in other parts of the Territory, where churches have been built and schools for the Eskimos and Indians established. And, today, on the westernmost point of land over which the Stars and Stripes floats stands a school, established by the American Missionary As- sociation, to which go Eskimos of that bleak and desolate coast, eager to learn from the men of the Pilgrim Faith the message of light and liberty which its founders brought to the opposite shores of the Continent almost three hundred years ago. [125] VII THE FAITH AND THE UNDEVELOPED EACES VII THE FAITH AND THE UNDEVELOPED EACES WE have noted already that the mission- ary motive lay behind the movement that brought the Pilgrim Faith to Plymouth. And since then the altruistic element never has been lacking, for, from the earliest days of Plymouth Colony until the present mo- ment, a practically unbroken service has been rendered by the Congregationalists to the undeveloped races and especially to the Indian and the Negro. The story of this service involves some of the bravest enter- prises of the Pilgrim Faith in the United States. The first name which we naturally connect with the endeavor to bring Christian knowl- edge and civilization to the Indians is that of John Eliot, commonly known as the "Apostle," who worked among the Indians of North America. Eliot was a graduate of the Univer- sity of Cambridge, and became a teacher in a school in England kept by Thomas Hooker, a minister who had been forbidden to preach [129] The Pilgrim F aith because of his Puritan ideas. The influence of Hooker upon Eliot made the young in- structor an earnest Christian. In 1631 he came to Boston, where he was soon chosen as the "teacher," or practically associate min- ister, of the Eoxbury Church. In this posi- tion he remained for fifty-seven years. The difficulty attending the beginning of missionary work among the Indians was great. They were close at hand, to be sure ; but they were separated from the colonists by the barriers of language and custom. It could not be expected that they would re- spond to the appeal of the gospel unless it should come to them from men who had been among them and had shared their daily ex- periences. To have learned their life would have involved, as Professor Williston Walker says, "days and nights in filthy wig- wams, loathsome fare, and deprivations not merely of the comforts but of the decencies of life." ^ The only point of contact of the two races was in trade, and here there was constant likelihood of incurring mutual suspi- cion instead of cultivating common friend- ships. Eoger "Williams had begun missionary work for the Indians, but his labor had not been systematic and had brought little in the way of permanent result. But when 1 Walker, "Ten New England Leaders," 1901, p. 152. [130] The Undeveloped Races John Eliot felt a "compassion for their poor souls and a desire to teach them to know Christ and to bring them into his Kingdom," he went at the matter in a very practical way. He took a young Indian into his family and under his tutelage began to learn the lan- guage of the tribes in the neighborhood. He mastered their tongue well enough to speak it, and in 1646, accompanied by three friends, he preached to "many Indians" at the wig- wam of Waaubon, the chief, in what is now the city of Newton, Massachusetts. After the sermon the Indians asked him questions which showed that they had understood his message. There was a quick response to his appeal and many of his hearers soon began a life of prayer and moral conduct according to Christian principles. Eliot undertook, also, to provide these In- dian converts with the means of education and with the general advantages of Christian civilization. The legislature took up this matter and became, to quote Professor "Wil- liston Walker again, "the first missionary society in the English colonies." This mis- sionary effort in America awakened atten- tion and created permanent interest in Eng- land, and out of it grew the first English foreign missionary society, which bore the somewhat cumbersome name, "The Presi- dent and Society for the Propagation of the [ 131 ] The Pilgrim Faith Gospel in New England." This organiza- tion was incorporated in 1649, The Christian Indians were first success- fully gathered in a village of their own at Natick and a Congregational Church was es- tablished there in 1660. John Eliot did what many another mis- sionary has accomplished, — ^he reduced to writing the difficult language of the people to whom he preached. By 1663 he had trans- lated the entire Bible into the tongue of the Massachusetts tribes. An extensive Chris- tian literature in the Indian language fol- lowed. John Eliot was a devoted missionary, a painstaking linguist, a tireless worker. His spirit is well summed up in his familiar watchword, "Prayers and pains through faith in Christ Jesus will do anything." Another successful piece of missionary work for the Indians was that carried on by the Mayhews of Martha's Vineyard. This was a unique service. Beginning with the first Thomas Mayhew, there were five gen- erations of Mayhews who were missionaries to the Indians, establishing the longest line of unbroken missionary labor by one family of which there is record. The Christian converts among the various tribes became known as "Praying Indians," and in Massachusetts and the islands around Martha's Vineyard they numbered at least [132] The Undeveloped Races 4,000. When the inevitable wars came on, however, the missions were necessarily crip- pled. The Praying Indians met the test nobly; but their race was doomed and they slowly faded from New England. Yet the story of what was done for their religious welfare is a record of brave, self-sacrificing, and — so far as it was possible — of successful effort. More because of its influence upon the mis- sionary motive than for its intrinsic success the work of David Brainerd and Jonathan Edwards is important. Brainerd was a sen- sitive devoted missionary who died in the home of Edward^ at the early age of twenty- nine. The story of his life may be briefly told. He was deeply moved by the Great Awakening; he worked with intrepid devo- tion for the Indians in New York and New Jersey; he contracted consumption and died, leaving his diaries and papers with Edwards. When these records were published they created great interest, both at home and abroad, in missionary work for the Indians. This may have influenced Edwards to suc- ceed John Sargeant in carrying the gospel message to the Stockbridge Indians, whose preacher he became when he removed from Northampton. One result of his residence at Stockbridge was the writing of his great- est work in theology, the treatise on "The Freedom of the Will," but it will always be [133] The Pilgrim F aith gratifying to recall that the loftiest mind of the Pilgrim Faith was ready to preach to the Indians and to live among them as a faithful missionary worker. Brainerd and Edwards — the mystic and the theologian — each suffered and labored for the conversion and civilization of the natives of America. The American Board had cherished from the first the idea of a mission to the Indians, as it specifically stated in its address to the Christian public in 1811. The first mission opened by the Board was established in 1817 among the Cherokees in southern Tennessee. Eev. Cyrus Kings- bury was the missionary in charge of the station, which was appropriately named "Brainerd," for David Brainerd. Its pur- pose was not only to influence the Indians to accept the Christian faith, but also to teach them agriculture and useful arts and to bring them into a thoroughly civilized condition. The mission was paid a distinguished honor by President Monroe, who on one occasion visited it in person, entirely unexpectedly, and commended its work very highly. In 1818 the next mission was founded. It was located among the Choctaws, in the State of Mississippi, and was named ' ' Eliot, ' ' per- petuating the memory of the earliest service of the Pilgrim Faith in behalf of the Indians. In Mississippi there was gross immorality to be fought and the task of the missionaries [134] The Undeveloped Races was a hard one ; but the response on the part of the Indians was encouraging both to schools and to churches. Work among the primitive peoples of the country advanced steadily to a place of un- deniable and obvious importance. In 1820 half of the missionaries of the American Board were engaged in the task of Christian- izing the North American Indians and nearly half of its expenditures were used in for- warding this cause. Other societies, more- over, transferred their work to the Congre- gational organization. The disaster which ended this successful work, especially among the Choctaws, the Cherokees, and the Chickasaws, was met in the government's decision to move the tribes to other reservations. As a result of this policy the Board suffered the total loss of its buildings and equipment at the stations and also was compelled to abandon the field of its most prosperous labor. The behavior of the Christian Indians during these terrible times was noble ; they had to meet such a test as the "Praying Indians" of the earlier days had faced and they met it well. After the breaking up of its work in the South, the American Board turned its atten- tion to the Northwest. Here, however, the obstacles were too great to permit so success- ful results as had been obtained in the former field. The Indians were kept restless and [135] The Pilgrim Faith dissatisfied; the treatment that they had re- ceived tended to make them indifferent, if not openly hostile, to the message of the mis- sionary. Christian appeal was well-nigh vain, and gradually the missions declined or were surrendered. The most significant work of the Board in this region was among the Nez Perces and the Sioux. There is no finer illustration of the heroism and worth of our Indian mis- sions than is found in the story of our mis- sions in that part of the great Oregon country which now forms the state of Washington. The isolation of this vast territory prac- tically cut off the workers who served there from all contact with the East. The ordi- nary method of communication was by sailing vessels to the Sandwich Islands and thence around Cape Horn by the same means. The difficulties and dangers of mountain and desert made the direct route across the con- tinent more hazardous than this long and roundabout course by water. When Lewis and Clark met the Nez Perces Indians in 1804-06 in the far Northwest the Indians expressed their desire to have re- ligious teachers sent to them, and the explor- ers promised that this should be done. Years passed by, however, and no mission- aries went to the Coast. In 1832 there came to St. Louis by the Oregon trail four Indians of the Flathead [136] The Undeveloped Races tribe, dressed in their native costume. They had made a long, difficult journey, but for some time were unwilling to tell why they had come. Finally their reticence was broken and it became apparent that their mission was to find out about "The White Man's Book of Life" and to ask that teachers be sent to them. Two of the Indians died in St. Louis, and later the other two prepared to return home. Before their departure Gen. Clarke, commander of the military post at St. Louis, gave them a banquet and at this time one of the Indians made a speech in his native tongue. This address was translated and published in New England, accompanied by an appeal for volunteers to cross the Eocky Mountains and answer the call of the Indians, The speech may be colored some- what in translation, but there can be no doubt of its substantial accuracy and its pathos created a profound impression. It was as follows : "I come to you over the trail of many moons from the setting sun. You were the friends of my fathers, who have all gone the long way. I came with an eye partly open for my people, who sit in darkness. I go back with both eyes closed. How can I go back blind, to my blind people? I made my way to you with strong arms through many enemies and strange lands that I might carry back much to them. I go back with both [137] The Pilgrim F aith arms broken and empty. Two fathers came with us, they were the braves of many win- ters and wars. We leave them asleep here by your great water and wigwams. They were tired in many moons and their moc- casins wore out. "My people sent me to get the 'White Man's Book of Heaven.' You took me to where you allow your women to dance as we do not ours, and the book was not there. You took me to where they worship the Great Spirit with candles and the book was not there. You showed me images of the good spirits and the pictures of the good land be- yond, but the book was not among them to tell us the way. I am going back the long and sad trail to my people in the dark land. You make my feet heavy with gifts and my moccasins will grow old in carrying them, yet the book is not among them. Wlien I tell my poor blind people after one more snow, in the big council, that I did not bring the book, no word will be spoken by our old men or by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness, and they will go a long path to other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them, and no White Man's Book to make the way plain. I have no more words. ' ' ^ 1 Nixon, "How Marcus Whitman saved Oregon," 1896, p. 53. [138] The Undeveloped Races In 1834-35 Eev. Samuel Parker and Dr. Marcus Whitman went overland as pathfind- ers in the far Northwest for the American Board. Coming upon a band of Nez Perces near Walla Walla, they decided to locate one mission in that vicinity under Dr. Whitman, while another was placed a little farther north and was put in charge of Eev. H. H, Spalding. At first and for a considerable time the work prospered. Then the mood of the Indians changed and it seemed likely that the enterprise would have to be curtailed or abandoned. Meantime the political des- tiny of the Oregon Country was hanging in the balance. If the vast area should be set- tled by Americans it would ultimately become a part of the United States ; if, on the other hand, the new lands should be occupied by the English, it seemed inevitable that the rich region would finally be subject to the Crown. Whitman knew the situation thoroughly and saw that the facts should be understood in the East; therefore, in 1842, he made his famous "journey to the United States" as it was called in the vote of the mission that sanctioned his daring venture. This long trip overland became famous, first as an un- disputed act of patriotic heroism, and later as a subject of fierce controversy. Concern- ing the hardship and peril of Whitman's "ride through savage lands" there can be no question. It was a journey in bitter win- [139] The Pilgrim Faith ter weather, undertaken and accomplislied with dauntless courage. The truth concern- ing the motive and the result of his brave venture, as it affected the final saving of the Oregon Country to the United States, lies somewhere between the rather extravagant claim that Whitman "saved Oregon" and the complete denial of any such motive or in- fluence by those who have attacked the whole story as a myth. The deep desire of Whit- man that Oregon Territory could be settled so that it might not be incorporated into the British possessions is'^undisputed : even the members of the mission were inclined to cen- sure him for his absorbing interest in poli- tics. He did visit Washington and interview President Tyler concerning the great Terri- tory, the whole future of which was hanging in the balance. He did return with an emi- grant company, — ^which he perhaps did not organize, — of which he certainly was the counselor and companion. No other man sacrificed more for his distinct missionary work and for a great section of the country than did Marcus Whitman. The end of his life was as courageous as his ride to the East. In 1847 the storm of Indian hatred broke suddenly upon the mis- sionaries. There is no doubt that the plot to destroy the mission was inspired from a source outside the Indians themselves. But it was the Indians who executed it, and that [ 140 ] The Undeveloped Races with savage brutality. Both. Dr. and Mrs. Whitman were killed but their children were spared and Mr. Spalding escaped. The mis- sion was broken np and the American Board never opened it again. The gradual cessation of missionary activ- ity among the Indians was due to a multitude of causes. Chief among these were the grad- ual dying out of the Indians themselves, the transfer of the work to other organizations, and, especially, the unyielding anti-slavery principles of the Congregationalists, which prevented activity in the South. Yet the work had been extensive in its operations and rewarding in its results. The Cherokee mis- sion alone had cost $350,000 and had called 113 workers into its service. The Choctaw mission had registered 2,700 conversions. No statistics, however, can adequately report the contribution which the Pilgrim Faith made to the life of America through its mis- sionary work among the Indians. The mission to the Dakotas is the abiding enterprise of the Congregational churches among the natives of America. Their Chris- tian workers followed the Sioux tribes as they were moved from Minnesota into Da- kota and with them met the hardships of dreary winter journeys. The work was in- terrupted in 1862 by the terrible wars of the Sioux with the white men, which compelled the Christian Indians and the missionaries [141 J The Pilgrim Faith to flee for their lives to St. Paul. The goy- ernment put down the rebellion with drastic severity. After a large number of hostiles had been executed, about 400 were impris- oned at Mankato while 1,500 were confined at Fort Snelling, near St. Paul. Here the mis- sionaries found an unique and challenging opportunity and Mr. Eiggs threw himself into the work of teaching and evangelizing the proud but now humbled Sioux. A won- derful revival followed. Camp and prison became places of preaching. Over 200 In- dians were baptized in one day at Mankato, and at Fort Snelling the results were equally remarkable. In the spring of 1863 the Man- kato prisoners were moved to Davenport, Iowa, but as the boat which conveyed them passed down the Mississippi river they were heard singing Christian hymns. The con- verts at Fort Snelling also, kept their faith steadfastly, even under most trying condi- tions. They observed the Lord's Supper as a church while in prison, and when they were finally released and restored to a permanent location they named their organization "Pil- grim Church," because they had shared the exile and the suffering which the men of the Pilgrim Faith have so often endured. It is impossible to follow farther the story of the engagement of the Congregational churches with the task of missions to the In- dians. In 1883 the American Board en- [142] The Undeveloped Races trusted this work to the American Mission- ary Association, which has made it a part of its service to the undeveloped races. The American Missionary Association was organized in 1846 by men who were intensely anti-slavery in their convictions and who felt that the officers and members of the Ameri- can Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions were either too lukewarm in the matter of freedom or else were inclined to sympathize with the slave owners. They therefore perfected this new organization to conduct missionary work more nearly in ac- cordance with their ideas. Its purpose was to preach the gospel, assist feeble churches and sustain general missionary operations among the free colored population, to extend missions among the Indians and fugitive slaves in Canada, and finally to prosecute Christian work in western India, in Africa, and among emancipated slaves in Jamaica. We are concerned here simply with the ac- tivities of the Association among colored people. Its missionaries early began the work out of which was later developed Berea College in Kentucky, so widely known for its work in education; Ibut the supreme call for service was not heard until after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863. Following that date the Associa- tion's work for the American Negro, which had been heretofore confined to those who [143] The Pilgrim Faith bad already obtained their freedom or were refugees, could be extended to all wbo could in any way be reached by tbe workers. Immediately schools were opened, espe- cially in Virginia. Then the missionaries and teachers began to follow the track of the Northern armies, holding meetings and set- ting up schools in barracks and warerooms that had been used by the armies and aban- doned as the soldiers had moved to new head- quarters. The teaching was necessarily most elementary and the missionary work consisted of the plainest and simplest of gos- pel preaching. The general principles of educational work which the Association laid down at the be- ginning were statesmanlike and profound. Its members believed, in the first place, that every ennobling influence that is good for the white man is good also for the black man. Eefusing to recognize in the Negro any es- sential incapacity for education except of a most elementary sort, they held that, in due time and through the use of right methods, the privileges of higher education should be open to him as well as to the white man. They maintained also that no race could be permanently elevated or improved by con- tinued dependence upon another race. They believed that the Negroes must save them- selves from the perils of ignorance and sin, and in order to do this they must have edu- [144] The Undeveloped Races cated leaders and teachers of their own color in the largest possible numbers. They also recognized the necessity for manual and vo- cational training and in Talladega, Alabama, introduced industrial education for the first time in the South. Naturally this work met with fierce opposi- tion on the part of the men of the South, who were committed to the proposition that the Negro is incapable of education. Especially obnoxious to them was the idea of collegiate training for those who had been slaves or were the children of slaves. Therefore the teachers whom the Association sent to the South were not merely met by social ostra- cism, but were also hampered in every way in their work. Buildings were destroyed more than once, threats were constantly made, and violence was frequently experi- enced. The teachers were called fanatics and the entire work of the Association was antagonized at every point. But in spite of all this the new society went on resolutely, establishing institutions like Fiske, Straight, Talladega, and Tougaloo. The great name connected with this move- ment is that of General Oliver 0. Howard, one of the bravest and most judicious leaders that any cause ever had. He was a familiar and marked figure on platforms throughout the country, his one empty sleeve testifying to the loss of his arm in battle. [145] The Pilgrim Faith A vivid idea of the heroic work done by the institutions that the new missionary or- ganization founded may be gained from two incidents connected with Talladega. In 1867 the Association organized this school which soon had three teachers and one hun- dred and forty pupils. It was located in the heart of nine counties that were thickly popu- lated. The Negro communities everywhere were calling for teachers and as the repre- sentative of the school went among the vil- lages he met the colored people in their rude churches and heard them plead for teachers to educate their children. In response to this appeal he could only reply: "Pick out the best specimen of a young man you have for a teacher, and bring to church with you next Sunday all the com and bacon you can spare for his living. I will take him into my school and make a teacher of him." So the pupils came, sometimes bringing corn with them in their pockets or tied in their handkerchiefs, laying it on the altar in front of the pulpit. Some of them came thirty miles on foot with sacks of corn and bacon on their backs. They slept on the floor of log cabins and baked their bread by the fire. They were ignorant even of the al- phabet and as soon as one of them would master the Second and Third Eeaders he would begin the work of teaching others. In [146] The Undeveloped Races the summer the pupils would go back home to their villages to teach in the "bush schools" until they could return to learn more at Talladega. Then in the fall they would bring their corn and bacon, asking only for a place to bake it and for shelter while they lived at the school. The teachers in these institutions shared the hard conditions with the pupils. They worked for salaries that were barely large enough to sustain them and they justified their ideals by meeting every hardship with- out complaint. The people developed and the school grew with them. Talladega began with one edifice, which had been erected by slaves as a school for the sons of their mas- ters. During the War this building had been converted into a prison for Northern sol- diers. Later the American Missionary As- sociation purchased it for the use of the race whose slave labor had reared it and for the purpose of completing the task begun by the soldier-prisoners who had been confined within its walls. The leading slave-carpen- ter, who did the first work on the building, was a man who suffered keenest sorrow be- cause his children never could have such an opportunity for an education as was to be afforded the children for whom he and his fellow slaves were building the structure. Nevertheless, this humble Negro artisan lived to see three of his children students in [147] The Pilgrim F aith the very room where Northern prisoners were confined in 18G2. He lived to see them' take diplomas and later certain of them to become teachers in Talladega College, the first bnilding of which he had helped erect as a slave. This is the kind of success that has attended the efforts of Congregationalists to carry on education among the colored people. And thus through its Christian schools for mind and hand the American Missionary As- sociation is working with undiminished faith to complete the unfinished task of making the Negro race fully free. [148] vm THE FAITH IN FOREIGN LANDS vni THE FAITH IN FOEEIGN LANDS IT is only reasonable to expect that tlie Faith, which came to America in the good hope that something could be done to lay- Christian foundations for the gospel among savages would respond to the call of foreign missions as soon as that great modern move- ment expressed itself in the conscious life of the Church. It is not surprising, there- fore, that the Pilgrim Faith was the first in America to organize a society for foreign missions. The Congregationalists, as we have seen, gave themselves earnestly to missions among the Indians ; they followed the receding fron- tier with preachers and teachers. As time went on there developed among them also a sense of their responsibility for the extension of the gospel beyond the boun- daries of the United States. It was not, however, until the year 1806 that this desire found expression, in a group of students in Williams College. The story of the begin- ning of this movement is one of the most dra- [151] The Pilgrim F aith matic and interesting episodes in tlie history of the Congregational churches. About a dozen college students led by Samuel J. Mills became deeply concerned over the moral and spiritual condition of the heathen inhabitants of Asia and felt themselves personally called to undertake a mission to them. Knowing that their purpose of entering the foreign field would be considered visionary and prob- ably impossible of immediate realization, they formed, in 1808, a secret society called "The Brethren." The first five members of this organization pledged themselves to give their lives to a mission to the heathen in for- eign lands. Its records were kept in cipher and all its proceedings and deliberations were a profound secret. The men agreed to be bound by the vote of the brotherhood as to what members should enter the work and where they should labor. Meanwhile they began to make inquiries concerning the pos- sibility of gaining support for their enter- prise either from English societies already existing or through the organization of a so- ciety to furnish means for them from the home base in America. These Williams College students had been deeply stirred by the general religious re- vival among the Congregational churches in New England at the close of the eighteenth century and during the first few years of the nineteenth. A number of them went to An- [152] 1 t ^H t^mt%M^ " - ,-"' ,s tggmSlmf - •'SsiifSSmmmB ■ -' ROBERT COLLEGE, CONSTANTINOPLE 3~T'— » i "P" \ r "\ SYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE, BEIRUT, SYRIA The F aith in Foreign Lands dover Seminary on completing their course in Williams and there they found other young men who had the same desire that had led to the formation of The Brethren. One of these Andover students was Adoniram Judson, Jr., a graduate of Brown and he soon became a leading spirit among the growing missionary group. The Seminary was pro- foundly stirred by their spirit and finally the young men formulated their purpose and ad- dressed inquiries to a meeting of the general Association of Massachusetts held in June, 1810. This Association was made up of Con- gregational ministers whose sympathies were strongly with evangelical theology and to whom The Brethren felt that they could appeal for counsel and support. The result of their communication was the formation of The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, a society composed originally of nine members from Connecticut and Massachusetts, who were to study the missionary problem and decide whether enough money could be raised to support the students then ready to volunteer for mission- ary service abroad. The strong influence of the Congregationalists in Connecticut and Massachusetts is shown by the names of the nine charter members of this Board, the ma- jority of whom were men of outstanding prominence: Governor John Treadwell of Connecticut was the first president of the [153 ] The Pilgrim Faith new organization, and Rev. Samuel Worces- ter was its secretary. In this way the missionary faith and pur- pose of the Pilgrim Fathers was given a new expression and the religious passion of the Congregational churches, revived in the early nineteenth century, found an outlet. The next step to be noted is the ordination in the Tabernacle Church of Salem, in the spring of 1812, of five young men who were to undertake the first mission under the aus- pices of the Board. This was one of the great historical ordinations in Congrega- tional history, like that which was celebrated thirty-one years later ^ in the little church in Denmark, Iowa, and like the service held in Salem in 1912 as a centennial celebration of the previous ceremony in the Tabernacle Church. The foreign missionary work of the Con- gregationalists began in India and Ceylon under the greatest difficulties. The East India Company, which had control of affairs in India, was not willing to allow the repre- sentatives of the American Board to land in Calcutta. The young missionaries were obliged to escape in disguise, like prisoners, and to scatter to different places. Mr. and Mrs. Judson went to Burma and Gordon Hall went to Bombay. Judson and Rice, another of the mission- 1 See page 119. [154] The F aith in Foreign Lands aries, soon afterward became converted to Baptist ideas and left the service of the Board. After a severe and prolonged strug- gle in getting started, a foothold was gained in Bombay and wdrk was also begun in Jaffa, in the island of Ceylon. The cost of all these missions was fearful. Gordon Hall laid down his life after a short term of de- voted service and it soon became impossible for the Board to send out new men fast enough to keep pace with the deaths that were occurring in the ranks of the mission- aries on the field. At this time the average term of service of a missionary was only five years and three months, a condition due in large degree to the fact that the early workers did not know how to take care of themselves, not understanding the nature of disease in India and Africa. And so the Congregationalists have had to pay a terrible price for the opening up of their missionary stations in these far countries. Yet in spite of these difficulties and the struggle with strange languages, the work in India went steadily onward, beginning with schools and being crowned, often after weary years of waiting, with the conversion of the heathen natives, their baptism, and the or- ganization of churches. To tell of the heroic work of the mission- aries of the Pilgrim Faith in foreign lands during the century that has passed since the [155] The Pilgrim Faith organization of the American Board would be impossible within the compass of this brief chapter. Eather than attempt a gen- eral sketch, we have chosen to select only a few instances of work in heathen lands and to present them as fair examples of what has been done through the American Board for the evangelization of the world.^ A dramatic chapter in the history of the American Board is that which records the work done by its representatives in the Sand- wich Islands. Attention was first turned to this field in a manner that is full of human tenderness and sympathy. A lad who had escaped from massacre in a civil war in the Islands had been brought to New Haven as a refugee by a friendly sea captain. This boy, Henry Obookiah, was found one day on the steps of Yale College by Samuel J. Mills. He was weeping bitterly for loneliness and especially because he could not obtain an edu- cation such as other boys were enjoying at Yale. To the sympathetic heart and fervid imagination of Mills this pathetic incident seemed nothing less than a providential sign pointing out the Sandwich Islands as a fu- ture mission field. The idea of inaugurat- ing Christian work there was later brought before the American Board and received its approval. In 1819 a missionary party 1 The whole story is told in an interesting and thorough, way by Strong in "The Story of the American Board," 1910. • [156] The Faith in Foreign Lands started for tlie Islands by way of Cape Horn and reached their destination at the end of a tedious voyage which consumed five months of time. This party found that conditions in the Islands had been unmistakably prepared for the work by reforms which had already been instituted by a new king. The old customs that had been even more cruel than the bond- age of caste had been done away within a moment, and the field was ready for preach- ing and religious work of all other kinds. The moral conditions of the people were at a very low level and the task before the mis- sionaries was exceedingly difficult. How- ever, the favor of the royal family was secured and the chiefs themselves took inter- est, not merely in the schools, but even in the preaching of the missionaries. Converts were made in the king's household and among the heads of tribes. One of the most difficult conditions that the missionaries were forced to contend with re- sulted from the coming of foreign ships to the Islands. While these vessels were in the harbor the sailors and even the officers would give themselves up to every kind of debauch- ery. The influence of these representatives of so-called Christian nations was the most demoralizing form of opposition that the missionaries were obliged to meet. Even the crews of ships representing the United [157] The Pilgrim F aith States Government promoted tMs debauch- ery and on one occasion the commander of one of them threatened to shoot the mission- ary who insisted upon decent behavior. The faithful missionary owed his life to the fact that the natives fought off his own country- men, who were trying to murder him for preventing their wicked business. In spite of all this opposition and diflSculty great prog- ress was registered, and by 1832, as the rec- ords show, the people of the Sandwich Islands had become practically a Christian nation. In 1835 Titus Coan went to the Islands and began his remarkable ministry among the natives. He was a man of great physical strength and was able to undertake most dif- ficult journeys among the villagers in the in- terior of the Islands. His preaching was so effective that crowds of natives flocked into Hilo to hear more of the gospel, and great throngs assembled at all the stations. From 1836 to 1839 there was a great union of prayer throughout America and the Islands, and large results began to reward the labor of the missionaries. The converts were carefully examined be- fore being admitted to church membership and were patiently taught and followed by the counsel of the missionaries. The great work of evangelization culmi- nated in July, 1838, when the missionaries baptized one thousand seven hundred and five [158] The F aith in Foreign Lands persons in one day. Mr. Coan describes the scene himself in the following words : "The old and decrepit, the lame, the blind, the maimed, the withered, the paralytic, and those afflicted with divers diseases and tor- ments ; those with eyes, noses, lips, and limbs consmned; with features distorted, and fig- ures depraved and loathsome; these came hobbling upon their staves, or led and borne by others to the table of the Lord. Among the throng you would have seen the hoary priest of idolatry, with hands but recently washed from the blood of human victims to- gether with thieves, adulterers, highway rob- bers, murderers and mothers whose hands reeked with the blood of their own children. It seemed like one of the crowds the Saviour gathered and over which he pronounced the words of healing." One more heroic episode ought to be re- corded in telling the story of the work in the Sandwich Islands. The terror of the natives there was Pele, the goddess of the great vol- cano Mauna Loa, who dwelt in the crater. All the people were under bondage to the power which she was supposed to possess. Finally Kapiolani, a woman of royal descent, accepted the Christian faith, renounced all her immoralities, and became a sweet, useful Christian woman. In 1825 she felt that something ought to be done to ransom the people from their idolatry to the goddess of [159] The Pilgrim Faith the volcano, whom they endeavored to ap- pease with human sacrifice and of whose ter- rible wrath they lived in constant dread. Against the earnest requests of her husband and friends, Kapiolani determined to go her- self to the volcano, defying the goddess, thus freeing the people from their fear. Fol- lowed at a distance by trembling crowds, she rebuked the prophets of the goddess, went straight to the brink of the crater, ate the sacred berries consecrated to the awful di- vinity, and then threw stones into the boiling abyss, defying Pele with derisive taunts. When only silence greeted her jeering words, Kapiolani turned to the astonished people, who had now ventured near her and called upon them to acknowledge God the Father and accept the Christian faith. She read the Bible and led them in song and prayer, and there on the edge of the crater, free forever from their idolatry and from their fear of the false goddess, they worshiped and praised the one true Grod. Not even the defiance of the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel is more heroic than this courageous act of Kap- iolani in the Sandwich Islands. The final result of the great mission to the Sandwich Islands was the formation of a na- tive church, which is now conducted in a self- reliant way by the islanders themselves. There are many persons living today who have witnessed the entire process of opening [160] The Faith in Foreign Lands Japan to modern civilization and to the in- fluences of Christianity. It was a very im- portant year in the history of Japan when Commodore Perry came in 1854 with the United States warships and the movement began for the admission of foreigners to the Empire. Five years later the American Board sent as its first missionaries to the new field, Eev. Daniel Crosby Greene and his wife who began Christian work in Japan. There followed, soon after, a group of work- ers whose names are among the most dis- tinguished in the long register of the foreign missionaries of the Pilgrim Faith: 0. H. Gulick, J. D. Davis, John C. Berry, and M. L. Gordon. Starting in the face of great obstacles, such as the laws barring foreigners from ac- tivity in religious matters and the violent opposition of the Buddhist priests, these mis- sionaries nevertheless had on their side the resistless pressure of Western knowledge and ideals, for which the people of Japan were eager. Christianity is so prominent and pervasive an element in Western civiliza- tion that every response of the Japanese mind to the new influences redounded to the advantage of the missionaries. Events moved rapidly in Japan; there was no long period of waiting for the first convert, as there had been in India. In 1873 the im- perial edicts against Christianity were re- [ 161 ]. The Pilgrim Faith pealed. Schools and medical work were be- gun and both complenaented efficiently the evangelistic work of the missionaries. The most dramatically interesting item in the story of the mission to Japan is con- cerned with the name of Joseph Hardy Nees- ima, a Japanese, who was born in 1843. Am- bitious and hungry for knowledge, he one day found a small Bible history that had been written in Chinese by a missionary, and on reading it he learned that the true name for God was "Heavenly Father." This truth was an illumination to his eager soul and it served to quicken his yearning for an educa- tion in order that he might learn more con- cerning religion. But the means of obtain- ing intellectual and moral instruction were not to be had in Japan, and it was against the law for any native to leave the country with- out the consent of the government. Death was the penalty meted out to those who were captured in trying to escape. Nevertheless Neesima was willing to risk the danger in- volved in gaining what he desired. Secretly he went on board a brig in command of an American captain; he reached Shanghai, and finally worked his way on the Wild Rover to Boston, where he was so fortunate as to fall into the hands of one of the noblest Con- gregational laymen of New England, Al- pheus Hardy, who was the owner of the ship. With the help of Mr. Hardy, the young Jap- [162] The F aith in Foreign Lands anese was enabled to study in Phillips Acad- emy, Andover; in Amlierst College, and in Andover Theological Seminary. Neesima's character appears in three quo- tations from his letters.^ His industry is shown by this : "I must go up to Boston by all means, I proposed to go last Monday when I finish my sawing wood. (0, hard wood! Made my spinal column pain !) His consecration is shown here: "When I saw the Japan minister at Am- herst I told him that I would not go home concealing my Christian faith like a trem- bling thief goes in the dark night under the fear of discovery, but go there as a Christian man walking in a Christian love and doing things according to the light of my con- science. ' ' Still more concisely his life motive is put thus: "I have a plow on my hands; I must work for my Lord." In the autumn of 1874 Neesima was or- dained to the Christian ministry in Boston and soon afterward he went to the annual meeting of the American Board in Eutland, Vermont. His own ideal for his people and his future work was by this time clearly de- fined in his mind. He wished to have a 1 Hardy, "Life and Letters of Joseph Hardy Neesima," 1891, pp. 79, 103, 111. [163] The Pilgrim F aith school established in his country especially for the future leaders of the new Japan. He desired also the fullest opportunities for the education of a strong native ministry for the Christian churches in the Empire; nothing less than the "best possible downright Chris- tian institution" would answer. When he was given the opportunity to speak from the platform at this Vermont meeting, a most dramatic scene occurred. Neesima broke into a wholly unprepared speech, leaving unspoken the words he had meant to use; but with passionate earnest- ness he put forth his plea for his people, say- ing that he must have the means to begin a school at once and declaring that he would not take his seat until the money was given. The effect was electrical. He carried the audience by storm, and five thousand dollars was pledged on the spot. Thus came into be- ing the Doshisha, one of the most famous in- stitutions in Japan. The missions in Japan have had a history filled with difficult and perplexing problems. It has been possible, however, to adjust the relations between the Japanese churches and the missionaries in Christian affection and mutual forbearance. The Pilgrim Faith has had great leaders in Japan and the result of its work grows and abides in the Empire. It is impossible to take up in detail the missionary activities of the Congregational- [164] The F aith in Foreign Lands ists in China and India, in Africa and the Pacific Islands. In each of these fields the story is full of noble sacrifice and valiant deeds on the part of the missionaries. It is in the realm of the Turkish Empire, among the non-Mohammedan people, and now even among the Mohammedans themselves, that much of the strongest work of the American Board has been done. The arduous fields in this vast country have become in a peculiar degree the responsibility of the churches that maintain the Pilgrim Faith, and while they present unique difiSculty, they involve also especial obligation and opportunity. There has always been in the Bible lands that pecul- iar lure which once called out military cru- sades to rescue the tomb of the Saviour from unbelievers and which, in this later day, has challenged the Pilgrim Faith to accept the much nobler mission of rescuing the souls of living men from their bondage to a destroy- ing religion. In 1820, two representatives of the Board, Eev. Pliny Fiske and Eev. Levi Parsons, went to Smyrna to make a study of the mis- sionary problem and to gain a knowledge of the language which they would have to use in future work. Fiske died soon after at Beirut, one of the noblest martyrs to the heroic zeal of the Pilgrim Faith. The American Board made careful inves- tigations in the Turkish Empire before locat- [165] The Pilgrim Faith ing any of its missions there. Finally, after being compelled to withdraw for a time from Beirut where a temporary station had been placed, it decided to establish its headquar- ters at Constantinople, the capital of the country. Eev. "William Goodell was chosen to begin the work there. Associated with him were Eev. Harrison G. Dwight and Eev. William G. Schauffler. These three men per- formed a remarkable service in education, translation of the Bible, and evangelistic preaching, devoting especial attention and care to the Armenians in Turkey and the Nestorians in Persia. The Nestorian mis- sion was finally turned over to the Presby- terians; but the American Board has con- tinued its very successful work among the Armenians. Schools and colleges have been founded; churches have been organized and furnished with trained native pastors. During the terrible massacres through which the Armenians have passed, the mis- sionaries have been their counsellors and defenders, occupying a position between them and their foes which has generally com- manded the respect of both parties. One of the most beneficent services of the missions has been the care which they have afforded to thousands of Armenian children who have been made orphans by the massacres. The missionaries themselves have endured bitter persecution in Turkey and have often [ 166 ] The Faith in Foreign Lands narrowly escaped death. Not always, how- ever, have they been so fortunate at the hands of their enemies. In 1909 Rev. D. Miner Eogers, a brave and devoted young man, son-in-law of Dr. Christie of Tarsus, was shot to death in Adana. Events have followed one another so rapidly in Turkey within the past few years that it is difficult to understand or to account for all the new forms of government that have sprung into being. To claim that all the modern movements for constitutional government and freedom have resulted from the teaching and influence of the missionaries would be absurd; but there can be no ques- tion that the greatest single factor making for these ends has been the schools, the ideals, the preaching, and the daily life and ser,vice of the strong men from the West who have been kept by the churches of the Pil- grim Faith as their representatives in the Turkish Empire. The greatest caution has been exercised by the teachers in the schools and colleges that the Board maintains in Turkey to con- trol any outbreak of sedition among the stu- dents, and in this they have been remarkably successful. Within a few months the grand vizier of the Turkish cabinet, in a conference with the American ambassador at Constan- tinople, raised an objection against the mis- sionary schools on the ground that they were [167] The Pilgrim Faith hotbeds of revolution. The ambassador re- plied : "In your own national schools, even here at the capital during the last five years you have arrested, punished, and sent into exile hundreds of young men for disloyalty ; give me an instance where you or your officers have traced a single case of seditious propa- ganda or revolution to an American mission- ary school." The grand vizier was obliged to admit that there could not be such a case found and so his argument fell to the ground unsupported for want of proof. In many respects the splendor of the Turkish missions is seen in the educational institutions which have been directly or in- directly founded and supported by the American Board. In 1838 Eev. Cyrus Hamlin was commissioned for educational work in Turkey, and while officially in their service he organized and developed Bebek Seminary, which was located near Constan- tinople until 1860, when it was removed to Marsovan. SCTnder the patronage of Mr. Christopher E. Eobert of New York Dr. Hamlin then began the work that finally issued successfully in the founding of Eobert College, one of the most widely-known edu- cational institutions in the Orient. For over seven years he struggled with resourceful obstinacy to secure possession of a site for [168] The Faith in Foreign Lands the College and to obtain permission to erect the necessary buildings. The Turkish gov- ernment evidently determined, not only in accordance with its natural desire, but also in response to the influence of the Jesuits and of Eussia, that it never would grant the desired permission to build the college upon the commanding site that had been purchased by Dr. Hamlin for this purpose. Finally, in a most unexpected way, the imperial per- mission was suddenly given, the College was located on the Bosphorus in one of the most beautiful places in the world — and it was placed under the protection of the United States. Since then Robert College has ex- erted a profound influence upon the great region whose leaders it has educated. Like the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, it is molding the life of the countries all around the eastern Mediterranean. The institutions which are directly under the control of the American Board are in- fluencing popular life in the same way. In practically every mission station the educa- tional work is being pressed with vigor, and, as a result, trained leaders are being fur- nished not only for the churches but also in every department of life, where the graduates of the Christian Colleges are expressing practically the ideals that have been im- pressed upon them by their teachers from America. [169] IX THE FAITH AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY TK THE FAITH AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY IT is quite the fashion today to disparage theology and to exalt the practical activi- ties of the Christian life far above reUgious doctrines. This empha-sis upon deed to the disregard of dogma has not been a character- istic of the Pilgrim Faith in the past; and it will not continue permanently as such. Con- gregationalists have been lovers and de- fenders of Christian truth in its doctrinal forms and sooner or later they will again ap- preciate the worth and interest of the great theological principles that lie behind all Christian duties as their warrant. Those who hold the Pilgrim Faith ought especially to be interested in the discussion of Christian doctrine, for it was the leaders of their Churches who contributed the "New England Theology" to American thought. Of this profound and forceful system of Christian doctrine Professor Frank H. Foster says: "No American theological scholar can claim to understand the course of religious thought among us, who has not made himself familiar [173] The Pilgrim F aith with this greatest indigenous school of Ameri- can theology." ^ For almost one hundred and fifty years the New England Theology reigned in America. It was held and taught and preached by lay- men, professors and ministers; it inspired men to undertake reforms and benevolent service of every kind. Its staunch defenders built colleges, followed the frontier with self- denying labor, and held their own lives under the control of its imperial moral demands. At present it is not taught in the theological seminaries of the Pilgrim Faith and whether it will ever in any form be reinstated remains to be seen. The general outline of its tenets and at least a brief sketch of its great ex- ponents ought to be familiar to everyone who would understand the history of American thought. To attempt in one brief chapter to cover fully and adequately the movements in theo- logical thinking for a century and a half would be manifestly absurd. Only the out- standing points can be touched upon and only the chief characters in the process of its de- velopment can be mentioned. It is difficult to present the matter, moreover, because of the lack of terms that have definite meaning to the present generation. A new world of theological ideas has come into being within 1 "A Genetic History of the New England Theology," 1907, p. vi. [174 J WILLIAM D. HYDE HENRY CHURCHILL KING CYRUS NORTHRUP W. DOUGLAS MACKENZIE OZORA S. DAVIS Christian Theology the last half-century and words have lost their original connotation or become prac- tically obsolete, while many terms have been coined to describe modem conceptions. "Supralapsarianism," for instance, is prac- tically meaningless to most people nowadays, while the term "ability" has for the modern man nothing of the significance that it bore to the thoughtful laymen who listened to the preaching of Hopkins and Bellamy. The New England theology ^ arose, as its name would suggest, in that section of Amer- ica where the influence of Yale College was dominant, and among ministers who were engaged with the practical works of country parishes. Its background was the general system of Christian doctrines which has been put into form by the Westminster Assembly. These had been adopted as the standards of Christian truth in New England in 1648 and' 1708. They represent the system, which we may call old Calvinism, which kept its prac- tically unbroken hold upon the minds of New England Congregationalists until the time of Jonathan Edwards. 1 "It may be formally defined as the Calvinism of West- minster and Dort modified by a more ethical conception of God, by a new emphasis upon the liberty, ability and re- sponsibility of man, by the restriction of moral quality to action in distinction from nature, and by the theory that the constitutive principle of virtue is benevolence." — ^Fos- ter, "New Schaff-Herzog Eeligious Bnoyolopsedia," Art. on "New England Theology." [175] The Pilgrim Faith Two influences were at work in New Eng- land in opposition to the early religious thought and life of the colonists. The first was the decline in the moral and spiritual condition of the people. The second and third generations, as we have noted, fell sadly away from the standards and practice of the first. The signs of conversion did not appear in the personal characters of men and women who had been baptized by the church in infancy and reared in Christian homes by devout parents. It was only through the device of the "Half -Way Cov- enant" that membership in the churches was maintained and by 1707 Eev. Solomon Stod- dard of Northampton had come to the point where he openly advocated that persons who had not yet experienced conversion should partake of the Lord's Supper, which, it was hoped, would become a "converting ordi- nance." The second influence is to be found in the Arminian writings of the English theolo- gians, Tillotson, Taylor and Whitby, whose works were read extensively by the New England ministers. These writers attacked the doctrine of the sovereignty of God as stated in its most radical form by the Cal- vinistic school, and laid emphasis upon the power of the human will in repentance and upon a "conditional election to be made sure by good works." [176] Christian Theology It was in order to revive and restore the spiritual life of Ms congregation and to re- fute the errors of Arminianism which he found "prevailing" among them, that Jona- than Edwards preached in Northampton, Massachusetts, the series of sermons on "Justification by Faith" which began the Great Awakening in 1734. He sought to present the doctrines of Old Calvinism in such fresh and convincing logical forms as would ifurnish new moral motives to his con- gregation and would overthrow the false doc- trine of the Arminians. It may have been the new statement of the old truths or it may have been — and this is the more likely — the passionate intensity of the preacher that produced the desired effect so far as chang- ing the lives of the people was concerned. Instead of waiting in a passive and almost hopeless despair for the movement of divine grace to accomplish their conversion, men be- gan to expect confidently that the experience of regeneration would follow strong evan- gelistic preaching and the fervent desire of the sinner for forgiveness and peace. But when Edwards sought to lead his people back to the early New England practice of insist- ing upon the visible signs of the new birth as the condition of church membership, he was dismissed from his Northampton par- ish, whence he went as a missionary to the Indians at Stockbridge in the western part [177] The Pilgrim F aith of Massachusetts. Here he lived for a time and here he wrote his great work, "The Freedom of the Will." It was his purpose in this treatise to refute the ArmLnians, and it is distinctly and plainly the work of an ad- vocate. Yet the discussion is so keen and its influence has been so important that the book ranks as one of the greatest ever writ- ten in America. Edwards ' line of reasoning, stated briefly, is as follows: The will is not exempt from the universal law of cause and effect, for it is moved by "causes" — namely, the motives that exert an influence upon it. Hence the choices of the wiU are as necessary as the events of the physical world. The real freedom of the will con- sists in man's power to do what he wills and not at all in any power to will what he wills, for this he does not possess. Therefore we are not free to control the motives that act upon the will, but are free only to follow the choice that the will has made. This will be determined by the greatest apparent good, or, in the terse form in which the statement was commonly made, ' ' The will is as the greatest apparent good." Therefore when God re- veals Himself to man as the supreme Good, the will is moved to choose Him ; man is then free to do what the will has been determined to choose. By these logical steps Edwards believed that he had vindicated the sov- ereignty of God in controlling man, and that [178] Christian Theology at the same time he had established the reality of man's true freedom. He affirmed with new force the supreme sovereignty which the Arminians declared God does not have and he shattered the freedom "to do what he will," which they confidently and unflinchingly attributed to man. The next contribution of Edwards was to the discussion of sin and virtue. He held to the doctrine of original sin through the "di- vine constitution," which, he believed, con- nects all men with Adam; but he made sin to consist in voluntary actions. We must consent in Adam's sin and deliberately sin ourselves before the sin of Adam can be imputed to us. Finally, Edwards brought forward the conception that virtue consists in benev- olence. Virtue, he asserted, is moral beauty ; it belongs preeminently in the realm of the will. More concretely, virtue on the part of the individual is harmony with the universal system of existence of which he is a part. And since there can be no such harmony that is not based on love, virtue must ultimately rest in a broad, compre- hensive love for life in general, or in disin- terested benevolence. Actions are virtuous, therefore, only when they are actuated by the motive of love. To sum up briefly: Edwards revived the idea of the necessity of regeneration to a [179] The Pilgrim F aith true Christian experience, opened a profound discussion of the human wUl, defined sin in terms of voluntary action, and made virtue consist in unselfish benevolence. Edwards was not merely a clear and pro- found thinker, a man of masterful intellect; he had also the gift of inspiring men to fol- low out his ideas. He became the leader of a "school of ministers," who carried his teachings on to still farther development. The first of these was Joseph Bellamy of Bethlehem, Connecticut. He served this country parish for fifty-two years and his house became practically a theological semi- nary. He probably trained not less than sixty young men for the ministry and upon each of them he impressed his theological doctrines. A brilliant preacher, he was also a writer and debater of great mental power. He was the strongest early champion of the "New Divinity," as the teachings of Ed- wards and their repeated expression by his pupils were generally called, and won a com- plete victory for it in Connecticut. In 1750 he published "True Eeligion Delineated," a book which develops Edwards' idea concern- ing man's inability to repent of sin and to turn to God. In preaching Bellamy urged his hearers to immediate repentance as some- thing possible for each of them. He taught that we labor under a condition of inability; but this inability, he averred, consists in the [180] Christian Theology lack of a disposition to repent rather than in the impossibility of repentance, and we are therefore blameworthy for it. Bellamy also modified the teachings of the Old Calvinists concerning the atonement. He did not regard the sufferings of Christ as the means of rendering full satisfaction to an offended God, but held rather that God is to be considered as a moral governor and that the atonement should be understood as a penal example. As an expounder of religious and theo- logical truth, Bellamy brought his doctrines to bear upon the conduct of the people in a practical way through his preaching, pro- foundly influencing the moral and religious life of his generation. Thus his doctrinal teachings received a powerful sanction from their practical results in changing the daily lives of the people to whom he ministered. Theology was seen to be more than an aca- demic interest, and the discussion of the great doctrines which the ministers preached became the staple subject of conversation in the homes of the people. Samuel Hopkins was a worthy comrade of Bellamy in the development of the New Eng- land Theology. He was not so great a preacher as the Connecticut pastor but was a controversialist of such remarkable power and individuality that his system of theology became known as "Hopkinsianism"; its de- [181] The Pilgrim F aith fenders were proud to bear the name "Hop- kinsians." Hopkins was a neighbor of Ed- wards while the latter lived in Stockbridge and later he was pastor of the First Congre- gational Church in Newport, Ehode Island, for thirty-three years. In 1793 Hopkins published his "System of Doctrines." This was the first complete statement of theology produced in New Eng- land which could claim anything in the way of originality. Here were gathered up in full form the modifications of the Old Cal- vinist positions which had been made by the followers of Edwards up to that time. We can hardly appreciate, at this distance, the intense bitterness with which the new positions were opposed. There was a per- fect rain of argumentative pamphlets and controversial sermons. Men who were com- mitted to the Old Calvinism saw in the new ideas concerning conversion, the atonement, human ability to repent and turn to God, and the nature of virtue, tendencies so dangerous that they opposed the doctrines even to the point of personal animosity of the bitterest sort. However meaningless or unessential these doctrines may seem to us now, they ap- peared tremendously important to the men who engaged in the fierce battles that were waged over them. On both sides there was grim war to the death, Hopkins continued the peculiar teachings [182] Christian Theology of Edwards and Bellamy, and gave increas- ing importance to tlie emphasis wMch they had laid on man's freedom. He also based God's elective decrees upon the divine love and taught more clearly than Edwards or Bellamy had done that sin consists in actual transgression. The theology of Hopkins made a definite and valuable contribution to the growing school that accepted and de- fended it and still ranks as one of the great works in the history of religious thinking. The New England theology did not arise from the meditations of secluded scholars who pondered high themes of divinity in hours of leisure. It grew rather out of the practical needs of parishes and developed under the stress of argument and opposition. The changes, for example, that gradually took place in the existing doctrine of the atonement sprang out of the controversy with universalism, a contention which developed after 1770. The heart of the Universalist position was this : Christ died for all men ; his merits are imputed to all men ; therefore all men are to be saved. This position seemed quite untenable to the New England theologians. They had already gone to the point, under Bellamy's leadership, of con- senting to the proposition that Christ died for all; but they were not ready to admit that the merits of his death were imputed to all and hence they could not hold the [183] The Pilgrim Faith universalist doctrine of universal salvation. Under the strain of controversy resulting from this difference of belief the New Eng- land theology still further changed its con- ception of the atonement. The ruling idea in the new presentation was the moral gov- ernment of God. God is love, asserted the theologians, and his government is grounded in his character. Divine love puts men un- der moral laws. These laws demand just penalties for disobedience; God's love de- mands that the dignity of his character, re- flected in his laws, shall be maintained. The sufferings of Christ are a vindication of the moral government of God. They vindicate and satisfy God's justice and love. Christ's sufferings do not, however, satisfy the "dis- tributive justice of God," which requires the divine punishment of man's individual acts of transgression. The atonement cannot be understood as "paying man's debts"; its merits are not imputed to every person. And so by bringing forward and developing the theory that the "moral goverimaent" of God is vindicated by the atonement the de- fenders of the New England Theology met the Universalist argument and, to their own satisfaction at least, deprived it of its force. The second great controversy was with the Unitarians. There had been premonitions of the approaching conflict as early as 1756, when Thomas Emlyn wrote his "Humble [184] Christian Theology Inquiry into the Scripture Account of Jesus Christ." But it was not until the time of William EUery Channing that the Unitarian debate became intense. Then the New Eng- land theologians were definitely challenged to explain how there can be three Persons in the Godhead and to account for the two na- tures in Christ. They replied, especially in meeting the latter point, with an appeal to the Bible. The issue of the conflict was the separation of the two Churches and their practical activities, rather than any essential development or modification of the New Eng- land Theology itself. A change was introduced into the "Sys- tem" of Hopkins by Eev. Nathanael Em- mons of Franklin, Massachusetts. Emmons was one of the strongest personal forces in the religious life of New England. He was pastor at Franklin for fifty-four years and during this time he trained in his study and parish at least a hundred young ministers. He developed the theology of Hopkins in the line of the freedom of the will in con- version, declaring that, instead of being re- ceptive and wholly passive in the act of re- generation man is active. "Though God does work in men to repent, to believe, and to obey, yet God does not repent, nor be- lieve, nor obey, but the persons themselves on whom he operates." Emmons laid em- phasis also upon the activity of the will in [185] The Pilgrim Faith acts of sin. He taught that moral depravity- does not consist in a guilt derived from Adam but rather in the "voluntary exercises of a moral agent." Therefore he concluded, sinners must be urged to immediate repent- ance and a holy life as things that they can attain by the powers of their own being. Another stage in the development of the New England Theology was reached in the work of Nathaniel W. Taylor of New Haven, Connecticut, whom Professor Foster calls "the most original, powerful, and widely in- fluential mind which New England theology ever possessed." ^ His life was spent in the heat of controversy in which he proved him- self a master in calm debate and showed a noble spirit in heated argument and conten- tion. Taylor moved far from the concep- tion of the will presented by Edwards. The old view of the Calvinists — Edwards' view — ^even as modified by Hopkins and Emmons, had necessarily paralyzed all human action in conversion. The preachers especially en- countered the unhappy results of this doc- trine. Men were given to understand that it was useless for them to try to do anything for themselves in repentance and faith since they labored under a condition of complete volitional inability. Taylor developed a new conception of the will as free, even under the 1 roster, "Genetic History of the New England Theology," 1907, p. 246. [186 J Christian Theology pressure of the most powerful motives — or "causes" — ^wMcb may be brought to bear upon it. This position represented a violent break from the view held by Edwards. ^ It exalted the government of God as based in love and insisted upon the ability of man to choose or to reject the will of God as his highest good. It kept true to the facts of human experience and made the practical freedom of the will the working principle in Christian faith and life. Taylor put the truth bluntly: "A man not only can if he will, but he can if he won't." Another important modifying force in the New England Theology was the work of Horace Bushnell in reference to the atone- ment. With all the energy and beauty of his clear insight and his consummate power of expression he presented the life and ex- ample of Jesus Christ as a supreme energy moving upon the souls of men for their sal- vation. The glory and strength of the per- sonality and work of Jesus become supremely clear and potent in the writings of Horace Bushnell. The last great representative of the New England Theology appropriately bore the name of its founder. Edwards Amasa Park of Andover Theological Seminary gave the System worthy expression in his lectures and sermons, combining the oratorical powers of 1 See page 178. [187] The Pilg rim F aith a strong preacher with the depth and keen- ness of a masterful thinker and an inspiring teacher. The important and characteristic ideas that were contributed by the New Eng- land Theology in its long development through Bellamy, Hopkins and others, are embodied in the theological system of Park. This is too copious to be given even in briefest de- tail in these pages. It is the full expression of that modification of the Old Calvinism which John E-obinson defended as the cham- pion of the decrees of the Synod of Dort, and represents the peculiar gift which the Pil- grim Faith has made to Christian thought. Whatever survival in changed form awaits the New England Theology if it ever shall be re-stated in the language of the twentieth century cannot be forecasted today; but there can be no doubt that for a century and a half the influence of its doctrines upon the moral and spiritual life of America was a mighty and vital force or that its framers and defenders were among the most stalwart and devoted men that have guarded the highest interests of the people. [188] s: THE FAITH IN LITERATURE THE FAITH IN LITEEATUEE THE Pilgrim Faith, as we have shown, has exercised a commanding influence in education and general culture. Its leaders have been men of refinement; their taste has been discriminating and their ap- preciation of the best in literature has been discerning and intelligent. But Congrega- tionalists have been authors as well as readers; and the purpose of the present chapter is to estimate and describe the gen- erous and valuable contribution that men of the Pilgrim Faith have made to American lit- erature. The Pilgrim Faith was bom during an era of controversy in which the pamphlet and the printed books were used more extensively than in any similar debate as the instruments by which defenders and antagonists of the different positions made their charges and countercharges. Thousands of books and pamphlets were printed and circulated dur- ing the years when the Puritan movement originated. The Congregationalists have continued the use of printer's ink throughout their life in [191] The Pilgrim F aith America. One statistician, Dr. Henry Mar- tyn Dexter, without attempting to make a complete list of books and pamphlets bear- ing on the subject gives in his "Congrega- tionalism as seen in its Literature" a record of 7250 titles of books bearing on the Pilgrim Faith, that have been published in this coun- try. It must be admitted, of course, that such controversial writing is not a very high type of literature. It is expected to be of only passing value, as it bears upon questions of the day. Yet we are far from the truth if we hold that the earnest and forceful dis- cussions of great religious themes are of im- port merely to the historian and deserve to lie forgotten on library shelves; for they have made a real contribution to the defini- tion of priceless truth and are of permanent worth among the literary treasures of the world. The early descriptive and historical writers were nearly all men of the Pilgrim Faith. Over against the romancing of Capt. John Smith concerning himself and Virginia may be set with genuine pride the reliable and earnest writings of the New England fathers. The most notable of these works is the his- tory "Of Plimoth Plantation," a book that is now preserved in the Boston Statehouse as one of the most sacred documents concerning American history. It contains the annals [192] JOHN COTTON JONATHAN EDAVARDS EDWARDS A. PARK HORACE BUSHNELL LEONARD BACON The F aith in Literature of the Plymoutli Colonists from the begin- ning of the Puritan movement in England to the year 1647. This priceless manuscript, m what way nobody knows, at one time be- came a part of the Bishop of London's li- brary in Fulham Palace, but in 1897 provi- sion was made for its return to the Common- wealth of Massachusetts in the custody of the American ambassador, Hon. Thomas F. Bay- ard. It was a memorable scene that oc- curred in Boston when the book was pre- sented to the Governor of Massachusetts in the presence of the Legislature and a com- pany of distinguished guests. Especially gracious had been the action of the Bishop of London in restoring the manuscript to "the President and Citizens of the United States of America" on the ground that it was ' ' of the greatest interest, importance and value to the Citizens of the United States of America inasmuch as it is one of the earliest records of their national history." Senator George F. Hoar, one of the speakers of the oc- casion, called the finding and return of this manuscript one of the most interesting inci- dents in history, comparing it to the discovery of the ancient regalia of Scotland after they had been lost for over a century.^ He said also that the book should be valued as highly as if it were a history of the reign of King iSee the address published in the official volume, "The Bradford History," 1898, p. xliii. [193] The Pilgrim F aith Alfred written by that sovereign's own hand. The State of Massachusetts guards the man- uscript most carefully and has published it in a worthy form. And so, after its long travels, this earliest history of Plymouth Colony set down by the hand of William Bradford has come back to Boston to be cherished as one of the most precious docu- ments in the possession of the American peo- ple. Bradford was only one of the early writers. Edward Winslow, John Winthrop, and Na- thaniel Morton made valuable contributions to the sources of New England history. The diaries of Samuel SewaJl, "the Puritan Pepys," are fascinating in the pictures which they give of the man and of the times in which he lived (1662-1730). Thomas Prince (1687-1758) gathered together a library of books and manuscripts on the history of New England and using these as sources wrote his "Annals," which will always be one of the most valuable contributions to early American history. Thus the leaders in New England, the strong men who were thoroughly educated and intellectually alert, made the first great contribution of the Pilgrim Faith to American literature. No report of the literary achievements of Congregationalists in the United States would be complete that included no more than a scanty reference to the work of the [194 J The F aith in Literature "prodigious" Cotton Mather. He was born of the "clerical aristocracy of New Eng- land;" his father was Eev. Increase Mather and his mother was a daughter of Rev. John Cotton. Cotton Mather is said to have writ- ten nearly four hundred books, great and small. Among them is the "Magnalia Christi Americana," a ponderous work in two bulky volumes, which was published ia 1702. It treats of the founding of the col- onies in New England, reviews the lives of the early leaders, traces the origin of Har- vard College, and contains a multitude of miscellaneous facts, not all of them accurate and many emphasized beyond all true pro- portion; but in spite of this lack of strictly scientific qualities the "Magnalia" is one of the most interesting literary remains of the Colonial Period. Anyone who wishes to spend a delightful hour and get a taste of a most picturesque character should read ex- tracts from the "Magnalia," either from the volumes themselves or from published selec- tions. The first entire book ever printed in America was the work of Congregationalists. Eichard Mather, Thomas Welde, and John Eliot supervised the preparation of the "Bay Psalm Book," and Stephen Daye printed it at Cambridge in 1640. It rendered the Psalms in a sort of metrical form for sing- ing. The meter and the rhymes which it con- [195] The Pilgrim F aith tains alike appear atrocious when judged by the standards of true poetry ; their distinctly inartistic character was apparently recog- nized by the authors who say in the preface : "If therefore the verses are not always so smooth and elegant as some may desire or expect, let them consider that God's altar needs not our polishings. For we have at- tended fidelity rather than poetry in trans- lating the Hebrew words into English language and David's poetry into English meter." In its quaint spelling and peculiar diction a single stanza will illustrate the unique char- acter of the material in the Bay Psalm Book. "The heavens doe declare the majesty of God: Also the firmament shews forth his handy-work abroad. Day speaks to day, knowledge night hath to night declar'd. There neither speach nor language is, where their voyce is not heard." i The contributions made by writers of the Pilgrim Faith to Christian hymnology are many. Eev. Eay Palmer was the author of "My faith looks up to Thee," "Jesus, these eyes have never seen that radiant form of Thine," "Come, Jesus, Eedeemer," and 1 other examples may be found in Stedman and Hutch- inson, "Library of American Literature," 1888, Vol. 1, p. 211 fl. [196] S. PARKES CADMAN NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS FRANK W. GUNSAULUS CHARLES E. JEFFERSON CHARLES R. BROWN The F aith in Literature other widely-used hymns ; he also translated from the Latin "Come, Holy Ghost, in love." Timothy Dwight wrote "I love thy kingdom, Lord. " " God, beneath thy guiding hand, ' ' which has been sung on many patriotic oc- casions since it was written, came from the pen of Leonard Bacon, To Harriet Beecher Stowe we are indebted for two hymns which are constantly growing in use and which ex- press the deeper moods of the soul with ex- quisite grace ; they are, ' ' Still, still with Thee when purple morning breaketh" and "When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean." Washington Gladden contributed a hymn which has already come into general use, "0 Master, let me walk with Thee." There have been many compilers of hymn books and many students of church music among the men of the Pilgrim Faith. In 1799, Dr. Strong, pastor of the First Church in Hartford, published the first distinctly American hymn book. Nettleton, the ev9.n- gelist, set the example that has been followed so successfully in the publication of the Moody and Sankey Gospel Hymns and their successors when he issued "Village Hymns" in 1824. Lowell Mason, "the father of American church music," was a Congre- gationalist. In 1855 Henry Ward Beecher published the "Plymouth Collection." Later Professors Park and Phelps issued the ''Sabbath Hymn Book"; a group of An- [197] The Pilgrim F aith do-ver professors compiled "Hymns of tlie Faith" and Lyman Abbott published the "Plymouth Hymnal."^ Eecently Eev, Am- brose W. Vernon in collaboration with Eev. Henry Sloan CoflQn, has edited "Hymns of the Kingdom of God"; Eev. Charles H. Eichards has issued "Songs of the Christian Life," Eev. ,W. J. Dawson has compiled "The American Hymnal," and the Pilgrim Press has issued "The Pilgrim Hymnal." Among the most influential writers on church music is Prof. Waldo S. Pratt of Hartford Theological Seminary. Another distinct contribution of the PU- grim Faith to the literary life of America has been made through the magazines and religious newspapers that have been founded and maintained by Congregationalists. The interests behind these enterprises have been sometimes missionary, sometimes contro- versial, and sometimes devotional. "When the missionary movement westward began, in 1800, the "Connecticut Evangeli- cal Magazine" was founded as a medium for furnishing news and creating interest con- cerning the work in the new country. Two years later the "Massachusetts Missionary Magazine" was begun. This has continued in different forms, and has finally become "The Missionary Herald," which is recog- nized internationally today as one of the 1 Dunning, "Congregationalists in America," p. 485. [198] The F aith in Literature ablest foreign missionary magazines pub- lished. Its influence upon the life of the churches has constantly increased their knowledge of world-wide Christian work and inspired fresh interest in the conquest of the Kingdom of Christ. There are now three weekly religious news- papers that are maintained by the Pilgrim Faith. ' ' The Congregationalist, " " The Ad- vance," and "The Pacific." In their high standard of literary work these periodicals rank among the best in the country. The Pilgrim Faith has been instrumental in starting in religious journalism movements other and greater than those which strictly denominational records show. "The Inde- pendent" began under Congregational lead- ership in 1848. "The Christian Union," founded by Henry Ward Beecher in 1869, became "The Outlook." Both of these pub- lications, which exert a profound influence upon the religious life of America, have been largely under Congregational direction, al- though not under church control, and lead- ers of the Pilgrim Faith have been their editors. When we turn to the volumes of sermons which have been published by preachers of the Pilgrim Faith, we find literature of a high type. In Colonial days it was custom- ary to print the election sermons of the min- isters, and as we have noticed many examples [199] The Pilgrim F aith of early controversial preaching also were put into type. The discourses of Jonathan Edwards were published and read exten- sively even in G-reat Britain, The long pe- riod of theological discussion after 1850 gave additional zest to publication. The sermons of Henry Ward Beecher were regularly published and their influence upon the religious life of America was profound. The freshness of their thought, the beauty of their style, and the earnest way in which they grappled with the vital issues of the generation to which they were preached gave them great influence and gained for them a wide reading. The sermons of Horace Bushnell also form a permanent part of the literary wealth of America. The single volume entitled "Ser- mons for the New Life" contains a group of the greatest discourses ever given in the American pulpit. "Every Man's Life a Plan of God" and "Unconscious Influence" will never lose their power, for they are con- cerned with the enduring and fundamental needs and problems of the human soul. The question "Who reads an old sermon?" is answered by the constant publication of the words of great preachers and by the con- tinued use of the printed discourses of those prophets who have spoken most clearly in the name of the Pilgrim Faith. In devotional writing the work of religious [200] The F aith in Literature authors comes as close to the nature of pure literature as it does anywhere in the realm of production. Scientific purpose is not pre- eminent in the preparation of books that deal with the spiritual life, the aim of their writers being to furnish an interpretation of the soul's experience that shall serve to make clear the activities of the spirit and to dis- play the beauty of religious truth. One of the classics in this department of religious literature is Austin Phelps' "The Still Hour." Professor Phelps was himself a man of deep insight and rich spiritual life and the equality of his own soul is reflected in this little book, written in 1859, which has proved useful ever since its publication in Christian culture and discipline. A more profound study of the human soul came from the pen of Jonathan Edwards in 1746 under the title, "A Treatise Concerning Eeligious Affections." This book is gen- erally accepted as one of the most perfect interpretations of Christian experience that we possess. Professor Allen has said con- cerning it : " It is a work which will not suf- fer by comparison with the work of great teachers in theology, whether ancient or mod- ern. It fulfills the condition of a good book as Milton has defined it — 'the precious life- blood of a master spirit. ' ' ' In Chapter IX we have traced the history of the theological contribution which has been [201] The Pilgrim Faith made to the thought of the world by the Pil- grim Faith. Incidentally the many hooks on theology which were issued during the dis- cussion have been touched upon. It ought to be noted here, however, that these works have a literary as well as a purely contro- versial value and that they are a part of our permanent and cherished heritage. "While Jonathan Edwards was the greatest indi- vidual writer upon the New England Theol- ogy, his books are only a part of the entire literary by-product of the doctrinal discus- sions of his time. His great treatise en- titled "A Careful and Strict Inquiry into the Prevailing Notions of the Freedom of the Will" appeared in 1754. Professor Allen says concerning it: "It is unnecessary to remark that a high place must be assigned in literature to Ed- wards on the Will. Like Butler's Analogy, it belongs among the few great books ia Eng- lish Theology."^ When recalling the literary achievements of the Pilgrim Faith, one thinks almost in- stantly of Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." This famous story came from the heart of Congregationalism and in it is to be found an expression of those great convictions concerning liberty and brother- hood which have lain deep in the souls of the men and women who have been the lovers 1 Allen, "Jonathan Edwards," 1889, p. 287. [202] The F aith in Literature and , defenders of human freedom from • the beginning of the seventeenth century. Waiving as unessential all questions as to the accuracy of the situation presented in the book and as to the literary value of the tale itself, we can assert confidently that no other single volume ever did so much to stir the generation in which it was written as did the story of Uncle Tom. It was read in the North and in the South. It aroused discus- sion, provoked antagonism, and stirred the deep primal sense of justice and fraternity in the souls of men. It was translated into at least twenty languages and is still sold. Professor Charles F. Eichardson calls it "that novel which exerted a moral force in politics unequalled in the history of English fiction."^ And he says also: "The aboli- tion of tribal relations in Christ was the broad theme of a Christian woman; and in treating it she produced an art-result of such inherent merit that the hand helped the soul as much as the soul the hand." Other novelists of the Pilgrim Faith have given the world books that have endured, and among them George W. Cable and Eliza- beth Stuart Phelps Ward rank high. Ameri- can poetry also has been enriched by our writers. But the greatest work which Con- gregational authors have done has been ac- complished in the fields of theology, philol- 1 "American Literature," Vol. 11, 1889, pp. 410 and 412. [203] The Pilgrim Faith ogy, translation, and original writing in foreign tongues on the mission frontier. Measured by the scale of dignity and liter- ary worth the work of the men of the Pilgrim. Faith who have turned the English of the Scriptures into foreign tongues towers high. Often they have been compelled to reduce a language to writing and to develop its gram- mar before translation or composition has been possible. Through years of unremitted toil, working under difficulties that have seemed too great for human strength, often continuing their efforts without slacking their diligence in their many immediate du- ties, these men have labored at their arduous literary task. Caesar wrote his "Commen- taries" in the heat of his military cam- paigns; and far too frequently soldiers of the cause of Christ have been able to devote to their important work of translation only hurried moments snatched from their un- ceasing struggle to set up their Captain's banner in the lands where they have chosen to pour out their lives. First in the list of missionary-lexicog- raphers comes John Eliot. When he began his translation of the Word of Life into the many-syllabled tongue of the Algonqidns he had at his command no facilities for printing and publishing the work should he be able to finish it, but he persisted with faith that if God would give him strength to complete the [204] The F aith in Literature task he would provide also the means of puh- lication. And Eliot's determination and trustful confidence were rewarded; for in 1661 he had the joy of seeing "Wuskee Wut- testamentum Nul-Lordunum Jesus Christ Nuppoquohwussuaerneumun" appear in print. Some conception of the difl&culty of his undertaking may be gained from this un- wieldy caption, which was the title of the Algonquin New Testament. In 1663 Eliot saw the entire Bible in print in the language of the Indians. The next notable work was that of Gordon Hall, who during his brief period of pioneer labor among the Mahratta people in India was able to complete a translation of the New Testament in their tongue. In 1830 there was sent to the mission sta- tion at Canton, China, a printing outfit, the gift of the Bleeker Street Church of New York. Two years later the arrival of S. "Wells "Williams furnished an exceptionally qualified printer and author, and for more than a decade thereafter there poured from his pen a stream of Christian literature writ- ten in the Chinese. His works in the lan- guage of the natives were printed upon the mission press and were widely circulated. A little later, in 1859, Hiram Bingham, Jr., began his translation of the Bible in Gilber- tese, the language of the inhabitants of the Gilbert Islands. Sickness forced him to [ 205 ] The Pilgrim F aith leave these Islands with the work uncom- pleted ajid to return to Hawaii, but this change in fortune and residence set him free to devote himself more fully to the task which he had begun when on the mission field. In 1890 the first copy of the Scriptures in Gil- bertese appeared in printed form, and in 1908 Capt. Walkup carried with him to the jubilee in the Islands Bingham's last great work, a Gilbertese dictionary. Soon after Lewis Grout began his work among the Zulus he discovered that their fondness for oratory could be used to ad- vantage in the spread of the Gospel. A Zulu church is not a mere group of listeners ; the hearers expect to go out and repeat the mes- sage which has been spoken. Grout, there- fore, labored to reduce their language to in- telligible rhetorical form, and his Zulu gram- mar is still used as a textbook in schools that train native evangelists in South Africa. In 1823 William Goodell, a scholarly and brilliant linguist, went to Beirut, Syria. His great life work, a translation of the Scrip- tures from the original Hebrew and Greek into the Armeno-Turkish language, is a monument to his rare ability and his patient, painstaking industry. His task was carried on under great difficulty. On one occasion his house was plundered, and for more than two years he never closed his eyes without first planning how he might escape if at- [206] The F aith in Literature tacked during the night. Frequently part of his days were spent in searching for thickets and caves where his few converts could flee for safety should a raid upon them be started. King of the translators who have shed glory on the records of the Pilgrim Faith was Elias Biggs, a linguist of world-wide fame. At the age of eighteen he had written a grammar of Arabic, and had also mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and Chaldee. After establishing himself at Smyrna, Tur- key, he spent seven years in preparing an edition of the Bible in modern Armenian. His next great work was the translation of the Scriptures into Bulgarian, and follow- ing this he rendered the Book of books into the Turkish language. The Bibles used to- day by the four leading races of the Turkish Empire are largely the work of this inde- fatigable toiler. In making this statement we consider as one of the "Bibles" the Mod- em Greek version of the Old Testament, the Chaldee portion of which — Ezra and Daniel — ^was revised by Dr. Eiggs. Besides apply- ing his mighty mental powers to the transla- tion of the Scriptures he has written sweet, tender hymns in Greek, Armenian, Bulga- rian and Turkish, and they have become a lasting contribution to the devotional life of the people of the East. Thus throughout the mission field we find [207] The Pilgrim Faith the permanent and gratifying results of the literary labors of the missionaries. As a recent writer says : "If it were possible to bring together in one place samples of all the grammars, dic- tionaries, hymn-books, Bibles, school-books, and works of general literature of every kind and from all parts of the world which have been written or translated during the last century by missionaries or under their su- pervision, it would make one of the most com- plete exhibits of the languages and dialects spoken by more than five-sixths of the people of the world that could be produced."^ Missionary records show that the repre- sentatives of the American Board have borne a leading part in the production of the many kinds of publications to which Dr. Barton refers. The denomination that converts and saves is also the denomination that creates a formal language and furnishes a body of literature for the people to whom it carries the message of life and love. 1 Barton, "Human Progress through Missions," 1912, p. 30. [208] XI THE FAITH AND ITS LEADEES XI THE FAITH AND ITS LEADERS THE question whether a leader creates a great popular movement or the move- ment produces the leader is often discussed but can never be definitely and satisfactorily- settled. For leadership and human progress are inherently and inextricably related. Men with ideals create institutions which will express them, and ideals moving among the people lay hold on individuals, evoke their powers, and give birth to gifts of leadership. So in the history of the Pilgrim Faith there has been constant action and reaction be- tween the strong persons who have emerged as leaders and the inspiring ideals to which the leaders have responded. It is impossible to condense into the com- pass of a brief chapter any complete and ade- quate account of the leaders of the Faith. In dealing with the various movements which we have passed in review, we have given con- siderable attention to their personal leader- ship. Here we shall supplement briefly this record. And in doing this we deem it wise, even at the risk of repetition, to bring into [211] The Pilgrim Faith intimate relationship with some of the deeds reported in previous chapters, the men who performed them. Foremost among the laymen of the Pil- grim Faith stands William Bradford. He was not a minister, and apparently never even held an office in the Church, but to him more than to any other layman the Pilgrim Faith owes the proud place that it holds in the development of American principles and the spread of the Gospel. In the little hamlet of Austerfield, Eng- land, on March 19, 1590, Bradford was bap- tized. Life was anything but easy to a lad of that day in an English farming commu- nity. There was little or no communication with the outside world and what scant news filtered through came probably by the way of Postmaster Brewster's office at Scrooby Manor, not far distant from Austerfield. And thither we find Bradford going as a boy of twelve or fourteen to meet with the little company who gathered under Brewster's roof to listen to the preaching of the gospel. The heart of the lad was touched by the preaching of one of the men who had been brought to the district through the efforts and the liberal purse of Brewster. He was led to read and study his Bible and became eager for deeper spiritual experiences. About 1604 John Bobinson joined the Scrooby congregation. Under the influence [212] LYMAN ABBOTT HENRY M. DEXTER GEORGE A. GORDON GEORGE P. FISHER NEWMAN SMYTH The Faith and Its Leaders of this earnest, patient, kindly, learned man, both the soul and the intellect of young Brad- ford grew. There was created in his heart a thirst for learning that led him, although denied the opportunity for academic school- ing, to devote himself diligently to the mas- tery of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. At seventeen Bradford found himself in the Boston jail, together with other Scrooby Separatists, for attempting to leave the country without permission from the King. His youth procured for him an earlier re- lease than was granted most of his compan- ions, and in 1608, with a few associates, he reached Amsterdam. In a strange land, without resources, Brad- ford began the battle for existence, and learned the silkweaver's trade, which pro- vided him with a means of livelihood. The years of exile were undoubtedly a period of profitable preparation for his work in the new world to which he went in the Mayflower. His coming to America was saddened by the drowning of his wife while the Mayflower swung at anchor in Cape Cod harbor. A year after the landing at Plymouth, Gov- ernor John Carver died and the little com- munity unanimously chose William Bradford as its head. The office of governor then in- cluded the duties of executive, legislative, and judicial leadership. For a period of thirty-six years Bradford was the man to [213] The Pilgrim F aith whom tlie Colony looked for guidance in its difficult and ofttimes hazardous career. At thirty-one of the annual elections he "was chosen governor, and he would have been thus elected every year during a longer period had he not insisted that someone else should occupy the position. His services were given to the Colony without salary and with none of the pomp and dignity that we usually associate with the rank of governor. His conduct in office was in sharp contrast with the boastful show of many of the royal representatives and illustrated well the man- ner in which a Christian servant of the people bears himself in a Christian state. Brad- ford's skill as a diplomat was of a high order, as is shown in his judicious handling of the relations between Plymouth Colony and the Puritan enterprises under Endicott's leadership. When the church at Salem was formed, Bradford and a few companions from Plymouth went to that town in one of the little boats belonging to the Colony and extended the "right hand of fellowship" to the newly-gathered congregation. This broad-minded and brotherly act marks the beginning of those relations of mutual help- fulness and fellowship that have gone hand in hand with the principle of individual in- dependence among Congregational churches. In the press of his manifold public duties Bradford found time to set down that record [214] The Faith and Its Leaders of tlie planting and growth, of tlie Colony to whicli we have referred in a previous chap- ter. The permanent impression which he made upon his surviving companions was one of great strength and sweetness of spirit. Wil- liam Bradford represents the finest type we have of the high-minded and devoted Chris- tian layman. He died May 9, 1657, and was laid to rest on the wind-swept hill that rises back of the little' village; laid to rest in silence, with no prayer, hymn or sermon, as was the custom of the colony. He left a great task to be carried out by the men who came after him, but he left them also a noble example of service to Christ in state and church. "Mather is named Cotton Mather. What a name! ... I should have said what names ! I shall say nothing of his reverend father, since I dare not praise him to his face, but should this youth resemble his venerable grandfathers, John Cotton and Richard Mather, in piety, learning, elegance of mind, solid judgment, prudence and wisdom, he will bear away the palm." With these words, or rather in the Latin words which represent these thoughts. Presi- dent Oakes of Harvard addressed the as- sembly at which. Cotton Mather, then sixteen years old, received his first degree. In the years that followed the young man repro- [215] The Pilgrim F aith duced in Ms own life many of those honorable ancestral qualities to which the speaker re- ferred. Cotton Mather was born February 12, 1663. He was precocious; at the age of seven he was writing prayers and compelling his schoolmates to pray them. The natu- ral sensitiveness of his disposition was ag- gravated by an impediment in his speech, and his tendency to melancholy was by no means lessened by his firm belief and deep interest in witchcraft. Believing that the impediment in his speech unfitted him for the ministry, Mather studied medicine ; but later, on the advice of a friend, he "obliged himself to a dilated de- liberation in speaking," and this enabled him, after some practice, to make a public address. Eeassured by this achievement he gave himself to the study of theology and on May 13, 1684, he was ordained as the col- league of his father, Rev. Increase Mather, pastor of the North Church in Boston. Pre- viously the young theologue had declined a call from the New Haven church; and throughout his life his ministerial work was done in the Boston pastorate. Cotton Mather was a prodigious worker. He was master of seven languages, and ac- cording to Dr. Chauncy was the greatest reader of his time. See him in his study in the early hours of the morning commencing [216] The Faith and Its Leaders the day by reading a chapter from the Old Testament in Hebrew, and another in French, a chapter from the New Testament in Greek and perhaps, by way of variety, an- other in Spanish or Iroquois. He seemed to remember everything he read, and he wrote with the same ease and rapidity with which he absorbed the writings of others. His publications reached the total of three hun- dred eighty-two. Many of them, of course, consisted of tracts and single sermons, but others were of considerable length. His "Magnalia Christi Americana" was his greatest work and included two volumes filled with valuable information and shot through with puerilities and strange conceits which distinguish it in a unique and peculiar way from all other books in the language. The thinking of Mather was a strange blend of the mediseval and the modern. We find him, haunted by visitations from the demon world, writing with pious care of the subtleties of the black art, and joining with other Boston ministers in urging the execu- tion of those accused of having dealings with witchcraft. On the other hand, he was the apostle of inoculation for smallpox when medical men opposed it ; he advocated higher education for women and established a school in Boston for the education of slaves ; in his "Essay to do Good" we discover a pro- phetic conception of modern Christian benefi- [217] The Pilgrim Faith cence and social service; and we find him among the pioneers of the present day tem- perance movement. Chandler Bobbins calls vanity the most prominent of Mather's faults; but this un- fortunate trait, like any other weakness of character that he may have possessed, seems to have been quickly obscured by his nobler qualities. At the close of his sixty-five years of life, we find one of his contemporaries speaking of him as a man of "extraordinary intellectual capacity, readiness of wit, vast reading, strength of memory, treasures of learning, uncommon activity, unwearied ap- plication, extensive zeal, and splendid virtue, through the abundance of the grace of God." In 1703, the year which marks the birth of John "Wesley in the rectory at Epworth, Eng- land, Jonathan Edwards was born in the Congregational parsonage at East Windsor, Connecticut. Edwards was the grandson of the great Northampton minister, Eev. Solo- mon Stoddard, and the son of a learned and successful pastor. Rev. Timothy Edwards. During his life as a student at Yale, Jonathan Edwards read, thought and wrote on the most profound subjects in philosophy. Ath- letics and college fraternities had no place in his undergraduate days; yet he was a lover of nature and a very human young man. He graduated from the college at the age of sixteen. [218] The Faith and Its Leaders Edwards studied theology at Tale and later held a position as tutor in the College, until, in 1727, he became the associate of his famous grandfather, Bev. Solomon Stoddard, in the Northampton pastorate. Here he re- mained until 1750, when trouble arose be- tween him and the church, so that he felt obliged to sever his connection with it. He then went to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where he served as preacher and missionary to the Indians until he was called to the presi- dency of Princeton College. He met his death from being inoculated for smallpox in 1758, at the age of fifty-five years. Jonathan Edwards is the greatest name in American theology. In spite of slight weak- nesses this staunch New England Congrega- tionalist stands in the midst of many hard- ships with the dignity and strength of a great prophet. He was a! preacher of most un- usual power. He read his sermons and had none of the art of an orator; but his concep- tions were so sound and strong and the pas- sion of his conviction was so genuine that his preaching became a mighty force in America and Great Britain. His preeminent strength, however, lay in his thinking. He gathered up in himself the spirit of his generation, so that, as Bancroft says : "He that would know the workings of the New England mind in the middle of the last (eighteenth) century and the throbbings [219] The Pilgrim Faith of its heart, must give his days and nights to the study of Jonathan Edwards." * His personal character was even greater than his intellect. Prof. Allen says of him : "Above the preacher, above the thinker, there towered also the majestic purity of the man — a character that seems well-nigh flaw- less." This latter point ought to be borne in mind, for the common idea concerning Edwards is that he was the stern champion of a severe theology and this conception does scant jus- tice to a man who possessed one of the most noble and gracious characters in American history. The success with which he won and led young men, for instance, argues a power- ful and genial personality. He believed clearly and steadfastly in the doctrines that exalted the power of God ; but he was a great lover of his fellowmen and a tender, sym- pathetic pastor and friend. Timothy Dwight was especially blessed in that his mother was a woman of great intel- lectual superiority. She was the daughter of Jonathan Edwards and had inherited some of his capacity for study and high thinking. The little home in Northampton, Massachu- setts, where Timothy Dwight was bom, on May 14, 1752, was turned, not many years afterward, into a place of study and the child 1 Bancroft; Quoted in Allen, "Jonathan Edwards," 1889, p. vi. [220] The Faith and Its Leaders quickly gave indications of his tMrst for knowledge and of his ability to grasp and re- tain it. With his mother as a teacher he learned to read the Bible correctly and even fluently at the age of four. Dwight was sent to a grammar school and when only thirteen years old was ready to enter college. He attended Yale, where he was graduated with high honors in 1769. Immediately he began teaching at New Haven and two years later he became a tutor at Yale. The skill with which he handled his students while in this position led them to draw up and sign a petition that he should be called to the presidency. But at his own request this document was never presented. The tumultuous days of the Eevolution drew Dwight from his books and students and into the War, which he entered as a chap- lain in General Putnam's army. By his fiery patriotic addresses he stirred freedom- loving New England to increased activity in the cause of freedom. Indeed, he became so popular that numerous efforts were made to elect him to public office. All avenues of service not connected with the Christian min- istry, however, he steadfastly refused to enter, and finally in 1783, he accepted a call to the church at Greenfield, Connecticut. In 1795, when a vacancy occurred in the presidency at Yale, Timothy Dwight was chosen for the unfilled office and in Septem- [221] The Pilgrim F aith ber of that year he entered upon his duties as head of the College. With the coming of President Dwight a new era began for Yale. Hitherto it had been an old-fashioned school with an autocratic headmaster and a few sub- ordinates. Dwight made it an institution based on the broad plans of a modern uni- versity. New departments were added and old departments improved; the college rules were completely revised, fines being abol- ished and the relations of the students to the faculty being regulated by the principles which govern the intercourse of gentlemen; the great learning of the new president soon begaji to attract students in increasing num- bers, and the roll of the College lengthened rapidly from year to year. President Dwight 's plans included pro- vision for a separate divinity school. Such an institution came into being five years after his death, which occurred on January 11, 1817. Some conception of Dwight 's tremendous energy and determination is gained when we consider that although emaciated and suffer- ing from months of illness he continued to hear his classes until within a week of his death. After he was no longer able to go to the classroom he had his students come to his home, where he lectured with great fervor and eloquence on the subjects of their study. Of the inner qualities of the man, Dr. Na- [ 222 ] The Faith and Its Leaders thaniel W. Taylor says: "Nothing is plainer to my mind (and I can speak from long and intimate acquaintance with him), than that, though by nature an ambitious and proud man, loving greatly distinction and influence, and claiming superiority above others, which was so extensively conceded, — his talents, his acquisitions, his influence, were conscientiously devoted to the cause for which the Son of God lived and died." Horace Bushnell was a native of Litch- field, Connecticut, and was born on the 14th of April, 1802. At the age of nineteen he made a profession of Christian faith and two years later he became a student at Yale Col- lege. His undergraduate days were a period of doubt and questioning in things spiritual, and from this uncertainty he was unable to free himself. Directly after his graduation, in 1827, he entered upon journalistic work and began reading law, and two years later he accepted a position as tutor in his Alma Mater. In 1831 Tale was visited by a great revival, and during its progress Bushnell found rest from the intellectual doubts which still har- assed him. It was through the gateway of the feelings rather than through the avenue of cold reason that the peace he sought came. "I have a heart as well as a head," he said to his fellow tutors: "My heart wants the Father; my heart wants the Son; my heart [223] The Pilgrim Faith wants the Holy Ghost — and one just as much as the other. My heart says the Bible has a Trinity for me, and I mean to hold by my heart. ' ' With the clearing of his spiritual horizon there came a new vision of service and he began a course of study in the theological de- partment of Tale. Graduating in 1833, he at once entered upon his long period of serv- ice in the North Congregational Church of Hartford, Connecticut, where he labored as a preacher and public-spirited citizen until ill health forced his retirement, in 1859. Bushr nell assumed a commanding place of leader- ship in civic matters and Hartford owes largely to his efforts the movements that pro- vided her with a system of public waterworks and gave her the beautiful park that bears his name. The Pilgrim Faith owes much to this loyal son, who through the long years of physical weakness and bodily pain that followed his retirement never relaxed his efforts for the advancement of the Kingdom. Bushnell has shown what can be done by a determined and earnest man in the face of sickness and phys- ical disability. In 1847 he published his "Discourses on Christian Nurture," a book in which we see the beginnings of what is now known as "edu- cational evangelism." According to Bush- nell 's thinking, it is neither necessary nor [224] The Faith and Its Leaders normal for the child, especially the child of the Christian home, to pass through an ex- perience of "conversion." He held that by judicious nurture the little life can be so molded that Christian faith and trust will be but the normal expression of its soul. This position, very different from that defended by the majority of the ministers of his day, produced intense protest and debate. "God in Christ," another important work, was published by Bushnell two years later. In this book he set forth a view of the atone- ment that had little or nothing in common with that taught by Edwards and held by a majority of his Congregational brethren. Bushnell excluded all thought of a penal quality in the death of Christ and sought to define the atonement rather in terms of Chris- tian experience, considering it as an expres- sion of Grod's love for us — as a divine mani- festation intended to draw us to God and to bring us to view sin and holiness as He views them. With the publication of this book a storm of criticism broke upon Bushnell. De- mands were made for the trial of this daring Hartford divine, but the Association of Churches in his district declined to take up the case, and although appeals were made repeatedly to the General Association of Connecticut, that body refused to set aside the decision of the local organization to sus- tain no charges against the radical writer. [225] The Pilgrim Faith The conceptions of Bushnell were further set forth in his later works, "Nature and the Supernatural," "The Vicarious Sacrifice," and "Forgiveness and Law," Bushnell was not a theologian in the strict sense of the word; he sought to go hehind intellectual theories and reach the vital truth that is ex- perienced by the heart rather than under- stood by the mind. His service to the Faith and to the Church at large was great, and its enriching effect on the thinking of Christian men grows rather than diminishes with the passing years. In a little cabin in the frontier fur trading town of Detroit a baby boy was born on Feb- ruary 19, 1802. It was to a poor home that he came and to a family whose life was one continual round of hardship and struggle against poverty. The child was Leonard Bacon, and his father, David Bacon, was a missionary to the Indians of the West. Mis- understood by the society that sent him out, underpaid, burdened with the debts which the unexpected expenses of frontier life forced upon him, David Bacon in his daily life taught his son, perhaps unconsciously, how to "endure hardship as a good soldier." At fifteen the lad was left fatherless, but through the help of his uncle he received the training of the Hartford Grammar School. In 1817 he entered the sophomore class at Yale, at which institution he was graduated [226] The Faith and Its Leaders when eighteen years of age. Later lie com- pleted a regular course of study at Andover and spent one year there in post-graduate work. In 1825 Leonard Bacon accepted a call to the First Church in New Haven. This church, which was one of the foremost in rank at that time, had had as ministers two preachers of strength and eloquence — ^Na- thaniel W. Taylor and Moses Stuart. At the close of the first year of his pastorate Bacon was waited upon by a committee, who sug- gested that his sermons were not of the qual- ity of those that the congregation had heard from Stuart and Taylor. Bacon's reply was characteristic: "Gentlemen, they shall be made worthy." That this promise was ful- filled is attested by his fifty-six years of serv- ice in the New Haven church, forty of which he spent in active pastoral work, and six- teen as pastor emeritus. From Hamilton College Bacon received the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1842 ; and Harvard made him a Doctor of Laws in 1870. He was chosen moderator of the two Brook- lyn Councils of 1874 and 1876, the most widely-discussed Congregational advisory bodies of the last half of the nineteenth cen- tury. After his retirement from the New Haven pastorate he served for five years as Acting Professor of Revealed Theology in Yale Seminary, and from 1871 to the day of [ 227 ] The Pilgrim Faith his death, in 1881, he was lecturer at Yale on Church Polity and American Church His- tory. During the days of his power Dr. Bacon was without an equal in American Congre- gationalism as a debater. He was a deep stu- dent of Congregational polity and a firm be- liever in it, and it was largely through his leadership that the denomination was brought back to confidence in itself and its principles after the period of self-distrust that followed the Unitarian defection. Dr. Bacon added to his skill as a debater a fine literary style. His writings sparkle with wit and glow with passion, as did his arguments from the forum. He wrote easily and with a rapidity that was surprising even to his friends. His published volumes were many. During the first years of his ministry he became fascinated by the early story of the Pilgrim Faith. With patience and dili- gence, he searched for obscure facts bear- ing upon it and in 1874 he published, "The Genesis of the New England Churches," his most extensive and important work. Dr. Bacon was largely instrumental in founding the "New Englander" in 1843 and the New York "Independent," in 1848. Early in his ministry he warmly advocated the temperance movement and the abolition of slavery ; two causes that were by no means popular in his time. The strength and skill [ 228 ] The Faith and Its Leaders with which Dr. Bacon defended them cost him the support of not a few in his own church. But above the pulpit orator, the writer, the debater, towered the man. Prof. Willis- ton Walker describes the impression that Dr. Bacon made upon him when, as a little lad, he sat Sunday after Sunday in the pew directly in front of the pulpit where the venerable minister presided with his young colleague. He says: "The boy who then sat before him well remembers the sweetness of his voice as he would often rise to pray when the sermon by his successor had concluded : and even child- ish years could appreciate something of the tenderness, felicity, and strength of the words in which he would lift the petitions of the congregation along the pathway of the thoughts to which it had listened in the dis- course. . . . Even the boy knew that it was a great man that sat before him, and felt the power of that greatness, though it was be- yond his abilities to determine wherein that greatness lay." If we were called upon to mark the name of the man who most profoundly affected the theological thought of the Pilgrim Faith in the nineteenth century we should select that of Edwards Amasa Park of Andover Theo- logical Seminary. Upon his shoulders the mantle of the Edwards seemed to fall. [229 J The Pilgrim Faith Park was born in Providence, Eliode Island, on December 29, 1808. After Ms graduation from Brown [University he en- tered Andover Seminary, where he com- pleted his theological studies in 1831. He began work in the world as a minister, becom- ing pastor of the Orthodox Congregational Chnrch in Braintree, Massachusetts; but in 1835 he was called to the chair of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy and Hebrew Litera- ture at Amherst College. After one year there he went to Andover Seminary as Pro- fessor of Rhetoric. In 1847 he was made Professor of Christian Theology in the Semi- nary, and this position he held until 1881, when he retired as professor emeritus. In 1844 Prof. Park, in conjunction with Prof. Bela B. Edwards, founded "Bibliotheca Sacra," a religious periodical. He was its editor until 1884. Park was a preacher of great power and eloquence. He swayed his audiences with the mighty sweep of his thought. To come under the spell of his logic was to receive lifelong impressions of the sublimity and grandeur of Scripture truth. The vast army of Phillips Academy and Andover Seminary students who heard his sermons in the Chapel must have gained from them no small part of their education and no meager inspiration for their life work. But it was in the realm of theology that the [230] The Faith and Its Leaders influence of Prof. Park was most deeply felt. Under him the Edwardean elements in the creed of Andover Seminary became more prominent than they had been under his pred- ecessor ; indeed, to use the words of Dr. Wil- liston Walker, ' ' they became part of the men- tal furnishing of more theological students than any other Congregationalist has ever personally taught. ' ' Prof. Park was the last of the succession of great ministers who de- fined and defended the various phases of the New England Theology. In general he was the equal of Edwards himself as a preacher, a debater and a profound theologian. On the ninetieth anniversary of his birth- day there was published in "Bibliotheca Sacra" a large number of letters from for- mer pupils and other friends who wished to tell Prof. Park of the effect of their acquaint- ance with him upon their thinking and their outward lives. A glance at these enthusi- astic testimonials shows how profoundly he moved those with whom he came into contact, and how wide was the range of his influence. We quote from one, that of Prof. A. V. G. Allen of the Episcopal Theological School of Cambridge, Massachusetts. "It was your gift and rich endowment to be such a teacher as to command the un- bounded devotion of your pupils. Such a teacher comes but rarely, a gift of heaven, yet also the result of ages of preparation. [ 231 ] The Pilgrim F aith Such, a teacher in theology you were to us, unexampled in the power of creating a deep interest in the subject, giving us an insight into many fine and subtle distinctions of the- ological inquiry, giving to us also a firm grasp on essential things, opening up the vast range of the field to be explored, and then impress- ing our minds so powerfully and vividly with the form and eloquence of the presentation that each lecture left its indelible stamp on the mind and each succeeding lecture was eagerly anticipated as a great and blessed privilege." Henry Ward Beeeher was bom in Litch- field, Connecticut, on June 24, 1813, the fourth son of Eev. Lyman Beeeher. In 1834 he graduated from Amherst College, and later he completed a course at Lane Theological Seminary. He died March 8, 1887. No list of days and years, however, can bound a life so great as Beeeher 's. His was a spirit that cannot be catalogued. He is the possession of no one denomination or age ; he belongs to the Church and the centuries. There seem to have been embedded deep in his soul moral, spiritual and emotional quali- ties that suggest some of the varied natural beauties of the country which he loved and served. He possessed the rugged strength of the New England hills, the breadth and sweep of the Western prairies, the depth and flow of the Mississippi at flood, the majestic [232] The Faith and Its Leaders lift of the Eockies, the endless variety of the forests and the fields, the tender beauty of the flowers of spring. Beecher's chief source of power was his oratory, and to him it was ever a sacred thing. Whether he spoke in the quiet lecture room in his own church, or before the hissing, hoot- ing audiences that greeted him in England, the ability which he possessed to sway the hearts of men was in his mind a gift from God, and as such must be used only for the uplifting of humanity. Those who heard him speak felt this as they listened to the sen- tences that came from his lips. His words sometimes had in them the vividness of the lightning flash and the crack and peal of the thunder: again they pulsed with the tender- ness that can move to tears. The human soul was to Beecher an "in- strument of ten strings" from which it was his duty to bring forth the wondrous har- monies which it can produce only when in tune with the spirit of the Infinite. He knew the soul's humor and pathos, its fierce pas- sions and its gentle moods, and he applied himself with all his power of mind and heart to the mastery of this instrument. And such a mastery he gained ; for by a single touch he could evoke laughter or tears, remorse, sense of sin, consciousness of civic and religious duty, or imperial decision to action. His journey through England and Scotland dur- [ 233 ] The Pilgrim Faith, ing tlie Civil "War, when, day after day, he faced hostile crowds, was a triumphant march of oratory and persuasive power. England's whole attitude toward America and slavery was changed when he left her shores. But it was in his prayers that people felt that the great soul drew nearest to God. As Beecher prayed men caught new conceptions of life and its realities. It was as if he were a shepherd leading his sheep out into new pastures; leading them until they met the Great Shepherd and forgot the voice of their guide in their wonder at the kindness of His face and the sweetness of His tones. In Beecher 's prayers no one was forgotten; each hearer felt that his own peculiar needs and perplexities were shared by the great preacher. Old man and maiden, care-free child and tired mother, harassed business man and unworried youth — all could say, "the minister remembered me in his prayer this morning." And they published Beecher 's Sabbath prayers with his Sabbath sermons! Otherwise the sermons had been incomplete. But how tell in so brief a space of so great a man? From the time when he went to his first parish, the Presbyterian Church at Lau- renceburg, Indiana, until after completing his service in Indianapolis, he concluded his forty years of work at Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, he established a superb record of great things well done. He was at one time [234] The Faith and Its Leaders editor of the "Independent," and subse- quently founded and edited the "Christian Union," now "The Outlook." He was the champion of every great reform of his day. His principal books, besides his published sermons, are his "Yale Lectures on Preach- ing," and his "Life of Jesus the Christ." More than any other man of his time, per- haps, Beecher led the Church and the com- munity from a religion of obedience to exter- nal law to a life of spontaneous spirituality; from a religion that compelled men to fear God to one that permits men to love God. He made the atonement a thing to be wel- comed by the soul rather than a stern, dread necessity ; he taught folks to be at home with the Heavenly Father. Death came to Henry Ward Beecher while the tide of his power was at the full and it was preceded by no long sickness. On the last Sabbath of his ministry he lingered in the church as some members of the choir practiced Bonar's sweet hymn: "I heard the voice of Jesus say 'Come unto Me and rest.' " Two street urchins, attracted by the music, had entered the auditorium, and as the great preacher passed down the aisle he stooped and kissed their wondering faces. Then with an arm about each of the grimy young- sters he .went out into the night. [235] The Pilgrim Faith When the student of Congregational his- tory wishes to trace to their sources the many streams of influence, thought and action, that, coming together, have formed the Pilgrim Faith, he must turn to the works of Dr. Henry M. Dexter. And as he reads he will inevit- ably pay tribute to the scholarly accuracy and the painstaking care with which this writer has set down the obscure facts in the rise and the development of the denomination. Henry Martyn Dexter was bom on August 13, 1821, at Plympton, Massachusetts, a town- ship that formed a part of the old Plymouth Colony. Without doubt his early associa- tions with this place did much to kindle into flame his passion for historical research. At the age of nineteen he completed a course of study at Yale College and four years later he graduated from Andover Theological Semi- nary. He entered the Congregational min- istry as pastor at Manchester, New Hamp- shire, and after five years of service there he went to the Pine Street Church of Boston, now Berkeley Temple. His love of religious journalism led him, in 1851, to assume the editorship of "The Con- gregationalist, " which had been founded only two years before. The coming of Dr. Dexter brought strength and vigor to the paper, and under his hand it prospered. In 1867 it was consolidated with the "Boston Eecorder," the pioneer religious weekly of America. [236] The Faith and Its Leaders After the merging of the two journals Dr. Dexter resigned his pastorate in order that he might devote his entire time to Christian journalism. In November, 1858, Dr. Dexter, in conjunc- tion with Dr. Alonzo H. Quint and Joseph S. Clark, began the publication of a "Congre- gational Quarterly," devoted to Congrega- tional history, biography, statistical investi- gation and polity exposition. During its twenty years of existence this periodical never secured from the churches the support which it should have had but it proved itself one of the most important educational agen- cies of the denomination. Dr. Dexter 's writings include some twenty- five books and also numerous magazine arti- cles. His monumental work, "The Congre- gationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years," is a treasure house of facts regard- ing the early history of the Faith. The libra- ries of England and Holland were ran- sacked in the search for material for this book. His "Congregationalism: What It Is, Whence It Is and How It Works," is one of the ablest and most thorough expositions of the polity of the Pilgrim Faith. In 1876 he published "As to Eoger Williams," and in 1881, "The True Story of John Smyth," books that show most careful sifting of evi- dence regarding disputed passages in the his- tory of the Faith. His "Handbook of Con- [237] The Pilgrim Faith gregationalism, " is one of the most exten- sively-used compendiums of Congregational churoh government and organization. Some conception of the faithful and indefatigable industry in historic research which made Dr. Dexter an authority can be gained from a manuscript which was found after his death. It is headed "A Bibliography of the Church Struggle in England during the Sixteenth Century," and contains near 10,000 titles. Dr. Dexter 's own library, now in the posses- sion of Yale University, is the best collection of Congregational sources ever assembled by one individual. Dr. Dexter was more than a student, how- ever ; he was a man ever active in the affairs of the Church, and his voice was a power in the deliberations of the denomination. His large-hearted generosity and his charity to- ward those who held views that differed from his made his clear-sighted leadership wel- come. "He certainly, more than any other man," says Dr. Walker, "pointed out the line of development in polity actually taken by American Congregationalism from 1865 to the present day; and he deserves a high rank among those who are reckoned the for- mulators and developers of the Congrega- tional system." No name on the long roll of consecrated laymen who have given themselves with un- stinted loyalty to the ideals and the activity [238] The Faith and Its Leaders of the Pilgrim Faith stands out with greater luster than that of Hon, Alpheus Hardy. Mr. Hardy was born in Chatham, Massachu- setts, on November 1, 1815. It was not his privilege to attend any of the institutions of higher learning; his educa- tional training was confined for the most part to what he could gain in his native town. He possessed the true passion for knowledge and applied himself diligently in order that he might make the most of his opportunities. Compelled to turn aside from business for a time he seized the opportunity to seek more education at Phillips Academy, Andover. But this was a brief experience. In later years it was a matter of astonishment to those who were privileged to enter his library to note the wide range of his reading; there were few general subjects on which he was not informed. By trade Mr. Hardy was a merchant, and in his business career he was very successful. His wisdom and prudence were so highly ap- preciated that his aid was frequently sought in the management of great pecuniary trusts. In 1857 Mr. Hardy was chosen a corporate member of the American Board of Commis- sioners for Foreign Missions and at the same time was made a member of its Prudential Committee, a position which he held until the time of his death, August 7, 1887. In 1873 he became Chairman of this Committee, and [239] The Pilgrim Faith this office he held for thirteen years. His services were of the utmost value, for he was ready at any day or hour to give his time to the enterprises of the Board, and he brought to it his skill as a business man and financier. The field to which Mr. Hardy's thought and attention was most attracted was that of Japan. Upon one of his ships a Japanese boy found passage, and when the vessel reached Boston the lad, who had fled from his home in order to secure an education, was brought into Mr. Hardy's counting-room. In this runaway from Japan the merchant saw a great opportunity. He took him home and there trained him as carefully and tenderly as one might train a son. After giving the young foreigner the best education possible Mr. Hardy sent him back to Japan as a min- ister of Christ. This boy was Joseph Hardy Neesima, whose story has been briefly told in Chapter VIII. Mr. Hardy rendered service to the Faith also as trustee of Andover Theological Semi- nary and of Amherst College. These ten sketches have been given merely to furnish an idea of the wealth of biograph- ical material which is available to the student of the history of the Pilgrim Faith. Leaders of commanding power have guided the Con- gregational churches ever since the first con- gregation was organized on the shores of New England. [240] The Faith and Its Leaders There seems to be sometMng in the genius of Congregationalism that produces strong personalities. The very fact of independence and democracy in thought and life calls out personal power as a natural and inevitable corollary. Quite out of proportion to the size of the Congregational church and to its total membership has been the number of its pow- erful and conspicuous leaders. They have been men whose influence has extended far beyond denominational and credal limits; whose power for good has been exerted upon the higher life of humanity. And to Congre- gationalists it should be a matter of especial satisfaction that such men may be numbered among the sons of the Pilgrim Faith. [241] xn THE PILGEIM FAITH AND HUMAN BEOTHERHOOD XII THE PILGRIM FAITH AND HUMAN BEOTHERHOOD THE Congregationalists never have been mastered by so strong a consciousness of their own denominational worth and mis- sion that they have been led to overlook their fundamental relationships with the life of the entire world. They have, indeed, been criti- cised frequently on the ground that they have seemed to be so careless about the promotion of their own particular interests while re- sponding to the call for general moral and philanthropic work in some place outside of their own peculiar domain where brotherly service could be rendered. From the earliest days of colonial New England Congrega- tional ministers and laymen have given their time, their personal effort and their money unstintedly to every charitable cause, to every elevating moral movement and to every com- mon enterprise that has made for the highest welfare of men. It is impossible to enumerate the societies and other agencies of a benevolent and refor- mative character that have been organized, guided and supported by Congregationalists [245] The Pilgrim F aith in America during the last three hundred years. The charitable and corrective organi- zations of this country for more than two centuries generally established them- selves in New England, often originated there and naturally it was from Congregationalists that they secured money and members for their equipment and maintenance. The field in which the wider service of the Pilgrim Faith first appears is that of ministry to the poor — not only to those in Congrega- tional parishes, but also others who have been in economic or financial distress. In the changes that have taken place in the general methods of bestowing charity, the Congregational churches have been ready to cooperate with other philan- thropic agencies, and the result has been a lessening of distinctively denominational and ecclesiastical benevolence. Every church, however, still cares for cases of need among its own fellowship and none ever will entirely surrender this gracious work to other agencies so long as it remains loyal to the Apostolic idea of its function. No figures are at hand by which we may reckon the total scope of the gifts, financial and personal, through which the churches of the Pilgrim Faith have sought to relieve distress, thus carrying out the master's command that his followers shall minister in his name to every human need. [246] SAMUEL C. ARMSTRONG GEN. O. O. HOWARD HENRY WARD BEECHER AMORY H. BRADFORD WASHINGTON GLADDEN The F aith and Brotherhood Congregational pastors and laymen have been leaders in the association of charitable agencies and in the introduction of scientific methods into the conduct of organized benev- olent societies. There are innumerable cases in which the movements out of which have grown relief societies, organized charities, visiting nurses' associations and kindred organizations have begun in the pulpits of Congregational churches and have been given their initial development through the loyalty, the generosity and the enthusiasm of as- sembled congregations. The ministers rep- resenting the Pilgrim Faith have always been peculiarly sensitive to the appeal of brother- hood and to the call for humanitarian service. They have been "socially conscious" and have shown themselves ready to lead and work in all the enterprises that promote bet- ter community life. When we turn to more distinctly moral movements we find that men and women of the Pilgrim Faith in the United States have borne a commanding part in them. In the Colonial Period it was necessary to oppose the evil influences which entered into the popular life and the ministers and laymen of the churches at once assumed their place in the attack upon wrong. When the great anti- slavery struggle was reached it was the church people who stood behind the societies that sought to create public opinion against [247] The Pilgrim F aith human bondage, that published defenses of freedom, sent immigrants into Kansas, and prayed for the triumph of liberty. Abraham Lincoln stood on the rear platform of his rail- road car in SpringjSeld as he was about to set out for Washington and asked his friends and neighbors to pray for him. He knew that the prayers and the sympathies of Christian people were behind him as he went forth to assume his difficult duties at the capital. And during the years that followed the Con- gregationalists worked and prayed for free- dom and for Abraham Lincoln. In rescue missions and homes for wayward girls, men and women of the Pilgrim Faith are doing noble and rewarding work. One of them — and his service is representative — is Rev. Ernest A. Bell, of the Chicago Mid- night Mission. Night after night, in the most terrible section of that great city, he confronts the darkness with the call and chal- lenge of the radiant cross of Christ as he preaches and personally meets the destitute, discouraged and degenerate folk who assem- ble to hear. In the modern cause of "social service" Congregationalism has been represented ef- ficiently and honorably. The idea of the university settlement and social settlement originated in England in response to that higher culture which recog- nizes its obligation to serve those who do not [248] WIIJ.IAM E. liAltTOX RAVMOVn CALKIN'S WILLIAM W. MIIJ,S ARTUTJK II, WELLMAN NEUEMIAH liOYNTON UENHY II. KELSEY CHARLES S. XASIi FRANK KJMRALL HEMiV A. .-.TIMiON CIIAKLI':-; S. MILLS HENRY M. BF.ARDSLET EDWARD D. EATOX The Faith and Brotherhood enjoy its advantages. Since this conception has won a place in America men and women of the Pilgrim Faith have given themselves with sacrifice and devotion to the creation and the conduct of centers of goodwill and neigh- borliness in our large cities. Some devote their whc'e time and effort to this work, while others give frequently of their means for the uplift of communities through these agencies. The problem of settlements in our great centers of population is a complicated one. The influx of a babel of nationalities erects almost insurmountable barriers of language and custom ; there is a rude reversal of rela- tionships, parents becoming dependent upon their children as interpreters instead of themselves instructing and guiding the chil- dren; often fathers have to leave their city homes to seek work at some lumber camp or railway section, and in many cases families have been transplanted from out-of-door peasant life to crowded tenements knowing little or nothing of the principles of diet, sanitation, and general health or of the laws of the land to which they have come. Foremost among those who have come for- ward to aid in the solving of this involved and bewildering problem have been men and women of the Faith. In the early nineties Dr. Graham Taylor, at the conclusion of a devoted pastorate that had been unusually consecrated to the service of the common [249] The Pilgrim F aith people, found himself in the chair of Chris- tian Sociology at Chicago Theological Semi- nary. For his own better equipment and for the benefit of the students whom he was to send out into the ministry he desired a place where some of the millions who were coming to America could be studied and observed at first hand. Eev. Herman F. Hegner, a Con- gregational minister, had begun a work among the immigrants in a quiet way in an upper room at what was then 124 W. Erie St. Dr. Taylor became interested in this enter- prise, and the proposition was soon made that it be enlarged. The building in which the work was being done was part of an old German farmhouse, with broad verandas and large rooms. It had fallen into disuse and was out of repair, but was profusely in- habited; and many battles had to be fought by the newcomers besides the physically un- real one of winning their way into the hearts of the neighbors. For great gray rats, fear- less and impudent, stalked the halls, by day as well as by night; small brown creatures glided up and down the walls, and venerable roaches disputed inch by inch the territory which the intruders wished to occupy. That anyone in full possession of his facul- ties should wish to move into the neighbor- hood without hope of gain seemed inconceiv- able to the men who had charge of renting the place. Before they would grant a lease [250] The Faith and Brotherhood they propounded to Dr. Taylor a long list of questions ak to his aims and purposes and his hopes of temporal reward. The catechism concluded and the document signed, Dr. Tay- lor proceeded to develop his plan. During the year of its existence the Chi- cago Commons, as the new institution was called, has come to be a center of mental, moral and spiritual uplift not only to its own neighborhood but also to the city at large; and the work of Dr. Taylor has become known and honored around the world. Today the Commons has an average weekly attendance of about 4000. The list of clubs, societies, and classes that meet within its walls shows in how varied and vital a way it seeks to reach the needs of the community. There are kindergarten classes, classes in gymnastics, cooking, sewing, manual training, music, nature-study, metal work, pottery, basket- weaving, and dressmaking. Clubs for boys, girls, men and women, and societies for the study of literature, parliamentary law and dramatics, together with various organiza- tions of a purely social nature give the im- migrants opportunities for instruction, en- tertainment and fellowship. What has been said of Chicago Commons and its work might be said also of the South End House, originally called the Andover House, of Boston, Massachusetts. This in- stitution was established in 1891 by Profes- [ 251 ] The Pilgrim F aith sor William J. Tucker who was then in An- dover Theological Seminary. He called to- gether the younger alumni of the Seminary who lived near Boston and laid before them his plan for social service. The follow;ing year the House was opened and its work for the people of its community began. One of its most notable features is its careful and systematic investigation of social conditions and of the means employed for remedying the evils inherent in them. From these in- vestigations have come many valuable contri- butions to the sociological questions of the day. Neither the South End House nor Chicago Commons seeks in its ministry to the people to take the place of a church. Yet at both institutions the spirit of Christ is dominant in all the varied forms of activity, and in services of a religious nature effort is made to discuss only themes on which the opinion of the crowd will be united and to stop short of points that may cause division or disagree- ment. The final field in which we discover the out- standing service of the Pilgrim Faith to the highest interests of human brotherhood is that of foreign lands, where missionaries have vindicated their work by the wide range of the interests and relationships in which they are carrying it on. The whole conception of foreign missions [ 252 ] The Faith and Brotherhood lias changed within the last fifty years. The central aim has not been obscured or lost, but the scope has been immensely broadened. The fundamental purpose of foreign missions remains the preaching of the gospel to those who never heard its message. This is the evangelistic object, always central and never to be neglected or surrendered. But in addi- tion to this basic purpose there are now in- corporated in the foreign missionary pro- gram as essential parts of it educational, med- ical, literary and industrial departments. In developing these the Pilgrim Faith is render- ing noble service to the cause of human broth- erhood. When the basis of missionary work is made the loyal belief in the value and im- portance of the message of Christ and when also the betterment of the entire life of the people is comprehended in the missionary program then we have the ideal conception of Christian service. One of the secretaries of the American Board (a recognized authority in his field), has been most successful in pointing out the wider meanings of the foreign missionary enterprise. His recent book ^ ought to be read by the opponents as well as by the friends of missions. It describes what has been and is being done in many lines of ac- tivity by Christian workers abroad, in the ex- 1 James L. Barton, "Human Progress through Missions," 1912. [253] The Pilgrim F aith ploration of unknown lands, in the creation of written forms for language and the fur- nishing of literature to uncultured races, in education and industrial advance, in ministry to the body through medicine and surgery, in the creation of new social orders, in the break- ing down of barriers between nations and races and in the lifting of the level of national life. It is a record of achievement which thrills the reader with a sense of the universal worth and meaning of missionary work and makes him grow confident of the coming of the Kingdom. When Eugene Field wrote "Jest 'fore Christmas" he put the ordinary small boy's idea of the missionary into verse as follows : "Gran'ma says she hopes that when I get to be a man I'll be a missionarer like her oldest brother, Dan, As was et up by the cannibuls that lives on Ceylon's Isle, Where every prospeck pleases, an' only man is vile!" This was the conventional notion in the mind of every alert boy a generation ago. The missionary appeared to his imagination as a tall man, clad in a long black coat, who stood under a banyan tree with a hymn-book under his arm patiently waiting to accomplish his mission by becoming the willing victim of a cannibal feast. And this conception was shared to a great extent by the public at large. Now, however, this false idea has been en- tirely supplanted and we see the missionary [254] The Faith and Brotherhood as a man of affairs, sharing in the greatest' movements of life around the world and com- ing before emperors and kings to be decorated for distinguished service to their people. The representatives of the Pilgrim Faith have been conspicuous for the honors which they have received and for the good which they have accomplished in the great philan- thropic and social movements of foreign countries. "Seest thou a man diligent in business? He shall stand before kings." These words from the book of Proverbs came to Cyrus Hamlin as he was on his way to evening school in Portland in the days when he was struggling for an education. "Now," said he, ' ' that is not literally true. I am certainly 'diligent in business,' but I shall never stand before a king.'' Nineteen years later he stood and talked with Sultan Abdul Medjid in his palace on the Bosphorijs. The story of his battle to gain a foothold for his mission in Turkey is one of the thrill- ing tales of the Pilgrim Faith. But it was later — during the Crimean "War — that he first began to win the attention of the govern- ments of Europe. Thousands of British sol- diers were dying of neglect in the hospitals at Scutari, while those who survived were loathing the miserable sour bread that was given them. From the little bakery con- [255] The Pilgrim Faith neeted witli Ms mission Dr. Hamlin began sending them good bread. Before long tbe supply tbat lie fnrnislied amounted to 12,000 loaves daily. He next turned bis attention to wasbing soldiers' olotbing. Out of some beer casks be constructed washing machines, and from the profits of bis laundry business be built churches. When cholera broke out in the army he supplied a medicine, since known as "Hamlin Mixture," which cured many who were stricken. These were some of the deeds that brought Hamlin recognition and gained for him an audience with the ruler of the land. Eecently Turkey has honored Dr. F. D. Shepard, an American Board missionary, who, in 1910, was given the decoration of Mejidieb of the Third Class as an apprecia- tion of his long service for the people of Turkey, and particularly in. recognition of bis labors during the crisis in Cilieia. When, in the late nineties, India was devas- tated by plague and famine and the terror- stricken people wandered from place to place in search of food and help. Dr. Eobert A. Hume threw himself into the work of reliev- ing their sufferings. The news of the dis- tress of the thousands of starving folk was sent to America and "The Advance," "The Oongregationalist" and "The Christian Herald ' ' started relief funds. Dr. Hume was made Executive Secretary of the American [256] The Faith and Brotherhood Indian Belief Committee, the body to whose charge the administration of contributions was committed. His work in this capacity was so eflficient that it attracted the attention of the English Viceroy, who recommended him to the queen for the Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal, a mark of honor which is given only in recog- nition of especially distinguished public serv- ice. Dr. Hume is one of perhaps a dozen men who have received this medal. His decoration was made especially notable by the fact that it was one of the last acts of Queen Victoria. Since that time the British Government in India has seen in the services of Rev. John P. Jones, another missionary of the Pilgrim Faith, sufficient merit and distinction to ren- der him worthy of the great honor bestowed upon Hume. Among those missionaries who have ren- dered great service to the cause of world progress and have stood before Kings, Hon. Peter Parker of China holds a place of pre- eminence. He went to Canton in 1834 as a medical missionary and during his first six years of service, in spite of the bitter hostility shown by the Chinese, he treated over 12,000 cases of disease. In 1844 there came to Dr. Parker an urgent call to assist the United States Minister, Hon. Caleb Cushing, in nego- tiating a treaty with China, and he gave up his distinctly missionary work to become Sec- retary to the United States Legation. A [257] The Pilgrim F aith little later he was to become United States Commissioner to revise tlie treaty between this country and China. It was with reluctance that Dr. Parker re- tired from his work as a missionary to under- take services of diplomacy, but through them he was able to promote in a large way the cause to which he had devoted his life. In rearranging the treaty with China, Dr. Parker was able to open the Empire to the gospel message as well as to commerce and general civilization. Another man who, like Dr. Parker, worked in the great task of opening the Orient to the world was Dr. S. Wells Williams. In 1853 this Christian statesman left his field in China to accompany Commodore Perry as interpreter on the epoch-making expedition that resulted in the opening of the ports of Japan to American commerce and Ameri- can missionaries. In 1855 Dr. Williams became secretary and interpreter of the American Legation in Japan, and for twenty years he rendered distinguished service in this honorable position. During this time he was brought into intimate relations with the leading representatives of European na- tions and bore a hand in settling many ques- tions involving vital diplomatic interests. The Boxer uprising, with its terrible ex- periences and its long list of tragedies, brought to light many instances of heroic de- [258] The Faith and Brotherhood votion and able management of affairs on the part of men and women of the Pilgrim Faith ; but none of the missionaries rendered greater service than did Dr. "William Scott Ament. He himself narrowly escaped death, and after the outbreak had ceased, in the face of bitter criticism from those who did not un- derstand the conditions, he maintained a great work of relief and reconstruction. His service won the full approval not only of the Chinese officials, but also of the representa- tives of the foreign powers, with whom he was associated. He settled with such justice and mercy the cases of those who had claims for indemnity that he received from delighted clients — ^most of whom were not Christians — many presents of banners and umbrellas, which they gave him as expressions of their gratitude and confidence. These odd gifts lined the walls of the American chapel at Peking. "The Lady of the Lamp," as Florence Nightingale was called by the soldiers of the Crimea because of her night-long vigils among the sick and wounded found her count- erpart during the Chino-Japanese War in Miss Eliza Talcott of Japan. Miss Talcott was one of the first two workers sent to that country by the Woman's Board of Missions. When the War broke out and the military hospitals at Hiroshima became crowded with sufferers. Miss Talcott, then a woman of [259] The Pilgrim Faith threescore years, threw herself into the work of relief. Her gentleness, her unceasing de- votion, her skill in oaring for the sick and wounded and her tender words of sympathy and comfort won for her the title of "the Florence Nightingale of Japan." In 1909 the Emperor of Japan recognized the services of a man of the Pilgrim Faith when he conferred upon Dt. John Hyde De- Forest the Fourth Order of the Rising Sun. This decoration was given for the aid which Dr. DeForest had rendered among Japanese soldiers in Manchuria during the war with Eussia and for his relief work during the famine. He received also the highest honors in his own city, Sendai. One of the Japanese daily papers expressed the popular senti- ment with regard to Dr. DeForest when it said: "We extend to Dr. DeForest, our now national benefactor, warm welcome hands." Another distinguished name in the list of the men and women of the Pilgrim Faith who have received recognition for services outside of their distinctly missionary labors is that of Dr. John C. Berry. Under date of No- vember 9, 1912, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, Viscount Chinda, trans- mitted to Dr. Berry the information that the Emperor of Japan had been pleased to con- fer upon him "the Imperial Order of the [260] The F aith and Brotherhood Sacred Treasure of the Third Class, in recog- nition of your eminent and disinterested services, during your sojourn in Japan, look- ing to the promotion of her material well- being, notably your signal contribution to- wards the improvement of medical and sani- tary organizations and of the system of pris- ons, in which you have taken keen and kindly interest, to the grateful memory of the Japanese people." On May 16, 1913> Eev. Daniel Crosby Greene, D.D,, of Tokio, received the decora- tion of the Third Order of the Eising Sun, the highest mark of imperial esteem that can be conferred on a civilian residing in Japan. The honor was bestowed upon Dr. Greene for his ''valuable services in promoting interna- tional relations between Japan and America, and in introducing a knowledge of Japan to other countries while he has been engaged in the propagation of Christianity." In little parishes hidden among our far- sweeping hills or dotting our rolling prairies in the churches of the larger centers of the country and in great cities and distant out- posts in foreign lands the Pilgrim Faith is proving true to the Apostolic mission of serv- ing the nations. With faith and hope and courage the Congregationalists are following the light which their first pastor dared to trust and with broad Christian spirit they [261] The Pilgrim F aith unite in the unwavering belief that God "made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth." And in that belief they pray: "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven." [262] INDEX Abbott, Lyman, 198 Academy, The. 94 Advance, The, 199 Alaska, 124 Albany Council, 1852, 37, 38 Ament, Dr. William Scott, 259 American Board of Com- missioners for Foreign Missions, The, organ- ized, 153 American Home Missionary Society, The, organized, 112 American Missionary Asso- ciation, The, organized, 140 Andover House, 251 Angell, James B., 99 Anti-Slavery, 247 Arminianism, 176, 177 Armstrong, Gen. Samuel C, 95 Atkinson, Eev. George H., 92, 124 Atonement, 184 Austerfield, 212 Awakening, The Great, 43, 177 Awakening, The Second, 49 Bacon, Rev. David, 111 Bacon, Leonard, 197, 226-228 Baptists, etc.. Persecution of, 26 Barrow, Henry, 8, 9 Barton, James L., 253 Bay Psalm Book, 195, 196 Beecher, Henry Ward, 197, 199, 200, 232-235 [263] Bellamy, Joseph, 180, 181 Berry, Dr. John C, 260 Bible, Translated, 204-208 Bingham, Hiram. Jr.. 205 Boston, Fo.unding of, 23 Bradford History, The, 193, 194 Bradford, William, 10, 13, 212-215 Brainerd, David, 133, 134 Brewster, William, 10, 13, 212 Browne, Robert, 8 Bushnell, Horace, 187, 200, 223-226 Calvinism, 59, 175, 177, 181, 188 Carver, John, 13, 213 Channing, William E., 185 Charitable and Corrective Organizations, 246 Chicago Commons, 251 Clark, P. E., 56 Clark's Island, Pilgrims At, 3 Coan, Titus, 158 Congregational Church, The Pirst, 10 Congregationalist, The, 199 Connecticut Colony, 24 Connecticut, Constitution of 1639, 64 Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, 198 Connecticut, Missionary So- ciety of, 108, 110 Conversion, 176 Cotton, Rev. John, 65, 215 Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, 67 Index Dakotas, Mission to, 141 Dartmouth College, 83 De Forest, Dr. John H., 260 Denmark, Iowa, Ordination Service, 119, 154 Dexter, Henry Martyn, 192, 236-238 Doshisha, 164 Dwight, Prea. Timothy, 50, 197, 220-222 Education, 79 Education in Foreign Lands. 96 Edwards, Jonathan, 43, 47, 133, 177-180, 200-202, 218-220 Eliot, John, 129, 204 Emmons, Nathanael, 185 Evangelism, 42, 49 Finney, Charles G., 52, 85 Fiske, Eev. Pliny, 165. Foreign Missions, changed conception, 252 Foreign Missions, organ- ized, 151 Foster, Frank H., 173, 186 Fuller, Samuel, 13, 23 Gladden, Washington, 197 Goodell, William, 206 Greene, Eev. Daniel Crosby, 261 Greenwood, John, 8, 9 Griffin, Rev. E. D., 49 Half-Way Covenant, 176 Hall, Gordon, 154, 155, 205 Hamlin, Rev. Cyrus, 168, 255, 256 Hardy, Alpheus, 239, 240 Harvard College, 81 Hoar, George F., 193 Hobart, Rev. L. Smith, 114 Holland, Pilgrims in, 9, 11, 12 Holland, Reasons for Leav- ing, 41 Home Missionary Work, 34, 42, 108 Hooker, Eev. Thomas, 24, 62 Hopkins, Mark, 99 Hopkins, Samuel, 181, 182 Howard, Gen. Oliver 0., 145 Hume, Dr. Robert A., 256 Illinois Band, 113 Illinois College, 114 Illinois, First Congrega- tional Church, 38 Independent, The, 199 Indians, Attitude Toward, 42, 129 Infant Baptism, 176 Iowa, 68 Iowa Band, 70, 87, 116 Japan, 161 Jones, Rev. John P., 257 Judson, Adoniram, 153, 154 Kansas Band, 121 Kapiolani, 159 Laud, Archbishop, 30 Leyden, Pilgrims at, 11 Literature, The Faith in, 191 Lyon, Mary, 101 "Magnalia," 195, 217 Mason, Lowell, 197 Massachusetts Missionary Magazine, 198 Mather, Cotton, 195, 215- 218 Mayflower, The, 13, 22 Mayflower Compact, The, 60 Mayhew, Thomas, 132 Michigan Pioneers, 114 Michigan, University of, 91 Mills, Samuel J., 152, 156 Missionary Herald, The, 198 Missouri, First Congrega- tional Church, 120 Mohammedans, Missions among the, 165 [264] Index Moody, Dwight L., 53, 197 Morals, Decline in, 28 Nebraska, 122 Neesima, The Story of, 162 Negro, Attitude toward, 129, 143 Nettleton, Rev. Asahel, 51, 197 New Haven Colony, 24 Oberlin College, 83 Obookiah, Henry, 156 "Of Plymouth Plantation," 192 Ohio, First Congregational Church, 110 Ordinance of 1787. 66 Oregon, 92 Outlook, The. 199 Pacific, The, 199 Pacific University, 93 Palmer, Eev. Ray. 196 Park, Edwards A., 187, 229- 231 Parker, Peter, 257, 258 Pearsons, Dr. D. K., 101 Peet, Rev. Stephen, 115 Penry, John, 8, 9 Persecution by Pilgrims, 26 Phelps, Austin, 201 Phillips Academy, Andover, 98 Pierce, Eev. John D., 90 Pilgrim Faith, The, 14 Pilgrim Hymnal, The, 198 Pilgrim Polity. 16. 17 Pilgrim Theology, 15 Plan of Union, 32, 34, 110 Plymouth, Landing at, 14 Porter, Rev. Jeremiah, 113 Post, Rev. Truman M., 120 Pratt, Prof. Waldo S., 198 Presbyterians, Union with, 32 Puritan Immigration, 22 Puritan, Origin of the Name, 6 [265] Puritans Become Congrega- tional, 23 Revivals 1740, 43 Richards, Rev. Charles H., 198 Riggs, Elias, 207 Robert College, 168 Robinson, John, 10, 12 Salem Ordination Service, 154 Salter, Dr. William, 70 Sandwich Islands, Mission- ary Work in, 156 Saybrook Council, 27 Scrooby, Church at, 10 Separatists, Origin of the Name, 7 Sewall, Samuel, 194 Shepard, Dr. F. V.. 256 Social Settlements, 248-253 Soldiers, Revolutionary, from Congregational Churches, 31 South End House. 251 Spalding, Rev. H. H., 139 Standish, Miles. 13 Stockbridge Indians, 177 Stoddard, Rev. Solomon, 66, 176 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 197, 202 Synod of 1637, 1647 and 1708, 26. 27 Syrian Protestant College at Beirut. 169 Talcott, Miss Eliza, 259 Talladega College, 146 Taylor, Graham, 249-251 Taylor, Nathaniel W., 186 Taylor, Samuel H., 98 Theology, The New Eng- land, 173, 174, 175. 182, 183. 188 Treadwell, Governor John, 153 Turkey, Missions in, 165 Index Turner, Rev. Asa, 69 Uncle Tom'a Cabin, 202 Unitarians, 184 Universalism, 183 Vernon, Bev. Ambrose W., 198 Vote, The Eight to, 24 Ward, Joseph. 71. 86 Washington, Booker, T., 96 Westminster Confession, 33 Williams, Roger, 130 William S. Wells, 205, 258 Whitefield, George, 44 Whitman, Dr. Marcus, 123, 139 Wisconsin Home Missions, 115 Wise, Rev. John, "Vindica- tion of Churches," 28 Women, Education of, 101 Yale College, 50, 175 Yale College Founded, 82 Yale Washington Band, 124 [266] fyxntll %mvm^ ^x\ THE GIFT OF 2n.ys...'z^.3j^^^..^ rmg :::::::::: :::::::::::i Km^ts ^/x:/./ir. 3777