A CENTURY 
 
 OF 
 
 CONGREGATIONALISM 
 
 IN OHIO. 
 
 REV. DELAVAN L LEONARD, D. D. 
 
 1896. 
 
^-^^.^ 
 
 .^^^ 
 
 Cduittbta ©ntbersittp 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
1796 — 1896. 
 
 A CENTURY 
 
 OF 
 
 CONGREGATIONALISM 
 
 IN OHIO 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. DELAVAN L. LEONARD, D. D. 
 
 Prepared by request of the Executive Covimittee 
 
 of the 
 
 Ohio Home Missionary Society. 
 
 OBERLIN, o. 
 
PEARCE & RANDOLPH, 
 
 OBERLIN, O. 
 
 L5 5"Z 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 Preface jv 
 
 I. Congregational Principles I 
 
 II. Origin and History q 
 
 III. Evolution of Principles -j 
 
 IV. The Situation in 1796 12 
 
 V. The Genesis of Ohio 16 
 
 VI. The Days of the Pioneers 22 
 
 In Southeast Ohio 23 
 
 In Southwest and Central Ohio 25 
 
 On the Western Reserve . 
 
 29 
 
 In Newest Ohio ^2 
 
 Those Days of Homespun -54 
 
 VII. The Mischievous Plan of Union 35 
 
 How the Plan came to be. 
 
 37 
 
 The Workings of the Plan ^g 
 
 VIII. The Times of Tempest ^e 
 
 IX. Oberlin's Contribution eo 
 
 X. Phases of Early Religious Life 56 
 
 XL The Dawn of Better Days 6-3 
 
 XII. Our Welsh Churches. 
 
 74 
 
 XHI. Recent Development yg 
 
 XIV. What of the Second Century? 83 
 
 XV. How to make this Centenary Memorable 90 
 
 The Home Missionary Situation go 
 
 Our Four-Fold Work , 
 
 XVI. Statistical Table 
 Index 
 
 93 
 95 
 96 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 We cannot at all afford to suffer the anniversaries of great events to pass 
 by without careful observance. They bring so much of peculiar privilege and 
 opportunity, so much also of especial responsibility and obligation. It is the 
 part of the highest wisdom to use them to the utmost, both for instruction and 
 exhortation, for encouragement and warning. They supply fit occasions for 
 reminiscence and forecast, they help us so to sum up and set forth the past as to 
 send us forward v.ith new inspiration and added increments of spiritual power. 
 In particular this centennial year demands wide spread and varied celebration 
 in our churches. For it recalls one of the notable events in the progress of the 
 Kingdom of God in this land, and one of the most momentous in the history 
 of our denomination It not only marks the beginning of civilization^ of 
 democracy, of Christianity in the entire Northwest from Pennsylvania to the 
 Pacific, but it stands for the founding of the mother Congregational church in 
 a vast region which already contains fully half of our ecclesiastical inheritance. 
 Our center of population is steadily moving westward, is likely soon to cross 
 the Mississippi; and already not Boston, but Chicago is the metropolis of our 
 Zion. 
 
 With wise prescience, three years since our State Association began prep- 
 aration by choosing a committee to act with a similar committee appointed by 
 the Ohio Church History Society in preparing a suitable program for a cele- 
 bration worthy of the unique occasion. The result appeared a few days ago 
 when in Marietta, at a joint meeting of the two bodies, were read a noble list 
 of papers upon appropriate themes. Besides, at their meetings during the 
 weeks just preceding, the various local Conferences gave marked prominence 
 to centennial topics. In the meantime the Executive Committee of the Ohio 
 Home Missionary Society had been diligently considering how so " to keep 
 the feast" that a much needed quickening might come to our spiritual life as 
 a denomination, especially as touching zeal and giving and toil in behalf of ag- 
 gressive operations, and pushing of our ideas and principles in localities where 
 they are wholly unknown. It seemed to be every way desirable that from the 
 Association and the Conferences, to every church and congregation in the 
 state the inspiring and educating influences of the centenary should be car- 
 ried by addresses of various kinds, which should tell the story of our origin 
 and growth in this commonwealth, the experiences through whicli our fathers 
 passed, what achievemenis have been made, and what still remains to be done. 
 And to bring this desirable consummation to pass the more easily and effectu- 
 ally it was thought that an outline history of the century of Congregational- 
 ism in Ohio was a leal desideratiini. 
 
Preface. V 
 
 By a strange chance (providence, that is) in 1887-8, soon after his ar- 
 rival in the state, under the conscious impulse of nothing more definite than 
 a historic instinct, the writer had gone thoroughly over the field of our de- 
 nominational genesis and exodus in Ohio, consulting all the authorities, and 
 treasuring up the results in a mass of notes which were laid aside with no 
 thought of any further use. And lo, now the opportunity had come to put 
 them to service. The Executive Committee requested that this material be 
 arranged and prepared for publication, offering to secure the funds required 
 for printing outside of the treasury of the Home Missionary Society. These 
 pages are the outcome. But, though issued under such request and author- 
 ization, it should nevertheless be understood that the Committee are not in 
 the least responsible for the contents of this pamphlet. No word of sugges- 
 tion was ottered. The opinions and convictions expressed belong wholly to 
 the writer. Whatever faults appear are chargeable to him alone. It will also 
 doubtless be observed that what is here presented is not "pure" history, but 
 is rather history written with a purpose, or designed for a particular use. 
 While accuracy and judicial fairness have been carefully sought, the centen- 
 nial year was constantly in mind, and a style sermonic and even hortatory 
 was not deemed out of place, in order the more to stir the minds and hearts 
 of the reader to appreciate our ecclesiastical inheritance, and to love our prin- 
 ciples and fundamental ideas. And, since these pages are designed for the 
 people as well as for the pastors, it was not considered to be necessary always 
 to maintain a style dignified and stately. And finally, let it be remembered 
 that the work has been performed under the pressure of great haste. Should 
 inelegancies and infelicities of expression occasionally appear, or even inac- 
 curacies of statement, this fact may render them somewhat less blameworthy. 
 
 It would be a serious omission if two names in particular were not men- 
 tioned among efficient helpers in the performance of this labor of love. Pro- 
 fessor A. S. Root, librarian of Oberlin College, repeatedly offered fullest and 
 freest access to the ample literary treasures under his care, aiding materially 
 also in searching for stores of information hidden in divers obscure out-of-the 
 way places. And Dr. J. G. Fraser, whose mind, after ten years of observa- 
 tion and research as secretary of the Ohio Home Missionary Society, has be- 
 come a very thesaurus of accurate knowledge concerning the condition of 
 our Ohio Israel, upon the least hint of desire has poured out facts and figures 
 in lavishr abundance. 
 
 No attempt will be made to name all the authorities which contain the 
 material out of which a history of Congregationalism in Ohio must be fash- 
 ioned. Records of the older churches to the number of nearly two score 
 have been consulted, with historical addresses and church manuals in much 
 greater number. The files of the Ohio Observer and the Oberlin Evangelist 
 are indispensable to the historian, especially whenever he desires to behold 
 both the Oberlin and the anti-Oberlin side of things. Kennedy's Plan of 
 Union is a classic, only needing to be taken with the caustic pamphlet of 
 Pi"ofessor Henry Cowles written in reply. The Minutes of the Ohio State 
 
vi Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 Association are another rich mine of historical matter, as well as the records 
 of the Association of the Western Reserve, and of the Lorain County Asso- 
 ciation. The six volumes of papers published by the Ohio Church History 
 Society are filled with the annals of churches, conferences, and religious 
 movements, and cannot be spared. Punchard's History of Congregationalism 
 contains a valuable chapter (V ; 167-222), and Gillett's History of the Pres- 
 byterian Church (II ; 1 17-154). Walker's Creeds and Platforms of Congre- 
 gationalism, and his History of Congregationalism, are helps of great value, 
 as well as Dunning's Congregationalism in America. Besides these, the in- 
 vestigator needs to consult various articles published during the fifties and 
 sixties in the Congregational Quarterly, the Congregational Review, and the 
 New Englander. Nor must Moore's History of Huron Presbytery be passed 
 by, which, with fulness of information and a sufficiency of candor, gives the 
 Presbyterian view of the ecclesiastical happenings during the Times of Tem- 
 pest. D. L. L. 
 Oberlin, May 2^, iSgb. 
 
 Errata. By an unaccountable ovei'sight, on page 26 the date of the 
 founding of Austinburg Church is given as 1802, instead of 1801 as it should 
 be, and so in the same sentence the date of Hudson also is put one year too 
 late. 
 
 On page 28 Hartford Church among others is said to be extinct, whereas 
 it still survives, though under the name of Croton. 
 
A CENTURY OF 
 
 CONGREGATIONALISM IN OHIO. 
 i79e-i89e. 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 Congregationalism is the democratic form of church 
 order and government. It derives its name from the promi- 
 nence which it gives to the congregation of Christian be- 
 lievers. It vests all ecclesiastical power in the associated 
 brotherhood of each local church, as an independent body. 
 But at the same time it recognizes a sacred bond of fellow- 
 ship between these churches ; differing thus widely from In- 
 dependency, which so affirms the seat of ecclesiastical pow- 
 er to reside in the brotherhood as to ignore any check, even 
 of advice, upon its action. 
 
 FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION. 
 
 I. Any company of people believing themselves to be, 
 and publicly professing themselves to be Christians, asso- 
 ciated by voluntary compact, on gospel principles, for Chris- 
 tian work and worship, is a true church. 
 
 EQUAL MEMBERSHIP RIGHTS. 
 
 II. Every member of such a church has equal essen- 
 tial rights, powers and privileges with every other (even the 
 minister being not set to lord it over God's heritage) ; and 
 
2 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 the membership, by a majority vote, have the right and duty 
 of choosing all necessary officers, of admitting, dismissing 
 and disciplining their own members, and of transacting all 
 other appropriate business. 
 
 INDEPENDENT CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 
 
 III. Every such church is independent of any outward 
 jurisdiction and control, being answerable directly and only 
 to Christ, its head ; and every church is on a level of inher- 
 ent genuineness, dignity and authority with every other 
 church on earth. 
 
 FRATERNAL CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 IV. Intimate fellowship should be maintained among ^ 
 churches by means of conferences, associations, and the like ; 
 and when serious difficulties arise, or specially important 
 matters claim decision, the advice of other churches should 
 be sought in councils. 
 
 CONDITION OF MEMBERSHIP. 
 
 V. A credible profession of faith in Christ is held to 
 be the sole condition of membership and communion. Per- 
 fect agreement in details of doctrine and practice is not re- 
 quired, and while none but true Christians should be admit- 
 ted, it is not desired that any true Christian shall be ex- 
 cluded. 
 
 CHRISTIAN UNION. 
 
 VI. As a distinctive trait the Congregational system 
 exalts that which is more above that which is less import- 
 ant, and by the simplicity of its organization facilitates, in 
 communities where the population is limited, the union of 
 all true believers in one church. Desiring to be free from 
 any narrow sectarianism, and insisting upon no denomina- 
 tional peculiarities as the condition of membership, church 
 fellowship is offered to all who acknowledge Christ. 
 
Congregational Principles. 3 
 
 The following utterance of the National Council of Con- 
 gregational Churches held in 1895 ^^^^^ represents the convic- 
 tions and longings of the denomination : 
 
 We propose to other Protestant evangelical churches a union based on 
 I. The acceptance of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in- 
 spired by the Holy Ghost to be the only authoritative revelation of God to 
 man. 
 
 Z- Discipleship of Jesus Christ, the divine Lord and Savior and the 
 teacher of the world. 
 
 3. The Church of Christ, which is his body, whose great mission it is to 
 preach his gospel to the world. 
 
 4. Liberty of conscience in the interpretation of the Scriptures and in 
 the administration of the church. 
 
 Such an alliance of the churches should have regular meetings of their 
 representatives and should have for its objects among others : 
 
 1. Mutual acquaintance and fellowship. 
 
 2. Co-operation in foreign and domestic missions. 
 
 3. The prevention of rivalries between competing churches in the same 
 field. 
 
 And whereas it cannot be expected that there shall be a speedy corporate 
 union of the numerous bodies into which the Christian Church of our own 
 land is divided, we do, therefore, desire that their growing spiritual unity 
 should be made manifest by some form of federation, which shall express to 
 the world their common purpose and confession of faith in Jesus Christ, and 
 which shall have for its object to make visible their fellowship, to remove 
 misunderstandings and to aid their consultations in establishing the kingdom 
 of God in the world; and to this end we invite correspondence with other 
 Christian bodies. 
 
 These two additional statements present the same fund- 
 amental principles of this form of church polity in a more 
 popular way. The first one is borrowed from the Congrega- 
 tionalist Handbook for 1895, and answers the question, 
 For what does Congregationalism stand .^ 
 
 Perhaps the best Scripture motto for Congregationalism is the text: " One 
 is your Master, even f^hrist, and all ye are brethren." The basal principle 
 of our denominational polity is the absolute equality of all believers under 
 the headship of Jesus Christ. Our polity proceeds on the assumption that 
 when the Spirit of God touches a man, and he passes through that experience 
 termed the new birth, he at once takes his place beside his fellow-believers. 
 None of them has a right to lord it over him, nor he over them. To the end 
 of greater efficiency in carrying forward Christ's work, Congregationalists 
 
4 Coiigregationalisvi in Ohio. 
 
 may delegate to one or more of their number certain special functions, but the 
 power to select their officers and give them their proper functions rests with 
 the churches and not with any hierarchical or priestly order over the churches. 
 The minister gets whatever special standing and recognition he has from his 
 fellow-believers, who alone, we think, have a right to set apart to this office 
 those who seem to be called of God to serve their brethren in this way. As in- 
 dividual Christians inevitably gravitate together and form a local church, so 
 churches obey the same law and associate themselves in conferences and coun- 
 cils. But here again the paramount principle obtains. None of the associat- 
 ed churches has any prerogatives over the others. Deference may be and is 
 paid to the judgment and advice of the sister churches, but they have no pow- 
 er to order any particular course in the internal affairs of a local church. 
 
 At first it might seem as if the possession of such a measure of independ- 
 ence by every individual might lead to differences, and might militate against 
 good order and united action ; but as a matter of fact Congregationalists do 
 work together with as little friction and with as large results as are to be found 
 in any denomination. What saves them from disunion, both in the local 
 church and in their relations as churches, is the fact that every Congregation- 
 ist submits himself, or is supposed to submit himself, to the leadership of 
 Christ through his Spirit. 
 
 And the other, from the Advance Ahnanac for 1896, is 
 a setting forth of, Our PoHty : 
 
 Congregationalism is neither an experiment nor a spent force. It is a 
 living fact and a polity to be preached everywhere that the gospel is heard. 
 Its adherents believe in the new birth, and then in the fruits of rightousness. 
 They preach repentance toward God, and faith in his divine Son, Jesus Christ. 
 
 A Congregational church is a union church, associated with other union 
 churches. It is an independent church co-operating with other independent 
 churches. It is a kingdom within itself, acknowledging only Christ as Mas- 
 ter and Lord. It has just as many bishops as pastors. It recognizes no ec- 
 clesiastical government higher than that of the local church. It does not be- 
 lieve that Jesus Christ has a court on earth, either in synod or general assem- 
 bly. It believes that there is safety in a multitude of counsellors. It believes 
 in co-operation. It is one of the greatest missionary forces ; its members 
 giwQ n\o\t per capita to the spread of home and foreign missions than any 
 other people in the world. It is older than any other denomination. The 
 . Christian church was first Congregational, then Presbyterian, then Episcopal, 
 and then Papal. Congregationalism goes back to the beginning. It is not a 
 reformation only, it is a restoration — an ecclesiastical solvent among the oth- 
 er denominations. It is the solution, and the only solution, of the movement 
 among Christians who are tired of warring sects. It is a common denomi- 
 nator. It is not anchored to the past. It receives the Bible as the word of 
 God, recognizing the fact that its depth is not fathomed, nor its breadth mea- 
 
Origin and History. 5 
 
 sured, nor its height reached, but holding that there is more light to break 
 forth from it. It has a quick ear, a keen vision, and a ready hand for all good 
 work. The doctrines on which all evangelical denominations are agreed are 
 the ones on which Congregationalism insists. For the things about which 
 they differ it cares not at all. It is looking upward and forward, with "the 
 past unsighed for, and the future sure." 
 
 The religious belief of the Congregational churches is 
 expressed in the various creeds of the local organizations, 
 and also "for substance of doctrine", in the Westminster 
 Assembly's Confession, and other formulas more modern. 
 The Burial Hill Creed of 1865, and the Creed of 1883, are 
 very generally held in high esteem by American Congrega- 
 tionalists — both as being more catholic in spirit, and ex- 
 pressed in language more simple and less likel}^ to be mis- 
 understood. "But no one of these is received as universal- 
 ly binding on the conscience, or as the necessary test of fel- 
 lowship. The Scriptures alone occupy that position ; his 
 understanding of which each Christian minister is free to ex- 
 press in his own form of words, to the satisfaction of his 
 brethren." 
 
 ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 
 
 It is believed that the Congregational polity is the one 
 adopted by the apostles in organizing the primitive churches. 
 The New Testament never speaks of "the cliurch " as an 
 external, centralized body, embracing and ruling a number 
 of congregations. The word is used only to mean the gen- 
 eral company of all the redeemed, or a particular band of 
 believers in a particular place. Thus, it speaks not of the 
 church of Asia, but of " the churches of Asia," " the churches 
 of Judea," "the churches of Macedonia;" and of the par- 
 ticular bodies, "the church which was at Jerusalem," "the 
 church in the house", of Philemon, Nymphas, and others. 
 The working of these churches seems to have been Congre- 
 gational. The assembled brethren elected an apostle to fill 
 
6 Congj-egationalisvi in Ohio. 
 
 the place of Judas. (Acts 1:15-26.) The brotherhood at 
 Jerusalem chose seven deacons by ballot. (Acts 6:3-5.) 
 The church at Corinth was urged to discipline its refractory- 
 members. (I Cor. 5:1-7; 6:1-5.) The elders (or bishops) 
 are forbidden to exercise authority in the church. (I Pet. 
 
 5:3-) 
 
 This democratic system seems always to have prevailed 
 
 in apostolic times. Gieseler, an eminent historian, says, " the 
 new churches in Palestine firmed themselves after the pat- 
 tern of the mother church at Jerusalem." Mosheim, a noted 
 Lutheran writer, says, "the assembled people, therefore, 
 elected their own rulers and teachers, or by their free con- 
 sent received such as were nominated to them. They also, 
 by their suffrages, rejected or confirmed the laws that were 
 proposed by their rulers in their assemblies. Every individ- 
 ual church recognized itself as an independent community — 
 not recognizing any sort of external influence or authority." 
 The testimony of Neander is the same. 
 
 But in the latter part of the second century unchristian 
 dissensions arose among the clergy, and Jerome suggests 
 that an officer, called a bishop, was appointed to quell them. 
 New offices were then created. The road was open to am- 
 bition, and selfish men improved it; and the simple democ- 
 racy of the apostles soon degenerated into the oppressive 
 hierarchy of the Papacy. 
 
 As early as the twelfth century a little band known as 
 the Waldenses, in the Cottian Alps, resisted the invasions of 
 the Romish pov/er, and in spite of persecution, maintained 
 their simple methods. They claimed to have inherited their 
 religion from the primitive Christians. But with this excep- 
 tion, all Christendom was in bondage until the Reformation. 
 The right of private judgment was then asserted ; though 
 the simple organization of early days was not fully re-estab- 
 lished. But in England, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, a 
 Puritan party grew up in the church, unwilling to conform to 
 
Evohitioii of Pi-inciples. 7 
 
 what they considered idolatrous usages. Persecution follow- 
 ed, and some of them left the Establisiiment entirely and be- 
 came Separatists, while others adhered to it under protest, 
 and were called Nonconformists. 
 
 About the year 1600, some of the Puritans, driven by 
 their troubles "to see further into these things by the light 
 of the word of God," became convinced of the wide diver- 
 gence of all the hierarchies from the original simplicity of 
 the early churches, and resolved to return to the democratic 
 method of the apostles. They organized in Scrooby in 1606 
 the first Congregational church after the Reformation. Vio- 
 lent persecution bcfel them, and they fled to Amsterdam, in 
 Holland, with John Robinson, their pastor, one of the most 
 learned, sagacious and godly men of his time. After a year 
 they removed to Leyden, where they lived eleven years. But 
 it became evident that Holland was not the place for their 
 permanent home, and one division of the church embarked 
 in the Mayflower, and crossing the sea, landed on Plymouth 
 Rock, December 22, 1620, here to establish "a Church with- 
 out a bishop and a State without a king." This was the 
 first church in New England, and almost the first Protestant 
 church in the New World. It was more than eighty years 
 afterward that the first Presbyterian church was organized in 
 Philadelphia, and a hundred and fifty years later that the 
 first Methodist church was formed in New York city. 
 
 EVOLUTION OF PRINCIPLES. 
 
 In its deepest and most essential meaning Congrega- 
 tionalism has alwa}'s been synonymous with democrac}-, the 
 rule of the people in religious affairs, and including the three 
 prime factors, liberty, equality, fraternity. But in its histor- 
 ic development, the expression of these fundamentals in in- 
 dividual and corporate life, progress has been slow and pain- 
 
■8 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 ful, and has been achieved only through centuries of experi- 
 ment, blundering and costly failure. And, according to uni- 
 versal law, the ripest and best results are among the last to 
 make their advent. From the beginning until now this form 
 of church polity has suffered serious damage from evil envi- 
 ronment. To all appearance its spiritual ideas, its noble con- 
 ception of human nature as renewed and inspired by the Di- 
 vine Spirit, were utterly vanquished and annihilated by the 
 brute lorces dominant in the old Roman world, while later 
 followed the more hopeless violence and chaos resulting from 
 the irruption of the Barbarians. And again, when the day 
 of resurrection dawned, kingcraft and priestcraft were yet su- 
 preme, the prescription of monarchy, aristocracy, prelacy and 
 scholasticism extended to every realm, the individual had no 
 rights, the masses were but as cattle to be driven, or as chil- 
 dren to be fed and nourished, to receive commands and to 
 submit to discipline. Tremendous revolutions political, so- 
 cial, intellectual and religious ^vere required before this free 
 church order could enter fairly upon its beneficent career ; 
 the rough work of Cromwell and his Puritans, and even such 
 cataclysms as the French Revolution. The Anglo-Saxon 
 race was the divinely chosen instrument, at first with Great 
 Britain as the sublime theater, which later was transferred to 
 the New World, with the Declaration of Independence and 
 the setting up of the American Republic as necessary steps. 
 And even then democracy was scarcely more than an ideal, 
 a theory, a dream., and to many only a hateful dream. Fifty 
 years more were required before we possessed in the fullest 
 sense a government of the people, by the people and for the 
 people. 
 
 In particular, for more than two centuries after the Land-- 
 ing at Plymouth the genius of Congregationalism was se- 
 riously circumscribed and fettered. Its normal growth was 
 hindered, 9.nd lamentable deformity was produced by the co- 
 operation of various external forces. Such, for example, as 
 
Evolution of Principles. 9 
 
 the hardships and perils of life in the forest and upon the 
 frontier, with the dire accompaniment of frequent Indian 
 wars. The excitements, too, of the French War and of the 
 Revolution were demoralizing^ in the extreme. Then the 
 Puritan founders of New England were so false to the prin- 
 ciples of their polity, or were so deficient in spiritual knowl- 
 edge, as to feel constrained to lean upon the civil arm for 
 support, to look to legislatures and governors for defence 
 against heresy and moral laxity, to set magistrates to compel 
 observance of the Sabbath, attendance upon public worship 
 and payment of taxes for the support of the gospel. To be 
 sure, in this they were simply no wiser than their generation. 
 Church and state were united in all Protestant countries, even 
 in the American colonies with one or two exceptions. Only a 
 few Baptists, Quakers, and Separatists like the Pilgrim fathers 
 at Plymouth, had attained to ideas of toleration and liberty 
 which now are fast becoming universal. But this form of ty- 
 ranny re-acted to their serious spiritual detriment upon those 
 who gave it countenance, and besides drove thousands out 
 of the denomination by which it was inaugurated, as well as 
 led directly to the Half-way Covenant, whereby the churches 
 were filled with unregenerate persons, of which the outcome 
 was some generations of spiritual deadness, and a final wide- 
 spread lapse into Unitarianism. Closely allied with this sad 
 departure from the Christian way was another, that connect- 
 ed with the rigid rule of the clergy, especially in Connecti- 
 cut where they wielded wide authority through the consocia- 
 tion, or standing council. The churches must not be left to 
 themselves but must be regulated and held to righteousness 
 hy some higher ecclesiastical authority. 
 
 To these prolific sources of evil was added the sway 
 of a hyper-Calvinistic system of theology which landed 
 not a few in formalism and fatalism, and with the theocra- 
 cy became largely responsible for the entering in of Univer- 
 salism. Still another demoralizing tendency is seen in the 
 
10 Congregatio}ialism in Ohio. 
 
 fact that at first of necessity Congregationalism took mainly 
 the form of protest, and resistance, and rebellion as touch- 
 ing all attempts whether of kings or prelates to trespass up- 
 on reason and the moral sense. In the dire extremity they 
 would die sooner than obey and conform under compulsion, 
 even in matters non-essential and comparatively insignificant. 
 And so deadly was the strife, so severe were the sufferings 
 for generations, that fear of despotism became morbid, and 
 in order to make liberty ample and absolutely secure the 
 churches refused to unite for any purpose, and preferred iso- 
 lation with all its weakness and peril. The nineteenth cen- 
 tury was well started on its course before conferences and as- 
 sociations were fashioned with no object but to further un- 
 ion, fellowship, co-operation, spiritual quickening, and pledg- 
 ed one and all never in the least to essay the exercise of ec- 
 clesiastical authority. The fulness of religious freedom 
 was hastened in its coming when Congregationalism emerg- 
 ed from the narrow limits of the East, and entered upon its 
 magnificent career of helping to conquer for Christ the conti- 
 nental spaces of the Mississippi Valley and the Pacific Slope. 
 Properly with wonder do we dwell upon the Providence 
 which freed the Fathers from the thraldom of the Old World 
 and bestowed the matchless opportunities of the New, but 
 not so often and thoroughly do we appreciate the signifi- 
 cance to the denomination of the second migration, scarce- 
 ly inferior in importance to the first, which began with the 
 founding of the first church beyond the Alleghenies on the 
 borders of the Great West. 
 
 In spite of manifold drawbacks and some staggering 
 losses, Congregationalism has had a notable history, and has 
 attained to proportions by no means inconsiderable. In 1800 
 the number of churches was 850, and of members 100,000, 
 and fifty years later these had increased to 2,000 and 206,- 
 
Evolution of Principles. 1 1 
 
 ooo. The figures which follow set the growth of more re- 
 cent vears. 
 
 
 
 
 Church 
 
 In Sunday 
 
 Year. 
 
 Churches. 
 
 Ministers. 
 
 Members. 
 
 Schools. 
 
 1859 
 
 2,511 
 
 2,544 
 
 250,452 
 
 228,984 
 
 1864 
 
 2,667 
 
 2,798 
 
 262,649 
 
 277,398 
 
 1869 
 
 3.043 
 
 3,068 
 
 310,362 
 
 356,502 
 
 1874 
 
 3.403 
 
 3.278 
 
 330,391 
 
 385,338 
 
 1879 
 
 3.674 
 
 3.585 
 
 382,540 
 
 437.505 
 
 1884 
 
 4,092 
 
 3,889 
 
 401,549 
 
 478,357 
 
 18S9 
 
 4.689 
 
 4,640 
 
 491,985 
 
 610,227 
 
 1895 
 
 S.342 
 
 5.287 
 
 583.539 
 
 677,935 
 
 Following is the growth of thirty years, as shown by Secretary Hazea's 
 report to the National Council: When the Council met in Boston, in 1865, 
 it represented a constituency of 2,745 churches with a membership of 262,- 
 649 in 23 states and territories. It has made its way in the thirty years, in- 
 to 26 states, and is now at home in every state save Delaware, and every ter- 
 ritory except Alaska. It has added 2,597 churches to its roll, almost doubling 
 their number, and it has gained 322,890 in its membership, an increase of 
 more than 122 per cent. During the same time the population of the coun- 
 try has increased from a probable 35,000,000 in 1865, to a probable 69,000, - 
 000 in 1895, or 94 per cent, giving our churches a ratio of increase 28 per 
 cent, larger than that of the population with which we have to do. In the 
 West, California has multiplied its churches more than tenfold, from 19 to 
 196 ; Colorado from 3 to 57, Kansas from 32 to 187 ; Nebraska from 10 to 
 186 ; Oregon from 6 to 52 ; while in the four great states, which in 1865 had 
 not even a name, all are now represented ; Washington by 113 churches; the 
 Dakotas, North and South, by 224 and Oklahoma, youngest born of our sis- 
 ernood, by 63. 
 
 But not all who bear our denominational name are citi- 
 zens of the United States. For in the British Isles, known 
 as Independents, dwell almost as many more ; with many- 
 tens of thousands additional upon the Continent, in Austra- 
 lia, South Africa, and the Islands of the Sea. So that if all 
 these are included, the total would not fall much below i,- 
 400,000 communicants, representing a population of at least 
 7,000,000. But the fellowship of those who find warrant in 
 the Gospel for absolute freedom from clerical domination 
 and church judicatures, far surpasses such figures as these. 
 Thus there are the Baptists a great host, and the Disciples 
 
12 Congrcgationalisin in Ohio. 
 
 with nearly i ,000,000 members, and various smaller bodies. It 
 would be no exaggeration to put the number of those who 
 prefer the Congregational polity at 35,000.000. 
 
 THE SITUATION IN 1796. 
 
 As gazed upon through the long vista of intervening 
 years the date seems exceedingly remote, and especially if 
 we catch a glimpse of the astounding changes which during 
 the century have been wrought in every realm. We are car- 
 ried back to times that wear a look most ancient and prim- 
 itive. Though Columbus had been in his grave for three 
 hundred years, the world was as yet largely unknown. The 
 career of Captain Cook ended in 1779, and he it was who 
 revealed to human knowledge the myriad islands thick- 
 strewn through the vast spaces of the Pacific. It was only 
 in 1788 that "Botany Bay" in "New Holland" had been 
 made a dumping ground for criminals, while "Van Dieman's 
 Land" was occupied for the same purpose not until 1803. 
 For generations longer Africa was terra incognita. Great 
 Britain laid hands upon Cape Colony in 1795 and ownership 
 was made sure in 1806. It was between exactly the same 
 dates that Mungo Park, the first of African explorers, at the 
 cost of life was urging his way through swamps and forests 
 in search of the upper waters of the Niger, and Livingstone, 
 the greatest of these, was born in 181 3. The Bastile fell, 
 and the French Revolution began its course so terribly sub- 
 lime two years after by the Ordinance of '87 the Northwest 
 Territory was created, and only a twelvemonth before the 
 first settlers landed at the mouth of the Muskingum., to found 
 a city named in honor of the unfortunate Queen who five 
 years later met her bloody fate. The year from which this 
 Centennial is reckoned was marked also by Napoleon's first 
 brilliant and victorious campaign in Italy. 
 
TJic Situation in I7g6. 13 
 
 In our own country the period of infancy Avas not yet 
 passed. Just two decades before the Declaration was signed, 
 CornvvalHs surrendered in '81, the Confederation gave place 
 to the "more perfect Union" when General Putnam and his 
 companions were finishing their first winter in the wilderness 
 of Ohio. Detroit remained in British hands until the very 
 year under view. Washington was still President, with three 
 years of life remaining ; the city which bears his name was 
 not occupied as the Capital of the nation until the first year 
 of the new century. Vermont had been admitted to state- 
 hood in 1 79 1, Kentucky not many months after, while Ten- 
 nessee and the Marietta church came into being within a few 
 weeks of the same date, so that now the General Govern- 
 ment bore sway over sixteen commonwealths. But as yet 
 the entire Gulf coast and the whole region from the Missis- 
 sippi to the far Pacific coast was held by European powers. 
 Louisiana was Spanish soil until 1800, and in 1803 ^^'^^s pur- 
 chased by Jefferson from Napoleon ; and almost at once 
 Lewis and Clark were dispatched up the Missouri, across the 
 Rockies and down the Columbia to inspect the new posses- 
 sions. Florida was ceded in 18 19, while Texas was not an- 
 nexed till 1845. Of the first generation of statesmen Adams 
 and Jefferson survived nearly thirty years, and Madison and 
 Burr a decade longer. Of the second generation John Ouin- 
 cy Adams had attained to the age of twenty-nine, Clay was 
 now nineteen, while Benton, Calhoun, and Webster were 
 but lads of fourteen. The famous orations at Plymouth and 
 Bunker Hill belong away down in 1820 and 1825. Of course 
 the third generation of public men, who figured in the days 
 when slavery culminated in secession, were not born. No 
 more had any save the very eldest of that shining galaxy of 
 American writers as yet seen the light. Irving was now a 
 youth of thirteen. Cooper a lad of seven, and Bryant an in- 
 fant of two. 
 
 In the religious world in like manner all modern things 
 
14 Congycgationalisni in Ohio. 
 
 were either wholly unknown or else just beginning to appear. 
 Thus Carey's memorable sermon which resulted in the found- 
 ing of the first missionary society, was preached in '92, and 
 a year later he set sail for India. The century closed be- 
 fore his first convert was baptized. The Danish Lutheran 
 mission atTranquebar was established in 1706, with Schwartz 
 as its most eminent representative, who survived until '98, 
 and for some sixty years the Moravians had been sounding out 
 the Gospel in divers desolate regions ; but the heralds of the 
 Cross in the entire foreign field numbered but a score or two. 
 The London Missionary Society dates from '95, and while 
 the Marietta saints were covenanting together upon the 
 banks of the Ohio the first contingent sent out was in the 
 midst of a perilous voyage to the remote South Seas. The 
 English Church Missionary Society was organized in '99. To 
 conquer China for Christ, Morrison took his departure from 
 England in 1807, and Moffat for Africa in 18 18; but Fiji, the 
 spot on earth nearest to pandemonium and perdition, was 
 not entered with the Glad Tidings before 1835. In 1796 
 Mills was only sixteen and Judson a child of eight, and the 
 American Board had no existence for fourteen years. There 
 was no Presbyterian General Assembly before 1789. The 
 Congregationalists were divided by state lines, and when in 
 1798 the Connecticut saints began to be stirred with mission- 
 ary zeal in behalf of the new settlements they proceeded to 
 form a society which should be all their own, and their breth- 
 ren in Massachusetts did the same a year later. The Avieri- 
 can Board was the earliest of our organizations with a con- 
 stituency as extensive as the nation, was followed by the 
 American Education Society in 1815, by the Bible Society 
 in 1 8 16, the Sunday School Union in 1824, the Tract Socie- 
 ty in '25, and the Home Missionary Society in '26. Of all 
 these except the first named, the producing cause was the 
 astonishing emigration which, as the eighteenth century was 
 closing, began to set in towards the roomy recesses of the 
 
TJic Situation in ijg^. 1 5 
 
 Great West. And in all this unprecedented transfer of pop- 
 ulation the men and women who in 1788 fixed themselves 
 upon the Ohio Avere the illustrious pioneers. 
 
 Of course the Jesuits and other orders of the Roman 
 Catholic church had entered the Mississippi Valley centuries 
 before. As early as 1762 two Moravian missionaries to the 
 Indians had advanced as far westward as the upper Musking- 
 um, but were presently compelled to take their departure. 
 In 1772 Zeisberger, of the same choice spiritual fellowship, 
 founded a mission in what is now Tuscarawas county, and 
 for almost a decade labored among the Delawares with most 
 encouraging measures of success in souls redeemed and 
 helped well on toward Christian civilization. But in '81 the 
 prosperous settlements were broken up by the commandant 
 of the British forces at Detroit, and the people were exiled 
 to the Sandusky. Six months later, being at the point of 
 starvation, a large party returned to secure a store of corn 
 which had been left unharvested in the fields ; but while at 
 work were surprised by a company of frontiersmen from 
 Pittsburg, and nearly a hundred, including many women and 
 children, were ruthlessly butchered. The survivors with their 
 faithful pastor then sought safety in western Canada upon 
 the Thames. In '86 they started back to re-occupy their 
 former seats upon the Tuscarawas, but were turned aside to 
 the Huron and founded Salem where Milan stands to-day. 
 Five years later Zeisberger and his flock felt constrained once 
 more to escape deadly peril by flight to the Thames across 
 the lake. Finall}' in '98, two years after the Marietta church 
 was formed, the remnant is found less than seventy miles to 
 the north, occupying the 12,000 acres lying about Schon- 
 brunn and Gnadenhutten which Congress had granted them. 
 In 1808 the aged missionary passed to his reward after more 
 than seventy years of sorest travail. By 1824 the whites 
 had so crowded in on every side that the Indians were will- 
 
1 6 Congregationalisvi in Ohio. 
 
 ing to turn their backs upon Ohio and take their journey far 
 towards the setting sun. 
 
 The Presbyterians had begun to cross the mountains 
 even before the Revolution, and were now found not only in 
 Tennessee and Kentucky, but also in Western Pennsylvania, 
 especially in and about Pittsburg, and these latter were main- 
 ly of the sturdy Scotch-Irish stock. In 1781 Redstone Pres- 
 bytery was set up, which eight years later contained eight 
 ministers and upwards of thirty congregations. In 1793 
 Ohio Presbytery was formed from Redstone, extending to 
 Lake Erie and covering the frontier settlements in South- 
 eastern Ohio. But further, within a few years of the found- 
 ing of Marietta, settlers by the thousand floated down the 
 stream and located at various points upon the northern bank. 
 A Presbyterian church is found at Cincinnati as early as 
 1790, and a presbytery in '99. A Baptist church also was 
 gathered in 1790, and an association in '97. The pioneer 
 Methodist itinerant put in his appearance in 1798. Thus 
 the Congregationalists, though as individuals clearly first up- 
 on Ohio soil, were somewhat later than some of their breth- 
 ren in beginning to organize for the strengthening and en- 
 largement of the kingdom of God. From the first Sabbath 
 the Marietta disciples maintained religious services, and after 
 the first year were blessed with the services of a pastor, but 
 several settlements were combined in the congregations to 
 which he ministered, and the Indian wars which raged from 
 '91 to '95 put serious hindrances in the way of formal ec- 
 clesiastical beginnings. 
 
 THE GENESIS OF OHIO. 
 
 The Northwest was discovered by La Salle, Marquette 
 and their associates, and therefore the region lying between 
 the south shore of Lake Erie and the Ohio was claimed by 
 
The Genesis of Ohio. 17 
 
 France. It was held however not for purposes of settlement, 
 but only for the sake of traffic with the Indians. About the 
 middle of the eighteenth century English colonies from the 
 seaboard began to cross the Appalachians to explore, or 
 hunt, or in search of new homes. By the close of the Revo- 
 lution a considerable population was to be found in East 
 Tennessee and on the Cumberland, and in the Blue Grass 
 region of Kentucky made easily accessible from the east by 
 Cumberland Gap. Traders and explorers had also penetrat- 
 ed from Pennsylvania and Virginia to the Muskingum, the 
 Scioto and the Miamis. By 1752 the signs of British en- 
 croachment were so unmistakable that French troops were 
 sent from Canada, and forts were constructed at Erie, on 
 French Creek and at Pittsburg. It was to capture the latter 
 that Braddock set out upon his ill-starred expedition three 
 years later. But Ohio was meant for freedom and Protest- 
 antism, and when in 1759 the Latin was vanquished by the 
 Anglo-Saxon race on the Plains of Abraham, the happy con- 
 summation was made sure. 
 
 The upper valley of the Mississippi was now British terri- 
 tory, and it became American as a result of the Revolution, 
 For several years however the Federal Government was not 
 able to possess and control its own. Various states, under co- 
 lonial charters which gave them such colossal areas that the 
 Pacific was the boundary on the west, laid claim to the entire 
 northwest." But one after another they were persuaded to 
 surrender whatever rights they had. New York was the first 
 to yield in 1781. Three years afterward Virginia accepted the 
 
 *The generosity of King Charles II was so lavish that his charter for 
 Connecticut embraced all lands contained between the forty-first and forty- 
 second parallels north, and from Providence plantations on the east to the 
 South Sea on the west, with the exception of New York and Pennsylvania 
 colonies. In excuse for the pleasure-loving monarch it should be added that 
 according to tradition, when he inquired how far distant the ocean might be, 
 the cute Yankee petitioner made answer that some said its waves could be seen 
 from the tops of the highest hills I 
 
1 8 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 inevitable, reserving only the Military District lying between 
 the Little Miami and the Scioto, as a bounty for her sons who 
 had fought in the war for Independence. In 1785 Massachu- 
 setts also gave way, but Connecticut held out a year longer, 
 and then signed away all her western lands except a body of 
 3,800,000 acres located in the extreme northeast corner. This 
 tract constitutes the famous Western Reserve, which has 
 played such a magnificent part in the entire history of the 
 state. Its northern line was Lake Erie, and its southern line 
 was the forty-first degree of north latitude. The length 
 is one hundred and twenty miles from east to west, while 
 the width varies from sixty-eight miles on the Pennsylvania 
 border to about twenty-five in the western portion, with an 
 average of not far from fifty. 
 
 The French were dispossessed, and the British, and 
 Congress now has full control ; but behold, the Indians are 
 in occupancy everywhere, like the Delawares, Wyandots, 
 Ottawas, Chippewas, Mingoes and Shawanese, nor have they 
 the least intention of resigning these fertile valleys and these 
 choice hunting and fishing grounds at the bidding of the 
 whites. To be sure the Six Nations in 1784 by treaty at 
 Fort Stanwix relinquished their claims to the territory, and 
 the Ohio Indians were mistakenly supposed to have done 
 the same the year following at Fort Mcintosh. But when 
 in due season they beheld settlers by the thousand entering 
 from the east and south, these jealous and determined war- 
 riors were roused to indignation, and for the better part of a 
 decade made furious resistance to aggression with wholesale 
 fire and slaughter. They proved more than a match for two 
 armies sent against them, under the lead of Generals Har- 
 mar and St. Clair. Nor was it until after Wayne's over- 
 whelming victory at the battle of Fallen Timbers, near the 
 Rapids of the Maumee, in 1795, that the braves consented to 
 surrender all lands east of the Cu)^ahoga and the Tuscara- 
 was, as well as all south of a line drawn from a point on 
 
TJic Genesis of Ohio. 1 9 
 
 the latter stream near the boundary between Stark county 
 and Tuscarawas, westward to the portage between the Big 
 Miami and the Maumee. But ev^en yet well nigh a third of 
 the territory now included in the state was closed to settle- 
 ment, including half of the Western Reserve. In 1805 by 
 the treaty of Fort Industry this latter portion was transferred 
 to the whites. But it was not until 181 8 that the north- 
 western section of the state was wholly freed from aborigin- 
 al dominion, the Moravian Christian Delawares held their 
 reservation on the Muskingum until 1824 and it was as re- 
 cent as 1842 that the last tribe emigrated from Ohio to the 
 west. 
 
 The next step in order for the Government was to 
 open for settlement this imperial tract to which it had fallen 
 heir. In 1786 the task was undertaken by Thomas Hutch- 
 ins, the geographer of the United States. Seven ranges of 
 townships were ordered to be laid off, each six miles square. 
 Starting from the point where the Ohio riv.er crosses the 
 western boundary of Pennsylvania, in person he ran a line 
 westward, now known as the "Geographer's Line," over the 
 hills of Columbiana and Carroll counties, and forty-two miles 
 in length. At each mile a post was set and on each side 
 witness-trees were marked. Every six miles was a town cor- 
 ner. From these corners surveyors ran the meridian or range 
 lines south to the Ohio, and also the east and west town 
 lines. In '87 this land was offered for sale at auction, but 
 on account of Indian troubles and from other causes for 
 some years was not in great demand. In fact, two momen- 
 tous transactions were indispensable to the genesis of the 
 state which was to be ; the fashioning of the forces w^hich 
 were to lead to the founding of Marietta, and the sale by the 
 state of Connecticut of its lands on the Western Reserve. 
 New England had already begun to overflow at an astonish- 
 ing rate into eastern and central New York, and in the inter- 
 ests of Christianity and civilization was making ready to dis- 
 
20 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 patch thousands of her best sons and daughters to lay the 
 foundations of great commonwealths in the wilderness be- 
 yond the mountains. 
 
 In 1785 General Rufus Putnam had been appointed by 
 Congress one of the surveyors of the Seven Ranges, and had 
 sent forward General Benjamin Tupper to fill temporarily 
 his place. At the close of the first season the latter brought 
 back such an enthusiastic report of the country that in March 
 of the next year the Ohio Land Company, composed of of- 
 ficers and soldiers, was formed in Boston, with Putnam and 
 Rev. Manasseh Cutler among the directors, and a scheme to 
 purchase a large tract just west of the Seven Ranges, on the 
 Ohio, and on both sides of the Muskingum. It was near 
 the end of 1787 before the land was secured, and the pio- 
 neers were ready to begin their long journey through the 
 forests and over the Alleghenies to enter the land ot promise. 
 But this notable undertaking was curiously connected in va- 
 rious ways with a vastly greater one which Congress was con- 
 sidering during the same months ; to wit, the framing of an 
 ordinance for the government of the Northwest, of which 
 Ohio was to form a part. Various hands wrought upon this 
 immortal document, among them Jefferson, Nathan Dane, 
 Rufus King and Rev. Manasseh Cutler, and July 13 of '87 
 it became irrevocable law, and the whole vast region from 
 Pennsylvania to the Father of Waters was consecrated for- 
 ever to freedom, intelligence, morality and religion. It was 
 under such a celestial aegis that Putnam and his company of 
 forty-eight reached the Youghiogheny in February of '88, 
 constructed boats, naming one the Mayflower, descended 
 the Ohio, and April 7 stepped ashore at the mouth of the 
 Muskingum. 
 
 The second beginning, a hundred and fifty miles to the 
 north, and hard by the lake, was made later by nearly a de- 
 cade, but all things considered, was for Congregationalism 
 in Ohio and throughout the entire West, a vastly more sig- 
 
TJie Genesis of Ohio. 21 
 
 nificant event. In this from first to last Connecticut was the 
 chief instrumentality. In 1795 aland company, composed 
 of some three hundred and twenty of her most substantial 
 citizens, had purchased the Western Reserve of the state; 
 less 500,000 acres, constituting the "Fire Lands," which 
 had been bestowed upon citizens who had suffered from in- 
 cursions of the foe during the Revolution. The next year, 
 exactly a century since, Moses Cleaveland with a party of 
 fifty two persons, two of them women, set forth up the Mo- 
 hawk, along the southern shores of Lake Ontario and Lake 
 Erie, kept the Fourth of July in patriotic fashion at Con- 
 neaut, just inside of the boundaries of "New Connecticut," 
 pushed forward the survey for which they were sent, and by 
 the close of autumn had laid out a city at the mouth of the 
 Cuyahoga, whose population numbered but two families dur- 
 ing the months next ensuing. 
 
 In order to complete the setting forth of the non-re- 
 ligious aspects of the beginnings of our churches in the 
 state, it will suffice to add that about three months after the 
 nineteenth century company of Pilgrims landed from the 
 Mayflower upon the soil of Greater New England, General 
 St. Clair, the newly appointed governor, and the other of- 
 ficials, inaugurated the government of the Northwest Terri- 
 tory, with Fort Harmar for defence across the Muskingum 
 to the west. Not until 1799 did Ohio begin a separate ex- 
 istence, when a territorial legislature was elected and began 
 to frame statutes for the rapidly increasing population. In 
 1803 the boon of statehood was secured, with Chillicothe as 
 capital. In 18 16 the seat of government was transferred to 
 Columbus. It was a great event in Ohio when, in 181 1, the 
 first steamboat was built at Pittsburg ; and also when the 
 National Turnpike, begun at Cumberland, Md., in 1807, was 
 completed to Wheeling in 1820, and extended to Springfield 
 during the next fifteen years ; and a much greater when in 
 1825 the Erie Canal was opened, with a system of water- 
 
22 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 ways following hard after which gave this state several lines 
 of communication between the Lake and the River ; but 
 greatest of all when before the end of the thirties the rail- 
 road had entered. These figures will afford some idea of the 
 early development of our commonwealth. In the opening 
 year of the century the population numbered but 45,365, 
 which by 1810 had increased to 230,760; ten years later to 
 581,434; by 1830 to 937,903 ; and by the close of the next 
 decade to 1,519,467, only New York, Pennsylvania and Vir- 
 ginia now containing more inhabitants. In 1850 it had at- 
 tained to the third place, and held the same until the last 
 census, when through the enormous growth of its metropo- 
 lis, Illinois ascended to this place of honor. 
 
 THE DAYS OF THE PIONEERS. 
 
 It will be convenient to divide Congregational history 
 in Ohio into three periods ; the first covering about fifty 
 years, and extending to near the close of the fourth decade ; 
 the second including about half as many years, and ending 
 early in the sixties, which may be termed the days of dark- 
 ness, or the times of conflict and chaos for our Zion ; and 
 the last extending to the present, and characterized by a 
 steadily growing denominational consciousness and devel- 
 opment of organic life, as well as by a normal and remarka- 
 ble increase of numbers. And the task of reviewing the 
 story of the origin and early growth of our churches will, 
 perhaps, be better performed by making these topographi- 
 cal divisions ; the region lying adjacent to the mother set- 
 tlement ; the Cincinnati country, including other territory in 
 the interior; New Connecticut; and the northwest, which 
 was the latest to be redeemed from the rule of the red man 
 and the forest. 
 
The Days of the Pioneers: 23 
 
 I. IN southp:ast oiiio. 
 
 The founders of Marietta were wholly of sturdy Puri- 
 tan stock, though not all especially Christian either in char- 
 acter, or the motives which brought them so far from home 
 to lay foundations in the wilderness. But among them were 
 not a few possessed of strength of purpose, noble ambitions, 
 and large ideas of what institutions the new community 
 should create and cherish. Both learning and religion should 
 be held in honor. The first Sabbath was observed as a day 
 of rest, and July 1 5 Rev. Daniel Breck, a member of the 
 Ohio Company, being present, in a bower a general gather- 
 ing was held for public worship, made up in part from the 
 neighboring garrison, about three hundred in all. But in 
 March preceding a committee had been chosen "to consider 
 the expediency of employing some suitable person as a pub- 
 lic teacher at the settlement now making." At the same 
 time a plan was formed to secure money by subscription to 
 sustain churches and schools. Moreover (in those medieval 
 days state and church were still closely connected), it was re- 
 quired by the act of Congress under which the Company 
 held its lands that "section 29 should be given perpetually 
 for the support of religion." In August Dr. Cutler arrived 
 on a visit, and for four Sundays preached in a block house 
 on Campus Martins. General Parsons officiated on Thanks- 
 giving Day, and March 19 of '89 Daniel Story, a licentiate 
 from Boston was present, to begin a ministerial career which 
 lasted twelve years. This devoted servant of God, with 
 Joseph Badger, of whom mention will be made further on, 
 must be honored and revered as //^i' pioneer preachers of our 
 faith and order, when the heavenly spirit which inspired 
 Robinson, and Bradford, and Winslow, and Winthrop first 
 entered on its career of conquering for Christ the western 
 forests, the prairies, the Great Plains, and even to the Gol- 
 den Gate. His ordination for various reasons did not occur 
 
24 Congregationalisvi in Ohio. 
 
 until '98, to secure which he must needs make a journey to 
 Massachusetts. But meantime his energies were fully taxed 
 in ministering to the spiritual needs of his neighbors. Dur- 
 ing six years of hostilities with the Indians his lonely jour- 
 neys through the woods from hamlet to hamlet were made 
 often at the risk of his life. For nine long years the organ- 
 ization of a church was delayed, and then no council nearer 
 than the Hudson River was possible to extend the right 
 hand of fellowship. Some forty, men more than half of 
 them, entered into covenant, gathered from four communi- 
 ties, including Belpre twelve miles down the Ohio, Water- 
 ford about as far up the Muskingum, and Vienna, Va., and 
 €ach supplying a deacon. As the fashion then was in the 
 East, in 1801 a religious society was formed, one hundred 
 and twenty-seven male citizens signing the constitution. 
 Three years later Mr. Story resigned the pastorate and soon 
 died, worn out by the exposure and severe strain of frontier 
 life. Just before this the earliest of ecclesiastical troubles 
 and schisms befel, when certain disaffected spirits of Presby- 
 terian antecedents withdrew and brought into being a second 
 congregation. In 1805 Samuel P. Robbins became pastor 
 of the original church, and in May of 1809 a sanctuary cost- 
 ing $7,349,033 was finished and dedicated, which with thor- 
 ough repairs in 1836, and a much more extensive overhaul- 
 ing thirty years later, is doing good service to-day. 
 
 In the meantime population had been steadily pouring 
 into this portion of the state, but for the most part non- 
 Congregational in origin and sentiment, so that the mother 
 organization was long left almost without neighbors or fel- 
 lowship. It is true that a church is heard of as existing 
 early at McConnelsville on the Muskingum, and now the cap- 
 ital of Morgan county, as well as one still further up the 
 same stream at Springfield (Putnam), now the western part 
 of Zanesville, which after two years {ex msre patmni) was 
 merged in a Presbyterian church. In all seventeen churches 
 
TJic Days of tJic Pioneers. 25 
 
 which once existed within fifty miles of IMarietta leave only 
 their names behind. Moreover, in 179S a Rev. Lyman Potter 
 with his son-in-law had bought a tract of land on Mingo 
 Bottom, a short distance below Steubenville, and formed a 
 church thereabouts whose lease of life was also but brief. 
 As representing a cheering promise that sadly failed of fulfil- 
 ment, in 1809 the Muskingum Congregational Association 
 was organized by Messrs. Potter, Robbins of Marietta, and 
 Harris of Granville, Licking county. After seven years this 
 body, born prematurely, ceased to be. Such in brief is the 
 early stor}' of the polity we love in the southeastern section 
 of the state. Belpre became a distinct organization in 1827, 
 Harmar, across the river, dates from 1840, during the same 
 decade three others followed located not far away, and three 
 more in the fifties, with others sufficient to raise the num- 
 ber in Marietta Conference to thirteen, with a membership 
 of over 1,200. The I'irst Church has 408 members, and 
 Harmar 232. 
 
 11. SOUTHWEST AND CENTRAL. 
 
 The summer which followed the advent of the first set- 
 tlers to Marietta saw an excited and enthusiastic multitude 
 descending the Ohio, and fixing themselves at various points 
 which seemed attractive, even as far down as the fertile bot- 
 toms of the two Miamis. A few chose for a home the 
 site of the future Cincinnati. To these so many others were 
 added the year following, emigrants mainly from New Jer- 
 sey, that by 1790 the way was prepared for the organizatipn 
 of a Presbyterian church. But it was six years later before 
 anything occurred of especial pertinence to this history, and 
 in the self same famous year which our Centennial recalls, 
 when certain energetic, enterprising and godly Welshmen, 
 recently from North Wales, and Independents by strong con- 
 viction, began to gather hereabouts waiting for the lands to 
 be opened for occupation. Among them were Ezekiel Hughes 
 
26 Congregationalisvt in Ohio. 
 
 Edward Bebb, and two brothers, Morgan and William 
 Gwilyms. By 1801 they began to locate in various townships 
 near the line separating Hamilton county from Butler. For 
 the better part of a generation from time to time their num- 
 bers were increased by accessions, in part by families of New 
 England birth, but to a greater extent by immigration from 
 Wales, Yankees and Welsh easily meeting and co-operating 
 on the best of terms. After a year they began to receive 
 the ministrations of an English Congregational clergyman 
 from Cincinnati, Rev. J. W. Brown, who also organized them 
 in 1803 into the Whitewater Congregational Church, at Pad- 
 dy's Run. This was our fourth church west of the Alleghe- 
 nies, located in the extreme southwestern corner of civiliza- 
 tion, with Marietta more than three hundred miles up the 
 Ohio, Austinburg, formed in 1802, almost within sight of 
 Lake Erie in the remote northeast corner of the Western 
 Reserve, and Hudson dating from the year after. Only 
 dense and pathless forests lay between. Not many of our 
 churches have made a nobler record than this one. Educa- 
 tion has been looked after by a high school, a boarding 
 school, and library association, with the natural result seen in 
 the sending out of a succession of men to fill worthily im- 
 portant public stations. "These men and women were so 
 truly Christian and liberal in their views that they could 
 agree upon a confession of faith and rules of practice so 
 scriptural, and satisfactory, that from 1802 to 1878 there 
 had never been but one attempt, and that unsuccessful, to 
 form another evangelical church in that community." Nor 
 is it a slight honor and privilege that this body of disciples 
 by priority of origin, can rightly claim primacy among the 
 sisterhood of forty-two Welsh Congregational churches in 
 Ohio, and with two others as oldest of all such in the United 
 States. 
 
 For more than twenty-five years Paddy's Run was left 
 without neighbors, or until a church was organized at Mon- 
 
TJic Days of the Pioneers. 27 
 
 roe, Butler county, in 1829, though in 1822 one had been 
 formed nearly eighty miles to the east at Greenfield, High- 
 land county. In 1832 followed one in Storrs township, now 
 within the limits of Cincinnati. Though Vine St. Church 
 dates from 1831, it did not fully enter the Congregational 
 fold until fifteen years later. Lawrence Street Welsh was 
 added in 1840. In 1878, after diligent search through twenty 
 counties situated in the southwest, just twenty churches of 
 our order could be found, and of that number only about a 
 dozen survive to the present day, though new ones have taken 
 the places of some which have perished. 
 
 For various reasons one other name must be mentioned, 
 though in some respects it suggests matters tending to de- 
 nominational humiliation and sorrow. For striking, spectac- 
 ular entrance into history perhaps Granville, Licking county, 
 may vie with Marietta herself For in 1805 the church and 
 community were fashioned in Massachusetts and then trans- 
 ferred almost bodily to the wilds centralof Ohio. The Sci- 
 oto Land Company had made a purchase of 28,000 acres, 
 and persuaded some hundreds of substantial farmers to leave 
 behind all the accessories of civilized life, and take up the 
 rudimental task of felling the forests, breaking the soil, and 
 building all good institutions from the very foundations. 
 During the first year nearly two hundred and fifty of all ages 
 had accomplished the trying journey of forty or fifty days, 
 and were housed in log cabins. Of what excellent spiritual 
 stuff these colonists were made we find in the fact that on 
 the arrival of the foremost company at nightfall, no sooner 
 were the oxen unyoked than they were ready for public wor- 
 ship. The Sunday after, though no preacher was present to 
 lead, and though it was the middle of November, they ga- 
 ther about the stump of the first tree that had been cut on 
 the town plot to join in prayers offered and hear sermons 
 read by some of the abler of their number. This isolated 
 flock was left in the wilderness for three years without a 
 
2 8 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 shepherd, only visited several times by Rev. S. P. Robbins, 
 of Marietta, traveling over a dreary stretch of a hundred 
 miles, to marry, to baptize and to administer the communion. 
 In the spring of 1808 the Rev. Timothy Harris took up his 
 abode among them, remaining pastor for fourteen years. 
 From the log school-house the church graduated into a frame 
 structure in 18 10, and from this into a regular sanctuary of 
 goodly proportions supplied with porch, pews, galleries, 
 steeple and bell! The further story, though of thrilling in- 
 terest, must be passed by. Sui^ce it to say that all the good 
 things civil, social, intellectual and religious which New 
 England so abundantly produces, were here possessed and 
 diffused far abroad on every side. And it is therefore only 
 the more lamentable, and inconsequent, and utterly out of 
 place when, by a decisive vote of sixty-three to eleven, these 
 doughty sons and daughters of the Pilgrims turned their 
 backs upon their ecclesiastical ancestry and entered the Pres- 
 byterian fellowship ! ! 
 
 Around Granville, in the same county, about fifty years 
 since quite a cluster of Congregational churches were formed, 
 most of which have since perished. In 1839 Rev. Jacob 
 Little, nearly forty years pastor at Granville, wrote naming 
 these five in the order of their organization : St. Albans, 
 Hartford, Burlington, Bennington and McKean. In later 
 times all these, one after another, have disappeared from our 
 lists. Bnt over against this disheartening reminiscence it is 
 pleasant to recall that in the counties covering the central 
 portion of the state we now have two conferences, contain- 
 ing together more than forty churches, some of them among 
 our largest and most vigorous, which have not yet begun to 
 suspect that Congregationalism is other than most excellent 
 both in theory and practice, in principles, methods and re- 
 sults, upon the individual character, and upon society at 
 large. 
 
The Days of the Pioneers. 29 
 
 III. THE WESTERN RESERVE. 
 
 Though comprising no considerable portion of the area 
 of the state, this section for various cogent reasons de- 
 serves a prominent place in the history of Congregationalism 
 in Ohio. For outside of New England no region of equal ex- 
 tent can be named which so closely resembles New England 
 at so many characteristic points. The population to an un- 
 usual degree is homogeneous and of Puritan ancestry. Its 
 twelve counties hold three-fifths of the churches of our or- 
 der, and about one-half of the membership, leaving the mi- 
 nority thinly scattered abroad through the other seventy- six 
 counties. To make a comparison (not meant to be odious 
 in the least) with a denomination which in social, intellectu- 
 al and spiritual qualities most nearly resembles us, and with 
 which therefore we are most likely to come into competition, 
 on the Reserve, according to the census of 1890, we outnum- 
 ber the Presbyterians two to one in communicants, and in 
 churches three to one. In two counties no Presbyterian 
 church has an existence, and in each of three others but a 
 single one. The metropolitan city of northern Ohio stands 
 third in this country for the number of Congregational 
 churches, being surpassed only by Chicago and Boston. 
 The Reserve holds a village community of upwards of 4,000 
 and two Congregational churches, one ranking fifth for size 
 among our entire American sisterhood, and together having 
 a membership of over 2,000. 
 
 As we have seen, it is just a hundred years since the 
 first compan}' of emigrants from Connecticut crossed the 
 Pennsylvania border to build homes and open farms in this 
 the Jiltinia Thiile of the time. The Indian wars were but 
 recently closed, the distance from civilization was great, and 
 the task of making the journey tremendous, so that several 
 years passed before the settlers numbered more than a few 
 hundreds, while these were located in little groups separated 
 
30 Coiigregationalisni in Ohio. 
 
 by long stretches of pathless woods. The first missionary 
 who sought them out and began to hold religious services 
 was Rev. Joseph Badger, sent hither by the Connecticut 
 Missionary Society in 1800. For six }'cars this man of tru- 
 ly apostolic gifts and graces went back and forth, here and 
 there, wherever log cabins had been built, ministering with- 
 out stint to the spiritual needs of all. The first winter was 
 spent in and about Youngstown, Vienna, Hartford, Warren, 
 etc, in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, the next summer 
 he made his way as far west as Sandusky, and late in Octo- 
 ber organized the first Congregational church in "New Con- 
 necticut" at Austinburg. Early in September of 1802 
 another church followed at Hudson, some fifty miles away to 
 the southwest, and the next year two more, at Hartford and 
 Warren. In 1800, only 1,144 settlers were to be found east 
 of the Cuyahoga, while beyond that stream the Indians were 
 in full possession. At first Mr. Badger had only Rev. Wm. 
 Wick, a Presbyterian, for companion and fellow helper, but 
 late in 1801 came Rev. Ezekiel Chapman, to remain but a 
 twelvemonth, and in the autumn of 1803 Rev. Thomas Rob- 
 bins arrived. By 18 10 the population of the Reserve had in- 
 creased to 16,000, and the number of churches, counting only 
 those which remain to us, had increased to nine, organized in 
 the following order : Canfield, Burton, Aurora, Ham^pden, Ge- 
 neva and Tallmadge. In the meantime the precious Plan of 
 Union had been contrived and put into operation, whereby 
 the two denominations concerned went into partnership in 
 the matter of planting and watering religious institutions in 
 the nascent Great West. The Connecticut Missionary So- 
 ciety and the General Assembly were to co-operate in a way 
 strictly fraternal, and impartial, and unselfish for the greater 
 glory of God and well-being of men. But, unfortunately 
 for the furtherance of New England ecclesiastical ideas and 
 practices, it came to pass that during the six years preceding 
 18 12, the formative period of the infant organizations, while 
 
The Days of the Pioneers. 31 
 
 the missionary money was derived mainly from Connecticut, 
 the missionaries were ahnost wholly from Pennsylvania, so 
 conveniently near at hand, and made of sturdiest Scotch- 
 Irish Presbyterian stuff. The Presbyterian governing bodies 
 were also within delightfully easy reach, with demoralizing 
 results to Congregationalism, of which mention will be made 
 on later pages. 
 
 The second decade of the century brought re-inforce- 
 ments of ministers much more generally of New England 
 birth and training, and among them such honored names as 
 Thomas Barr, Harvey Coe, Joseph Treat, G. H. Cowles, 
 John Seward, Simeon Woodruff, William Hanford, Caleb 
 Pitkin, Luther Humphrey, Alvan Coe, Lot B. Sullivan and 
 Alfred PL Betts, who survived till the close of this primitive 
 period, wrought righteousness, endured hardness as good 
 soldiers, and made notable achievements in laying well the 
 foundations of the Kingdom. By 1810 the Reserve west of 
 the Cuyahoga was open for settlement, and population be- 
 gan to pour into the Firelands at the western extremity. 
 Entrance was becoming common by water from Buffalo, 
 thanks to the steamboat, and the Erie Canal was underway. 
 Of course the towns bordering on Lake Erie were easiest of 
 access, the several gravel ridges which parallel the lake 
 were highly prized and selected for occupation by the earli- 
 est comers, while the southern borders of the Reserve were 
 left as mere habitations for deer, bears and wild turkeys until 
 the thirties were at the doors. By 1820 the churches, 
 reckoning only those still on our rolls, had increased 
 from nine to forty-two. The first eight which belong to the 
 second decade are all east of the Cuyahoga: Painesville, 
 Rootstown, Charlestown, Windham, Mantua, Nelson, John- 
 sonville, and North Madison. Brecksville, across that stream, 
 follows in 1 8 16, and after West Williamsfield and Bristol- 
 ville, formed about the same time, come Lyme far west in 
 Huron county, and Lodi in Medina county, some forty miles 
 
32 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 back from the lake and on the divide beyond which the 
 streams flow to the Ohio. Others follow in this order : 
 Mesopotamia and Strongsville in the same year with the last 
 named, Atwater, Croton, Huntsburg, Richfield, Sheffield, 
 Vermillion and West Andover, all in 1818. During the next 
 year no less than eleven churches were organized, a number 
 surpassed only once, and in 1834 which gave origin to twelve. 
 These are their names : Brooklyn Village, Brunswick, Ches- 
 ter, Conneaut, Kent, Kirtland, Medina, Rock Creek, Fitch- 
 ville, Sandusky and Vermillion, the last three formed between 
 May 23 and June 10 by Rev. John Seward and Rev. Joseph 
 Treat, missionaries of the Connecticut Missionary Society, 
 while on a horseback tour through the almost uninhabited 
 woods of the extreme frontier. 
 
 Twenty-two churches date from the third decade, of 
 which Belpre, on the Ohio, is one, nine were located in the 
 western half of the Reserve, among them Elyria and Well- 
 ington, and twelve in the eastern half. The fourth decade 
 leads all others to date in our history, since it increased our 
 sisterhood by no less than thirty-eight, not all, however in the 
 region now specially under view. Those were booming 
 times for the state. The Erie Canal was completed, the 
 Ohio canal system was finished or well under wa)% the pop- 
 ulation advanced some 600,000, and the financial craze was 
 on which ended in the collapse of 1837. Cleveland First, 
 Mansfield and Oberlin began their career, while in the limit- 
 ed region now covered by Medina Conference no less than 
 ten churches were organized, and also the first one in the 
 Toledo region. Plain Church, located in Wood county, a few 
 miles from Bowling Green. 
 
 IV. IN NEWEST OHIO. 
 
 Although in this portion of the state fourteen of our 
 churches are located, and some of them take rank among 
 the first for size, financial ability and abundance of good 
 
TJie Days of the Pioneers. 33 
 
 works, yet a few words concerning them will well suffice 
 here, and indeed the events connected with their history be- 
 long almost altogether to a later period. As we have just 
 seen, the eldest of them all dates only from 1835, 'intl but a 
 few months since was celebrating its sixtieth anniversary. 
 When Marietta was making ready for her semi-centennial, 
 Toledo was just casting off her swaddling clothes, having 
 only in 1833 attained to a name. Seven years later her in- 
 habitants numbered no more than 1,224, ^^^d in 1850, 3,829 
 were the figures. In 1830 this newest Ohio contained eight 
 counties whose aggregate population was only 2,679, ^"^ av- 
 erage of 335, five of them having less than 300 each, and 
 one, Van Wert, only 49. By the end of the decade, how- 
 ever, the census showed an advance to 38,462, or more than 
 fourteen-fold. In order to explain this phenomenon it is 
 only necessary to recall such facts as these : Until 18 18 the 
 area now covered by more than twenty counties, and more 
 than 7,000 square miles in extent, or about one-sixth of the 
 entire state, was still owned and occupied by various Indian 
 tribes. Until after the peace of 181 5, Indian hostilities 
 were often threatened from this quarter. Then this same 
 frontier region held the flat, low-lying Black Swamp, of evil 
 name, about 120 miles by 40, nearly the size of Connecti- 
 cut, covering the valley of the lower Sandusky, of the Por- 
 tage, and the streams which flow into the Maumee from the 
 south, like the Auglaize. The forests were most dense and 
 shut out the sun, while during the bulk of the year the ooze 
 was so deep as to make travel impossible. Excepting cer- 
 tain roomy reservations, this section was open for settlement 
 in 1820, though the fifth decade of the century had arrived 
 before 700 Wyandots, the last remnant of the red men, took 
 their final departure. Still further, the financial crash of '37 
 delayed the beginning of rapid immigration. And finally, 
 the relative dearth of Congregational churches may be ex- 
 plained by suggesting that the pioneers of northwestern Ohio 
 
34 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 to a large extent were of German birth, or else of Teutonic 
 stock which, while en route for a terrestial paradise, halted 
 for some generations in Pennsylvania ; and that our eccles- 
 iastical fathers of fifty years since held religiously to the 
 idea that only New England Yankees were fit to possess the 
 church polity of the Pilgrims, and only such were thought 
 of as eligible to fellowship with us. Of our sixteen churches 
 composing the Toledo Conference five date from the forties ; 
 West Mill Grove having been organized in 1843, Sylvania 
 and Toledo First in the year following (the latter, though 
 Congregational always, yet reposing in the bosom of Pres- 
 bytery until within five years), Ridgeville Corners in 1846, 
 Toledo Second in 1849. 
 
 THOSE DAYS OF HOMESPUN. 
 
 It is next to impossible for us of this generation to re- 
 produce in imagination the environment, material and spirit- 
 ual, in the midst of which the men and women passed their 
 lives whose laborious, but exalted task it was to lay in this 
 great commonwealth the foundations of the Kingdom of 
 God. What exhausting toil, what endurance of evil, and 
 what deprivation of comfort and privilege. Dearth of re- 
 sources to the verge of poverty, loneliness and frequent 
 sickness, but the old home so far away. Let these few speci- 
 fications stand for the entire trying situation. The omni- 
 present forest, with wild game abounding. Roads scarcely 
 more than trails, or blazed paths, with travel on foot, on 
 horseback, or in ox-carts. To be sure, the canal v/as here 
 or soon to arrive, and the locomotive was actually tugging 
 and screaming over twelve miles of railway. The rude log 
 cabin universal, v,4iether for dwelling, school or place of wor- 
 ship, and the fireplace the only resource for heat. And this 
 other fact : throughout all these 40,000 square miles of fron- 
 tier territory the population was next to wholly rural, and ple- 
 beian, and provincial down to the end of the thirties. Of 
 
The Mischievous Plan of Union. 35 
 
 cities there were next to none, while the villages of any con- 
 siderable size were few and far between. Cincinnati was the 
 proud Queen City of the West, boasting of 29,000 in '30, 
 and of 35,000 in '37, Next came Cleveland, but with a vast 
 space between, mustering a brave 500 at the end of a gener- 
 ation after the first settler arrived, doubling that figure by 
 1830, and fifty years after the birth of Marietta becoming 
 the lordly possessor of 7,000. Columbus was incorporated 
 in 1834, and three years after had 5,000 inhabitants. Day- 
 ton followed with 4,000, Mansfield, with 350 houses, had 
 reached 2,000, thus standing on a par with Toledo (!). 
 Within the limits of Akron dwelt i,6oo, Marietta's popula- 
 tion of 1,200 dwelt in 180 houses, Elyria was "safely esti- 
 mated" at 700, in 80-100 dwellings, Ashtabula at 600, while 
 Medina is credited with 50 families, and 20-30 edifices loom- 
 ing up in the near future. Such was the Ohio of about six- 
 ty years ago. 
 
 THE MISCHIEVOUS PLAN OF UNION. 
 
 We come now to the consideration of an event, a trans- 
 action, which to Congregationalism is of nothing less than 
 first-class importance, and whether for the variety, the ex- 
 tent, or the permanence of the results produced. And un- 
 fortunately for our Israel the outcome was mainly evil. 
 Nor was the damage confined to this state, but extended far 
 beyond our border, and appears especially in New York, 
 Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin."' By the time churches 
 began to spring up in the trans-Mississippi region the evils 
 of the Plan had become so patent and so past endurance 
 that its provisions were left in innocuous desuetude by those 
 
 *Tha case of Wisconsin was peculiar. The attempt was made there, not 
 to amalgamate the two denomiisations concerned, but only to place them in 
 fraternal conjunction and fellowship in a stale Presbyterian-and-Congrega- 
 itonal Convention. 
 
36 Congregationalisni in Ohio. 
 
 whose ecclesiastical goings forth were from Plymouth Rock. 
 The famous document follows, which stands, not indeed for 
 the "first disobedience" of the remarkably wise and good 
 New England Puritans, nor quite the cause of " all our 
 woe," but certainly was attended by the loss of our Eden in 
 the older Northern States : 
 
 "A Plan of Union between Presbyterians and Congregationalists in the 
 New Settlements, adopted in iSoi. 
 
 'Regulations adopted by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
 Church in America, and by the General Association of the State of Connecti- 
 cut (provided said Association agree to them), with a view to prevent aliena- 
 tion and promote union and harmony in those new settlements which are 
 composed of inhabitants from those bodies. 
 
 1. It is strictly enjoined on all their missionaries to the new settlements, 
 to endeavor, by all proper means, to promote mutual forbearance and ac- 
 commodation, between those inhabitants of the new settlements who hold the 
 Presbyterian and those who hold the Congregational form of church govern- 
 ment. 
 
 2. If in the new settlements, any church of the Congregational order 
 shall settle a minister of the Presbyterian order, that church may, if they 
 choose, still conduct their discipline according to Congregational principles, 
 settling their difficulties among themselves, or by a council mutually agreed 
 upon for that purpose But if any difficulty shall exist betw.;en the minister 
 and the church, or any member of it, it shall be referred to the presbytery to 
 which the minister shall belong, provided both parties agree to it ; if not, to 
 a council consisting of an equal number of Presbyterians and Congregation- 
 alists, agreed upon by both parties. 
 
 3. If a Presbyterian Church shall settle a minister of Congregational 
 principles, that church may still conduct their discipline according to Presby- 
 terian principles ; excepting that if a difficulty arise between him and his 
 church, or any member of it, the cause shall be tried by the Association, to 
 which the said minister shall belong, provided both parties agree to it; other- 
 wise by a council, one-half Congregationalists and the other half Presbyter- 
 ians, mutually agreed on by the parties. 
 
 4. If any congregation consist partly of those who hold the Congrega- 
 tional form of discipline, and partly of those who hold the Presbyterian form ; 
 we recommend to both parties, that this be no obstruction to their uniting in 
 one church and settling a minister; and that in this case, the church choose 
 a standing committee from the communicants of said church, whose business 
 it shall be, to call to account every member of the church, who shall conduct 
 himself inconsistently with the laws of Christianity, and to give judgment on 
 such conduct, and if the person condemned by their judgment be a Presby- 
 terian, he shall have liberty to appeal to the presbytery; if a Congregational- 
 
The MiscJiicvojis Plan of Union. 37 
 
 ist, he shall have liberty to appeal to the body of the male communicants of 
 the church. In the former case, the determination of the presbytery shall 
 be final, unless the church consent to a further appeal to the synod, or to the 
 General Assembly ; and in the latter case, if the party condemned, shall wish 
 for a trial by a mutual council, the cause shall be referred to such council. 
 And provided the said standing committee of any church shall depute one of 
 themselves to attend the presbytery, he may have the same right to sit and 
 act in the presbytery, as a ruling elder of the Presbyterian Church.'" 
 
 now THE PLAN CA.ME TO BE. 
 
 Of course, this well meant, but exceedingly ill-advised, 
 scheme for Christian union and co-operation did not spring 
 up by accident and of a sudden, but was rather the last step 
 in a series of causal forces. For example, in that generation 
 a quite general movement was in progress, both in the New 
 World and in the Old, looking to the intimate affiliation of 
 sundry Protestant bodies in various forms of missionary work 
 at home and abroad. The London Missionary Society, formed 
 in 1795, at first included Churchmen, Wesleyans, Presb}-teri- 
 ans and Independents. When all these came together in a 
 great assembly and found themselves of one heart and mind, 
 the spectacle was so novel and inspiring that the tide of no- 
 ble enthusiasm rose and swelled and overflowed, and one 
 brother in his ecstasy declared that the funeral of bigotry was 
 being celebrated then and there! On this side of the Atlan- 
 tic the American Board and a half score of union societies 
 were another portion of the outcome. But as far back as 
 1774, Ezra Stiles and Samuel Hopkins, New England Con- 
 gregationalists both, laid before the Synod of New York 
 and the Scottish General Assembly a proposition looking to 
 co-operation in sending certain missionaries to Africa, which 
 but for the Revolution would have been adopted. Then fur- 
 ther, the two denominations, dwelling side by side in several of 
 the colonies, had discovered that at various points they had 
 much in common. Some years before they had entered into 
 friendly ecclesiastical intercourse, which had now developed 
 
38 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 to such an extent that delegates appointed by cither to visit 
 the gatherings of the other were received to full member- 
 ship even to voting pozoer. Besides, of late in the presence 
 of antagonists dreaded by both, to wit, Episcopacy and Uni- 
 tarianism, they had come closer together for mutual defence. 
 And, what constitutes the feature of their case for which 
 they ought to have been most ashamed, the Connecticut 
 saints of that time, under the Standing Order and the Say- 
 brook Platform had lost all faith in the fitness of the com- 
 mon people in the churches to think and decide for them- 
 selves, and hence a demand that a "strong government" 
 must be maintained through consociations and the dominance 
 of the clergy. In other words, the Congregationalists who 
 helped to father the Plan were themselves semi-Presbyterian. 
 In 1799 a part of them had as good as renounced the Con- 
 gregational name. Even to this day in some quarters of 
 Connecticut our churches are commonly known as Presby- 
 terian. And right here lies the very head and front of their 
 offending, that they were false to the fundamental principles 
 of their church polity. 
 
 In excuse for the part played in this lamentable affair by 
 the General Association it should be remembered that when 
 missionary zeal took shape in the provisions of the Plan, this 
 phase of evangelizing effort was yet in its infancy. Vermont 
 and Eastern New York had but just begun to cry for help. 
 The need of raising money and sending men to the frontier had 
 suddenly risen to proportions unanticipated and appalling. 
 There were no adequate precedents to guide in the most 
 pressing emergency. Something must be done, and that 
 quickly, for the thousands of their kindred perishing in spir- 
 itual destitution in the wilderness. Under the circumstances 
 it could hardly be expected that they should plan calmly 
 and with the prescience of statesmen. Their gaze, not 
 strangely, was fixed upon the mere present and the immedi- 
 ate future. What marvels of growth and achievement the 
 
The Mischia'ous Plan of Union. 39 
 
 closing decade of the nineteenth century was destined to be- 
 hold throughout the imperial area of our Republic was hid- 
 den wholly from their gaze, just as it was also from that of 
 the most sagacious and far-seeing of their contemporaries. 
 When Jefferson could afllrm that the space between the At- 
 lantic and the Mississippi would doubtless afford ample room 
 for all our population for at least five hnndrcd years, we need 
 not be surprised that the plain preachers and laymen who 
 united to fashion a plan for the conduct of home missions, 
 set one on foot which while well enough for days of pioneer- 
 ing, with settlements small and scattered, the population 
 limited and removed but a step from poverty, would utterly 
 break down and work grievous mischief when communities 
 large and strong had come into existence. But all the same, 
 the fathers ate sour grapes and the children's teeth were set 
 on edge. The iniquity (blunder, that is, so colossal as al- 
 most to constitute a crime) of the fathers is visited upon the 
 children unto the third and fourth generation. The final 
 suggestion is that neither one of the high contracting parties 
 to the Plan of Union had as yet attained to any considera- 
 ble degree of forceful and aggressive denominational con- 
 sciousness. Connecticut Congregationalists were acting only 
 for themselves. For yet fifty years there was no American 
 Congregationalism. And until 1789 Presbyterianism had 
 not advanced beyond the local and provincial stage of the 
 synod and the presbytery. 
 
 THE WORKINGS OF THE PLAN. 
 
 When the pioneers entered northern Ohio, with few ex- 
 ceptions only two religious classes were represented. Some 
 had emigrated from Pennsylvania, so close at hand, who 
 were Presbyterians and of Scotch-Irish descent. As a mat- 
 ter of course, when in communities composed wholly or 
 mainly of these, churches were organized, the majority 
 shaped the polity according to Presbyterian rules and were 
 
40 Coiigrcgationalisvi in Ohio. 
 
 duly provided with ruling elders, session, etc. Of this ec- 
 clesiastical type the Youngstovvn church was the first speci- 
 men and, by a few months, seems to have antedated our 
 Austinburg organization. But in almost all quarters of the 
 Reserve the case was different. The population was derived 
 mainly from Connecticut or her neighbor states, so that no 
 doubt of those who sought church fellowship, with occasion- 
 al exceptions, from three-fifths to four-fifths were Congrega- 
 tional in sentiment. Therefore naturally it came to pass that 
 in many cases churches were formed upon purely democratic 
 principles, with all authority lodged in the body of the broth- 
 erhood, and all important questions settled in public by 
 discussion and a majority vote. But just about as often it 
 occurred that preference and conviction as to church govern- 
 ment were found widely divergent in the same company of 
 disciples. The number of Pennamites and of Pilgrims might 
 be nearly equal, or on the one side was the heavier vote, 
 while on the other were a few determined and persistent 
 spirits who would scheme day and night to have things ec- 
 clesiastical fashioned according to their ideas. As a result 
 of this condition which occurred in scores of cases, divers 
 compromises were contrived which resulted in a class of 
 churches neither Congregational nor Presbyterian in form, 
 but a mixture of both. Here evidently, with human nature 
 as commonly constituted, were supplied in rich abundance 
 opportunity and provocation for endless debate and unseem- 
 ly strife. The mere denominational name was something of 
 importance. Now ruling elders would be appointed and or- 
 dained, or a standing committee to rule with the pastor, and 
 later after long agitation and much bitter feeling, a revolu- 
 tion would occur with only plain deacons to care for the 
 spiritualities. Several churches can be named v\'hich changed 
 their internal polity a half dozen times in a generation and 
 in the end were found in an almost hopeless state of ex- 
 .haustion. 
 
The Mtschiivoiis Plan of Union. 41 
 
 Then it soon became e\-ident that some form of asso- 
 ciation must be provided, both for fellowship and for co-op- 
 eration in good works. The Plan in anticipation of this 
 need made express mention of such bodies as both parties 
 to the contract were familiar with. A majority of the male 
 members should vote to be "under the care" of either 
 Presbytery or Association. But, behold! while the latter 
 were far away in the liast and over the Allcghenies, the 
 former were standing with open doors just across the Penn- 
 sylvania line, with bounds able to hold the entire Northwest 
 if need be ! Redstone Presbytery was created in 1781, from 
 it the northern portion was separated in 1793, forming Ohio 
 Presbyter}', out of which also Erie Presbytery was carved in 
 1 80 1 with Eastern Ohio under its jurisdiction. Hartford 
 Presbytery followed in 1808 commissioned especiall}- to safe- 
 guard the kingdom on the Reserve, some of whose ministers 
 were transferred from Erie. Mr. Badger had early connect- 
 ed himself with presbytery. In 1805 a few ministers and 
 churches desiring some sort of affiliation and communion 
 had ventured to organize the Ecclesiastical Convention of 
 New Connecticut, which held several meetings. But then, 
 as if conscience-smitten, or fallen from the grace of faith in 
 the Congregational way, they asked the Hartford judicature 
 to take their weakling under the protection of its mighty 
 arm. Which thing was duly done, and for long years we 
 hear no more of Congregationalism in these parts, except 
 as it appears in the life of the individual churches. Facilis 
 decensus Averni : The fashion soon became fixed and uni- 
 versal for our churches to join presbytery at once, in all hu- 
 mility and obedience receiving therefrom creed, covenant 
 and rules of practice. It was common for a committee of 
 presbytery to be sent to constitute the new body. Delegates 
 were dispatched to sessions of presbytery, bearing also the 
 records to be examined. They must meekly receive counsel 
 or reproof, make reports as to their growth and condition, 
 
42 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 pay their pro rata share of the commissioners* fund' to the 
 General Assembly, and in the annual report of the Presby- 
 terian Church the names of all these Congregational bodies 
 appeared regularly as forming a constituent part!! And 
 worst of all, it at length came to pass that Congregational 
 churches could neiiJicr call nor dismiss pastors ivithont first 
 securing the consent of presbytery ! ! So far from gospel 
 liberty had our churches lapsed. i\nd too many rejoiced to 
 bear this yoke of bondage. 
 
 Then as to the working of the Plan on the clerical side. 
 They also were to connect themselves at their pleasure with 
 presbytery or association, and which of the two was a mat- 
 ter of indifference. But it came out that ministers from 
 New England were so complaisant, so accommodating, or 
 so lacking in either conviction and sound discretion that, in- 
 stead of creating their own organizations, they simply 
 dropped into such as they found already at hand, presby- 
 teries to wit."' And then also, from 1806 to 1812 the minis- 
 terial supply from the East almost wholly failed. During 
 one period the Connecticut Society had but a single repre- 
 sentative upon the Reserve, while Pennsylvania Presbyterian 
 preachers were sent in to occupy the needy field. All these 
 had a horror of the "irregularities" and the "looseness" of 
 Congregationalism, believed unquestionably in a "strong 
 church government," and had the courage of their convic- 
 tions. Nor was their faith without works to match. Rev. 
 Thomas Barr is the most conspicuous specimen, and let his 
 chef d'oeuvre belonging to a most critical and decisive occa- 
 sion, set forth the serious disadvantage under which our pol- 
 ity labored when brought into unnatural conjunction and en- 
 tanglement with other ecclesiastical organizations. Church 
 history contains not many spicier or more suggestive pas- 
 sages than are supplied in the story of the transaction writ- 
 
 * Pi'of. Henry Cowles, an unimpeachable authority, affirms that "for 
 thirty years almost every minister was drawn into the Presbyterian church." 
 
TJic Mischievous Plan of V)iion 43 
 
 ten by the chief actor himself. In 18 14 the time had come 
 to form some sort of a body upon the Reserve in which the 
 churches, now become quite numerous, could be associated. 
 By this time also CongrcL^ationalism had risen to a clear pre- 
 ponderance, and the general judgment was that an associa- 
 tion should be established. In fact Mr. Barr stood well nigh 
 alone in thinking differently. But when the hour for final 
 decision arrived so strenuous was he, so affectingly did he 
 plead his case, that the Yankees succumbed to the last man.* 
 At first a compromise was attempted and the "Consociated 
 Presbytery of New Connecticut" was contrived. But when 
 the Synod of Pittsburgh was asked to recognize this un- 
 heard of ecclesiastical creature a refusal was sent back (Jesus 
 I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye.?), and as a result 
 a Congregationalized kind of establishment was set up known 
 as Grand River Presbytery, which was divided in 181 8, a 
 part becoming the Presbytery of Portage, from this latter 
 Huron was set off in 1823, and finally two years later the 
 pile was made complete by the organization of the Synod 
 of the Western Reserve. As for the ministers, some pres- 
 ently came to prefer a system which gave them station and 
 authority above the brethren. And in after years when from 
 various causes the Congregational name without sufficient 
 reason came to be a synonym for heresy and manifold fol- 
 lies, for mere reputation's sake, and to avoid suspicion, not 
 a few clung more closely to presbytery. 
 
 At first and all along it had been so that the Plan failed 
 to find universal favor from New England immigrants to 
 
 *We find the same spirit displayed on both sides up in Michigan when a 
 score or so were to have a church formed composed of Congregationalists 
 with but a single exception, but notwithstanding, out of the process by some 
 magic Presbyterian it came. Again in Ohio a similar minority of one, and a 
 woman at that, with tears and prayers wrought the same phenomenal result. 
 All which recalls the deed of the historic Hibernian, who bringing into camp 
 as prisoners a baker's dozen of the foe and asked to explain the modus oper- 
 andi, replied that he had simply surrounded them and so compelled surrender. 
 
44 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 Ohio. In no narrow, bigoted, sectarian spirit, they loved the 
 popular type of gospel rule to which they had from child- 
 hood been accustomed, and brought no disposition to ex- 
 change it for another less liberal and more cumbered with le- 
 gal rules and precedents. Many accepted the disagreeable 
 situation because they had been told and believed it was but 
 a makeshift which would soon have its day and cease to be. 
 The tide setting towards presbytery, however, rose so high 
 as to be exceedingly hard to stem. But when in the thir- 
 ties dissatisfaction with the operation of the existing eccles- 
 iastical regime had become quite general, and here and there 
 a church determined to break away from outside dictation 
 and manage its own concerns according to its own judg- 
 ment and convictions, yet another and hitherto unsuspected 
 element of the Plan came to light. It was sufficiently easy 
 to enter in, but it was now found to be oftentimes a most 
 serious matter to undertake to depart. For the former a 
 majority vote of the church would suffice, but the ruling 
 was laid down by the presbyteries that only by a vote which 
 was unanimous could the church withdraw. A handful, a 
 minority of one, would be recognized as the original body. 
 And when majorities would protest against such tyranny, the 
 outcome would be division, and two warring bodies in the 
 same locality. Cases like this occurred on the Reserve by 
 the dozen. Some churches faced death rather than remain, 
 and others died in the effort to escape, while still others, 
 formed in later years, taking warning by what their neigh- 
 bors had suffered, refused to unite with any organization, 
 and stood aloof in isolation. Bear in mind, it was a plan of 
 "Union," and behold its fruits. After a generation had 
 passed the territory under view contained Plan of Union 
 churches in quite large numbers, and all these others be- 
 sides : Free Congregational, Union Congregational, Ortho- 
 dox Congregational, Evangelical Congregational, Free Inde- 
 pendent Congregational, Presbyterian-Congregational, Free 
 
Times of Ton pest. 45 
 
 Presbyterian; and as if these were not enough, Independent 
 Presbyterian also. It is difficult indeed to see how in the 
 absence of the Plan evils half so many or so great could 
 have befel. This appears to have stood for the highest v.'is- 
 dom to be mustered from the combined heart and brain of 
 two denoininations in the opening decade of the century ; 
 it is fervently to be hoped that we their sons in the closing 
 decade, in planning for the maintenance and spread of the 
 Gospel in our land, will not be left of heaven to contrive any 
 scheme which shall be productive of results more disastrous. 
 
 TIMES OF TEMPEST. 
 
 We enter now upon the second period of our denomina- 
 tional history in the state, of which the forties constitute the 
 central portion, though the decade preceding and the one 
 following are included. The herculean task of felling the 
 "forests, subduing the soil, of laying the foundations of all 
 manner of institutions, political, social and religious, was now 
 largely completed. This commonwealth was just about to 
 make the perilous transition from early youth to the stalwart 
 vigor and achievement of adult years. In order to under- 
 stand the manifold besetments of our churches it is necessa- 
 ry to recall that this same portion of the century is easily the 
 most remarkable period in American history. At least for 
 intense and universal uneasiness, excitement, agitation, and 
 •overturning, and that in every realm of thought and action. 
 The nation had just attained to phenomenal bigness by the 
 annexation of Texas and other northern states of Mexico, 
 California included, and by establishing our claim to Oregon 
 had secured an empire beyond the Rockies. Then followed 
 the joyous and most exhilarating" assurance of national great- 
 ness in store, a future majestic and sublime of which the 
 fathers had never dreamed. A swelling tide of humanity 
 
46 Congregationalisin in Ohio. 
 
 was pouring into the Mississippi Valley and pushing towards 
 the western sea. Democracy had now become a most pal- 
 pable fact. The people verily held the seat of supreme pow- 
 er. Multitudes went wild over financial speculations. An 
 intellectual new birth occurred. The American mind was 
 stirred to the depths and seemed to take on new capacities. 
 A surprising transformation came to the national character. 
 Of course much that resulted was crude and inchoate. Cost- 
 ly experiments were tried, not unattended with transgression 
 and folly. It was only through boundless confusion and 
 chaos that old evil things could pass away. 
 
 More particularly, in the religious sphere there was end- 
 less disorder, and tumult, and bitter strife. Resulting large- 
 ly from the revivals so extensive and of such tremendous in- 
 tensity and power, which attended the preaching of evangel- 
 ists like Finney. Missionary zeal was wondrously quickened, 
 and the spirit of philanthropy. A portentous crop of here- 
 sies sprang into life, coarsest counterfeits of the good. It 
 was now that Mormonism entered upon its career so malefi- 
 cent and monstrous. Reformers were over-abundant and in- 
 conveniently active. Every tenth man held a panacea for 
 all human ills. Only follow him and lost Eden would be re- 
 stored, or better, the blessed millennium would be ushered in. 
 Temperance and anti-slavery now forged to the front, the last 
 for length and breadth, depth and height, fervor and steadi- 
 ly increasing energy far surpassing any other reform of which 
 this country has had knowledge. Differences of doctrine 
 and church polity were developed. Liberals and conserva- 
 tives, high church and low, strict and loose constructionists 
 entered into fierce debate and struggle for mastery. While 
 some clung desperately to old conceptions and phrases, oth- 
 ers at any cost would have a creed which smacked of democ- 
 racy and nineteenth century convictions. Those therefore 
 were days of wholesale schism and rending asunder. Scarce- 
 ly a denomination escaped. The Society of Friends split 
 
Times of Tempest. 47 
 
 into orthodox and Hicksite, the Baptists into mission and 
 anti-mission (hard shell), as well as along Mason and Dix- 
 on's line. From the Methodists sloughed off the Methodist 
 Protestant, the Wesleyan and the M. E. Church South. It 
 was during this same much afflicted generation that Alexan- 
 der Campbell diligently sought to turn the theological and 
 ecclesiastical world upside down, while William Miller, go- 
 ing a step further, would be content with nothing less than 
 bringing final catastrophe to the great round world itself, all 
 on strict Scripture principles. A little later the "spirits" 
 began to tip and rap, to peep and mutter, and to bring fear- 
 ful and wonderful tales from the unseen realm. Finally, as 
 if to cap the climax of confusion and ferment, Oberlin ap- 
 pears upon the scene intense, dead in earnest, aggressive, 
 with the full courage of her convictions, and wielding far and 
 wide an influence unmatched by any other institution in the 
 west. With her pronounced New School doctrine, her " per- 
 fectionism" and her uncompromising anti-slavery sentiments, 
 she was a veritable firebrand, and to not a few a wicked and 
 most pernicious troubler of Israel, to be everywhere de- 
 nounced and if possible to be destroyed. Yes, and Come- 
 outerism then flourished, which called upon the truly elect, 
 that is, those who out-Heroded Herod in their denunciation 
 of slavery, to break loose from the Laodicean churches and 
 form bodies by themselves. And perhaps among the strang- 
 est was the church-unionism, which in the interest of fra- 
 ternity and Christian fellowship would rend churches asun- 
 der and establish a new sect ! 
 
 Only a few examples have been mentioned from the 
 many which are at hand, to help us to appreciate what sore 
 trial to faith and patience our fathers of fifty years since 
 were called to endure. All this terrible stress and strain fell 
 upon the Congregational churches of Ohio, and be it also 
 remembered, while most of them were small and weak, while 
 many were isolated, and none had attained to maturity of 
 
48 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 wisdom and spiritual strength. No wonder they suffered 
 severely under such a complication of evils, and that in pain- 
 fully large numbers they were disheartened at length, were 
 broken to pieces, and overwhelmed gave up the ghost. The 
 story of their sorrows and pains is full of pathos as well as 
 of tragedy. The Plan at various points had proved a Trojan 
 horse to both parties concerned. And the Presbyterians 
 were the first to cry out in protest. Their beloved polity was 
 seriously adulterated by divers Congregational elements. 
 Authority was endangered, and liberty and democracy were 
 becoming rampant. New England was pushing herself in 
 matters of creed and church order at the expense of Scot- 
 land. The ministers were alarmingly addicted to New 
 School theology. And these facts played a prominent, if 
 not a ruling part in precipitating the schism and excision of 
 1837, whereby the Presbyterian Church was rent in twain. 
 Years followed of excited feeling much to the disturbance 
 and demoralization of our churches. And this trial Avas one 
 which they w'ould have entirely avoided had they not, like 
 poor Dog Tray, been caught in company in which no repu- 
 table canine had any business whatsoever to be found. 
 
 When with others Western Reserve Synod was cut off 
 and cast out as alien and unworthy, our churches and minis- 
 ters in considerable numbers were minded at once to with- 
 draw from such perilous partnership ; and would have taken 
 their departure but for the pleading of certain New School 
 leaders, and so the greater portion consented to remain yet 
 longer in limbo. But a movement had already begun, out- 
 side of as well as within Ohio, and was steadily gathering 
 breadth and momentum, which finally brought complete de- 
 liverance. It appeared particularly in the organization of 
 state and local bodies of a purely Congregational pattern. 
 New York led off ia 1834 with a general association, and 
 Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois were not far behind.. 
 A denominational consciousness was slowly but surely 
 
Times of Tempest. 49 
 
 coming into being. More and more the churches sundered 
 their relations with presbytery and entered into bodies more 
 congenial, until by 1850 more than half were either asso- 
 ciated thus or else were standing in isolation. We have seen 
 how in 1806 the Ecclesiastical Convention of New Connec- 
 ticut was formed, and the Muskingum Association in 1809, 
 but both being born out of due time, soon perished. No 
 further movement was made until 1834 when at Williams- 
 field, under the lead of one Tassey, of Pittsburg, the Inde- 
 pendent Congregational Union of the Western Reserve be- 
 gan a brief career, reaching the second year an attendance 
 often churches. A capital event occurred in 1836, when at 
 Oberlin, after a preliminary meeting at Hudson, was organ- 
 ized the General Association of the Western Reserve with 
 nineteen churches and seventeen ministers, which number 
 was nearly doubled at later meetings. Lorain County Asso- 
 ciation followed the next year, whose occupation consisted 
 mainly in bestowing ordination upon Oberlin theological 
 students who from most ecclesiastical bodies found slight 
 countenance. Before the close of this decade the Associa- 
 tion of Central Ohio appears and leaves faint traces as late 
 as 1845. Marietta Consociation dates from 1841,* and as 
 well the Consociation of Portage and Summit counties. 
 Both of these survived until merged into others and still ex- 
 ist. In 1843 the Association of Northwestern Ohio began 
 to meet and held several sessions. For a season it was 
 thought that Western Reserve Association would supply a 
 bond of union for all our churches. But Oberlin ideas and 
 influence were dominant therein, and Oberlin presently be- 
 
 * After the demise of the Muskingum Association the Marietta church 
 joined Athens Presbytery, and remained in it until after the excision of '37, 
 and then moved resolutely for a Congregational organization. But the name 
 chosen indicates the ecclesiastical ideas embodied. It was modeled quite 
 closely after the pattern of the Connecticut consociations, and undertook to 
 guard and regulate the churches, acted as a standing council to install and 
 dismiss pastors, &c., &c. 
 
50 Congregationalisvi in Ohio. 
 
 came a bogy to thousands of good men, a synonym for 
 fanaticism, if not also for iniquity, and so an object of sus- 
 picion, of fear and even hate. Several churches which joined 
 it took their departure, and scores of others would sooner 
 stand alone than risk their reputation by entering into such 
 questionable fellowship. So the afflicted sons and daughters 
 of the Pilgrims found themselves grievously shut in between 
 Scylla and Charybdis, the devil and the deep sea. 
 
 And thus it came to pass that for nearly a quarter of a 
 century our churches were beset behind and before, from 
 without and within, with scarcely a taste of the blessings of 
 peace. Truly those were days of campaigning in "the wars 
 of the Lord." The sorest trials of later years are as noth- 
 ing compared with those of half a century since. The only 
 wonder is that the garden of the Lord did not become whol- 
 ly desolate, that so much of Christian character and life 
 was able to survive such manifold and prolonged strain. 
 Details of indefinite length could easily be given, but with 
 only this very brief and meagre statement in mind, who shall 
 dare say that the Congregational polity is weak, a rope of 
 sand, is not able to endure the wear and tear of excitement 
 and struggle.'* Our very bitterest pains were vicarious, be- 
 longing legitimately not to us but to others, and by them we 
 were tortured and wrenched because through the fault of our 
 fathers we were entangled so wretchedly in an ecclesiastical 
 system containing so many elements so utterly alien to our 
 own. 
 
 OBERLIN'S CONTRIBUTION. 
 
 Mention has already been made of this institution and 
 community, the spiritual force known by this name, the no- 
 table movement which centered in this locality ; but as a 
 factor in the development of Congregationalism in Ohio 
 it is of importance altogether too great to be passed by 
 
Obci'lin s Contribution. 5 i 
 
 without a more specific mention. Prof. Williston Walker 
 hesitates not to declare that "the establishment of Oberlin 
 College was a step of the utmost importance for the history" 
 of our denomination in this state. Since this event did not 
 occur until 1833, its influence was not felt until the first 
 period was almost ended. Nor can it be denied that for a 
 season at least it seemed to most to be an exceedingly un- 
 welcome hinderer, and to make confusion worse confounded. 
 A blessing indeed it was, but hidden for the time behind a 
 deep disguise. As early as 1834 a rumbling as of distant 
 thunder is heard from Hudson and Western Reserve College. 
 Oberlin was an intruder, a trespasser, a poacher upon her 
 preserves. The next year a louder outcry was heard when 
 Finney, declining a call to Hudson, cast in his lot with her 
 rival ; Lane Seminary also joining her voice because some 
 thirty rebellious students had taken themselves to. that pre- 
 posterous village in the woods of northern Ohio to finish 
 their theological course. Late in 1838 the central branch 
 of the American Education Society, located at Hudson, re- 
 fused aid to Oberlin students who were preparing for the 
 ministry, for by this time "perfectionism" was taught and 
 lived in Oberlin colony. In '40 Huron Presbytery refused to 
 license, refused even to examine, James H. and F. H. Fair- 
 child, and all because they declined to declare that they did 
 not believe "in the doctrines taught at Oberlin and in their 
 way of doing things." The next year the same body hurled 
 thirteen resolutions at this seat of Satan, closing with the 
 affirmation that no Oberlinite could "consistently call him- 
 self a Presbyterian or Congregationalist of the New P2ng- 
 land stamp," and that it was "inexpedient for the churches 
 to employ ministers known to entertain such sentiments," 
 These outrageous heretics must be ostracised and driven be- 
 yond the pale of Christian fellowship. In '41 also appeared 
 a card signed by seven men from tlie I£ast, all wise and good, 
 testifying that they had attended a commencement in the no- 
 
52 Congregationalis7ti in Ohio. 
 
 torious town, and actually discovered nothing to object to,, 
 but much to commend. "All are industrious, cherish the 
 spirit of inquiry, and exhibit a pure and elevated morality 
 and piety." In '42 up from Richland Presbytery went to 
 Western Reserve Synod an overture seeking a settlement of 
 the question whether baptism administered by an Oberlinite 
 might be accounted valid. A committee sat upon it and re- 
 ported that the errors of that body are very great and ex- 
 ceedingly dangerous and corrupting in their tendency. Such 
 ministers should by no means be admitted to orthodox pul- 
 pits, " nor should members of such churches be admitted to 
 co7iu)i7iiiioii unless they renounce their errors and give evi- 
 dence of true faith and holiness.'' But the validity of bap- 
 tism does not depend upon the character of the administra- 
 tor. The synod finally laid the report on the table, on the 
 ground that " Oberlinism was not yet sufficiently developed" 
 to justify a definitive judgment. 
 
 As showing how utterly beside themselves multitudes 
 of sensible people were found in those days, we smile as 
 we read how the session of the Fredericktown Presbyterian 
 church, when a member of that body, a student, would join 
 the church of which the arch-heretic was pastor wrote : 
 "We cannot conscientiously recognize the so-called church 
 of Oberlin as a part of the visible church of Christ on ac- 
 count of its exceedingly corrupt doctrines." So they could 
 not grant her a letter. When she left home her character 
 was good. She has been in Oberlin so long they cannot 
 vouch for it now, but they have learned that she "disavows 
 some of the doctrines laid down in the standards of our 
 church." 
 
 In '44 a convention of Plan of Union churches was 
 held in Cleveland, to which orthodox Congregational 
 churches were invited, one of whose objects was still further 
 to hedge in this fountain of evil and protect the saints from 
 its pestiferous malaria. Two years later the western Con- 
 
Oberliiis Contribution. 53' 
 
 gregationalists met in convention at Michigan City, and 
 again was Oberlin left in outer darkness. Through all this 
 decade it was a common thing both cast and west for asso- 
 ciations to declaim and warn against the heresy which went 
 forth from Finney, Mahan, Cowles and their fellows. But 
 by the beginning of the fifties the bulk of the odium and 
 fear had disappeared. The explanation of this strange phe- 
 nomenon is to be sought in such facts as these : Oberlia 
 had no love for the Plan of Union, and stood for Congrega- 
 tionalism pure and simple, while to the colleges at Hudson 
 and Marietta, and Lane Seminary at Cincinnati the Plan 
 was all that could be desired. Again Oberlin was anti-sla- 
 ver)'-, received colored students, countenanced co-education 
 of the sexes, etc. Radical New School doctrine was also 
 taught there which to conservatives was most pernicious. 
 "Perfectionism" too, was rampant for a season, and to many 
 frightened spirits meant antinomianism and immorality- 
 Mr. Finney was the greatest of revivalists and multitudes 
 did not approve of his methods and style of preaching. And 
 the criticism was made more piquant because during the first 
 few years certain fads and hobbies had their day which bor- 
 dered too closely upon the extreme and irrational. 
 
 But if in some respects and for a season Oberlin seemed 
 to be mainly a mischief-maker, this is but the least of her 
 achievement, and is as nothing compared with the positive^ 
 varied and most weighty services she has rendered. For 
 ten to fifteen years to some extent she was (often innocent- 
 ly) the occasion of scandal and strife, but for almost half a 
 century her critics have been hard put to it for facts whereon 
 to base their charges, while since the sixties her name has 
 been held in highest honor by all who knew her. To set 
 forth briefly and but in part the benefits derived by our Zion 
 from this source : Oberlin has from the first and all along 
 been true to Congregational principles. Liberty, equality, 
 fraternity, there has been no sinning against these. Democ- 
 
54 Congregationalisvi in Ohio. 
 
 racy, the idea and conviction, not that "lam as good as 
 you," and so am to have my way and prosper at your cost 
 if need be; but this instead, "You are as good as I"; that 
 is, your welfare and moral judgments shall be held sacred like 
 my own. No caste distinctions have been recognized. Black 
 and white, male and female, rich and poor have always met 
 on the common plane of redeemed humanity. All stand on 
 a level, but it is one resulting from a marvelous process of 
 leveling up. As to liberty, freedom of the will has been 
 emphasized both as a theory and a practice. Investigation 
 and discussion have been encouraged to the utmost. A sub- 
 lime confidence has been reposed in the truth, while if only 
 the light were turned upon them, there has been no fear of 
 error or falsehood. No over-cautious binding of students 
 and teachers by pledges has been in vogue, but good sense 
 and an enlightened conscience have been relied upon. Hunt- 
 ing of heresy has never been at all popular in these parts. 
 That is to say, Oberlin has stood from the first for catholici- 
 ty of Christian sentiment and sympathy. Only let one pos- 
 sess the spirit of Christ, and manifestly be engaged in doing 
 his work, and it sufficed. The creed of the Oberlin church, 
 and that of the Western Reserve Association were designed- 
 ly made to minify the differences between Calvinism and Ar- 
 minianism, and to admit all true followers of the Lord Jesus. 
 As between Old and New School, of course Oberlin pro- 
 nounced mightily for the latter. Comparativ^ely little was 
 cared for theories, but much for conduct. The well-being 
 of humanity was most precious, and so reform of every kind 
 had a large place in the thought and desire and action of ev- 
 ery day life. Oberlin also stood sturdily for spirituality and 
 evangelism. And finally, the founders and builders bestowed 
 all their influence in favor of ecclesiastical organizations 
 fashioned upon purely Congregational principles.* It may 
 
 *Writing in 1863 Prof. Henry Cowles testifies : The Oberlin theological 
 alumni have stood up a noble phalanx for the polity of the New Testament 
 
Oberlins Contribittion. 55 
 
 be at the outset only making a virtue of necessity, for 
 presbytery and Plan were antagonistic to the upstart in- 
 stitution. Churches were closed against its teachings, and 
 license and ordination were impossible. But, whatever the 
 impulse, the motive, all the same Obcrlin did much to bring 
 the Plan to abolition. 
 
 But how were these convictions and this spiritual force 
 brought to bear upon the churches of the state so as to 
 affect them in any considerable degree .'' And especially when 
 so generally the very name was hateful and odious, a by- 
 word and hissing? In replying to this pertinent question we 
 must recall that the work undertaken and carried on with 
 amazing energy was in several respects altogether unique. 
 In the institution were included various departments adapted 
 to almost every grade of intellectual development. It was a 
 people's college, with a preparatory department below and a 
 theological seminary above, and women were welcome as 
 well as men. The special object to be furthered, as selected 
 by the founder, was preparation of ministers and teachers 
 for their exalted tasks. And almost at once youths of both 
 sexes began to come by hundreds and by thousands, and 
 who to a great extent were residents of Ohio. The demand 
 for trained teachers was in those days very great. The long 
 vacation was placed in the winter months, and at its begin- 
 ning out hastened the would-be pedagogues, north, south, 
 east, west, by wagon loads and stage loads, on horseback 
 and on foot ; to be gone for months, boarding in the homes, 
 each in close contact with scores of youthful minds and 
 hearts. And somehow it was that for the most part they 
 were so inspired, so filled to overflowingwith the Oberlin spirit, 
 which was also the spirit of Congregationalism, that scores 
 on every side were certain to catch the inspiration. Besides, 
 a number of their pupils were sure sooner or later to find 
 
 and the Pilgrims. Out of two hundred it would not be easy to find one who 
 has swerved from these good old paths. 
 
56 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 their way to the wonderful fountain of learning. Hundreds 
 went out thus every year sowing the good seed, and in the 
 .aggregate thousands during the first generation. Scores and 
 hundreds of theological students preached up and down here 
 and there in Ohio, supplying pulpits during their course and 
 afterwards becoming pastors. Churches not a {^w, sonne of 
 them among our prominent ones, have never had pastors 
 of other than Oberlin sentiments and training. Then also a 
 steady stream of influence went out from the faculty as they 
 toiled so abundantly on the Sabbath and in revival efforts. 
 Nor must the Oberlin Evangelist be forgotten, which for a 
 quarter of a century made its semi-monthly visit to multi- 
 tudes of homes and was read with greatest eagerness. Finally, 
 who that ever saw the great congregations for weeks and 
 months together and worshipped with them, could forget the 
 •experience.'' and the remarkable company of the earnest- 
 hearted men and women both in the institution and the 
 community.'' Though there was no proselyting, though the 
 word was seldom spoken, this was Congregationalism omni- 
 present, dominant and at its best. No long and hot cam- 
 paign of open, unblushing propagandism would have been 
 half so successful. Oberlin's part in the spread of our prin- 
 ciples and polity from the Lake to the River supplies mate- 
 rial for a noble story, which as yet awaits a worthy historian. 
 
 PHASES OF EARLY RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 It is necessary to suggest at the outset that the setting- 
 forth which follows is based almost exclusi\'ely upon the 
 records of the older churches, and hence though truthful so 
 far as it goes, is at the best but a partial, a one-sided, a frag- 
 mentary statement of the facts in the case. Only such mat- 
 ters are alluded to as such documents would naturally con- 
 tain, and it is not from its records that the truest, deepest 
 
Phases of Earl J Religious Life. 57 
 
 life of a church can be reproduced. The aim however has 
 been to call attention only to what was characteristic of the 
 Christian men and women of Ohio during^ the first half cen- 
 tury, and typical of the times. Let it be remembered all 
 along that those were for the most part plain people, pio- 
 neers, dwelling on the frontier and in the forest, with society 
 and all manner of institutions in a crude and formative con- 
 dition. The evidence is abundant that their minds and 
 hearts were often cast in a narrow mold, and that the aver- 
 age life, whether in the intellectual, social or spiritual sphere, 
 was of a grade comparatively low. They possessed an 
 energy which was uncultured and rude, so that their aims 
 were often better than their methods of performance. There- 
 fore we need not be surprised to learn that during the first 
 years of the century even the Yankee saints on the Reserve 
 were beset in revival services by that phenomenal " religious " 
 infliction known as the "Jerks," which originated in the 
 most benighted regions of Kentucky. Scores together would 
 be suddenly seized with trembling, would fall and lie for 
 hours in a trance. The old Puritan spirit long survived, so 
 stiff, solemn and stern, the spirit that is of the Law rather 
 than of the Gospel. Calvinists were they, and orthodox to 
 the backbone, which traits were not softened in the least by 
 the potent influence of presbytery. No toleration was 
 allowed to heresy. A Methodist woman might join a cer- 
 tain church on condition that she swallow the doctrine of 
 election. A brother was kept under the hetchel for two mor- 
 tal years by a charge of denying the doctrine of the trinity, 
 but was acquitted when it came out that he only denied the 
 existence of three Gods. They had no use in their churches 
 for Mormons, or Universalists, or Perfectionists, or Spiritual- 
 ists, or Adventists, " or "even so-called Disciples" (Camp- 
 
 * Well might the churches fall into a panic when for several years in the 
 eastern part of the Reserve such ravages from Spiritualism were reported, and 
 
58 Congregationalisui in Ohio. 
 
 belHtes). They had great faith in the spiritual tonic sup- 
 plied by days of fasting, humiliation and prayer, and not sel- 
 dom resorted to the same. On one such occasion the pastor 
 was instructed to formulate a detailed confession of the sins 
 of the church, which also after amendment was adopted by 
 vote and read from the pulpit. They believed heartily in 
 the grace of discipline for church members to bring them 
 back from their derelictions and trespasses, as well as in 
 specific rules and pledges to hold them to the practice of vir- 
 tue and piety. That is, godliness was to be secured by ec- 
 clesiastical statute. Every church joining presbytery was 
 supplied Vv'ith a copy of certain "Rules of Practice," which 
 set forth authoritatively and in detail what the brethren 
 ought and ought not to do. When one organization had 
 sadly fallen away from faith and good works and found itself 
 in a very evil case, a committee was chosen to contrive a 
 plan whereby it might be returned from its long captivity. 
 And what should be done but bring in a set of twenty-one 
 resohitions, lengthy, and containing a bill of particulars 
 which covered the entire moral law, and also every duty to 
 self, to brother man and to God (and would cover several 
 pages of this pamphlet), even to "plainness in dress, and 
 cleanliness and neatness in person," "not to loiter at the 
 door of the sanctuary, and to offer seats to strangers." But 
 in spite of this heroic remedy, not to say because of it, in- 
 side of three months that same church had lapsed into a 
 state of worse than semi-somnolence, into a paralysis which 
 lasted for five years, during which no services were held! 
 One church enacted that the congregation should "sit in- 
 
 in one church of a hundred mzmhtvs Jifly were swept away by the excite- 
 ment. 
 
 From another church two women were cut off, of whom one avowed her 
 fixed determination not to live with her husband since she was now living in 
 " the resurrection state," and the other had left her husband, asserting that 
 "she was married to Christ." Later, however, both were restored, and be- 
 cause it was judged they were insane when they said and did such things. 
 
Phases of Early Rc/i\(^ious Life. 59 
 
 dining forward in prayer and stand while singing, and that 
 all should sing who were able." 
 
 And as for church trials, the harvest of them never 
 failed. Here too presbytery made itself felt in bane, by in- 
 troducing the spirit and methods of the court room. With 
 the New Testament in mind and the life of Jesus, it makes 
 one's flesh creep to read the citations to trial, the charges 
 and specifications. All is unsympathetic, bloodless and cold, 
 and calculated not to soften but to provoke. It was not at 
 all unusual to put the witnesses under oath. The rule was 
 common. Public confession for public offences, and the pen- 
 itent one must read his confession in the Sunday congrega- 
 tion, except that sometimes the pastor was allowed to per- 
 form this function for a female offender. Sentences of ex- 
 communication were also read from the pulpit. Immorali- 
 ties so gross and scandalous as nowadays not to be men- 
 tioned in good society, in those primitive days were thus ob- 
 truded into the sanctuary. "Breach of covenant" was a 
 common phrase, and included such wickedness ("crimes" 
 was a common term) as absenting one's self from the public 
 services, especially from the communion, together with neg- 
 lect of secret and family prayer. With such cases the records 
 overflow. It was counted a most serious matter to vow 
 thus and not to keep. Nor was Sabbath-breaking less of- 
 fensive in their sight.'"^ The Rules of Practice specified trav- 
 eling, visiting, likewise "the collecting of hay or grain and 
 attending to any part of the business of making sugar," 
 among occupations which should be eschewed upon the day 
 of rest. A certain conscienceless or heedless brother pre- 
 sumed to take a steamboat from Cleveland bound for the 
 west, and later applying for a letter, it was withheld until 
 he should either explain or repent. It staggers our faith in 
 
 * When a law was passed compelling postmasters to receive and open Sun- 
 day mails, one church forbade any member to accept the office of postmaster, 
 or to take either letters or papers from the office on that day. 
 
6o Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 the all-around excellence and strength of our fathers to note 
 how common were sins of the flesh like drunkenness and 
 sexual immorality. With this fact in mind it is not easy to 
 resist the conviction that the present generation is less un- 
 der the dominion of animal appetites than were the genera- 
 tions which laid the foundations for our Zion. And one's 
 faith is fearfully shaken in the value to religion of church 
 trials as too often conducted. The records indicate that the 
 weak and erring were oftener simply made worse by being 
 set upon and taken to task in a formal and public way, and 
 that about as often as otherwise one trial led to a second 
 and that to a third, or to a long succession, by which 
 churches were shattered and brought to ruin. 
 
 Dancing was a standing cause of trouble. One winter 
 an entire county went fairly wild over sleigh riding so that 
 the preachers were compelled to cry out in exhortation and 
 warning. One brother, deacon that he was, confessed that 
 he had imbibed too freely of cider, which through the coop- 
 eration of the tobacco in which also he had indulged, caused 
 him to stagger and his tongue to wag in silly talk. His ca- 
 reer ended in excommunication. In '38—9, during the course 
 of the " Patriot War," another who was a justice of the 
 peace, visited Canadian soil with hostile intent, suffering also 
 some Government arms to be purloined for the same pur- 
 pose. Nor had he refrained from attendance at a ball 
 which held at a tavern, being thus in alarmingly close prox- 
 imity to liquor, had lasted well nigh till break of day. Of 
 course he was taken to task, but strangely was cleared, the 
 evidence going to show that he meant no evil. It was in 
 Oberlin and in the days of the "Covenant," that a trial en- 
 sued from drinking tea in contravention of the terms of that 
 document. A woman was accused to the Church by her 
 husband of these three offences : (a) She was cold towards 
 him; (b) she refused to get his supper, especially on one oc- 
 casion, and (c)she also refused to wash his trousers. She 
 
^Phases of Early Religions Life. 6 1 
 
 was not convicted. One was charged with wetting his hay 
 before selling it, and another of grossly over-charging his 
 pastor for a quarter of beef, and, as was proper, the rogue 
 was compelled to disgorge at the rate of half a cent per 
 pound. Perhaps the most notable verdict on record was 
 rendered when a church fined a member $i.oo for picking 
 up chesnuts, presumably upon his neighbor's land. 
 
 The status of women and children affords a fair test of 
 the quality of a civilization. Our fathers seem to have had 
 a grudge against the weaker sex, perhaps on account of the 
 unhappy part played by it in the far-off Eden. At least, in 
 the religious realm the sisters were relegated to the back- 
 ground. The famous Plan settled it that only "to the body 
 of the male communicants" should an aggrieved church 
 member appeal from the judgment of the standing commit- 
 tee. In the churches there was no uniform practice as to fe- 
 male suffrage. Probably in most cases the men alone were 
 expected to vote on important questions. In one case sev- 
 eral discussions were held upon the eligibility of woman- 
 kind, and the matter was laid on the table as a question too 
 tough to be mastered. But in another case it was given out 
 that on a certain weighty subject they must vote. Again, a 
 company of them were excused from voting because of scru- 
 ples in their own minds as to whether it would be proper for 
 them to drop the ballot or show the hand. And one of the 
 rules of practice ordained that "when circumstances do not 
 render it improper, female heads of families should read the 
 Scriptures and pray in their families." As to children, the 
 churches had little place for them, at least in their member- 
 ship. They were to be baptized, and trained in the homes, 
 disciplined freely with the rod, and duly catechized, and 
 then — why, wait for an "experience." It was laid down in 
 the Rules that parents should "govern and restrain, and di- 
 rect them by parental authority to attend, whenever circum- 
 staces will permit, catechetical lectures whenever appointed 
 
62 * Congregationalism iyi Ohio 
 
 by the pastor or the church." Moreover, "parents, and oth- 
 ers who are members of the church having the care of bap- 
 tized children, shall be accountable for their religious instruc- 
 tion and government, and for any evident neglect of their 
 duty shall be as liable to discipline as for any offence what- 
 ever." As late as the fifties one church voted to purchase 
 catechisms enough to supply every famil}-, and later sent off 
 an order for eight dozen. And yet, somehow, that church 
 did not greatly prosper. But so rarely were persons of ten- 
 der years received into the churches that one clerk made 
 mention of the notable fact that a number of children wished 
 to join and one was voted in ; and later that a boy of ten 
 presented himself, and a youth of thirteen. 
 
 There is no space to speak at all at length of the tug 
 our churches had in endeavoring to inaugurate various re- 
 forms. Of course anti-slavery was one which created most 
 of a stir, and scarcely a book of records ean be found that 
 does not contain ample evidence that Ohio Congregational- 
 ism was never unsound at this point. Temperance caused 
 more of 'a struggle, but presently became as prevalent. As 
 early as '27 Painesville adopted resolutions against ardent 
 spirits, and Fitchville in '34 voted itself a "temperance 
 church." Some churches introduced a pledge into the cov- 
 enant, though many others hesitated about going so far. It 
 is evident that need there was of calling a halt upon the 
 drinking customs of the time. In Strongsville in '33 it was 
 decided "that for brethren to treat electors with ardent spir- 
 its in consideration of their voting for them for some civil 
 office, shall be considered a breach of Christian duty and an 
 offence deserving of discipline." When Charlestown was 
 about to build its lirst sanctuary a barrel of whisky was 
 promised towards it on certain conditions. " Moral reform " 
 in the forties meant what social purity means to us, and ex- 
 cited deep interest. The regular distribution of tracts was 
 held in high honor in some parts. Divers churches were 
 
Dawn of Better Days. 63 
 
 puzzled to know if agents soliciting for the various benevo 
 lent societies should be tolerated, and not a few decided not 
 to countenance their visits. One church decided to hear no 
 more sermons read from the Oberlin Evangelist, but later re- 
 pented and was again edified thereby. The indications are 
 various that too often the service of song was in a deplora- 
 ble case. One of the Rules of Practice recommends to " heads 
 of families that singing of praises to God, when it can be 
 performed with propriety, be considered a part of family 
 worship." Instruments were wanting, while books and 
 knowledge of music were also about as conspicuous by their 
 absence. This is easily however the most forlorn case at 
 hand. A Sunday-school in Huron county actually survived to 
 the end of a long summer term with one time onlj^to-wit,^^ Ba- 
 lerma," raised aloft in praise, and likewise a solitary hymn, 
 namely, "Alas, and did my Saviour bleed.?" As standing for 
 straitened conditions of another sort, when a new pastor was 
 called to a community which shall be nameless, it was voted 
 "to allow him the privilege of boarding promiscnously w^ith 
 the members for one year." Prayer followed immediately, 
 as was most becoming after such action. 
 
 DAWN OF BETTER DAYS. 
 
 With the incoming of the fifties the indications began 
 to multiply on every side that the worst was over, the force 
 of the tempest was well nigh spent; after a long period of 
 fearful disturbance the elements were settling into equilibri- 
 um and quiet, the clouds were scattering and gleams of sun- 
 shine began to break through. The material environment 
 of the churches had changed for the better in divers jmport- 
 ant particulars. Ohio was frontier no longer. The acreage 
 of the farms now much surpassed that of the forests. Even 
 the great ague-smitten region of the Black Swamp in the 
 
64 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 northwest had been drained and opened to the healing sun- 
 light. Within a few months of each other three important 
 lines of railroad had been completed ; the Cleveland and 
 Pittsburg, the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, and the 
 Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, together making com- 
 munication easy both between the Lake and the River, and 
 also between the East and the West. Thus was it brought 
 about that almost at once the state ceased to be iso- 
 lated and provincial. The cities and villages began to grow 
 rapidly, a remarkable era of manufacturing set in, and for 
 thousands wealth took the place of a condition in which a 
 somewhat straitened financial condition was the rule. 
 Through increase of travel, books, and newspapers, the av- 
 erage of intelligence was raised substantially. Thus Ohio 
 in more senses than one emerged from the woods. Days 
 ancient and primitive were past, and its population now 
 numbering 2,000,000 had fully completed the momentous 
 passage into Modern Times. A revolution precisely simi- 
 lar was in progress all the land over. The flame of heated 
 passion had largely burned itself out. The public had grown 
 weary of ceaseless warfare and the weapons were worn out. 
 At least theological bitterness had vastly diminished. Every 
 conceivable hobby and ism haddiad its little hour of noise 
 and glare, numberless absurd theories had been exploded, 
 numberless preposterous schemes had been put into practice 
 and had come to'grief, and out of boundless error and false- 
 hood truth and sound sense were steadily emerging. Not a 
 few of the best reforms, like anti-slavery, had attained to 
 popularity, and especially upon the Reserve, could command 
 a majority vote. Moreover, within the denomination itself 
 fundamental changes were working themselves into general 
 acceptance. For example, at the Congregational Conven- 
 tion at Michigan City in '46 the Plan had been sharply criti- 
 cised as out of date and full of serious mischief as some- 
 thing to be ignored from thenceforth and trampled under 
 
Dawn of Better Days. 65 
 
 foot. Pure Congregationalism Avas the best polity possible 
 for the West. And further, western Congregationalists were 
 not at all infected with doctrinal heresy, were really sound 
 to the core, and as such were in every way worthy of the 
 confidence, esteem and affection of their brethren in the 
 East. Meanwhile in most of the states where the denomi- 
 nation possessed any measures of strength general associa- 
 tions had been formed, with district conferences in affiliation, 
 and presently, behold, the starthng, and to some, horrifying 
 idea was broached of bringing the messengers of the churches 
 together in a National Gathering!! In the blessed year of 
 grace 1852 such an one was even held in Albany. They 
 came with great hesitation, and suspicion and fear. But no 
 division or conflict occurred. The utmost of harmony pre- 
 vailed. Each found the other wholly like-hearted, and suf- 
 ficiently like-minded to be thoroughly loved and fellow- 
 shipped as a brother. And how richly and sweetly love 
 flowed forth. How enthusiasm and hope were kindled. The 
 Plan of Union was declared to be abrogated. Then and 
 there, also, significant name, was organized the Congrega- 
 tional Union, a church building society, with the send-off 
 soon of $50,000 for the erection of houses of worship, of 
 which sum Ohio received eventually $8,000. Then it was 
 that for the first time, two /nindred and t In rty-tivo years af- 
 ter the Landing, the Congregational churches of the United 
 States joined hands to further a denominational object. All 
 the rest followed naturally and in due season, the Boston 
 Council in '65, and then the decision to hold similar gather- 
 ings once in three years, not at all for legislation, but only 
 for fellowship, conference and discussion of topics of com- 
 mon interest to all. It was a happy thought, it was verily 
 an inspiration from above, to hold the first of the triennial 
 councils at Oberlin. Both the institution and the commu- 
 nity by forty years of plain living, and high thinking, and 
 godly doing, had proved themselves to the satisfaction of all 
 
66 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 concerned to be entirely worthy of the high honor. With 
 Oberlin as the hostess the East and West of Congregation- 
 alism met for a spiritual feast. And they indeed did "stand 
 on the grave of buried prejudices;" prejudices, too, for 
 which there was no sufficient ground. For shame! It 
 was not until 1871, only twenty-five years ago, that our pol- 
 ity began to have a fair chance to show what it was really 
 worth, what wonders of good achievement for the Kingdom 
 by the blessing of God it was able to work. Hitherto it 
 had but existed, from henceforth it was to lead a life which 
 was life indeed. 
 
 In full keeping with what was going on outside was the 
 development within the boundaries of our state. From vari- 
 ous causes the Western Reserve Association was moribund. 
 Something like half a dozen local bodies were in existence, 
 but without any cooperation, each going on in its own way, 
 thinking only of its own puny things. In 1852 something 
 like 201 Congregational churches were in existence, while no 
 less than 140 are said to have died since the century opened. 
 Of that number 9 were connected with Marietta Consocia- 
 tion, 14 were scattered throughout the southern and central 
 portions of the state, and 160 were located upon the West- 
 ern Reserve. Of these 70 belonged to presbytery, and 90 
 were Independent, "not from principle, but from peculiar 
 circumstances" (evidently according to the well known law 
 that a scalded cat fears cold water). Besides these there 
 were 18 Welsh churches. By far the larger number were 
 small and weak, disheartened and disgusted, indifferent and 
 inclined to suspicion towards their neighbors. As far back 
 as '45 it was noticed that the larger churches, or rather the 
 .churches in the larger towns, were mainly Presbyterian. At 
 that date there were only 25 Presbyterian organizations on 
 the Reserve, but they had an average membership of 120, 
 whereas the 147 Congregational churches averaged only 56. 
 The wealthy, the ambitious, those who would move in the 
 
Dawn of Better Days. 67 
 
 "best society," not uniiaturall)- were content with the eccles- 
 iastical system which was aristocratic in its principles. And 
 especially when on leaving New England they were warned 
 that in the wild west Congregationalism made only for dis- 
 order and general demoralization. What could be more de- 
 liciously absurd than such facts as these : of the eleven pres- 
 b}'teries upon the Reserve three, namely, Geauga, Medina 
 and Lorain, contained not a solitary Presbyterian cJmrcJi, 
 while three others, Erie, Huron, and Portage were able each 
 to muster one. Ashtabula was blessed with two, and Sum- 
 mit with three! In all eight (8) presbyteries together kept 
 pious watch and ward over exactly eight Presbyterian duck- 
 lings, but over 98 that were Congregational. And fortunate- 
 ly, at length such anomalies had become too many and too 
 outrageous to be longer borne.* Something radical must be 
 done to mend matters. The question was. Who should lead 
 in the movement looking to unification and cooperation, 
 what body representing and possessing the confidence of 
 the churches should take the initiative. The Western Re- 
 serve Association (commonly stigmatized as "Oberlin") was 
 •older and larger than any other. When that organization 
 met at Madison, Lake county, in 1850 to hold its fourteenth 
 annual session, the subject was brought up, and the records 
 tell us what action was taken : 
 
 The Association proceeded to a free conversation on its affairs and pros- 
 pects. There was a general impression that the present organization was not 
 meeting the wants of the Reserve, and that some other organization was ne- 
 cessary to unite the growing forces of free polity, and promote the interests 
 of Congregationalism on the Western Reserve. A committee was appointed 
 to report to-morrow on the ways and means to attain these objects, consisting 
 of Bros. Avery, Strieby and Wilcox. The next day the committee reported 
 through Bro. Strieby as follows : 
 
 I. Resolved, That in so far as we understand the causes of these di- 
 
 *Or as one brother of imaginative make expressed it in metaphor at least 
 emphatic and appropriate, if not wholly elegant : That no longer should 
 " the Congregational cow " so abundantly, and continually, and suspiciously 
 produce "Presbyterian milk. " especially cream, and more especially butter! 
 
68 Congregationalisvi in Ohio. 
 
 visions, we do not regard them as being of sufficient importance to keep the- 
 Congregationalists of the Reserve in their present state of alienation and 
 separation. 
 
 2. Resolved, That we believe thorough Christian investigation and dis- 
 cussion of these causes of offence to be the only means of ascertaining their 
 insignificance and of effecting their removal. 
 
 3. Resolved, That as one portion of the Reserve Congregationalists we 
 stand ready to enter into any ecclesiastical organization which, while it unites 
 us with our brethern on a platform of church polity distinctively Congrega- 
 tional and a creed decidedly evangelical, shall yet leave all portions of the 
 body so fox'med the free exercise of their preferences as to mission boards and 
 benevolent and educational operations in general. 
 
 4. That a committee of five be appointed to confer with the leading 
 friends of Congregationalism on the Reserve and in its vicinity, in refeience 
 
 to securing a more perfect union among Congregationalists ; and that the 
 committee correspond with said persons on the propriety of calling a conven- 
 tion to promote the interests of Congregationalism. 
 
 The committee chosen consisted of the following per- 
 sons : J.A.Thome, Prof. Morgan, M. E. Strieby, W. B. 
 Brown and A. M. Richardson. The Association adjourned 
 to meet in June of '51, but never met again. Lorain Coun- 
 ty Association, a sort of local adjunct to the other, lingered 
 on until August of '52, when hearing of a project for an or- 
 ganization to cover Huron and Lorain counties, the clerk was 
 instructed to give letters of dismission to all members, and 
 an adjournment was taken without day. Thus Avas indirect 
 preparation made to secure an organization which should 
 cover the entire state. The Albany Convention was called 
 for October of '52. But Ohio was first in the field with a 
 convention of her own. How fitting that the venerable 
 mother of Congregationalism in the Northwest should have 
 her name so closely identified with the memorable step now 
 to be taken. The Marietta Consociation was in good and 
 regular standing in all quarters for orthodoxy, conservatism 
 and strict ecclesiastical decorum, and a call from this organ- 
 ization would be most likely to receive a respectful hearing. 
 At the annual meeting held in October of '5 i the Consocia- 
 tion displayed an enterprise, not to say ambition, which is 
 
Datvn of Better Days. 69 
 
 refreshing. The General Association of New York was mov- 
 ing for a national convention, which was held the next year 
 in Albany, and Marietta made bold to invite the Congrega- 
 tional churches of the United States to assemble in the vil- 
 lage of that name on the Muskingum. That project came 
 to grief, but not so another relating to similar affairs nearer 
 home. For at the same meeting it was : 
 
 Resolved, That in the view of this Consociation it is desirable that a 
 convention of the friends of Othodox Congregationalism in this state be called 
 to consider and promote the interests of our churches, and that a committee 
 of five be appointed to correspond with the friends of Congregationalism to 
 secure this object, and to appoint such time and place for meeting as may be 
 found expedient. 
 
 Three ministers were chosen, Thomas Wickes, William 
 Wakefield and David Gould, and two laymen, A. T. Nye 
 and Douglas Putnam. A circular was sent out to the churches, 
 and the responses were so favorable that in April of '52 a 
 call was issued for a convention of ministers and delegates, 
 to meet June 23 at Mansfield. And so at length the long 
 agony of a full half century of perplexity, aimless wander- 
 ing, and utterly needless divisions among brethren was near- 
 ing the end. 
 
 When the meeting assembled it was found that 42 
 churches were represented by 40 ministers and 33 delegates- 
 One knows not whether to smile or weep to learn that 
 the brethren, saintly men every one, met with fear and trem- 
 bling, hardly daring to hope for harmony, unity, fraternity ; 
 almost taking it for granted that at some point damnable 
 heresy would be unearthed, or some iniquity to be denounced, 
 from which they must withdraw themselves and stand aloof. 
 It was not possible for Marietta and Oberlin to agree upon 
 a creed. But lo, Prof Henry Cowles, the " perfectionist " 
 and all that, was present at one of the sessions of the com- 
 mittee on creed, and stunning was the amazement when he 
 declared that he had examined the creed of the Marietta 
 Consociation and could accept it all %vitJioiit any mental res- 
 
70 Congregationalisvi in Ohio. 
 
 ervation! And so it was from beginning to end. No root of 
 bitterness appeared, no barriers were discovered which need 
 keep them asunder, no reason why they should not from 
 henceforth dwell together as brethren in loving fellow- 
 ship. Which same blessed thing they then and there 
 undertook to do, by organizing the Congregational Con- 
 ference of Ohio, whose name in later years was changed 
 to Association. At the first annual meeting the statis- 
 tical report gave 189 as the number of Congregational 
 churches in the state, of which 147 were on the Reserve, 24 
 were located south and west of its boundaries, and eighteen 
 were Welsh. Of those upon the Reserve 63 were still shel- 
 tered under the wing of presbytery, and 84 were dwelling 
 all unsheltered outside. Beyond the limits of the Reserve 
 only two cared to risk their lives in a "strong" ecclesiastical 
 system. 
 
 Escape had been safely made from Egypt, the wilder- 
 ness great and terrible had largely been left behind, a few 
 cheering glimpses of Canaan had been gained, but Jordan 
 remained to be crossed, or at least the tedious and painful 
 conquest was yet to be made. The golden opportunity 
 had been squandered, the peerless chance to mold a giant 
 commonwealth. By the thousand the " Congregational ele- 
 ment" had turned Presbyterian. A whole half century had 
 been lost. Scores of churches had foundered in the stress of 
 the storm. So manifold and so deep-seated were the evils re- 
 sulting from the Plan of (dis) Union that the lapse of a gen- 
 eration would not suffice to undo them. Quite soon a pro- 
 cession started from presbytery toward the local conferences; 
 but many remained as they were, some from vis inertice, 
 or mere force of habit, some from choice, and some from 
 fear of greater ills if they wholly identified themsevles with 
 the polity of the Pilgrims. In some cases, also, churches 
 found life in presbytery so comfortable and happy that they 
 had no wish to agitate the matter of leaving, on the princi- 
 
Dazvn of Better Days. yi 
 
 pie of " lettiiii^ well enougjh alone." Quite an exodus oc- 
 curred early in the seventies when General Assembly bade 
 the churches to "perfect their organization," that is, choose 
 between being wholly Presbyterian, and being out-and-out 
 Congregational. But forty years actually passed after the 
 meeting in Mansfield before the last of these wandering 
 prodigals came home to receive the robe and ring of the 
 penitent, and to share in the bountiful feast. Then there 
 were scores of another hapless class, those which had had 
 bitter experience of presbyterial ways, and escaping alive 
 went stark mad over Independency. Lonesome and in peril 
 were they, but sympathy neither gave nor sought, and fell 
 into a wretched Ishmaelitish frame. While we pity them, 
 and are not at liberty altogether to excuse their offence, yet 
 it is not strange that a morbid fear was felt as touching ec- 
 clesiastical intermeddling and tyranny. A volume would 
 not suffice to tell the story. But these specimen cases, which 
 might be multiplied ad nauseam must suffice. Fitchville (to 
 give the Presbyterian side of it), "which had from its origin 
 been a source of annoyance to the body by its disorderly 
 constitution and disorderly conduct, being largely independ- 
 ent of presbytery, was cut off from its relation. A commit- 
 tee, however, was immediately appointed to visit Fitchville 
 and organize a Presbyterian church if deemed expedient." 
 And thus two warring churches were found in a little ham- 
 let. Happily, however, after a troubled life of a dozen 
 years, the latter gave up the ghost. Thompson had been 
 caught in the toils of the Plan, and some who would be de- 
 livered from "all higher ecclesiastical bodies which would 
 usurp authority over them," could gain their goal onl}' by 
 forming a " Free and Independent" church. Later the two frag- 
 ments were brought together. But a {tw stood out and were or- 
 ganized into a Presbyterian church, which presbytery kept alive 
 for years fighting against fate. In '36 Weymouth exchanged 
 presbytery for Western Reserve Association, but in two 
 
72 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 years found associating with Oberlin too bitter a pill and 
 went back. In '45 voted to leave presbytery and stand 
 independent, but failed to get permission. By '48 becomes 
 red hot on anti-slavery and asks the lukewarm presbytery to 
 flee from the Sodom of a pro-slavery General Assembly ; 
 and when that body declines so to do, in high dudgeon votes, 
 "we dissolve the relations between that body and this 
 •church." Birmingham was formed by a committee of pres- 
 bytery as the First Presbyterian church and elders were in- 
 stalled (over a church of Congregationalists, be it under- 
 stood). Later the question arises of leaving presbytery 
 and changing both name and polity, but was voted down. 
 Next, presbytery on an appeal decides against the church and 
 a protest is entered. Before long a vote is carried to change 
 the name, a year after a resolution is lost to withdraw from 
 presbytery, and finally a similar resolution carries ncvi. con. 
 In Williamsfield certain persons ask the church to be dis- 
 missed in order to form an independent organization. Are 
 told they may, with the consent of presbytery. That body 
 withholds permission, pronouncing the project "untimely 
 and forever inexpedient." Appeal again to the church, 
 which is at first in doubt, but at length says, Go, In due 
 season asks to say good-bye to presbytery. But cases vast- 
 ly worse than these were too common. Thus Litchfield 
 voted to withdraw, with a Presbyterian minister as modera- 
 tor, Vvdio declared that those voting thus " were no longer 
 members of the church, and had no right to vote and act 
 with the church." This decision was sanctioned by presby- 
 tery at its next session. York church near by, hearing of 
 this gross outrage upon Congregational rights, moved at 
 once to flee from such domination. In Granville when Pres- 
 bytery began to regulate but one church was found, and when 
 its work was ended there were four, all full of fight, two of 
 them Presbyterian, one Congregational and one Episcopal. 
 Surely a "weak" polity could not match that achievement. 
 
Dawn of Better Days. y^ 
 
 Buthappil}', not much longer were such grievous experi- 
 ences from such illegitimate causes to be possible. The 
 Minutes of the State Association supply an excellent outline 
 both of the embarrassments still suffered as an inheritance 
 from an unfortunate past, and of the steps of solid and steady 
 progress which began trom 1852. Thus in '55 among other 
 things, it was resolved : 
 
 That we cordially invite all the Congregational churches in Ohio, which 
 are not now associated with us, to become connected with this body, either 
 directly or through a district conference. 
 
 Thai we deem it eminently conducive to the peace and prosperity of the 
 Congregational churches in Ohio that the ecclesiastical relation of their pas- 
 tors or stated supplies should be Congregational [hear, hear ! ] * and there- 
 fore affectionately request our churches to urge (if need be) the importance of 
 this connection upon those whom they employ to labor with them in the gos- 
 pel ministry. 
 
 In '57 Puritan Conference reports "twelve churches in 
 connection, and the same number of Congregational churches 
 belonging to presbytery, with four or five independent. Some 
 of these do not unite because they lean towards Presbyterian- 
 ism ; others because they lean towards Independency." 
 And Medina Conference : " Within our bounds are sixteen 
 churches ?iX\di fragments of churches, of which only six are 
 in our connection. Of the others some are averse to coming 
 into our body on account of painful experience in former 
 ecclesiastical connections." In '60 eight local conferences 
 appear as connected with the state body. The statistical 
 secretary "estimates" the Congregational churches to num- 
 ber 250, of which a round lOO are in the Association, 75 
 
 *The cogent reason for this earnest counsel is seen in the case of the 
 Plain church which in the sixties had for pastor a stiff and zealous Presby- 
 terian, who one after another organized three Presbyterian churches within a 
 few miles, largely with members from the Plain church, and which but for his 
 manipulation would have been Congregational. Then, with impudence al- 
 most sublime, he suggested to the Plain people that being so weak they 
 would better disband and scatter themselves among the three neighboring 
 bodies. To force this result he even put their services at such an incon- 
 venient hour as to make it next to impossible for them to attend. 
 
74 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 are connected with presbytery, and 75 are Independent, with 
 a membership of 16,000. He tells of the woes he has en- 
 dured in the effort to gather statistics ffom the indifferent, 
 the suspicious, the dogged, and the recalcitrant church clerks 
 and others. They fear him and the Association as being 
 but popes in disguise, and all bristling with designs upon 
 their liberties, for which they will die sooner than surrender. 
 This same exasperated statistician applies the lash right lus- 
 tily to the clergy and laity of the fifty years just past for 
 their utter self-abnegation and self-stultification which made 
 it possible that " in the annual report for 1859 of the Com- 
 missioner of Statistics for the State of Ohio, a report pub- 
 lished by state authority, there is not the least notice of a 
 Congregational church within the state, though the commis- 
 sioner expressly asserts that he gives a table of all the 
 churches and church property." The word Congregational 
 is not found between the covers. Of a truth, such indigna- 
 tion was not at all unrighteous. It is not until '62, and after 
 the churches had been associated for a full decade, that the 
 statistics begin to touch bottom. Tables which are quite 
 satisfactory now begin to meet our gaze. In 'C7 at the 
 meeting of Association at Columbus 131 churches were rep- 
 resented, and statistics were given from 173, of which 32 
 were Welsh, and 12 were unassociated. The ministers num- 
 bered 130 and the members 13,428. It was during this de- 
 cade that the Welsh churches, which had stood quite aloof 
 with over-leaning towards Independency, began to affiliate 
 with their American brethren. In '70 first appears Central 
 South Welsh Conference, but not connected until the year 
 following, when Eastern Ohio Welsh Conference was formed. 
 
 OUR WELSH CHURCHES. 
 
 These bodies of Christians are staunch Congregation- 
 alists, and constitute a portion of our fellowship so import- 
 
Our Welsh ChurcJies. 75 
 
 ant and distinct as to call for a separate and honorable men- 
 tion. Indeed, the suggestion appears to be quite in order 
 that they are altogether too distinct ; that it would be alto- 
 gether better both for the cause we have in common, and al- 
 so for them, if the days should be hastened when all walls 
 of separation would be broken down, and Welsh confer- 
 ences be heard of no more. The beginnings of Welsh In- 
 dependency date from the sixteenth century in and from this 
 source was supplied its full quota of confessors and mar- 
 tyrs. One doughty Welshman for conscience sake was clapped 
 into gaol no less than thirteen times. And another attained 
 to immortal fame among Congregationalists, John Penry, a 
 genuine Puritan, who was hanged in 1593, in London, be- 
 cause he would have it that the mind and moral sense of 
 man must be free. The first Welsh church with this free 
 polity was formed in 1639, in Monmouthshire, with others 
 following soon in Cardiff and Swansea. The first considera- 
 ble immigration of Welsh Congregationalists to this country 
 began near the close of the last century. On a former page 
 mention was made of the early advent of several families in- 
 to southwestern Ohio, with the Whitewater church, or Pad- 
 dy's Run, as the outcome. About the same time settlers of 
 the same excellent stock began to lift up their axes against 
 trees in Licking county. They appeared early at Granville, 
 organizing a church in '39, another at Harrison, and a third 
 at Newark in '41. But even before, in 1803, the year in 
 which Paddy's Run was formed, one David Pugh purchased 
 some 4,000 acres in what is now Radnor, Delaware county, 
 which presently became the center of a flourishing Welsh 
 settlement, to supply whose religious needs Radnor church 
 was organized in 1S20. In 1818 other colonies fixed them- 
 selves in Gallia and Jackson, attracted especially by the 
 opening mines of iron and coal. In '32 it seemed to cer- 
 tain enterprising land-owners about Paddy's Run that that 
 section was suffering from a plethora of population, or else 
 
^6 Co7igregatio nail sin in Ohio. 
 
 they were allured by stories concerning the newly discovered 
 paradise up in Allen county on the borders of the Black 
 Swamp. At any rate, eight families emigrated thither that 
 year, located in Sugar Creek township, and in '35 by cov- 
 enanting together brought the Gomer church into being. 
 This representative of our polit}^ situated a few miles to the 
 northwest of Lima, disputes with the Plain church, just 
 west of Bowling Green in Wood county, the claim of being 
 the oldest in that newest portion of the state. Palmyra 
 township in Portage county, had already been invaded by a 
 troop of Welshmen bent on securing homes, who eventual- 
 ly secured almost entire possession, bought the sanctuary 
 of a dying American Congregational church, and set them- 
 selves up ecclesiastically in '34. 
 
 In the meantime the large cities had been offering at- 
 tractions to a large fraction of the Welsh immigration, as is 
 proved by the appearance of Washington Ave. (Town St.), 
 Columbus church in '37; Lawrence St., Cincinnati, in '40, 
 and Youngstown in '47. The coming of Cleveland South 
 was delayed until '59. In all our Welsh churches number 
 42, with a membership of over 3,000. With his eye upon 
 those which were organized in the first half of the century, 
 Rev. John P. Williams writes: "They were blessed with 
 good and faithful ministers, who met their trials and difficul- 
 ties with heroic spirit, when the country was first settled, 
 and their names are in sweet remembrance in the churches 
 as pioneers. Such as J. A. Davies, of Siloam ; I. Davies, 
 of Tyn Rhos ; Thomas Edwards, Cincinnati ; John Morgan 
 Thomas, Alliance ; D. Davies ; James Davies, Radnor ; Rees 
 Powell, Troedrhiwdalar ; J. H. Jones, Delaware; John Ed- 
 wards, Crab Creek, etc." Rev. B. W. Chidlaw ranks among 
 the heroes for God in the state, while not a few of the Welsh 
 ministers for sterling qualities of mind and heart, for earnest 
 deeds and useful lives, belong in the category with our very 
 best. Our Cymric fellow disciples are worshipful and zeal- 
 
Our Welsh Churches. 77 
 
 ous in their religious make, in living- the gospel probably 
 they succeed in everyday life as well as the average Anglo- 
 Saxon saint, while in singing the gospel they leave us far be- 
 hind. In lifting up psalms and hymns and spiritual songs 
 not many can match them. As for the churches, a few of 
 them are quite strong, Gomer leading with 355 members, 
 Youngstown following with 300, Cincinnati Lawrence St. 
 with 194, Cleveland South with 206, and Columbus Wash- 
 ington St. with 145. Only 10 have a membership of more 
 than 100, while 22 have less than 50, and 6 have less than 
 10. Except in the cities the Welsh churches are on the 
 whole quite steadily losing ground, and from this serious 
 combination of causes : Those in rural districts, like many 
 of their class all the land over, because the population is di- 
 minishing ; and for the same reason those in coal and iron 
 districts^ where the mines are failing, or where strikes and 
 other business perturbations make work and wages uncer- 
 tain. But with scarcely room for doubt, the principal cause 
 is of another sort altogether, is removable, is wholly in the 
 hands of the churches and pastors, either to be removed, or 
 to be suffered to remain and work mischief. With all their 
 might the elders are likely to cling to their mother tongue, 
 and to the ways in which their fathers \valked in the land be- 
 yond the sea. The fact is not fully appreciated that in this 
 countr}' English should be, must be, will be the speech of all 
 citizens. But the }'Ounger generation, the boys and girls 
 born this side of the Atlantic, are wholly inclined at any cost 
 to be as their neighbors, at least as to the general features 
 of daily practice, in religion as well as elsewhere. And, sure 
 as the world, this latter tendency is destined to prevail. To 
 this irresistible decree of fate, rather of heaven, every de- 
 nomination in the United States must bow in obedience, 
 sooner or later. But meanwhile the struggle waxes hot be- 
 tween the old and the young, those who would keep things 
 as the}' are and those who propose to square themselves to 
 
78 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 the facts of the present and the future. On the question of 
 Welsh vs. Engh'sh, churches are rent in twain, congregations 
 dwindle to a handful, and children to their parents are antag- 
 onistic. Reason and a truly Christian spirit would seem to 
 indicate that the elders, who at the best must soon pass away, 
 should make haste to yield cheerfully for the lasting and un- 
 speakable benefit of their sons and daughters. If this should 
 come to pass, and then further, the Welsh conferences as 
 such should disappear, it would be a day most blessed for 
 our beloved Zion. Let the example of Paddy's Run, the 
 mother church, find many imitators. Several Welsh churches 
 were represented when at Mansfield the State Association 
 was formed in '52. It was a great step forward whe^i in '67 
 the names of all appeared upon the pages of the Minutes. 
 God hasten the day when Ohio Congregationalists shall be 
 "all with one accord in one place;" when there shall be 
 "neither Jew nor Greek," but Jesus Christ all in all. 
 
 RECENT DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 It was not until about twenty-five years ago that Con- 
 gregationalism in Ohio really got upon its feet and with limbs 
 reasonably free set forward upon its course of helping to re- 
 deem and hold the state to righteousness. Let us glance at 
 some of the phenomena which appear in this period, taking 
 note not only of the brighter phases of things, but also of 
 such as are less pleasant to contemplate. And first, a steady 
 and fairly rapid increase in the number of churches can be 
 traced. Going back somewhat further, 24 were added to our 
 list in the fifties, counting only those which still sur\'ive. 
 During the sixties, the period of the war, but iS were or- 
 ganized, the next decade gave birth to 25, the eighties to 36, 
 while the last decade of the century, of which a full half is 
 still future, already increases the catalogue of the sisterhood 
 
Recent Development. 79 
 
 by no less than 29. The total of churches formed since 
 1850 is 132. The location of these more recent comers is 
 as significant and cheering as their number. This is the 
 era of the growth of cities, and our denomination which in 
 the first half of the century strengthened itself mainly in 
 the rural districts, is now handsomely redeeming itself by en- 
 tering in at the many open doors offered by the chief centers 
 of population. At least 60 of the 132 are found in the cities 
 or larger villages, and thus have a reasonable assurance of a 
 long and prosperous career. Another omen of good is found 
 in the fact that we are more and more bursting the bounda- 
 ries within which our fathers seem to have judged we were 
 fated to be confined, the twelve counties of the Reserve, to- 
 wit, and are manifesting both our right and our ability to live 
 and thrive in central, southern and western Ohio. Since 1870 
 Congregational churches to the number of 90 have been 
 organized, and of these 54 are located in divers parts of this 
 *' non-Congregational" area. Though this most important 
 undertaking is sadly and criminally belated, we may well re- 
 joice and take courage that such progress has been made. 
 Yes, and with our Bohemian, and Swedish, and Finnish and 
 German churches, we are proving ourselves to have outlived 
 that mingled heresy and humbug that our free polity was di- 
 vinely ordained for Yankees only. Five and twenty years 
 since our churches numbered just 200, and our ministers 173, 
 of whom 37 were without pastoral charge. Ten years later 
 230 churches were reported, and 182 ministers ; in '90 they 
 increased to 250 and 227; while now (Minutes of '96) they 
 stand at 264 and 234. The membership of the churches 
 and of the Sunday-schools at the same intervals tell the same 
 story of constant advance. In '70 the figures were respec- 
 tively, 16,862 and 19,196 ; in '80 they had grown to 23,868 
 and 27,381 ; in '90 they stood at 34,633 and 37,014; and 
 according to the latest returns they have climbed to 39,052 
 and 36,292. 
 
8o Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 A marked development can be traced in the increase of 
 instrumentalities for furthering Christian activity, as well as 
 methods of work. Thus the various wom.en's missionary 
 societies have come into being and the Christian Endeavor 
 movement, etc., etc. Our denominational Sunday-school 
 work has been pushed as never before, thanks largely to our 
 Sunday-school and Publishing Society with Rev. W. F. Mc- 
 Millen as its devoted representative. Just here it was that 
 not a few of our newer churches had their beginning. With 
 such encouragement our children and youth are learning rap- 
 idly to bear their full share of service and beneficent giving. 
 As for our denominational beneficences, in the fifties like all 
 our other denominational affairs, they were in a jumble. By 
 many whose anti-slavery convictions were intense the Ameri- 
 can Board was too halfhearted and mealy-mouthed to be 
 countenanced, and so the American Missionary Association 
 was organized in '46,* which also did home missionary work 
 for some of our needy churches ; and through various boards 
 and committees the friends of Oberlin were constantly con- 
 tributing for the support of its suspected and ostracised 
 graduates who were toiling among the Indians, and the ex- 
 slaves of Canada and the West Indies. As we have seen 
 the Connecticut Missionary Society entered Ohio in 1800, 
 nor for three and fifty years did it weary of sending annually 
 thousands of dollars to this needy field. In all, this cher- 
 ishing mother commissioned and sustained 87 missionaries 
 in this state, by whom a total of 635 years of exhausting 
 service were bestowed. Twenty of the number labored ten 
 years or more, eight remained twenty or more, while one. 
 Rev. A. H. Betts, completed a term of thirty-two years 
 
 (1821-53). 
 
 In 1826 the American Home Missionary Society came 
 
 *And hence, while our churches are celebrating their hundredth anniver- 
 sary, this Society, with such an honorable record, is calling to remembrance 
 its half-century of service. 
 
Recent Development. 8 1 
 
 into being', while the Plan of Union was in full sway, and for 
 some thirty years knew no distinction between Presbyterian 
 and Congregationalist. In '52 when the State Association 
 began to evoke and foster and fashion and organize our de- 
 nominational work in the state, Rev. Lysander Kelsey was 
 home missionary superintendent (for central and southern 
 Ohio, '57-63, and the entire state, '63-73), ^"d was an act- 
 ive participant in the annual meetings. At the end of ten 
 years the relations of the Association and the Home Mission- 
 ary Society were found so unsatisfactory that the project was 
 broached of forming a state body to look after the home 
 needs, and in '63 this was done. Rev. H. M. Storrs was sec- 
 retary for a season, and was followed by Mr. Kelsey, who 
 then^began to serve in that capacity. Theyear preceding arad- 
 ical new departure had been taken by resolving, "That it is 
 expedient to organize a State Home Missionary Society, 
 auxiliary to the A. H. M. S. at New York," and, "That on 
 and after the ist of July, 1872, the Congregational churches 
 of Ohio will do their own missionary work." Brave words, 
 and no doubt, uttered sincerely in courage and hope. But 
 somehow, in the years ensuing the deeds failed to match. In 
 '73 it was voted that the churches ought to raise $10,000 for 
 home evangelization, and that no salaried secretary should 
 be employed. Only $7,860 resulted from the call, in part 
 because hard times had struck the country. In '74 Rev. 
 Samuel Wolcott appears as secretary, and continues till '8r. 
 In '75 the day is spoken of when "Ohio will be paying her 
 own expenses, and helping A. H. M. S. in the regions be- 
 yond." Occasionally it happened that more money was 
 raised in the state than was expended in the state, but it was 
 sure to be so that the receipts would soon fall below the 
 mark and all prospect of independence would vanish. Or 
 the legacies would reach a handsome figure, only to sink for 
 several years to the zero point. More than once hope de- 
 ferred has made the hearts sick of those who longed for the en- 
 
82 Congregatio}ialisvi in Ohio 
 
 largement of Zion. In '80 the fact was published that Ohio 
 held the bad eminence of exhibiting a lower rate of benefi- 
 cent giving than any other state, and a ^qw years later that 
 the average here was but $0.30 for each member, and in the 
 country at large $0.61. In '89 the gifts of the living reached 
 $13,158, which was $3,000 more than O. H. M. S. had ever 
 received. No doubt, it is just at this point that the outlook 
 for Congregational Ohio presents its seamiest side to the ob- 
 server. How shall our denominational work, now an hund- 
 red years old, come finally and forever to self-support .-^ For 
 years this lamentable case has been discussed and pondered 
 upon, and diligent search has been made for the seat of the 
 trouble. As with most chronic ailments, the cause is likely 
 to be manifold. Probably no single statement will contain 
 so large a fraction of the explanation as this one : Of our 
 churches only a comparatively few are large and wealthy. 
 The bulk of them are below the line of self-support, or else 
 are just above it. Of the total number, 137, more than half, 
 have less than 100 members, and "jj have less than 50. And 
 these figures include the absentees, who in most cases con- 
 stitute a large percentage. More then half our churches, then, 
 are in the midst of a hard struggle for bare life. Though 
 their benefactions doubtless might be, and ought to be, far 
 larger, yet the sad failure to make them so is not at all sur- 
 prising. Especially when we look further and find that last 
 year 5/ of these churches were reported as without pastors, 
 and some of them had been in this condition for years.* 
 
 Recent years have brought yet another source of embar- 
 rassment and possible serious harm. The cities are organiz- 
 ing themselves for local home missionary work, which is well, 
 and even necessary. Or if societies are not formed, the strong 
 self-supporting churches plan and push for new organizations 
 in their vicinity, and bestow liberal financial aid. It is doubt- 
 
 *For 3- table of statistics showing the growth of Congregationalism in 
 the state see page 95. 
 
What of the Second Century? 83 
 
 less in this way that the suburbs so rapidly springing up can 
 be cared for most wisely and efficiently. But the danger is 
 by no means imaginary that the vision of the city churches, 
 and so their interest, their prayers and their giving will be 
 withdrawn from the general work of the state. Large and 
 wealthy churches can be found whose home missionary ag- 
 gressive energy in behalf of the Kingdom is almost wholly 
 expended upon objects within two or three mile'^ of their 
 sanctuary. But is it not spiritually damaging thus to nar- 
 row the circumference of our sympathies and our benefac- 
 tions } And besides, who then is to care for the farming 
 communities which need assistance, and the smaller towns } 
 "All one body, we," and so city should pray and give for 
 the redemption of country, and country for city. Why can 
 it not be so arranged that the urban organizations shall be 
 but another phase of the state body, it doing the work 
 through them, they auxiliary to it .'' Their undertakings 
 might well be started only after consultation with represent- 
 atives of the O. H. M. S., and all their receipts and expend- 
 itures be regularly reported in the state Minutes. An ex- 
 cellent step was taken last year, when, after giving certain 
 facts and figures relating to the state society proper, a para- 
 graph was inserted telling how churches in six of our cities 
 had expended $4,404 upon enterprises in their immediate 
 neighborhood. But the strange fact came out thereby that 
 this sum, which amounted to about one-third of all that was 
 raised for home missions in the state, did not pass through 
 the treasury of the state society. 
 
 WHAT OF THE SECOND CENTURY.? 
 
 In a desultory and fragmentary way we have traced the 
 beginnings of Congregationalism in Ohio, and its unfolding 
 through the first hundred }-ears ; making mention also of 
 
84 Congregationalisiii in Ohio. 
 
 some of the strange experiences through which it has passed. 
 Some of the achievements made have been mentioned, as 
 well as some of the short- comings and derelictions of our 
 career as a denomination. Over many passages of the his- 
 tory we may most fittingly rejoice and be glad. Even a hum- 
 ble pride and godly boasting are by no means out of order. 
 All along a guarding, guiding providence may easily be dis- 
 covered, while every now and then, here and there, peculiar 
 tokens of divine favor have been bestowed. On the whole, 
 for at least a generation, the lines have fallen to us in pleas- 
 ant places. And, verily, our ecclesiastical heritage is a good- 
 ly one. Therefore with hearty thanksgiving for the past let 
 us glance once more at the present with especial reference to 
 its bearing upon our opportunities and responsibilities in 
 years to come. 
 
 We form a body of almost 40,000 disciples of Christ, 
 congregated and organized in more than 250 churches. On- 
 ly four states in the Union contain more Congregationalists 
 than ours ; Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and Illi- 
 nois. But what a little company after all compared with the 
 total of church members to be found in this commonwealth, 
 who according to the last census numbered in the aggregate 
 1,215,000; or omitting the Roman Catholics (336,000), 
 879,000. We stand no higher than eighth among the Pro- 
 testant bodies. The Methodists come first with 240,000 ; 
 and next follow the Presbyterians, 164,000 (Presbyterian, 
 North, 82,000) ; Lutherans of all kinds, 90,000 ; Baptists, 
 69,000; Christians (Disciples), 54,000; United Brethren, 
 53,000; German Reformed, 36,000 ; Congregationalists (in 
 1890), 32,281 ; Evangelical Synod, 31,617; Christian Con- 
 nection 26,000; and so on through about 100 sects, some 
 of them able to muster only a {^w scores. We represent, 
 perhaps, 200,000 in a population of 3,672,000. If num- 
 bers were all in all, then we might well sit down in humilia- 
 tion, with slight enthusiasm or courage. But, another glance 
 
W/ia^ of the Second Century? 85 
 
 at our geographical limitations will afford a further some- 
 what discouraging aspect of the situation. In Obcrlin we 
 are triumphant (though by no means rampant). No other 
 polity can there even compete with ours. About this com- 
 munity as a center a parallelogram 30 by 50 miles may be 
 constructed | containing only a single Presbyterian church, 
 and United Presbyterian at that. New England can scarce- 
 ly name a territory to match. In Cleveland also we hold an 
 honorable place, and whether as to numerical strength or 
 rate of growth ; while on the Reserve as a whole, especially 
 if Mahoning and Trumbull counties lying upon the Pennsyl- 
 vania line be excepted, our case in many respects is a com- 
 fortable one to contemplate. 
 
 But, alas, those twelve counties constitute but one- 
 seventh of the area of the state, and within their bounda- 
 ries are located five-eighths of our churches. Of our 38,- 
 328 church members, 25,045 dwell upon the Reserve, and 
 13,283 in the vast howling wilderness {in paj'tibns infidel- 
 unii) outside. Journey westward and southward and south- 
 westward from our stronghold, and you may traverse many 
 miles and light upon no church of our order. Take the Big 
 Four, for instance, and from Greenwich to Columbus, 83 
 miles, it is to us ecclesiastically a desert. Go 60 miles furth- 
 er to Dayton, and only one oasis, Springfield, will be passed. 
 Again, from Dayton east it is 80 miles of a dry and thirsty 
 land to Chillicothe ; and turning southward from thence,, 
 travel about the same distance to Ironton, and you catch but 
 a single glimpse of verdure, at Portsmouth, where within a 
 twelvemonth the waters have begun to flow. Blocks of 
 counties can be found on the map whose benighted inhabi- 
 tants have not so much as heard of the Congregational name. 
 Such as these three, Defiance, Paulding and Van Wert ; 
 these four, Logan, Hardin, Wyandot and Marion ; this sec- 
 ond quartet, Pickaway, Hocking, Fairfield and Vinton ; and 
 this section of nine adjacent counties which, if Congrega- 
 
S6 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 tionalism is essential to the highest well-being of humani- 
 ty, evidently constitutes Darkest Ohio : Adams, Brown, 
 Clermont, Highland, Fayette, Madison, Greene, Clinton and 
 Warren. The contrast may be made in this way : On the 
 Reserve are Huron county with lo of our churches, Lorain 
 with i6, Medina with 8, and Portage with 12 ; 46 in all. Ad- 
 joining them on the south, but off the Reserve, are Craw- 
 ford with o ; Richland with 5 ; Wayne with i ; and Stark 
 also with I ; a total of 7. Thus it is that while at the 
 northeast we approach sometimes dangerously near to a con- 
 gested condition, are inconveniently near; elsewhere we are 
 so few and far apart as to be weak, and lonesome, and in 
 peril from ecclesiastical beasts of prey. Of course, in the 
 cities like Columbus, Toledo and Cincinnati we make a much 
 better showing. Nevertheless, in 38 counties out of our 88 
 no Congregational churches exist, while in 19 more only one 
 in each is to be found. Moreover, a certain Ohio city of 
 26,000 is utterly destitute of our kind of preaching and 
 praying and thinking and living. Two others of 11,000 for 
 a like reason are to be commiserated, and two of 10,000. 
 It is much to be feared that the millennium is yet far in the 
 future ; and the task on hand for the Ohio Home Mis- 
 sionary Society is nothing less than herculean. 
 
 And what should our churches do to mend matters.^ 
 To answer this weighty question, and beginning first of all 
 in a realm quite local and personal : If in any particular 
 we have failed hitherto, we ought to make haste to master, 
 in order that we may fully appreciate the excellence of our 
 fundamental principles, our leading ideas, our characteristic 
 ways of doing. We bring no railing accusation against oth- 
 er denominations, who prize highly much which Congrega- 
 tionalists to the manner born always and everyv/here eschew. 
 There are, for example, those who dote on statutes which 
 are man-made, and judicatories, and machinery, and forms, 
 and such like. So be it, if they find them scriptural and 
 
UViat of the Second Century? 87 
 
 profitable, "For 'tis their nature to." 13ut we hold ours, 
 which is world-wide away from theirs, to be a far more ex- 
 cellent way. Saul's armor is well enough for Saul, but let 
 little David going out against Goliath stick to his simple 
 sling. We have churches composed wholly of " non-Congre- 
 gational" material, whose members were born and reared in 
 communions which at various points differ widely from ours. 
 Well, they have much to learn, and ought to enter school at 
 once. They need our denominational literature, even to our 
 Congrcgationalist and Advance. Only after these let the 
 Ontlook and Independent enter. It behooves them also to 
 seek closest fellowship with their neighbors through coun- 
 cils, conferences, and the like. But even more, an obliga- 
 tion rests upon the ministry to be intelligent and apprecia- 
 tive as touching our distinctive features. In heart and life 
 continuall}-, and often with lip, they ought to exalt our spirit 
 and methods. It is often our joy and sometimes our sorrow, 
 our privilege and also our pain, that ministers in such num- 
 bers are flocking to us from other folds. For many of these 
 we are grateful, and of some we are proud. It is compli- 
 mentary both to them and to us that they were inclined to 
 cast in their lot with us, to join the glorious company of 
 those who love the freedom and simplicity of the Gospel, 
 who cherish a noble confidence in human nature redeemed 
 and divinely led. But with too many we are simply weight- 
 ed. They are mere emigrants, transferred and not trans- 
 formed. That is, they failed to bring their hearts. They 
 have no enthusiasm for our best things, and this, perhaps, 
 from lack of accurate and thorough knowledge." From this 
 source real perils come to our ecclesiastical affairs, just as 
 
 *In one of our large cities out of nearly a half score of pastors only a 
 single one is a Congregationalist by birth and education. Ministers can be 
 named who continue to take the denominational papers of the church they 
 left, but have not begun to take the papers of the one to which they have 
 come. Not long since when an offering was to be made for Congregational 
 home missions, the " stewards " were called on to receive the same. 
 
88 Congregationalisvi in Ohio. 
 
 they do to our civil institutions from an influx of those whose 
 opinions and habits and tastes were fashioned in the OJd 
 World. It may be that in sheer self-defence our conferences 
 and councils will feel obliged to set up an immigration bu- 
 reau, an examining board, and a system of probation, and 
 only through them admit to citizenship with Congregational 
 saints. At an}- rate, all who successfully seek admission 
 ought to consider it their bounden duty at the very soonest 
 to master our history, become acquainted with our watch- 
 words and our great names, find out exactly for what sacred 
 convictions our polity stands. It might not be an ignoble 
 ambition even to treasure up in the memory the exact name 
 of each one of our seven benevolent societies — a height of 
 excellence to which few attain who enter our fellowship after 
 the age of thirty. 
 
 It is something to be well informed, it is much more to 
 practice the good things we know. We ought to have faith 
 in our principles, and to them always be loyal. They have 
 been sufficiently tested, and have been found profitable ev- 
 erywhere and for all. They fit exactly the land and the 
 times. Christ is our only master. Under Him, inspired and 
 impelled by His Spirit, w^e are free from all men. But, never- 
 theless, we are bound to look also on the things of others, 
 our neighbors, bound to be social and fraternal, to come to- 
 gether in league and cooperation. It is by no means enough, 
 in order to become a good Congregationalist, to be selfish, 
 and resolutely determined at any cost to have one's way. 
 Congregation, conference, and association, these are Con- 
 gregational words which hold a world of meaning. Confer- 
 ence is talking together, and a conference is for local fellow- 
 ship. The Association is for state fellowship. Through the 
 National Councils our entire Israel holds sweetest and most 
 profitable communion from sea to sea. All hail the day 
 when, through pan-Congregational Councils, Christians of 
 our name round the whole earth shall assemble often to 
 
ir/iai of tJie Second Century? 89 
 
 pray and plan for the conquest of liumanit)' for the Lord 
 Jesus ! Through our noble denominational benevolent so- 
 cieties we have a potent means of fellowship and coopera- 
 tion. We unite thus to cany the kingdom to the ends of 
 the state, the nation, the world. And thus it is that our 
 sympathies are enlarged and our desires are intensified. 
 Even the best of our churches liave much to learn with re- 
 gard to the blessedness, and the absolute need, of continual 
 communication like this, while too many churches have 
 scarcely taken the first lesson. No body of disciples can 
 prosper spiritually in the best sense without a rational sys- 
 tem of beneficent giving for the diffusion of the Gospel at 
 home and abroad, a system, too, which is conscientiously 
 adopted and adhered to, and is pushed with business-like 
 vigor. It must center in the Lord's day and the sanctuary, 
 and be mingled with exhortation, and prayer, and song. It 
 must come near to the front among duties and privileges, 
 must be planned for and prepared for like any other matter 
 of great moment. The giving, to be worth the most to the 
 giver and to the Kingdom, must be regular, must be fre- 
 quent, and consist of a multitude of sums of which each one 
 is relatively small. It will not answer to fall short of Paul's 
 scheme as laid down in VIII and IX of Second Corinthians, 
 nor in spirit or letter would it be possible to go beyond it. 
 When everybody gives, rich and poor, old and young, gives 
 often of the pennies and the nickels and the dimes, and the 
 sums thus secured are divided among the various objects by 
 a fair percentage, — the American Board, the Congregational 
 Home Missionary Society, the American Missionary Asso- 
 ciation, the Congregational Church Building Society, the 
 Congregational Education Society, the Congregational Sun- 
 day-school and Publishing Society, and Ministerial Relief, — 
 then will all the denominational treasuries overflow, and all 
 our denominational enterprises be greatly enlarged, and 
 strengthened, and made mighty for the diftusion of Chris- 
 
90 Congregationalisvi in Ohio. 
 
 tianity as it is loved and lived among us. In particular, if 
 such a celestial spirit should enter our churches to abide and 
 take possession, our Home Missionary Society would know 
 no lack of funds for the carrying on of its much needed ag- 
 gressive work in all parts of the state. 
 
 HOW MAKE THE CENTENARY NOTABLE. 
 
 A knowledge of history is good in great part because of 
 the help it gives to right living, and it always behooves us to 
 make a practical application to character and conduct of the 
 facts we gather. It is therefore by no means the part of 
 wisdom to suffer these days of peculiar privilege and oppor- 
 tunity to come and go with mere talk and jubilation, mere 
 reminiscence and kindling of emotion. Surely this centen- 
 nial celebration should bear fruit in toil for the Master of far 
 better quality, and in much greater abundance. 
 
 THE HOME MISSIONARY SITUATION. 
 
 To be more pointed and specific, let us glance again at 
 the task providentially laid upon our denomination as re- 
 lated to the spiritual well-being of this magnificent common- 
 wealth. And as setting forth our weakest point, our most 
 serious as well as most unaccountable dereliction, let us give 
 good heed to the words of one who from almost a decade of 
 constant observation and study can speak with an authority 
 which is imperative. Who that knows Dr. J. G. Eraser, 
 since '87 the gifted and tireless secretary of our Ohio Home 
 Missionary Society, his singular aptness and industry, his 
 unbounded enthusiasm and consecration, can afford to pass 
 by the paragraphs from his pen which follow without giv- 
 ing them due consideration } 
 
 Two years ago the special committee said that "Ohio can never heartily 
 respect herself until she makes and maintains a record of $10,000 a year from 
 
How Make the Centeriary Notable. 91 
 
 ordinary sources, with normal increase from year to year." One year ago it 
 was said, " the gifts here reported from the living are nearly $1,000 behind 
 the figures which caused and seemed to justify such words." And now, in 
 this Centennial year, the gifts of the living have fallen off $500 more, and 
 stand at $7,803.81, the lowest point reached in ten years. And to this it 
 must be added that of this amount $200 represents two shares in the Gen. 
 Howard Fund, and over $300 is from Mrs. Caswell's Dime Banks, distributed 
 a year ago, leaving less than $7,300 from sources to be relied upon from year 
 to year. Four legacies, aggregating $4,011, make the total $11,814.81. 
 
 This completes one hundred years of Congregational life and history in 
 Ohio, and July 1st, 1S96, the Ohio Home Missionary Society will enter upon 
 its 25th year. The situation which confronts the Home Missionary Society, 
 which means the denomination, is as grave as any it ever encountered. The 
 work was never more urgent, nor insistent, nor hopeful. The ebbing tide of 
 population still weakens the country churches ; the throbbing life of the city 
 offers opportunities and obligations which must be met at once or sacrificed 
 forever. Our pathway is unreturning: "Ye shall henceforth return no more 
 that way." The foreigner in Ohio never needed the gospel more, nor showed 
 more evidence of willingness to receive it. It is already intimated that we 
 must soon add the Germans to those to whom we must give the gospel in 
 their own tongue. Down-town problems and institutional work link them- 
 selves with Home Missions in Ohio. And yet, to speak in round numbers, of 
 $12,000, received last year,* more than one-third represented legacies, 
 and definitely less than two-thirds gifts of the living from ordinary sources. 
 Under the law of probabilities, legacies will be few and small for a year or 
 two to come, and under the amended compact with the National Society 
 which reads: "Provided that in no case shall any Auxiliary receive more 
 money than has been raised within its bounds for Home Missions during the 
 
 * Elsewhere Dr. F. adds under the head of "City Missions": An item- 
 imized account is herewith submitted of distinctive Home Missionary work 
 done as shown by expenditures in the various cities of the State where Home 
 Missionary work is done direct, either in whole or in part. It is meant to 
 cover aid given by churches toward the support of other churches or missions, 
 but not toward lots or church buildings. 
 
 Akron, First Church for Arlington Street $ 305 05 
 
 Cincinnati, Congregational Missionary Society 316 66 
 
 Cleveland, City Missionary Society $1,131 60 
 
 " Euclid Ave. Church for Lakeview Church.... 401 50 1,533 10 
 
 Columbus, First Church 1,415 70 
 
 Mansfield, First Church for Mayflower 137 50 
 
 Toledo, First Church Sunday School for Plymouth $400 00 
 
 " " ". for Birmingham 100 00 
 
 " Central Church for Birmingham loo 00 6co 00 
 
 A total of ., $4,30801 
 
 Which should be added to the figures already given, to fairly represent 
 our whole Home Missionary work in the State, and making an aggregate of 
 $16,122.82. 
 
gi Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 year, and including legacies to the National Society contained in wills dated 
 subsequently to the organization of the respective State Societies," it is 
 doubtful whether Ohio will be allowed to use them if they come. Is Ohio 
 ready to plan its work on a basis of $7,500? 
 
 WHAT SHALL WE DO? 
 
 First. Let us find out what is the matter. Is it the general financial 
 paralysis, or something peculiar to us? Would it be better if our work were 
 more thoroughly united, by the bringing of the city work, at least where city 
 missionary societies do not exist, under the direct care of the State Society? 
 
 Second. Let us adopt a present policy: 
 
 1. At least one contribution every year from every church for Home 
 Missions. 
 
 2. A wise, deliberate, patient, persistent, enthusiastic use of this cen- 
 tennial year, to quicken our "Congregational Self-Consciousness," and carry 
 our gifts over the bar on which they have been stuck so long, into the deep 
 channel. 
 
 3. A larger and fuller and abiding sense of our responsibility, our obli- 
 gation, our opportunity, our privilege, for the commonwealth, the nation and 
 the Kingdom of God. 
 
 Well, why not make the year memorable by raising for 
 home missions at least $20,000 before April i, 1897? It 
 can easily be done if every member of every church shall 
 make but an extremely moderate gift. Why are not extra 
 and special thank-offerings wholly in order ; preceded by 
 such an enthusiastic and inspiring presentation of, A Hun- 
 dred Years of Congregationalism in Ohio as every pastor 
 should be able and inclined to prepare for his people.'' Let 
 us see: We are an army some 40,000 in the state. Or, 
 subtracting for absentees, call it 35,000. A dime from each 
 one of these (a sum how ridiculously and almost contempti- 
 bly small, the cost of a "good" cigar, a glass of soda with a 
 friend, or a round-trip ticket on a street car line) would bring 
 $3,500 into the treasury of the Lord, and which added to 
 the largest sum named above would reach the near neighbor- 
 hood of $20,000. If need be, let a conscientious and thor- 
 ough canvass be made from house to house throughout all 
 the congregations, by a committee going out two by two, 
 witli hearts courageous and faces all beaming with smiles, with 
 
How Make the Centenary Notable. 93 
 
 twenty-five cents from each as the ideal. The astounding 
 outcome would be no less than $8,750. And what substan- 
 tial enlargement to Zion would presently ensue. Meantime 
 let some real, rational, Christian system of beneficent giving 
 be introduced and worked up into efficiency, to keep the high- 
 water mark gained by the centennial enthusiasm, and Ohio's 
 chronic, perplexing, and provoking home missionary problem 
 would be finally solved. Forever after we should be found 
 paying our own bills, and besides, according to our ability, 
 also helping to evangelize the needy regions beyond. 
 
 OUR FOUR-FOLD WORK. 
 
 Having made such ample provision of the sinews of war, 
 pastors and churches may well consider carefully the religious 
 needs of the state, or the various kinds of home missionary 
 work which need to be undertaken and continually carried 
 on. The briefest statement of these must here suffice. 
 Four paragraphs will cover them fairly well. They are not 
 by any means entirely distinct, are found rather in close con- 
 junction and strangely interblended. 
 
 1. Work in the cities and larger towns. In these cen- 
 ters occurs the principal growth of population. New 
 churches must be formed, and in almost every case for a few 
 years must be nourished from the outside. Then they will 
 become strong and able to return what they have received, 
 and much more. 
 
 2. Work in the rural districts, where the population is 
 diminishing, the best days are in the past, and the future is 
 dark. For various reasons some of these country churches 
 must be ministered to year by year. It would be unchris- 
 tian, and inhuman, to sufferthem to die without sympathyand 
 help. Nor is it easy to decide just what proportion of the 
 funds at command should here be expended. 
 
 3. Work for the foreign-born. In God's providence 
 they are here, and for us to Americanize and Christianize. 
 
94 Congregationalism in Ohio. 
 
 As Congregationalists we hold in trust a priceless boon. 
 We must give them a pure, simple, nineteenth-century Gos- 
 pel, and help them to use democracy as not abusing it. 
 They are our brothers, for whom Christ died as well as for 
 us. Our polity is profitable for them as for us. 
 
 4. From our stronghold upon the Western Reserve, 
 and in the large cities, we must not fail to watch continually 
 for providential openings for the introduction of such work 
 as we can undertake. Ohio, central, and southern, and 
 western, is territory for us to occupy at the soonest in the 
 Master's name ; though, thank God, we have no call in the 
 least to propagandize and proselyte. 
 
 So keeping the feast, so using the centennial year as to 
 give a new impulse to our denominational development, then 
 he who an hundred years hence is called to write the story 
 of the second century of Congregationalism in Ohio will 
 have opportunity to make mention of works of divine grace 
 and mercy yet more marvelous, and sublime. 
 
Statistical Table. 
 A TABLE 
 
 95 
 
 SHOWING THE GROWTH OF COXGREGATIONAL CHURCHES IN 
 OHIO FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. 
 
 YEAR. 
 
 1870, 
 1871, 
 1872. 
 1873 
 1874. 
 1875. 
 1876, 
 1877. 
 1878. 
 
 1879 
 1880, 
 1S81, 
 1882, 
 1883, 
 1884. 
 1885, 
 1886, 
 1887. 
 1888. 
 1889, 
 1890. 
 I89I. 
 1892. 
 1893. 
 1894. 
 1895. 
 
 a 
 
 3 
 
 u 
 
 >93o 
 ,862 
 ,281 
 
 .234 
 ,214 
 ,688 
 715 
 .719 
 .057 
 .392 
 .367 
 ,868 
 
 ^859 
 735 
 ,105 
 
 ,178 
 ,652 
 ,361 
 ,116 
 
 ,212 
 .297 
 633 
 ,625 
 380 
 .958 
 328 
 
 4S 
 
 C 
 3 
 CO 
 
 19.700 
 19,196 
 19.994 
 19.457 
 20,242 
 20,437 
 23,910 
 25,447 
 27,319 
 26,690 
 27,109 
 27,381 
 28,640 
 29,166 
 
 29.531 
 30.558 
 30,160 
 30,025 
 33.380 
 35.166 
 36,036 
 
 37,014 
 36,611 
 36,803 
 
 37.849 
 36,292 
 
 4,611 
 7,924 
 5,772 
 5.230 
 6,312 
 
 5.777 
 
 5.534 
 
 3.869 
 
 3,881 
 
 4,264 
 
 4.483 
 
 5.396 
 
 6,743 
 
 8.818 
 
 11,095 
 
 9,148 
 
 9,089 
 
 12,252 
 
 17,624 
 
 21,407 
 
 12,943 
 15,302 
 15,464 
 15,160 
 17,540 
 16,123 
 
 5 o 
 
 48,125 
 64,104 
 51.144 
 47.114 
 50,664 
 50,065 
 36,678 
 37.449 
 36.435 
 41,726 
 
 36,387 
 63.548 
 64.821 
 58,162 
 56,870 
 44.148 
 49.305 
 50,766 
 
 59.295 
 67,260 
 
 64,414 
 70,245 
 79,883 
 62,102 
 
 63.739 
 65.397 
 
 -fiW 
 
 169,432 
 226,346 
 165,820 
 22 1 ,907 
 212,983 
 197,466 
 291,147 
 195-730 
 217.833 
 213,914 
 213,206 
 
 230,543 
 225,827 
 270,482 
 255.548 
 
 223,393 
 222,822 
 316^272 
 258,688 
 249,299 
 
 284,345 
 341,092 
 358,560 
 367,621 
 326,974 
 382,406 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Adventism, Injury from, 58. 
 
 Albany Convention, 65, 68. 
 
 Anli-Slaveiy, 46; in Oberlin,53. 
 
 Association, Muskinsjum, 25; Lorain 
 County. 49, 68 ; Ohio State, 69; of 
 the Western Reserve, 49, 66; dis- 
 banding of, 67. 
 
 Austinburg church, organization of. 
 Errata, VI; 26, 30. 
 
 Fairchild, President J. li., license 
 refused to, 51. 
 
 Granville church, 27. 
 Growth of Congregationalism in Ohio 
 in twenty-five years, 95. 
 
 B. 
 
 Badger, Rev. Joseph, 30, 41. 
 Baptism, Oberlin's, was it valid? 52, 
 Barr, Rev. Thomas, 42. 
 Black Swamp, The, 33, 63. 
 
 Indians, war with, 18; departure of, 
 33. 
 
 L. 
 
 C. 
 
 Chicago, Strength of Congregational- 
 ism in, IV, 29. 
 
 Chidlaw, Rev. R. W., 76. 
 
 Cincinnati, Founding of, 25; churches 
 in, 27. 
 
 Cleveland, Founding of, 21; strength 
 of Congregationalism in, 85. 
 
 Congregationalism, Principles of, i; 
 for what it stands, 3; origin and 
 history of, 5; evolution of princi- 
 ples of, 7; growth of, II; compar- 
 ison of with other denominations, 
 84; statistical table, 95. 
 
 Consociation, The Marietta, 49; of 
 Portage and Summit, 49, 68. 
 
 Connecticut Missionary Society, 30, 
 36, 38, 80. 
 
 Consociated Presbytery of New Con- 
 necticut, 43. 
 
 Convention, Albany, 65, 68; Ecclesi- 
 astical, of New Connecticut, 49. 
 
 Counties of Ohio without Congrega- 
 tional church, 85. 
 
 Cowles, Prof. Henry, V, 42, 54, 69. 
 
 Lane Seminary, Exodus of students 
 from, 51; attitude of toward Plan 
 of Union, 53. 
 
 Land Company, The Ohio, 2o; The 
 Scioto, 27. 
 
 M. 
 
 McConnellsville church, 24. 
 Marietta, Founding of, 20, 23. 
 Michigan City, Convention of, 46, 53. 
 Moravians in Ohio, 15. 
 
 N. 
 
 Consoci- 
 
 "New Connecticut," 21; 
 
 ated Presbytery of, 43. 
 Non-Congregational area in Ohio, 85. 
 
 O. 
 
 Oberlin, Founding of, 51; opposition 
 to, 51; work of for Congregation- 
 alism in Ohio, 53-5; National 
 
98 
 
 Index. 
 
 Council at, 65; strength of Con- 
 gre£;;ationalism iii, 85. 
 Ohio Home Missionary Society, Or- 
 ganization of, 81, 90-4. 
 
 Robbins, Rev. S. P., 24, 25. 
 Rules of Practice, 58, 59. 
 
 Paddy's Run church, 26, 76, 78. 
 
 "Perfectionism," 01ierlin,5i, 53,69. 
 
 Pioneering for Congregationalism, in 
 south-east Ohio, 23; in the south- 
 west and central portions, 27; on 
 the Western Reserve, 29; in the' 
 north- west, 32. 
 
 Plan of Union, 36; how it came to be, 
 37; effects of, on the churches, 41, 
 44; on the ministers, 42; abroga- 
 tion of, 65. 
 
 Presbytery, of Redstone, 41; of Ohio, 
 41; of Erie, 41; of Hartford, 41; 
 of Grand River, 43; of Portage, 43. 
 
 R. 
 
 Religious life, Early, 56; effect of 
 Presbyterianism on, 59. 
 
 Schism of 1837, 48, 49. 
 Spiritualism, Damage from, 57. 
 Statistical Talile, 95. 
 Story, Rev. Uaniel, 23. 
 Synod of Western Reserve, 43. 
 
 Table, Statistical, 95. 
 
 Temperance, Action of the churches 
 
 upon, hi. 
 Toledo, Founding of, 33, 34. 
 
 W. 
 
 Welsh Churches, in Gomer; in Pal- 
 myra, 76; decay of, 77. 
 
 Western Reserve, First settlement of, 
 21; strength of Congregationalism 
 on, 29, 86. 
 
JU 
 
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