Congregational Council.

DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS
OF THE
Co«6Ve££tioy^l eboirtfi€S i« "&£. dS.
NATIONAL COUNCIL.

CONGREGATIONAL CHUKCHES,

HELD AT

BOSTON, MASS., JUNE 14-24, 1865.

FROM THE PHONOGRAPHIC REPORT BY

J. M. W. YERRINTON and HENRY M. PAKKHURST.

BOSTON:
AMERICAN CONGREGATIONAL ASSOCIATION,
23 Chatjncy Street.
186 6.

V
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by
ISAAC P. LANGWORTHY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

PREFACE

When the Congregational Churches of the United States were
about to assemble in National Council in the year 1865, the Committee
of Arrangements, in Boston, — Rev. Andrew L. Stone, of Boston, chair
man, — secured the services of a phonographic reporter for the entire
session of the Council. This arrangement was officially sanctioned
by the Council itself; and a complete report of the debates and pro
ceedings, made by men of eminent ability in that work, was thus ob
tained. Their manuscripts, with the original records and papers, were,
by vote of the Council, placed on perpetual deposit with the Directors of
the American Congregational Association ; and the Directors were
" authorized to publish a volume of proceedings and debates."
The Directors believed that a volume containing the acts and dis
cussions entire would be of permanent historical value as well as
of present interest to the churches. They determined to publish it, and
appointed Bev. Alonzo H. Quint, Bev. Isaac P. Langworthy, Bev.
Henry M. Dexter, Edward S. Tobey, Esq., and Bev. Bufus Anderson,
d. d., to edit the work and carry it through the press. That commit
tee placed it in the hands of a sub-committee, consisting of Bev. A. H.
Quint, and Bev. Isaac P. Langworthy, who have superintended the
publication of this volume.
In the execution of this duty, the main object has been to give to
the public a faithful and exact copy of the phonographic report. That
report has been varied from only in the following particulars : State
ments introductory to items of business have been occasionally modified
to secure uniformity in style ; the names of members have been cor
rected when misstated ; for occasional abstracts of votes, the full
C)

VI PREFACE.

official language has been substituted, and a few changes have been
found necessary on comparison with the record of the secretaries ; and
manifest errors in phraseology (extremely rare) have been corrected,
although only upon the suggestion of those whose authority was un
questionable. The fidelity of the phonographers has proved to be
worthy of special mention.
It was also thought desirable to insert an account- of the various
proceedings of different ecclesiastical bodies preliminary to, and result
ing in, the assembly of the Council; and to add freely any explanatory
notes which seemed needed, to make a complete historical record. The
list of members, with their nativity, prepared by Bev. Increase N. Tar-
box, and inserted at the close of the work, will doubtless be appre
ciated. As a matter of historical interest, a brief account of the
several Synods or Councils, general or nearly so, which have been
held by the American Congregational Churches, has been prefixed ;
and full indexes of topics and names are added at the close.
The committee trust that this work will be of permanent historical
value ; as well as meet the wishes of that large body of Christian
churches which felt called by God to deliberate upon new duties in a
day marked by the downfall of treason, and the deliverance of mil
lions from human slavery,
Alonzo H. Quint,
Isaac P. Langworthy,
Hexet M. Dexter,
Edward S. Tobet,
Bufus Anderson,
Committee.
Boston, Massachusetts, May, 1866.

Previous Synods or Councils held by the Ameri
can Congregational Churches. . . . ix-xrv
Proceedings Preliminary to the Assembling of
the Council of 1865, .... 1
Debates and Proceedings, . . . .19-
I First' Day, ..... 19
Second Day, ...... 30
Third Day, ..... 79-
Pourth Day, ..... 147-
Pifth Day,  196-
Sixth Day,  250-
Seventh Day, ..... 301-
Eighth Day, ..... 361-
Ninth Day, . . . . ' . 384-
Tenth Day, ...... 447-.
Names and Nativities of the Members, . . 501-
Index of Subjects, ...... 517-
Index of Names, ...... 523-.

PREVIOUS SYNODS OE COUNCILS
HELD BY THE
AMERICAN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES.

General Synods have been few in the history of American
Congregationalism. In the denial of any central human au
thority, — a principle fundamental in this polity, — they have
been convened only by mutual consent ; and, necessarily, only
when some matter of " common concern " seemed to the
churches to be of sufficient importance to require such a pro
ceeding. It is hardly necessary to say, that
" The proper function of a synod is not to legislate for the churches,
nor to determine imperatively any question which is not already deter
mined by the Scriptures, but by inquiry and brotherly conference, with
prayer for divine illumination, to obtain and hold forth light on such
matters as the churches have referred to its deliberations." *
The first Synod was held in 163T. It was called after con
sultation of " sundry elders and brethren," 2 in consequence
of the disturbances caused by the speculations of John Wheel
wright, Mistress Anne Hutchinson, and others. It met on the
thirtieth day of August, 1637, at Newtown, now Cambridge,
Mass. ; consisted of " all the teaching elders through the coun
try,"3 and of "messengers from the churches,"4 — "about
twenty-five godly ministers of Christ, besides many other gra
ciously-eminent servants of his;"5 chose. Rev. Peter Bulkley,
of Concord, and Eev. Thomas Hooker, of Hartford, modera
tors ; examined and condemned " eighty [eighty-two] erroneous
1 Page 124.
2 Cotton's Way of the Congregational Churches Cleared. Ed. 1648, p. 40.
3 Winthrop's Journal, Savage's Ed. 1853, 1. 285.
* Cotton's Way, p. 40.
6 The number of churches then existing, appears to be as follows : Massachusetts Bay,
thirteen; Plymouth, four; Connecticut, two; total, nineteen. Possibly two or three
others, whose dates are doubtful, may have been in existence. (IX)

X PREVIOUS synods.
opinions," and nine "unwholesome expressions," and decided
a few points of church order; and dissolved on the twenty
second day of September.
The erroneous opinions and unwholesome expressions, are,
almost entirely, minute subdivisions of alleged errors regarding
the doctrines of justification and sanctification.1
The second Synod convened at Cambridge, on the first day
of September, 1646 ; after " about fourteen days," adjourned
to the eighth day of June, 1647, " in regard of winter drawing
on, and few of the elders of other colonies were present ; " 2
met on the day appointed, but almost immediately adjourned,
on account of an " epidemical sickness ; " met again on the
fifteenth of August, 1648 ; and " ended in less than fourteen
days." 3
This Synod was called by the General Court of Massachu
setts,4 upon the suggestion of " some of the elders ; " the pro
posed order of the court being changed to a " desire," on
account of the scruples of some in regard to the right of civil
magistrates to " assemble the churches." The Synod confined
itself to a Declaration of Faith, and a Platform of Church Dis
cipline. For the former : —
" This Synod having perused and considered (with much gladness of
heart, and thankfulness to God) the Confession of Paith published of
late by the Reverend Assembly [the Westminster] in England, do judge
it to be very holy, orthodox, and judicious in all matters of Paith; and
do therefore freely and fully consent thereunto, for the substance
thereof." 6
For Church Discipline, it set forth what is known as the
" Cambridge Platform," which was mainly from the pen of
Richard Mather. Their result was submitted to the General
* They are found in "A short Story of the Rise, Reign, and Ruin of Antinomians,
Familists, and Libertines, that infected New England," a documentary kind of work
with preface by Rev. Thomas Weld, published in 1644; and are reproduced in Felt's
Ecclesiastical History of New England, I. 315-8. Mr. John Higginson was employed by
the synod to report its proceedings in short-hand, and prepared the copy for the' press •
but it was not printed. Mass. Records, II. 52.
2 The number of churches then existing appears to have been, — in Massachusetts
Bay, twenty-nine; in Maine, one; in New Hampshire, three; in Plymouth ten- in
Connecticut, ten ; total, fifty-three.
3 Winthrop's Journal, of the dates specified.
4 Mass. Records, III. 70-2.
6 Results of Three Synods. Ed. 1725, p. hi.

PREVIOUS SYNODS. XI
Court, which, in 1649, commended it to the "judicious and pious
consideration of the several churches." It was generally ap
proved ; was endorsed by subsequent councils, and became the
exponent of the Congregational polity.
There was no general synod or council from that of 1648 to
the Convention at Albany in 1852. But there were partial
synods at several times, whose results were so important as to
require notice.
The Synod of 1662 was confined to Massachusetts. It was
called by the General Court's " order and desire," as declared
on the thirty-first day of December, 1661, and met at Boston,'
consisting of above seventy elders and messengers, on the tenth
day of March, 1662. On the next day, finding that the ques
tions before them required more time than could be then
given, the Synod adjourned to the tenth day of June. It then
met, and again adjourned on the fourth day of July ; assembled.
on the ninth day of September, and soon closed its sessions.
The two questions submitted to this Synod by the General
Court, were, 1. Who are the subjects of baptism ? 2. Whether,
according to the word of God, there ought to be a consociation
of churches, and what should be the manner of it ? x In reply
to the first, the synod recommended the disastrous " half-way
covenant ; " by which, persons baptized in infancy, and therefore
members of the church, might " own the covenant," if not
scandalous in their lives, without coming into full communion ;
and might thus be entitled to have their children baptized. It
met with strong opposition, and never universally prevailed.
Upon the second question, the Synod recommended nothing
materially different from the Platform of 1648.
The result was submitted to the General Court in October,
1662, was ordered to be printed, with a preface by Mr. Mitch
ell, and was commended "unto the consideration of all the
churches and people of this jurisdiction." 2
The Synod of 1679-80, known as the " Reforming Synod,"
was also confined to Massachusetts. It was called by the Gen
eral Court, at its session of May, 1679, upon " a motion made
by some of the reverend elders," 3 and met at Boston, on the
i Mass. Records, v. IV. part n. 30. 2 Same, p. 60, 62.
3 Mass. Records, V. 215.

XII PREVIOUS SYNODS.

tenth day of September. Rev. John Sherman and Rev. Urian
Oakes were moderators. The questions before it were, 1. What
are the evils that have provoked the Lord to bring his judg
ments on New England ? 2. What is to be done, that so these
evils may be reformed ? The Synod held two sessions ; unani
mously approved the Platform of 1648 ; spent "several days " *
in discussing the questions presented ; and adjourned on the
19th. The result, which was drawn up by Increase Mather,
was presented to the General Court, October 15, 1679,2 which
commended them to the " serious consideration of all the
churches and people of this jurisdiction," and ordered the
report to be printed.
The same Synod held a second session, on the twelfth of
May, 1680, — Increase Mather, moderator, — and "consulted
and considered of a Confession of Faith."3 It adopted, with
slight variations, the Confession consented to by the Congrega
tional Churches of England, at the Savoy, in 1658, which was,
" for the most part, some small variations excepted, the same
with that which was agreed upon first by the Assembly at West
minster, and was approved of by the Synod at Cambridge, in
New England, Anno 1648.4 " That little variation," says the
Synod, " which we have made from the ome, in compliance with
the other, may be seen by those who please to compare them."
This Confession was ordered, by the General Court,5 to be
printed. The Synod, which met at Saybrook, in 1708, was confined to
Connecticut. It was called, May 24, 1708, by the Legislature,
which had been " made sensible of the defects of discipline in
the churches of this government, arising from the want of more
explicit asserting of the rules given for that end in the Holy
Scriptures, from which would arise a permanent establishment
among ourselves, a good and regular issue in cases subject to
ecclesiastical discipline, glory to Christ our head, and edifica
tion to his members." The Legislature directed that the min
isters of the several counties should meet at the county towns
with such messengers as the churches should send, consider and
agree upon methods and rules of ecclesiastical discipline, and
i Results of Three Synods, Ed. 1725, p. vi. 2 Mass. Records, V. 244.
8 Preface to Result. 4 Ibid.
6 Mass. Records, V. 287.

PREVIOUS SYNODS. XIII
appoint two or more of their number to meet at Saybrook;
there to " draw a form of ecclesiastical discipline," to be laid ¦
before the Legislature at its October session.
The Synod met at Saybrook on the ninth of September.
Rev. James Noyes, of Stonington, and Rev. Thomas Bucking
ham, of Saybrook, were moderators. The first act of this Synod
was to accept the Confession of Faith set forth 'by the Massa
chusetts Synod of 1680. The second, was to " agree, also, that
the Heads of Agreement assented to by the United Ministers,
formerly called Presbyterian and Congregational, be observed
by the churches throughout this Colony ; " the Heads of Agree
ment adopted in London, in 1691. The main work, however,
was the adoption of fifteen " Articles of Discipline," which
established the consociation system. The entire platform was
reported to the Legislature, at its October session ; which or
dained " that all the churches within this government, that are,
or shall be, thus united in doctrine, worship, and discipline, be,
and for the future shall be, owned and acknowledged established
by law." x V
More than two hundred years had elapsed before the American
churches again met in ' council. The third general Synod,2
known as " a Convention of Ministers and Delegates of Congre
gational Churches in the United States ; " 3 met " in accord
ance with a call issued by direction of the General Association
of New York." It assembled in Albany, N. Y., on the fifth
day of October, 1852 ; consisted of four hundred and sixty-
three elders and messengers from churches in seventeen States ;
chose Rev. William T. Dwight, D. D., of Maine, President, and
Rev. Noah Porter, D. D., of Connecticut, and Rev. Asa Turner
of Iowa, Vice-Presidents ; and dissolved on the eighth day of
October. i See Historical Discourse, by Rev. Leonard Bacon, D. d., in Contributions to the
Ecclesiastical History of Connecticut.
2 Proceedings.
3 The number of churches then existing in the United States has not been computed
with accuracy. They numbered, probably, not far from two thousand. An estimate by
Rev. Joseph S. Clark, d. d., in 1847, made the number to be one thousand five hundred
and ninety-five, at that date. Careful statistics found in 1858, two thousand three hun
dred and eighty-five. In the year 1865, that of the National Council at Boston, the
number was two thousand seven hundred and twenty-three (not including, of course,
the churches outside the limits of the United States), with two hundred and sixty-three
thousand two hundred and ninety-six members; and of ministers, two thousand eight
hundred and two.

XIV PREVIOUS SYNODS.
The main subjects upon which the Convention acted, were,
1. The subject of aiding feeble churches at the West, in mind
ing church edifices. 2. The construction and practical opera
tion of the " Plan of Union between Presbyterians and Longre-
gationalists," agreed upon by the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church and the General Association of Connecti
cut in the year 1801.
Upon the first, the Convention adopted a plan for raising the
sum of fifty thousand dollars at once, and for its apportionment
and use.
Upon the second, the Convention found that the Plan had
been repudiated by the General' Assembly before the schism of
1838, but was acknowledged as in force by. one branch of that
church ; that although so acknowledged, it was not maintained
in its integrity, and that its operation was now " unfavorable to
the spread of and permanence of the Congregational polity, and
even to the real harmony of these Christian communities ; " and
therefore unanimously declared its continuance to be inexpe
dient. It will thus be seen that the Council, whose proceedings are
published in this volume, is the fourth General Synod or Coun
cil in the history of the American Congregational Churches.

Debates and Proceedings.

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.

THE PROPOSAL.
The circumstances of the country, emerging as it was from
the war by whose success the existence and safety of the nation
were to be assured, had led to a wide-spread feeling that the
Congregational Churches of the United States ought to consult
together upon their duties and opportunities. Suggestions to
this effect were repeatedly made. Recognizing this feeling,
The Convention op the Congregational Churches of the
North- West, — a body organized with special reference to the
Chicago Theological Seminary, — at its Triennial Meeting held
in April, 1864, adopted the following : —
Whereas, By the present war, the structure of society and of eccle
siastical organization is being dissolved or greatly changed through a
large section of the United States, and the shackles are being struck
from millions of slaves ; and
Whereas, Thus vast regions and populations are being opened to
free thought, speech, and free missions, that have heretofore been sealed
against them; and
Whereas, Ideas and emigration from the Free States are likely to
follow the triumph of the Union cause southward; therefore be it
Resolved, 1. That it is the duty of the Congregational churches of
the United States to inquire what is their duty in this vast and solemn
crisis, such as comes only once in ages, and what new efforts, measures,
and policies they may owe to this condition of affairs, — this new genesis
of nations.
Resolved, 2. That the crisis demands general consultation, co-opera
tion, and concert among our churches, and to these ends, requires ex
tensive correspondence among our ecclesiastical associations, or the
assembling of a National Congregational Convention.
Resolved, 3. That we believe no ecclesiastical order has a right to
exist which has not also the right and duty of self-extension, nor will
any such order prosper that does not recognize and assert such right
and duty. 1

2 PRELIMINARY proceedings.
Resolved, 4. That it is due the principles of church order which we
hold, and our convictions of their vital value and vast benefits, that we
aim by all proper means to diffuse them; and that recognizing no restric
tive limit of section or race, we believe them to be the universal right
and property of the church of Christ, and the race of man.
Resolved, 5. That we believe it due to our principles, especially m
this present crisis, that there be a more general and thorough indoctri
nation in them of our Theological Seminaries, our Ministry, and our
Churches, and that more of general and national concert and co-opera
tion should, by correspondence and convention, be secured among us, —
especially for missionary and aggressive action, — an action which shall
bear, together with the gospel, those ideas and principles of church
order which we believe best adapted to diffuse with evangelical truth,
evangelical liberty, and most beneficially to organize both church and
society. The General Association op Illinois, at its session held in
Quincy, May 27, 1864, upon consideration of the above proposal,
adopted the following, which had been reported by Rev. J. M.
Sturtevant, d. d., chairman of a committee to whom the sub
ject had been referred : —
Whereas, This Association adopts the sentiments and views in
said resolutions expressed, and desires to see them carried into prac
tical effect; therefore,
Resolved, 1. That a National Convention of Congregationalists be
invited to assemble at Springfield, Mass., or Albany, N. T., on the first
Tuesday, the 6th day of September next, or at such other time and place
as may be agreed upon after correspondence with the brethren in other
parts of the country.
Resolved, 2. That a Committee of three be appointed by the Associa
tion to lay this proposition before other General Associations, Confer
ences and Conventions hereafter to meet, and to act with any Commit
tees which they may appoint, in fixing definitely the time and place of
meeting, and in making all other necessary arrangements for the same.
Resolved, 3. That this Association recommend, as the basis of the
Convention, the following, viz.: That each Orthodox Congregational
Church in the United States, and the British Provinces of North Amer
ica, be invited to send as delegates their acting pastor or pastors and
one other member; and to provide, if necessary, for payino- their ex
penses to and fr/)m the Convention.
Resolved, 4. That copies of this Minute be transmitted to reb>i0us
newspapers of our denomination, for insertion.
The Congregational Conference of Ohio, at its session held
in Springfield, June 10, 1864, approved of the proposal, and
adopted also the following : —

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 3
Resolved, That the Ohio Congregational Conference, in accordance
with the wishes of the pastors and delegates of the Cleveland churches
represented here, tender a cordial invitation to the churches of our faith
and order throughout the country, to meet at Cleveland, at whatever
time may be determined by general correspondence.
These papers were forwarded to the General Associations
and Conferences throughout the country, and met with an
almost unanimous approval by these bodies at their several ses
sions. The General Association of Indiana ratified the pro
posal, May 20 ; the General Association of Michigan, May 21 ;
the General Association of Iowa, June 3 ; the Congregational
Conference of Rhode Island, June 15 ; the General Conference
of Maine, June 21 ; the General Association of Connecticut,
June 23 ; the General Convention of Vermont, June 23 ; the
General Association of Massachusetts, June 30 ; the General
Association of New York, September 20 ; and the General Con
ference of Minnesota, October 14. The General Association of
New Hampshire, August 25, put on record that it had " failed
to appreciate the reasons for the call of such a convention, espe
cially in the present juncture of affairs, and respectfully decline
further action with reference to, it ; " but the united sentiment
of the churches of that State was subsequently found to be in
hearty co-operation with the proposal. The several bodies ap
pointed committees to represent them, with power to unite in
calling the proposed convention.
Upon the suggestion of such delegates as met at New Haven,
in July, 1864, on the occasion of the annual commencement of
Yale College, the Trustees of The American Congregational
Union invited the several committees to meet in conference
in the Broadway Tabernacle Church, in the city of New York ;
to whieh end, their committee issued the following letter : —
New Yokk, October 1st, 1865.
Dear Sir: — As a Committee of the American Congregational
Union, We invite you to attend a conference of the State Committees,
appointed with reference to a National Congregational Conven
tion, to be held at the Broadway Tabernacle Church, in this city, on
"Wednesday, the 16th day of November next, at 10 A. m.
The time and place of holding the Convention, the basis of represen
tation in the body, the subjects proper to be mentioned in the call as a
guide to its deliberations, are topics that demand careful thought and

4 preliminary proceedings.
mature counsel. In this view, the preliminary conference has been
appointed at a time remote from any general ecclesiastical Preoccupa
tion, and at a place where ready communication can be had witn tne
officers of such benevolent societies as are directly interested in the
Convention and its objects. In the present condition of the country,
this movement is so important to the future of Congregationalism
that we earnestly hope every member of each State committee will
come to the conference in November, even at great personal incon
venience. We can not doubt that the State bodies will reimburse the traveling
expenses of their representatives, upon this momentous errand of the
churches; and, in behalf of the Broadway Tabernacle Church, we cor
dially proffer you their hospitality during the session of the conference.
Please send an immediate answer, that you may be advised in season
where you will be entertained. Bespectfully yours,
William G. Lambert.
William Allen.
Joseph P. Thompson.
P. S.'— Please address, " Wm. G. Lambert, Chairman, &c,
81 Worth Street, New York."
The committees, unanimously accepting the invitation, met
at that time and place.
THE CONFEEENCE OP COMMITTEES.
The various committees having assembled in the Broadway
Tabernacle Church, New York, November 16, 1864, Rev. Jo
seph P. Thompson, d. d., of New York, called the conference
to order, and made statements regarding the origin of the
meeting. THE ROLL.
It appeared that the following persons were present, either as
members of committees, or representing churches in States
where no general organizations exist : —
Maine — Bev. George E. Adams, d. d., Brunswick; Kev. Alfred E.
Ives, Castine; Dea. Simon Page, Hallowell.
New Hampshire — Bev. Nathaniel Bouton, D. D., Concord; Bev.
Henry E. Parker, Concord; Bev. William T. Savage, Franklin.
Vermont — J. G. Stimson, Esq., Waterbury.
Massachusetts— Bev. Alonzo H. Quint, New Bedford; Bev. Emer
son Davis, D. D., Westfield; Bev. Isaac P. Langworthy, Chelsea; Bev.

preliminary proceedings. 5
Joshua W. Wellman, Newton; Bev. Nathaniel H. Eggleston, Stock-
bridge. Ehode Island — Bev. Constantine Blodgett,D.D.,Pawtucket; Bev.
Alexander H. Clapp, Providence.
Connecticut — Bev. Leonard Bacon, d. d., New Haven; Bev. Wil
liam T. Eustis, Jr., New Haven; Bev. Joel Hawes, d. d., Hartford;
Bev. John P. Gulliver, Norwich.
New York— Bev. Bay Palmer, d. d., Albany; Bev. William I.
Budington, d. d., Brooklyn; Bev. Joseph P. Thompson, d. d., New York;
Bev. Jeremiah Butler, Pairport; Bev. L. Smith Hobart, Syracuse.
New Jersey — Bev. William B. Brown, Newark.
Ohio — Bev. Israel W. Andrews, d. d., Marietta; Bev. James A.
Thome, Cleveland; Douglas Putnam, Esq., Harmar.
Michigan— Bev. Philo B. Hurd, Borneo; Bev. Sereno W. Streeter,
Union City; Bev. James S. Hoyt, Port Huron.
Illinois — Bev. Julian M. Sturtevant, d. d., Jacksonville; Bev. Pla-
vel Bascom, Princeton; Charles G. Hammond, Esq., Chicago.
Wisconsin — Bev. W. DeLoss Love, Milwaukee; Dea. Edward M.
Danforth, Oconomowoc; George E. Sickles, Esq., Waukesha.
Missouri — J. B. Turner, Esq., St. Louis.
Minnesota — Bev. William B. Stevens, Bochester.
Pennsylvania— Bev. Burdett Hart, Philadelphia; Bev. Edward
Hawes, Philadelphia.
Other brethren present were afterwards invited to sit as
Honorary Members, viz. : —
Bev. Milton Badger, d. d., New York; Bev. David B. Coe, d. d.,
New York; Bev. Daniel P. Noyes, New York; Bev. Theron Baldwin,
D. d., New York; Bev. Absalom Peters, D. d. New York; Dea. Wil
liam G. Lambert, New York; William Allen, Esq., New York; Seth
B. Hunt, Esq., New York; Bev. William Clift, New York; Bev. Henry
G. Ludlow, Oswego, N. Y.; Bev. Michael Strieby, Newark, N. J.; Bev.
George Whipple, Newark, N. J.; Bev. Increase N. Tarbox, Boston,
Mass. ; Bev. Eufus Anderson, d. d., Boston, Mass.

ORGANIZATION.
Rev. Isaac P. Langworthy, Rev. L. Smith Hobart, and Rev.
Julian M. Sturtevant, d. d., were appointed a committee to
nominate the permanent officers of the conference.
This committee reported Rev. Leonard Bacon, d. d., for mod
erator ; Charles G. Hammond, Esq., for assistant moderator ;
Rev. Philo R. Hurd for scribe ; and Rev. Nathaniel H. Eggleston
for assistant scribe. The report was accepted and adopted. The
conference was opened with prayer by Rev. Joel Hawes, d. d.

6 PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.
Rev. George E. Adams, D. d., Rev. John P. Gulliver, Rev.
Flavel Bascom, Rev. Joseph P. Thompson, d. d., and Rev.
Julian M. Sturtevant, D. D., were appointed a business com
mittee. The following resolution was adopted : —
Resolved, That since this body is composed of committees appointed
for free consultation in relation to the matters referred to them, we
deem it important that there should be a distinct understanding that
their business is of a private nature, and that it would be considered
wholly improper that any report of its proceedings should be made pub
lic, except by the direction of the body itself.
Rev. Ray Palmer, d. D., Rev. Isaac P. Langworthy, and Rev.
Nathaniel H. Eggleston, were appointed a committee on Cre
dentials and Invitations. This committee reported the follow
ing resolutions, which were adopted : —
Resolved, 1. That this body is understood to be composed of the com
mittees regularly appointed by the General Associations and Confer
ences of the several States and Territories, with such other persons as,
by a Uberal construction, may be regarded as representing the churches
in the States or Territories from which they came.
Resolved, 2. That the Secretaries of the American Home Missionary
Society, of the American Missionary Association, of the Education So
ciety, and of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological
Education at the West, be invited to sit and deliberate with this confer
ence. Rev. Absalom Peters, D. d., Rev. William Clift, Dea. William
G. Lambert, and William Allen, Esq., being present, were in
vited to sit as honorary members ; and the same invitation was
afterwards extended to Rev. Henry G. Ludlow, Rev. Rufus
Anderson, D. D., and Seth B. Hunt, Esq.
The Business Committee reported a docket of subjects pro
posed for the consideration of the conference.

THE HOLDING OF A CONVENTION — ITS BASIS, CALL, AND
BUSINESS.
The question, Shall there be a National Congregational Con
vention ? was unanimously answered in the affirmative.
In regard to the mode of constituting the convention the fol
lowing resolution was adopted : —

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 7
Resolved, That the convention.be based upon a representation of Con
gregational churches, having a recognized fellowship in doctrine and
order; and that a committee be appointed to prepare and report the
terms of such representation.
Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, Rev. Isaac P. Langworthy, and Rev.
Julian M. Sturtevant, d. d., were appointed that committee;
.to which Rev. John P. Gulliver was afterwards added. The
question of the time and place of holding the convention was
also referred to this committee.
Rev. Leonard Bacon, d. d., Rev. Julian M. Sturtevant, D. D.,
and Rev. Alfred E. Ives, were appointed a committee to pre
pare a call for the convention.
The moderator, Rev. Leonard Bacon, d. d., Rev. Julian M.
Sturtevant, d. d., Rev. William I. Budington, D. D., Rev. Joseph
P. Thompson, d. D., and Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, were appointed
a committee to nominate suitable persons to present to the Na
tional Convention, when it shall assemble, the topics which may
be suggested by this conference, for its consideration.
The conference adjourned to meet on Thursday morning, at
9£ o'clock. Thursday Morning.
The conference met, according to adjournment. The meet
ing was opened with prayer by Rev. Constantine Blodgett, d. d.
The minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved.
TOPICS.
The conference entered upon an inquiry relative to the topics
which it should recommend for the consideration of the Na
tional Convention ; and it was voted, that the call for the
convention suggest the following subjects,- to wit : —
1. The work of evangelization, in the West, and South, and
in foreign lands.
2. Church-building.
3. Education for the ministry, — in colleges, theological sem
inaries, or otherwise ; and ministerial support.
4. Local and parochial evangelization.
5. The expediency of issuing a statement of Congregational
church polity.
6. The expediency of setting forth a declaration of the

8 PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.
Christian faith, as held in common by the Congregational
clrurcliGS 7. The classification of benevolent organizations to be recom
mended to the patronage of the churches.
TERMS OP REPRESENTATION.— TIME AND PLACE OF MEETING.
The committee on the terms of representation in the conven
tion, and on the time and place of its meeting, made the
following report, which was accepted and adopted : —
Whereas, the Congregational churches recognize two, and only
two, fundamental principles of church polity, viz. (1,) That the local
church is the only organized and authoritative ecclesiastical body estab
lished by Christ and his apostles, complete in itself for all church pur
poses, and with an authority which can not be delegated; and (2,) That
all churches hold relations of fellowship one with another, under which
it is one of their duties and privileges to meet for counsel in cases of
general moment; therefore,
Resolved, 1, That the National Council now proposed is wholly des
titute of any power or authority whatever over individuals, churches,
or other organizations ; and, (2,) That the churches are to meet in the
proposed council, to consider the present exigencies and opportunities
of the kingdom of Christ.
Resolved, 2, That the National. Council of Congregational Churches,
now to be called, be selected by the churches, assembled, for conven
ience as to numbers, in local conferences; and be made up of pastors
and delegates of churches, according, to the following ratio of represen
tation: that the churches represented in each district, conference, or
association of churches, select in conference one pastor and one dele
gate, or two delegates, for each ten churches, and for any remaining
fraction greater than one-half of that number; each conference or
association of churches being allowed at least one pastor and one del
egate. Resolved, 3, That in localities where no such bodies exist, represent
ing churches; the committees constituting this conference be requested
to secure a representation of the churches within such districts on the
above basis.
Resolved, 4, That the committee from each State be authorized and
requested to issue, at an early time, prior to the meeting of conferences
circular letters,' embodying the call for the council, and pointing out in
what manner the delegates are to be selected in each State or Territory
in accordance with the above basis of representation, to be forwarded
to each church for action, as well as to the several conferences- and
that they use their best endeavors to secure a complete representation.
Resolved, 5, That the Council meet in the city of Boston, Mass. or in
such other place as the committee of arrangements may designate on
the second Wednesday of June, 1865.

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 9
The following resolutions were adopted : —
SPECIAL SERVICE FOR DEVOTION.
Resolved, That it be recommended to the National Council of Con
gregational churches, when assembled, to appoint, early in its session,
a special service of devotion, for the acknowledgment of the marvel
ous and merciful dealings of Almighty God with the nation, in connec
tion with the war, and for supplicating a gracious dispensation of the
Spirit of God upon the land, that our restored national unity may be
consecrated in righteousness, and iu the peace and joy of the Holy
Ghost. COLLECTION FOR EXPENSES.
Resolved, That we recommend to all our churches to take up a col
lection, on or near the second Sabbath in May, before the meeting of
the proposed Council, to assist in paying the traveling expenses of
ministers coming from a considerable distance who may need such aid,
and also to defray the incidental expenses of the Council itself; the
avails of these collections to be distributed by a committee of the
proposed Council; and any surplus that may remain, to be placed in
the hands of the Congregational Union, in aid of church-building.
COMMITTEES ON TOPICS.
The following persons were appointed committees to present
to the Council the subjects suggested for its consideration : —
On Evangelization in the West and South.
Warren Currier, Esq., St. Louis, Mo.; Bev. Julian M. Sturtevant,
d. d., Jacksonville, HI.; Bev. Eeuben Gaylord, Omaha, Neb. Ter.; Bev.
Thomas E. Bliss, Memphis, Tenn.; Bev. Plavel Bascom, Princeton,
111. Parochial Evangelization.
Bev. Daniel P. Noyes, New York; Bev. Henry M. Dexter, Boston,
Mass. Education for the Ministry.
Eev.' Bay Palmer, d. d., Albany, New York; Bev. John P. Gul
liver, Norwich, Conn.; Bev. Franklin W. Fisk, Chicago, 111.
Ministerial Support.
Eev. George Shepard, d. d., Bangor, Me.; Charles G. Hammond,
Esq., Chicago, IU.; Gov. WilUam A. Buckingham, Norwich, Conn.;
Samuel Holmes, Esq., New York; Douglas Putnam, Esq., Marietta,
Ohio. Statement of Church Polity.
Bev. Leonard Bacon, r>. d., New Haven, Conn.; Eev. Alonzo H.

10 PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.
Quint, New Bedford, Mass.; Eev. Henry M. Storrs, d. »-, Cincinnati,
Ohio. Declaration of Christian Faith.
Bev. Joseph P. Thompson, r, d. New York; Bev. George P.
Fisher, Yale CoUege; Eev. Edward A. Lawrence, East Windsor Hill,
Conn. Systematizing Benevolent Contributions.
Eev. Israel W. Andrews, D. d., Marietta, Ohio; Eev. Bay Palmer,
D. D., Albany, N. Y.; Eev. Henry E. Parker, Concord, N. H.; William
G. Lambert, Esq., New York.
The following persons were appointed a Committee of Ar
rangements for the meeting of the Council: —
Bev. Andrew L. Stone, D. d., Boston; Bev. Edward N. Eirk, D. D.,
Boston; Bev. George W. Blagden, d. D., Boston; Bev. Henry M.
Dexter, Boston; Bev. EUhu P. Marvin, Medford; Bev. Bums Ander
son, D. D., Boxbury; Bev. Isaac P. Langworthy, Chelsea; Bev. Joshua
W. WeUman, Newton; Charles Stoddard, Esq., Boston; JuUus A
Palmer, Esq.,. Boston; Edward S. Tobey, Esq., Boston; J. Bussell
Bradford, Esq., Boxbury; Henry HiU, Esq., SaxonviUe.
PUBLICATION OF THE CALL.
Rev. Daniel P. Noyes, Samuel Holmes, Esq., A. S. Barnes,
Esq., and William Allen, Esq., were appointed a committee to
print the call, and to supply the State committees with copies
for distribution, and to secure a representation of the churches
in those States and Territories which are not represented by
committees in this body. REPORT ON THE CALL.
The committee on the call for the Council made a report,
which was accepted and adopted for substance, and was recom
mitted for completion. PREACHER.
Rev. Joseph P. Thompson, d. d., Rev. John P. Gulliver,
Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, and Rev. Plavel Bascom, were appoint
ed a committee to nominate a preacher to open the Council
with a sermon. The committee reported the name of Rev.
Julian M. Sturtevant, d. d., of Jacksonville, HI., as principal"
and Rev. Truman M. Post, d. d., of St. Louis, Mo., as alter
nate. The report was accepted and adopted.

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 11

PUBLICATION OF DOINGS.
The following resolution was passed : —
Resolved, That the proceedings of this conference be pubUshed in
such newspapers as may desire to pubUsh them, and in the Congrega
tional Quarterly; and that the pubUshers of the Quarterly be requested
to print one thousand copies extra for the use of the Council. Also,
that aU the restrictions heretofore imposed upon the pubUcation of the
proceedings of this conference be removed.
TREASURER.
Henry Hill, Esq., of Saxonville, Mass., was appointed the
treasurer of the contingent fund to be raised for the expenses
of the delegates and of the Council. THANKS.
The following resolution of thanks was unanimously adopt
ed : —
Resolved, That the heartfelt thanks of this conference are tendered to
Eev. Joseph P. Thompson, D. d., William G. Lambert, Esq., and Wil-
Uam AUen, Esq., and to the members of the Broadway Tabernacle
Society, for their wise arrangements and generous and ample pro
vision for the accommodation and comfort of this body during its
deUberations. ADJOURNMENT.
The conference adjourned. Concluded with prayer by Rev.
Ray Palmer, d. d., and the benediction by the moderator.
Leonard Bacon, Moderator.
Chas. G. Hammond, Assist. Moderator.
Philo R. Hurd, Scribe.
Nath'l H. Eggleston, Assistant Scribe.

LETTEES OF INVITATION.
The committee intrusted with that duty prepared the fol
lowing invitation, which, after being submitted to and ap
proved by all the members of the preliminary conference, was
sent to the churches by the instrumentality of the several
State committees, who placed a sufficient number of copies in
the hands of the scribes of the several local conferences (or

12 PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.
other parties where no conferences exist), to reach each
church : — invitation.
Those Congregational churches in the United States of America
which are in recognized fellowship and co-operation through the Gen
eral associations, conferences, or conventions in the several States, are
hereby respectfuUy and affectionately invited to meet by their repre
sentatives in a National Council at Boston, Massachusetts, on the four
teenth day of June, a. d. 1865, at 3 o'clock, p. M., in the Old South
Meeting-House. This invitation is the result of a request proceeding from a represen
tative convention of Congregational churches in the North-west. It
has been considered and approved in a meeting of committees repre
senting the Congregational churches and ministry associated for fel
lowship and co-operation in the several States; and on us whose names
are undersigned, has been devolved the duty of convening the Council,
of defining the mode in which the churches may be conveniently and
equally represented, and of proposing to' the churches, and through
them to their assembled delegates, the subjects which require at this
time the deUberate attention and advice of such an assembly.
Inasmuch as the Congregational churches acknowledge and hold that
the local church is the only ecclesiastical body estabUshed by Christ and
his apostles, — a body complete in itself, and invested with an author
ity under Christ which can not be delegated; and, at the same time, that
the churches thus constituted are in relations of feUowship one with
another, under which it is their duty and their privilege to meet for
mutual counsel in cases of general interest and common responsibility;
it wiU be universally understood that the National Council now pro
posed is destitute of all power or authority over individuals or church
es, or over other organizations, and that the churches complying with
this invitation will meet by their pastors and other messengersonly for
the purpose of considering the present crisis in the history of oar coun
try and of the kingdom of Christ, and the responsibilities which the
crisis imposes upon us who have inherited the poUty and the faith of
our Pilgrim Fathers.
As it is impossible for every church to be directly represented -in any
national assembly, we propose that neighboring churches, within such
districts as may be found convenient, meet by their pastors and dele
gates in particular councils or conferences for the purpose of designat
ing the elders and brethren who shall assemble in the National Council;
and that the ratio of representation be two delegates (one of them a
pastor if convenient) for every ten churches, anil for every remaining
fraction greater than half that number.
We propose that where county or district conferences or other Uke
associations of churches have been instituted, the churches of each
conference or association meet according to their usual method and
elect their delegates in the ratio above mentioned,— it being under-

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.. 13
stood that the churches of every such conference, though less than
ten in number, may be represented by a pastor and another delegate.
We propose that where the churches are not accustomed to meet
statedly in organized conferences, they be invited to meet in special
councils for this purpose.
The subjects on which it seems to us desirable that a National Coun
cil of our churches should deUberate and advise at the present crisis
are these: —
First, The work of home evangelization devolving on our churches,
— a work including all the efforts which they are making, or ought to
make, for the complete Christianization of our country; particularly by
planting churches and other institutions of Christian civiUzation at the
West and at the South; by co-operating in labors for the instruction
and elevation of the miUions whose yoke of bondage God has broken;
by helping to build houses of worship in destitute places; by
encouraging and guiding each other in parochial plans and labors for
Christ; and by providing the wisest and most efficient methods for
the supply and support of an able, learned, and godly ministry.
Secondly, The setting-forth of a simple' declaration or testimony con
cerning the evangelical faith and the ecclesiastical polity, which are the
actual basis of mutual confidence and helpfulness, and of co-operation,
among the Congregational churches of the United States. The expe
diency and desirableness of such, a declaration — how far it may tend to
make the continued orthodoxy of our churches, and the apostolic
simplicity and efficiency of their poUty, more widely and clearly under
stood among Christians not in our connection, and how far it may tend
to a more complete harmony and co-operation among ourselves, as well
as to a more just conception of our system in its capability of expansion
and of progress — will be the more wisely considered by the Council, if,
in the meantime, the matter shaU have been duly considered by the
churches. Thirdly, The responsibilities of these churches in relation to spread
ing the gospel through the world. It can not be forgotten that the
work of missions from the United States to the heathen in foreign
lands, was first undertaken by the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions, originating in the General Association of Massa
chusetts, appealing to the Congregational churches for their contribu
tions, and serving them as their agent and almoner. Nor should we
cease to praise God that the same institution, now venerable with the
years of more than half a century, and illustrious with the success
which it has gained by the favor of God's providence and the outpour
ings of his Spirit, is still the medium of a visible and most fraternal
eo-operation not only among our churches, but also between us and
those Presbyterian churches which are most nearly related to bur own
in their ecclesiastical traditions and their evangelical sympathies; and
that, even in these times of national conflict, it has been enabled to
carry on its work without interruption or curtailment, and has been
gaining a stronger hold on the confidence of those who pray continuaUy

14 PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.
" Thy kingdom come." But if we believe that in the new era which the
termination of the present conflict must inaugurate, our country, re
lieved of the shame that has impaired its influence and the burthens
that have impeded its progress, is to stand in new relations to the
world, we can not but recognize the crisis as summoning our churches
to inquire, devoutly, and with careful and extended consultation, as
well as with mutual incitements to love and zeal, what God would
have them do, henceforward, in the work of preaching to all nations the
gospel of his kingdom.
While we commend these subjects to the attention of the churches
and of the Council which we invite them to constitute, we may also
commend to the Council, when assembled, the fitness of appointing
early in its sessions, a special service of praise and prayer, for the
acknowledgment of the marvelous and the merciful deaUngs of God
with the nation in connection with the war, and for suppUcating a gra
cious dispensation of the Spirit Of God upon the land, that our restored
national unity may be consecrated in righteousness, and in the peace
and joy of the Holy Ghost.
In communicating to the churches this proposal for a National
Council, we may be permitted to express our hope that they wiU seri
ously consider the occasion on which it is addressed to them, and the
subjects on which the Council is invited to deUberate and advise. We,
ask that the proposal may be in the churches, as it has been in our
consultations, a subject of humble and earnest prayer; and especiaUy
that on the second Lord's day in the month of May next, there may be
united suppUcation throughout our country, and among our missiona
ries also in foreign lands, beseeching the God of aU grace to pour out
his Holy Spirit on the Council then so soon to meet, so that the result
may be a great reviving and advancement of his work.
It is also requested that on or near the day just mentioned, May 14
contributions be received in the churches generally to a contingent
fund for the incidental expenses of the Council, and for reUeving the
traveling expenses of ministers who may attend as delegates from
distant parts of the country, — it being understood that the fund thus
created shall be distributed by a committee of the CouncU itself and
that any remainder shall be entrusted to the Congregational Union in
aid of the church-building charity conducted by that Society. He'nry
Hill Esq., has consented to serve as treasurer of the contingent
fund; and it is important that contributions, when made, be promptly
remitted to him at No. 28 Cornhill, Boston, Mass.
We have only to add that we have made arrangements to lay before
the Council, when assembled, such statements of facts, and such sug
gestions, concerning the matters referred to it, as shall afford material
for intelligent deliberation, and facilitate the dispatch of business.
This invitation was agreed upon in a consultation of committees at
the Chapel of the Broadway Tabernacle, in the city of New York Dn

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.

15

the seventeenth day of November, A. D. 1864. In testimony whereof
we have hereunto subscribed our names.

George E. Adams, Brunswick,
Alfred E. Ives, Castine,
Simon Page, HaUowell,
Samuel Harris, Bangor,
Woodbury Davis, Portland,
Nathaniel Bouton, Concord,
Henry Parker, "
William T. Savage, Franklin,
J. G. Stimson, Waterbury,
Silas Aiken, Rutland,
Jonathan Clement, Woodstock,
Alonzo H. Quint, New Bedford,
Emerson Davis, Westfield,
Isaac P. Langworthy, Chelsea,
Joshua W. Wellman, Newton,
Nath'l H. Eggleston, Stockbridge,
Constantine Blodgett, Pawtucket,
A. Huntington Clapp, Providence,
Leonard Bacon, New Haven,
William T. Eustis, Jr., New Haven,
Joel Hawes, Hartford,
John P. Gulliver, Norwich,
Joseph Eldridge, Norfolk,
Ray Palmer, Albany,
William I. Budington, Brooklyn,
Joseph P. Thompson, New York,
Jeremiah Butler, Fairport,
L. Smith Hobart, Syracuse,
William B. Brown, Newark,
Israel W. Andrews, Marietta,
James A. Thome, Cleveland,
Douglas Putnam, Harmar,
Henry M. Storrs, Cincinnati,
Philo R. Hurd, Romeo,
Sereno W. Streeter, Union City,
James S. Hoyt, Port Huron,
Julian M. Sturtevant, Jacksonville,
Flavel Bascom, Princeton,
Charles G. Hammond, Chicago,
Wm. DeLoss Love, Milwaukee,
Edward M. Danforth, Oconomowoc,
George E. Sickles, Waukesha,
J. B. Turner, St. Louis,
Wm. R. Stevens, Rochester,
Burdett Hart, Philadelphia,
Edward Hawes, "
Asa Turner, Denmark,
Jesse Guernsey, Dubuque,
Ozro French, Blairstown,

Committee of the General Conference of
Maine.

Committee of Hopkinton Association,
New Hampshire.
Committee of General Association of
Vermont.

Committee of the General Association of
Massachusetts.
Committee of the Congregational Confer
ence of Rhode Island.
Committee of the General Association of
Connecticut.

Committee of the General Association of
New York.

New Jersey.
Committee of the General Conference of
Ohio.

Committee of the General Association of
Michigan.
Committee of the General Association of
Illinois.
Committee of the General Convention of
Wisconsin. Missouri.
Committee of the General Association of
Minnesota.
Pennsylvania.
) Committee of the General Association of
( Iowa.

In addition to the above, the following paper was signed by
the several State committees, and forwarded to the several
churches with the invitation : —
To the Church in
Brethren,
We transmit to you, for your consideration and action, a copy
of the invitation which has been issued for a National Council of Con-

16 PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.
gregational Churches to be convened at Boston, on the 14th day of June
^If you approve the proposal, and desire to be represented in the Coun
cil at Boston, you are hereby invited to be present by your delegates in
a conference of churches which will be held at on the day
of at o'clock, for the purpose of uniting in the choice of Mes
sengers to the National Council aforesaid.
The other churches invited to this conference are: —
Should it be impracticable for a delegation from you to be present, we
earnestly hope that you wiU certify by letter your desire to be repre
sented according to the method proposed in the accompanying invita
tion, and will authorize the conference to act in your behalf.
Your brethren in the Lord, [¦ Committee.
p. s. — "We enclose with this letter, for your convenience, a form of a
certificate accrediting your delegates to the conference.
The form of certificate just alluded to was as follows : —
This Certifies that the Church in desiring
to be represented in the National Council of Congregational
Churches which is invited to assemble at Boston, in Massachusetts, on
the 14th day of June, A. D. 1865, has appointed and its
representatives to a conference of churches to be held at on the
of for the choice of messengers to the National Council afore
said. Should the brethren above named be unable to attend, the delegates
present in conference from other churches are hereby authorized to act
for this church. In behalf of the church,
Dated at 1865.
Still further to secure uniformity and promote convenience,
the following form of credentials to the Council was prepared
and distributed, to be signed and returned by the several scribes
of conferences : —
This certifies that at a conference of churches held at
on the of a. d. 1865, in which the foUowing churches, to wit: —
were represented by delegates elected to act as their representatives (or
by letters authorizing the conference to act for them) in the choice
of messengers to the National Council of Congregational
Churches which is to meet in Boston, in Massachusetts, on the 14th day

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 17
of June next, the following brethren were chosen to be the messengers
of the churches aforenamed in said National Council, to wit: —
By vote of the Churches in Conference, Scribe.

EESPONSE FEOM BOSTON.
The proposal to hold the session of the Council in Boston re
ceived a welcome answer from the churches in that city, and
the following expression of their feelings was widely circu
lated : — Boston, Jan. 16, 1865.
The Committee of Arrangements, appointed by the conference of
State Committees held in New York in November last, to make ar
rangements for the Council of the Congregational Churches of the
United States, which it appointed to meet in Boston on the 14th of June
next, have corresponded with the Congregational churches in Boston
in regard to holding the Council in this city. They have received a
cordial response from them all, and have adopted the following minute
of welcome to the National Council: —
" We regard the proposed Synod or General Council as an indispens
able means of meeting our present responsibilities as a branch of the
Church of Christ. The reasons for calling such an assembly appear to
be weighty and urgent. To us, indeed, the call appears to have come
from the Captain of our Salvation, who is summoning his churches to
prepare for new services and new sacrifices.
'' Averse to centralized power as is the genius of Christianity, yet it
equaUy favors all that is expressive of the unity of faith and purpose in
the Christian brotherhood. And when our Lord calls us to new forms
of action, new enterprises, new expressions and appUcations of our dis
tinctive principles, it is most becoming in us to convene our best and
ablest men, both ministers and lay brethren, to confer on matters of
common interest.
. "In view of these considerations, this committee, representing the
churches of this city, and in their behalf, invite the General Council to
hold its sessions in Boston ; cordially offering to it the use of our church
edifices, and extending to its members the offer of our Christian hospi
talities so long as the Council shall continue its sessions.
" We respectfully express our desire that the opening services may
be held in the Old South Church, on account of its association with the
sacred memory of the elders who ' by faith obtained a good report.'
" And may the Lord bestow upon each member of the council a fuU
measure of his Spirit, that the body may be full of Ught, having discern
ment of the Master's will, simpUcity of faith, largeness of heart, a fuU
sense* of responsibiUty in these pecuUar times, wisdom in deUberation,

18 PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.
and decision and power in uttering words of counsel and appeal to
quicken and guide the churches.
" May this assembling of the representatives of the entire body of /
Congregationalists in our country be attended with the richest spiritual
blessings to all our churches and to the country. We rejoice in the
prospect of meeting our brethren, and the master in the midst of them."
Andrew L. Stone, Joshua W. Wellman,
Edward N. Kirk, Charles Stoddard,
Geo. W. Blagden, Julius A. Palmer,
Henry M. Dexter, Edward S. Tobey,
Elihu P. Marvin, J. Bussell Bradford,
Bufus Anderson, Henry Hill,
Isaac P.- Langworthy. /

DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS
OP
THE NATIONAL COUNCIL

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES.

AT BOSTON, JUNE, A. D. 1865.

FTEST DAY, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 3 p. M.
The National Congregational Council, convoked by dele
gation from the Congregational churches of the United States,
in response to letters-missive agreed upon in a consultation of
committees at the chapel of the Broadway Tabernacle, in the
city of New York, on the seventeenth day of November, a. d.
1864, assembled in the Old South Meeting-house, in the city of
Boston, Mass., on Wednesday, 14th June, 1865, at 3 o'clock, p. m.
The Council consisted of delegates from the churches (with
their respective places of residence), as follows : —

CALIFORNIA.
Jacob Bacon, San Francisco.
Rev. Milton Badger, D. d. [of N. Y.,
representing Cat]
Luther P. Fisher, Oakland.
Eev. Kinsley Twining, San Francisco.
COLORADO TERRITORY.
Rev. Williajn Crawford, Central City.
Samuel Cushman, Jr., Black Hawk.
CONNECTICUT.
Dea. Charles Adams, Litchfield.
Rev. Walter S. Alexander, Pomfret.
Rev. Hiram P. Arms, D. D., Norwich
Town.
Albert Austin, Suffield.
Rev. Frederick D. Avery, Columbia.
Rev. Leonard Bacon, d. D., New Haven.

Hon. Walter Booth, Meriden.
Hon. John Boyd, Winsted.
Gov. William A. Buckingham, Nor
wich.
Rev. Davis S.Brainerd, Old Lyme.
Rev. Enoch F. Burr, Lyme.
Dea. Philander Button, Greenwich.
Rev. Louis E. Charpiot, Stratford.
Rev. Amos S. Chesebrough, Glastenhury.
Rev. Malcolm M. G. Dana, Norwich.
Rev. Oliver S. Dean, Roxbury.
Rev. Andrew C. Denison, Portland.
Hon. Benjamin Douglas, Middletown.
Rev. Samuel W. S. Dutton, D. D., New
Haven.
Rev. John Edgar, Falls Village.
Rev. Joseph Eldridge, D. D., Norfolk.
Rev. William T. Eustis, Jr., New Haven.
Rev. Thomas P. Field, d. d., New Lon
don.
Rev. Edwin R. Gilbert, Wallingford.
Rev. Leverett Griggs, Bristol.
(19)

20

MEMBER*.

Rev. John P. Gulliver, Norwich.
Hon. Henry P. Haven, New London.
Dea. Willis Hemingway, Jr., Fair Haven.
Rev. Jonathan L. Jenkins, Hartford.
Henry M. Knight, m. d., Salisbury.
Rev. Orpheus T. Lanphear, New Haven.
Prof. Edward A. Lawrence, D. D., East
Windsor Hill.
Rev. Robert C. Learned, Plymouth.
Rev. Joel H. Linsley, D. z>., Greenwich.
Hon. Samuel Miller, New Haven.
Rev. David Murdoch, New Milford.
Rev. George B. Newcomh, Bloomfield.
Rev. George A. Oviatt, Somers.
Rev. Levi L. Paine, Farmington.
Prof. Noah Porter, Jr., D. d., New Ha
ven.
Dea. Selden M. Pratt, Center Brook.
E. Beecher Preston, Rockville.
Daniel C. Robinson, Esq., Brooklyn.
Dea. George W. Shelton, Birmingham.
Ralph D. Smith, Guilford.
Rev. George Soule, Hampton.
Dea. John Stevens, Cromwell.
Hon. Henry G. Taintor, Hampton.
Dea. Chester Talcott, North Coventry.
Rev. Jeremiah Taylor, d. t>., Middle-
town.
Dudley R. Wheeler, North Stonington.
Rev. Elisha Whittlesey, Waterbury.
Rev. Samuel G. Willard, Willimantic.
Rev. Francis Williams, Chaplin.
Dea. John B. Woodford, Windsor.

Prof. Joseph Haven, D. d., Chicago.
Levi T. Hewins, M. D., Loda.
Rev. George B. Hubbard, Aurora.
Rev. Elisha Jenney, Galesburg.
Rev. Edwin N. Lewis, Ottawa.
Dea. Nelson Mason, Sterling.
Rev. Milo N. Miles, Geneseo.
Rev. Lucius H. Parker, Galesburg.
Rev. George C. Partridge, Batavia.
Rev. William W. Patton, D. D., Chicago.
Dea. Moses Pettengill, Peoria.
Rev. Lemuel Pomeroy, Wethersfield.
Rev. Samuel F. Porter, Wheaton.
Rev. George S. F. Savage, Chicago.
Joel K. Scarboro, Payson.
Dea. Brainerd Smith, Normal.
S. D. Stinson, Esq., Sandwich.
Pres. Julian M. Sturtevant, D. D., Jack
sonville.
Rev. Lathrop Taylor, Farmington.
Rev. Henry M. Tupper, Waverly.
Prof. John C. Webster, Wheaton.
Rev. John W. White, Morrison.
Rev. Martin K. Whittlesey, Ottawa.
Martin Wright, Lee Center.
Rev. Samuel G. Wright, Dover.

Rev. Nathaniel A. Hyde, Indianapolis.
Rev. John L. Jenkins, Kokomo.
Dea. A. G. Willard, Indianapolis.

DELAWARE.

Dea. Abner H. Bryant, Canterbury.

Marshall Ayres, Griggsville.
Prof. Samuel C. Bartlett, D. d., Chicago.
Rev. Flavel Bascom, Princeton.
Rev. Edward Beecher, d. d., Galesburg.
Rev. Frederick W. Beecher, Kankakee.
Dea. Philo Carpenter, Chicago.
Rev. William Carter, Pittsfield.
Rev. N. Catlin Clark, Elgin.
Rev. Henry M. Daniels, Winnebago.
Rev. Andrew J. Drake, Atlanta.
Rev. Richard C. Dunn, Toulon.
Rev. Samuel Hopkins Emery, Quincy;
Rev. Henry M. Goodwin, Rockford.
Hon. Charles G. Hammond, Chicago.

Rev. Harvey Adams, Farmington.
Caleb B. Atkins, Glenwood.
Rev. George Bent, Burr Oak.
Rev. Henry L. Bullen, Durant.
Rev. Cornelius S. Cady, Maquoketa.
Rev. Joshua M. Chamberlain, Des Moines.
Rev. Samuel D. Cochran, Grinnell.
Rev. William L. Coleman, Mitchell.
Rev. Miner W. Fairfield, Lyons.
Dea. John G. Foote, Burlington.
Rev. Charles H. Gates, Oskaloosa.
Rev. James B. Gilbert,. Lansing.
Rev. Jesse Guernsey, Dubuque.
Rev. Lemuel Jones, Bellevue.
Rev. Daniel Lane, Eddyville.
Rev. Orville W. Merrill, Anamosa.
Rev. John K. Nutting, Bradford.
Richard J. Patterson, m. d., Mount Pleas
ant.

MEMBERS.

21

Rev. Giles M. Porter, Garnavillo.
Dea. John Porter, Cedar Falls.
Rev. Julius A. Reed, Davenport.
Seth Richards, Bentonsport.
Rev. Alden B. Robbins, Muscatine.
Rev. Isaac Russell, Bowen's Prairie.
Rev. William Salter, D. D., Burlington.
Rev. Samuel P. Sloan, McGregor.
Fitch B. Stacy, Stacyville.
Rev. Chaunoy Taylor, Algona.
Rev. Thomas Tenny, Plymouth.
Rev. John Todd, Tabor.
Rev. Asa Turner, Denmark.
Alfred Woods, Iowa Falls.

Dea. Charles C. Sawyer, Saco.
Rev. Rufus M. Sawyer, York.
Rev. David Shepley, Yarmouth. .
Rev. William T. Sleeper, Patten.
Charles A. Stackpole, Gorham.
Francis K. Swan, Calais.
Nathaniel T. Talbot, Rockport.
Joseph J. Taylor, New Castle.
Rev. Sewall Tenny, d. d., Ellsworth.
Hon. William W. Thomas, Portland.
Dea. Joseph Titcomb, Kennebunk.
Rev. Horace Toothaker, New Sharon.
Eev. George Leon Walker, Portland.
Eev. Benjamin G. Willey, East Sumner.

MARYLAND.

Eev. Lewis Bodwell, Wyandotte.
Eev. Eichard Cordley, Lawrence.
William Crosby, Grasshopper Falls.
Eev. James D. Liggett, Leavenworth.
Hon. Samuel C.Pomeroy(U. S. S.), Atch
ison.
William H. Watson, Leavenworth.

Rev. Geo. E. Adams, d. d., Brunswick.
Eev. Uriah Balkam, Lewiston.
Eev. Smith Baker, Jr., Veazie.
Eev. Joseph Bartlett, Buxton.
Dea. Jacob Blanchard, Blanchard.
Josiah Brown, Bethel.
Eev. Elbridge G. Carpenter, Houlton.
Eev. Benjamin C. Chase, Foxcroft.
Eev. Albert Cole, Cornish.
Eev. Temple Cutler, Skowhegan.
Eev. Edward F. Cutter, Rockland.
Rev. John Dinsmore, Winslow.
Dea. Elnathan F. Duren, Bangor.
Rev. Franklin E. Fellows, Kennebunk.
Rev. John 0. Fiske, Bath.
Hon. Robert Goodenow, Farmington.
Prof. Samuel Harris, d. d., Bangor.
Rev. Josiah T. Hawes, Bridgeton Cen
ter.
Rev. Alfred E. Ives, Castine.
Eev. Seth H. Keeler, d. d., Calais.
Charles A. Lord, Portland.
Hon. Seth May, Auburn.
Eev. Wellington Newell, Brewer Vil
lage.
Dea. Simon Page, Hallowell.
Rev. Wooster Parker, Belfast.

Rev. Edwin Johnson, Baltimore.
Nathaniel Noyes, "
MASSACHUSETTS.
Ebenezer Alden, m. d., Randolph.
Rev. Ebenezer Alden, Jr., Marshfield,
Rev. George Allen, Worcester.
Rev. Rufus Anderson, D. D., Boston.
John S. Andrews, m. d., Ashby.
Eev. George N. Anthony, Marlboro'.
Dea. Horace Armsby, Millbury.
Rev. Rowland Ayres, Hadley.
Rev. James M. Bacon, Essex.
Eev. William M. Barbour, South Dan-
vers.
Eev. Willam Barrows, Beading.
Eev. Thomas C. Biscoe, Grafton.
Eev. Amos Blanchard, d. d., Lowell.
Dea. Wm. S. Bradbury, Westminster.
Eev. Samuel G. Buckingham, Spring
field.
Timothy W. Carter, Chicopee.
Wm. C. Chapin, Lawrence.
Hon. Linus Child, Boston.
Htm. Henry H. Childs, Pittsfield.
Dea. John Clary, Conway.
Eev. Robert Crawford, D. D., Deerfield.
Dea. Walter Crocker, West Barnstable.
Rev. Christopher Cushing, North Brook-
field.
Rey. J. Jay Dana, Cummington.
Eev. Emerson Davis, D. D., Westfield.
Joseph A. Denny, Leicester.
Eev. Henry M. Dexter, Boston.
Hon. Allen W. Dodge, Hamilton.
Eev. John Dodge, Harvard.

22

MEMBERS.

Rev. Edmund Dowse, Sherborn.
Dea. Nathaniel Eddy, East Middleboro'.
Rev. Za'chary Eddy, D. D., Northamp
ton.
Rev. Nathaniel H. Eggleston, Stock-
bridge.
Rev. Alfred Emerson, Fitchhurg.
Rev. Joshua Emery, Weymouth.
Constantine C. Esty, Framingham.
Dea. Phinehas Field, East Charlemont.
Dea. John A. Fitch, Hopkinton.
Allen Folger, Gardner.
Jonathan French, Braintree.
Rev. Nahum Gale, d. d., Lee.
Timothy Gordon, M. d., Plymouth.
Dea. Jabez R. Gott, Rockport.
Rev. John W. Harding, Longmeadow.
Dea. Ivory H. Harlow, Middleboro'.
Jacob Haskell, Fitchburg.
Dea. Henry Haynes, Sturbridge.
Dea. Wm. E. Hinsdale, Blandford.
Moses Howe, Haverhill.
Dea. Geo. W. Hubbard, Hatfield.
Rev. Jacob Ide, D. D., West Medway.
Dea. Galen James, Medford.
Charles A. Jessup, Westfield.
Rev. James P. Kimball, Falmouth.
Rev. Edward N. Kirk, d. d., Boston.
Dea. Samuel M. Lane, Southbridge.
Rev. Isaac P. Langworthy, Chelsea.
Rev. Charles Lord, Buckland.
Rev. Erastus Maltby, Taunton.
Rev. Abijah P. Marvin, Winchendon.
Rev. Elihu P. Marvin, Medford.
Rev. James T. McCollom, Bradford.
Rev. James B. Miles, Charlestown.
Hon. Henry Morris, Springfield.
Rev. Osborne Myrick, Provincetown.
Dea. Lorenzo S. Nash, Granby.
Rev. Theophilus Packard, Sunderland.
Rev. William P. Paine, d. d., Holden.
Prof. Edwards A. Park, d. d., Andover.
Rev. Ariel E. P. Perkins, Ware.
Rev. Ralph Perry, Agawam.
Rev. John Pike, Rowley.
Joseph G. Pollard, Woburn.
Zebulon Pratt, North Middleboro'.
Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, New Bedford.
Dea. Edgar H. Reed, Taunton.
Dea. Josiah Reed, South Weymouth.
Nathaniel C. Robbins, Salem.
Rev. Reuben T. Robinson, Winchester.
Ruv. Ezekiel Russell, D. d., East Ran
dolph.
Rev. Lewis Sabin, D. d., Templeton.

Marshall S. Scudder, Grantville.
Eev. John S. Sewall, Wenham.
Dea. John Smith, Andover.
Pres. William A. Stearns, d.d., Amherst
Dea. Charles Stoddard, Boston.
Eev. Seth Sweetser, d. d., Worcester.
Henry W. Taft, Lenox.
Eev. Eli Thurston, Fall River.
Dea. William Thurston, Newburyport.
Rev. John Todd, d. d., Pittsfield.
Rev. Edwin B. Webb, Boston.
Rev. Joshua W. Wellman, Newton.
Dea. Albert D. Whitmore, Housatonic.
Rev. John Willard, Fairhaven.
Rev. William H. Willcox, Reading.
Hon. Samuel Williston, Easthampton.
Rev. Thomas Wilson, Stoughton.
Bartholomew Wood, Newton.
Dea. Luther Wright, Easthampton.
MICHIGAN.
Rev. Joshua W. Allen, Franklin.
Dea. Sherman S. Barnard, Detroit.
Rev. Henry Bates, Grass Lake.
Hon. J. Webster Childs, Augusta.
Eev. Geo. H. Coffey, Jackson.
Hon. Wm. I. Cornwell, Newaygo.
Dea. Samuel F. Drury, Olivet.
Rev. Hiram Elmer, Clinton.
Dea. Allen Fish, Port Hurori.
Rev. Thomas F. Hicks, Alpena.
Homer 0. Hitchcock, m. d., Kalamazoo.
Rev. James S. Hoyt, Port Huron.
Eev. Philo R. Hurd, Romeo.
Eev. Thomas Jones, Olivet.
Rev. Adam S. Kedzie, Somerset.
Rev. James A. McKay, Lamont.
Rev. Henry Mills, Kalamazoo.
Rev. John C. Myers, Saugatuck.
George K. Newcombe, Esq., East Sagi
naw.
Rev. John Patchin, Owosso.
Rev. Herbert A. Read, Marshall.
Rev. Charles Spooner, Greenville.
Rev. Alanson St. Clair, Croton.
Rev. James F. Taylor, Chelsea.
Hon. James B. Walker, Benzonia.
Rev. Le Roy Warren, Elk Rapids.

MINNESOTA.
Rev. Edward Brown, Zumbrota.
Rev. David Burt, Winona.

MEMBERS.

23

Rev. Richard Hall, St. Paul.
Rev. Abel K. Packard, Anoka.
Dea. Oliver Pendleton, Wabasha.
Eev. Charles C. Salter, Minneapolis.
Eev. Charles Seccombe, St. Anthony.
Eev. Charles Shedd, Wasioja.
Rev. James W. Strong, Faribault.
Eev. Edwin S. Williams, Northfield.

Albert E. Wellman, Cornish.'
Eev. Horace Wood, Ossipee' Corner.
Eev. John K. Young, d. d., Laconia.
NEW JERSEY.
Eev. John M. Holmes, Jersey City.
Lowell Mason, Jr., Orange. |

MISSOURI.
Warren Currier, Esq., St. Louis.
Rev. Truman M. Post, D. d., St. Louis.
Eev. Julian M. Sturtevant, Jr., Hanni
bal. NEBRASKA.
Eev. Eeuben Gaylord, Omaha City.
Eev. Elisha M. Lewis, Nebraska City.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
Rev. George M. Adams, Portsmouth.
Rev. Zedekiah S. Barstow, D. D., Keene.
Eev. Nathaniel Bouton, x>. D., Concord.
Stephen Brown, Kensington.
Dea. Sampson W. Buffum, Winchester.
Dea. Orrin Bugbee, Lake Village.
Rev. Erastus B. Claggett, Lyndeboro'.
Rev. Edward W. Clark, Claremont.
Dea. Horace Childs, Henniker.
Rev. Josiah G. Davis, Amherst.
Dea. Archibald H. Dunlap, Nashua.
Dea. Andrew A. Farnsworth, Peterboro'.
Hon. Asa Freeman, Dover.
Rev. William L. Gaylord, Fitzwilliam.
Hon. Milan Harris, Harrisville.
Rev. Hemy A. Hazen, Plymouth.
Hon. Thomas J. Melvin, Chester.
Dea. Abel K. Merrill, Haverhill.
. Rev. Charles E. Milliken, Littleton.
Prof. Daniel J. Noyes, D. D., Hanover.
Dea. Daniel H. Parker, Dunbarton.
Rev. Henry E. Parker, Concord.
Eev. Ebenezer G. Parsons, Deny.
William Eamsdell, Milford.
Eev. Moses T. Eunnels, Orford.
Eev. William T. Savage, Franklin.
Eev. Josiah H. Stearns, Epping.
Eev. Benjamin P. Stone, d. d., Con
cord.
Rev. Alvan Tobey, Durham.
Eev. Cyrus W. Wallace, Manchester.

NEW YORK.
Eev. Stephen A. Barnard, Willsborough.
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Brooklyn.
Henry C. Bowen, Esq., Brooklyn.
Dea. Edson Boyd, m. d., Ashville.
Rev. John Bradshaw, Crown Point.
Dea. Albert G. Bristol, m. d., Rochester.
Rev. Wm. I. Budington, d. d., Brooklyn
Rev. Jeremiah Butler, Fairport.
Rev. Edward D. Chapman, Sinelearville.
Dea. Wm. H. Childs, Niagara City.
Rev. Oliver E. Daggett, D. d., Canan-
daigua.
Dea. Lorenzo D. Dana, Morrisville.
Eev. Edward Davies, Waterville.
Eev. Morgan L. Eastman, Lisbon.
Eev. George L. Entler, Meredith.
Eev. Grinith Griffiths, Utica.
Rev. Henry M. Haz'eltine, Sherman.
Rev. L. Smith Hobart, Syracuse.
Rev. John C. Holbrook, D. D., Homer.
Charles Hopkins, Norwich.
Dea. Hiram Hulburd, Stockholm.
Rev. Samuel Johnson, Chenango Forks.
Rev. Seneca M. Keeler, Guilford Center.
John M. Kinsman, North Potsdam.
Rev. Joshua Leavitt, D. d., New York.
Dea. Thomas Marvin, Walton.
Rev. Samuel Miller, Eaton.
Rev. John H. Nason, Smyrna.
Rev. Richard Osborn, Champion.
Rev. Ray Palmer, D. D., Albany.
Rev. Samuel T. Richards, Spencerport.
Rev. Thomas H. Rouse, Jamestown.
Rev. Aaron Snow, Miller's Place.
Daniel S. Tarr, Gloversville.
Rev. Jos. P. Thompson, D. D., New
York.
Rev. Warren W. Warner, Lawrenceville.
Rev. Moses H. Wilder, Gaines.
Rev. Edwin E. Williams, Warsaw.
David S. Williams, Flushing.
Eev. Horace Winslow, Binghamton.
Hon. Arden Woodruff, Strykersville.

24

MEMBERS.

Rev. Alex. Bartlett, Austinburg.
Rev. Henry S. Bennett, Wakeman.
Rev. Loren W. Brintnall, York.
Dea. Asa Cady, East Cleveland.
Dea. Charles Clark, Cuyahoga Falls.
Rev. George Darling, Hudson.
Rev. Thomas W. Davies, Youngstown.
Prof. James H. Fairchild, Oberlin.
Rev. Heroan Geer, Wayne.
Dea. Abram Griswold, Gustavus.
Rev. John C. Hart, Kent.
Eev. Lysander Kelsey, Columbus.
Andrew J. Knapp, Wauseon.
Rev. Thomas E. Monroe, Mt. Vernon.
Dea. Thomas W. Painter, Weymouth.
. Chas. W. Palmer, Esq., Cleveland.
Hon. Francis D. Parish, Sandusky.
Hon. Douglas Putnam, Harmar.
Eev. Edward W. Root, Springfield.
Rev. John Safford, Bellevue.
Rev. S. Willard Segur, Tallmadge.
Hon. Lester Taylor, Claridon.
Rev. James A. Thome, Cleveland.
Rev. Charles W. Torrey, Madison.
Joseph P. Walker, M. d., Cincinnati.
Evander S. Warner, Kelloggsville.
Rev. Wm. Watkins, Newburgh.
Rev. Thomas Wickes, d. d., Marietta.
Rev. Samuel Wolcott, d. d., Cleveland.
Dea. Wm. W. Wright, Oberlin.
OREGON.
Rev. Geo. H. Atkinson, Portland.
PENNSYLVANIA.
Rev. Davis R. Barker, Guy's Mills.
Geo. B. Delamater, Esq., Meadville.
Rev. Edward Hawes, Philadelphia.
Rev. Philip Peregrine, Blossburg.
Rev. George W. Smiley, D. d., Philadel
phia.
Rev. Roderick R. Williams, Pittsburg.
RHODE ISLAND.
Hon. Amos C. Barstow, Providence.
Rev. Constantine Blodgett, d. d., Paw-
tucket.
Rowland Hazard, Esq., Peace Dale.
Rev. Leonard Swain, d. d., Providence.

TENNESSEE.
Eev. Thomas E. Bliss, Memphis.
VERMONT.
Hon. James D. Bell, Walden.
Eev. Nelson Bishop, Windsor.
Eev. Lewis 0. Brastow, St. Johnsbury.
Eev. Ezra H. Byington, Windsor.
Eev. Calvin B. Cady, Alburgh.
Charles Carpenter, W. Charleston.
Edward Conant, Randolph.
George H. Crane, Northfield.
Eev. Theodore M. Dwight, Putney.
Benj. Fairchild, M. d., Milton.
Eev. Clark E. Ferrin, Hinesburgh.
Rev. James T. Ford, Stowe.
Geo. F. French, Lunenburg.
Hon. Ira Goodhue, Westminster.
Rev. Henry M. Grout, W. Rutland.
Rev. L. Ives Hoadley, Craftsbury.
Eev. Azariah Hyde, Pawlet.
Dea. Samuel James, Jr., Weybridge.
Rev. Isaac Jennings, Bennington.
Dea. Freeman Keyes, Newbury.
Hon. Wm. C. Kittredge, Fairhaven.
Rev. Benjamin Labaree, D. d., Middle-
bury.
Rev. Silas McKeen, D. D., Bradford.
Rev. Wm. Stratton Palmer, Wells River.
Rev. Charles C. Parker, Waterbury.
Rev. Sidney K. B. Perkins, Glover.
Dea. Henry W. Robinson, Johnson.
Dea. Edward D. Selden, Brandon.
Gov. James G. Smith, St. Albans.
Dea. Gilbert M. Sykes, Dorset.
Rev. Charles C. Torrey, Chester.
Rev. George P. Tyler, d. d., Brattle-
boro'.
Josiah B. Wheelock, Coventry.
Samuel D. Winslow, Townshend.
WISCONSIN.
Rev. Asa S. Allen, Black Earth.
Rev. Charles Boynton, Watertown,
Dea. Russell Cheney, Emerald Grove.
Rev. Dexter Clary, Beloit.
Dea. Orris K. Coe, Watertown.
Rev. Joseph Collie, Delavan.
Rev. Isaac N. Cundall, Eosendale.
Rev. Franklin B. Doe, Appleton.
Timothy Dwight, Esq., Beloit.

MEMBERS. 25
Eev. Solomon A. Dwinnell, Reedsburg. Eev. William E. Merriman, Eipon.
Asahel Finch, Esq., Milwaukee. Rev. Edward G. Miner, Whitewater.
Rev. Joseph W. Healey, Milwaukee. Eev. Henry A. Miner, Menasha.
Hon. Edward D. Holton, Milwaukee. Eev. Lucius Parker, Palmyra.
Dea. Guerdon Judson, Raymond. Eev. Philo C. Pettibone, Beloit.
Eev. David M. Jones, Arena. George W. Pratt, Eiver Falls.
W. Wallace Jones, La Crosse. Eev. John C. Sherwin, La Crosse.
Rev. William DeLoss Love, Milwaukee. Eev. George Spaulding, W. Eau Claire.'
Rev. Charles T. Melvin, Elk Grove. HONORARY MEMBERS.
The following persons were subsequently made honorary
members, most of them on account of their appointment to
special service by the preliminary conference at New York.
Many members of those committees are not named here, from
the fact that they were delegates, and are on the roll proper.
Eev. Israel W. Andrews, d.d., Marietta, O. Dea. Samuel Holmes, New York.
Eev. Geo. W. Blagden, d. d., Boston. Eev. Daniel P. Noyes, Boston.
J. Russell Bradford, Esq., Boston. Dea. Julius A. Palmer, Boston.
Hon. Samuel A. Chapin, Nevada. Eev. Joseph E. Eoy, Chicago, HI.
Prof. Geo. P. Fisher, New Haven, Ct. Prof. George Shepard, d. d., Bangor, Me.
Prof. Franklin W. Fisk, Chicago, 111. Eev. Andrew L. Stone, d. d., Boston.
Henry Hill, Esq. (Saxonville P. O.), Edward S. Tobey, Esq., Boston.
Framingham.
The following persons were received as delegates from
foreign countries : —
Congregational Union of England and Wales'. — Eev. Eobert Vaughan, D. D. ; Rev-
Alexander Baleigh, d. d. ; (Rev. James W. Massie, dd., ll. d., honorary.)
Glanmorganshire Association, Wales. — Rev. John Thomas, d.d.; C. R. Jones,
Esq. ; J. Griffith, Esq.
North Staffordshire Congregational Union. — Rev. S. R. Asbury.
Union of Evangelical Church cf France. — Rev. Theodore Monod.
Congregational Union of Canada. — Rev. Edward Ebbs ; Rev. Henry Wilkes,
D. d.; Rev. John Wood ; Rev. E. J. Sherrill ; Rev. Archibald Duff; Rev. D. G.
Frink ; Theodore Lyman, Esq.
Congregational Union of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. — Rev. W. H. Daniels..
The membership of the Council, therefore, was as follows : —
Whole number of delegates,  502.
Honorary members,  1&
Delegates from Foreign Countries,  16
Total membership,  532
Rev. Andeew L. Stone, d. d., of Boston, chairman of the

26 dr. stone's address.
local committee of arrangements, called the council to order,
and welcomed the delegates in the following address : —
Brethren of the Council: I will take the liberty of calling you
to order, and of asking your attention for a moment, before suggesting
a temporary organization, while I report briefly on behalf of the Com
mittee of Arrangements, what we have done as your servants, m prepar
ing for your coming. .
I have been persuaded that it is not inappropriate for me officially to
utter to you this first voice of public salutation. We are glad to wel
come to-day our fathers and brethren, the representatives of the
churches of our faith and order through the land, to this cradle of the
Congregational order, and of Puritan principles. We would have you
feel that you have come home, and that all the doors and hearts of the
old home are open to your return. We should rejoice to find you able
to make the associations under whose shadow you are come, and in the
midst of which you shall walk and sit for these days or these weeks of
your abiding among us, the tender and sacred associations of a domestic
scene, from which you once went forth, and to which you have now
come back.
Be at home with us, feel at home, and take the warmth of a home
greeting. And we do not forget that there are some among you who have
crossed international lines, and others who have crossed dividing seas,
brethren of the same language, of the same faith, and of the same re
moter forefathers, to partake of the fellowship, and to share in the delib
erations of this body. We extend to you on the shores of this New
England the right hand of Christian brotherhood. May those interna
tional lines and those dividing seas between these two great nations and
their dependencies, never be crossed by the armies and armaments of
war, — never but as now, by the envoys and messengers of peace!
It seems to us well, apart from all our personal pleasure and profit in
the matter, that this Council should assemble, in Boston, where, or in the
immediate vicinity of which, in other days, the grand synods of our church
order have met in grave epochs of our history; as the synod of 1637 in
Cambridge (then Newtown), which gave its crushing deliverances con
cerning the heresies of Mistress Anne Hutchinson; the synod of 1648,
which issued the Cambridge Platform, after two years of incubation;
the synod of 1662,-203 years ago, —which sat in the first church in
this city, gathering in March, adjourning to June, and afterwards to
September, and determined so disastrously upon the subjects of " bap
tism and the consociation of churches." By these memorable prece
dents, this is naturally and historically the Jerusalem of our tribes,
whither they should go up for the high festivals of their progress and
story. We have thought it fitting, too, that your first assembling should be
within the walls of this old, historic meeting-house; kindly granted us

dr. stone's address. 27
by the church and society for this purpose. This house was built thir
ty-six years before the " Declaration of Independence." It is now 135
years old. It has been closely identified with all the important civil
changes in this city and commonwealth, and with the whole growth of
civil liberty. Here were celebrated, through those six years pending
the Declaration of Independence, the anniversaries of the King Street
tragedy, in which Crispus Attacks and four others were shot by an in
solent royal soldiery, and year after year the voices of Otis and Warren
and Adams made the place echo with their indignant patriotism. For
many years after, the anniversary of the 4th of July was kept here by
oration and civic ceremony. Here were the popular gatherings when
the public mind surged into strong remonstrance against the .Stamp
Act. Here, too, in the Revolutionary days, British officers galloped for
their own training and exercise, and that of their war steeds, while
royalist spectators looked down upon them from the galleries.
Here, also, have been scenes of memorable religious interest. The
echoes, that resounded to the voices of patriot orators, awoke also to
the tones of Whitefield, on each of his visits to this city. They gave
their responses to the words of Thatcher and Willard and Sewall, and
almost all the great New England divines of the last century.
But I must not detain you by such reminiscences. We had thought
it would be grateful to you to assemble here, even if you should find it
necessary to adjourn to some place with more quiet surroundings for
your daily sessions. We have taken the liberty to provide such a jriace.
The Mount Vernon Church, in a cordial note which I shall lay upon
your table, tender you the use of their house in Ashburton Place for
your deliberations.
We have remembered your coming in our domestic arrangements,
and- have provided you guest-room in the city and in our suburban
homes. We, have remembered you in our )®K|£rfor prayer, and have, by con
certed intercession, besought God to meet you, and to greet you with
the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and to make your work here the foun
tain of richest spiritual blessings to our land and to our times, both, in
these great days, calling upon us all for the utmost Christian wisdom,
energy, and consecration.
I repeat the suggestion which I have made, that the Council organize
at first by the choice of temporary chairman and secretary; giving time
for the full assembling of your body, and a more deliberate permanent
organization. And suggesting only, at this point, one thing more, — that it seems to
your Committee of Arrangements, that the opening sermon would be
more happily listened to to-morrow morning, at 9 o'clock, than amid the
confusion and disorder and business of this first evening,— I will take
the liberty of nominating Charles Stoddard, of this city, a delegate,
as I know, to the National Council, to act as your temporary moderator
during the initial services of the Council.

28 ARRANGEMENTS.
The nomination was unanimously ratified.
In accordance with the request of the temporary moderator,
prayer was offered by Rev. Edward Beecher, d. d., of Illinois.
The moderator then nominated Rev. Henry M. Dexter, of
Boston, as temporary secretary, and he was unanimously ap
pointed. Deacon Julius A. Palmer, in behalf of the Committee on
Hospitality, reported in reference to places of entertainment.
The committee would be in attendance in the chapel of the Old
South Church after adjournment, and on Wednesday evening
until 7i o'clock, to wait upon delegates ; and afterwards every
day in the chapel of the church where the sittings would be
held. Arrangements had been made for meetings in the Mount
Vernon Church, where the body of the church would be re
served for delegates and foreign visitors. It was suggested that
the daily sessions be held from 9 A. M. to 1 P. M., and from 3 P.
M. to 5 p. M., two hours being allowed for dinner. It was ad
vised that no evening sessions be held. Mr. Palmer stated
that some of the delegates had been provided for in adjoining
towns, on account of the absence from the city of many families
who would otherwise have furnished accommodations.
On motion of Rev. Isaac P. Langworthy, of Massachusetts, it
was —
Voted, That the moderator appoint a committee (to be composed of
one member from each State represented here) to nominate permanent
officers of the Council.
The moderator appointed that committee as follows : —
Massachusetts — Hon. Linus Child; Maine — Rev. George E. Adams,
D. D.; New Hampshire — Rev. Benjamin P. Stone, D. D.; Vermont —
Rev. Benjamin Labaree, D. D.; Rhode Island — Hon. Amos C. Barstow;
Connecticut — Rev. Samuel W. S. Dutton, D. D.; New York — Rev.
Joseph P. Thompson, d. d.; New Jersey — Rev. John M. Holmes;
Pennsylvania — Rev. Davis R. Barker; Delaware — Abner H. Bryant,
Esq.; Maryland— Nathaniel Noyes, Esq.; Ohio — Judge Francis D.
Parish; Indiana — Rev. Nathaniel A. Hyde; Illinois — Hon. Charles G.
Hammond; Michigan — Hon. William I. Cornwell; Wisconsin — Timo
thy Dwight, Esq.; Iowa— Dea. John Porter; Minnesota — Rev. Charles
C. Salter; Missouri — Warren Cm-rier, Esq.; Nebraska — Rev. Reuben
Gaylord; Kansas — Hon. Samuel C. Pomeroy; Colorado — Samuel
Cushman, Jr., Esq.; Oregon — Rev. George H. Atkinson; Tennessee
—Rev. Thomas E. Bliss; California — Jacob Bacon, Esq.

ORGANIZATION. 29
Rev. Julian M. Sturtevant, d. d., of Illinois, moved that a
committee be appointed to report Rules of Order. After some
discussion, the motion was carried, and the following gentle
men were chosen to constitute that committee, viz. : —
Rev. Julian M. Sturtevant, d. d., of UL; Rev. John P. Gulliver, of
Ct. ; Henry C. Bowen, Esq., of New York.
On motion of Rev. William W. Patton, D. D., of 111., a com
mittee of five was appointed to receive the credentials of
members, and report who are entitled to membership in this
Council, consisting of —
Rev. William W. Patton, D. d., of 111.; Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, of
Mass.; Rev. Edward Beecher, D. D., of 111.; Dea. Allen Fish, of Mich.;
Hon. Douglas Putnam, of Ohio. Rev. Mr. Quint declining to serve,
Jacob Haskell, of Mass., was appointed instead; and on request of the
committee, it was subsequently enlarged by the addition of Rev. Robert
C. Learned, of Ct., and Rev. Samuel Wolcott, D. D., of Ohio.
Hon. Linus Child, from the committee on Permanent Organi
zation, reported as follows : —
That the permanent officers of the Council consist of a 'moderator, two
assistant moderators, and five scribes ; and that those officers be the fol
lowing : —
Moderator — His Excellency Gov. William A. Buckingham, of Conn.
Assistant Moderators — Hon. Charles G. Hammond, of 111.; Rev. Jo
seph P. Thompson, d. d., of New York.
Scribes — Rev. Henry M. Dexter, of Mass. ; Dea. Samuel Holmes, of
New York; Rev. Philo R. Hurd, of Michigan; Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, of
Mass. ; Caleb Atkins, of Iowa.
Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, of Mass., declined being a candidate
for the position of scribe ; and Rev. Martin K. Whittlesey, of
HI., was nominated in his place.
It was —
Voted, To accept and adopt the report of the committee; and the
Council was permanently organized by the choice of this moderator,
assistants, and scribes.
Hon. Linus Child, of Mass., and Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Conn.,
conducted the moderator to the chair, when he addressed the
Council as follows : —

30 ORGANIZATION.
Gentlemen of the Council: I assume the responsibilities of
this position with some hesitation, distrusting my ability to perform them
properly; and I rely with confidence upon your kind co-operation and
assistance to aid me and support me in their performance. We are the
representatives of three thousand Congregational churches of the United
States of America, who recognize the responsibility of each member,
his accountability to Christ, the great Head of the Church, and the im
portance of uniting together for the purpose of extending the interests
of the Redeemer's kingdom. You will be called upon, perhaps, in the
first place, to determine whether you will put forth a declaration of
evangelical faith and of church polity, and again whether you will adopt
some plan for the purpose of uniting all these churches who are in one
common faith, in measures for the purpose of extending the Redeemer's
kingdom, and especially for evangelizing this nation, which needs more
than ever to be instructed in the first principles of that commandment,
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neigh
bor as thyself." [Applause.]
The meeting is now open for the consideration of these and of any
other questions which may come before you for consideration.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut, and after
some discussion, it was —
Voted, That the opening sermon be delivered in the Mount Vernon
Church, in Ashburton Place, to-morrow, at 9, A. m.
On motion of the temporary scribe, it was —
Voted, That, until otherwise ordered, the sessions of this Council be
from 9, A. m. to 1, p. m., and from 3, P. M. to 5, P. m.
An invitation to the Council to visit the General Theological
Library was read by the secretary ; after which, on motion of
Hon. Linus Child, of Massachusetts, it was —
Voted, To adjourn to to-morrow morning, at 9 o'clock, to meet in the
Mount Vernon Church, in Ashburton Place.
Adjourned.
SECOND DAY, THURSDAY, JUNE 15.
The Council met in the Mount Vernon Church (Rev. Dr.
Kirk's), Ashburton ^ Place, at 9 o'clock, a. m., the moderator j
Governor Buckingham, in the chair.
PUBLIC WORSHIP.
Rev. Dr. Vaughan, of England, read the hymn commencing,

sermon. 31
" Let children hear the mighty deeds ; "
which was sung by the congregation ; after which, Rev. Dr.
Vaughan read the cxliv. Psalm, and the second chapter of the
First Epistle to the Thessalonians, and offered prayer; and
after the congregation had sung the psalm, —
" Glorious things of thee are spoken," —
the sermon was preached by Rev. Julian M. Sturtevant, D. d.,
President of Illinois College. SERMON.
Jeremiah vi. 16. — " Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and. ask for
the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for
your souls."
It would perhaps not be difficult to find circles of opinion, in which
the selection of such words as these for the theme of discourse would be
thought to require an apology. Indeed, judging from some of the giv-
ings-forth of the periodical press, I deem it not improbable that there
may be such a circle in this goodly city of Boston. There are, I fear,
not a few persons among us who, though by no means deficient in nat
ural gifts or generous culture, are greatly wanting in reverence; men
who would regard the exhortation of our text, when applied to our own
times, with something of indignation and contempt, as though it were a
suggestion that the enlightened present should disown her wisdom, and
go to school to the blind and stupid past. Such men seem to have for
gotten that the past is ever the parent of the present; that other men
have labored, and we are entered into their labors; that, whatever supe
riority we may have attained over those who have gone before us, we
owe to the principles which our fathefs established, to the institutions
which they founded, and the lessons which they taught.
But I am fairly entitled to assume that no such apology is necessary
in addressing the representatives of the Congregational churches of the
United States, assembled here around the old hearth-stone, and the
cradle of our political and religious institutions ; not only from the hills
and valleys where the New England fathers sleep, but from the basin of
the lakes, the banks of the Mississippi and its branches, the glens of the
Rocky Mountains, and the shores of the Pacific.
Nor this alone. From beyond the St. Lawrence, brethren beloved
are here; and from that beautiful island of the ocean, which is the mother
of us all, — a revered and honored mother, who, though in these late years
she hath ' chided her eldest American daughter with a little unmerited
severity, will yet honor her ancestral 'bravery, and her fidelity to her
precious inheritance of liberty.
This audience, assembled on this spot, surely needs not be told that
there are principles coeval with the founding of these New England

g2 SERMON.
colonies, which sustain such a relation to our whole social and rehgious
Ufe, that we can never have any sound and healthful growth except by
their free and natural development, - principles which sustam the same
relation to our entire nation, however great it may become m fixture
ages, which the little germ enclosed in the acorn does to the sturdiest
monarch of the forest.
I am sure of the hearty sympathy of this audience, in standing in
the ways, to ask for the old paths." Our fathers were but men. We
claim for them no exemption from the errors and follies to which all
this poor humanity is ever subject. But God was with them, and did
guide their feet into paths of wisdom, which led them to the attainment
of a condition of freedom and social order, which richly compensated
them for all the danger and sufferings of the wilderness, and is destined
to confer untold blessings on their descendants for ever. And it is well
worthy our most earnest endeavor to trace out those same paths,
through all the intricacies and sorrowful confusions of the present; and
perfectly safe for us to walk in them. They conducted our fathers to
prosperity and happiness in circumstances seemingly the most unpropi-
tious and forbidding, and they will not fail to conduct us to the same.
We propose no servile imitation of the fathers. We will adhere to no
principle and no custom because it was theirs. "Prove all things, hold
fast that which is good," shall be our motto. We intend to look
backwards, not because we think innovation a crime, but because we
know that all true national growth is the development of first princi
ples ; and that the principles of any nation's fife are to be learned, not
from the agitations of the passing moment, but from the study of its
history. We think it wise to ask the fathers what is the seminal princi
ple of our national life, by the development of which we may attain to
the growth and strength and beauty and productiveness of which God
hath made us capable.
Nor am I wrong in looking to the early history of New England for
the seeds of our national life. The French De Tocqueville, not a Puri
tan, not a Protestant, says : —
" The two or three main ideas which constitute the basis of the social theory of the
United States were first combined in the Northern British colonies, more generally de
nominated the States of New England. The principles of New England spread at first
to the neighboring States; they then passed successively to the more distant ones; and
at length they imbued the whole confederation. They now extend their influence be
yond its limits over the whole American world. The civilization of New England has
been like a beacon lit upon a hill, which, after it has diffused its warmth around, tinges
the distant horizon with its glow."
What, then, are the principles of social life which are indicated in the
early history of New England ? In the foreground of the picture
jneets us the fact, that our fathers believed in their heart of hearts that
God had revealed himself to the soul of man, and that it is the privilege
and the duty of every man to receive and obey for himself that revela
tion. With clear and mighty conviction they rejected, as unsatisfactory
and untrue, that interpretation and social expression of the divine will

SERMON. 33
which kings and nobles and bishops had imposed with tyrant power on
every foot of English soil. That they might find some spot of earth on
which — some arch of sky beneath which — they might individually and
socially worship God according to their own understanding of his will,
not only brave and strong mea, but timid old age, and delicate woman
hood, and helpless infancy, dared encounter the ocean, the wilderness,
and the savage. This is certainly the foremost fact in the history of
New England, nay, of North America.
Next meets us the fact, that, when they reached their desolate home
on these ice-bound shores, they were as far removed from the govern
ment which should have protected their persons and their rights, as
' from the step-mother church that would impose on them her ceremo
nies and her superstitions. If under those stern winter skies they were
free to worship God, they were also under a necessity of providing for
their own protection from cold and famine, and the violence of bad
men. It needs no argument to show, that, from such a history, must necessa
rily have been born a " Church without a bishop, and a State without a
king." The family, with all its God-given authorities, sacred subordina
tion, and delicate dependencies, had been transported across the ocean,
and stood unimpaired and unshaken on the shores of a new world. And
never has it been more revered, or more honored, than by the fathers
and mothers of New England. But all else of the religious and politi
cal authorities of the Old World had been left on the other side of the
ocean. The individual man, the family tie, and the golden chain that
binds each individual man to " the throne and monarchy of God," were
all that remained of the organic forces of society. These men are social
beings, and therefore they will reconstruct religious and political soci
ety. But they will construct both only for the protection of individuals
and families, in the enjoyment of their God-given rights, and to aid
them in performing their divinely-appointed duties and achieving their
allotted destiny. The recognition of the rights, the duties of individual
human beings, as the direct subjects of the government of God, will,
must be the germinant principle of all social arrangements. The prin
ciple will become recognized and crowned and enthroned, that every
individual has rights which God gave him when he made him in his own
image, and owes an allegiance to the Supreme Ruler which is superior
to all human enactments, and which rights and duties no earthly power
can over-ride in the smallest degree, without incurring the righteous
displeasure of God. If, from these feeble beginnings, a nation shall grow
up, which shall stretch from ocean to ocean, and cover a continent with
the emblems of its power, that nation must rest on this simple principle,
as its mountains rest on their foundations of everlasting granite; and if
at any point in its future history, in the pride of its prosperity and pow
er, it shall violate this sacred principle, an earthquake will shake its
strongest structures, and volcanic fires will burst up from beneath its
foundations, and, like Sodom of old, it will be consumed with a storm

34 SERMON.
of fire and brimstone, unless it repents in sackcloth and ashes, and puts
away the national iniquity.
That this principle must be seminal to our national hfe, no thoughtful
man surely will deny; and in searching for the true pathway of our prog
ress, we are only to seek for the just and rational development of it. Is it
not, then, equally obvious, that, in constructing society on this principle,
the largest amount of liberty will be reserved to the individual which is
consistent with provision for his social wants; and that, in all social
arrangements, local provisions will be preferred to the provincial, the
national, or the imperial, except in cases where the latter are found to
be essential to the general welfare? The individual will not commit to
a society what he can better take care of as an individual; and local
communities will not commit to general societies what they can better
understand and better provide for than any more general society can do
it for them. Individuals will enjoy the largest liberty, local communi
ties will surrender the smallest portion of their independence, consistent
with the general good; and imperial power will only be permitted to
meddle with those interests in which all the millions of a great nation
are alike concerned. I need not argue before this audience to show,
that as this results directly and necessarily from our national history,
so it is a true enunciation of the characteristic principle of American
institutions as they exist in fact; and that the more perfectly this prin
ciple is carried out, the more harmonious and beneficent is the working
of our social machinery.
What, then, is the development of this principle in the direction of relig
ion? I need not prove that earnest faith in the gospel must and always
will have a social development. It follows inevitably from the nature
of the religion, and the social affections to which it is largely addressed.
Persons living in each other's neighborhood, reading the Bible in the
same mother tongue, and believing with the heart its revelations of God
and Christ, and redemption and forgiveness, and the life everlasting,
will find themselves drawn into social relations by irresistible attrac
tions. They will organize themselves into a religious society for mu
tual sympathy, edification, instruction, and co-operation, as naturally
and necessarily as the loving pair unite in marriage bonds, or as beings
possessed of human nature unite in civil society.
And, consistently with the conditions which the Pilgrim Fathers
brought with them to the shores of New England, consistently with the
fundamental principles of our social life, they will organize those socie
ties, independent1 of all dictation or control in discipline, worship, and
doctrine, except that of the one divine Head of the Church of God. Had
not our fathers accepted a home in this great and terrible wilderness, that
they might enjoy the doctrine, the discipline, the worship, which they
1 The author of this discourse is quite well aware that the Congregationalism of our
fathers recognizes two principles as fundamental, — the self-government and the feUow
ship of the churches; and if, in advocating the former as against ecclesiastical centraliza
tion, he has given it chief prominence in this discourse, it is not because he does not holdi
or undervalues, the latter.

SERMON. 35
approved ? And should they now construct any authority of bishop
or council or presbytery, empowered to interfere with their enjoyment
of this dear-bought privilege ? And why should any society of Chris
tian men and women, associated for these religious purposes, subject
themselves to any such control of human power and invention ? They
want religious teaching; are they not ¦competent to select their own re-
ligious.teachers, in the fear of the Lord ? They want to exclude from
their society the irreligious, the unbelieving, the scandalous, the pro
fane; are they not better qualified to estimate the character of the men
and women among whom they live than any distant church authority ?
They want a doctrine and a worship conformed to the divine word;
must they not themselves prove all things, and hold fast that which is
good ? Can they delegate the judgment of these matters to other falli
ble men like themselves ? Does not their individual allegiance to God
imply their individual right to try the teaching they hear, and the wor
ship in which they engage, by the standard of God's revealed will, and
themselves to judge what is right ? What bishop, council, presbytery,
synod, can decide for them ?
While thus claiming that the doctrine of the independency of the
local church was a most natural result of the circumstances and the
religious convictions of the fathers of New England, I do not forget the
fact, that the Pilgrims of Plymouth had been instructed in the princi
ples of Congregational independency by that truly great and good man,
John Robinson, before they left the mother country, and during their
residence in Holland, and were therefore rooted and grounded in them
before they embarked for America. Nor do I forget the still more
v weighty fact, that Robinson himself was but the humble pupil of the
apostles themselves ; that the churches which Paul and Peter and their
fellow-apostles founded from Jerusalem to Rome were, by the agree
ing judgment of the ablest writers on ecclesiastical history, independent
local churches; and that, whatever other men may say of the fathers,
independency is sustained by the uniform practice of the apostles.
Such were the churches which our fathers planted amid the primeval
forests of New England; such were the churches of Plymouth and Sa
lem and Boston; and as their settlements encroached farther and farther
upon the domain of the oak, the pine, and the fir, they covered the
territory which they reclaimed from the wilderness with a complete net
work of such churches. It was the function of each of these churches
to care for the intellectual and religious culture of the entire population
within their respective boundaries. Thus, at every step of their ad
vance, the Christian teacher and the schoolmaster accompanied them,
and every child was taught the rudiments both of secular and of divine
knowledge. This was a true development of the principle of our na
tional life; and we may well challenge any intelligent denial, that in
application to such a„ State as Massachusetts only, and as it actually ex
ists in practice at the present moment, it is a grand development; and
that applied in its entireness to a great nation, extending from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, it would be as sublime and glorious as it is free

36 SERMON.
and simple. If it would have been as quiet and tranquil as sunshine, it
would also have been as potent and life-giving.
Such was the conception of the fathers of New England; and that
conception they did make an actual reaUty in every settlement which
they formed. And the network of Congregational churches, with
which they covered over much the larger portion of New England, pre
sented a completeness and symmetry of organization for the reUgious
instruction and spiritual nurture of a free people, never attained to else
where in this country, and probably not even in the world. An unob
structed development of their principles would have covered our whole
territory with such a chain of organizations from ocean to ocean. At
least, on every six miles square of our inhabited territory, they would
have planted such a society, not cared for and governed by some dis
tant ecclesiastical authority, but by its own Uving forces, and efficiently
caring for the intellectual, moral, and spiritual necessities of the entire
population within its limits; nor for these alone, but supplying the
physical necessities of all the sick, the poor, and the afflicted.
And such a reUgious organization is essential to our national life and
health. It is one of the great vital forces of all free society. There
can be no better future, no millennium, either poUtical or reUgious, with
out it. We do but grievously deceive ourselves if we imagine a sub
lime superstructure of freedom can be reared up, covering a continent,
and enduring for ages, if this element is wanting. Some men among
us glory in the superiority of this generation over our simple-minded
fathers. But we are sadly fallen from the grace of such an organiza
tion for the religious culture of the people ; and it is a grievous faU.
Many of the stars are fallen even from the sky of New England,
and no other luminaries have taken their places; and many others
are sadly dimmed in their luster and are reeUng from their orbits.
In most of the country which lies west and south of the Hudson, we
have abandoned the conception itself, as impracticable and impos
sible. An eminent divine of one of the Middle States, alike weU
known for his fervid eloquence and his burning zeal for the Chris
tian cause, who thought I loved New England better than I ought,
once sent this message to me in my distant home in the West: "TeU
Mr. S. he can not make New England in the West." Alas! thus far
it is true; and it is this very element of New England which we have
been unable to transplant. But I have not ceased, and shall not cease,
to try, till I despair of my country and the Church of God.
It would be greatly to the purpose of the present occasion to exhibit
an exhaustive view of the causes which have prevented the realization
of this simple but grand conception west and south of the Hudson.
The time, however, which can be allotted to this discourse would be
entirely insufficient for such a presentation. But there are four of these
causes which seem to me imperatively to demand the consideration of
the National Council. They are, —
1. Want of homogeneity in our population.
2. Negro slavery.

SERMON. 37
3. Undue reliance on temporary, superficial, and inorganic efforts for
home evangeUzation; and,
4. Want of sufficient tenacity in adhering to our own polity.
In naming the first of these, want of homogeneity in our popular
tion, I do not chiefly refer to the fact that everywhere there is a portion,
and in some communities a very large portion, of the population, who
are not beUevers in the gospel, who are either indifferent or hostile to
that faith which is the basis of all Uving and permanent church organ
izations. However deeply we must deplore this fact, this unbeUeving
portion of the population is not numerous enough to throw any insu
perable obstacles in the way of a ubiquitous organization of the church
on Congregational principles. It rarely or never occurs in any Ameri
can community, that, if the gospel is preached in its purity, such multi
tudes will not embrace it in the love of it, as to render the organization
and sustehtation of a Christian Church easy. And this remains true,
after we have made ample aUowance for those forms of semi-Christian
beUef and worship which reject that gospel which we have received.
That gospel which consists in repentance toward God, and faith in our
Lord Jesus Christ, wiU still find adherents, who will be both able and
wiUing to sustain an organized church with all its ordinances. At least,
within the circle of my observation, this has rarely, if ever, failed 'to be
true. Aid they might need, while struggling with the first difficulties of
a new settlement. But when these were a Uttle over, I have seldom or
never known a community in which there was not enough of earnest and
devout Christians to sustain the institutions of social reUgion, if they
were united in their endeavors; or, at least, in which, if the gospel were
for a Uttle time faithfully preached, it would not win converts, and make
the problem of the church easy. There are few communities, East or
West, in which a Christian teacher may not preach as Paul did at Cor
inth, with the assurance that the Lord " has much people " there.
But the heterogeneousness of which I speak is of another kind. Al
most everywhere west and south of the Hudson, the descendants of
New England have met a religious population, holding, in a greater or
less degree of purity and simpUcity, the same religious faith as them
selves, who yet are not willing to accept their conception of the Church.
Everywhere beyond the western boundary of New England, they meet
not only the divisions which have arisen among Independents on the
mode and subjects of baptism, but, in its almost endlessly multiplied
modifications, the Presbyterianism of Geneva, Holland, and Scotland,
and the various offshoots of the modified Episcopacy of the Wesleys.
The inevitable consequence is, a conflict of rival conceptions of the
church, which renders impossible the construction of any such system
of religious organization as the Congregational conception of the church
has produced in New England. It is not only true that no one of these
Christian denominations is able to construct a ubiquitous system for the
instruction of the people in the things of God, but that their mutual
rivalries render it impossible that such a system should exist, either by
the efforts of any particular denomination, or of all together. This is

38 SERMON.

not a random assertion, but it is capable of demonstration; and if true,
it is surely worthy of the most serious consideration, not only of the
Congregational churches, but of all men of every denomination that
love our country and the kingdom of God.
In cities and large towns, all the different religious denominations
that exist in our country may be represented by reUgious organizations,
embodying each its own conception of the church; and in this way
provision may be made, in some sort, for the reUgious instruction of
the population. But it is quite essential to the great social experiment
which we are trying on a scale so gigantic, that our rural civilization
should attain to a completeness never known in any other land. The
means of intellectual, moral, and religious culture must not be shut up
in cities: they must be carried to every square mile of our territory, and
brought within easy reach of every human habitation. Every six miles
square of the entire habitable surface of our country must contain such
permanent and effective institutions for the instruction of the people, and
the whole people, that the man who has never traveled beyond the Umits
of his own native township may yet have a noble education, and be a
truly cultivated and civilized being, the product of aU the centuries that
are past. In order to this, I need not prove to this audience that it is
indispensable that the Christian sanctuary shall be built there, and that
on each successive Lord's day the assembled people shaU feel the influ
ence of social worship, and of the clear, lucid, and earnest exhibition of
evangelical truth.
What I affirm is, that the heterogeneousness of our population, in the
sense in which I have defined it, renders it impossible to effect any
such religious organization; but that, on the contrary, vast regions and
multitudinous populations are by it doomed to reUgious destitution and a
moral desolation, Uke some great Sahara, with only here and there a
blooming oasis.
Subtracting from the sum total of our population the population of
our cities and large towns where religious institutions can be main
tained in some sort, in spite of the causes of which I am speaking, the re
mainder of course will be our rural population; and it will not be found
to exceed some twenty-eight to the square mile, or about one thousand
souls to each township of six miles square. Let us then bear in mind,
that in each of these townships will be found the usual amount of indif
ference to religion, and misbelief and unbeUef, and that aU this must be
counted out, in estimating the capability of the township to sustain so
cial religion. After then subtracting from the one thousand souls that
inhabit the township all persons of this character, the remainder can not
be presumed to exceed six or seven hundred, of all ages, from the cradle
to the grave, and of both sexes. If these were united, you could not
expect of them more than that they would be able to sustain one
church with energy and efficiency. What then can we hope for, if they
are to be divided between Presbyterians, in all their diversities of Dutch,
Scotch, and American origin; Wesley an Episcopacy, in all its modifica
tions; and Independency, with the divisions which have arisen respect-

SERMON. 39
ing the mode and subjects of baptism ? What but the impossibiUty of
sustaining any reUgious organization whatever ?
And yet what I have supposed is but the stern and terrible fact over
vast districts of our territory; and the result is religious destitution and
religious anarchy, from which we can not only discern no deliverance in
the immediate future, but we do also clearly see, that, in the present line
of things, deliverance is impossible; that the evil must wax worse and
worse with each successive generation for ever. Sects will multiply and
unbeUevers will multiply, and the house of David will wax weaker and
weaker. We might as well hope that the barrenness of the Arabian
desert will be healed, while yet the clouds refuse to pour their rain
upon it. Religious men of New England birth and education have im
pressed upon the very substance of their souls the conception of a relig
ious organization of society, which will bring the influence of a regular
Christian sanctuary within easy reach of every dweller on the soil.
And they know well that by such an arrangement only can the educa
tion of the people be provided for. And I thank God, that, in the hope
of reaUzing this noble conception, they will, if need be, pour out their
money Uke water, in sustaining home missionary societies, in founding
schools and coUeges, and in educating young men for the Christian min
istry; and they will give their own sons and daughters to this work in
a spirit of as true heroism as ever poured out Ufe in the defence of lib
erty, or endured martyrdom for the truth as it is in Jesus. And I shall
never cease to thank God that it is so.
But we are in duty bound to look the stern facts of the case full in
the face; and, if we do so, we shall acknowledge and feel to our heart's
center, that obstacles at .present exist over the whole West and South,
which render the reaUzation of the noble conception which inspires this
glorious Christian heroism as impossible as to cover the ice-fields of the
polar circle with the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics.
It is often asserted, and seldom or never contradicted, that this want
of homogeneity of which I speak is the inevitable result of religious
freedom, acting through the permanent laws of the human mind. If
that is so, the prospects of our country for a high religious civilization
are gloomy enough. But I thank God, the assertion, often as it is made,
is made gratuitously. Nobody has, so far as I know, ever proved it;
and to me it seems not only unproved, but most clearly untrue. The
whole history of this country, from the landing of the Pilgrims until now,
furnishes no proof, or ground of suspicion, that religious men, in the fuU
enjoyment of reUgious Uberty, would ever have invented any other
church polity than independency. I know not that any centralized sys
tem of church government ever originated in this country, or any other
country enjoying full reUgious Uberty. Our Presbyterianism all sprung
' from the State churches of Geneva, Holland, and Scotland. It was orig
inally constructed as an ecclesiastico-political system, through which a
State church could exert its power of control over all the religious in
terests of a nation. Organization did not begin wi^h the people and
grow up into the General Assembly, but with the General Assembly,

40 SERMON.
and extended its radii of administration downwards to the church ses
sions. If any one doubts this, I commend to his especial study the his
tory of the church of Scotland, and would especially recommend as a
text-book the work of that stanch Presbyterian, Mr. Hetherington.
Presbyterianism has greatly multiplied its sects in this country. But
it has been only by subdivisions of itself, of which it has an unUmited
capacity. They have aU arisen from the attempt to carry out its prin
ciples in an atmosphere of freedom. But the system itself, freedom nev
er generated in any country, and there is no proof that it could. With
no propriety can it be claimed as any necessary product of a religious
Uberty, however numerous its offshoots may be in a free atmosphere.
There is just as little reason to believe that the Wesleyan poUty could
have originated from a condition of perfect reUgious Uberty. Mr. Wes
ley's aim certainly was to organize an army of brave soldiers for Christ,
and so to command it in the name of the Lord as to secure its efficiency.
But the principles of organization by which that command was to be
exercised were derived from the Episcopal hierarchy of the church of
England, which he never ceased to love and cherish. The seminal prin
ciple of the system is not that of the people propagating that gospel
which they have received, but that of the rulers converting and govern
ing the people in the name of the Lord.
I am free to affirm, that to begin with a free, self-governing Christian
people, and develop from it either the Wesleyan or the Presbyterian
poUty, seems to me as impossible as to create an aristocracy by the free
votes of democrats. Give us nothing but Uberty and Christianity to be
gin with, and if we ever have any ecclesiastical centraUzation, it must
be imported from some other clime.
As to the Papal and Episcopal systems of government, the case is stiU
plainer. If we can find them taught in the inspired Word, of course we
can account for their existence. But, as most of us are unable to see
that the Holy Scriptures lend them any support, we can only recognize
them as offshoots from the civil and military systems of imperial Rome
and the middle ages, transplanted to this land of freedom, and here en
deavoring, with what success time must determine, to maintain them
selves in the midst of aU the forces of universal and absolute reUo-ious
Uberty. _ The assertion, then, that the heterogeneous character of our popula
tion is the inevitable result of our perfect reUgious Uberty, is without
any foundation at all. The conflicting systems by which our population
is divided and distracted are, for the most part, not the products of
religious Uberty, but of the church and state systems of Europe trans
planted to American soil, and here trying the very interesting experi
ment, whether their existence and their power can be propagated in the
midst of the absolute religious Uberty of the United States. If in the
all-wise providence of God, they are destined to succeed in this great
ecclesiastical experiment of the nineteenth century, then must every
system of effort for estabUshing a symmetrical and efficient system for
the reUgious instruction of the whole people necessarily be a failure

SERMON. 41"
The whole history of the church, from the great schism of the Eastern
and Western churches to the last disruption of American Presbyterian
ism, shows, with the certainty of demonstration, that centralized church
governments, whenever they are liberated from state control, and are
free to act out their own nature, will always indefinitely multiply rival
church governments and sects by their own internal convulsions. They
all exhibit the phenomenon of a government claiming and exercising the
right to command, without the power to compel obedience. They are
all perpetually in the condition in which our Federal Government would
have been, if the .doctrine of the democratic party at the outbreak of
the RebelUon had prevailed, that the Federal Government has no right
to coerce a State. We should now have had as many nations as States.
Every centraUzed church government acts under these impossible con
ditions, and consequently is liable to be divided into two rival govern
ments, whenever the majority or the governing power commands what
any portion of the membership are unwilling to obey. It is therefore
true, that, as things now are, we not only have so great a multiplication
of rival ecclesiastical powers as to render efficient reUgious organization
impossible, but also the certainty of an indefinite increase of their num
ber in the future.
Want of homogeneity in our population is, then, one potent cause
which has hindered, and is hindering, such a reUgious organization of
our whole country as would have resulted from the development of the
ideas of our New England fathers. And it is an 'obstacle of giant mag
nitude with which we have still to contend.
2. Another fatal hinderance to the realization of the great conception
of our New-England fathers has ever been negro slavery. On this point
I need not detain you long, for the principles of the case are too familiar
to require much illustration. Slavery degrades one half the population
to the condition of beasts of burden, and denies them any place in society
as independent and personaUy responsible human beings. Our concep
tion of the church, on the contrary, is founded on the equal brother
hood of the human race. It can not be supposed that the proud and
lordly master can ever admit his slave to equaUty in church relations,
and recognize his independent manhood as a Christian brother. A
higher power may admit both to the church, and govern both; but the
master will never admit the slave to an equal share with himself in the
government of the church, on principles of democratic equality. If
churches of our poUty exist in such circumstances, their membership
must be confined either to the enslaving or to the enslaved class. Among
the latter, in the Baptist connection, they have existed in great num
bers. But driven out from all the fountains of knowledge, and deprived
day by day of the earnings of their own hands, what could these poor
people do for the spiritual enUghtenment of the communities under
whose oppressions they and their fathers before them lived and
groaned ?
Nor could the principles of our polity develop themselves with any
better effect in the enslaving class. The white population of the slave-

42 SERMON.
holding States has always been divided into two classes, which are sep
arated by an immense distance from each other, — the wealthy and aris
tocratic slave-holders, and the poor white men, reduced, both in respect
to property and intelligence, to a position scarcely less wretched than
that of the' slave himself; and this latter much the more numerous class.
A population thus degraded, and reduced to ignorance and barbarism,
would furnish but poor materials out of which to construct such Con
gregational churches as those which the fathers planted in the wilder
ness of New England. Many of this class have been organized into
Baptist churches, and much has thus been achieved for their spiritual
benefit. But little could be hoped from them in the way of a reUgious
organization to supply the moral wants of a great people. Poverty
and ignorance have been their leading characteristics, accompanied, of
course, by a degrading servility to the proud and selfish aristocracy that
is above them.
The wealthy slave-holding class, on the other hand, could not be ex
pected to choose a system of church government founded on the idea of
an equal Christian brotherhood. It is impossible that such a poUty as
ours should be successfully developed, in a community thus divided by
artificial and unjust legislation, into classes so widely removed from each
other. When EngUsh aristocrats learn to love and cherish EngUsh Inde
pendency, you may expect our American slave-holding aristocrats to love
and cherish the CongregationaUsm of New England. In both cases, the
Congregational poUty is sure to be rejected with scorn and contempt. We
need, therefore, feel no surprise that our polity has no existence among
the intelligent and wealthy classes of the South, and that the Congrega
tional churches which once existed in South Carolina and Georgia have
long since been swallowed up in those organizations in which the Chris
tian brotherhood is less distinctly recognized. It may therefore be as
sumed, that, while slavery continued in the South, our poUty was possi
ble there only among the slaves and the most degraded and ignorant of
the white population; and that there it would be quite powerless to pro
vide a system of religious instruction for a great, free, and enlightened
people. And it should be remarked, that this obstacle to the progress of our
poUty has been felt much beyond the limits of the slave-holding States.
Slavery has attacked, with terrible effect, that doctrine of fraternal
equaUty which the gospel teaches, not only in the slave-holding States,
but in all parts of our country, and especially in those portions of it
to which emigrants from the South have gone in large numbers. It has
fearfully assailed the fundamental principle of our free institutions,
both civil and ecclesiastical, and, if God had not come to our aid in the
destruction of slavery, would ere long have subverted the republic it
self. And the weakening of this principle shows itself earlier and more
strikingly in the church than in the state. Thousands, who would not
acknowledge themselves aristocrats, would feel a decided aversion to
joining a church which was governed by the vote of the majority, and
in which the vote of a poor man would be worth as much as their own.

SERMON. 43
And that the growth of this aristocratic spirit has been greatly fostered
and extended by the influence of a shave-holding aristocracy on our
society, and that tastes have thus been generated which incline strongly
to the less democratic forms of church polity, I cannot for a moment
doubt. He who has watched the causes which, for the last thirty years,
have resisted the progress of our poUty in the North-west, will not need
proof of this proposition.
3. Another obstacle which has greatly hindered our organic work is
undue reliance on modes of effort which are inorganic, and necessarily
temporary and superficial.
I must teU you frankly, fathers and brethren; this has been a very
painful subject to many of your frontier laborers during the last thirty
years. We have seen great, and in their design truly Christian, socie
ties, having the ear of all our churches, and holding the very highest
place in their regard, founding their plea for large pecuniary contribu
tions upon the assumption, that the founding of the church, the sustain
ing of an enUghtened Christian ministry, the rearing-up of the perma
nent institutions of Christian learning, is too slow a process; that the
results are too remote; that these efforts Can not reach the people, and
that, therefore, other and speedier methods must be adopted. You must
send the colporter with his Bibles, his tracts, and Christian books,and thus
carry the word of Ufe to the people at their own homes. And this logic
has been accepted, — accepted against the solemn and clearly uttered
protest of the very men whom you have sent there to build up the insti
tutions of a Christian civiUzation on the frontier; and not only accepted,
but most vigorously acted upon. While it has been a matter of the
greatest difficulty to get a few hundred dollars to aid a feeble new con
gregation in building a house of worship ; While heroic home missiona
ries, and their stiU more heroic wives, have been called to endure the
severest privations and the greatest and most distressing hinderances in
their work; while fields the most inviting of organic missionary enterprise
could not be entered for the want of means; and while those colleges which
your far-seeing UberaUty has founded were left so feeble and inade
quately provided with the needful resources as often to fill the hearts
of those who labored in them with shame and deep despondency, — ¦
while all these things and more were going on before our eyes, on those
very same fields, funds derived from the sacred treasury of Christian
benevolence were expended by tens of thousands in the circulation of
tracts and printed volumes, which few cared to read, and multitudes
could not read if they would. I should not be surprised to learn, that
for many successive years more money was annually expended in Illi
nois, in peddUng reUgious books, than the entire cost of sustaining all
the coUeges which Christian UberaUty has founded there.
I do not say that all this has done no good. But I do say, that, hav
ing been constantly for more than thirty-five years in the heart of the
great North-west, I have never had but one view of it. It has always
seemed to me very bad economy. As I have looked at these things, I
have never doubted that the children of this world are in very deed, in

44 SERMON.
their generation, wiser than the children of Ught. To found institutions
as the vital organs of Christian society is our first business, and let us
never be cheated into forgetting it. And there is no substitute for
them, any more than for eyes and ears and lungs in the body. Let us
build such institutions if we do nothing else. And let us put our books
and our tracts and our Sunday-school libraries into the hands of our
missionaries, as their munitions of moral warfare.
And I must ask any man, well informed and of sound judgment, what,
beyond the permanent institutions we have founded, we have to show
for the evangeUcal labors of the last thirty-five years in the North
west. I would ask him too, if we had, in the respects now indicated,
used our money more wisely, these results might not have been far
more abundant than they are; whether, if we had used the funds we
have spent in forcing the circulation of printed books, in founding and
building up our churches and our coUeges, our churches might not have
been far stronger and more numerous ; and whether our coUeges might
not have been far nearer than they are to the attainment of the great
destiny intended by their founders. For my jpart, I have no doubt
of it.
Let us learn by experience; let us put these more superficial and
temporary agencies in their proper place, and address ourselves to our
great organic work, and determine to do that, whatever else we neglect,
and to trust in God that the seed we thus sow shaU yield a glorious
harvest for milUons yet unborn. If we could learn this lesson, one of
the greatest obstacles with which we contend would be overcome.
4. The only remaining obstacle of which I shall speak is the want of
sufficient tenacity in adhering to our principles.
I do not mean that CongregationaUsts are tired of their mode of gov
ernment, and desirous to change it for another. This is far from being
true. As a general rule, and in its ordinary and normal working, our
system in a good degree satisfies the taste of an inteUigent, active-
minded people, both for tranquillity and freedom. There is movement
enough to give consciousness of life; freedom enough to give opportuni
ty for individual development; and tranquilUty enough to content even
quiet and conservative spirits. In all these important respects, the his
tory of the system gives abundant indications of a capabiUty of enduring
for ever.
But it has been the glory of our churches, that under their influence
men have always learned .to put the gospel immeasurably higher in
regard and honor than any mere forms and ceremonies and govern
ments. And may they retain that glory for ever! And yet out. of this
very characteristic has grown one of the chief obstacles in the way of
our realizing that grand organic conception with which our fathers sub
dued the wilderness.
As the men of New England emigrate westward, they would always,
if left to their own tastes and wishes, organize the church after the pat
tern of the fathers. And the sons of New England have pitched their
tents toward the setting sun in sufficient numbers, and with sufficient

SERMON. 45
preponderence of intellectual and moral weight, to have exerted, if they
had adhered to their own poUty, an irresistible formative influence on the
reUgious institutions of our country, from' the Hudson to the shores of
the Pacific. And I do not see how an enlightened, thoughtful New-
Englander, acquainted with what has happened and is happening in our
country, can help regretting that they did not do it. But the past is
unalterable, and regret is useless. The reason why they did not do it is
obvious. They held, as a sacred article of their faith, that the gospel is
primary, and government secondary. They met other streams of emi
gration, not of New England, holding the same precious faith with
themselves, but tenacious of quite another system of poUty. For the
sake of securing the co-operation of these good men in planting the
church in the wilderness, they were induced, sometimes at a single step,
sometimes, by Uttle and little, to surrender the polity of their fathers,
and accept that of Calvin and Knox in its stead. They did not prefer
the change; it cost them a struggle; but, for the sake of unity and co-op
eration, they thought it best. And so the fathers of New England
taught their emigrant sons, and it came to be understood, that the dif
ference between the CongregationaUsm of John Robinson, and the
Presbyterianism of John Knox, was a mere difference of longitude;
that to cross the Hudson would make a good Presbyterian of any Con
gregationalism Worse than this; when, a little more than thirty years
ago, young men who went out from you to plant the gospel on the
banks of the Mississippi, began to feel a decided longing for the polity
of the Mayflower, and to organize churches on that platform, they were
met by their fathers and brothers here with a frown, and often treated
by the leading men of New England as men wanting in sober sense and
sound judgment. I am uttering the experience of more than one man
in this audience. That state of things has, thank God, passed away,
neverj we trust, to return.
But the evil is not yet cured; or, if I may not assume that it is an
evil, this obstruction to the progress of our church principles, in the
regions which Ue toward the going-down of the sun, is not yet re
moved. Need I say, that to this hour Presbyterianism grows more
from Congregational roots than from its own? that multitudes of the
most gifted men whom the New England churches rear for the Chris
tian ministry treat this question of polity as one involving no principle
at all? — do not hesitate a moment to accept the highest positions in the
Presbyterian Church, and to become its standard-bearers " and cham
pions for the spread of its most distinctive and denominational pecuUar
ities, in advance of all others " ? I need not say that this same facility
of abandoning our poUty is constantly exhibited by our emigrant laity,
as well as by our ministry. New England men, making their homes in
the West, will, without hesitation, turn their backs on Congregational
churches that need their help, to unite themselves with Presbyterian
churches, for no higher motive than to secure customers to their busi
ness, or to attain to a higher social position.
The progress of the Congregational polity in the North-west during

46 SERMON.
the last twenty-five years has been truly wonderful, unsurpassed certainly
by that of any other religious denomination. But it has all been ac
complished in spite of the existence of this obstacle in greater or less
degree o'ver all that field. It has achieved much, very much; but for
this obstacle, it would have accompUshed vastly more. Many churches
Which are now weak would have been strong, and many which have
been absorbed by the centraUzation of the Presbyterian Church would
have remained in the simpler and freer polity of the fathers.
I can not doubt, that by this process the organic power of the emigra
tion from New England has been greatly diminished: its power to
multiply churches where churches are needed; its power to endow and
sustain schools and colleges; its power to train up a Christian ministry;
its power to multiply and strengthen all the institutions of a Christian
civiUzation; its power to transplant whatever is precious in New Eng
land to the West, and the South, and the shores of the Pacific.
It is now quite time I draw this discourse to a conclusion by a brief
consideration of one great practical inquiry: What is, to the churches
represented in this Council, now the Une of practical wisdom and Chris
tian duty?
1. We must never abandon that grand conception of a symmetrical and
ubiquitous religious organization for the moral and spiritual care and
culture of the Whole people. To abandon this is to abandon the experi
ment of American liberty as a miserable failure. We can not, we can not
succeed in this grandest social experiment of the age, except through •
the high intellectual and reUgious culture of the whole people. Our
mother country, England, is governed by her upper and middle classes:
to these classes, therefore, she applies the forces of a high and noble
culture, that they may be fit to govern, and leaves the lower classes in
a great degree uncared for. This is, at least, consistent. We are
governed by the people, the whole people, and therefore to the whole
people we must apply all the forces of inteUectual and moral culture,
that all may be qualified to wield that share in the government which
the law accords to them. Nothing but ruin can come of elevating the
masses to the position of rulers, while we do not so teach and train
them as to qualify them to rule well. And, in order to this end, we
must have a ubiquitous rural civilization, purified and exalted by the
influences of free Christian worship and instruction.
And to conclude that a system of perfect religious freedom can not
give us such a reUgious organization, that it will necessarily produce
such a conflict of religious sects as to render it impossible for rural
districts ever to establish the permanent institutions of religious instruc
tion and worship, is to admit that the experiment of religious liberty is a
failure, and that we must go- back to some church and state system,
which can, by the compulsory power of law, divide the country into
parishes, and maintain in every one of them the means of reUgious as
well as of secular instruction. We must solve this problem by a free
system, or acknowledge, in the face of exultant Europe, that our Prot-

SERMON. 47
estantism and ouiT voluntaryism have signally failed. It is the trial-
question of American religious freedom, whether by it we can provide
for the religious culture of our whole people. The Congregational
churches must not be the first to pronounce this experiment a failure
God forbid!
2. We have a far better prospect of success through our own polity
than through any other to which we might be induced to lend our co
operation. He who should adopt any form of centraUzed church gov
ernment, with the hope of effecting through it a universal reUgious
organization for our country, would certainly choose an instrument very
ill adapted to his ends. Rival governments, each claiming jurisdiction
over the whole territory, in face of every other, may in this way be mul-
tipUed indefinitely, and be brought into more and more intense rivalship
with each other; and that is all we can expect from that instrument,
however vigorously used. This is about as hopeful for securing a re
Ugious organization for our country, as to favor State rights and no
coercion was of perpetuating our national unity. It can only aggravate
the evil indefinitely, and drive us farther from the end we wish to reach.
But if we will, even now, be true to the polity of our fathers, there is
hope of ultimately attaining to complete success. The independency of
the local church is, as we have shown, a true development of the seminal
principle of our national Ufe. AU centralized church government is con
tradictory to it. The events of the last five years have taught us, as
with a voice from heaven, that that principle is to be. developed in the
whole social Ufe' of this great nation; and that any and all principles
which are contradictory to it are, sooner or later, to be eradicated
through the agitations and convulsions which they themselves occasion.
I affirm, that the principle of centraUzed church government does con
stantly demonstrate. its opposition to the foundation principles of Ameri
can society, by the agitation, confusion, and anarchy which it causes. In
this conflict, I think it reasonable to believe that the principle itself wUl
sooner or later be overturned and destroyed.
This state of things can not exist always. Men will see at last that
these evils must be remedied, or the gospel itself must perish, and the
Ught of the Sun of Righteousness go out. Men will cease at length to
make labored apologies for the ceaseless conflict of the sect system, and
begin to look around them for some platform on which the whole church
of God on earth can stand together, and make war on one another no
more. And when they do begin in earnest to inquire after such a plat
form, they will find it in the independency of local churches, built on the
everlasting foundations of the simple truth as it is in Jesus; each disciple
as an equal brother receiving every other, and putting no yoke on his
neck which the Master hath not imposed.
I have no wish to claim any especial glory for New England. The his
tory of New England is not above criticism, and the men of New Eng
land, I hope, are not yet too wise to learn. But the principles which found
their way to these shores in the cabin of the Mayflower are evidently des
tined to prevail over this continent from ocean to ocean, and to give char-

48 SEKMON.
acter to all our social systems, both in church and state. I can see no
reason why men who hold that conception of the church, which was one
of the most remarkable characteristics of that Pilgrim band, should
despair of its power to overspread the continent. That the tendency of
American society is to locaUze the government even of the most central-.
ized churches, is apparent to every well-informed man. Presbyterian-'
ism can not be the same in America that it is in Scotland. Neither Pres
byterianism nor Methodism can be the same in the presence of active and
efficient Congregational churches, that it is in the absence of any such
influence. In such circumstances, their central forces are always weak
ened, and their local and individual forces strengthened. Why, then,
should we doubt that a force which is always active and potent, and
springs up from the very source of our national life, wiU ultimately pre
vail? In such circumstances, can we doubt for a moment that indepen
dency is the fittest instrument of religious organization in this free coun
try? One of the obstacles which has hitherto effectuaUy resisted our prog
ress over half our territory has been destroyed by a mighty earthquake
from God. Babylon the great is fallen. Negro slavery shaU no longer
resist the organization of the church on the basis of the equaUty of the
Christian brotherhood over half our country. Another of the four obsta
cles which I have mentioned will be entirely removed when we, and aU
the churches represented here, adhere to our principles of ecclesiastical
freedom with a zeal corresponding to their preciousness. The rivalship
of opposing forms of church governments is the only serious one that re
mains. In respect to this we may reasonably assume that there is deUv
erance in the not distant future.
" The day of freedom dawns at length,
The Lord's appointed day."
We have only to select that one of the conflicting systems in which aU
men are most Ukely to find harmony and fraternity, under the full-orbed
influence of American freedom, evangelical truth, and the Spirit of the
Lord, and to adhere to it. For my part, I am at no loss to choose.
3. We must teach and defend the principles of our polity. Such has
not been our custom. Some may have done it; many have neglected it.
We have not seldom trained our sons, and the people of our charges,
from infancy to gray hairs, without their ever once having heard one
earnest and thorough statement of the reasons why they are, and should
continue to be, Congregationalists. We have even inculcated upon our
selves and our brethren the notion, that a minister of the gospel can
hardly be worse employed than in defending the ecclesiastical pofity to
which, after all, he thinks it his duty to adhere. And then we are sur
prised and shocked that our brethren treat the matter of church poUty,
not as a question of principle, but of mere convenience and worldly ad
vantage. And as things have been over three-fourths of our territory,
there are far more motives of convenience and worldly advantage inclin-

SERMON. 49
ing a man to be a Presbyterian, than a CongregationaUst. There are
hundreds in this assembly who could testify to the truth of this from
their own experience. If there are reasons why we should adhere to
our poUty at aU, the same reasons would prove that our practice in
respect to teaching and defending our system should undergo a speedy
and total change.
I ^imagine, however, I hear an objector inquiring, What! would you
abandon that glorious characteristic of all our past history, that the gos
pel alone is primary, and aU questions of mere poUty, by a great remove
from it, merely secondary? Bishop Butler has very truly said, "It is
one of the pecuUar weaknesses of human nature, when, upon the compar
ison of two things, one is found to be of greater importance than the
other, to consider this other as of scarce any importance at aU." I must
add that it seems to me that this is pre-eminently " the pecuUar weak
ness " of us CongregationaUsts. We have a poUty, the glory of which is
that it immeasurably exalts the spiritual truths and moral precepts of
the gospel above all questions of mere poUty; and therefore we never
teach our people the exceUence of this poUty at all, or even explain to
them its principles, but leave them without any instruction on the sub
ject, to be swaUowed up by other polities, under the influence of which
they wiU be very sure to acquire, and transmit to their children after
them, an intense spirit of proselytism, which is alike foreign to our 'his
tory and to Christianity. Would it not be weU to draw a Uttle of the
attention of our people to questions of poUty, to guard them against such
a danger? There is, at the present time, a tacitly understood truce among the vari
ous denominations in respect to the open advocacy of their peculiarities
of faith and order, especially the latter, entered into for the sake of peace
and good feeUng. We are told that the minor questions which divide
evangeUcal Christians are not important enough to justify the agitation
and the disturbance of good feeling and Christian charity, which might
result from the open discussion of our differences. These differences are
assumed to be important enough to justify our rending the body of
Christ asunder for the sake of them; important enough to justify us in
demanding for every Uttle community in Christendom at least six church
organizations, when one only can be supported, and thus entaiUng on the
whole Christian cause, division and weakness before its enemies, and
religious anarchy; they are important enough to justify Christian men,
and, stiU more, Christian women, in plying with unresting activity aU
the arts, aU the social influences, aU the motives, both religious and sec
ular, of the most intense proselytism, to build up each his own denom
ination; but not important enough to justify us in a Uttle honest out
spoken defence of what we reaUy think to be important truth, and clear
and fair refutation of what we think to be erroneous and injurious.
Indeed, fathers and brethren, I have, in some sense, taken my Ufe in my
hand in deUvering such a discourse as this on the present occasion. I am
in danger of being thought to have violated estabUshed inter-denomina
tional law, and thereby to have criminaUy disturbed the peace of those
4'

50 SERMON.
high contracting ecclesiastical powers which at present assume to divide
Protestant Christendom among them. Nor need I Umit the statement to
Protestant Christendom. The truce, when once fairly estabUshed, wfll
necessarily embrace Romanism itself. We have, in recognizing such a
truce to the extent we have recognized it, erected a false standard of
judgment, by which any Christian minister would be sure to be con
demned as a bigot and a bitter sectarian, who should truly represent to his
congregation the falsehoods, the delusions, and the despotism of Popery.
That great red dragon is to-day greatly protected from the merited and
healthful indignation and abhorrence of a free Christian people by this
truce among our Christian denominations. We can not agree not to rebuke
one another, without imposing restraint on ourselves in respect to rebuk
ing other and perhaps more heinous sinners.
This truce proceeds upon the assumption that the present divided
condition of Protestant Christians is an inevitable result of religious
freedom, and destined to be perpetual, and that therefore we must divide
up every Protestant community among the existing powers ecclesiastical
as quietly as possible. The advocates of those centraUzed church gov
ernments, which, Uke the Presbyterian and Methodist, are not exclusive,
generally not only accept this state of things as inevitable, but apologize
for it as desirable and beneficial to the mterests of Christ's kingdom. I
am glad to say that I have met very few CongregationaUsts who take
this view of it. They generaUy deplore it as a great and intolerable evU.
If, however, we would be truly prepared for our great work, we must go
one step farther, and beUeve that the Lord has deliverance for his people;
that they are not perpetually to wander thus bewfidered and confounded;
that the Lord wOl at last appear, and lead his people over Jordan into
the promised land of freedom and blessed feUowship. And, amid aU the
confusion of the present, we must seek Ught from God to guide us in the
true path by which he wiU lead his people to this blessed consummation,
and point out that path to all over whom we have any influence, and
exhort them to pursue it.
For myself, I must frankly declare, that, to me, the whole beauty and
preciousness of the Congregational system Ues in this, — that it is a
method by which the whole church of God under heaven may stand in
blessed moral unity, on the basis of the gospel, the whole gospel, and
nothing but the gospel, divided and distracted by no forms or ceremonies
or governments which man hath devised. And I think, in the midst of
such a scene of reUgious anarchy as that in which I have Uved, such a
pofity is worthy of being explained, defended, and adhered to, till God
shaU caU me hence.
4. We must make this ecclesiastical question one of principle, otherwise
we can not be efficient laborers for the evangelization of this continent and
the world.1 If our gifted and strong young men regard the present con
fused and anarchical condition of reUgious society in the vaUey of the
Mississippi as necessary and inevitable; if they are taught that there is
no question of principle at issue between the Protestant denominations,
and that aU which a pastor can do is, in the general rivalship of churches,

SERMON. 51
to build up hia own as weU as he can, by the power of his eloquence, the
attraction of his own social character, and the social influences which he
can gather round him, and by the excellence of his organ and his choir,
without any appeal to the principles and convictions of the people, — I say
if strong and vigorous-minded young men see that churches are chiefly
to be built up by such influences as these, they will feel Uttle attraction
in the pastoral office, and seek some other profession; or, if they enter
the ministry, a sense of these difficulties wiU weaken their hands, and
sicken their hearts, and crush their spirits. And this, my brethren, is ,
one of the most potent causes which is thinning the ranks and impairing
the energies of the Christian ministry.
Let us have done with aU this. Let us bring before our minds the
grand conception of a continent to be overspread with a network of
Christian institutions. Let us, with devout earnestness, inquire what
ecclesiastical system is the fittest instrument for achieving this great
result; and, when we have chosen it with full conviction', we shaU wield
it with hearty good wiU; we shaU see and feel the giant obstacles that
oppose us ; but we shaU beUeve that the truth and spirit of God are
strong enough to overcome them. We shaU not be intolerant or exclu
sive. We shaU meekly instruct those who oppose themselves ; but we
shaU instruct them, and not dodge them by any cunning artifices. We
shaU have principles to defend, and we shall defend them, and we shaU
put our brethren of other denominations on the defense of theirs ; and if
the truth is with us, our cause wiU go up, and theirs wiU go down; if
with them, theirs wiU go up, and ours go down. In either case, we shaU
have labored' successfully, and the truth wiU have triumphed.
If we mean to be efficient, we must not purpose to hold our own in a
conflict of sects, admitted to be interminable and inevitable ; but m au
things we must be the advocates of principles which are true, and there
fore, through God, mighty, and destined to overcome and exclude all
opposing error. And itis infinitely important that this spirit be infused
into the Independent churches all over the world. English Indepen
dency is suffering the same paralysis, only in a far higher degree. It is but
too content to be the religion of the middle class. It is expected, if a
family becomes rich and great, it will desert "the Chapel," and go to
" the Church." EngUsh Independency must have done with this. It
must recognize its principles as true for all men, and fitted to rule the
world, and wield them with the expectation of overturning the proud
hierarchy which has so long crushed them down, and establishing, in face
of the aristocracy of England, the doctrine of the equal brotherhood of
the disciples of Christ. It must demand for its sons a culture as large
and as generous as Oxford and Cambridge give to the sons of nobility
and the state church. It must claim to speak in the name of the Lord,
alike to high and low, rich and poor. When this spirit fully possesses
EngUsh Independency, bishops wiU hold their miters and their revenues
by a very frail and transient tenure. Fathers and brethren, both in this
country and in England, any poUty is worthy of being advocated and
defended thus, or it is not worthy of being adhered to at aU. If it is

52 CREDENTIALS.
true, let it triumph and reign; if false, let it go into obUvion as soon as
possible. Finally, we must be in earnest. God never gave to any other people
such a problem to be solved as that which he has given to the Christian
people of our country,— to plant the gospel under the full-orbed sun-
Ught of civil and religious freedom, from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
and from the eternal snows of the Arctic to the eternal verdure of the
Tropic. In these last/ few months, he has come with his own terrible
earthquake, and shaken down and utterly destroyed the only poUtical
barrier which obstructed our progress. The land is now before us, and
the sunshine of freedom is on it all. And God is calling us. as by a
voice speaking to us from out of the sky, Arise and build; rear up the
Church of Christ on the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus
Christ being the chief corner-stone, over all those hills, amid all those
vaUeys, that it may teach to aU the millions that shaU soon dwell there,
in your own dear mother-tongue, these wonderful works of God; that it
may be so ubiquitous that no human being shaU fail to hear its melodi
ous summons every Sabbath morning to the house of Christian prayer
and praise; that aU those dark places of the land that have been cursed
by the abominations of slavery may be purified, and fiUed with Ught, and
covered over with a population as peaceful, as free, as enlightened, and
as religious, as the inhabitants of the sweetest vaUey that nestles among
New England hills ; in one word, to found and nurture the institutions
of learning, freedom, and religion, for a mighty nation, very soon to sur
pass in population the empire of China, and in wealth and ubiquitous
influence the empire of Britain.
And shall we deal lukewarmly, coldly, and in a worldly spirit with the
elements of such a problem? Shall we not, in such a cause, pour out our
wealth like water, and give our sons and daughters to the work, as
freely as patriots ever gave their sons to their country, and offer our own
selves as freely as our adorable Redeemer gave himself for us?

The minutes of yesterday's proceedings were read and ap
proved. CREDENTIALS.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of Illinois, from the committee on Creden
tials, offered a partial report.
Dr. Patton said the documents submitted to the committee were
very imperfect in many cases. In some instances, there was no indi
cation of the State to which the individuals designated as delegates,
belonged. In many cases, there was an omission properly to fill
out the blanks, so as to enable the committee to judge whether the
churches had acted properly in determining the number of delegates to
which they were entitled, according to the basis of representation. It
was intended that every conference should not only certify that such
and such individuals were their delegates, but that such a number of
churches were represented, and fill in their names, that it might be put

INVITATIONS. 53
beyond all question that they were entitled to that number of delegates.
That had been omitted in a large number of instances ; and of course
the committee had not been able to judge perfectly with reference to
the matter submitted to them. Then the documents, in some instances,
had the names of the principals and alternates; in other cases, the names
of the principals alone. Of course, it would have been impossible to
make out a list giving the alternates and principals, and the committee
had not attempted to do it. In the next place, there was no indication
as to which of the appointees were present, and which absent; and it was
impossible to tell whether the principals were all present, or whether
part of them were absent, and their places filled by alternates. The
committee took it for granted that the principals were present, unless
they were notified to the contrary.
The committee further reported that credentials had been presented
from foreign bodies ; but, as it was not for them to settle the status which
these delegates should hold in the body, they had simply reported their
names. They had included in the Ust the delegates from Canada,
although a Uteral construction of the Call, which was issued to the
" United States," would exclude them. But, inasmuch as the commit
tee expected the United States to include Canada at no distant period
[laughter], they did not deem it expedient to raise the question with
reference to the propriety of their admission to the floor.
The list of delegates was then read by the several members of
the committee on credentials, opportunity being afforded for
additions and corrections. The report was then recommitted
to the committee, for the' purpose of securing greater fullness
and accuracy. INVITATIONS.
Rev. Mr. Dexter, of Massachusetts, read the following let
ters of invitation : — Boston, June 14, 1865.
Delegates to the National Congregational Convention are invited to
participate, as a body, in the Temperance Festival to be held on the
Common in this city, on Saturday, the 17th inst., at 9 o'clock, A. M. A
place in the procession will be assigned to the Convention, on the recep
tion of an affirmative answer. For the Committee,
(Signed,) t Henhy Hoyt.
Chaklestowk, June 14, 1865.
To the Moderator of Council:
Bear Sir, — I beg leave, in behalf of the ancient First Church of this
city, — the oldest of the churches of the New World represented in this
body, _ to extend to the Council a most cordial invitation to hold, when-

54 invitations.
ever agreeable to them, their contemplated special service in honor of
the " marvelous and merciful dealings of Almighty God with the na
tion," in our sanctuary. I may be permitted to say, that the location
of our church edifice is upon Harvard Hill, conveniently near to this
place; a spot around which cluster many patriotic and sacred associa
tions; where the sainted Governor Winthrop and his feUow-Christians,
two hundred and thirty-five years ago, estabUshed the worship of God,
and quite near to that eminence upon which, ninety years ago next Sat
urday, occurred the first great battle of the American Revolution.
It affords me great pleasure herewith to transmit to the CouncU the
enclosed communication from Hon. Geo. W. Warren, President of the
Bunker Hill Monument Association ; and also to add, that I am requested
by Rear Admiral Silas H. Stringham, Commandant of the Navy Yard
in this place, to convey to the members of the Council, from him, a cor
dial invitation to visit the Yard and the government works at such time
as may suit their convenience. Most respectfully and sincerely,
(Signed,) James B. Miles,
Pastor First Church, Charlestown.
42 Coort Stkeet, June 14, 1865.
Bear Sir, — Understanding that there is to be, during the present
week, a Convention in Boston of the National Congregational CouncU,
and that it is their purpose to hold, during their session, a patriotic ser
vice of thanksgiving for the overthrow of the rebellion, I beg leave to
request you to extend to the Council, on behalf of the Bunker HU1 Mon
ument Association, an invitation to visit Bunker Hill and the Monu
ment at such time as may suit their convenience.
Yours most respectfully,
(Signed,) G. Washington Warren.
Rev. James B. Miles.

On motion of Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York, it was
Voted, That the Council acknowledge the courtesy of the invitation to
join in the Temperance celebration on the 17th inst., and express its
sympathy in the object, but respectfully decUne'to participate, on ac
count of the pressure of its own business.
On motion of Rev. Mr. Dexter, of Massachusetts, the other
invitations were referred to the Business Committee to be here
after appointed. •
On motion of Rev. Mr. Langworthy, of Massachusetts, it was
Voted, That a committee of five be appointed, to nominate the vari
ous committees of the Council.
Adjourned.

rules of order. 55
Thursday, p.m., June 15.
The Council met at three o'clock, the moderator in the
chair. The committee on Nominations was announced as fol
lows : —
Rev. Isaac P. Langworthy, Massachusetts; Gov. James G. Smith,;
Vermont; Rev. Milton Badger, d. d., CaUfornia; Rev. Flavel Bascom,
HUnois; Asahel Finch, Esq., Wisconsin.
DISPATCH TO THE PRESIDENT.
On motion of Mr. Bowen, of New York, it was ordered
that a telegraphic dispatch be sent to the President of the
United States, as follows : —
To His Excellency, Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States, Washington, B. C.
The National Congregational Council, now in session in this city,
representing nearly three thousand churches, in all sections of the
country, desire to present you their Christian salutations, to assure you
of their profound sympathy in your great and trying labors, to promise
you their loyal support and their prayers, and to express their solemn
conviction that the hundreds of thousands embraced as worshipers in
our churches wiU most heartily co-operate with you in extending the
institutions of civil and religious Uberty throughout the land.
Mount Vernon Church, Boston, June 15, 1865.
On motion, it was
Voted, That the dispatch be signed by the moderator, and transmit
ted to the President. RULES OF ORDER.
Rev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut,- from the committee on,
Rules of Order (in the absence of the chairman, Rev. Dr.*
Sturtevant), submitted their report as follows : —
RULES OF ORDER.
I. Each morning, at the time to which the Council is adjourned, the
moderator shaU open the meeting with prayer, and the scribe shall
read the minutes of the preceding day, that any needful correction may
be made.

56 RULES OF ORDER.
II. In case of an equal division of votes, the moderator shall have a
casting vote.
III. Whilst the moderator is putting any question or addressing the
body, no one shall walk out of or across the house; nor in such case,; or
when a member is speaking, shaU entertain private discourse, or read
any printed book or paper; nor whilst a member is speaking shaU pass
between him and the chair.
IV. When any member, in debating or otherwise, shaU transgress
the rules of the body, the moderator shaU, by his own authority, or at
the request of any member, call him to order; and if a question shaU
arise concerning his being in order, it shall be decided by an appeal to
the body.
V. Every member, when he wishes to speak, shall address the mod
erator, who shaU announce his name. When two or more rise at once,
the moderator shaU name the member who is first to speak.
YI. No member shaU speak more than twice to the merits of the
question in debate, except by special permission of the body; nor
more than once untU every member choosing to speak shaU have
spoken. VII. Every motion, except for adjournment, shaU be reduced to
writing, if the moderator or any two members desire it.
VEIL When a motion is regularly made and seconded, and has been
stated by the moderator, it cannot be withdrawn or modified by the
mover without the consent of the body.
IX. No vote can be reconsidered except on the day of its passage, or
the next succeeding, and on motion of one who voted with the majority.
X. When a question is under debate, no motion shaU be received, but
to adjourn, to lay on the table, for the previous question, to postpone to
a day or hour certain, to commit, to amend, to postpone indefinitely,
which several motions shall have precedence in the order in which they
are arranged. On a motion for adjournment, for laying on the table,
for indefinite postponement, or for the previous question, there shaU be
no debate.
XI. The effect of a negative of the previous question is to allow fur
ther debate and the issue of the subject in due order; the effect of
adopting the previous question is to put an end to debate, and to bring
the Council to a direct vote upon pending amendments, if any, and then
upon the original question.
XII. If a question under debate contains several parts, any member
may have it divided, and the question taken on each part.
XIII. Every committee shall consist of three members, unless ex
pressly ordered otherwise by the body, and shaU be nominated by a
committee appointed for the purpose.
XIV. If the report of a committee contains nothing more than mat
ters of fact for information, or matters of argument for the considera
tion of the Council, the question is, Shall the report be accepted ? and
that question, unless superseded by a motion to reject, to recommit, to
postpone, or to lay upon the table, shall be taken without debate.

PRESENTATION OF FOREIGN DELEGATES. 57
Such a report, if accepted, is placed upon the files of the Council, but
not being an act of the Council, is not entered on the minutes.
If the report is in the form of a vote or resolution, or of a declaration,
expressing the judgment or testimony of the Council, the additional
question arises, Shall the report be adopted ? and motions for amend
ment are in order. Such a report, if adopted, with or without amend
ment, is the act of the Council, and is entered on the minutes.
If a report gives the views of the committee on the matter referred to
them, and terminates with the form of a resolution or declaration in the
name of the Council, the adoption of the report is the adoption only of
the resolution or declaration; and while the report at large is placed on
file, that part of it which has become an act of the Council is entered on
the minutes.
XV. It shall be the duty of the business committee to prepare a
docket for the use of the moderator, upon which shall be entered all
items of business which members of the Council may desire to bring
before the body, and, except by special vote of the Council, no business
shaU be introduced which has not in this manner passed through the
hands of the committee.
The report was adopted, and ordered to be printed.
PRESENTATION OF FOREIGN DELEGATES.
Rev. Dr. Blagden, of Massachusetts. I have a duty to perform, sir,
as one of the Committee o£ Arrangements, who by their vote have assigned
to me that duty; and it strikes me that the subject to be brought before
the CouncU, in the fnlfiUment of that duty, had better be presented now,
before the CouncU shall engage in any of the regular business that suc
ceeds the reception of the credentials of delegates.
It is known to the Council that there are gentlemen present from for
eign bodies, and the Committee of Arrangements appointed me to intro
duce two of the brethren from the Congregational Union of England
and Wales, in g. few words. Those brethren are present, sir, and I am
glad to hear and to know that there are others present from other bod
ies. The two brethren to whom I refer are the only brethren from
abroad who were mentioned as attendants upon the Council at the time
of the last session of the Committee of Arrangements ; and it wUl not
preclude that attention which the Council would wish to pay to others
if I, in the discharge of that particular duty, present only those two
brethren at this time.
With these few remarks, I have the honor to introduce to the Council
Rev. Dr. Robert Vaughan and Rev. Dr. Alexander Raleigh, of England,
delegates to this body, as I understand, from the Congregational Union
of England and Wales.
Hon. Mr. Hammond, of Illinois. I am informed that there are some
documents which have been presented by these gentlemen, which they
would Uke to have read.

58 LETTERS FROM FOREIGN BODIES.
Dr. Patton of Illinois, read the following letter and docu
ments : — NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE CONGREGATIONAL UNION.
Spring Meeting held in the Congregational Church, Stoke-on-Trent,
April 17th, 1865. Henry Pidduck, Esq., Mayor of Hanley, in the Chair.
The foUowing resolution was proposed by the Rev. R. Mc AU, of Han
ley, seconded by the Rev. S. Jones, of Longton, and unanimously car
ried: —
" That the North Staffordshire County Association of Congregational
Churches and Pastors is happy to take the opportunity of nominating
the Rev. S. R. Asbury, B. A., as a delegate to the National Congrega
tional Council, meeting at Boston on the 14th of June, 1865, and would
thus express the earnest wish that Congregational principles may fur
ther advance in the United States.
" And they would also express the hope that the churches of England
may soon have to rejoice with their brethren in America over the re
moval of the curse of slavery from that continent, and the restoration of
true peace." (Signed,) Henby Pidducb;, Chairman.
J. Hanbinson, Secretary,
And Pastor of the Congregational Church, Leek

Sheffield, N. B., 1st June, 1865.
To the National Council of Congregational Churches, Boston.
Bear Brethren, — Though widely separated in our fields of labor, and
though under different forms of civil government, and among people dif
fering much in their social and domestic habits, yet we are members of
the same family of the church on earth, — identified as brethren by a
common faith and by our scriptural form of church poUty.
The Congregational Union of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick is a
smaU body, numbering only twelve churches. We are spread over a
wide territory, and no possibility exists of our coming together except
at our annual gatherings. This difficulty has presented an insuperable
barrier to our appointing a delegate to represent us in your " National
Council." The Rev. W. H. Daniels, who has labored in the city of St.
John, N. B., for a number of years, purposes being present with you;
and it is with the greatest pleasure, as Secretary of our Union, that I
introduce him to your notice.
Our Union does not meet till the 21st 6f next month; but if an oppor
tunity had existed, I am confident it would have been the cordial and
unanimous desire of all our members and churches that our beloved
brother Daniels should have appeared as our delegate at your Council.
If, under these circumstances, he can not be aUowed to take part in

LETTERS FROM FOREIGN BODIES. 59
your proceedings, I have no doubt he will be cordially welcomed by
you, and be at your sittings an interested hearer and spectator.
I am dear brethren, yours in the best of bonds,
Robebt Wilson,
Secretary of the Home Missionary Society and Congregational Union
of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

FROM THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION OF ENGLAND AND WALES.
This assembly, whUe uniformly cherishing the UveUest interest in the
Congregational churches of the United States, and always desirous of
cultivating friendly relation with those churches, is constrained to give
a prompt and special expression of these sentiments and feelings in the
present unparalleled crisis of American history.
The assembly, therefore, dispensing with the formaUty of a regular in
vitation, requests the Rev. R. Vaughan, d. d., the Rev. A. Raleigh, d. d.,
and the Rev. George Smith, d. d., to proceed as delegates from this
Union, to attend the Convention of Congregational churches, to be held
next month in the city of Boston.
This assembly instructs the deputation to convey its cordial greetings
to the ministers and churches represented at the said conference, and to
assure them of its earnest prayers for their continued welfare and. grow
ing prosperity; its high appreciation of the great services rendered by
them to the interests of our common Christianity, and of human pro
gress; its cordial acknowledgment of the anti-slavery principles held
and advocated by those churches; its hearty congratulations on account
of the great work of emancipation thus far accompUshed, and, it is fuUy
beUeved, under God, completely and finally secured ; its profound sym
pathy with them and their feUow countrymen generally in the fearful
losses and agonizing trials of the four years' civil war; and, especially,
in the foul assassination of the upright, patient, and noble-hearted Abra
ham Lincoln; its intense deUght at the prospect of peace and re-union,
without compromise on the slave question; its profound thankfulness to
Almighty God for the spirit of moderation and clemency hitherto dis
played on the victorious side; its full confidence in the efforts that wiU
now be made to meet the physical, inteUectual, and moral necessities of
four millions of human beings in their sudden transition from the degra
dation of slavery, to the privileges and responsibiUties of freedom; and
finaUy, its readiness, in every appropriate way, to co-operate with their
American brethren in these philanthropic labors, and in all future en
deavors tending to promote the complete triumph of evangeUcal truth,
. reUgious equaUty, and universal peace.

UNION DES EGL1SES EVANGEL1QUES DE FRANCE.
Paris, 27th April, 1865.
To the President of the Convention of the
CONGBEGATIONAL CHUBCHES OF AMERICA.
Reverend and dear Sir, — The Union of Evangelical Churches of
France was invited, in your name, to send a representative to your great

60 LETTERS FROM FOREIGN BODIES. ,
Convention. We are very happy to be able to answer your kind invita
tion. We send, as our delegate to your Convention, our dear friend, the
Rev. Theodore Monod, who succeeded his excellent and lamented father,
the Rev. Dr. Monod, in his church at Paris. M. Monod is a bond of
union between France and America; for, as he was born for the first
time in Paris, he was born again in your great revival, and, although
Pastor in our metropofis, he has studied and has been ordained in your
country. When we decided to send him to your assembly, we charged him with
a message of exultant joy over the triumph of the cause of union and
Uberty. That final and splendid victory, secured after an amount of
energetic efforts and of sacrifice hitherto unequalled, fiUed us French Prot
estants with a delight and an enthusiasm which words can not describe.
If it had been our own cause, we should not have felt more. And it was
indeed our own cause which had been imperiled; our own cause which,
for four years, had been contemned and abused, when aU the enemies of
poUtical, civil, and reUgious liberty prophesied scornfuUy that your
union would be broken, and that your flag, upon which is inscribed all
that which is dear to us, would lose for ever all its prestige. Now the
Lord be praised; we have much prayed for you; we thank our God with
you from the deepest of our heart.
But now, we are filled with mourning and awe; and our representa
tive, M. Monod, will tell you under what gloom was held the anniver
sary of our Evangelical Society, which began just at the hour when the
frightful news of Mr. Lincoln's assassination was known in Paris. Oh,
you might have seen how much your cause is ours, by the universal
lamentation which it excited among us aU. But, in our deep sorrow
we did not for a moment fear for the ultimate result. We know that
the more the Lord chastises us, the greater are the blessings which he
keeps for us. M. Monod will convey to you our deepest sympathy in
that bereavement which affects every one of us.
May the Lord, Mr. President, give to your great Convention an
immense efficacy for the spread of His truth, and for the temporal and
spiritual welfare of your great nation. May the fruits of that assembly
ripen even after the removal of our generation for a better world; may
your children and your children's chUdren have to bless the day of your
meeting. In the name of the Commission Synodale,
rn a™,.™ ^ x, „ Gr. Fisch, President.
1. Armand Delxlle, Pastor, Secretaire.

Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York, read the following com
munication and address from the Welsh brethren: 
(translation.)
At the annual meeting of the Glamorganshire Association of Congre
gational ministers and churches, held at Mountain Ash, Aberdare, May
31, 1865, it was unanimously resolved 

LETTERS FROM FOREIGN BODIES. 61
1. That this Conference, representing 150 churches, 102 ministers, 81
lay preachers, and more than 20,000 communicants, rejoices to hear that
an important Convention of the Congregational churches of the United
States of America is to meet next month at Boston; earnestly prays
that the Lord's blessing may rest on their deliberations ; and appoints
the Rev. John Thomas, Tabernacle, Liverpool, C. R. Jones, Esq.,
Llanoyllin, and Mr. John Griffiths, London, to represent this associa
tion at the Boston Convention.
2. That this Association greatly rejoices at the termination of the
war in America; gratefully acknowledges the persistent and successful
efforts of the North to extirpate the hateful curse of slavery; hails the
restoration of the Union with joy and thankfulness; deeply sympathizes
with the people and the government of the United States in their sor
row for the cruel and base assassination of one of the wisest, noblest,
most honest, and most tender-hearted men that ever governed the United
States, or any other country; admires the quiet and firm manner in
which the government was carried on at so dangerous a crisis, and not
withstanding a catastrophe so unexpected and appalling ; and earnestly
trusts that the future of the Union will be worthy of the glorious history
to which the American people can lay claim, from the first landing of
the Pilgrim Fathers on the shores of the Western Continent, until now;
and desires its representatives to convey this resolution to our beloved
brethren at the Boston Convention.
Thomas Rees, d. d., Chairman. [diff. John Jones, Carmel.
John Davies, Mount Stuart Chapel, Car- Richard Williams, Bryn.
Henrt Oliver, e. a. (Lend Univ.), Pan- Josiah Thomas Jones, Aberdare.
John Rees, Canaan, Swansea. [typudd. Josuah Thomas, Salem, Aberdare.
Thomas Thomas, Landore, Swansea. Thomas Davies, Horeb, Morriston.
Jonah Roberts, Summerfeld, Neath. John Griffiths, Glantaf.
Herbert, Daniel, Port-y-Pool. Jonah Morgan, Cwmbach, Aberdare.
John Jones, Zoar, Maestey. William Williams, Hirwaen, Aberdare..
John Matthews, Neath. Rees Morgan, Addaldy, Glynnealh Neath.
Rhys Swesyn Jones, Merthyr Tydfil. David Evans, Briton Ferry, Neath.
John Lloyd James, Whitchurch. David Jones, Wind Street Chapel, Neath.
John Jones, Rudery. Tho's Llewelyn, Mountain Ash, Aber-
James Evans, Carmel, [dare. JonsT>AviES,Pontygof,JSbbw Vale. [dare.
William Williams, Abercrombay, Aber- William Edwards, Aberdare.
S. D. Jones, Heolgenig, Merthyr. William Watkins, Maesteg.
J. M. Davies, Maesycwmur. William Morgans, Maesteg.
Pryse Howell, Xnysgan Chapel, Merthyr. David Price, Silsa, Aberdare.
R. Whittington, Freherbert. Evan Pritohard, Glandur.
Stephen Davies, Soar, Aberdare. John Evans, Maendn.
Morgan Morgan, Bethesda-y-pro. Ellis Hughes, Penmain.
William Morgan, Saron Troedyrhiew. David Davies, Newinn.
James Thomas, Carmel, Bonvilstone. _ William Griffiths, Llanharhan.
John Benan, Warmarluyd, Swansea. Richard Griffiths, Cefucoedcymer.
Robert Jones, Craigyfargod. R. Rowlands, Aberaman.
John Davies, Tailierion, David Richards, Caerphilly.

The following address to the Convention of the American Congrega
tional Union, assembUng in the city of Boston, Massachussetts, on the

62 LETTERS FROM FOREIGN BODIES.
14th of June, 1865, from ministers, deacons, and members belonging
to the Welsh Congregational churches in the towns of Liverpool and
Birkenhead, and a number of friends from London, and the PrmcipaUty,
at a pubUc breakfast given May 30th, 1865, to their friends and breth
ren, the Rev.' J. Thomas, Liverpool, C. R Jones, Esq., Llanfyllm, and
Mr. J. Griffith, London, on their departure on a visit to America: —
Moved by the Rev. N. Stephens, Liverpool; seconded by the Rev. W.
Ambrose, Portmadoc (Secretary of the Carnarvonshire Association);
supported by the Rev. O. Evans, Wrexham (Secretary of the Associa
tion of the Counties of Denbigh and FUnt).
To the President of the Convention of
the Amebican Congeegational Unton.
Honored Sir, — We, ministers, office-bearers, and members of the
Welsh Congregational Churches, in Liverpool, Birkenhead, and else
where, who have assembled together on this 30th day of May, 1865,
desire, through ybu, to express our fraternal love and regard for our
American brethren, of the same faith and order, assembled at your con
vention, and the American churches and people in general. We feel
assured, that the numerous Welsh Congregational churches in the
Northern States, and thousands of our countrymen resident there, wiU
be rejoiced to hear the expression of sympathy and affection towards
their adopted country, from friends and brethren in their native land.
Our ministers in Liverpool have had the privilege of presenting an
address to your eminent brother and countryman, the Rev. H. Ward
Beecher, at a pubUc breakfast given him by the friends of the Federal
Union and negro emancipation, in this town, on his departure from our
shores, after his recent visit to this country; expressing their profound
sympathy with the government and people of the Northern States, in
their great struggle to crush the infamous rebelUon of the slaveocracy of
the South.
In that address, they had the confidence to affirm it as their convic
tion, that had opportunities been afforded them, almost aU the min
isters and churches of our denomination in the principaUty of Wales—
nearly eight hundred in number — would have cordially concurred in the.
sentiments therein ^contained. Subsequent information fully sustained
that conviction.
Sir, we have watched the progress of the desolating war, which for
the last four years afflicted your country, with the deepest soUcitude.
Our best sympathies were with your cause; our prayers were also in
your calamities; and now those calamities being overpast, we are anx
ious to embrace the opportunity afforded by the assembUng of your
Convention to offer you our hearty congratulations On the happy termi
nation of the unhappy strife. We rejoice in your rejoicings. We con
gratulate you, that, through the mercy of an overruling Providence,
your Federal Union has ridden triumphantly through the terrific tem
pests which at one time threatened to overwhelm it; that it has come
out of the fiery ordeal like gold purified in the furnace, having the

ADDRESS. 68
plague spot of slavery wiped off entirely, and for ever, we trust, from its
fair escutcheon.
The sacrifice, which you were called upon to make, indeed, was great
and costly; but the blessings obtained, — the liberation of four millions
of human beings from bondage and oppression as cruel as ever disgraced
the earth; the eradication of the cancer which ate the vitals of the poUt
ical Constitution of the Union; the removal of the hateful incubus which
rested on the churches, and disfigured the fair face of Christianity in the
land, — must be esteemed as a fair compensation.
Sir, we rejoice in the fact that the Congregational body in America
has never, so far as our knowledge goes, participated in the actual guilt
of negro slavery. We bless God that you have been enabled to keep
aloof from the accursed thing, and to raise your voices against it, .main
taining the spirit and traditions of your noble Pilgrim fathers, who
 " planted freedom's sacred tree
i Two hundred years ago "
on the rock of Plymouth.
We confidently trust that the universal cry of horror and indignation,
raised simultaneously by all parties in England, at the atrocious deed of
assassination by which your late honest, amiable, and virtuous Presi
dent was cut off in the hour of triumph and rejoicing; the words of
tender and heartfelt sympathy and condolence sent by our beloved wid
owed Queen Victoria to the sorrowing widow of your illustrious Abra
ham Lincoln; the warm sympathy expressed by our Government and
Houses of Parliament with your Government and people on that mourn
ful occasion, — wiU serve to calm and to soothe the offended feeUngs of
our American brethren toward the mother country, on account of the
sympathy shown by a certain party, and a portion of our pubUc press,
with the late rebelUon, and be the means of uniting both countries
together in a closer union, and deeper mutual affection, than ever before.
May it ever be regarded as a most sacred duty, by ministers and Chris
tian men in both countries, to use all possible endeavors to influence
their respective governments to maintain peace and amity between
Great Britain and America; so that they go forth hand in hand to con
fer upon the world the blessings of peace, civUization, and religion.
Finally, we rejoice in the benevolent and Christian object which your
Union is contemplating; that of returning blessing upon the South for
the curse which its slave oUgarchy has brought upon your land; by
establishing educational and religious institutions there, for the tem
poral and spiritual benefit ¦ of the poor and neglected negro races, to
whom the late war brought the inestimable boon of emancipation; yea,
to preach the gospel of peace and good- will to those who have been so
long and so crueUy oppressed and to those who oppressed them, — to
make of both, who till lately stood in the anomalous relation of master
and slave to each other, '* one new man, making peace." " Out of the
South came the whirlwind " of rebellion and devastation upon your land.
Out of the North also came the cold which blasted that rebellion; and

Q4 CANADA DELEGATION.
now it may be added, "Fair weather cometh from the North," when its
right hand is extended toward its fellow-countrymen in the South, to
bestow upon them the blessings of the gospel of the grace of God, rrre-
spective of race or color.
May the eye of the great Head of the church be upon you, to guide
and direct your deliberations. May the spirit of the Lord rest upon
your convention, "the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit
of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the
Lord." „ _ .
William Rees, Chairman.
The documents were accepted.
INSTRUCTIONS TO THE NOMINATING COMMITTEE.
On motion of Rev. Mr. Eustis, of Connecticut, it was
Voted, That the Nominating Committee be requested to bring before
the Council the nominations for committees on business, finance, print
ing, and devotional exercises.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut, it was
Voted, That the Nominating Committee be authorized to nominate as
many persons on each of these committees as they think best.
Rev. Mr. Dexter stated that Mr. Atkins, one of the scribes,
asked to be excused, and moved that the Nominating Committee
be requested to nominate a scribe in his place. Carried.
THE CANADA DELEGATION.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut, inquired if the names of the delegates
from Canada had been inserted in the Ust as members of the Council,
or whether they stood on the same footing as the brethren from Eng
land. Dr. Patton said that was for the Council to decide.
Rev. Dr. Bacon. I want the question presented now. I received,
some time ago, a communication, indirectly, in regard to the representa
tion of some Canadian churches in this National Council; and I made
reply, that the terms of invitation to this Council made it not an Ecu
menical nor an International Council, but simply a National one. The
call is addressed to all those Congregational churches in the United
States of America which are in recognized feUowship and co-operation,
through general associations, general conferences, and conventions.
Canada is not in the United States; and I therefore suggested that
representatives from those churches would be gladly, I had no doubt,
received here on the same footing with representatives from Great
Britain and from France, as delegates from foreign churches, with which
we are in fellowship. I move that those brethren who present creden-

WELCOME TO THE FOREIGN DELEGATES. 65
tials from various bodies of Congregational ministers and churches in
foreign countries be received as honorary members of this National
CouncU. The motion was carried.
Rev. Dr. Budington, of New York, inquired if any documents had
been presented to the committee on Credentials with regard to the Rev.
Dr. Massie, of London, who was present.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of IUinois, said that no credentials had been pre
sented to the committee.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut, said that Dr. Massie had formerly
visited this country, and was known as our stanchest friend in times
of trial; and he would move that he be invited to sit as an honorary
member of this Council.
Carried. WELCOME TO THE FOREIGN DELEGATES.
The moderator then addressed the foreign delegates as
follows : —
Christian Brethren, — In behalf of the Council, I greet you with a
cordial welcome. It is true, as has been stated in one of the documents
which have been presented to this Council, that for the last four or five
years, the condition of this country has been unparalleled in its embar
rassment. We have been contending, as we feel, not for ourselves
merely, but for the interests of humanity and the interests of Christian
ity throughout the civiUzed world. [Applause.] It has required all
the energies of our minds and our hands, and all the sympathies of our
hearts; but, in the exercise of these powers, we have suppressed the
rebelUon, and to-day we have peace. [Applause.] In securing that
peace, it is true, we have laid our sons and brothers upon a hundred
battle-fields in death; it is true that our honored President has been
struck down by the assassin's hand, and mourning and sorrow have
spread all over our land, and reached our brethren in foreign lands.
But to-day, blessed be God, we turn from that past which has occupied
our attention, with cheerful hearts, to engage in a cause more welcome
to our hearts, — quite as dear and quite as important to the interests of
Christianity as those duties in which we have hitherto been engaged.
And we meet in council to-day to take measures to plant New England,
with all her educational and all her Christian institutions, in the great
West, and in the South, and in all parts of this land, in spite of the obstacles
which stand in our way, which were presented so eloquently and ably
by the gentleman [Rev. Dr. Sturtevant] who addressed us this morning.
[Applause.] We are grateful that in such an hour as this, the minds
of Christian brethren in our mother-country, and in other countries, are
turned with interest toward us ; and we are happy to greet you here
to-day, and to receive from you those messages of sympathy and Chris
tian affection which we know come from those whom we love, holding,
with us, Christ as the common head of the Uving church. We shaU be
5

66 ADDRESS OF DR. VAUGHAN.
happy, brethren, to Usten to you at this hour, and to receive from your
own Ups such words as you shall be pleased to utter.
REPLY OF REV. ROBERT VAUGHAN, D. D., OF LONDON, ENGLAND.
My dear and honored Brethren, — I have come very far to see you, to
look you in the face, to shake you by the hand, and to teU you of the
friendly thoughts, and of the honest sympathies, which are cherished
toward you by multitudes in the land that I have left. Our assembly,
representing the Congregational churches of England and Wales, ap
pointed my friend Dr. Raleigh and myself as delegates to this body,—
calling us from our homes and our work, solely that we might appear
hi, your midst; and we are here, rejoicing in the thought that in you
we see the representatives of nearly 3,000 American Congregational
churches ; and we feel thankful in being able to assure you, that in us
you see the representatives of nearly the same number of churches of
the same faith and order in the old country. [Applause.] Those
churches have deputed us to express to you on this occasion their most
cordial greeting. They have laid it upon us to assure you of their sincere
sympathy with every thing touching your welfare as American Congre-
gationaUsts, and with every thing pertaining to the social and to the reU
gious interests of your great country. I ought to assure you that the
members of the Congregational Union of England and Wales are men
who always have been, and are now, so far as my knowledge goes, to a
man, opposed to the slave system, — men who have pronounced it to be
an unchristian, unrighteous, and iniquitous system, that should die, that
must perish. [Applause.] They did not aU of them see, as you may
perhaps have been aware, in the earUer stages of your struggle, what
poUcy was the best for your country and for the slave; but there was no
difference in them, arising from one portion being friends of your coun
try, and the other not. No such difference existed. They were all
your friends, whether mistaken in judgment or right in judgment; and
now, to a man, they receive the issues of your great struggle, looking
upon them as having come to pass under the influence of a higher hand
than the hand of a man. They congratulate you upon the extinction of
that system that brought on the war, and rejoice in the prospect of the
better days which they believe to be waiting humanity here and human
ity every where, through you. [Applause.]
Mr. Chairman, in brief, there are not upon God's earth — no, not
upon God's earth — hearts beating more truly toward this country, more
as a brother's heart should beat, than the hearts of the men who consti
tute the Congregational Union of England and Wales. [Applause.]
Being confident of this, I feel it laid upon me truly to say it.
And now, sir, when I look upon this vast assembly, and remember
what is represented by it, I have some memories rushing upon me,—
thoughts which I should Uke to find words to express, but which I am
sure I can not find words to express adequately. I must, however, ven
ture to remind our friends that this Congregationalism, of which we have

ADDRESS OF DR. VAUGHAN. 67
been hearing so much, is distinctly and emphatically English. [Loud
laughter and applause.] I mean what I say. Its revival in the modern
church was left to be brought about by, EngUsh thought and English
piety, after it had been lost to the church for more than a thousand years.
The men who were to discover this were men — a smaU band — devoted
and bravp in their generation. The mediseval Christianity that prevailed
in England before the Reformation, as you aU know, came from Rome.
The Church "of England, too, as we now have it, good people as there
are in it, is an estabUshment that may fairly be described as greatly
more mediseval than Protestant. And even Presbyterianism is an exotic
in England; it did not grow there; it can hardly be said to ever have
had any root there; it has tried to live there, but has found it very hard
to do so. [Laughter.] But there was to be a body of men, as I have
said, in the time of Elizabeth, and subsequently, separating from the
estabUshed church. The men who became exUes under Queen Mary,
and returned under Elizabeth, brought Presbyterianism from Frankfort
and Geneva, and they tried to give it root in the country; but it could
not be made to take root there, — it could not be made permanent there.
But the separatists were men who began to thirst for that larger kind of
Uberty which our CongregationaUsm gives to the human spirit. That
thirst rose within them, they scarcely knew how; but CongregationaUsm
was to them Uke the waters of Bethlehem to the parched Ups of David:
they must have it or die. [Applause.] What God did in them as spirit
ual men, and what circumstances did around them, persecuting them at
aU points, fitted them for going to the New Testament, and discovering
there the very pohty which they felt they needed, as the poUty of the first
churches bearing the apostolic sanction.
Now, you know very weU, for you have heard it to-day, that a portion
of those holy men, worn and wearied by the trials of that country that
would not give them liberty, came to this land in search of a home. Not
far from this did they put their feet for the first time upon these shores ;
and here they were, as you know, to create a great future. A portion of
those men remained in England; and there they had to make, and did
make, a history for themselves, — a history of which we who have de
scended from them are by no means ashamed. [Applause.] The man
does not deserve the name of EngUshman, who is not proud of that
period in his nation's history, when the high-souled thought and passion
of a great people went forth through the genius of a Cromwell and a Mil
ton. [Loud applause.] We are doing something now in England to
bring up these old names, associated with these principles of Congrega
tionaUsm, and marvelously chagrined are many around us at the thought
that we can plead such a noble ancestry; but we mean to hold to it.
[Applause.] But, sir, I see in this bit of history, in which we are now both inter
ested, something that presents itself to my imagination like the flow of
some ancient river. I see its waters up in some far back territory,
divided into two streams, and these two streams widen their way
apart, through their separate beds, until, after a long space, they are

68 ADDRESS OF DR. VAUGHAN.
seen verging toward each other, and finaUy the waters meet and are
one again; and then roU on with greater force than ever, as if joyous at
the meeting. Here are the two streams: your stream of Congregation
alism in America, our stream in England; and to-day, sir, the two
come together, and we are one. [Loud applause.] WiU you excuse me
if I ask you to give me your hand in token of this union? [The mod
erator and the speaker clasped hands amid enthusiastic applause.] This
is a happy day, to me, sir! May the power be powerless and fall, come
whence it may, that would ever divide men whom God has joined
together by a common blood and a common faith! [Applause.]
But, my friends, our CongregationaUsm is an infant in years com
pared with what it is to be. It has, beyond aU other systems, pro
nounced upon the grand question of the union of church and state. The
early settlers of this country, indeed, were placed in peculiar circum
stances, and if they did not see every thing in relation to this principle at
once, it was sure to be seen; and at this moment I could, were this ,the
place for doing it, direct your attention to what is passing in Europe,
which shows very clearly that the first order of minds in Europe are
beginning to find their way to our principle of EngUsh independency, as
presenting the grand secret by means of which to put an end to that
broil of ages, — the mingUng of the ecclesiastical with the civil. We
have Emperor marshaled against Pope, and Pope against Emperor; we
have hierarchies rising against nationaUties, and nationaUties rising
against hierarchies. We have men coming forth not merely from
schools of theology, but from the departments of high statesmanship, —
such men as Guizot and Laboulaye, — and affirming, in then own way,
that the great principle by which an end is to be put to this protracted
strife is the principle by which men learn to give unto God the things
which are God's, while they give unto Csesar the things that are his.
Our friend, M. Monod, can tell you a little how French thought is work
ing in this direction; what M. Bersier and M. Pressense and others, are
doing to illuminate the French mind upon this great principle. Then
there is M. Vinet, a man who, coming out from an order of things very
unlike ours, was brought, by the influence of Ught, to embrace the prin
ciple we hold. The great Cavour learned to take up the maxim, " A
free church in a free state," as what the people want. " Very good as
far as it goes," say some, more enUghtened yet. " Free churches in a
free state —that is what we want." [Applause.] You can never have
one church in any state that would not be a favoritism to some, and a
wrong to others. You must look to a grand tolerance of variety, more
or less, if there is to be really a system of Uberty for men; and our
principles go in that direction.
But, sir, I will not detain you longer. I should not have said this
much but that, when a man comes across the Atlantic to speak half an
hour, perhaps he may have it. [Laughter, and calls of " Go on."]
Your country has passed through trouble; but let it be remembered
dear brethren, that since those dark days of the war of independence
you have known nothing of what trouble means. Through that lono-

ADDRESS OF DR. VAUGHAN. 69
interval, until within the last three or four years, your history has been
one unbroken flow of prosperity. And will you bear with me in saying,
that it is not in the power of prosperity alone to raise a nation to aU the
greatness of which a nation is capable? Individuals and communities
are ripened by other influences into higher forms of manhood. It is very
instructive, as you know, to see what the fruits are that a good man
brings out of his trouble, — the broader thought, the calmer self-posses
sion, the wiser patience and considerateness, the higher development of
the richer tones of man's nature. Nations may have that, — God means
that you shaU have it. He is doing by you as he does by many more.
The result wiU be that for which your children wiU be grateful. We
sympathize with you in what you have had to bear. Misconceptions of
aU kinds have been brought against you, — some in quarters where you
might have expected them, others in quarters where you might have
expected better things: you have had to bear these. Malignity, in all
forms and grades, has leveled its envenomed shafts at you, and that, too,
in your hour of trial: you have had to bear that. And the dastard
villanies of assassination have been aUowed to place their ingredients in
the cup which you have had to drink. But be of good cheer, brethren I
The dark day is past, and the day to come wfil be brighter. Many who
did not see your case at first, could not see it as it reaUy was, have come
to see it as it is. Many who prophesied that if a strain Uke that which
has come upon your institutions were once to come upon them, they
would snap asunder, and proclaim their emptiness and worthlessness to
the world, have proved false prophets, as you know. The strain has
come; the snap has not taken place; the institutions are here on a more
soUd rock than before. And this takes place in the sight of aU the
nations. It has gone forth whenever a freeman is found, or the friends
of freedom, Uke a new song of hope for humanity; and it has gone to the
homes of the oppressor Uke a knell of despair. Your victory is ours;
your progress is ours. Man's fate is bound up not a Uttle with your
fate. Never forget that. You have now coming upon you new duties.
Your armies have gained victories that have placed you in the foremost
rank of nations in that respect. What so fitting now as that you show
that you are capable of realizing the victories of peace, if need be, at a
cost as great as that which has been involved in the victories of war?
Let this be done, and the reputation, the honorable name of your coun
try wiU be greater than ever, and institutions Uke yours have a fairer
chance of becoming the institutions of men than they have ever possessed
in the history of the world. Count it not a hard thing to be summoned
to this work. It is because the God of your fathers means to make you
honorable and useful in the earth that he has summoned you to it. That
luxuriant South has destroyed the Spaniard, from the day when he first
put his foot upon the soil down to now, while this hardy North has
reinvigorated the Anglo-Saxon. Nations are wasted, swept away as
worthless, by being aUowed to Uve in ease and indulgence. They are
made strong by being compelled to do, to dare, and to suffer. If these
things be so, then have you not encouragement? Your ship has weath-

70 ADDRESS OF DR. VAUGHAN.
ered this storm, as that old ship from whose deck I have just come has
weathered many a storm before, and she is none the worse for it. No,
that land is far better to-day than it has been since the days of which I
was speaking just now, —the days of our CromweU and Milton. When
you were brought into your trouble by the high tory faction, — a church
and king tyranny, — that rule was extended over us, and far into the pres
ent century; but it is gone, gone forever. Then we were under the regime
of the Corporation and Test Acts, which excluded every EngUshman
from every office in which he could serve his country, unless he were
prepared to take the sacrament according to the forms prescribed by the
Church of England. That impious tyranny is no more. The CathoUc
then asked, and asked from year to year, without a prospect of success,
to be allowed to have a voice, through men of his faith, on the floor of
the House of Commons. That exclusion, too, no longer exists. Our
House of Commons, too, through the influence of our peers, in their
nomination boroughs, could be so packed by nobles as to be the peers'
house rather than the people's house. The great Reform BUI has made
aU our statesmen understand, that to create a majority in our House of
Commons is the work of the people, and that where that majority is,
there the power of the realm is to be found. Our municipal corporations
were all close, consisting of men who had passed through the Test- Act
process to get there, and who filled up vacancies among themselves.
Now, our townsmen and citizens choose aU these functionaries by fair
and open suffrage; and the consequence is, that the municipal power of
the country has passed, to a large extent, into the hands of the Congre
gationalists. So, too, it has been in other ways. Education has ad
vanced marvelously beyond what it was. Cheap and good Uterature is
flooding the country to an extent that is almost incredible, and the
result is, we have working-classes now so weU educated, that, if we were
to be a republic to-morrow, we should have nothing to fear. [" Hear,
hear," and applause.] This is everywhere obvious to those who know
what our country is. Really, paradoxical as it may sound, I can
venture to say, old England was never so young as at this day.
[Laughter.] Why do I touch upon this? Is it in mere boastfulness? O, God
forbid! God forbid! It is from God, not from any desert of ours, that I
am able here, upon your platform, to speak thus of that dear home of
mine. God has done it for us, and will do more. Our march began
with the early years of this century, and take care that we do not catch
you before the end of it. [Laughter and applause.] But I wiU only
now say, sir, that the grand mission, I think, that God is showing to us,
— your country and ours, — is that we shall demonstrate that we have
been made free that we might delight to make others free. All that I
have said has been intended to show to you how admirably the two
countries are mated for this great mission; and if it should be given to us
to see that this is what Providence would seem to have devolved upon
us, who can tell the result? But my last word to you is this: This will
not be but as the good men of this land, and the good men of our land

COMMITTEES. 71
resolve that with God's help it shall be. There will be bad men with you,
there will be bad men with us, and we must not lean upon the conscious
ness that our cause is good, and allow the bad to triumph. We must
feel that we have to watch against it, to neutralize it, and to endeavor in
every possible way to secure amity between England and America, that
they may be one for no selfish purpose, but one for God and human
ity. The Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes must float in every
harbor of the world; the commodities of your country and of mine must
be exposed in competition in all the markets of the globe ; and one only
needs to look back to the history of England and HoUand two hundred
years ago, to perceiye how much there must be in the relations of two
such nations, calUng on both sides for a superiority to aU little irritating
things, and for a breadth of manhood that wiU not be offended by trifles,
but wUl know how to subordinate them to great principles and to duty.
[Loud applause.] BUSINESS COMMITTEES.
Rev. Mr. Langworthy, chairman of the committee on Nomina
tions, reported the following as the committees of the Council : —
COMMITTEE ON BUSINESS.
Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, of Massachusetts ; Rev. Samuel Wolcott, D. D.,
of Ohio; Rev. Benjamin Labaree, d.d., of Vermont; Dea. Philo Carpen
ter, of IJUnois ; Dea. Samuel F. Drury, of Michigan.
COMMITTEE ON DEVOTIONAL EXEBCISES.
Rev. Edward N. Kirk, D. D., of Boston; Rev. Wm. De Loss Love, of
Wisconsin; Rev. Asa Turner, of Iowa; Rev. George E. Adams, d. d.,
of Maine; Dea. Daniel H. Parker, of New Hampshire.
COMMITTEE ON FINANCE.
Dea. Charles Stoddard, of Massachusetts; Henry C. Bowen, of New
York; E. Beecher Preston, of Connecticut; Hon. Douglas Putnam, of
Ohio ; Dea. Moses Pettengill, of Illinois.
COMMITTEE ON PRINTING,
Rev. James B. Miles, of Massachusetts; Rev. John C. Holbrook, D. D.,
of New York; Dea. Elnathan F. Duren, of Maine.
ADDITIONAL SECRETARY.
Rev. Elihu P. Marvin, of Massachusetts, in place of Mr. Atkins.
ADDRESS OF BEV. ALEXANDER RALEIGH, D. D., OF LONDON, ENGLAND.
Rev. Dr. Raleigh, having been called upon to address the
convention, said : —
Mr. Moderator, — I am perfectly sensible of the value of the time of
this assembly, and therefore I am loath to present myself, especially
after my venerated friend, Dr. Vaughan, has spoken so long and so well;

72 ADDRESS OF DR. RALEIGH.
but I, too, have come across the Atlantic to say something, if I may be
allowed a very short space of your time, for others, as weU as for myself;
for others, because they are pleased to judge that in the main my thought
would be theirs.
It is impossible to meet you here without thinking and speaking of
the last four years. Those years speak themselves so loudly, and lead
so far into future time, that unless one shall catch some of their voice,
and chime in with their solemn and grand tones, it is a mere imperti
nence to profess to speak at all. I want to speak to you for a few min
utes of those last four years; and to teU you, if I can, how intense an
interest has been in the hearts of many of us, in aU you have been doing,
attempting, achieving, suffering; what a joy we have sometimes had, and
sometimes what an agony of sympathy we have felt, as your fortunes
have been rising or falUng during those memorable years. It is UteraUy
true that we have had you in our hearts. Perhaps no single day of those
four years has passed, in which some of our best and most sacred
thoughts, — thoughts ever ready to melt into feeUng or rise into prayer,—
have not been with you here, upon this side of the Atlantic. We have
serenaded your president, a martyr now. Peace to his ashes, eternal
honor to his memory. We have camped with your soldiers upon the
banks of the Potomac, Ustening to the rippling of the river, and looking
up into the guttering stars. We have watched the dark tide of battle
rise and faU upon those blood-red fields to which you have given undy
ing names. We have rejoiced with you in your victories. We have
wept with you over your slain.
I know some of you say, in a kindly way, — I have heard it more than
once since I came — " If this is so, we are sorry we did not know it more
fuUy." [Applause.] Well, I shaU be honest: I am sorry too. [Re
newed applause.] I am sorry you did not know it more fully and more
seasonably; but I give you the word of an honest man that it is not the
less true upon that account. We did not understand your circumstan
ces ; and I do not think you have quite understood ours.
The truth is, — and I do not suppose any of us have the least interest
in concealing the truth, — we have not aU been of one mind in reference
to some of the exterior aspects of your question; and we have taken the
EngUsh and American Uberty of expressing our thoughts and opinions.
A great many of us have been with you from the beginning, and through
and through. [Applause.] We have beUeved that your cause was
right, and that you were promoting it, in the main, in the right way, — in
the only way in which it could be effectuaUy promoted under the cir
cumstances. We have thought your end good, and we have thought
your means necessary. We have judged that you were fighting for us,
as weU as for yourselves; for Uberty against slavery; for good govern
ment against poUtical misrule; for morahty against many social shames;
for peace over this continent, and through the whole earth. Instead of
falling in with the vulgar and hypocritical cry against the " War Chris
tians," which some newspaper correspondents upon this side of the water
have attempted to raise against you, we have judged that if the war be

ADDRESS OF DR. RALEIGH. 73
in itself just and necessary, it would better be in the hands of Christians
than in the hands of other men. [Applause.] And why? Because we
have felt that they wUl conduct it without personal animosity; that they
wUl soothe its inevitable horrors and miseries with Christian sympathy;
that they wUl treat the vanquished with humanity; that they will soothe
the agonies of the dying, and bury the dead with honor. We have felt
that they might be trusted, on the one hand, not to cease from the war
so long as it should be necessary, and thus betray interests far more
precious to humanity than a few years of human Ufe; and, on the other
hand, not to continue it one hour beyond the time when with safety and
honor it might cease. These have been our views.
Others among us, feeling not less kindly to you, have had many diffi
culties, — reaUy you should not be surprised at this, for you have had
them among yourselves, — • difficulties with regard to state rights, and
what not; in relation to your central federal power, and in relation to
accomplishing good by means of evil. Those doubts have been hanging
upon the minds of some of our thoughtful and serious men. "I am thank
ful I never shared them to any appreciable extent myself. I saw your
way — just the way you have taken — in 'all these difficulties, just as I
saw my way in faith and hope through some of the thick fogs through
which we passed upon the Atlantic in coming to your hospitable West
ern shores. But I claimed the liberty for those who had these doubts to
have them if they felt they must; and temperately to express them,
and to hold them until, by human argument or by Divine Providence,
they should be disputed and set aside. " Charity beUeveth all things,
hopeth aU things, endureth all things."
Now we want to strike hands in peace, friendship, and co-operation in
our great Master's work. We aU yield to the logic of events. We aU
accept the facts of the present hour. I think I may say that now we
are all glad that you have triumphed. Dr. Vaughan has borne true tes
timony that4here is not a man among us CongregationaUsts, that would
have had a thought of any thing but sorrow and shame at the triumph
of the South over you. We are all glad that you have triumphed;
glad that you did not give up your work until it was done ; glad that
you refused to listen to those alluring overtures of peace proffered to you
by men among your own ranks and by others from abroad, while yet
these lay in the very heart of the South the principles of eternal rebellion
and war; and glad, above all, to recognize, as my venerated friend has so
fully done, the action of a superior Power; glad to think how much God
has taken this matter into his own hands. It was in his providence, if not
by his direct ordination, that there came so early in this struggle this par
tial chUl of some portion of British sympathy. You were taught by this
a precious lesson, — a lesson you will never forget, and for which the whole
world wiU be the better, — the lesson of complete self-reUance in doing
that which you feltwas necessary to be done. [Applause] And your great
enemy was thus, I beUeve, led on and on, until he put aU upon the final
cast, and brought on the overwhelming and glorious end. Oh, He is
wonderful hi counsel and exceUent in working.

74 ADDRESS OF DR. RALEIGH,
I wish I could tell you with how much cordiality we have been sent
to you, and with how much earnest and loving desire we came. I have
attended many meetings of the Congregational Union of England and
Wales, and I have seen, in my time, some pleasant excitements, some
enthusiasms; but I cannot remember anything at all approaching the
unbounded enthusiasm and the excitement with which the subject of our
relation to you and your churches was entertained and settled at the
meeting of the last month. It was as if long pent-up waters had es
caped at last. It was as if our love — we hardly know how, strangely
to some of us, and not with our wiU — had been kept in by restrictions;
but the hour came at length; and then I only wish you could have been
there to see how that sober, quiet, deliberative assembly became in a
few minutes like your Niagara. We seemed to have solved the prob
lem of the Atlantic telegraph before it had been laid; and it seemed
that we were sending waves of cordiahty to your shores, instead of a
few solitary men Uke my friend and myself.
Receive us. We come in truth and sincerity. " We be true men; thy
servants be no spies." [Applause.] We come to behold neither the
nakedness nor the fullness of your land. We rejoice in the beneficence
of your constitution, the stability of your laws, the loyalty of your citi
zens, the indomitable courage of your soldiers, the education of your
common people, the increase of your population. We rejoice — I do,
for I love every growing thing — in your vast plains, although we have
not seen them yet, your wide-stretching prairies, every wind of which
sings the song of freedom. We rejoice in your mountains and rivers
and lakes and seas. God has brought you into a goodly land; foun
tains and depths springing out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and
barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil and wine.
[See Deut. 8: 8.] Only beware, — we say this with sorrowful memory
of our own failures, — beware lest thou forget the commandments of
the Lord thy God, which he doth command thee again this day in the
solemn hour of trial, and under the solemnities of Sinai itself.
Receive us, I say; and make with us a covenant of peace, this day;
and let us go home, and say we know you have made it in your hearts.
Oh, my heart trembles and is afraid, when I draw with the finger of
imagination the scenes that would rise upon an astonished world if these
two great people were to fall into deadly strife. My heart trembles,
not with any craven fear. I am an EngUshman; at least I am a Scotch
man, and that is still better. [Applause.] • But I know my country
men; and I know that Uke yours they are incapable of fear, in a mat
ter which touches the honor or the Ufe of the nation. We are of your
own metal. Now judge our hearts by that, and test them. Judge
by that what a war must be, if there be the pith of England upon the
one side, and the resources of America upon the other: too shocking a
thing to be imagined. I want peace with my whole heart. I know it is
vain to say, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace. "First pure, then
peaceable." Justice comes before peace, and must be its base. If in
any thing we have wronged you, and if you can make it good before the

ADDRESS OF DR. MASSIE. 75
judgment of mankind, or even to our own moral consciousness, we will
use all our influence that your wrongs may be righted, whatever they
may be. [Applause.] And if you have wronged us, you must do the
same. [Renewed applause.] This we can do. We can resolve that
all such difficulties — and I shall not allude to them more particularly —
shall be taken up and considered in the spirit of Christian justice and
charity. A war need not be. A war cannot be without great mutual sin.
What can any man propose by such a war? What can any statesman
propose to gain? What could we do to each other? I will teU you
what we could do. We could sweep the commerce of both nations from
the sea. We could ensanguine the waves that usually roll so peacefully
between us. We could add to the already too long Ust of the world's
battle-fields. We could multiply widows and orphans, and sweU the
dark tide of misery in both lands. We could cast into the unknown
future, seeds of evU, which our chUdren and children's chUdren will cer
tainly reap when we are in our graves. But what benefit of any kind
could be proposed by such a strife, how it could be thought in any way
to help justice, fairness, humanity, or religion, I cannot teU. May the
God of peace bruise Satan under our feet shortly. May He turn the heart
of England to America, and the heart of America to England, lest He
come and smite the earth with a curse.
FinaUy, I may say again, Uke my venerated brother, we bid you God
speed in your blessed work. It is a work that will require all your wis
dom, all your patience, aU.your love; and sure I am that if you continue
it with that persistent tenacity, which has been commended to you so
nobly in the eloquent discourse of this morning, you will at length
spread over this whole continent righteousness and love: and the fruits
of righteousness shaU be peace and quietness forever. Now blessed
be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things ;
and blessed be His name for ever; and let the whole earth be filled with
His glory. Amen and amen.
ADDRESS OF REV. JAMES W. MASSIE, D. D., OF ENGLAND.
Rev. Dr. Massie, of England, being called upon, addressed
the convention as follows : —
Mr. Moderator, — I feel as if I were renewing the intercourse with my
American brethren which terminated eighteen months ago, after one of
the most pleasant scenes I ever witnessed or took part in. My feUowship
with American Christians and ministers of reUgion at that time gave
me assurance that not only were you ready to accompUsh a great work,
but were wilUng to accompUsh it in fellowship with English Christians.
I rejoice in the testimony that my brethren have borne concerning the
denomination to which they and I belong; and especiaUy do I rejoice
in the testimony that Dr. Raleigh has presented as to the enthusiasm
which pervaded our Congregational assembly upon the nomination of
those two excellent, brethren, when it was proposed and carried. I

76 ADDRESS OF DR. WILKES.
think that, if this assembly had heard our friend, Dr. Raleigh, in the
speech he uttered upon that occasion, there would be indeed what he
has described as the bursting tide of Niagara, even here. I felt then
constrained to say that the triumph of your cause was as manifest in
the city of London as it had been in the city of Richmond. [Ap
plause.] I come here with credentials from no association, though there are
associations that requested me to come. Those associations gave me
my credentials upon my former visit; but inasmuch as they were for
union and for emancipation, for the freedmen of America, — the freedmen's
aid commissions of England,— I did not think it would be suitable to
present these credentials, which I have in my pocket, to a councU of Con
gregational ministers. But I came that I might witness the welcome
that you would give to my brothers; to witness the testimony they
would bear of the country from which I come; and that, if I might he
a humble instrument, I might yet increase the tide of sympathy and
affection that flows between the American and the EngUsh people.
I feel that we are not two nations. I feel that we are one people; that
my best kindred, in collateral Uneation, dweU with you; that your
kindred dwell with us; that your language is my language; that your
reUgion is mine ; and that your laws, and the spirit of your laws, may he
said to be congenial with our laws and the spirit of our laws. Your mis
sions and our missions flow in the same channel, and pervade the same
fields of action. You are generously sustaining us, whUe we are seeking
honorably to sustain you, in extending the knowledge of the gospel of
Christ to aU lands. I rejoice in that sympathy between us. I am sure
that Dr. Raleigh's fears wUl never be reaUzed ; for, were war to prevail
between England and America, not only would priestcraft send forth a
howl of rejoicing, and the aristocracy and oppressors of mankind mingle
together their hisses of applause, but the very devUs in heU itself would
rejoice; because the instruments capable of the greatest work of regen
eration and evangelization in the earth, would be shattered and rendered
unfit for operation. Let England and America be one in their religion,
and in co-operation, and all the tyrannies of the world wiU quail before
them. Let their one language girdle the earth, and be the channel of
reUgious instruction and sympathy and love, and heathenism wUl submit,
and our God shall be aU and in all.
Rev. Theodore Monod was called upon to speak in behalf of
France ; but stated that he wished to read, in the course of his
remarks, a letter, which he had not with him, and would prefer
to speak to-morrow morning. This arrangement was agreed to
by the Council.
ADDRESS OF REV. HENRY WILKES, D. D., OF MONTREAL, CANADA.
Rev. Dr. Wilkes, being called upon, said : —
I perceive, Mr. Moderator, that I have only seven minutes left before

ADDRESS OF DR. WILKES. 77
the hour fixed for the adjournment, and I shall therefore be brief. After
the expression of the sentiments of my learned friends and brethren from
the fatherland, the truth of which it was not at aU necessary that I should'
endorse, because their own character is quite sufficient, I need not have
said any thing upon that point; but I was at a meeting of the Congrega
tional Union in 1862, one year after the commencement of your struggle,
at a time when in that country its success was by no means very prom
ising, even in the estimation of many among you; and I may perhaps
venture to say, that at that time, mingling with my brethren there, and
Ustenmg to them in then- churches, in May, June, July, and August,
1862, there was throughout the Congregational churches in England, —
I am speaking of them, and not of the " Times " newspaper at all, for
that is a very different thing, — I unhesitatingly say, that in aU the Con
gregational churches in England, there was a deep, deep sympathy with
this nation, and a sympathy upon the right side. I know that at that time
the Union recommended that on the second Lord's day in June, there
should be special prayer offered throughout the kingdoni, and that spe
cial prayer was offered, not merely that the Lord would restore peace,
but that the Lord would bless you in the great work in which you were
engaged in overthrowing that fearful system, as it has been so emphati
cally done to-day.
Now, sir, I come to Canada. Canada has been, very unpopular with
you, particularly during the last year. These raids have vexed you very
much; and I am not surprised at it. But I am not to speak so much for
Canada as for the Congregational churches of Canada. They are but a
smaU band of churches, about ninety; but those churches, east and west,
without a single exception, have been with you most heartily and lov
ingly in the strife in which you have been engaged. [Applause.]
To the proof, — for there is nothing Uke the proof. A newspaper,
which has two or three times the circulation of any other in Montreal,
is owned by a deacon of my church, and has a very powerful influence
in that city and throughout a large part of the country. That paper
has been uniformly, from the commencement of the strife until now, on
the side of truth and righteousness, on the side of freedom, on the side
of what we call the North. Another press in the city has opposed it
most bitterly, — a press which has been fed, I suppose, and in part edited
by Southern refugees who are in the city, who have doubtless awakened
sympathy «,mong certain classes in our community, and particularly
with those who do not sympathise with us in our holy reUgion. You
know we have something else in Canada. We have a Popish religion
there. Protestantism is, I was going to say, an exotic with us. But
not merely our own denomination, but the people generally holding Prot
estant views, are upon your side.
It seems to be supposed, in many parts of your country, that because a
police judge, who happens not to be a man qualified to declare upon inter
national law, makes a decision to release the raiders, and because there
were hurras in the court-room, Canada is responsible. I remember well
the mourning and lamentation, when that decision was arrived at, among

78 ORDER OF BUSINESS.
the merchants and other respectable men whom I met in the streets,
who uniformly regarded it as a mistake, and about which they sincerely
grieved. I think it is due to Canada to declare this honestly and openly.
I have been there thirty years, and profess to know something about
the feeling of that community. I met a man, and asked him, " Why
don't you come to church? " " Why," said he, " you always pray for
the United States." " Well," said I, " ought I not to pray for the United
States? " " I can tell that you sympathize with the North, and I don't."
And what I have done in my church is done by all my brethren.
When that terrible thing occurred, the assassination of your noble
President, I happened to be in Boston and Hartford at the time, and
therefore could mingle with you in the very midst of your mourning; but
I know that our country was filled with distress, that our pulpits were
draped, and that men of all denominations wept and prayed together,
and prayed that God would have mercy, and overrule an event so fearful
as this for good. They expressed an intense sympathy, from the very
heart of hearts of the people, in this affliction, and an abhorrence and
utter detestation against the act and those who applauded it.
I will now close by saying, that I bring to you the fraternal congratu
lations, and the expression of the warm affection, of the churches, as rep
resented in our Congregational Union this week and last week. I left
Toronto at half past five o'clock on Monday, when they were assembled,
and they instructed me to express to you our most cordial affection.
We have a feeling of oneness with you, — oneness in politics, oneness in
the faith once deUvered to the saints, oneness in the longing desire for
the spread of the great principles of our holy reUgion throughout your
land and ours. Having said this, I wiU retire, praying that all your
deUberations may be under the divine guidance, and may be richly
blessed by the Head of the church, for the welfare of his own kingdom,
the glory of God, and blessings upon your country. [Applause.]
Rev. Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts, chairman of the Business
Committee, reported a recommendation of the order of business
for to-morrow as follows : —
That immediately after the address of Rev. Mr. Monod, the committee
on Credentials have time to report, after which the papers prepared by
the committees appointed by the conference in New York* should be
read in the following order : —
1. Declaration of Christian faith.
2. Statement of church polity.
3. EvahgeUzation in the West and South.
4. Church-building.
He reported, also, the following recommendations : —
1. That the time from eleven, A. M., to half past eleven, a. m., be daily
assigned to devotional exercises.

MEMBERSHIP. 79
2. That the contracts made by the Committee of Arrangements, with
phonographic and other reporters, be ratified by the Council.
3. That the reports originating with committees outside of the Council
be referred to special committees immediately on their acceptance by
the Council, and without debate on their merits; all debate to take place
when these special committees report to the Council.
The report was adopted.
The hour of five o'clock having arrived, the Council ad
journed until to-morrow morning, under the rule.
THIRD DAY, FRIDAY JUNE 16.
The Council was called to order and opened by prayer, at 9
o'clock, a. M., by the moderator.
The record of yesterday's proceedings was read by the scribe,
,Rev. Mr. Dexter, and approved.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of Illinois, reported from the committee on
Credentials a recommendation that all chairmen of committees
directed to present special reports to the Council preparatory
for business, by the preliminary meeting held in New York,
but who are not members of the Council, be invited to sit as
corresponding members.
Rev. Dr. Harris, of Maine, moved to amend by inserting
" members " instead of " chairmen."
The amendment was seconded.
Rev. Mr. Dexter moved to amend by including the commit
tee on Arrangements, and Dr. Harris accepted the amendment.
The amendment, as amended, was agreed to.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of Illinois, read the following paper : —
" At the annual meeting of the General Association of HUnois, held at
Peoria, 111., May, 1865, the following action was had, concerning the
subject of church-building: —
" ' Whereas, By an unintentional oversight, the preliminary conference
at New York did not appoint a committee to report upon the topic of
church-building, which had been adopted in the programme of subjects
to be presented before the Boston Council; and
" ' Wliereas, By the request of the nominating committee of the con
ference, through the secretary of the Congregational Union, Rev. J. E.
Roy has prepared a report upon this enterprise:
" ' Resolved, That Brother Roy be requested to read the same before
this association after the sermon, this (Thursday) evening.'
" His essay having been read according to request, it was
" ' Resolved, That, in the omission of the preUminary conference to

80 MEMBERSHIP.
appoint a committee to report on the subject of church-building, Rev.
J. E. Roy be requested to proceed to Boston to lay before the National
Council, in the name of the General Association of Illinois, the paper he
has just read.' " By order of .the Association,
" Richard C. Dunn, Scribe.
" Peoria, May 27, 1865."
It was moved further to amend the report by including the
name of Rev. J. E. Roy, of Illinois.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of HUnois, said there would be no objection to that,
although the language of the report was intended to include him.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. In regard to the statement just
read, of the omission with regard to church-buUding, it strikes me as
altogether a mistake. I think that the document prepared by Mr. Roy
ought to be handed to some committee already appointed.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of Illinois. As one of those who took action in'
Illinois, I would Uke to observe that we were informed that it was
entirely by oversight that no special committee was appointed. The
subject of church-building was separately named as one of the subjects
to be brought before this body; and Brother Roy, being familiar with
the whole subject, was desired, by request from the East, to prepare a
document upon it. Allow me to observe, also, that any respectable
body of Congregational ministers and laymen, in requesting a report to
be presented to this body, stand perfectly upon a level with that prepar
atory conference in New York; for I take it upon me to say that
that conference was not speciaUy expected beforehand to appoint these
committees, or to have these reports prepared, although the thing done
may have been a wise thing in itself. But any other body of Congrega
tionalists had a perfect right to prepare a report on any subject to come
before the Council, and this body has a perfect right to receive such
report on a level with any other report from any quarter. We are a
free body. Those preparatory committees are not committees of this
body, but of the conference, and any other body may send reports
here. Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. AU of which I acknowledge, ab
imo pectore; but I say, that as a free body we have a right to say that
the report of Mr. Roy shall come to us through the committee we have
already recognized, upon evangeUzation in the West and South.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of Illinois. That committee has not included it in
their report, but have left it for Brother Roy to present.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. They can make this a part of their
report. Rev. Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts, dissented from the view taken
by the chairman of the committee, and maintained that no other body
oould stand in the same relation to this Council as the preliminary
conference in New York, and that the paper presented by Mr. Roy

CREDENTIALS. 81
could not be properly called a report. The paper ought to be received;
but the rules adopted by the convention provided for the case of such
papers, and he desned that they be adhered to.
Rev. Dr. Harris, of Maine, suggested that the pending question was
not the disposition of the report, but whether Mr. Roy should have the
privilege of a seat upon the floor, and of speaking in the Council.
The motion was agreed to, and the report of the committee
was adopted.
Rev. Dr. Patton further reported : —
That the committee had added to the roU such further names as had
been received since yesterday morning.
Also, that application had been made to admit a delegate appointed by
a church which was omitted from the letters missive sent to the neigh
boring churches, and which thus had no opportunity to act with them in
conference. The committee, acknowledging the injustice of the omis
sion, did not feel that it was within their province to attempt to rec
tify it, but reported the case for the action of the Council.
Rev. Dr. Harris, of Maine, conceived it to be impossible for the Coun
cil to rectify the omission in this or in similar cases ; and therefore moved
that the consideration of that part of the report be indefinitely post
poned. The motion was agreed to.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut, under the impression that
the matter was not fully understood by the Council, moved a
reconsideration of the last vote.
The Council refused to reconsider, by a vote, on division, of
ayes 94 ; noes 126.
Rev. Mr. Quint, from the committee on Business, made a re
port, recommending, —
That to-morrow, June 17, be set apart as the time recommended by
the preliminary committees as a special service of devotion for the
acknowledgment of the marvelous and the merciful deaUngs of Almighty
God with the nation in connection with the war, and for supplicating a
gracious dispensation of the Spirit of God upon the land, that our re
stored national unity may be consecrated in righteousness, and in the
peace and joy of the Holy Ghost; and that the invitation of the First
Church in Charlestown, to hold service in their meeting-house on Har
vard HiU, be accepted, and that the Council meet there at three o'clock,
P. M. On motion of Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut, the report was re
ferred to the committee on devotional exercises.

\

82 invitation to visit Plymouth.
fobefathebs' rock.
Rev. A. L. Stone, d. d., of Massachusetts, chairman of the
Committee of Arrangements, extended an invitation to members
of the Council to visit in a body the Forefathers' Rock at Plym
outh, free of all charge, and participate in a collation there to
be provided.
He thought such an excursion would be no mean element in
the history of the Council. Arrangements would also be made
by which others could participate in the trip at a small ex
pense. The day of the excursion would be fixed hereafter, but
could not well be before Thursday of next week.
Rev. Dr. Todd, of Massachusetts, moved to accept the invita
tion. Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York, expressed his hearty sympathy
with the proposition, and hoped it would be possible to comply with the
arrangement, but called attention to the great amount of business to be
done, and thought it better to carry out Plymouth-Rock principles, upon
which all could unite, than to visit the Rock itself, where no two men
could stand at the same time. [Laughter.]
Rev. Dr. Adams, of Maine, was fully persuaded that the work of the
convention would not be hindered by taking next Thursday for such
an excursion.
The motion to accept the invitation was agreed to.
Rev. Mr. Byington, of Vermont, stated that Gov. Smith of
Vermont, in consequence of illness, would be unable to perform
his duties on the committee on Nominations, and wished to be
excused from further service upon that committee ; and nomi
nated Rev. Clark E. Ferrin, of Vermont, to take his place.
The motion to excuse Gov. Smith, and appoint Rev. Mr.
Ferrin, was agreed to.
Rev. Mr. Langworthy, of Massachusetts, moved that a com
mittee be appointed to prepare resolutions in reference to the
condition of the country, and to report the same for the action
of the Council.
The motion was agreed to.
On motion, at the suggestion of the chairman of the commit
tee on Nominations, the rule of the Council, limiting the
number to be appointed upon committees to three, was modi
fied, so as to allow the committee to appoint in each case such
number as in their judgment seemed best.

ADDRESS OF MR. MONOD. 83
The orders of the day were called for, the preliminary busi
ness having been completed ; the first of which was the address
of Rev. Mr. Monod.
ADDRESS OF BEV. THEODORE MONOD, OF PARIS, FRANCE.
Rev. Mr. Monod, having been called upon, in pursuance of
the order of yesterday, said, —
Mr. Moderator, Christian Fathers and Brethren, — If I were in Paris
to-day, I would wish I was in Boston; and wherever I might be, in the
Old World or the New, to-day, I would wish I was in Boston. It is to
me a pleasure I cannot express, and something more than a pleasure,
for there is a solemn feeUng about it, to find myself before such an
assembly at such a time. It is well understood, here at least, that Amer
ica, now-a-days, is in the vanguard of the world. It is equally well
understood that New England is in the vanguard of America; and I ven
ture to say that such a body of ministers and laymen as this is in the
vanguard of New England. I therefore feel that I am now standing
before the very first ranks in the great army of Uberty and of progress
and of Christ.
When I think of this, I can hardly beUeve that I myself, who am not
old, was in this country at a time that seems now to be about as far
behind us as the Crusades, —it was in 1859, when the South was
• ready to claim any thing, and when the North seemed to be ready to give
up any thing; and when it appeared to be generally admitted that every
white man had an equal right to the pursuit of happiness and of runaway
negroes. [Laughter and applause.]
AU that is now behind us. You have now proved to the world that you
are a nation, and not a kind of town-meeting. You have proved to the
world that you could get rid of slavery; or rather, God has proved that
he could sweep it out of the land; and you have proved to the world
that a democratic government " is as good as another, and a great deal
better too." [Applause.]
I bring to you the congratulations of the Union of Evangelical Churches
in France. That body was formed sixteen years ago. Before that,
there were in France a few free churches, scattered here and there; but
there was no bond of union between them. In 1849, when Frederic Mo
nod, my father, with Count Agdnor de Gasparin, pastor Armand DeliUe,
and some others, left the established church of France, they at once set
to work to organize, not exactly into one body, certainly not into one
church, but into one union, those scattered free churches. They invited
them to send representatives to Paris, which they did; and thus was
formed what we called the constituting synod. That synod voted for a
constitution, which was sent to the churches; and now most of the free
churches in France have accepted that constitution, and belong to that
union. That body does not bear the name of CongregationaUst; neither

84 ADDRESS OF MR. MONOD.
does it bear the name of Presbyterian. It is not strictly the one nor the
other; yet it is nearer CongregationaUsm than any thing else. This is
its first article: —
" The evangeUcal churches in France, composed of members who have
expUcitly and individually professed their faith, and who recognize in
religious matters no other authority than that of Christ, the only and
sovereign Head of the church, associate with one another to glorify
God, by manifesting the union of his chUdren, to labor in common for
the edification of the body of Christ, and to unite their efforts for the
extension of the kingdom of God."
The distinctive feature of difference between them and your churches
is, that they have, every other year, what they caU a synod, composed
of representatives from the churches, whose decisions are accepted by
the churches. If a church does not accept its decisions, then it ceases
to belong to the body. I may say here, that, when we in France look
back to the fathers to know what " the old paths " were, we receive for an
answer, Presbyterianism: our history, our traditions, point us to that
form of church poUty. And as to the future, even if we could to-day
have the whole of the French Protestants organized into separate
churches, and if you were there in France, I am persuaded that, looking
at the condition of the people, at their habits of mind and of action, you
would come to the conclusion that they can not have there and now ex
actly the system that you have here in New England. I know that
some people say that if a man wants to learn to swim, he must not be
afraid to jump into the water; and that we shall never learn self-govern
ment, without any central authority, unless we try it. But it takes some
education to come to that point. If you saw a man who did not know
at all how to swim, and who, beside, had considerable stiffness in aU his
joints, you would not throw him into the water before you had taken
time to get his Umbs a little more supple.
From these churches, I bring you most hearty congratulations. I
bring them to every evangelical church in America. I have had the
privilege of bearing them myself to the General Assembly in Pittsburg,
to that in Brooklyn, to the General Synod in New Brunswick, and now
I bear them to you; and I do so with special pleasure, because I know
that you feel, and you deserve to feel, a special happiness in the great
joy of the nation, because it is the consummation of the great work up
on which you have set your hearts from the beginning, and to which
you have adhered, not only of late, but when it was a" work attended
with great difficulty and with much obloquy; and therefore we congrat
ulate you first and most of all.
And now, about our feeUng toward you during the war, I can only
say of our churches what some of the brethren yesterday said of theirs,
that, whatever may have been the feeUng of others, the feeUng of
Protestant France was with you almost altogether. And, when I come to
the free churches, I can take the " almost" away; for the free churches,
as far as known to me, were with you, to a man, to a woman, to a child.
As to the general feeUng in France, even that was better than you prob-

ADDRESS OF MR. MONOD. 85
ably think, and I will touch upon the point presently. In our churches,
I repeat it, the feeUng has been thoroughly for you, from the beginning,
before the beginning, and all the way through.
In 1861, where did. that movement come from, that brought you a let
ter of cheer and of sympathy in your darkest hour? It originated with
us, — with three hundred French Protestant pastors. Then it went over
into England, and received four thousand signatures there; and then Dr.
Massie brought it over to you. When any proclamation came from
President Lincoln, it was always put into our religious newspapers; and
I had almost said that there was hardly any thing in those papers that
was more religious, and did us more good. We were so well acquainted
with him, that one lady who did not know him personally, and had
never come to this country, said to me, speaking of his death, " Some
how this Lincoln seemed to belong to us." When a day of fasting and
prayer was appointed here in 1863, we gave notice in our Protestant
papers, at least in one of the oldest of them, requesting Protestant
Christians to unite with you in their families upon that day, in special
prayer for you and your country. During the last Presidential cam
paign, we were waiting for the news, as they that watch for the morn
ing; and there was great rejoicing among us when the news did come.
And when the news of the faU of Richmond came, your friends there did
not know what to do with themselves. One pastor, instead of following
the plan he had laid out for himself that afternoon, went to the next tel
egraphic station, and sent to Dr. Sunderland a dispatch which embodied
the feeUngs of us all: — " Glory to God, and three cheers for the Union."
[Applause.] And, as I told them in Brooklyn the other day, there was
a young physician in Paris, a Frenchman and a Protestant, who when
he got the'news, felt he must shake hands with an American, in fact, that
he must Mss an American ; and, as he could not find an American to
kiss, he kissed me as the next best thing. [Applause and laughter.]
I am very thankful to you, gentlemen, for the sympathy you express;
and it brings me to the next point. We can not make so much noise as
that in our synod, because we are not so numerous; but we did make all
the noise we could when Dr. Cleaveland spoke to us last November about
the war — how it was going on and what would be the end of it. We are
not in the habit of applauding; but we did applaud then, and stamped
too, and did every thing in our power to express our sympathy.
If you want to know the feeUng of France in 1862 and 1863, ask
those who were among us then; ask Mr. Cuyler, — you know him well,
though he is a Presbyterian; or ask Mr. Woodruff or Mr. Beecher; and
they can tell you what were the prayers in our families, and what were
the prayers from our pulpits, during that time. It can aU be embodied
in this fact, that our representative man in the matter is Count de Gas-
parin. Now I have a letter to read to you. I am sorry to take up your time,
but you must remember that there is only one delegate from France:
now suppose there were three, I will only take up as much time as two
of them. The letter comes from the General Conference of Protestant

86 ADDRESS OF MR. MONOD.
Pastors, that takes place in Paris every year, during the week of the
anniversaries of our reUgious societies, in May or June. At those
conferences, every shade of Protestantism is represented. You find
there the Established Church Reformed, .the Established Church Lu
theran, and both parties in those churches, — the evangeUcal, and also
those who call themselves the Uberal party. Furthermore, you find
there the Methodist Church and the Baptist Church. All are represented
there. In their meeting this year (and first in the conference special to
the established churches), several letters were unanimously voted: one
to the American people, one to Mrs. Lincoln, one (by the General
Conference) to the ministers of the gospel in the United States. The
latter, I wiU read entire; of the former, I wiU give only a few extracts,
the sentiments being substantially the same in them aU. First, from the
letter to Mrs. Lincoln. Speaking of the assassination, it says : —
" That horror was stUl wanting to slavery, that consecration to vic
tory, that halo to the brow of the defender of Uberty. We wiU not seek,
madam, to' comfort you by the thought of the glory now attached to the
name of your husband, whom future generations wiU place, as we do
now, among the benefactors of mankind. But directing your thoughts
and ours higher still, we will adore the mysterious wiU of God, who has
been pleased to make Abraham Lincoln one of those mighty workers
whom he uses for the fulfillment of his purposes, and who has aUowed/
him to be called from us, after the labors and sorrows of the conflict.
We sympathize, from the depths of our heart, with your grief, which is
not only a national grief, but one which reaches aU humanity  We
hope that the indignation excited by that abominable crime wiU not
alter in any thing the thoughts of charity that were to crown the work
of freedom."
Again, one of the committees of the French EvangeUcal Alliance
addressed a letter to President Johnson, from which I wUl read only
two lines : —
" The gospel makes it our duty, Mr. President, to pray for princes,
and for those who have authority over the people: we wiU not forget
that duty toward the present President of the United States."
Mr. Bigelow, your minister to France, acknowledged the reception of
that letter as follows: —
" Legation op the United States, Paeis, Mat 1st, 1866.
" To Rev. M. S. Descombat, Pbesident of the
Evangelical Alliance of Lyons.
Mr. President, — I have received your touching and sympathetic
address to the President of the United States, and I wUl, with painful
satisfaction, transmit it to him. The horrible crime that has caUed him
to succeed to the first martyr in the Ust of our presidents, will make him
peculiarly thankful for your sympathies and your prayers. The pro
found emotion that our national grief has created everywhere, and *
particularly in France, shows that the assassin who has deprived us
of the precious counsels of President Lincoln has given him the immor-

ADDRESS OF MR. MONOD. 87
taUty of the martyr, and has illumined with fadeless Ught that rare
example of courage and of Christian patriotism.
" Be pleased, sir, to receive for yourself and your reverend colleagues,
the assurance of my profound veneration.
"John Bigelow."
I now come to the letter which is directed to you, and which I there
fore must read to you. I received the paper containing it on the very
day when I left New York for Boston. By the way, I do not know
whether it is proper for an editor to say any thing about his paper; but
this is the oldest paper in France. It is now in its forty-eighth year.
It was edited by my father for about forty-two years; and now my
coUeague, M. Duchemin, and myself, are editing it. It is a weekly
paper, called the " Archives du Christianisme au Dix-neuvieme Siecle."
This number also contains a letter from our General Pastoral Confer
ence, to aU the Protestant ministers in France, and in countries where
the French language is spoken. The object of the letter is to urge
them to labor in behalf of the freedmen. Let me give you a few
extracts: —
" Dear brethren, two years ago, seven or eight hundred French
pastors, of every denomination, signed a letter addressed to aU the
pastors in England, in favor of the triumph of the holy cause of emanci
pation in the United States. That letter received an answer signed by
four thousand EngUsh pastors, — magnificent echo of our appeal. Both
letters were carried to the United States by Dr. Massie, secretary of the
Emancipation Society in London, and were read in Washington by Dr.
Sunderland, chaplain of Congress, before a large assembly, by which
they were received with enthusiasm. The wish we then expressed is
now fulfilled."
The letter then goes on to show what has been effected for the aboU-
tion of slavery, what are the present necessities of the freedmen, and
what the American government and the American people are doing for
them. They conclude as follows : —
" Our brethren in America have come to soUcit their friends in Europe
to give them some assistance in that gigantic work of charity, such as
does not present itself twice in a century. They say to us: ' You have
justly reproached us for slavery, and the sufferings of these people; you
have prayed for their emancipation. Now that we have broken their
fetters, or rather now that God has answered you, and has delivered
them, chastising us as we deserved, will you not help us to save them
from death, to form them for liberty, for civUization, to make them
citizens and Christians? The work wiU not be long, so great is then-
zeal to work as freemen and support themselves, and, we might add, so
great is the ardor of many of them to be instructed in the knowledge of
salvation. We must help them through the terrible crisis through
which God leads them and our whole nation, to create a new people,

88 ADDRESS OF MR. MONOD.
where there shall be neither white nor black, but one famUy of fellow
citizens and brethren, presenting to the world the spectacle of one of the
most magnificent reparations that it has ever witnessed.'
" Dear brethren, let us hearken to those moving appeals, and invite
every one of our churches, and every one of our parishioners, to help,
according to their ability, those four millions of slaves, whose tears and
blood have so long ministered to the sustenance and to the opulence of
Europe. May the God who delivered Israel from bondage, and who
gave his Son to aboUsh, with the servitude of sin, every other servitude,
unite in that labor of love the Hearts and hands of aU our churches."
CoUections for that purpose are doubtless going on in our churches at
this time. The funds wiU be forwarded through those societies that
have sent delegates to us, — the National Freedmen's ReUef Association,
in New York, and the Western Freedmen's Aid Society, in Cincinnati.
It is time that I should read the letter addressed to yourselves.
" To the Pastors and Ministebs of the Gospel
of evert Denomination in the United States.
" Pakis, May 2, 1865.
" Brethren in the Faith of the Lord Jesus, and in the Ministry of the
Gospel, — A meeting of some two hundred pastors, ministers, and elders,
Or active members of Protestant churches from every part of France,
and, together with them, pastors and elders from Belgium, Switzerland,
and other countries, feel constrained to express to you their deep and
ardent sympathy. That sympathy, three days ago, would have been
one of gratitude to' God and of holy joy: to-day, it is also one of .grief,
and almost of stupor.
" We were praising God for the progress of the great cause of the
emancipation of the slaves in the United States, and we were giving
thanks to him for the powerful help that the Christian pulpit in America
has given to that work, — precious answer to our prayers for the Amer
ican churches an,d their pastors! — when the fearful news reached us of
the assassination of Lincoln, that noble emancipator of the slaves. It
seems as though it had been God's purpose to seal with that precious
blood, as with that of a martyr, the victory of the cause for which he
fought and suffered. With you, with the whole world, we weep over
the loss of that great man and that great Christian. But, while weeping,
we remember the beautiful words he spoke 'on the day of his second
inaugural, and that expressed with so much force and simpUcity his
confidence in God. We render thanks to God for the admirable work
that it was given to Abraham Lincoln to accompUsh in four years; and
we ask and expect comfort from on high for his widow, for his fanuly,
for the people who had known how to select such a man and to place
him at their head, for the churches and pastors who had part in that
choice, and who gave him the support of the sanctuary in the fulfillment
of his providential task.

ADDRESS OF MR. MONOD. 89
" In the name of the GeneralConference of Protestant pastors, elders,
and laborers for the gospel, met together in Paris.
M. M. VAURiGAnD, Pastor at Nantes (Reformed church), President.
Fisch, Pastor at Paris (Free church), Vice President.
Vallette, Pastor at Paris (Lutheran church).
Montandon, Pastor at Paris.
Gtjillaume Monod, Pastor at Paris."
I shaU be most happy to teU them that that letter of theirs was deUv-
ered directly to you on this day.
You wiU have perceived in this letter, and also in -the letter of the
French Emancipation Society to President Johnson, published a few
days ago, and bearing the names of M. Guizot, M. Laboulaye, Prince
de Broglie, and others, something said about the strong desire in France
that the President's death should alter in no respect his purposes of
charity. I am well aware that it would be utterly out of place for me to
say any thing to you looking at all like counsel on a subject which is
emphaticaUy your own business; but I also feel that I should not be
doing my duty toward the churches that have sent me, nor toward you,
if I did not teU you, as a matter of fact, how they feel on that important
matter. They have a right to expect me to state it, and you have a
right to expect it of me  As a matter of fact, the Protestants of
France, aU of them, and perhaps your best friends more than any others,
and the whole liberal party of France, will hot lift so much as a finger
in the way of expostulation or of blame, if every man who can be proved
to have aided and abetted assassination in any shape — assassination
by the bullet, assassination by the yeUow fever, or assassination by
starvation — shaU suffer the utmost penalty of the law. [Applause.]
But if any man or men should be proven guilty of no other crime than
that of having rebelled against the government, and having endeavored
to set up an independent government for themselves, and if for that
crime only, he or they should be put to death, it would be a matter of
deep regret to your friends in France, and, I think I may say, to your
friends in Europe everywhere. The penalty of death for such offenses
has been aboUshed in France. We do not wish to see it established in
America. Besides, it would put into the hands of every despot, who is
threatened with any thing Uke a popular movement against him, a dread
ful arm, enabUng him to look to America for a pattern in dealing with
those who may oppose his government. On the other hand, if, under such
provocation as you have suffered, and such sacrifices as you have under
gone, you should still deem it compatible with the present dignity and
with the future safety of the nation (I do not enter into that question)
not to execute the sentence pronounced upon men as guilty of treason,
such an exhibition of clemency would be looked upon as highly honor
able to democracy and as an example to all governments.
Now I come to the point of the feeling in France outside of our
churches. I know that there are some in this country who are ready to
interpret our feUcitations somewhat after this wise: " Seeing that you

90 ADDRESS OF MR. MONOD.
have the best of it, we congratulate you; if you had the worst of it, we
would congratulate ourselves." That is not so. It may have been so
with the government. You must distinguish between the government,
with the circle around it, and France. They are not the same thing, —
not at all. [Applause.] The last time our Emperor wrote to the legis
lative body, he spoke about things all round the world; but somehow it
quite escaped him that there was such a place as the United States of
America. He did not utter one syllable about them. WeU, we said
nothing; we never say anything. [Applause.] But we supposed that very
likely the government was like the dustman's parrot, that he wanted
to seU: " It does not speak much, but it keeps up a heap of think
ing." What it was thinking about, I do not know; perhaps MaximiUan
knows. But as to the sentiments of our people. I wish I could do now what
I did a few days ago in New York, at a special meeting for the purpose,
reading extracts from our leading periodicals during the last four years,
on American affairs. I can only sum up the matter in a few words.
The paper which has the largest circulation in France is the Siecle; that
has always been for you. Then there is the Temps, another daily paper,
which has been for you all the while. Then there is the Journal des De-
bats, which goes among the more refined and cultivated portion of society.
That has constantly been for you also. The Opinion Nationale, the
Presse, and the Courier du Bimanche are for you. I speak only of the
Parisian newspapers. There have been some against you, it is true.
There is the Pays, and the Patrie, and the " Baily News " — no, that
was on this side. [Great laughter and applause.] Well, I was saying that
we had some papers that opposed the Union cause : I might name others, —
the Constitutionnel, the Moniteur. The government party, of course, was
against you; and there were some whose pecuniary interests were upon
the Southern side, who leaned that way. Then, again, we had those who
thought the cause of the North was good, but could never be successful;
they forgot that " what is impossible with man is possible with God."
Now, if I come to our reviews, you will find them strongly on your
side. The Revue Nationale, — I will not say anything about that, except
that Edward Laboulaye writes for it constantly; the Revue des Beux
Mondes, which is known the world over, was for you. I wish to read
you a paragraph from its pages in a few moments. The Revue Chre-
tienne, our Protestant review, has been for you as much as the " Inde
pendent," could be. The Correspondant, a CathoUc but liberal review,
was for you. In fact, I believe that every paper read by the more
intelligent classes, and edited by the ablest men, was for you aU the
while. That was all we could do, — talk about it, and write about it, gently
enough, so as not to provoke the government, and especially pray about
it. As to doing any thing else; as to advertising it in the streets and
getting up a little demonstration, I would like to see you come over and
try it. [Laughter and applause.] Why, the other day, they would not
let twelve hundred young men go to Mr. Bigelow's to express their

ADDRESS OF MR. MONOD. 91
sympathies upon the occasion of the death of Lincoln. It would not
do. I said I would read you one extract. I do not take it from the Revue
Nationale: that was too thoroughly on your side, and its opinion would
therefore not have so much weight for my present purpose; but there is
an article from the pen of M. Auguste Langel, in the Revue des Beux
Mondes, — our leading review, — that does not pubUsh any thing unless
it is pretty certain to meet with acceptance. The article is dated Octo
ber, 1863:—
" The civil war in the United States will take its place in history as
one of the greatest events of the 19th century: for it is not only a war;
it is a revolution. Whatever Lord Russell may have said, if the South
fights for " independence," the North does not fight for " empire," in this
sense, that it does not fight for provinces, for frontiers, for miUtary posi
tions; it fights for the principles that in less than a century have made a na
tion on the other side of the Atlantic, and have carried it to a degree of
prosperity unheard of ; it fights for its laws, for its constitution, and, it
may be said without exaggeration, for its very existence ; for democratic
government becomes impossible when minorities cease to accept the will
of majorities, and when majorities are no longer able to make their sov
ereignty respected. *******
" The friends of human liberty have reason to congratulate themselves on
the poUtical results of the war in the United States; and would do wrong
if they took an exaggerated view of the perils of the future. Liberty wiU
heal the wounds made by slavery; a democracy that has displayed such
energy, such resources, such patriotism, such intelUgence, wiU not let
the work of the last two years be lost, and wUl secure itself against the
return of a revolutionary crisis. The hostiUties can not end by simple
treaties of peace; they must end in actsthat consecrate the final ruin of
slavery: but let not the States now most favorable to that institution be
alarmed at such a result, for the ruin of slavery wUl be to them the
beginning of a new Ufe."
This was written, remember, in 1863.
I can not express to you the feeUng at the death of your President. It
was a sudden blow and a dreadful one. It came to us in the evening
papers, just as we were on our way to the annual meeting- of , the Evan
geUcal Society. I did not see the paper myself, but learned the news
from the Ups of a friend; and such was the expression on his face when
he came to me with the intelligence, that I thought that perhaps some
near relative had died. We could not beUeve the news tUl it was con
firmed; and the sorrow was greater on the second day than on the first.
That sorrow was all over our land, and aU over Europe. You may see
in this week's " Independent," an account of the feeUng in Prussia. I
received a letter a few days ago from a brother of mine, who, although
the subject was no longer new, speaks of it again in the most affecting
terms speaks of the sorrow all over Europe, and ends with the remark,
" There is yet hope for the nations that can find tears over the grave of
Abraham Lincoln." [Applause.]

92 ADDRESS OF MR. MONOD.
Let me tell you a word said about Lincoln that probably has not been
pubUshed, and that may interest you. It comes from M. Cochin, who
is a member of our French Academy, and one of our most able men, and
a faithful, serious, and earnest man, belonging to the Roman Catholic
Church. He has published a book on the results of the emancipation of
slaves everywhere. It was my privilege to be present at a meeting,
held a few weeks ago, in M. Laboulaye's house, to organize a French
Emancipation Society for the reUef of your freedmen. M. Cochin said
we must do all we can at once, using our means, our pens, our tongues,
because wherever the work of emancipation has been done, it has hardly
been accompUshed before there were people ready on every side to
prove that it would have been better that it had not been done, for the
emancipated people were better off before they were freed. Now we
must go to work and help the American people to disprove, here and
everywhere, those statements. And about President Lincoln, he spoke
in these terms (we had not then heard of his death) : " I propose, "
he said, " that we should send a letter to that great man, that honest
great man, who, in the highest station that the world could give him,
not only did not lose his mind, but lost nothing of his heart." [Applause.]
And now I only want to call your attention to one fact; which is, that
what you are doing here, while it will exert a great influence on your own
country, does not concern your people only, but concerns the world. No
man Uveth for himself, and no nation Uveth for itsetf, and yours least of
all. Europe is turned toward you now. There was a time when Amer
ican affairs were of Uttle interest in Europe. Such is not the case now.
What has taken place here has riveted our attention. It is a little the
fault, too, of our government. They have kept teUing us for the last four
years, " Look over there to America, if you want to see the effects of a
democratic government; look at their fighting; how awful it is; and
look at their anarchy." Just as the old Spartans got a man intoxicated,
and told the children to look at him and take warning; so our govern
ment told us to look over here. And we did look; and what did we see?
We saw that you could raise armies, and make war, and furthermore
that you could win. We saw that you could have great generals, and
that you could show such a spirit of patriotism and self-sacrifice as was
unheard of before. We saw that you were one nation, with one heart.
We saw that you could be guided by a President who defended Uberty
and union at the same time; who allowed such an amount of freedom
against him and his administration, at his very doors, as would not have
been tolerated in any other land; and yet in spite of it the good cause
went forward. We saw that that man was re-elected in the very midst
of the war. We saw, at last, your courage and perseverance crowned
with success. We saw that after the foulest murder ever committed had
plunged your country into the depths of sorrow, your government was
unmoved, unshaken. We looked, and saw all this, and we mean to keep
looking. But now the government says, " What are you looking over
therefor? Look at home." [Laughter and applause.] The Emperor's
cousin looks, and says, " I declare, that is a grand sight;" whereupon

ADDRESS OF MR. MONOD. 93
the Emperor says to him, " I declare, you had better hold your tongue."
[Renewed laughter.]
Now that you are (I was about to say whether you will or no, but I
think you are willing enough) occupying such a position, you have and
wiU have a growing influence upon Europe. You wiU have an influence
upon your Protestant brethren in France. I can not aUow myself now to
speak to you of the state of religion in France, though my heart is full
of the subject. I hope that I may have an opportunity, before your
session closes, of making some statements on that topic in a spepial
meeting; for I am also delegated by the Evangelical Society, the domestic
missionary society of our free churches. But let me teU you that our'
principles aire growing every year, every week, every day. The principle
of the separation of church and state — and I must say a word upon
that point, for Dr. Yaughan announced to you yesterday that I would —
is in France the order of the day; with three different parties, — the Prot
estants, the CathoUcs, and the Philosophers. Of course, in each camp
there are two sides; but the battle is fought in every one of these three
camps. As to the Protestants, we have the free churches upon one side, M.
de Pressense', carrying out the teachings of Vinet, his master. Then
there is in the national church, a considerable party of evangelical men,
who see, with increasing clearness, that the only remedy for their
troubles is to cut themselves aloof from the state. Again, in that same
estabUshed church, you have those among the evangelicals who do not
wish for the separation of church and state, because they are afraid for
the church; they think it needs the protection of the state; they are
attached to the existing state of things, and unwilUng to alter it. The
position of the Liberals is singular, and well worth mentioning. You
would think that they who called themselves Liberals, — who want every
man to preach -in our pulpits whatever he pleases, so much so that the
evangeUcals had to discuss with them the question whether any man has
such a right or not, that the men who insist upon it that there must be
no general synod of the church, would all be for perfect independence
and for separation; but they insist upon it, though in a somewhat
embarrassed manner, that they do not want the church to be separated
from the state. They know, if there should be a separation, the Liberals
would immediately find themselves separated from the Evangelicals,
thus losing much of their influence, and having to organize a church of
their own, standing upon its own merits, and supported by their own
people ; and that is what they do not want.
Among the CathoUcs, there is, of course, a strong party against the
separation of church and state; and it is represented by the ultra-mon-
tanists, who would Uke the church to swaUow the state. Then there is
another party, headed by Cochin and others, who think that the Roman
Catholic Church would have more prosperity if it had more liberty.
And finally, among the Philosophers, there are those, with M. La-
boulaye at their head, — I call him a philosopher although he is also a
CathoUc, — a serious, earnest man, and I think an honest beUever in

94 ADDRESS OF MR. THOMAS.
Christianity, who are for the separation of church and state. The
Temps, a very able, though unfortunately not a Christian paper, is very
strongly on that side. Finally, we have a democratic school, of a
peculiar kind, in which the Opinion Nationale is the chief exponent.
They want freedom for everybody, except for those whom they consider
as the enemies of Uberty, for instance the Roman CathoUc Church. They
want them to be supervised and restrained. Others do not want the
church to be separated from the state, because they are afraid for the
church; but these men do not want it, because they are afraid for the
state. That is, as you weU know, neither true reUgion nor true de
mocracy. But we shaU come to the point when every man wUl wish for separar
tion between the churches and the state, with perfect freedom for the
churches, and perfect freedom for the state.
Now I have only to thank you for your attention and sympathy, to
beg you to excuse the time I have consumed, and to express my earnest
desire and prayer that God's spirit may rest upon you, and upon aU that
you may do during your sessions, and upon your beloved country, that I
love as my own. While the eyes of the world are fixed upon you, let
your eyes be fixed upon Christ, and aU wiU be weU. [Applause.]
Rev. Dr. Thompson stated that upon consultation with the Welsh
delegation, three in number, it had been determined that Rev. Dr.
Thomas should respond in their behalf.
ADDRESS OF REV. JOHN THOMAS, D. D.
Rev. Dr. Thomas, of Liverpool, England, said : —
I shall detain the meeting but a very few moments. The Welsh
churches are so well represented here by the deputation from the
Congregational Union of England and Wales, headed by the venerable
Dr. Vaughan, whom we claim as a Welshman, that it may appear very
unnecessary for us to stand before this great convention as a distinct
deputation. But, sir, the Welsh people are a peculiar people. We five
in a peculiar country. We speak a peculiar language. We possess a
peculiar warmth of feeUng, which no English deputation can properly
represent. [Applause.] We have in connection with our body, in the
principality of Wales, 802 churches, 405 ministers, about 95,000 commu
nicants, upwards of- 100,000 hearers, and 86,000 Sunday-school scholars.
In the document read by Dr. Thompson yesterday, you can learn the
feeling of the Welsh Congregational Churches as a body. I may say a
word as regards, not only the CongregationaUsts in Wales, but the
Welsh people generaUy. Our sympathy was entirely with you in all your
troubles. Hundreds of young Welshmen died bravely upon your battle
fields. We have mothers in Wales, sorrowing for their sons. And I
can add that the Welsh press — quarterlies, monthUes, and weekUes—
was entirely upon your side. Not a single quarterly, or monthly, or
weekly paper dared to side with the rebellion. [Applause.] It is true

declaration of faith. 95
that some did not approve of your proceedings; but as to the rebellion,
they had no sympathy with it, and they denounced the curse of slavery
in the strongest language. I bring to this convention to-day the best
wishes of the Welsh people generally; and you will allow me to say in
conclusion, in the language of my own countrymen: —
" Dymunwch heddwch Jerusalem llwydded y rhai ath hoffant.
Heddwch fyddo ofewn dy ragfur a ftyniant yr dy balasan. Er mwyn
fy mrodyr am cyfeiilion y dywedaf yr awr heddwch fyddo i ti. Er
mwyn ty yr Arglwydd rin Duw yeisiaf i ti ddaione."
[Translation. "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, they shall prosper
that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy
palaces. For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, peace
be with thee. Because of the Lord thy God, I will seek thy good."]
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, of New York, in behalf of the
Business Committee, presented the following resolution : —
" Whereas the attitude of various religious bodies in Europe toward
the United States during the past five years requires a careful discrim
ination and statement, —
" Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed' to prepare a suita
ble reply from this Council to the delegates from foreign bodies who
have been heard before it."
Mr. Beecher said : If our cause has been a cause involving every mor
al principle which the world has wrought out since the coming of Christ, —
and we hold that it is, — then the attitudes of prominent Christian bodies
in regard to this matter are not insignificant. They reach very far in
toward fundamental questions. If they have been right, it is a matter
of signal gratitude; and, if they have been wrong, it is an instance of the
inabiUty of good men to form a sound moral judgment upon facts patent
to aU the world, which we are not at liberty ourselves to pass by or to
hoodwink in any way. It seems to, me, therefore, that respect to our
selves not alone, but the duties which we owe to the cause of Christ,
requires that any reply made should be made considerately, Christianly,
and discriminately; and that therefore a committee of this kind would
far better answer the ends of love and justice than any possible extem
porized reply.
The resolution was agreed to.
declaration of faith.
Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York, in behalf of the commit
tee, read the following paper : —
The committee appointed by the preliminary conference to prepare a
Declaration, of Faith, to be submitted to the Council, respectfully re
port: —

96 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
That, in the Ught of the discussions of that conference upon the expe
diency of such a Declaration, and also of the general principles of our
poUty, they could not regard it as their function to prepare a Confession
of Faith to be imposed by act of this, or of any other body, upon the
churches of the Congregational order. " It was the glory of our fathers,
that they heartily professed the only rule of their reUgion, from the very
first, to be the Holy Scriptures; " * and particular churches have always
exercised their Uberty in "confessions drawn up in their own forms."3
And such has been the accord of these particular confessions, one with
another, and with the Scriptures, that we may to-day repeat, with thank
fulness, the words of the fathers of the Savoy Confession, two centuries
ago ; while " from the first, every, or at least the generality of our
churches, have been, in a manner, Uke so many ships> — though holding
forth the same general colors, — launched singly, and saiUng apart and
alone in the vast ocean of these tiunultuous times, and have been exposed
to ' every wind of doctrine,' under no other conduct than the Word of the
Spirit,"  yet " let all acknowledge that God hath ordered it for
his high and greater glory, in that his singular care and power Should
have so watched over each of these, as that aU should be found to have
steered their course by the same chart, and to have been bound for one
and the same port; and that the same holy and blessed truths of all
sorts, which are current and warrantable amongst aU the other churches
of Christ in the world, are found to be our lading." s
Whatever the diversities of metaphysical theology apparent in these
various confessions, they yet, with singular unanimity, identify the faith
of the Congregational churches with the body of Christian doctrine
known as Calvinistic; and hence such Confessions as that of the West
minster divines, and that of the Savoy Synod, have been accredited
among these churches as general symbols of faith.
It has not appeared to the committee expedient to recommend that
this Council should disturb this "variety in unity" — as Cotton Mather
happily describes it — by an attempted uniformity of statement in a
Confession formulating each doctrine in more recent terms of metaphys
ical theology. It seemed better to characterize, in a comprehensive way,
the doctrines held in common by our churches, than thus to individualize
each in a theological formula. The latter course might rather disturb
the unity that now exists amid variety. Moreover, little could be gained
in this respect beyond what we already possess in the ancient formulas
referred to, which, being interpreted in the spirit in which they were
conceived, answer the end of a substantial unity in doctrine, and have
withal the savor of antiquity and the proof of use.
In the language of the Preface to the Savoy Declaration, a Confession
is " to be looked upon but as a meet or fit medium or means whereby to
express' a common faith and salvation, and no way to be made use of
1 Preface to the Confession adopted at Saybrook, Conn., 1708.
* Cotton Mather, Preface to " Faith professed by the Churches of New England."
8 Preface- to the Savoy Declaration, in Hanbury's Historical Memorials, iii. 523; see,
also, infra, p. 2.

- DECLARATION OF FAITH. 97
as an imposition upon any. Whatever is of force or constraint in matters
of this nature causes them to degenerate from the name and nature of con
fessions, and turns them from being confessions of faith into exactions
and impositions of faith!"1 Yet a common confession serves the im
portant purpose — the " neglect " of which the Savoy fathers sought
to remedy — of making manifest our unity in doctrine, and of " hold
ing out common lights to others whereby to know where we are." 2
With these views, as the result of prolonged and careful deliberation,
the committee unanimously recommend that the Council should declare,
by reference to historical and venerable symbols, the faith as it has been
maintained among the Congregational churches from the beginning; and
also that it should set forth a testimony on behalf of these churches, for
the Word of Truth now assailed by multiform and dangerous errors; and,
for this end, they respectfuUy submit the following
RECITAL AND DECLABATION.
When the churches of New England assembled in a general synod at
Cambridge, in 1648, they declared their assent, " for the substance there
of," to the Westminster Confession of Faith. When, again, these churches
convened in a general synod at Boston, in 1680, they declared their ap
proval (with slight verbal alterations) of the doctrinal symbol adopted
by a synod of the Congregational churches in England, at London, in
1658, and known as the " Savoy Confession," which in doctrine is almost
identical with that of the Westminster Assembly. And yet again, when
the churches in Connecticut met in council at Saybrook, in 1708, they
" owned and consented to " the Savoy Confession as adopted at Boston,
and offered this as a pubUc symbol of their faith.
Thus, from the beginning of their history, the Congregational churches
in the United States have been allied in doctrine with the Reformed
churches of Europe, and especially of Great Britain. The eighth article
of the "Heads of Agreement," estabUshed by the Congregational and
Presbyterian ministers in England in 1692, and adopted at Saybrook in
1708, defines this position in these words: "As to what appertains to
soundness of judgment in matters of faith, we esteem it sufficient that a
church acknowledge the Scriptures to be the Word of God, the perfect
and only rule of faith and practice, and own either the doctrinal part of
those commonly called the Articles of the Church of England, or the
Confession or Catechisms, shorter or larger, compiled by the Assembly
at Westminster, or the Confession agreed on at the Savoy, to be agree
able to the said rule."
And now, when, after the lapse of two centuries, these churches are
again convened in a General Council at their primitive and historical
home, it is enough for the first of those ends enumerated by the synod
at Cambridge, — to wit, " the maintenance of the faith entire, within itself,"
— that this Council, referring to these ancient symbols as embodying, for
substance of doctrine, the constant faith of the churches here represented,
declares its adherence to the same, as being " well and fully grounded
1 Hanbury's Historical Memorials, iii. 517.
a Hanbury's Historical Memorials, iii. 523.

98 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
upon the Holy Scriptures,"1 which is "the only sufficient and invariable
rule of reUgion." 2
But having in view, also, the second end of a public confession enumer
ated by the Cambridge Synod, — to wit, "the holding forth of unity and
harmony both amongst and with other churches," — we desire to promote
a closer fellowship of all Christian denominations in the faith and work
of the gospel, especially against popular and destructive forms of unbe-
Uef, which assail the foundations of aU reUgion, both natural and revealed;
which know no God but nature; no Depravity but physical malforma
tion, immaturity of powers, or some incident of outward condition; no
Providence but the working of material causes and of statistical laws;
no Revelation but that of consciousness ; no Redemption but the elimi
nation of evil by a natural sequence of suffering; no Regeneration but
the natural evolution of a higher type of existence; no Retribution hut
the necessary consequences of physical and psychological laws.
As a testimony, in common with all Christian beUevers, against these
and kindred errors, we deem it important to make a more specific decla
ration of the following truths: —
There is one personal God, who created aU things; who controls the
physical universe, the laws whereof he has estabUshed; and who, holding
all events within his knowledge, rules over men by his wise and good
providence and by his perfect moral law.
God, whose being, perfections, and government are partiaUy made
known to us through the testimony of his works and of conscience, has
made a further revelation of himseU" in the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testaments, — a revelation attested at the first by supernatural signs, and
confirmed through all the ages since by its moral effects upon the indi
vidual soul, and upon human society; a revelation authoritative and final.
In this revelation, God has declared himself to be the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost; and he has manifested his love for the world
through the incarnation of the Eternal Word for man's redemption, in
the sinless Ufe, the expiatory sufferings and death, and the resurrection
of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour; and also in the mission of the
Holy Ghost, the Comforter, for the regeneration and sanctification of
the souls of men.
The Scriptures, confirming the testimony of conscience and of history,
declare that mankind are universally sinners, and are under the righteous
condemnation of the law of God; that from this state there is no deliver
ance, save through " repentance toward God, and faith in the Lord Je
sus Christ; " and that there is a day appointed in which God will raise
the dead, and will judge the world, and in which the issues of his moral
government over men shall be made manifest in the awards of eternal
life and eternal death, according to the deeds done in the body.
Joseph P. Thompson.
Edward A. Lawrence.
Boston, June 14, 1865. GEORGE P. FlSHER.
1 Preface to the Savoy Confession, as adopted at Saybrook in 1708
2 Ditto.

DECLARATION OF FAITH. 99
DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES.
The hour of eleven having arrived, the Council spent half an
hour in devotional exercises, singing several hymns, and prayer
being offered by Rev. Dr. Post, of Missouri, Rev. Mr. Guernsey,
of Iowa, and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, of New York.
DECLARATION OF FAITH.
The consideration of the report of the committee on a Con
fession of Paith, was resumed.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio. The Council have concurred with the
recommendation of the business committee, that the papers presented to
this body, which did not originate in the body, and were not matured by
committees appointed by the body, should, after being read here, with
out discussion of the subject matter of the reports, be referred to the
appropriate committees. They can be referred, sir, with or without
instructions. I rise to move that this report be referred, with instruc
tions, — instructions which do not involve a discussion of the merits of
the paper; and with your leave, sir, before offering the motion, which
I have put into writing, I wiU make a remark or two which will ex-
- plain it.
This Council originated in an overture from the General Association
of Illinois. That association, adopting a resolution or resolutions
passed by the Triennial Convention of the Congregational Churches of
the North-west, which has the Theological Seminary of Chicago in
charge, issued a letter to the Congregational churches of other States,
asking them to unite with them in a preUminary convention, for the
purpose of calling a National Council. That proposal was responded
to by the several State bodies. The Ohio State Conference passed
a resolution expressing their concurrence in the recommendations and
the reasoning of the overture, and, for the purposes therein specified,
appointed a committee to meet the committees of the other State bodies.
Their resolution was purposely thus guarded. The delegation that went
from our State Conference were not authorized to introduce into the
programme of the Council any topic that was not specified in the over
ture of the General Association of Illinois. I regret not to find that
paper embodied in the proceedings of the preUminary meeting of the
State committees, of which it was the basis; but it will not be ques
tioned, I suppose, by any, that that preUminary meeting did a larger
preUminary work than they were expected or appointed to perform, or
than they themselves anticipated when they came together. The gen
eral exigencies and opportunities of Christ's kingdom in this country,
with general reference to which the Council was to be called, appeared
to them, on a survey, to embrace points which were not in the contem
plation of the State conferences when they were appointed. I am sure
that it would not be possible to select from our churches a company of

100 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
men, ministers and laymen, in whose judgment the churches would
repose more entire confidence than in the judgment of the brethren who
formed that preliminary convention. But still it is true, sir, that the
State bodies represented by those committees were not committed by
that convention to any thing that was not contained in the original
overture from the General Association of Illinois. Had the question,
sir, of issuing a declaration of faith to the churches been coupled with
the other recommendations of that overture, I doubt whether it would
have met with general favor from the churches. That jealous regard
for individual Uberty, for the rights of conscience and of private judg
ment, which is our original legacy and birthright as Congregationalists,
that traditional repugnance toward even the seeming introduction of any
rule~or standard other than that of the word of God, would have led
them to regard a document of this character, whatever the disclaimers,
in that aspect.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. I call the brother to order. He is
entering into a debate of the question, which is to be referred to the
committee. Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio. I think it wiU be seen that what I have
said .has a bearing upon the motion.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. Undoubtedly it has, — a great
bearing; but it is debate.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio. The' resolution I have to offer, is
this: —
Resolved, That the report be referred to the appropriate committee,
with instructions to consider the propriety of submitting to the Council
a declaration of the common faith of our churches, and, if thought ad
visable, to report such declaration.
If this document were sent to the committee without instructions, they
would be authorized, I suppose, either to report it back, or to revise it;.
and it would be satisfactory, I know, to many members of this body, if
the propriety of the issuing of such a declaration could be considered by
the committee.
Hon. Mr. Douglas, of Connecticut. I understand that this report
has been printed; but it has not been distributed among the members in
this vicinity. I think it proper that it should be distributed before we
are called upon to act upon it.
Rev. Mr. Burb, of Connecticut. I would respectfully inquire whether
the reference of this document to a new committee wUl not delay,
unnecessarily, the proceedings of this Council. If, sir, as it seems to me
but fair to presume, the committee to be appointed shaU have given no
more attention to this matter than most of us, very considerable time
would be required for them to do justice to the subject in a formal report.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of IUinois. I call the brother to order. We set
tled that matter yesterday. If he wishes to proceed, he must move a
reconsideration of that vote.
Rev. Mr. Bueb, of Connecticut. I was not aware of it, sir ; and I

REPORT ON RELIGIOUS EXERCISES. 101
know there are other members here who were not aware of it. I would
plead that there was a misconception, on the part of a large number of
the delegates, as to this matter. If I had known this report was to be
referred in the manner proposed, I certainly should have spoken. I
don't think it ought to be referred.
Hon. Mr. Hammond, of Illinois. My -understanding was, that all
the documents ordered by the preliminary meeting at New York,
which was only for the purpose of bringing subjects before this Council,
should be read, and then referred to special committees appointed for
each. Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. I submit that the document has
already been referred by the action of the Council yesterday, and that
aU the CouncU has to do is to appoint its committee.
The question was then taken on the resolution offered by Dr.
Wolcott, and it was adopted. ,
REPORT ON RELIGIOUS EXERCISES.
Rev. Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts, from the committee on
Devotional Exercises, reported as follows : —
Whereas, the CouncU has already appointed daUy religious exer
cises, and whereas, so much time has already been occupied with pre
Uminary business; therefore, the committee recommend: —
1. That they be permitted to report in part, and continue their ses
sions. 2. That each day's exercises be terminated with the use of the dox-
ology. 3. That in compUance with the recommendation of the provisional
committee, for a special service of devotion, " for the acknowledgment
of the marvelous and merciful dealings of Almighty God with the nation
in connection with the war, and for supplicating a gracious dispensation
of the Spirit of God upon the land, that our restored national unity may
be consecrated in righteousness, and in the peace and joy of the Holy
Ghost," the Council meet in the house of worship of the First Church in
Charlestown, to-morrow afternoon, at three o'clock, — the services to
continue one hour.
The report was accepted and adopted.
CHURCH POLITY.
The moderator called upon the committee appointed at the
preliminary meeting to prepare a statement of church polity,
for their report.
Rev. Mr. Etjstis, of Connecticut. I understand that this report is a

102 CHURCH POLITY.
long one, in different chapters, and has been printed. The question with
me is, whether it had not better be distributed, and, when it comes from
the committee, be read in sections, and be acted upon in sections,
rather than be acted upon now. I defer, however, to the opinion of the
committee. Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. My impression upon that subject is,
that the report ought to be heard by the hearing of the ear: it ought
to enter the mind of every member of the CouncU through that channel,
— the ear. Then it should be distributed, and put into the hands of
every member of the Council, that he may read it with his eyes, and get
access to it through another medium. After that, I apprehend it will
not be necessary to read it, either in sections or otherwise, again. Each
chapter can be.read by its title.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, from the committee on Church Polity, then
read Parts I. and II. of the report, as follows : —
To the National Council of Congregational Churches,
CONVENED AT BOSTON, JUNE 14, 1865.
Fathers and Brethren, — In the preliminary conference which made
arrangements for this National Council, the undersigned and the Rev.
Dr. Storrs, of Cincinnati, now in England, were appointed to bring
before the Council " the expediency of issuing & statement of Congrega
tional polity." We, therefore, ask leave to present for the consideration
of this venerable assembly, first, the fitness and desirableness of such a
measure; secondly, the principles which ought to determine the charac
ter and contents of the document to be issued; thirdly, the kind and
degree of authority with which such a document, proceeding from this
Council, would be invested ; and, fourthly, the form of a statement, to be
adopted with or without amendment, or to be rejected, as the CouncU
shall see fit.
I. The fitness and desirableness of a statement from this Council, de
scribing the poUty of the Congregational churches, may appear from
these considerations : —
1. In issuing such a statement, we only follow the example of ancient
Congregational synods. The Cambridge Synod, as it is commonly
called, which assembled in 1646, and was continued by successive ad
journments till 1648, and to which all the churches of the New England
colonies were invited, left, as a perpetual memorial of itself, that state
ment of Congregational poUty which has ever since been caUed the
Cambridge Platform. The synod of Congregational churches which
was convened under the patronage of the English government in 1658,
at the Savoy in London, issued a " Declaration of the Faith and Order
owned and practised in the Congregational churches of England." The
synod of the churches in the colony of Connecticut, which was convened
at Saybrook in 1708, gave out that scheme of a modified Congregation
aUsm, which, though never formally adopted elsewhere than in that

REPORT ON POLITY. 103
State, has had its influence on our churches in almost all parts of. our
country. And more recently, the meeting in which the Congregational
Union of England and Wales was instituted, though it was not prop
erly a synod or council of churches, issued a declaration, or statement,
describing the faith and order of the Congregational churches in that
country. ' 2. A document which shaU exhibit, with more authority than can
belong to any individual or local testimony, the system of order actually
held by the Congregational churches in the United States, is greatly
needed. The churches need it for their own information and guidance.
Pastors and home missionaries, and indeed all our ministers, need it.
Young men in theological schools, who are preparing themselves for the
service of the churches, need it. Many whose ecclesiastical connection
is with other portions of Christ's universal church need it, that their
minds may be disabused of misinformation or of prejudice. EspeciaUy
is it needed in the new States and Territories, where ecclesiastical insti
tutions are yet to be formed; and in the recovered States, so lately
ravaged by rebelUon, where ecclesiastical reconstruction, disembarrassed
of aU connection with a Christianity apostate from the first principles of
righteousness, is hardly less important to the future welfare of society
than a new political and social order.
3. No ancient document can be wisely referred to as being in all
respects sufficient for our present need. The Cambridge Platform was
made more than two hundred years ago, when American Congregation
alism was in its infancy; and it is now more valuable as a means of
showing how little our churches have departed from the original princi
ples and methods of their poUty, than as a guide to the manner in which
those principles are appUed and administered in the practice of our
churches at the present day. Indeed, there are portions of it which, to
readers not versed in our ecclesiastical history, nor famiUar with the
technical terms of a logic now obsolete, are hardly intelligible without a
commentary. II. What sort of a statement will best supply the- existing need, is a
question which seems to answer itself. There is no need of an argumen
tative or rhetorical defense of CongregationaUsm to be issued by this
assembly. Such expositions of our poUty may proceed more fitly from
individuals than from any representative body. On the other hand, a
simple statement of the two or three first principles which constitute the
radical difference between CongregationaUsm and other theories of
church government, would not be sufficient. Those first principles are
only the points of divergence between differing systems; and how wide
the divergence is, can not,be shown but by tracing out the appUcation of
the principles. A simple and perspicuous statement, not only of the
principles on which our polity is founded, but also of the usages and
arrangements which those principles have established among us, and in
which, by common consent, they are applied and made practical, will
be, it is beUeved, of great use to our churches, both in their internal
administration and in their feUowship with each other.

104 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
III. The authority of any document issued by this assembly of elders
and messengers is wholly unUke the authority which is claimed for the
canons enacted by the various assembUes of clergy and delegates which
assume to govern the particular churches under them. It is Uttle more
than a truism to say that this Council has no legislative power to ordain
a new constitution for the Congregational churches, or to make any new
law, and no judicial power to estabUsh precedents which inferior judica
tories must foUow. All that a councU Uke this can do is to inquire, to delib
erate, and to testify. The testimony of this assembly concerning what
is and what is not the Congregational poUty, cannot but have whatever
authority belongs to the testimony of competent witnesses, assembled in
a great multitude, well informed concerning the matter in question, and
representing all " those Congregational churches in the United States of
America which are in recognized feUowship and cooperation through
the general associations, conferences, and conventions in the several
States." Whatever authority the Cambridge Platform has as testifying
what the Congregational poUty of our fathers was in 1648, just that
authority a similar statement, proceeding from this assembly, wiU have
as testifying what American CongregationaUsm is in 1865.
IV. The undersigned, therefore, respectfuUy submit the accompanying
form, or draught, of a statement to be issued by this CouncU, together
with a briefer document stating substantiaUy the same points. We have
not presumed to insert any novelties, nor to express our individual pref
erences, but only to state the usages of the churches. A comparison of
our draught with the Cambridge Platform will show how closely we
have followed that time-honored instrument in the general plan, in the
arrangement of topics, and in language, and, at the same time, how
freely we have departed from it, whether for the sake of increased per
spicuity, or for the sake of exhibiting the Congregational poUty as it is
in fact to-day, instead of exhibiting it as it was in theory when our
fathers, more than two hundred years ago, were beginning to buUd on
this continent the Uving and ever-Uving temple of our God.
Leonard Bacon.
Alonzo H. Quint.
Boston, June 14, 1865.

THE GOYERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP PRACTISED BY
THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES IN THE UNITED
STATES. PART I. — PRELIMINARY PRINCIPLES.
CHAPTER I. — DEFINITION AND RULE OF CHCRCH POIJTY.
1. The first principle from which the poUty of the Congregational
churches proceeds, is, that the Holy Scriptures, and especiaUy the
Scriptures of the New Testament, are the only authoritative rule for the

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. 105
- constitution and administration of church government; so that no other
rule than those which are warranted by Christ and his apostles can be
imposed on Christians as conditions of membership and communion in
the church.
2. Ecclesiastical poUty, therefore, or church government and disci-
pUne, is that association of believers for united worship and spiritual
communion, in order to the visibility, the purity, the advancement, and
the perpetuity of Christ's kingdom, which God has prescribed by the
teaching of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures.
CHAPTER II. — THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND A PARTICULAR CHURCH.
1. Christ's cathoUc or universal church is the great company of God's
elect, redeemed and effectually called from the state of sin and death into
a state of reconciUation to God.
2. The church universal is either triumphant or militant. They who
have come out of the great tribulation, and have entered into the joy of
their Lord in heaven, are the church triumphant. They who are still
serving Christ on the earth, and contending with the powers that rule the
darkness, of this world, are the church miUtant.
3. The universal church on earth is not invisible merely, as discerned
by God who searches the hearts and knows the relation of every individ
ual soul to Christ, but is visible, also, as including all who profess to
believe in Christ, and do not wholly contradict that profession by ungod-
Uness in their lives, or by denying the essential truths of the gospel.
4. The visible church catholic, as it includes all visible Christians,
comprehends not only such particular churches as are constituted and
governed according to the word given in the Holy Scriptures, but also
aU assemblies of Christian beUevers an'd worshipers, even though, in
things not essential to the Christian faith, they err through the force iof
tradition or the infirmity of human judgment; and it is governed, not by
the pretended vicar of Christ, nor by any human authority assuming
to have jurisdiction over all particular churches, but only by Christ him
self through his word and spirit.
5. As we renounce the notion of an organized and governed catholic
church, which has no warrant from the Scriptures ; so we renounce the
equaUy unwarranted action of a national church, having jurisdiction over
the particular churches in a nation. Under the gospel, the orgamzed
and governed church is not ecumenical, nor national, nor provincial, nor
diocesan, or classical, but only local or parochial, — a congregation of
faithful or beUeving men, dwelling together in one city, town, or conven
ient neighborhood.
6. A local or Congregational church is, by the institution of Christ, a
part of the miUtant visible church, consisting of a company of saints by
caUing, united into one body by a holy covenant, for the pubUc worship
of God, and their own mutual edification, in the feUowship of the Lord
Jesus. 7. AU particular churches, being the one body of Christ, and having

106 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of aU, are bound
to maintain and hold forth the cathoUc communion of saints, endeavoring,
in their intercourse and relations one with another, to keep the unity of
the Spirit in the bond of peace.
PART II. THE CHURCH: ITS FORM, ORGANIZATION, AND GOVERNMENT.
CHAPTER I. — HOW A PARTICULAR CHURCH IS ORGANIZED.
1. The visible church consists of those who belong to Christ, and are,
therefore, in the phrase of our ancient platform, " saints by caUing," and
who, being holy by their calUng and profession, are gathered out of the
ungodly world, and united in a holy feUowship.
2. Those who visibly belong to Christ are, first, such as have not only
attained a knowledge of the principles of reUgion, and are free from
gross and open scandals, but also do profess their personal faith and
repentance, and walk in blameless obedience to the word; and, secondly,
their chUdren, who, being chUdren of the covenant, are also holy.
3. The members of one church ought ordinarily to dweU in such
vicinity to each other that they can meet in one place; so that every
city, town, or convenient neighborhood, shall have its own church com
plete and distinct. And ordinarily the members of one church ought
not to be more in number than can conveniently meet for worship in
one assembly, and manage their affairs by one administration. Yet, if
there be many congregations, distinct from each other, in one town or
city (whether their several parishes be distinguished by geographical
lines or otherwise) they ought to regard themselves and each other
as so many branches of Christ's one cathoUc church in that place.
4. Those beUevers who dwelltogether in one place become a particu
lar and distinct church, by their recognition of each other, and their
mutual agreement, express or impUed, wherein they give themselves
unto the Lord to the observing of the ordinances of Christ in the same
society. Such a recognition and agreement is usuaUy caUed the church
covenant. 5. Different degrees of expUcitness in such an agreement do not affect
the being of the church, or the duties and responsibiUties of membership.
The more explicit and solemn the act of covenanting, the more are the'
members reminded of their common and mutual duties, and the less room is
there for uncertainty in distinguishing between those who are members and
those who are not. Yet the whole essence and meaning of the covenant
are in fact retained, where the agreement of certain beUevers to meet
constantly in one congregation for worship and edification, is expressed
only by their practice of thus meeting, and their actual use and observ
ance of Christ's ordinances in their assembly. However explicit the
covenant may be, it can reasonably and rightfully express nothing more
than a mutual agreement to observe all Christ's laws and ordinances as
one church; and, however informal the agreement may be, it can mean
nothing less.

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. 107
6. AU believers, having the opportunity, should endeavor to become
members, every one, of some particular church, that they may \ honor
Christ by their professed conformity to the order and ordinances of the
gospel, and that they may have the benefits. of visible union and fellow
ship with the church, which is the Communion of the saints. These benefits
are, first, a participation in the promise of Christ's special presence with
his Church; secondly, their increased activity and enjoyment in the
Christian life by the combination of their affections and their endeavors,
and by their inciting each other to love and good works; thirdly, watch
ful and fraternal help to keep each other in the way of God's command
ments, and to recover, by due admonition and censure, any that go
astray; and, fourthly, aid in the Christian nurture and training of their
children, that there households may be holy, and their posterity be not
cut off from the privUeges of the covenant. Should all beUevers neglect
this duty of voluntarily entering into organized Christian fellowship, to
which duty they are moved by all the impulses of a renewed and holy
mind, Christ would soon have no visibly associated and organized church
on earth. CHAPTER II. — GOD'S INSTITUTED WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH.
1. Believers joined to each other and to Christ, in a church relation,
are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit, on the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the
chief corner-stone; in whom aU the building, fitly framed together,
groweth into a holy temple of the Lord.
2. The worship of God in his spiritual temple, the church, includes
prayer, the singing of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, the minis
try of the word, the sacraments, and the contribution of gifts and
offerings for the service of Christ.
3. Prayers offered in the church should be grave and earnest, Ufting
up the thoughts and desires of the assembly to God ; they should be offered
not in any prescribed and inflexible form, but freely, according to the vicis
situdes of need and trial, and of joy or sorrow, in the church or in its
households; they should be offered for aU men, for those who are in
authority for the welfare of the civil state, and for the universal church
of Christ on earth; and in the matter and manner they should be con
formed to such models as the Scriptures give, and, above all, to that
model which Christ himseU" gave to his disciples that he might teach
them how to pray.
4. Singing in the church is not for the defight of the sense as in places
of amusement, but for the union of voices and hearts in worship, and for
spiritual edification. The Psalms which God gave by the Holy Spirit in
the Old Testament are sanctioned for us by Christ and his apostles, and
remain in the church for ever, to be used in praising God. There is war
rant, also, in the New Testament for the use of hymns and spiritual songs,
but not to the exclusion or neglect of the Psalms.
5. The ministry of the word in the church is by the reading of the.

108 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
Scriptures, with such exposition as may aid the hearers in their personal
and family searching of the Scriptures; and also by preaching and teach
ing, that the truths and principles which God has revealed in his law
and in the gospel of his grace may be set forth distinctly in their man
ifestation of the glory and government of God, in their relations to each
other, and in aU their appUcations to the duties of men and to the sal
vation of sinners.
6. The two sacramental institutions of the New Testament, represent
ing significantly, and commemorating through aU ages, the two-fold
grace of God offered in the gospel, as they are to be observed by all
beUevers, are also to be administered in every church. Baptism, wherein
the purifying element of water signifies and holds forth the inward wash
ing of .regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which God shed on
men abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, is most becomingly
administered in the church, whether on converts from without or on the
children of the covenant, and should be administered in simpUcity, with
no addition of vain or superstitious ceremonies. In like maimer, the
Lord's Supper, wherein his disciples, partaking of the bread and cup,
partake of his body which was broken for us, and of his blood which was
shed for many for the remission of sins, is to be celebrated in aU simplic
ity, according to the recorded words of the institution, without any
mixture of human inventions.
7. In the place of the tithes and the offerings, which were part of God's
instituted worship before the coming of Christ, are the free gifts of
Christ's disciples to his suffering brethren and to his cause and service.
The contribution in the church is not a secular thing, intruded into the
house of God for mere convenience' sake, and adverse to spiritual edifica
tion, but is itself an act of grateful homage to Christ as weU as of com
munion with his brethren. CHAPTER HI. — CHURCH POWER.
1. Church power, under Christ, resides primarily, not in the officers
of the church, nor in any priesthood or clergy, but in the church; and it
is derived through the church, to its officers from Christ.
2. Church power is not legislative, but only administrative. It extends
no further than to declare and apply the law of Christ. No church has
any lawful power to make itsetf other than simply a church of Christ,
in which the mind of Christ, as made known in the Scriptures, shaU he
the only rule of faith and practice. As no church may lawfully add
any thing to the sum of Christian doctrine, or take any thing therefrom;
so no church may lawfully add any thing to, or take any thing from, the
rules of -Christian Uving, and the conditions of Christian feUowship,
which the Scriptures prescribe. CHAPTER IV. — CHURCH OFFICERS.
1. Though church officers are not necessary to the mere existence of
a church, yet to its weU-being, and to the performance of its functions,

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. 109
officers are necessary. Therefore they are appointed by Christ's institu
tion, and are counted among the gifts of his triumphal ascension to glory.
2. The powers and functions of church-officers are not to be confounded
with the powers and functions of the apostles and other extraordinary
ministers of Christ, who were sent forth at the beginning of the gospel.
Nor are any church officers to be recognized as holding their official
power in the succession from -the apostles, or as having any of that
authority over aU the churches with which the apostles were invested.
3. Church officers, according to the arrangement which the apostles
instituted in every church, are of two sorts, —bishops, or elders, and dea
cons. 4. The office of elder, or bishop, in the church is two-fold: to labor in
word and doctrine, and to rule. As laboring in word and doctrine, elders
are pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of
the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ; and in order to this,
they are rightly to divide the word of truth, and to administer those
sacramental ordinances in which the grace of the gospel is visibly set
forth and sealed. Like aU whom God has put into the ministry of his
gospel, they are to preach the word, and are to be instant in season and
out of season, reproving, rebuking, exhorting, with all long-suffering and
patience, holding forth the faithful word, that they may be able by sound
doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayer. As ruling in the
church, they are to be not lords over God's heritage; but being the ser
vants of all, for Jesus' sake, they are to watch for souls as 'they that must
give account. They are to open and shut the doors of God's house by the
admission of members approved by the church, by ordination of officers
approved by the church, by excommunication of obstinate offenders
denounced by the church, and by restoring penitents forgiven by the
church. They are to call the church together when there is occasion,
and seasonably to dismiss them again. They are to prepare matters for
the hearing of the. church, that in public they may be carried to an end
with less trouble and more speedy dispatch. They are to preside in the
meetings of the church, whether for pubUc worship or for the transac
tion of church business. They are to be guides and leaders in all matters
pertaining to church administration and church actions ; but they have
no power to perform any church act save with the concurrence and by
the vote of the brotherhood. They are to care for the spiritual health
and growth of individual members, and to prevent and heal such offenses
in life or doctrine as might corrupt the church; and they are to visit and
pray over their brethren in sickness when sent for, and at such other times
as opportunity shaU serve.
5. The number of elders, or bishops, in a particular church is neither
prescribed nor Umited, but is to be determined by the discretion of
the church itself, in view of its ability and its need. In the primitive
churches, a plural eldership seems to have been the rule, and not the
exception. In the American Congregational churches, at the beginning,
it was thought needful that every church should have at least three
elders, of whom two were to labor in word and doctrine, and the other

HO GOVERNMENT AND FELLOW-SHIP.
was to be associated with them in aU their work as bishops, or overseers
of the flock. While no church is rightfully subjected to any presbytery
exterior to itself, every church should have its own presbytery. The
modern usage, concentrating all the powers and responsibilities of the
eldership in one person, is founded on convenience only, and is excep
tional rather than normal. Whether, instead of one elder, who under
the title of pastor performs the whole work of the eldership in a church,
there shall be two or three, or more, among whom the work of public
preaching and the work of ruling and oversight shall be divided, is a
question which every church may determine for itself, without infringing
any principle of order.
6. Inasmuch as the duty of contributing for the poor saints, for the
support and advancement of the church, and for the spread of the gospel,
is incumbent on all disciples of Christ according to their abiUty, and is
essential to the communion of saints; and inasmuch as the Lord's Day
is especially designated as a day for such contributions ; the church is
provided with officers for that service. Deacons are chosen in every
church to help the elders, not by taking part in the pubUc ministry of
the word, nor by ruling in the church, but chiefly by serving tables.
Their office is to receive the contributions and whatever gifts are offered
to the church; to keep the treasury of the church; and to distribute
from it for the reUef of the poor, especially of those in communion, for
the supply of the Lord's table, and, if needful, for the support of the
ministry. As almoners of the church, they are to care for the poor, to
know them personally, to inquire into their wants and afflictions, and to
be the organ of communication between them and the brotherhood.
7. Other officers than bishops and deacons are not provided for the
church by any precept or example in the Scriptures. Yet it is in the
power of the church to designate any member or members to the per
formance of a certain work, such as that of a scribe or clerk and keeper
of the records, or that of the superintendents or teachers in a Sabbath-
school, or that of a committee for some inquiry. In designating fit
persons to perform such duties, it institutes no new order of church
officers, but only distributes among its members certain duties which are
common to the brotherhood.

CHAPTER V. — ELECTION AND ORDINATION OF CHURCH-OFFICERS.
1. Though no man may assume an office in the church but he that is
called of God, the call of bishops and deacons is not, like that of
the apostles, immediately from Christ, but mediately through the
church. 2. Those who are to bear office in the church should first be proved
by thorough acquaintance and trial, and should be known and well
reported of as having not only the needful gifts, but also those graces
and virtues which the Scriptures prescribe as quaUfications of bishops or
of deacons.
3. A church, being free, can not become subject to any but by a free

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. HI
election; yet when such a people do choose any to be over them in the
Lord, then do they become subject, and most wiUingly submit to the
divinely authorized ministry of those whom they have chosen.
4. Church officers are not only to be chosen by the church, but are
also to be ordained by laying-on of hands and prayer, with which, at the
ordination of elders, fasting is also to be joined. This ordination is the
solemn and public induction of the chosen officer into his place and
office, Uke the inauguration of a magistrate in the commonwealth.
Such ordination of a pastor or teacher is his induction into the work of
ministering in the word; and if he be afterwards dismissed from his
eldership in that church, and be called to a Uke office in another
church, if is not deemed necessary that his installation in his new place
be with the laying-on of hands. Yet we protest against the superstitious
notion, that consecration to the ministry by imposition of hands intro
duces the person into a hierarchal or priestly order, and so may not be
repeated. 5. In a church which has elders, the laying-on of hands in ordination
is to be performed by those elders. But if the church be destitute of
elders, then other fit persons, elders of other churches, or ministering
brethren not in office, or (if need be) brethren who have not been called
and set apart to minister in the word of God, may be deputed by the
Church to perform this service; and the laying-on of their hands, with
prayer and fasting, is a fit and sufficient induction of the chosen elders
or bishops, not less than of deacons, into the office to which they have
been designated.
6. Neither a deacon, nor an elder or bishop, is an officer in any other
church than that which elected him to his office ; nor can he perform
official acts in another church, otherwise than at the invitation of that
church, and by a power derived through them from Christ; for as no
church has authority over another church, so no church can invest its
officers with authority over other churches.
CHAPTER VI. — MAINTENANCE OF CHURCH OFFICERS.
1. The duty of every church to provide a sufficient and honorable
support, according to its ability, for the officers who give their time
and strength to its service, is evident in itself, and is expressly enjoined
by the Scriptures. Every member of the church in his place, and in the
measure of his abiUty to contribute, is responsible for this duty.
2. Inasmuch as not only the covenanted members of the church, but
all who are taught, may be reasonably expected, and should be encour
aged, to bear their part in the expense of building the house of God and
sustaining the ministry of the word, the civil incorporation of ecclesiasti
cal societies, or parishes, in connection with churches, is a natural
arrangement of Christian civilization in a free commonwealth. The form
in which a society may be incorporated, for the legal ownership of eccle
siastical property and the support of pubUc worship, is determined by
the laws of the state; but the church, as a spiritual fellowship, electing

112 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
and ordaining its own officers, and worshiping God according to the
New Testament, holds its charter only from Christ, and may not
surrender its spiritual rights and powers to any civU corporation.
Therefore, the independence of the church in the choice of its own offi
cers, and in aU its discipline, and in the conduct of its worship, must be
steadfastly guarded. At the same time, the right of the parish or
ecclesiastical society, as a legal corporation (including or representing
all who in any equitable manner aid in the support of public worship),
to control, within the Umits of its trust, the use and expenditure of its
own property, must be recognized. While the church is at Uberty to
elect whom it will, and as many as it will, to be church officers, it can
not, by its own authority, require the parish to assume the burden of
supporting them. Thus, in the election and settlement of a pastor or
other officer who is to be supported by the parish, the concurrent votes
of the church and the parish are necessary.

CHAPTER VH. — ADMISSION OF MEMBERS INTO THE CHURCH, AND DISMISSION OF
MEMBERS FROM ONE CHURCH TO ANOTHER.
1. The things which are requisite in all church members are repent
ance from sin, and faith in Jesus Christ; and, therefore, these are the
things whereof men are to be examined at their admission into the
church, and which then they must profess and hold forth in such sort
as may satisfy rational charity that the things are there indeed.
2. The weakest measure of faith is to be accepted in those that desire
to be admitted into the church, because weak Christians, if sincere, have
the substance of that penitent faith and holiness which is required in
church members ; and such have most need of the ordinances for their
confirmation and growth in grace. Such charity and tenderness are to
be used, that the weakest Christian, if sincere, may not be excluded or
discouraged. 3. It is not needful that the profession of repentance and faith should
be always in the same form of words ; but it must always be in such
words as are satisfactory to the church, and must be accompanied by a
professed engagement to walk with the church according to the gospel.
4. Such personal profession is required not only of those who have
not been before in any church relation, but also those who, having been
born and baptized in the church, may be considered as in some sort
hereditary members; for they, too, must credibly show and profess their
own repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ,
before they come to the Lord's table or are recognized as members in full
communion. 5. A church member, removing his residence to another place, does
not thereby throw off his responsibility to the church with which he is
in covenant. If bis removal is permanent, he ought to seek, and, unless he
is liable to some just censure (in which case he must be dealt with as an
offender), he has a right to receive, a letter of dismission and commenda
tion to an evangelical church in the place of his new residence; or, if

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. 113
there be no such church in that place, to any such church with which he
can have communion statedly in Christian ordinances. But his dismis
sion can not take effect till he shaU be received, as a member, by the
church to which he has been commended.
6. A church is not bound to receive a member merely because of his
dismission and commendation from another church; but if it find any
just ground of objection to him, it may remit the case to the considera
tion of the church from which he came, and of which he is still a mem
ber. CHAPTER VHI. — THE METHOD OF DEALING WITH OFFENDERS.
1. The censures of the church are appointed for the prevention and
removal of offenses and the recovering of offenders; for purging out the
leaven which may infect the whole lump ; for vindicating the honor of
Christ and of his church, and the profession of the gospel; and for pre
venting the displeasure of God, that may justly faU upon the church if
they suffer his covenant, and the seals thereof, to be profaned by noto
rious and obstinate offenders.
2. Censures of the church are of two sorts, — admonition and excommu
nication. 3. If an offense be private, one brother trespassing against another,
the offender is to go and acknowledge his repentance of it unto his
offended brother, who is then to forgive him. But if the offender neglect
or refuse to do this, then (1) the brother offended is to go and admon
ish him privately, between themselves. If thereupon the offender be
brought to repent of his offense, the admonisher hath won his brother.
But if the offender hear not his brother, then (2) the offended is to take
with him one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every
word may be estabUshed, whether the word of admonition, if the offender
receive it, or the word of complaint, if he refuse. (3) If the offender be
not recovered by that second admonition, the offended brother is then to
tell the church. If the church find that the complaint is well founded, it
admonishes the offender; and then if he hear the church, and penitently
confess his fault, he is recovered and gained, and is to be forgiven. But
if, after being admonished by the church, he be not yet convinced of his
fault, and ready to profess, frankly, his repentance of it, he remains
under the censure of admonition, which of itself excludes or suspends
him from the holy fellowship of the Lord's Supper, till either the offense
is removed by his penitent confession, or the church, after reasonable
forbearance, proceed to cast him out by excommunication.
4. When the offense is already public and notorious, and is of such a
character as to be infamous among men, a more summary proceeding is
authorized by the Scriptures. The church, without waiting for an indi
vidual complaint, or for the effect of private admonition, may take notice
of the notorious fact, and cast out the offender without delay, for the
mortifying of his sin, and the saving of his soul in the day of the Lord
Jesus, as well as for the vindication of the gospel which he has dishon-
8

114 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
ored. Yet no offender may be censured without trial and the opportu
nity of being heard.
5. In deaUng with an offender, great care is to be taken that we be
neither too rigorous nor too indulgent. Our proceeding ought to be
with a spirit of meekness, considering ourselves lest we also be tempted.
Yet, the winning and healing of the offender's soul being the end of these
endeavors, we must be earnest and thorough, not healing the wounds of
our brethren sUghtly.
6. While the offender remains excommunicated, the church is to refrain
from all communion with him in spiritual things, and also from aU famil
iar communion with him in civil things, further than the necessity of
natural, domestic, or civil relations may require. Yet, whUe there may
be any hope of his recovery, we are to be kindly watchful for signs of
repentance in him; not counting him an enemy, but admonishing him as
a brother. 7. If the censure be made effectual by the grace of Christ, so that the
excommunicated person repents of his sin, and with confession desires
to be restored, the church is thereupon to forgive him; and as the cen
sure was pubUc, he is to be pubUcly absolved or loosed from the censure,
and restored to full communion.
8. It is doubtless of great importance to the welfare of the church,
that profane and scandalous persons be not permitted to continue in its
fellowship, and to partake at the Lord's table; and the church which
neglects to deal with such members, and to use the discipline of the
Lord's house/ for their reformation or their exclusion, is greatly to be
blamed. Yet such a church is not therefore to be immediately forsaken
and renounced by those who would Uve godly in Jesus Christ. Nor
is it reasonable that any individual member of that church should there
fore withdraw himself from the Lord's table. In so doing, he wrongs
his own soul by denying to himself the appointed means of grace, and
wrongs the church by adding another scandal to that which he would
rebuke. Let him rather endeavor, modestly, and seasonably, according
to his power and place, that the unworthy may be duly proceeded against
by the church to whom that duty belongs.

CHAPTER IX. — RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO CIVTL GOVERNMENT, AND THE
CONFLICT OF LAWS.
1. The right of the church to assemble for worship, to observe Christ's
ordinances, to hold forth the word of Ufe by pubUc preaching and by
private communication, to receive into its communion those who give
evidence of repentance and faith, and to admonish offenders or exclude
them, is not a mere concession from the civil power,, but is part of that
religious Uberty which Christ, by commanding his gospel to be preached
to every creature, challenges for all men, and which no human govern
ment can suppress or violate, without incurring the displeasure of God.
2. The law which the church administers in its discipline is not merely
the law of the land, nor the law of common use and opinion, but the1

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. 115
higher law of God as revealed in the Scriptures; for that which is highly
esteemed among men conformed to this world, may be abominable to
God and to men enlightened by his word and spirit. If wickedness go
unpunished in the civil State, or be even honored by public opinion, it is
not therefore to be tolerated in the church. If the law of the land require
of any man, under whatever penalties, that which the law of God forbids
him to do, or if it forbid him to do what the law of God requires, it is
better to obey God rather than men; and the church is to require of all
its members obedience to the higher law of God. Yet, inasmuch as the
Scriptures require of every Christian soul subjection to existing powers
in the civU State, whether Christian or anti-Christian, the duty of loyalty
to government, of conscientious obedience to every law which does not
positively require what God forbids, or forbid what God requires, and
of patient submission to persecution or other injustice when there is no
lawful redress, is a duty of religion which the discipUne of the church
must honor and maintain.
3. With matters properly and exclusively political, the church has no
concern; for Christ's kingdom is not of this world. But with matters
of moraUty and religion, the church, in the administration of its disci
pline, and in the testimony which it is to give for God, has much to do.
Especially in a free commonwealth, where the government proceeds con-
tinuaUy from the people, the church is bound to testify, in its discipline
and in its teaching, against wicked laws and institutions, not fearing to
assert and apply the law of God, as revealed in the Scriptures, whatever
may be the contradiction of sinners, and whatever the conflict between
that supreme law of Christ's kingdom and the laws ordained of men, or
the institutions and usages of society. Thus, the moral sense of com
munities and nations must be corrected and enlightened, and must be
made to advance with the progress of the church, till Christ shall be
honored in all lands as King of kings, and Lord of lords, the blessed and
only Potentate. [Continued on page 118.]
At this point, the hour of adjournment having nearly arrived,
Dr. Bacon paused, and said that, as it would be impossible to
conclude the report this forenoon, he would not enter upon the
third part, but would read the remainder of the document, with
the leave of the Council, in the afternoon.
A motion was made that the hour of adjournment in the
afternoon be six o'clock, instead of five.
Rev. Mr. Wellman, of Massachusetts, suggested that five and a half
o'clock would be a better hour, inasmuch as six would interfere with the
convenience of many delegates who lodged out of the city. He moved
to amend the motion, so that it should read five and a half o'clock, instead
of six. The amendment was accepted by the mover.

116 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
Rev. Dr. Todd, of Massachusetts, opposed the motion. He thought
six hours a day were as much as they could profitably sit at this
season, and that they would probably accompUsh as much in that tune
as they would if they should make the change proposed.
The question was put, and the motion lost.
LETTER FROM MASSSACHUSETTS CONVENTION OF CONGREGATIONAL
MINISTERS.
Rev. Mr. Dexteb, of Massachusetts. I have a communication to read,
and I desire to say, as preUminary, in order that aU present may under
stand how it comes here, that the Massachusetts Convention of Congre
gational Ministers is a body that had an existence before the days of
Unitarian separation; that it had funds in its possession for the widows
of poor ministers; and that, on account of that pecuUar condition of
things, the convention has continued to exist until this day, and includes
all Congregational ministers in Massachusetts, whether Orthodox or
Unitarian in their faith. This communication comes from that body: —
" To the Moderator of the National Council of
Congregational Ministers.
"Bear Sir, — WiU you please lay before the Council the foUowing reso
lution, passed at a meeting of the Massachusetts Convention of Congre
gational Ministers, held in Boston, May 31, 1865: —
" Resolved, That the National CouncU of Congregational Churches, to
be held in this city on the 14th of June next, be respectfully requested
to use such language, in their official procedures as a Trinitarian Congre
gational Council, as shall recognize the fact that there are Unitarian and
other Congregational churches in this Commonwealth.
" Yery respectfully,
[Signed] "James H. Means,
" Scribe of the Convention.
" Dorchester, June 12, 1865."
Rev. Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts. As this is a communication which
should be respectfully received, and the subject to which it refers care
fully considered, I move that it be referred to a special committee of
three, to draft an appropriate reply.
Rev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. I wish to propose that the
committee also take into consideration the very great necessity and im:
portance of making a distinction, in our minutes and in all our phraseol
ogy, between Baptist and Pedobaptist Congregational churches. The
cases are entirely paraUel, and I wish the committee would report upon
both of them.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. And also the UniversaUsts.
Rev. Dr. Budington, of New York. I hope that the suggestions
which have now been made will not be pressed upon the committee.
The Moderator. I supposed they were, suggestions only.

government and fellowship. 117
Rev. Dr. Budtngton. If they are suggestions, simply, I will not
occupy the time of the Council by remarking upon them. There are
very grave considerations at the bottom of this communication, and I
trust they wiU be very prayerfully and carefuUy considered, as they
deserve to be.
The motion of Eev. Mr. Quint was then put, and carried.
Adjourned. AFTERNOON SESSION.
The Council was called to order at 3 o'clock, by the mod
erator. Bev. Mr. Quint, from the Business Committee, reported the
following as the programme for the afternoon : —
That after the reading of the papers upon the evangelization of the
West and South, and Church Building, the next business in order be the
Report on Ministerial Education, and that the Rev. Edward A. Walker,
who has just returned from Italy, desiring to speak upon Congregation
aUsm in that country, the reading of papers be suspended' at twenty
minutes before five, in order to afford him an opportunity to do so.
The report was accepted and adopted.
CHURCH POLITT.
Rev. Dr. Bacon then resumed the reading of the report on
church polity, as follows : —
PART ILL — THE COMMUNION OF CHURCHES.
CHAPTER I. — PRINCIPLES AND SPECIFICATIONS.
1. Although churches are distinct, and therefore may not be con
founded one with another, and equal, and therefore have not dominion
one over another; yet all the churches ought to preserve church com
munion one with another; because they are, all united to Christ as
integral parts of his one catholic church-militant against the evil that is
in the world, and visible in the profession of the Christian faith, in the
observance of the Christian sacrament, in the manifestation of the Chris
tian Ufe, and in the worship of the one God of our salvation, the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
2. The communion of churches with each other is manifested in vari
ous acts of fraternal courtesy, correspondence, and helpfulness: —
(1.) In mutual recognition; one organized congregation of Christian
worshipers acknowledging another to be a visible church of Christ,
and each professing a readiness to interchange with the other all reason
able acts of Christian courtesy and love.

118 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
(2.) In admitting members of one church to commune, as such, at the
Lord's table in another church, and refusing to admit them if they are
under censure.
(3.) In permitting and inviting ministers of the word, recognized and
accredited as such by one church, to speak for Christ in another church,
(4.) In the dismission and reception of members, when for any suffi
cient reason they pass from one church to another.
(5.) In giving and receiving advice when one church desires counsel
of another and of many others.
(6.) In giving and receiving help; as when one church gives of its
members that another maybe suppUed with officers; or as when one
church receives outward support from the contributions of another or
of many others.
(7.) In consultation and co-operation for each other's edification and
prosperity, or for the common interest of the gospel.
(S.) In giving and receiving admonition; as when there is found in a
.church some public offense which it either does not discern, or neglects to
remove; for though churches have no more authority one over another
than one apostle had over another, yet as one apostle might admonish an
other, so may one church admonish another, and yet without usurpation; in
which case, if the admonished church refuse to hear its neighbor churches
and to remove the offense, it violates the communion of churches.
3. The Congregational churches in the United States of America, as
integral portions of Christ's catholic church, maintain aU practicable
communion with all other portions of the church universal. While other
churches differ from us in their internal poUty, in their relations and
connections with each other, in their forms of worship, or in the unin
spired statements and definitions of doctrines disputed among Christians,
and whUe we disown their schemes of hierarchal or synodical govern
ment, we acknowledge as particular churches of Christ aU congregations
of Christian worshipers that acknowledge the Holy Scriptures as their
supreme rule of faith and practice, and Christ as the Lamb of God who
taketh away the sin of the world. We pray for their peace and pros
perity. ¦ We invite their members to occasional communion with us in
worship and in sacramental ordinances. We. receive their letters of dis
missal and commendation, and, in return, dismiss our members, as occa
sion may require, with letters of commendation to them. We are ready
to be edified by their ministers ; and, in all . reasonable and hopeful
methods, we are ready to consult and co-operate with them for the
advancement of the gospel.
4. As some acts of the communion of the churches are due, in one
degree and another, to all the integral parts of Christ's cathoUc church,
so other acts of communion are speciaUy due from churches instituted
and governed according to the Congregational poUty to other churches
instituted and governed according to the same poUty. Certain acts of
communion are not practicable between churches congregationally gov
erned and churches that are under a hierarchal or synodical govern
ment; and certain acts of communion are not practicable between

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. 119
churches which seriously differ from each other in the system of doctrine
which they declare, respectively, from the Scriptures, even though they
recognize each other as holding that faith which is necessary to salvation.
A church desiring the approbation and assistance of other eburches, in
the ordination of its officers, can not wisely or courteously ask such appro
bation and assistance from churches in whose professed theory of gov
ernment all ordinations must be by a prelate, or in whose theory the
power of ordination is given only to a presbytery ruling over many
congregations. In Uke manner, if it desire counsel in any case involving
questions of doctrine, it can not, wisely or courteously, ask such counsel
of churches not accepting that general system of doctrines which is the
weU-known basis of mutual confidence and intimate communion among
churches of the Congregational polity.
5. The more intimate communion existing among these churches is
exercised in asking and giving counsel, in giving and receiving admoni
tion, in various acts of helpfulness toward churches needing help from
others, and in conferences and consultations for the parochial revival and
prosperity of reUgion, or the general advancement of Christ's kingdom.
CHAPTER II. — COUNCILS.
1. Councils of churches, orderly assembled to declare the opinion of
the churches on any matter of common concern, are an ordinance of
Christ, and are necessary to a communion of the churches. That scrip
tural example, where the church at Antioch sent messengers to the
church at Jerusalem, for consultation and advice in a difficult question,
is a sufficient warrant for such councils.
2. The churches invited to assist in a council are represented by mes
sengers or delegates, chosen by them for the particular occasion. By
ancient usage, the pastor of a church, having been duly recognized as its
presiding elder or bishop, is always expected to be one of its messengers;
and the letters convening the councU invite each church to be represented
by its pastor and delegate. Yet in the council, when convened, there is
no distinction of authority between the pastor and other delegates.
3. It is manifest, from the reason of the case, that in ordinary cases a
councU ought to be made up chiefly of churches in the near vicinity. But
when a council is called to advise in some personal or parochial contro
versy which involves strong sympathies and interests in the surrounding
region it may be expedient to ask counsel from more distant churches,
rather than exclusively from those near at hand.
4. A council is to be called only by a church, or by an aggrieved
member or members in a church which has unreasonably refused a
council or by a competent number of beUevers intending to be gath
ered into a church. In a difficulty or controversy between the church
and its elder or elders, or between the church and some other person or
party in the church, if a council is desired, and the church consents, the
churches to constitute the council are selected by agreement between the
parties, and are invited by letters-missive from the church; and this is

120 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
called a mutual council. If a church unreasonably refuses to caU a mu
tual council, then an ex parte council may be invited, by letters-missive
from the aggrieved member or members.
5. An ex parte council, properly called, has the same standing, and is
entitled to the same respect, as a mutual council; for it were unreason
able that, in case of grievance, either party should be deprived, by the
obstinacy of the other, of such relief as the neighboring churches could
give. But, that it may be properly convened, it is requisite, (1) that
there be proper ground for calUng a council; (2) that one party, prop
erly requested, has unreasonably refused to join in calUng a mutual coun
cil; (3) that the ex parte council is called upon the statement of the
original grounds for asking a council, and of the unreasonable refusal of
the&other party to join; and, (4) that the churches invited be impartiaUy
selected. When assembled, the ex parte council should first offer itself
to the refusing party, as a mutual council.
6. CouncUs consist solely of such churches as are invited, with the
occasional addition of persons whose advice is especiaUy desired. After
being called, no church or person can be added to or taken from the
proper members in any manner. For the letters-missive having speci
fied the churches and persons invited, each church appointed its dele
gates upon that knowledge of those with whom it was asked to asso
ciate. 7. Councils are not to be convened upon every ground of dissatisfac
tion with a church, nor in cases of light moment. They are proper only
upon some matter of common interest to the churches, such as the rela
tions of fellowship between churches; or the relation of a member to the
communion of other churches; the relation of pastors and churches; the
reputation of the brotherhood of churches, as affected by the acts or con
dition of a church; or matters of general interest to the cause of Christ
They are in no such sense such courts of appeal that they may alter or
rescind any act of a church. Yet, in cases of censure, if the proceedings
complained of are found to have been in gross violation of the rules
given' in the Scriptures, the councU may advise and declare, that, in its
judgment, the censure complained of is wrong, and may commend the
censured person to be received by some other church, as a member in
full communion.
Particular occasions for councils are such as these: —
(1.) When a competent number of Christian brethren propose to unite
in a church covenant, and desire to be recognized as a church in the
more intimate communion of Congregational churches, the ordinary and
most orderly method of obtaining such recognition is by an ecclesiastical
council, invited for that purpose by their letters to a convenient number
of churches, and especially of churches in the near vicinity. Having
given to that council, when assembled, a satisfactory statement of their
faith and order, and of the reasons for their becoming a distinct church,
together with sufficient evidence, not only of their Christian character,
but also of their fitness in respect to gifts and numbers, for perform
ing the duties of a church, they receive, as a church, the right hand

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. 121
of fellowship extended to them by the council, in behalf of all the
churches. (2.) The induction of a pastor or teacher into his office, in any church,
or, on the other hand, the dismission of such an officer from his place
concerns the communion of the churches. Therefore an ecclesiastical
council is convened for the ordination or instaUation of a pastor, and,
in like manner, for his dismission at his own request. A due respect
to the communion of the churches requires that no man assuming to
be a pastor of a church shall be acknowledged as such by other churches,
unless, at or after his entrance on the duties of the office, he has been
publicly recognized, by receiving the right hand of fellowship from neigh
boring churches, through a council convened for that purpose. The
welfare of the churches, in their intimate communion with each other,
requires this safeguard. In Uke manner, the communion of churches
requires that no minister dismissed from his charge shall be regarded
as having sufficient credentials of his good standing, unless he is duly
commended by a councU convened on the occasion of his dismission.
(3.) When difficulties, whether internal or external, threaten the peace
and spiritual prosperity of any church, and are not likely to be adjusted
without aid, or when any question arises on which the church needs
advice for the guidance and correction or confirmation of its own judg
ment, that church has a right to ask the advice of other churches with
which it is in communion. To such an advisory councU the trial of a
difficult case is sometimes referred. The council examines the questions
referred to it, whether questions of fact or questions of principle and
duty; it pronounces its conclusions, but it has no power to inflict any
church censure, or to absolve from censure. It can only advise the
church; and the church, by accepting and adopting, the result of the
council, carries the advice into effect.
(4.) When a member against whom charges have been preferred re
quests the calUng of a councU for the trial of those charges, and the
church consents to the request, or when, in any manner, parties have arisen
who desire a council for the hearing of the questions between them, the
churches to constitute the council are mutuaUy agreed upon between
the parties. Yet a mutual councU is not convened in the name of the
parties, but in the name of the church. But in such cases a refusal on
the part of the church to agree to call a council before trial, does not
give any occasion for an ex parte council.
(5.) When a member, having been censured by the church, conscien
tiously protests that the censure is not according to the facts, or that it
is not warranted by the word of God, he may respectfully ask the church
to join with him in caUing a mutual council for a new hearing of his case;
and, that request being denied by the church without sufficient reason, he
may appeal to other churches for advice, and for such relief as they may
find reason to give him, and may invite them to meet in an ex parte
council. Or when a portion of any church has been seriously aggrieved
by such action of the church as causes pubUc scandal to the cause of
Christ, and their request for a council has been denied by the church,

122 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
they may in Uke manner appeal to other churches for a hearing of then-
cause and for advice concerning their duty.
(6.) When a member liable to no just censure has requested letters of
dismission and recommendation to some other recognized church, and
the request is refused, he may request the church to invite a council to
hear the case; and, if the church refuses, he may himself ask a council
to give him reUef.
(7.) When a pastor or other ordained minister in any church is
charged with offenses which would render it proper that he be deposed
from the ministry, then the church should invite a council to examine
the charges; if they be proven, the councU should advise that feUowship
be withdrawn from him, and that he be no longer recognized as a Chris
tian minister.
8. The councU, when assembled, organizes itself by the choice of a
moderator and scribe, that its proceedings may be orderly and deUber
ate, and may be duly written down for the use of those whom the result
concerns. If half of the churches invited be not represented, those pres
ent ought not to proceed to act, unless the party inviting consents. Be
ing a representative body, its functions are limited to the subjects specified
in the letters-missive. In voting, it was an ancient and laudable custom
that each church give its voice as a church, and not that the messengers
vote as individuals ; but this custom is not universal. Having properly
deUberated, and made up its decision, the councU is forthwith to be dis
solved; and the scribe is to convey a copy of its proceedings and advice
to the parties concerned.
9. The decision of a council is only advisory. Yet it is to be received,
with reverence and submission, (unless inconsistent with the Scriptures)
as the voice of the churches, and as an ordinance of God appointed
thereunto in his word. In cases of difference, therefore, the party adopt
ing the advice of council is entitled to the sympathy and commendation
of the churches, rather than the one rejecting it.
10. When a council, properly convened and orderly proceeding,
whether mutual or ex parte, has pronounced its advice, a second council,
upon the substance of the same questions, or upon the advice of the first,
is manifestly improper. If both parties desire further Ught, they may
agree thereto. But, if one refuse, an ex parte councU is in that case
not warranted, and is manifestly disorderly.
11. A council orderly assembled to advise concerning the acts and
administrations of a church, and finding that such church deUberately
receives and maintains doctrines which subvert the foundations of the
Christian faith, or that it wilfully tolerates and upholds notorious scan
dals, or that it persistently disregards and contemns the communion of
churches, may, after fit admonition, advise the churches to withhold from
that erring church all acts of communion tiU it shall give evidence of
reformation. And any church, after due admonition, may call a council.
12. Some Congregational churches, neighboring to each other, are con-
federated, more or, less strictly, for mutual assistance in cases which
require a council. Such confederations, whether under the name of

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. 123
consociation' or convention, may be useful if they duly recognize and
guard the principle that the power of inflicting church censures and of
absolving from censure, and the power of choosing and ordaining officers
and of removing them from office for good cause, reside under Christ,
in the particular church, and not in some ecclesiastical authority extrin
sic to the church; and the cognate principle that councUs, however
constituted, are for the communion of churches with each other, and not
for government over the churches.
CHAPTER III. — CONFERENCES OF CHURCHES.
1. It is fit and convenient for the churches of a neighborhood to meet,
sometimes, by their pastors and delegates, for the purpose of reporting
to each other their spiritual prosperity and progress, and of consult
ing together how to advance the cause and kingdom of Christ. Such
meetings are commonly called conferences of churches, and are distin
guished from councils in that they have nothing to do with giving ad
vice to any particular church concerning the ordination or dismission of
any of its officers, or concerning the administration of its government.
•They meet only for mutual information and inquiry, that through them
the churches may provoke each other to love and good works.
2. Conferences of churches are either occasional or stated. Any
church may invite the neighboring churches, more or fewer, at its own
discretion, to meet with it for mutual edification and inquiry. Or a num
ber of churches may associate to hold such conferences at fixed periods
and under definite regulations. Stated ¦conferences of the churches have
been greatly useful in promoting zeal and Christian activity, and in
making the gifts of one church subserve the edification of others.
3. In some States the several conferences are associated in a general
conference or association of churches, which institutes a careful inquiry
every year, and makes its report concerning the general prosperity and
progress of the churches throughout the State.
CHAPTER IV. — SYNODS, OR NATIONAL COUNCILS.
1. Occasions may arise, in the progress of Christ's kingdom, when a
representative assembly of churches, coming together for consultation
and agreement, and for testimony, is required; an assembly which shall
be larger in its numbers than any council, such as a single church can
convene for its own need, and larger in its constituency than any stated
ponference of churches. Such synods were required, and were held at
sundry times, when the fathers of the American Congregational churches
were laying the foundations on which many generations were to build.
2. A synod can not be constituted by any number of unauthorized indiT
viduals assuming to represent the churches. The express consent of the
churches, acting severaUy, in their self-government under Christ, recog
nizing the call, and sending forth their elders and otheAnesKengers, is
what constitutes the synod as a representative body. ^Wasseinbly thus
constituted by the joint action pf many churches, and^oming together

124 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
not for strife and contention, but for devout and earnest consultation
concerning things that pertain to the kingdom of God, may be expected
to have much of those gracious influences and of that guidance by the
Holy Comforter, in which Christ fulfiUs his promises: "Lo, I am with
you alway, even unto the end of the world;" and, "Where two or
three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of
them." 3. The calling of such a synod ought not to proceed from the mere will
or motion of unauthorized individuals, nor from the mere motion of any
one church acting without consultation. When the elders and other
messengers of any considerable body of churches, coming together in a
representative assembly, such as the general conference or general asso
ciation of a State, are convinced that an occasion has arisen which
requires a national synod or council, they may reasonably institute
inquiries by correspondence with other similar bodies; and if, after such
correspondence and conference as may conveniently be had, the convic
tion is strengthened and extended, that, in the providence of God, there
is a call upon the churches to confer with each other in a national coun
cil, the arrangements maybe made, and the invitation issued by such
persons as shall have been designated to that service, by common consent
in the preliminary consultations. The invitation should be addressed,
not to associations or conferences purporting to represent the churches,
but distinctly to each several church, so that the ultimate determination
of the question shall proceed directly from the churches themselves; and
every church shall have the opportunity of consenting or withholding
its consent, according to the wisdom given to it from above.
4. The proper function of a synod is not to legislate for the churches,
nor to determine imperatively any question which is not already deter
mined by the Scriptures, but by inquiry and brotherly conference, with
prayer for divine illumination, to obtain and hold forth Ught on such
matters as the churches have referred to its deUberations. A synod, as
a great cloud of witnesses, may properly testify in behalf of the constit
uent churches not only their common faith in Christ their Saviour, hut
what is the system of Christian doctrine, and what the system and theory
of ecclesiastical administrations, which are the basis of their special com
munion one with another, as churches walking in the order of the New
Testament. . CHAPTER V. — CONFESSIONS OF FAITH.
1. Neither Christ nor his apostles prescribed any form of words to
be imposed on disciples, or on churches, for the confessing of their faith.
Had such a form been given, it would have become a part of the canon
ical Scriptures.
2. Every church is to judge for itself whether the form of words
offered or adopted as a confession of faith by any who desfre admission
to its holy co J^inion, is a satisfactory profession of faith in Christ and
his gospel. ^^
3. When a coSg is assembled for the ordination or recognition of a

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. 125
pastor, or for the ordination of a missionary or other minister at large,
the candidate for ordination or recognition may reasonably be re
quired to make a more ample declaration of his religious belief, holding
forth to the church and the council, not only his personal faith in the
Saviour of sinners, but also his doctrinal soundness as a preacher of the
word. Such confession of faith should be in words deliberately and
accurately chosen, and the council must judge for itself whether the con
fession is sound and sufficient.
4. Every church desiring to share in the fellowship of the churches
should make some adequate declaration of its fidelity to the doctrine
which is according to godliness. It is therefore fit that every church set
forth, in the form of a confession or catechism, the system of truth
which it receives as the faith once deUvered to the saints, which its fa
thers and teachers maintain by their ministry, and in which it trains its
children. 5. Any assembly of elders or messengers, representing a body of
churches, local or national, is competent to testify, in the form of a con
fession, what system of doctrines is received and maintained in the
churches which it represents. Or any body of Christian men, being
called thereto in the providence of God, may frame and publish, as a
confession of their faith, a declaration of the truths which they receive
as revealed from God by his word and Spirit. Such confessions of faith
have often been useful for the refutation of injurious reproaches, or for
the confirmation of the truth.
6. The right use of confessions of faith is not for separation and mu
tual exclusion among Christians, but rather for mutual information and
confidence, and the manifestation of unity. For this purpose, inasmuch
as the Scriptures are often perverted, and doctrines subversive of the
faith once deUvered to the saints are brought in among the churches, it
sometimes becomes reasonable and fit for churches, or for representative
assemblies, not only to testify and confess, but also to bear witness
against doctrines contrary to the gospel of Christ, and dangerous to the
souls of men. For Christian unity is not to be maintained by compro
mises with doctrines which corrupt the word of God, but only by adhe
rence to the truth as it is in Jesus. Yet no confession of faith or testimony
against error is to be set up in place of the Scriptures, which are the only
standard and unerring rule of faith, and with which all human formula
ries are to be constantly and diUgently compared.
PART IV. — THE MINISTRY.
CHAPTER I. — THE PREACHING OF THE WORD.
1. While those whom the church chooses and ordains to be its pastors
and teachers are, by virtue of their office, preachers of the gospel, labor
ing in word and. doctrine, the Congregational church have always
acknowledged that the work of preaching is not exclusively a function of
church officers. Fit men, not bearing office in anvchurch, but giving

126 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
themselves to the work of preaching, have always been recognizee
among us as ministers of the word.
2. The necessity for a recognized class of ministers, not holding office-
in any church, is manifold. (1.) In preaching the gospel to every crea
ture, there is much to be done Which can not be done by elders or bishops
of churches, whose proper work is parochial, and not missionary. (2.)
There is, and ever must be, need of ministers, recognized as such, who
can supply, by occasional and temporary ministration, the lack of service
in churches that have no preaching elders. (3.) Those who are to teach
and train men for the ministry must needs be ministers, recognized as
such among the churches, and esteemed for their zeal and power in hold
ing forth the word of life; and yet they can not ordinarily be at the same
time officers in the churches. (4.) Under every theory of church order,
there must be, in fact, a class of men accredited in some way, and recog
nized as qualified by natural endowments, by learning and study, and by
the work of the Holy Spirit on their souls, to preach the word; among
whom the churches may find fit men to be their pastors and teachers.
(5.) Nor can the churches consent that when a pastor, for any good rea
son, resigns his office, and is discharged with commendation as a good and
faithful servant of Christ in the gospel, he shall thenceforth cease to he
reputed and recognized as a minister of the word. (6.) It is abundantly
evident from the Scriptures, that, in the beginning, there were many
ministers of the word, beside the elders who were ordained in every
church; and that while the distinctive work of the apostles was essen
tially extraordinary, ceasing with their Uves, and transmitted to no suc
cessors, the work of ministers, not holding office in the churches, was a
work which continues, and must continue, tiU Christ's cathoUc church on
earth shall cease to be militant.
3. Such ministers of the gospel, not being apostles, nor successors of the
apostles, are invested with no apostolic authority; and, not being elders
or bishops, they have no official place or power in any church (except
when temporarily invited by any church) ; but each one, in the church
With which he is in covenant, is only a member tiU the church shall
call him to office either as a deacon or as an elder; and ff he he
caUed to office as an elder, laboring in word and doctrine, then the com
munion of the churches will require that his induction into office shaU he
approved by a Council before he can be recognized as pastor by the
neighbor churches.
4. A minister who is not a member of some Congregational church is
not in fact, and ought not to be, counted a minister in connection with
the churches and ministry of the Congregational order, though he maybe
worthy of confidence and fellowship by virtue of his responsible connec-'
tion with some other body of evangeUcal churches.
CHAPTER II. —CALL AND ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY.
1. As it was in the church at Antioch that Barnabas and Saul received
their special call .to the missionary work among the Gentiles, so, by
parity of reason, the caU of any brother to the work of a minister at

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. 127
large ought always to proceed from some church cognizant of his gifts
and graces, and therefore competent to judge, in the first instance, whether
he is caUed of God; nor ordinarily should the call proceed from any
other church than that in which he is, or in which he is to be a memBer.
2. As Barnabas and Saul, when sent from the church at Antioch on a
mission to the Gentiles, were separated to their work by ordination; so
it is fit, that, after reasonable trial, those who are called to minister in
the word of God without holding the office of elders or bishops in any
church, be solemnly commended to the grace of God, and, by the laying-
on of hands and prayer, be separated to the work whereunto he hath
called them. No church ought to ordain any without the approval of
neighbor churches assembled in a council. Yet it should be remem
bered that the ordination or instaUation is the act of the church, and that
the duty of such council is not to exercise jurisdiction or authority over
the church, but simply to advise and assist, and to express the fellowship
of other churches in the transaction. We therefore commend the ancient
custom, now too much disused, of calUng on the church, before the prayer
of consecration and the giving of the charge, to renew their choice and
call, and on the candidate to renew his acceptance of the call, in the pres
ence of the approving councU and the witnessing assembly. Thus the
ordination or installation wiU proceed by the authority which Christ has
given to that church; and the council, as representing neighbor churches,
wiU give, in their behalf, the right hand of feUowship.
3. When a minister, without pastoral- charge, is accused of any scandal
dishonorable to the ministry with which he is intrusted, or with teaching
that which is contrary to the gospel, and dangerous to the souls of men,
the church of which he is a member should seek the assistance of an
ecclesiastical councU in the trial of the case, and, if he be found guilty,
should declare him to be deposed from the ministry, and then deal with
him by admonition and excommunication, as with any other member.
CHAPTER HI. — ASSOCIATIONS OF MINISTERS.
1. The experience of our churches, from the beginning, has proved
that the frequent consultation of ministers with each other, so that the
watchmen may see eye to eye, is of great importance to their efficiency
in their work; and the formal association of pastors, not excluding other
ministers, for mutual counsel and helpfulness, is an arrangement which
has been greatly blessed of God for the welfare of the churches and the
advancement of reUgion.
2. An association of ministers has no jurisdiction or authority over
the churches. It may give advice to its own members, or to any other
persons asking its advice, on questions of church order or questions of
doctrine; but it can neither inflict nor remove any church censure. It
forms its own rules concerning the quaUfications and conditions of mem
bership, and in accordance with those rules it can admit members and
exclude them; but it can ordain no man to the ministry, nor can it depose
any man from the ministry. If one of its members, whether a pastor or
a minister without pastoral charge, is gufity of an offense for which he

128 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
should be deposed from the ministry, it may not only exclude him from
its fellowship, but may bring the matter to the notice of the church to
which he is responsible. Or if any minister or professed minister of
scandalous or heretical character is presuming to officiate in the churches
of the vicinity, the association may take measures to bring the matter to
the notice of the proper ecclesiastical authority, or, if necessary to the
protection of the churches and the vindication of the ministry, may give
public notice that he is not in their fellowship.
3. By the common consent and ancient usage of our churches, the
recognized associations of pastors and other ministers are intrusted with
the duty of examining those who are to preach as candidates for the
ministry, and of commending them to the churches by letters of appro
bation, so that untaught or otherwise unfit persons may not intrude them
selves into the work of preaching.
4. The associations of Congregational ministers, throughout the United
States, have their own methods of correspondence with each other, and
of mutual recognition, through general associations in the several states,
or otherwise.
CHAPTER IV. — CANDIDATES FOR THE MINISTRY ; THEIR EDUCATION, AND THE
TRIAL OF THEIR GIFTS.
I. Inasmuch as the work of ministering in the word of God, to the
edification of the churches and to the advancement of reUgion, requires
not only natural gifts of intelligence and discretion, and of utterance,
but also a personal experience of the gospel as the power of God unto
salvation, a hearty love to Christ and to the souls of men, and a com
prehensive knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and of the system of truth
which they reveal, our fathers, at the beginning, made great endeavors
and sacrifices to estabUsh colleges consecrated to Christ and the church,
that a faithful and competently learned ministry might be provided for
their posterity, and for the country which they were redeeming from the
wilderness. Colleges under Christian influence and control, and founded
primarUy for the education of men whom the churches may caU to the
ministry, are among the foremost of the voluntary institutions which
accompany the prosperity of churches walking in the faith and order of
the gospel; and the work of presiding and teaching in such institutions is
a work in which consecrated ministers of the gospel may make full proof
of their ministry, and may obtain a place among those who have turned
many to righteousness.
2. In later times, the progress of society, and the increase and wide
diffusion of knowledge, having changed in some degree the course of
education in the coUeges, so that other and special studies are now neces
sary to a full preparation for the ministry, theological seminaries have
been founded, that those who offer themselves to the service of Christ, in
the preaching and defense of his gospel, and who have been .disciplined
by liberal studies and enriched with general knowledge, may be instructed
in all kinds of sacred learning, and, under the guidance of teachers who
are also able and faithful preachers of the word, and experienced in the

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. 129
care of souls, may, by God's blessing on their endeavors, prepare them
selves for the largest usefulness in the churches that may call them -to
office, and in the work of preaching the gospel to every creature.
3. The Credentials which a young man may receive from a college or
a theological seminary are not sufficient for his introduction to the
churches as a preacher. Still less may his own desire to preach, or the
desire of his friends, and the commendation he receives from them, au
thorize him to offer himself as a candidate for the ministry, or make it safe
for congregations to employ him for the trial of his gifts. Even at the
beginning, when the churches were few, and not far distant from each
other, it was soon found needful to institute some well-considered ar
rangement for the examination of candidates, and their orderly intro
duction to the churches. And inasmuch as it devolves on the pastors
and teachers of churches to feed the several flocks of which the Holy
Ghost hath made them overseers, and to take heed whom they severally
introduce to preach the word, it was agreed that neighboring pastors
should jointly exercise their right of examination and inquiry, before
recognizing or commending a candidate as qualified to preach in pubUc.
It is therefore a long-estabUshed usage in the communion of our churches,
that no man is to offer himself as a candidate for the ministry, or is to be
received as such, without having been examined and' approved by some
recognized association of pastors.
4. In the examination of a candidate, the association, having received
evidence of his standing as a member in fuU communion of some evan
geUcal church, with other testimonials to his blamelessness of Ufe and
his attainments in knowledge, inquires of him concerning his experience
of the power of godliness, the reasons of his desire and choice to preach
the gospel, the studies he has pursued, his knowledge especially of the
system of doctrines contained in the Scriptures, and his readiness in the
exposition and appUcation of the word of God; and, having obtained
satisfactory evidence of his fitness to preach in the churches for the trial
of his gifts, the pastors. and other ministers in that association assembled
certify their approbation in a written testimonial.
5. The person thus accredited is not yet recognized as a minister of
the gospel, but is only a candidate for the ministry, temporarily com
mended to the churches, that they may make trial of his fitness for
that sacred work; and tiU he shaU be duly ordained to the ministry, the
testimonial given to him may be withdrawn whenever that association,
for any good reason, is no longer willing to be responsible for him.
The remaining portion of the report was then read by Rev.
Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts, of the same committee.
EPITOME OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
I. — GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
I. Ecclesiastical polity, or church government, is that form and order
which is to be observed in the Church of Christ.

130 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
II. The Holy Scriptures are the sufficient, exclusive, and obUgatory
rule of ecclesiastical pofity. Church powers, therefore, are only admin
istrative, not legislative.
III. For government, there is no one visible, universal church; nor
are there national, provincial, diocesan or classical churches; but only
local churches, or congregations of beUevers, and responsible directly to
the Lord Jesus Christ, the one Head of the Church universal, and of
every particular church.
IY. Each local church is complete in itself, and has aU powers requi
site for its own government and discipUne. But all churches, being in
communion one with another, have such mutual duties as grow out of
the obUgations of fellowship. II. — OF A CHURCH.
I. Of its matter and form.
1. A church is always to be composed of such as are judged to belong
to Christ, and of none others.
2. A church is a society of professed beUevers, united by a covenant,
express or impUed, whereby aU its members agree with the Lord and
with each other, to observe aU the ordinances of Christ, especiaUy in
united worship, and in mutual watchfulness and helpfulness.
3. It is the duty of aU beUevers in Christ to unite in church fellow
ship. 4. Believers are added to the church by entering into covenant, upon
the vote of the brotherhood, after due trial of their repentance from sin,
and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
5. Members cease to be such, when they are recommended to, and
received by some other recognized church; to which dismission and com
mendation they are always entitled, unless Uable to some just censure.
II. Of the officers of a church.
1. Though officers are not necessary to the being of a church, they are
to its weU-being.
2. The officers appointed by Christ's institution are bishops (or pas
tors and teachers) and deacons. Other persons, appointed for special
duties, constitute no order of church officers.
3. Church officers are to be chosen exclusively by the church to which
they are to minister; and they may be dismissed, for cause, by the same
authority. Yet, in the choice or dismission of a pastor, neighboring
churches should be consulted, — both for advice, and for the sake of fel
lowship among the churches.
4. No man may be a pastor but one that is called of God to the work
Of the ministry. But the church judges of his fitness by due trial of his
faith, grace, and abiUties.
5. Church officers are to be ordained, or solemnly inducted into their
several offices; and the ordination of a pastor involves his consecration
to the ministry of the gospel.
6. The work of a pastor is to labor in word and doctrine; and to rule,
not as a lord over God's heritage, but with the consent of the brethren.

GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP. 131
The work of a deacon is to assist the pastor, not by ruUng or teaching.
but chiefly by " serving tables."
7. The church should provide proper maintenance for the pastor. It
is right also, that not only members of the church, but all who are taught
in the word contribute to his support. When incorporated societies as
sume the maintenance of a pastor and teacher, it is also right that they
have concurrent voice with the church in his election.
III. Of church censures.
1. It is the right and duty of every church to preserve its purity by
the prevention and removal of offenses, and the recovery of offenders.
This duty it can not depute to others, neither can others rightly assume it.
2. In the treatment of offenses, the object is both to reclaim offenders,
and to preserve the purity of the church in faith and practice.
3. Church censures are of two sorts, — admonition and excommunica
tion. 4. If one brother wend another, and does not acknowledge his fault, it
is the duty of the brother aggrieved to foUow the course which Christ
has prescribed in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew, in the hope of win
ning his brother. If the grievance come before the church, the church
should endeavor to recover the offender; and, faUing that, it should
admonish him, which of itself suspends him from church communion
until the offense be removed. .
5. If an offense be public and scandalous, the church may proceed
without such gradual steps, to try the offender, and, if it find cause, ad
monish or excommunicate him.
6. When an offending brother makes penitent confession to the church,
to its entire satisfaction, he is recovered and gained. If not fully satis
fied, the church should admonish him. If, in any case of admonition, the
offender prove obstinate, he is, after reasonable delay, to be excommuni
cated by vote of the brotherhood.
7. While one lies under the censure of excommunication, he is not to
be received to spiritual communion in any church. But, upon repent
ance, he may be absolved of the censure and restored.
8. Inasmuch as the first object is to reclaim the offender, all things
should be done in a spirit of gentleness and meekness. In the trial of
one who is accused, aU proceedings should be conducted with equity and
patience; and, in the decision, imnecessary harshness is not less to be
avoided than remissness.
9. If a brother claims to be aggrieved by any censure affecting his
communion with other churches, or if a letter of dismission and recom
mendation is unreasonably refused, he may ask the church to join with
him in requesting advice of the neighboring churches ; and, if the church
refuse, may of himself request the churches to assemble by their messen-
geis to inquire into his case, and to give him advice.
nl. — OF THE COMMUNION OF THE CHURCHES.
I. Although churches are distinct and equal, yet they ought to pre
serve feUowship one with another, being aU united to Christ their head.

132 GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
II. When a company of beUevers propose to unite in a distinct church,
it is requisite that they ask the advice and help of neighboring churches;
particularly that those churches, being satisfied with their faith and
order, may extend to them the hand of feUowship.
. III. Communion is to be exercised by recognizing each other's rights,
by due regard to each other's welfare, and by consultation before acts of
common concern.
IY. Councils are the ordinary and orderly way of consultation among
churches, and are proper in aU cases where the communion of the churches
is involved.
1. In councils, the churches meet for consultation, usually by messen
gers (pastors and- delegates) chosen for the special occasion.
2. Councils are properly caUed of churches in the near vicinity, except
when matters which excite strong local sympathies render the advice of
distant churches necessary.
3. Councils are called only by a church, or an ^|authorized party in
case of disagreement, when the church unreasonably refuses to join; that
is, by a church desiring light or help; by a church and pastor (or other
member or members) in case of differences, when it is styled a mutual
council; or by either of these parties when the other unreasonably
refuses to unite, when it is styled an ex parte council; which ex parte
council, when properly convened, has the same standing as if it had
been mutual.
4. Councils consist solely of the churches invited by the letters-missive,
to which no member can be added, and from which none can be removed,
5. Councils are convened when a church desires recognition; when a
church asks for advice or help; when differences are to be composed;
when men whose caU of God is recognized by the church are to be sepa
rated to the ministry; when pastors are to be inducted into office or
removed; when a brother claims to be aggrieved by church censure;
when letters of dismission are unreasonably refused; when a church or
minister is Uable to just censure; and when matters of common moment
to the churches are to be considered.
6. The decision of a council is only advisory. Yet, when orderly given,
it is to be received as the voice of the churches, and an ordinance of
God appointed in his word, with reverence and submission, unless incon
sistent with the word of God. But councils cannot overrule the acts
of churches, so far as they are within the church, nor exercise govern
ment over them.
7. When in any case of difference, a council properly convened,
whether mutual or ex parte, has given its judgment, neither party can
demand that another council be called, whether to re-examine the sub
stance of the question referred to the first, or to judge of its advice.
An ex parte council in such case is manifestly disorderly, and without
warrant. Y. Fellowship should be withdrawn from any church which is untrue
to sound doctrine, — either by renouncing the faith or continuing to hear
a teacher declared by council to be heretical; or which gives public

COMMITTEES. 133
scandal to the cause of Christ, or which wilfully persists in acts which
break feUowship. When one church finds such acts in another, it should
admonish, and, if that faU, invite a councU to examine the alleged
offense. VI. Conferences of churches are allowable and profitable; but they
hear no appeals, give no advice, and decide no question of church or
ministerial standing. IV. — OF THE MINISTRY.
I. The ministry includes aU men called of God to that work, and
orderly set apart by ordination.
II. When ordination of a pastor is to be performed, the church in
which he is to bear office invites a councU to examine as to faith, grace,
and ability, that, if he be approved, they may extend the hand of fellow
ship. If the ordination be in view of any other sphere of labor, the
request for a councU ought to come from the church of which he is a
member. III. A pastor dismissed does not cease to be a minister; but he can
not exercise any official act over a church untU orderly replaced in office,
except when particularly invited by a church.
IV. In case a pastor offend in such a way that he should no longer
be recognized as a minister, the church should request a councU to ex
amine the Charges, and, if it. find cause, to withdraw aU fellowship
from him, so that his ministerial standing shall cease to be recognized.
If a minister who is not a pastor be the offender, the church to which ,
he belongs, or the church nearest his residence, should take -the same
course. V. Associations of ministers are useful for mutual sympathy and im
provement. They can exercise no sort of authority over churches or
persons, save to prescribe the rights and duties of their own member
ship. But common consent has recognized that their examination of
candidates for introduction to the churches is a wise safeguard.
On motion, the report was accepted!.
Rev. Mr. Langworthy, of Massachusetts, from the committee
on Nominations, reported the following committees : —
Committee on the State of the Country. — "Rev. Truman M. Post, D. D.,
Missouri ; Hon. Seth May, Maine ; Hon. James D. Bell, Vermont ;
Hon. Milan Harris, New Hampshire ; Hon. A. C. Barstow, Rhode
Island ; Hon. Dudley R. Wheeler, Connecticut ; Judge Henry Morris,
Massachusetts ; Rev. Oliver E. Daggett, D. d., New York ; Rev. John
M. Holmes, New Jersey ; Rev. Edward Hawes, Pennsylvania ; Dea.
Abner H. Bryant, Delaware ; Rev. Edwin Johnson, Maryland ; Rev.
James A. Thome, Ohio ; Rev. John C. Webster, IlUnois ; Dea. AUen

134 COMMITTEES.
Fish, Michigan ; Hon. Edward D. Holton, Wisconsin ; Rev. Alden B,
Bobbins, Iowa ; Rev. Charles Seccombe, Minnesota ; Hon. Samuel C.
Pomeroy, Kansas ; Rev. EUsha M. Lewis, Nebraska Territory ; Luther
P. Fisher, Esq., California ; Rev. Geo. H. Atkinson, Oregon ; Eev.
Wm. Crawford, Colorado.
Committee on Beclaration of Faith. — Rev. John. O. Fiske, Maine
Prof. Daniel J. Noyes, d. d., New Hampshire ; Rev. Nahum Gale, D. d.
Massachusetts ; Rev. Joseph Eldridge, d. d., Connecticut ; Rev. Leon
ard Swain, D. D., Rhode Island ; Dr. Albert G. Bristol, New York
Rev. John C. Hart, Ohio ; Dea. Sherman S. Barnard, Michigan ; Eev.
George S. F. Savage, Illinois.
Committee on Communication from Massachusetts Convention of Con
gregational Ministers. — Rev. Alonzo H. Quint, Massachusetts ; Eev.
William T. Eustis, Connecticut ; Asa Freeman, Esq., New Hamp
shire. Committee on Platform of Church Polity. — Rev. John P. Gulliver,
Connecticut ; Prof. Samuel Harris, Maine * Rev. Nelson Bishop, Ver
mont ; Rev. Edwards A. Park, d. d., Massachusetts ; Rev. Josiah G.
Davis, New Hampshire ; Rev. Joshua Leavitt, d. d., New York ; Prof.
Samuel C. Bartlett, Illinois ; Rev. Jesse Guernsey, Iowa ; Rev. Charles
C. Salter, Minnesota ; Judge Lester Taylor, Ohio ; Rev. James S. Hoyfc,
Michigan ; Rev. James D. Liggett, Kansas.
Committee on Response to Foreign Belegations. — Rev. Leonard Bacon,
D. d., Connecticut ; Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, New York ; Eev.
Julian M. Sturtevant, D. D., Illinois ; Rev. Rufus Anderson, D. D., Mas
sachusetts ; Hon. James B. Walker, Michigan.
These several reports were accepted. and adopted.
Eev. Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts, in behalf of the churches
of Boston, though without any official authorization, invited the
members of the Council, so far as convenient to them, to be pres
ent in the church meetings, held in the city this evening. He
also stated that a book written by the Rev. Horatius Bonar, D. d.,
called, " Words to the Winners of Souls," had been reprinted
by the American Tract Society, and that a copy would be pre
sented to every member of the Council, through the liberality
of distinguished friends of the church and the ministry who had
made a special donation for that purpose.

EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH. 135
EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH.
The moderator called on the committee upon " Evangeliza
tion in the West and South " for their report ; and it was read
by Warren Currier, Esq., of Missouri (the rule fixing the hour
of adjournment at 5 o'clock being suspended, on motion of
Hon. C. Gr. Hammond, in order that the reading might be com
pleted this afternoon), as follows : —
The subject on which this committee is required to report presents
itself to their minds under two distinct aspects, each of which wiU prop
erly and almost necessarUy, in a greater or less degree, engage the atten
tion of the National CouncU.
Foremost meets us the great fact, which has been a subUme character
istic of our whole history as a people, that our population is always spread
ing itself over vast regions hitherto unoccupied by civiUzed man, and re
quiring the unceasing activity of aU Christian people to accompany the
emigrant to the wUderness, with Christian instruction, and make the
institutions and influences of the reUgion of Christ coextensive with our
physical civilization.
To this fact, at the moment when we are caUed together to consider
the greatest crisis in our nation's history, is added another of a stiU more
solemn and momentous import: that, over one half of our hitherto peo
pled territory, Christian institutions, though once existing in. a greater
or less degree of purity and efficiency, have been corrupted by slavery,
and weU-nigh obUterated by the ravages of war connected with the-
slaveholders' rebelUon.
Regions of country larger than a great European empire are thus left
in moral desolation, imposing on the Christian people of our nation the
imperative and most urgent duty of building again, in these waste
places, the institutions of a Christian civilization.
In this view of the home missionary work now devolved upon us,
there is nothing denominational. It appeals to the whole American
church, and to every American Christian, simply as such.
But there is another aspect of the subject, which is not without its
importance, and which we beUeve the National CouncU can not alto
gether disregard.
We are as sure that God chose and caUed the early fathers of New
England to be the founders of this nation, as we are that he chose Abra
ham to be the founder of his ancient people. They were men whom he
had trained and qualified for the work to which they were appointed.
And it ought not to be assumed, without proof, that the pecuUar concep
tion of the church whichthey brought with them to the shores of New
England, and which was the seed from which have sprung aU the
churches represented in this Council, had no value in the estimation of
the Divine Architect of our national edifice. This Council is bound by
the most solemn obUgations rightly to estimate the value of that unique

136 EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH.
conception, and to recommend to the churches such a system of home
evangeUzation as shall fully recognize, its importance as a universal and
permanent element of American society.
During a considerable portion of our history, our home missionary
arrangements have been such as apparently to concede that the Congre
gational idea of the church was of no especial value, — weU enough in
New England, where it was already estabUshed, but, west of the Hud
son, for the most part inappUcable and impracticable. If that view was
sound and just, then all effort to plant distinctively Congregational
churches in the new regions of our country is worse than useless. If
CongregationaUsm has no mission except to add one to the number of
religious sects, which divide and distract the household of faith, then far
better confine itself within the Umits of New England, and consign at
once aU its emigrant population to the care of those centraUzed church
governments which always stand ready to receive and assimilate them.
But if the Congregational conception of the church is true and pre
cious,, — if it is as well fitted to all latitudes and longitudes as to New
England, and is really an important element of American civilization,
and of the brighter and better ages of the promised future, — then these
Congregational churches are bound to be true to their fundamental
principles. In this system of home evangeUzation, they are bound to put
forth their strength, not only to accompany our emigrant population with
the gospel of Christ, but to plant the church, after the conception of the
Pilgrim Fathers, wherever they make their home on the borders of the
wilderness. We trust the Council wiU have in view both these aspects of the case,
in aU the advice it may give to the churches.
In order to present a survey of our home missionary work with as
much clearness as possible, we shaU divide it into four parts.
First. Those portions of the West and North-west in which numerous
churches have been already planted by our missionary efforts, many of
which are still dependent, in part, on missionary funds for their support.
Second. Certain districts of the same States, in which our missionary
efforts have hitherto been attended with Uttle success, and in which few
churches are now receiving our aid.
Third. The new States and Territories of the West and North-west
toward which the tide of emigration is now setting, and is Ukely to flow
in the immediate future.
Fourth. The States of the South and South-west which have been the
principal theater of the great rebelUon.
Of the first of these divisions, the committee have Uttle to say: not be
cause the work of evangeUzation in that section of our field is complete,
nor because what remains to be done is not vastly important, but only
because the condition of other sections of the field is so critical, and their
claims so urgent. In respect to these more favored parts of our home
missionary field, it should not be forgotten, that there yet " remaineth
much land to be possessed." The prominent centers of influence are, for
the most part, occupied. The towns and vUlages along the thoroughfares

EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH. 137
of travel and traffic are generally suppUed with gospel ministrations.
But, in the wide intervals between the railroads, and remote from the
villages, a great majority of the population is beyond the influence of the
churches we have planted, and is very inadequately suppUed with reUg
ious privileges. Unless this rural population is brought more directly
under gospel influences, and their children and youth are furnished with
better opportunities for Christian education, we have great reason to fear
the results which must follow. These wide fields, neglected, will become
moral wastes, whose population wiU have no sympathy with the senti
ments and institutions which have been the glory of our land.
To meet the wants of this part of our field, Sabbath-schools, prayer-
meetings, famUy visitation, and colportage ought to be sustained by the
voluntary efforts of the self-denying men and women of adjacent churches.
But, in addition to this instrumentality, we need a class of missionaries.
who go forth, not to seek eUgible settlement in a community that is pre
pared to welcome and support them, but who, in the spirit of Paul, are
willing to build where no man has yet laid a foundation.
There is scarce a county, even in the most favored portion of the
North-west, that does not contain waste places which would repay the
best religious culture we could bestow upon them.
The second division embraces large portions of Southern Illinois and
Indiana, and probably, also, important districts in other States, with
which the committee are less accquainted.
In these districts, so far as the knowledge of the committee extends,
our home missionary efforts in the past have been crowned with Uttle
success, and at present, and for several years just past, we are scarcely
attempting any thing. They are passed by as fields for which, at pres
ent, little or nothing can be done. But they are not passed by because
there is no need of doing any thing for them.
It may be said that other denominations have the ground, and there
fore for us, as Congregationalists, there is no room.
If other denominations do have the ground, they occupy it most ineffi
ciently and unsatisfactorily. The people are not taught. The Sabbath
is not made a day of reUgious rest and instruction. Ignorance, both of
things secular and divine, widely prevails. In all these respects, a state
of things exists which can not extensively prevaU in our country, without
disqualifying us to continue long a free people. The truth of the case
is, that the districts in question are not in such a sense preoccupied by
other denominations as to relieve us from the obligation of further effort,
until, by a fair experiment, it is proved that there is nothing more which
we can do.
If our home missionary effort must be limited to the organization of
churches from materials found ready to our hands, and to the aiding of
churches so formed till they become self-sustaining, then it is difficult to
see what more can be done for these districts than we are now doing.
But why must our efforts be circumscribed to such limits? Why should
we wait till some church or community is ready to invite a missionary
to labor with, them, and to assume a part of the responsibility of his

138 EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH.
support? Why should we rather not send forth into such districts de
voted men, with their support fuUy guaranteed, to labor where they
can find a field, and to preach Christ where they can find hearers, — leav
ing it to their judgment to bestow their labors where the best results are
to be expected, and to organize churches where there is promise of per
manence and usefulness? That in this way sinners can be converted to.
Christ, and churches founded and multipUed, which wiU prove blessings
to generations yet unborn, no beUever in the adaptation and power ef
the gospel is at Uberty to doubt.
In this section of which we are speaking, there are certain points of
great and growing importance, where the population is already large
and is rapidly increasing; but reUgious people are few, and religious
privUeges scarce and meager. At such points, the committee beUeve;
missionaries should at once be stationed and sustained, tUl they can
gather around them congregations able to support them. Houses of
worship should also be provided in such fields, either whoUy by the Con
gregational Union, or partly by them and partly by such contributions
as Uberal men on the spot are willing to make.
Enterprises thus commenced should be adequately sustained tUl they
can stand alone. It would perhaps be invidious and unwise to name
particular places which should be thus occupied. But the committee are
of the opinion, that places may be found in these districts where enter
prises of this sort have already been delayed years too long. Until such
efforts have been made and vhave faUed, it is the judgment of the com
mittee, that the conclusion is premature that nothing can be done for
these districts. TUl such attempts are made, the few brethren now scat
tered over these regions, and struggUng almost alone against prejudice
and abounding wickedness, wiU not cease to feel and to lament their lack
of the earnest and efficient co-operation of the churches in more favored
sections of the country. [
Our third division of the field consists of those new States and Ter
ritories toward which the tide of emigration is now setting in great
force. It will be no easy matter for the members of the National CouncU to
bring their minds up to a conception of the vastness and urgent impor
tance of this field of Christian effort.
North of the south fine of Kansas, extended to the Pacific, and west of
the Mississippi, excluding Missouri, there is an area of territory belong
ing to the United States of one mUUon three hundred thousand square
miles. Embraced in this area are the States of Iowa, Minnesota, Kan
sas, Oregon, Nevada, and a part of California, and the Territories of
Nebraska, Dacotah, Colorado, Utah, Washington, Idaho, and Montana.
Within these Umits are four tenths of the entire territory of the United
States, equal to twenty times the area of New England, twenty-six times
that of the State of New York, and one hundred and sixty times that of
Massachusetts. In 1860, the above States and Territories had a population of one mil-
Uon three hundred and eighty-five thousand one hundred and fifty-three,

EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH. 139
which now undoubtedly exceeds two milUons. Until 1859, the popu
lation was confined mostly to the States on the Mississippi and the
Pacific, and those parts of Kansas and Nebraska contiguous to the Mis
souri River. The whole mountain region, aside from the Mormon set
tlements in Utah, was uninhabited, and, to a great extent, unexplored.
Since that time, many thousands have made houses, either temporary
or permanent, in the mountains, and four new Territories have been or
ganized, since 1861, along the mountain ranges. The great Platte Val
ley, stretching eastwardly from the mountains to the Missouri River, a
distance of five or six hundred miles, has become an immense thorough
fare of travel and transportation to the mountain Territories and Pacific
States. This results, in a great measure, from the discovery of the
precious metals in various localities, over a large extent of country.
This first caused the settlement of California, and is now, with equal
rapidity, peopling the fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains. Wherever
gold has been found, cities and villages are springing up with mar
velous rapidity. There is no longer any doubt as to the richness
and inexhaustibleness of the gold deposits in these regions. And as
gold has always proved a mighty motive power, we may infer, with
certainty, that with increasing facilities for reaching the mining locali
ties, with improved machinery for obtaining the precious metals, and
with the aid of the surplus capital of the Eastern States, the tide of
emigration will increase in volume from year to year. The vast agricul
tural regions of Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa will find a remunerative
market for their productions in this mining region. Thus the one will
help the other, and both will develop together.
Such are the elements of growth and progress which this wide region
contains within itself; and we can not doubt it will soon be occupied with
a multitudinous population. The foundations of those future States are
now being laid ; and their character and influence wUl^ to a great extent,
be determined by these early beginnings.
Another very material fact in its bearings on the growth of these new
States and Territories is the construction of the great Union Pacific
Railroad. Chartered by Congress, and Uberally endowed by the gen
eral government, this road is to connect the Missouri River with the Pa
cific Ocean, and carry Ihe faciUties for travel and commerce through all the
vast interior. This work is actually in process of construction at both
ends of the Une. And such is the influence of railroads in developing
the resources of a country, in stimulating enterprises, increasing the
value of property, and contributing to the growth of towns and cities,
that we doubt not the completion of this road to the mining region will,
in a brief period, quadruple its population, while, at the same time, it
will add greatly to the population and wealth of the Missouri and Mis
sissippi Valleys.
Emigration to the mountains tends strongly to concentrate in cities,
thus affording greater facilities for preaching the gospel, and rendering
delay in sending it more perilous. This population is enterprising and
energetic, and ready to aid Uberally in the support of the gospel, and in

140 EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH.
building houses of worship. And yet they are exposed to many and
peculiar temptations, and, without the influence of the gospel, they are
exceedingly exposed to the worst vices which corrupt society.
Among the inhabitants of these new States and Territories are not a
few members of Congregational churches, and many sons and daughters
of New England, who love her simple church poUty, and believe it better
fitted to develop and elevate man than any other. From the " Congre
gational Quarterly" of January, 1865, we learn that these numerous
States and Territories, with their two millions of people, had, one year
ago, two hundred and seventy Congregational churches, with an aggre
gate membership of a Uttle more than ten thousand. They had, also,
one hundred and eighty-two ministers, either supplying these churches,
or laboring in new settlements, where churches were not yet organized.
In the four mountain Territories and the State of Nevada we have, by
report, but three churches, and an equal number of ministers. Yet
the population to-day probably exceeds two hundred thousand, with
the certain prospect of a very large increase.
It seems to the committee that this portion of our home missionary
field ought to be most seriously considered by all the churches repre
sented in this CouncU. Here is a call for new zeal and increased effi
ciency in the prosecution of the home missionary work, in order to carry
it forward upon a scale commensurate with the vastness of the field to
be cultivated.
The other portion of the home missionary field, which demands our
attention, embraces the States that have just been redeemed 'from sla
very, and are thus opened to a pure gospel, and to churches founded on
the principles of Congregational freedom.
In the survey of this field, the first feature which arrests our attention
is the peculiar condition of the four miUions of people now emerging
from slavery into manhood and the light and Uberty of the sons of God.
Deprived hitherto of aU opportunities for education, they now hunger
and thirst after learning. Never before did any people manifest such
eagerness to acquire the rudiments of education, and the knowledge of
God's word. In Virginia, North and South CaroUna, and along the
banks of the Mississippi, they began, early in the war, to come within
our lines, and were immediately provided with schools and teachers by
the American Missionary Association. In the progress of the war, this
work has continually grown in magnitude and importance, until, by the
overthrow of the rebellion, the whole colored population of the South
are soon to be brought within the reach of Christian teachers and mis
sionaries. Never was a missionary field more inviting. The soil is rich
and mellow, and all prepared for the " good seed of the kingdom."
Blessed are they that shall so cultivate this field as to reap the rich har
vest of which it is capable.
How far the way is open for home missionary labors among the white
people of the South, the committee is unable to speak with much defl-
niteness, for the want of accurate information. But we rejoice to know
that hostile armies no longer overrun those States. The rebelUon is

EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH. 141
crushed, and the way is prepared for a thorough and accurate survey
of the moral desolation which slavery and war have left in their track.
Let such survey speedily be made, and the result laid before the
churches. In the mean time, the following facts, reported from certain
portions of the field, which have been longer under Federal control, and
therefore better known, may be taken as specimens of* the whole.
Missouri, in its general condition and history, may be taken as repre
senting, in the main," the region of country under consideration, and is, in
position, territory, and population, no inconsiderable part of it. In 1860,
it had the largest white population of any of the slave States, and is, in
territory, larger than the whole of New England, and much richer in
natural resources. But, from its earliest settlement, slavery has been
there, paralyzing its energies, depressing its industry, corrupting its
politics, perverting its theology, and poisoning the whole surrounding
atmosphere. From this bUghting curse, the State is now delivered, by a
war undertaken in the interest of slavery, and having for its object its
perpetuation and lasting domination over a continent.
While emancipation in Missouri is a consequence of the wat, it is a
consequence wrought out through conviction, — a radical change in the
opinions and feelings of the people. It is not the result of miUtary coer
cion operating upon the elections. It rests on the deliberate choice of
the people, ascertained through the ballot-box, and that, too, by a most
decisive and significant majority. "An ocean of changed thought and
feeling " has rolled over the State in these last four years. And what
has happened in Missouri in this respect, we believe wiU be found, to a
considerable extent, to be true in the other slave States.
Missouri came into the Union in a convulsive struggle that shook the
nation. New England protested; but her protest was unavailing, and
for the time slavery triumphed; This was forty-five years ago. On the
11th day of January last, she was born again, amid the rejoicings and
congratulations of millions of freemen, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
In January, 1852, there was not a Congregational church in this State.
Nine years later, at the outbreak of the slaveholders' rebellion, there
¦were two. and the only two in the slave States, — one at St. Louis, and
one at Hannibal, both situated on the eastern boundary line of the State,
and together containing scarcely more than three hundred members. At
this date ten are reported, and the door is wide open for the planting of
as many more as Christian zeal and enterprise may elect. Old temples
and altars have been thrown down. The priests of slavery, with their
followers, are scattered and gone, or are fast going. The society of
Missouri is no longer suited to their tastes. They prefer a hiding-place
anywhere else to the scene of their former pride, where all is now so
changed, and where the friends of the Union and the enemies of slavery
are in the popular ascendant.
What has been said indicates, in general, the state of things in Mis
souri. To a great extent, except in a few counties, it is, in respect to
religious organizations, a mighty waste. We give an example or two,
by way of illustration: Jefferson City, the capital of the State, is situ-

142 EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH.
ated on the south bank of the Missouri River, one hundred and twenty-
five miles west of St. Louis, with which it is connected by railway. It
has a population of about four thousand. In 1861, it had four churches,
representing as many different denominations, viz., Presbyterian (O. S.),
Baptist, Episcopal, and Methodist (South). All these churches are now,
or were as late as March last, closed. No services have been held in the
Presbyterian church for four years, and only occasionally, if at aU, in the
three others, during the same period. A Methodist church (North) has,
in the mean time, been organized, and a small house of worship erected,
of dimensions to accommodate, perhaps, a hundred and fifty persons.
This is the only Protestant house of worship now in use in the capital
of the State of Missouri, although it has been constantly within the Fed
eral lines, and in daily connection with St. Louis.
If such a state of things exist in the protected capital, it is not to be
imagined that religious institutions are in a more satisfactory condition
where bushwhackers and guerillas have roamed at large.
In a growing town of some two thousand inhabitants, on the Pacific
RaUroad, west of Jefferson City, no church organization or house of wor
ship exists. An agent of the American Missionary Association visited
it last summer, and was much encouraged by the friendly temper of the
people, and their readiness to hear. His chief difficulty, during his short
stay, was to find a room large enough to accommodate those who wished
to attend upon his services.
It is believed that these are only specimens, tending to give a true idea
of the condition of a large part of the State. And, as far as the commit
tee can judge from the information in their possession, they believe a
very similar state of things exists in all the States, which, at the outbreak
of the rebellion, were under the controUing influence of slavery. Eeli-
gious organizations existing previous to the rebellion are overturned.
The church, in its various denominations, was as thoroughly pervaded
and corrupted by slavery as the State, and as completely involved in the
rebellion, and consequently has been equally dissolved and destroyed by
the overthrow of slavery and the rebellion. And, if the work of political
reconstruction is to tax the mind and heart of the nation to the utmost,
the reconstruction of religious society in the South is a work no less dif
ficult and momentous. If the restoration of government in the South
on the basis of universal freedom is the trial question of our political in
stitutions, the restoration of religious society on the basis of the gospel
of Christ is no less the trial question of our Protestant Christianity.
No graver question at present demands the attention of the churches
which we represent, than the inquiry, " What part in this mighty work
belongs to those men and those churches which adhere to that conception
of the church which found its way to this continent in the cabin of the
May-flower? " The committee certainly is not prepared fully to answer
this question. But to say, that, in all this, Congregationalism is to have
no share, seems to us like saying that the principles of that poUty are
not worthy of what our Pilgrim Fathers suffered for them, nor of the
tenacity with which we hold them. If we have a conception of the

EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND sbuTH. 143
church which must be laid aside before we can enter upon the greatest
Christian enterprise of the nineteenth century, the sooner we discard it
everywhere the better, that we may take up some other polity, which is
capable of universal application.
In reconstructing religious society at the South, it, seems to the com
mittee as most obviously important, to adopt a poUcy analogous to that
pursued in military affairs. There are many cities and large towns
which are as truly strategic points in our moral as in our carnal warfare.
No time should be lost in taking possession of them in the name of our
Great Captain, and in erecting in them fortresses of evangelical truth,
furnished with all the munitions of spiritual warfare. Persons who, in
connection with the army, have had opportunity to study the South,
testify on this point with great unanimity and earnestness.
Commencing at Cairo, IUinois, every considerable town on the Missis
sippi and its tributaries, quite down to the Gulf, should receive early and
earnest attention.
At Memphis, an organization has already been effected, under favor
able auspices, and a self-sustaining church estabUshed.
In New Orleans, a handful of men, noble and true, are already soU-
citing our co-operation. Congregational polity was once at home in
Charleston, and in Savannah, and other parts of Georgia. la it not our
duty to make haste to rebuild what slavery has corrupted and destroyed?
In WUmington, Norfolk, Richmond, Baltimore, and Washington, and
doubtless in many less prominent cities of the Atlantic States of the
South, we may soon expect openings for the introduction of a pure gos
pel, and the estabUshment of permanent religious institutions, by our
instrumentalities, for home evangelization. In the prosecution of this
great work, why should We not imitate the example of the apostolic age?
The apostles of Christ were appointed to plant the Christian church, not
for the Roman Empire, but for the world; not, for one age, but for all
time. They began, indeed, at Jerusalem ; but, as soon as they began to
go abroad from that center, they hastened to the centers of that influence
which controlled the world, — the cities that lay around the Mediter
ranean Sea. In them they preached the gospel, and planted churches ;
and from Ephesus and PhiUppi and Thessalonica and Corinth and Rome,
the gospel spread into the surrounding populations.
The Valley of the Mississippi is the Mediterranean region of this con
tinent; and in the great centers of influence in this valley our work must
begin. These strategic points must be speedily garrisoned for Christ;
and it must be done by hands that are clear of all participation in the
great rebellion.
To no portion of the Christian people of the United States does the
call to engage in this great reUgious enterprise come more imperatively
than to the churches represented in this Council. In this connection,
the committee deem it proper to call attention to the following passage,
from " Bancroft's History of the United States," volume i., pp. 467-8.
" I have dwelt the longer on the character of the early Puritans of New
England," says the historian, "for they are the parents of one third of

144 EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH.
the white population of the United States. In the flrst ten or twelve
years, — and fhere was never afterward any considerable increase from
England, — we have seen that there came over twenty-one thousand two
hundred persons, or four thousand famiUes. Their descendants are now
(1834) not far from four milUons. Each famUy has multiplied, on the
average, to one thousand souls. To New York and Ohio, where they
constitute one half of the population, they have carried the Puritan sys
tem of free schools ; and their example is spreading it through the civilized
world." ¦
If this calculation be brought down to the present time, it wiU be found
that the descendants of the early Puritans of New England now number
about ten millions, and that they have not only carried the Puritan sys
tem of free schools to New York and Ohio, but that they have carried
these, and all the ideas and institutions of a society founded on the doc
trine of the equal rights of man, beyond the Great Lakes, beyond the Mis
sissippi and the Missouri, to the banks of the Columbia, and the shores of
the Pacific. It is patent to every observant eye, that that great current
of opinion which made the lamented Lincoln President of the United
States, and overturned the iniquitous system of slavery, and with it the
whole structure of Southern society, foUowed every where along the
ramifications of this stream of New England emigration. It is no won
der that the rebels and their Northern alUes proposed to leave New
England out in the cold. New England ideas were found utterly in
compatible with the continued existence of slavery.
What, then, so fit as that, in reconstructing society at the South on the
basis of freedom and Christianity, large room should be given to the
spirit, the principles, and the modes of organization, of these Puritan
Fathers. It is not the business of the committee to urge this matter.
But we religiously beUeve and honestly affirm, that, if our Puritan Fa
thers had brought to New England a centraUzed church government, they
never could have exerted their mighty and benignant influence on the
destinies of their country and the world. And we can assign no reason
why their ideas are not just as precious and just as potent in restoring
society at the South as they were in constructing it in New England.
Bible principles never grow old, and their value and their adaptation
undergo no change.
. The committee cannot refrain from expressing their fuU conviction,
that, in this work of religious reconstruction, an indispensable condition
of success is our hearty recognition of our equal brotherhood with the
colored man,- and our earnest endeavor to raise him to the full enjoyment
of all the privileges of the gospel. God has overturned society in the
South for the crime of trampUng on the rights of the negro, and let no
one think to restore it without fully recognizing his equal rights with the
white man to citizenship, both under our government and in the kingdom
of God. S
He who is no respecter of persons wiU surely frown on all such
attempts, however cunningly conceived and zealously prosecuted.
Such then is the vast work to which the providences of God caU the

EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH. 145
churches and people represented in this council. And what shall we
say of the machinery needed to accomplish it? On this point we have
but Uttle to suggest. We see no necessity for any new organization.
The American Home Missionary Society and the American Missionary
Association, those noble institutions through which we have been accus
tomed to act in the work of home evangelization, seem, in the good prov
idence of God, to be raised up especially for this very time. They have a
prestige, an experience, and an adaptation, that commend them to uni
versal confidence.
The American Home Missionary Society, formerly the organ of another
denomination as weU as of our own, has, without its own seeking or ours,
been released from any obligation which would have restrained its action
In promoting the church poUty of our Puritan Fathers. In the progress
of events, the way seems now prepared for the universal acceptance of
the anti-slavery principles which the American Missionary Association
has always maintained. Both societies have therefore an open field, and
both enjoy largely the confidence and sympathy of the churches.
Nor do we find any difficulty in recognizing- the respective spheres of
these two societies. For whUe no separation is or can be made by a
geographical line, and stiU less by any invidious distinction of color, we
yet discover, in the past labors of the American Missionary Association,
among the colored people of America, the West India Islands, and
Africa, and in the ready faciUty with which it has adapted itself to the
peculiar condition of this people at the South, an instrumentaUty provi
dentially prepared for their evangeUzation. We therefore commend to
the churches this association for the work at the South, with special ref
erence to the freedmen.
The American Home Missionary Society, on the contrary, is Umited
by its constitution to one specific work of aiding destitute communities
and feeble churches to sustain the preaching of the gospel. For this dis
tinctive work, it will find comparatively Uttle preparation among the
freedmen ; but its glorious history, endearing it to the affections of all
the churches, points it out still as the chosen instrumentality for its spe
cific home missionary work in all parts of our country, in the South, as
far as the door may be opened, as well as in the North and Great West.
With these limitations of special adaptation and constitutional provi
sion, each organization has a distinct work; and the field is so large, and
the relation of the two societies so friendly, that each can expend its
utmost energies without rivalry and coUision.
In this connection, we recognize the important mission of the Congre
gational Union, but forbear discussion of it here, since its claims are to
be submitted outside of this report.
It is not, then, new machinery which we want, but to give greatly in
creased efficiency to the machinery which we have, by supplying a vastly
greater moving power. The great question before this body is, how
can this be done? It is perfectly obvious that our missionary societies
cannot carry out the policy recommended in this report, without a large
increase of their resources. They wiU need a yearly income of not less
10

146 EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH.
than half a million of dollars. Our resources for church bunding, and
all the other auxiliary instrumentalities, WiU need also to be proportion-
ably increased.
How can such an increase be obtained? That is the question of this
occasion. One thing the committee will suggest in answer to this in
quiry. We must determine, in good solemn earnest, to do the work where-
unto God has caUed us. No man who has borne a part in the work of
evangeUzation in any of our new States and Territories within the last
ten or fifteen years can have failed to see, and with sickness of heart to
feel that the American churches, after aU, are not half in earnest in this
work. In times of prevailing worldly prosperity, men of the noblest
endowments of mind and heart, who have given themselves to this sa
cred cause in the true spirit of self-sacrifice, have found themselves left,
like soldiers in the field, without arms, without ammunition, and without
rations. If this state of things is to continue, the hope of accomplishing
the glorious work which now invites our efforts will prove utterly falla
cious and delusive. The spirit of Christian self-sacrifice must not he
confined to a few missionaries, teachers, and colporters, whUe the thou
sands of our Israel dwell in their ceiled houses, and suffer the house of
God to Ue waste. If we enter on this enterprise with some such all-per
vading earnestness as that with which we undertook the work of subdu
ing the great rebelUon, there wiU be no difficulty in obtaining the need
ful resources. , It will be as it has been in the war. When men are
needed, they can be had; and, when money is wanted, it wUl be poured
out Uke water.
In closing this report, the committee present the foUowing summary
of the results to which they have come.
1. In addition to the work to which our Home Missionary Societies
have, for the most part, confined their labors, — that of planting and fos
tering churches where materials are found ready to their hand for form
ing them, — there is an imperative necessity that able and devoted men
should be sent to labor for Christ where no churches exist and no mate
rials are ready for their formation. At whatever cost of men and money,
the great centers of influence should at once be occupied by men divinely
endowed for such a work; and their support should be drawn from mis
sionary funds, till their congregations are able to sustain them.
2. That the time for efficient action is emphatically the present. In
the West and North- West, our emigration is spreading itself over a field
vaster than ever before; and immediate and most efficient action is neces
sary to overtake and keep pace with this ever-sweUing tide of popu
lation, in founding the institutions of Christianity, learning, and freedom.
In aU the late domain of slavery, society is dissolved, ecclesiastical organ
izations are broken up or paralyzed. By their sanction of human chattel-
ism, and their complicity with the rebeUion, the churches have become ut
terly demoralized, and are like salt that has lost its savor. Church edifices
and school-houses are abandoned, and in wide districts the institu
tions of education and religion have no practical existence. In all these
regions, now or never is the time to arise, and build the temple of the

EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH. 147
Lord. If we neglect to occupy this inviting field of labor to which God
now calls us, he may, we trust he will, raise up others who will cultivate
and possess it for him. But, for us, it will be an opportunity for ever
lost, a harvest season never to return.
3. We can not perform our part in this work without a vast increase in
earnestness, zeal, and self-denial in our churches. Without this, it will
be impossible to command either the men or the money for the work.
The resources and the strong young men of any community will always
be where its heart is. If the heart of the church is in the world, her
sons and her wealth will be there also; and she will be as powerless in
promoting the cause of Christ, at home or abroad, as Samson was to
meet the PhiUstines when his locks were shorn.
Three questions the committee must leave unanswered, pressing, we
trust, on the hearts of the National Council.
1. How can the requisite spirit of earnestness and self-consecration be
imparted to the churches?
2. How can our young men be induced, by thousands, to consecrate
their Uves to this holy cause?
3. How can we raise the requisite pecuniary resources for a religious
enterprise so vast, and so imperatively demanding immediate action?
The American church is in much the same relation to this great crisis
that our government was to the rebelUon at its outbreak. From whence
wUl the Lord send deUverance? Warren Currier, "j
Julian M. Sturtevant,
Reuben Gaylord, > Committee.
Thomas E. Bliss, j
Flavel Bascom, J
At twenty minutes before five o'clock, the reading of the
report was suspended, to afford Rev. Mr. Walker an opportu
nity to speak on the subject of the churches in Italy, in ac
cordance with the recommendation of the Business Committee ;
but that gentleman not being present (through a misunder
standing as to the assignment), the reading of the report was
resumed, and at its conclusion, it was accepted.
The Doxology, " Praise God from whom all blessings flow,"
was then sung, and the Council adjourned.
FOURTH DAY, SATURDAY, JUNE 17.
The Council was called to order at 9 o'clock, by the moder
ator. Prayer was . offered by Hon. Mr. Hammond, of Elinois.
The minutes of yesterday were read, amended in some few
particulars, and then approved.
On motion of Rev. Mr. Bascom, of Illinois, Rev. Wm. Craw
ford, of Colorado, was added to the committee on the State of
the Country.

148 THE ROLL.
Rev. Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts, from the committee on
Business, reported the order for to-day, as follows : —
That after the report of the committee on Credentials, and statements by
the chairmen of other committees, and by the scribe, the business consist
in reading the papers on "Ministerial Support," "Ministerial Educa
tion," " Church Building," " Parochial EvangeUzation," and' the " Sys
tematizing of Benevolent Contributions." That so many as can be read
this morning be read, and the remainder be made the order for Mon
day. The committee also recommended that the following resolu
tions, which had been placed in their hands, be passed : —
Resolved, That, for the correction and certification of the list of dele
gates to this Council, the roll shall be called by the scribe after reading
the minutes on Monday morning, and members who do not answer to
their names, or whose 'presence is not attested by delegates, shaU he
stricken from the Ust.
Resolved, That, in making up the roU of members of this CouncU, the
committee on Credentials be requested and instructed to record the
churches which they severaUy represent, and the residence of delegates,
both ministers and laymen.
Resolved, That the committee on Credentials be directed, when record- »
ing the names of members, to insert the first name in full.
Rev. Mr. Perkins, of Massachusetts, said, in reference to the first
resolution, that he thought some other time than Monday morning,
when a great many would be unable to be present, would be better for
calling the roll. He suggested Tuesday morning.
Hon. Mr. Hammond, of IlUnois, suggested Tuesday, at 12 o'clock, as
the time.
The amendment was accepted by Mr. Perkins.
Rev. Mr. Eustis, of Connecticut, said it was desirable to have the list
of delegates completed as soon as possible, with reference to the proposed
trip to Plymouth. He therefore moved to amend by substituting Mon
day, at 12 o'clock, in the place of Tuesday.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut, suggested that there was a surer
way yet, which was by appointing a committee of one from each State
and Territory, who should report a full roU of the delegates from that
State or Territory. He thought there were delegates present from New
Jersey and Connecticut, and from other States, who could teU the names
of all the members from those States.
Rev. Mr. Perkins said there was no one from Massachusetts who
could tell the names of aU the delegates.
Mr. Ayres, of IlUnois, moved to amend by substituting 12 o'clock
to-day as the time for calling the roll.
This amendment was carried by a vote of 175 to 90.

DEBATE ON ROLL. 149
Rev. Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts, said that one of the reasons given
for calUng the roU, was, that the body might know what churches were
represented. He supposed the Council were not to determine that mat
ter. He took it that the credentials which came from the different bodies
settled that.
Rev. E. P. Marvin, of Massachusetts, said he believed it almost im
possible to make out an accurate list of delegates from the credentials.
The committee had found a large number of them in duplicate, and, in
some cases, three copies of the same credentials. In looking over two
letters of the alphabet, he found, at one time, twenty duplicates. Many
of those names were yet on the roll, and the committee wanted very
much to find who of the persons whose names were on the roll were
here, and, unless they could resort to this method, they should be obUged
to circulate printed sUps all through the house, which would take up a
great deal-more of the time than to caU the roU.
It was moved to amend the resolution by adding, that the
names to which no response is made on the call of the roll
to-day be called again on Monday, at 12 o'clock.
This motion prevailed, by a vote of 86 to 75 and the motion,
as amended, passed.
The second resolution submitted by the Business Committee
was then considered, to wit : — ¦
Resolved, That in making up the roU of members of this Council, the
committee on credentials be requested and instructed to record the
churches which they represent, and the residence of delegates, both min
isters and laymen.
Dr. Patton, of IlUnois. I wish, in behalf of the committee on cre
dentials, to say, that that committee have never understood themselves
to be the scribes of this body. All our business, as we suppose, is to
see that persons who present proper credentials are allowed to come
in as members of the body, and report their names ; and then our duty
is ended, it being the duty of the scribes to make up the roll. The cre
dentials are in such a shape, that it would be impossible to tell what
churches are represented. We have credentials from Pennsylvania, for
instance, certifying that so-and-so, from the Congregational churches of
Pennsylvania, are entitled to seats, having been elected by conferences
in the proper towns. In that State, they had a central committee, to
which the conferences reported, and that central committee made out the
credentials for aU.
Rev. Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts. In regard to that matter, I
differ from our friend. In the first place, it is very important that
we should know, from our record, what churches are represented in
this body. That is the essential point. If persons coming here are with
out any credentials certifying how many churches and what churches
they represent, it is, to begin with, evidence that they are not enti-

150 debate on roll.
tied to seats; and, to show that they are entitled to seats, they must
bring additional facts, because the call is very explicit. But aUow-
ing that to pass, it is perfectly practicable to get this Ust; and any
committee with a sufficient degree of energy, though they wUl have some
work to do, will find it so. In the next place, although it is not the work,
prima facie, of the committee on credentials, the person who drew the
proposal up (for it did not originate with the business committee)
thought that, inasmuch as they had had the papers, and understood the
matter better than anybody else, it would be better to instruct them to
do it. If that committee prefer not to do it, it is perfectly easy to ap-
point another committee to perform that work.
Rev. Dr. Todd, of Massachusetts. The point that is obscure in my
mind is this. Does that resolution mean that I shaU report myself as
pastor of my church, and representing one fourth part of seventeen
other churches, and that my fellow-delegates shaU report tip at they rep
resent each one fourth part of seventeen churches? or what does it mean?
I do not understand it. I can teU you the church of which I am pastor,
and I can tell you the churches which are represented by our delegations;
but there are four in the delegation.
Rev. Mr. Whittlesey, of Illinois. As one of the scribes, I want to
make one remark in reference to this matter. I have spent two days of
hard labor in getting this roll arranged in alphabetical order, under the
States ; now, I think, from my experience, that it wUl take at least three
or four days for any man, or any committee*of this body, to do the work
proposed in that resolution, and I do not think there is anybody here
who has three or four days to spend on it. Tmove you, therefore, that
that resolution be laid on the table.
This motion prevailed, and the resolution was laid on the
table. The third resolution submitted by the Business Committee
was then taken up for consideration, to wit : —
Resolved, That the committee on Credentials be directed, when record
ing the names of members, to insert the first name in full.
Rev. Mr. Whittlesey, of IlUnois. I have taken great pains to get the
full names, so far as it is possible; but, sir, the Council wUl see that it is a
very great labor to get the fuU names of more than six hundred mem
bers. Whenever they are on the Ust I have put them down, and I have
put down a great many that are not on the Ust. I appreciate the re
marks of Mr. Quint, who, you all know, is a prince in statistics; and I
should.be very glad to get the full names of the members, if I could; and
if anybody whose name does not appear upon the roU in full will give it
to me, I will insert it, but I will not engage to go round and find out
the name of every man. I move that that resolution be laid on the
table. The motion prevailed, and the report of the Business Com
mittee on the order for the day was then accepted.

debate on roll. 151
Rev. Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts. The committee to whom the
duty was assigned of presenting a report on the work of evangelization
in the West and South, and in Foreign Lands, having, through inadvert
ence, reported only on the home department, I desire to offer this res
olution: —
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to report upon the work of
evangeUzation in foreign lands, that properly devolves upon the Congre
gational churches of the United. States.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Beecher, of Illinois, the motion was
adopted. Rev. Mr. Dexter, of Massachusetts, moved the appointment
of a committee to arrange in regard to the supply of pulpits in
this vicinity, so far as the pastors of churches desire to receive
assistance from the members of the Council.
Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York, moved that the matter be
referred to the committee on Devotional Exercises.
Rev. Mr. Dexter accepted this suggestion, and the motion, in
that form, passed.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of IlUnois. The committee on Credentials desire to
present a question for the consideration of the Council, to wit: What
shall be done when a primary has taken his place in this body, been en
rolled, and taken part in the proceedings,*but leaves before the close of
the session, and then the substitute appears, and wishes to occupy the
seat for the remainder of the time? Many such cases exist, and are to
exist, according to arrangements that are being made, and the commit
tee on credentials recommend the adoption of the following resolution: —
Resolved, That when a delegate has appeared, and taken his seat in the
body, but leaves before the close of the session, his alternate may occupy
his place.
Thus much I report as chairman of the committee. In my individual
capacity, I propose to offer an amendment, — to add, " provided, that the
traveUng expenses of but one shaU be paid from the appropriate funa."
Rev. Mr. Taylor, of IlUnois. Is it designed, that the names of both
primary and substitute shall appear upon the Ust?
Rev. Dr. Patton. That question has not been considered. I am
aware, sir, that it is an awkward arrangement at best; but we were dis
posed to favor those who had come here from a distance, as much as we
consistently could.
Rev. Prof. Bartlett, of Illinois. It seems to me that the adoption
of this resolution would involve us in inextricable confusion, — make us
a constantly fluctuating body. When men come here to do business,
they are bound to do it, and do it through, and not commit it to other
parties. I move the resolution be laid on the table.

152 DEBATE ON ROLL.
The motion prevailed, and the resolution was laid on the
table. Rev. Dr. Beecher, of IlUnois. I wish to move the appointment of a
committee to accomplish the object suggested by the chairman of the
business committee,— that is, to obtain the names, in full, of the churches
represented. I have approved of what has been done, in laying the mo
tions, in their existing form, upon the table, because I did not suppose
it was the duty, either of the committee on credentials, or of the scribes,
to accompUsh this purpose ; and yet the value of the record of the doings
of this body, as an historical document for future ages, wiU be very greatly
affected by the consideration, whether we have the names of the churches
represented, and the names of the members, in full, or not. It wiU be of
less value, and of less interest aU over the Union, if the names are not
o-iven in full, and also the churches represented; and yet, as the creden
tials were handed in, it was impossible for the committee on credentials
to do it; it is impossible, with these credentials, for the clerks to do it.
If it is done at all, it must be done by a committee from each State
and Territory. I move, therefore, that a committee be appointed, from
each State and Territory represented, to report, in fuU, the names of the
pastors and delegates of such States and Territories, present in this
Council, and also the names of the associated churches which they re
spectively represent.
Rev. Mr. Davis, of New Hampshire. The names of churches are
much more important than the names of members. We can have the
names of the churches, with a little care, and if we do not, we have no
record of the authority by which we act.
The question was then put, and the motion of Dr. Beecher
carried. Hon. Mr. Douglas, of Connecticut, offered the following
resolution : —
Resolved, That the committee on Declaration of Faith, with the aid of
the committee on platform, be instructed to report to this body, for its
consideration and action, a catechism, compUing, in the most simple
form, for the use of children, the faith and polity of the Congregational
churches. Rev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. I object to the introduction of
the resolution in this form. We have adopted rules which were drawn
up for the express purpose of preventing the introduction of business in
this way. I Uke the resolution, and like Mr. Douglas, as he knows,
very much; but if we allow these things to be brought in here in this
way, there wiU be no end to the confusion in which we shall be in
volved. The Moderator. It was read for information.
Rev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. Yes, but if everything is read

committees. 153
for information, it will lead to confusion. The rule is, that no busi
ness shall be brought up here until it has been before the business com
mittee. Hon. Mr. Douglas, of Connecticut. I know of no other way to get
it before the committee. This is the legitimate, parliamentary way, in
my mind to get it to the committee. I move its reference to the com
mittee. The Moderator. The motion is not in order. It can be presented
to the chairman of the business committee, without being brought before
this body, and it may be considered by the committee whether it shall
be presented or not.
Rev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. No, sir; the committee have no
discretion in the matter. They are obliged to present the resolution.
They simply arrange the order in which business shall be presented.
We must entirely do away with the rule before this can be done.
Rev. Mr. Bishop, of Vermont. If that is reaUy the rule, that the
business committee has no discretion, then I move that it be amended.
Assistant Moderator Hammond read the rule, as follows : —
" XV. It shaU be the duty of the Business Committee to prepare a
docket, upon which shall be entered all items of business which members'
of the Council may desire to bring before the body, and except by
special vote of the Council, no business shall be introduced which has
not in this manner passed through the hands of the committee."
Rev. Mr. Bishop, of Vermont. I move that'that rule be so amended,
that the Business Committee present only what they deem proper.
A delegate inquired if that motion was in order, whether it ought not
to go to the Business Committee? [Laughter.]
The chair ruled the motion out of order.
Rev. Dr. Stone of Massachusetts, from the committee on Hos
pitalities, announced that the contemplated excursion to Plym
outh would take place on Thursday of next week.
Rev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut, from the committee to
whom was referred the report on church polity, stated that the
committee had held two meetings, but had been unable to pro
cure a copy of the report, — the one read to the Council having
been taken by the scribe and pasted into the minutes.
After some discussion, the scribe was instructed, on motion
of Rev. Dr. Patton, to deliver the report to the committee.
On motion of Dea. Stoddard, of Massachusetts, it was —
Voted, That the addresses on letters to the members be read here, but
that they shaU not be delivered here, but in the room below.

154 MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
The report on " Ministerial Support," was then called for,
and it was read by Rev. Prof. George Shepard, of Maine, chair
man of the committee, as follows : —
The committee appointed to present to the Council the topic of Minis
terial Support hereby report: —
We find the most concise and comprehensive axiom on this subject, —
uttered by the Lord in connection with the sending forth of the seventy
disciples, — " The laborer is worthy of his hire." The laborer here pro
nounced upon is the servant of Christ, the minister and messenger of his
gospel, the bearer of spiritual blessings to the lost race of .man.
We have here a class of men set apart to a service deemed of vital
importance to the welfare of the world, — a class extending down the
centuries, — their permanence affirming their indispensableness. They
are appointed and commissioned of God, — consecrated to a single and
peculiar service. That they may the most largely compass the benefits
of this, they are set apart from the ordinary and gainful pursuits of life;
aU their capabilities held to and absorbed in a ministry of beneficence, not
to get good, but confer good.
We find the order and the principle in the opening of the Mosaic dis
pensation. First, The separation and consecration of the sons of Levi:
" Behold, I have taken your brethren, the Levites, from among the chil
dren of Israel; to you they are given as a gift from the Lord." Sec
ondly, The obligation on the part of the people to them. " Wherefore
forsake not the Levite as long as thou Uvest upon the earth." Under
the old and the new dispensation, the principle of service and support
is the same, a principle of support meant to conduce to the highest meas
ure of service, and service the most effective in quaUty.
The principle of support to those who preach the gospel, the obligation to
support those who consent to be separated to this service, we find put by
the apostle Paul in a peculiarly terse and satisfactory way, — as is the man
ner of that apostle to put things, — in a sort of closing-up fashion, as
though the brief word he used, held within itself the finaUty of aU argu
ment. He says, linking his conclusion with the arrangement divinely made
ages before, " Even so hath the Lord ordained, that they which preach the
gospel should live of the gospel." So far as authority can settle this prin
ciple, the arranging and commanding of the Supreme Lord settle the prin
ciple that preachers derive their living from the people whom they serve.
There are good reasons, statements which come to the people with the
authority of reason, why what the Saviour so expUcitly enjoins should
be done, — namely, the laborer in this field have his hire; that the
preacher of this gospel be furnished a Uving in it.
The first is, he is o laborer; what he does is labor. An apostle pro
nounces it a good work. Every undertaker of it, who with a soul of zeal
aims at any tolerable fidelity in it, is satisfied of one thing, that it is
work; work various, multiform, ever-crowding, never finished; reaching

MINISTERIAL SUPPORT. 155
to the inmost sensibilities of life; drawing off its most ethereal quality,
its finest capital. No man could bear the strain and intensity of this toil,
only as he felt and was aUowed to say, it is a good work.
2. It is a work which, to get ready to do, fit, qualified to do, takes
years of laborious preparation, and expenditure in the preliminary,
exceeded in no other human function, equaled by a very few. It is a
work which can not be worthily done, unless done by a class prepared
by the discipline of study and grace; to them committed; themselves
consecrated to it, and made responsible for it; their life's work, and all
the work of Ufe they are allowed to do.
3. It is a work most vital in its bearing upon aU human interests. So
ciety could hardly subsist without it. It has an essentially modifying
influence upon aU branches of industry; makes even the fields more pro
lific, the houses more tasteful and comfortable. It elevates and makes
purer the whole course of morals; holds in check the wasteful propensi
ties; incUnes toward harmony the conflicting passions; advances the
character in all worthy attributes ; greatly quickens and strengthens the
intellect; Ufts the heart to the idivine and heavenly; nullifies or turns
into positive benefit the most formidable powers of evil.
It is admitted, because demonstrated, that the work of the minister
adds largely to a people's worldly prosperity, to their literal enrichment;
brings a gain in character, in happiness, in possession, in items of ben
efit innumerable, beyond the count of gold.
This is admitted, confessed to, by Christian people, that the support of
these workers is a just due, enjoined by the Lord, earned by hard, ex
hausting, and invaluable service; yet their hire is kept back in part; as
a general thing they are not at all adequately paid; the average of pay
is decidedly below a proper standard of compensation. This I may
safely assume; no Christian mind will question it. There is no time to
array facts in confirmation of this. They abound — are every where;
they are humiUating — are positively disgraceful to our Christianity.
In some instances, this inadequate support arises from the inability of the
people to do more. These discharge themselves from blame by doing what
they can, — all that they can. In other instances, and these probably the
more common, the inadequate compensation for service grows out of a
prevalent low estimate of the value of the service. It is service in the de
partment of reUgion, which, as many conceive, if not wholly without cost,
is proximately so. And men of this way of judging justify themselves in
crowding aU estimates in the direction of a cipher. The very economical
argument is, — the Master opened by giving himself. And then his sal
vation is put without price. And the men sent to dispense it are supposed
to be above aU self-seeking ; bound to be mortified in all their desires ; the .
whole Uving they aspire to is simply a partial deliverance from starva
tion. There is here furnished to the people a promising field for cheap
ening ; and the minister's work is sometimes cheapened with a vengeance.
If it were some other branch of service, — stood in some Ukely or proUfic
connection with increase, — had to do with hoarding money, rather than
garnering souls, — the standard of compensation and expenditure would

156 MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
be set higher at once; a larger price proffered and paid, because greater
value is assigned to the service.
All the causes of depressed pay we can not run over or even hint.
This low appreciation of the things of God may be clearly set down as
prominent among them. That there is ever downright fraud — the hire
of these laborers kept back of fraud — we Uke not to think; we recoU from
making so grave a charge; yet the eye that sees through aU may see even
this. We choose the rather to assume that the people do not consider;
and that they will do better when they perceive the obUgation in its true
light, — will be disposed to do what is equable and just, when they see
what that is.
And what is it? What is the just measure of a minister's compensa
tion or support?
This is a quantity we can state in no fixed formula of figures. It is a
variable quantity, — changes with times, circumstances, places. It is not
pay for his work as men in other callings are paid. It is not, of course, the
highest pay his- measure of talent is capable of commanding, — not the
most liberal pay he may win, by consenting to be the tool of competing
churches, and swayed by their bids on his coveted gifts. He degrades
the office, shows himself not worthy of the office, if he consents to forsake
a place where God has put him, where he is largely useful, where gen
erous hearts surround him, are ready to give him, actually do give him,
all he needs, and attempts the perilous grade that promises to take him
higher in the scale of emolument or notability.
We can fix the just measure of a minister's support only by the state
ment of a principle. It is that measure of support which conduces to
the highest effectiveness in his work. That is an average quantity,— a
medium quantity. The flush of gain, the excitement of rolling up prop
erty, can only be damaging to him. The harassments of poverty will
necessarily cramp and deaden the life of all noble endeavor. What
meets the case is an easy competence; that he have what he needs to
make him comfortable, — to set him free from corroding anxiety, — to give
him a tone of assurance favorable to vigorous work; a sense of manly
independence; a deliverance from a feeUng of meanness, — from a suh-
. jected and cringing spirit, as one afraid to affirm and press obligation.
We strike a conception of the quantity as that which puts him in the
best condition for his work. On the one hand, it is that which does not,
by largeness of emolument, or any item of worldly attraction, draw, by
unworthy motives, aspirants into this field; and does not, on the other
hand, by rigor of place, or unjust severities of treatment, repel from the
office those who ought to enter it, and in this way deplete the ranks of
competent Christian laborers.
This, then, the measure of support in the place or office; that it is a po
sition in which those who enter it are assisted, enabled, by the compensa
tion rendered, to live on a scale which shall be a fuU average, if not a
little above the average, of the community they serve; a position, there
fore, in which they can assuredly live, and be largely useful.
The reasons, in addition to those already given, for fivrnishing this

MINISTERIAL SUPPORT. 157
measure of support, press on interest, conscience, sensibility. They so
throng, that we can do little more than make a naked statement of them.
The minister, then, should be thus equably supported : —
1. That he may be enabled to give himself wholly to his work. This
work is sufficient to tax aU his powers, and absorb all his time. ' Few
men, for any reason, even for the necessities of a living, can go outside
of it without detriment. Paul did; but he is the grand exception and
anomaly of the ages. The man who truly desires this work, so desires
it, that he wiU lay down all other work for this alone, — will choose to
make this his sole work; and the savor of his example, and the measure
of his usefulness, will turn almost entirely upon the singleness of his
consecration to it.
2. That he may keep himself in the best condition for his work; which
means that he be not tempted to over-work by a necessity laid upon him
to do other things; which also means that he be able to command the
reasonable means of recuperation, by diversion, travel, rest.
3. That he may furnish himself with the indispensable helps to his
work; that it be put in his power to purchase, in books and otherwise,
the materials of thought, argument, exposition; whatever will feed and
replenish his own mind, bring to it strength and1 opulence, and make it
a storehouse of varied and exhaustless supply to the minds of the peo
ple. If the people but understood how solid and good books, put
into the hands of their ministers, find their terminus in themselves, they
would load his arms and shelves with them, or give him the means to
do it.
4. That he may oe respectable and appear respectable. In house, in
furniture, in the dress and culture of his children, he must come up to a
certain standard, or he drops in the public estimation and influence. If
his bearing is mean, his words will be despised.
5. That he may he honest. To a just measure, he must be paid, that
he may pay, — may stand in that pecuniary supremacy Paul commends
in the words, " Owe no man anything." The minister should have the
power of standing on this high vantage-ground, that there may be noth
ing between him and the hearts and the consciences of his people; that
he may enforce, by word and deed, all the claims of integrity, and lead
the people to " love one another."
6. That he may be liberal; take the lead; be an example in Christian
giving. One of his hardest functions, everywhere, will be to train his
flock worthily to the grace of giving. No argument or eloquence of
speech alone will do it, so terribly and deeply knotted and intrenched,
. even in Christian hearts often, is the lust of getting and laying up. He
must lead the way, like that old hero of a weaponless fight, Gideon; he
must be in a condition to say to the people, when they come together to
deal blows against this master lust, so loath to die, — with Gideon, let him
say, "Look on me and do likewise." No one thing is so important to a
minister's efficacy in this respect, as that he be in a condition that will
enable him thus to be an example of giving to the people.
7. That he may have some prudent forecast and providing for the loved

158 MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
ones he will be called to leave. Some may think faith wiU dispense
with this; yet humanity demands this, that he leave something for the
helpless behind.
8. That the favor of the Master may be conciliated toward his churches.
Just and Uberal in their treatment of the servants he sends to them, the
Uke the style and measure of his dispensation to them. If it is a course
of withholding on the part of any of the churches; a niggardly policy,
depressing and grinding down the promulgers of this free and most gen
erous gospel, making them compulsory patterns of self-denial, and fleshly
mortification; then, probably, receive they in the like, from the Divine
Source. It proves a ministry of leanness to them, on the principle, that
their reaping is according to their sowing. ' We have here, doubtless, the
explanation of numberless parched and arid fields. It is a grand law of
God's treatment,— with the merciful he will show himself merciful;
with the froward he wUl show himself froward.
9. There is another reason for yielding an equable support, according
as we have defined it; namely, if it be not done, ministers will not be to he
supported. It is possible that there be a treatment of them that shall
not only diminish, but threaten to run the class out.
Christian men, appointed to do God's service, wiU stand forth ready to
bear, cheerfully, any severity of lot God may appoint for them. But the
stint, and the mean withholding of men, — they wiU not so degrade
themselves as to put up with that; but with a self-respecting indepen
dence, will they be tempted to say to these men, too niggardly to pay
in support of God's free gospel of saving, in the words of Paul, " Thy
money perish with thee." Any hardship God ordains in the fulfillment
of his commission, let the servant of this gospel rejoice and glory to bear.
Let no servant shun the service because of the hardship. Be this ever
and supremely the motive which draws into this field the highest and
noblest talent, — the privilege to serve Christ in the ministry of his gos
pel, though in the want of all things.
When the naked work or office ceases to have the power to draw the
men, then it is a function, an office, which can no longer find men; the
absence of them being proof that the race of fit men no longer exists.
The above constitute what one rightly calls the economic reason why
the church should worthily support its ministry.
There is another and higher, we have previously touched, which is the
moral reason, — that which shows it to be eternally right that the
preacher of the gospel be compensated for his service. It is the reason
the Lord gives, " The laborer is worthy of his hire ; " a statement of prin
ciple which makes it infinitely just, that he be paid for the value of ser
vices rendered, — services which are UteraUy invaluable, lying beyond
the power of money to measure.
We come to another department of the topic, namely,
The mode of payment. This is of importance, as well as the measure.
It is a satisfaction to the minister, after he has wrought and deserved
and earned, to receive what he needs in equity, as a matter of just due.
He knows, and the people also, that it is matter of just debt. He feels a

MINISTERIAL SUPPORT. 159
more manly sentiment when it comes regularly, punctually, cheerfully,
as what is due him. If it is looked upon, in any sense, as charity ; if his
support is made, by contract, inadequate, through avarice, when the peo
ple are abundantly able to make it a sufficiency, and then they supple
ment, piece out the stipend, for this reason deficient, by donations, in
visits and otherwise; though in the end he may receive as much, yet the
mode is somewhat degrading to him, — degrading, that he has to take as
a gift what is so ascendantly his due. If the people choose to make gifts
to their ministers, over and above a just compensation for service, it is
all amiable, — honorable to both parties. If they put to him, as a present,
what they owe to him as a debt, it is not honorable to either of the par
ties. These sunny-side chapters, found weekly in our reUgious papers,
if established as the people's mode, in part, of paying their minister, then
brood they over the future of our Zion in most ominous shape. They
are admissible only as setting the pastor by an emergency, which comes
by a temporary rise of prices.
We lay down this as indispensable in the arrangement of the minister's
support, namely, that there be a legally constituted corporate body respon
sible for his support. Then, if individuals fail, this body stands as good,
held according to the contract. We deprecate the practice of bringing
a minister, at the beginning, and annually ever after, to the test of a
subscription paper, the figures of which, in the putting down, are the
votes for his caU or his continuance. The failure to cancel any of these
subscriptions, in some cases, is set to the minister's account, — made de
tractions from his stipulated pay.
We Uke the theory, and are clear in commending it where circum
stances favor, — tlie theory of no individual property in the house of God.
All contributions to buUd it are gifts to the church for this purpose ; the
house held by the church for God and his worship; and the minister's
support provided for by the rentals of the place. This comes as near to
a free church as is feasible or desirable. It is desirable and important,
as a means of spiritual benefit from the service, that all responsible mem
bers of the body be instructed, encouraged, and expected to bear some
part, help in some form of payment the body to meet the expenses
of sustaining the worship and ordinances of God.
i It is a principle most will admit, that the primal obligation to support
the minister lies with the church he serves, in such form as they may
choose. Each church, as a general thing, held solely responsible for its
own minister. WhUe this is vaUd and true, it is also true, that the able
churches are bound to help support the weak, — the ministers of the weak
churches. Here Ues the argument and appeal for home missions.
Another point, which may not be passed in this discussion, is, the min
ister's function and responsibility in the matter of his own support. It
being a contract between him and the people, of course there is a side for
him to fulfill.
The main consideration here is, that he do his work to the extent of his
ability, — aU he has consecrated to the service of God, in promoting the
highest interests of his people. His right to a support, as a minister,
depends upon the fact that he is a minister only.

160 MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
As another item of duty resting upon him, let him keep young andfresli,
that he may do the work a long time ; keep young, by continuing to grow,
intellectually as weU as spiritually, even up to length of years. For
every man has a claim to be held as young so long as he keeps growing.
Fresh and full of fire, let him make the people forget that he is an old man,
even when he is beginning to be one. Let the people also bear with the of
fense which their minister can not wholly avoid taking on, namely, some
of the outer signs of age. There is a wrong done to some of the best and
most useful men of the pulpit, by a judgment, or demand, which cuts
short, many years, their term of service, and takes away their breath,
— men in the acme of their strength and their usefulness, but for the in
evitable signs just alluded to. Moses, at eighty, said, " I can not speak,
for I am a chUd." The people now sometimes reverse his plea against
speaking, and hurl it into the face of the veteran: you can not speak—
not fit to speak, because you are growing old. " Milk for babes," says
Paul, in substance. The people say now, Babes to dispense the milk
There is coming to be almost an insane demand for young ministers, —
nearer to boys the better. Still, there is another, and a conflicting taste
abroad, which demands that they pause a while at Jericho. For we
have come to a time when a man's hair is an essential part of him.
Another item in the minister's responsibility in his own support is,
that he be a man, and his wife a woman, of stable and frugal ideas as to
what constitutes a Uving. While they should not be subjected to five
meanly, they should be willing to Uve moderately, — in that medium
condition which, doubtless, is the most conducive to comfort, respectabil
ity, and usefulness. It is the case with some ministers, that they are not
supported because they are not supportable; good ministers, in most re
gards, only they have not the faculty to come down to a minister's stipend
of living. They are given to fancies and fashions which overleap aU the
regular estimates' of the people. It is important that the minister regu
late and adjust his expenditures to a tolerably fixed scale, in order that
the people1 may know, right along, the probable Umit of their responsi
bility in this regard.
There is still another department of the minister's function in his own
support. It is incumbent on him to educate his people to integrity and
benevolence, — make them honest and benevolent. The first done, they
will pay as they agree. The second done, they wUl agree to furnish him
a reasonable amount.
The minister, to do this part of his work thoroughly, must be on his
guard against the prevalent fallacy, that converting men — making them
Christians — of course makes them honest and benevolent. Frequent and
painful facts show that it does not of course. Christians we must believe
we have, and, notwithstanding the grace of God, not strictly, purely,
honest; certainly not free to give and do for the cause of God and the
saving of men.
Let the minister put in, clearly and specifically, truth, precept, instruc
tion, for the grace of God to vivify. And let him persist to do this, and
be stiU more faithful and specific, till the conscience is brought up to a

COMMITTEES APPOINTED. 161
point of enlightenment, and measure of fidelity, where, so far as his flock
is concerned, not only himself, but all other men, wiU be paid what is due
to them, if to pay is possible.
Doctrine, duty also, line upon line, on the other cardinal virtue, benev
olence, — the disposition to disburse freely for all good objects. To the
doctrine, the instruction, precept, which here, too, must lead, let practice
be made to follow closely and perpetuaUy. Nothing Uke giving, to make
people love giving.
There is a hurtful fallacy here to be guarded against, — that giving
depletes the resources, and so reduces the abiUty of a Christian man or
body. The minister, in a circle of small means, in a parish of Umited
strength, is Uable to reason directly wrong, namely, thus: If I am to be
supported, I must be on the watch, and use my influence to keep the
money mainly at home. He does so, and he takes the high road to starv
ation. And he deserves to.
Let him change his poUcy, and throw wide open his heart, — take into
it the whole world, and make it his glad rule to help, personally and
through his people, aU good objects, — thus lead his people, in acts of
giving, tiU they attain to a hearty love of giving; that minister's sup
port has a basis equal to the strength of two Gibraltars, — one the integ
rity of his people, the other the benevolence of the people.

George Shepard,
Charles G. Hammond,
W. A. Buckingham,
Samuel Holmes,
Douglas Putnam.

Committee.

The report was accepted and referred under the rule to the
appropriate committee.
On motion of Rev. Mr. Langworthy, of Massachusetts, for the
committee on Nominations, the following members were added
to the committee on the Declaration of Faith : —
Prof. Samuel Harris, of Bangor; Prof. Edwards A. Park, of Ando
ver; Prof. Edward A. Lawrence, of East Windsor; Prof. Noah Porter,
Jr., of New Haven; Prof. James H. Fairchild, of OberUn; Prof. Joseph
Haven, of Chicago.
The hour of 11, a. m., having arrived, prayer was offered by
Rev. Dr. Hopkins, of Massachusetts, and by Rev. Dr. Massie,
of England, and appropriate hymns were sung.
On motion of Rev. Mr. Langworthy, for the committee on
Nominations, the following committees were appointed : —
ON EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH.
Rev. Samuel W. S. Dutton, D. d., of Connecticut; Rev. Joseph P. Thomp
son, d. d., of New York; Hon. Samuel WiUiston, of Massachusetts;
11

162 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
Rev. Benjamin P. Stone, d. d., of New Hampshire ; Rev. Lucius H.
Parker, of IlUnois ; Rev. Dexter Clary, of Wisconsin ; Judge Francis
D. Parish, of Ohio ; Rev. Jesse Guernsey, of Iowa ; Rev. William
Crawford, of Colorado ; Jacob Bacon, of California ; Rev. George H.
Atkinson, of Oregon.
ON THE RELATION OF FOREIGN MISSIONS TO THE CONGREGA
TIONAL CHURCHES.
Rev. W. Ives Budington, d. D., of New York ; Rev. Zachary Eddy,
D. d., of Massachusetts ; Rev. Charles C. Parker, of Vermont ; Eev.
WiUiam Carter, of IlUnois ; Hon. Benjamin Douglas, of Connecticut,
ON THE ROLL.
Rev. Edward Beecher, D. D., of Illinois ; Dea. Elnathan F. Duren, of
Maine ; Rev. John E. Young, D. D., of New Hampshire ; Rev. Ezra H.
Byington, of Vermont ; Rev. J. W. Harding of Massachusetts ; Eev.
.William Barrows, of Massachusetts ; Rev. Robert C. Learned, of Con
necticut ; Rowland Hazard, Esq., of Rhode Island ; Rev. L. Smith
Hobart, of New York ; Rev. Edward Hawes, of Pennsylvania; Bev.
Edwin Johnson, of Maryland ; Rev. Lysander Kelsey, of Ohio ; Eev.
Adam S. Kedzie, of Michigan ; Rev. S. Hopkins Emery, of IlUnois ;
Rev. Joseph W. Healey of Wisconsin.; Rev. Julius A. Reed, of Iowa;
Rev. Richard Hall, of Minnesota ; Rev. Julian M. Sturtevant, Jr., of
Missouri ; Rev. Lewis Bodwell, of Kansas ; Rev. Reuben Gaylord, of
Nebraska ; Rev. WiUiam Crawford, of Colorado ; Rev. Kinsley Twin
ing, of CaUfornia ; Rev. John M. Holmes, of New Jersey.
MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
Rev. Ray Palmer, d. d., of New York, chairman of commit
tee, read the following : —
By the conference of committees from the principal ecclesiastical bod
ies representing the Congregational churches in the United States, which
met at New York, in the chapel1 of the Broadway Tabernacle Church,
on the seventeenth of November, 1864, the undersigned were appointed
a committee to caU the attention of the National Council to be assem
bled at Boston on the fourteenth of June, 1865, to the subject of the
education of young men for the Christian ministry, and to make such
suggestions as might faciUtate the thorough consideration and discussion
of the topic. The duty so imposed has seemed to them a difficult one.
The magnitude of the matter in itself; its relation to various questions
pertaining to the state and duty of the churches, — to the condition and
prospects of our colleges, and especially of our theological institutions, —
to the work of home evangelization and that of foreign missions, and
the new aspects under which it is just now providentiaUy presented;
render it no easy thing to exhibit it so concisely that it can be compre
hended at a single view, and yet so fully that it shall make, in its details,

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 163
anything like the desired impression. The committee, accordingly, have
not been able to make their statement so brief as they desired; but they
have not been willing, for the sake of brevity, to omit any thing that
seemed necessary to be said in order to a just view of the subject. If
they have succeeded in bringing it fairly before the Council for discus
sion, they suppose that this is all that was expected of them. They,
therefore, respectfully submit the following paper.
SECTION I.
FACTS BEARING ON THE SUBJECT OF THE EDUCATION OF YOUNG MEN FOB THE
MINISTRY.
1. From the day when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, it has
been the settled conviction of our Congregational churches, that for the
high and responsible work of the Christian teacher a thorough intellectual
discipUne and culture, a truly liberal education, is, as the rule, impera
tively demanded. No other view could be expected to prevail in churches
whose earUest pastors were many of them men of eminent learning and
wore the honors of the highest scholarship in the English universities.
To provide the means of raising up for themselves an educated ministry,
was, it is weU known, one of the first things connected with their settle
ment here on which they bestowed anxious care and thought. Our
standard of ministerial education has, therefore, always been relatively
high; for the last fifty years it has been rising steadily; and it is no
longer a question with us whether it should be carried to the highest
practicable point.
2. The number of young men in a course of preparation for the min
istry, as compared with the whole number of persons pursuing liberal
studies, has for the last twelve or fifteen years been on the whole mate
rially diminishing. The inducements offered to Christian young men to
enter into secular pursuits, the growing respectabiUty of teaching as a
profession, the increasing profitableness of literature, the attractions of
the poUtical arena, the new enterprises opened on every hand and prom
ising rapid gains, — aU the stimulants, in short, which are fitted to stir an
honorable ambition in gifted minds, have exerted an effective influence
in diverting from the sacred office those who might naturaUy have been
expected to desire to enter it. A mistaken impression has also prevailed
that the ranks of the ministry were already over-full, and by this error
many have doubtless been turned aside. The demands of the war just
closing have called great numbers of young men not only to leave their
studies, but to lay down their lives, for the sacred cause of national unity
and freedom. By these and other causes, it has come to pass that the
number of students in our colleges and seminaries, who are looking for
ward to the service of Christ in the pulpit, is painfully small, just when
the need of men in this holy work is becoming every day more urgent.
3. WhUe in general scholarship and theological training the Congrega
tional clergy, as a body, are probably unsurpassed by any equaUy nu
merous clerical body in the world, it is quite plain that they are but

164 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
partially meeting the spiritual necessities of our advancing population.
Even in New England, where our churches originaUy had the ground, '
and where it would seem that they ought to have kept pace with the
social growth, there are now great numbers who are not reached in any
effectual manner by the stated means of grace. Not only in the large
cities and manufacturing towns into which many of foreign birth have
graduaUy introduced themselves, but also in the country towns aM vil
lages, where the people are still chiefly of native Puritan descent, it is un
deniably true that a very considerable, and, it is to be feared, an increas
ing portion of the whole population are not reached by the ministry so as
tolfeel the power of the gospel of Christ. Many such are relapsing into
reUgious ignorance and spiritual death in the very sight of Christian
sanctuaries. 4. There are to be found, in New England itself, not a few towns and
villages in which Congregational churches were once planted and had
full possession of the field, but in which such churches have become
nearly or quite extinct, and the ground has been occupied by others,
sometimes by unevangeUcal churches or congregations, and sometimes
by churches whose ministry has been far inferior in educational culture
to our own. WhUe, in the largeness of our UberaUty, we have supplied
to one branch of the Presbyterian church no inconsiderable portion of
its clergy, and even a greater portion probably of its laymen; whUe we
have sent forth multitudes of Christian missionaries, and of pioneers, who,
in the newer parts of the country, have planted churches, estabUshed
coUeges, and laid the foundations of a Christian civilization, and have
given our hearty support to aU forms of Christian effort; we have yet,
with all our advantages, failed to hold and to strengthen,_ in the interest
of our Lord^ positions that once were ours. We have lost them for want
of care to sustain the weak, and of fideUty and zeal in relation to the
unimposing details of Christian duty.
5. In our statistical tables, a great number of feeble churches are
reported, which for the larger part of the time are without pastors, or
any regular supplies, and so are becoming more and more feeble. Less
than one third of our churches have pastors settled over them. Some
thing more than another third have only stated suppUes ; leaving some
thing a little less than a third of the whole with no steady supply at all.
Most of these are unable to procure any, unless it be for brief and uncer
tain periods, and often, for years together, suffer a dearth of the word
of life. They are in the sad condition of sheep without a shepherd.
6. While such a state of things exists even in New England, the case
is still worse, much worse beyond these Umits. The newer States, in
cluding the vast regions of the West, now extending to the Pacific and
opening to receive the flood-tide of population, present almost innumer- ,
able points at which churches have been planted and are yet in a feeble
state, or must be planted to struggle up from feebleness amidst the em
barrassments and hardships of a forming social condition. To these
ilUmitable fields are now added the Border and Southern States, in
f which, as the result of our great contest, society is to a great extent to

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 165
be reorganized. Over these extensive regions are to be scattered, for a
long time to come, a great number of churches which will not present
inviting parishes, nor afford a Uberal ministerial support. Yet it is of the
utmost importance to the cause of evangeUcal reUgion, and to the future
well-being of our country, that these positions should be taken and held
by faithful Christian ministers, and that the church should grow up side
by side with other institutions from the first.
7. From various parts of the foreign missionary field there are soon
to be heard the most earnest calls for efficient re-enforcements. For the
last four years no enlargement of operations has been attempted. To
avoid disastrous curtaUment, to weather the financial storm without a
wreck, has been the grand anxiety. But four years, in which little more
has been done than just to hold our ground, will render imperative a vig
orous advance so soon as circumstances wiU permit. The day is now at
hand. The missionary brethren, who have uncomplainingly borne ex
cessive burdens, and have patiently endured the troubles arising from
straitened means, must speedily see others coming to their aid. Where
the seed has been sown through tedious years, the harvest that at
last has ripened must be reaped; and at many a new post must the
banner of our Lord be planted. The educational institutions must be
manned, the work of translation and of creating Christian Uteratures
must go forward, and the presses must be kept effectively at work. For
men to go forth and enter into all these labors, in every quarter of
the world, we shall very soon hear strong appeals. They come indeed
already. Such are a few of the material facts that meet us at the threshold in
the consideration of the subject now before us.
BEARING OF THESE FACTS AS REGARDS THE MINISTRY.
It is of the utmost importance that these acknowledged facts should
be set distinctly before both ministers and churches, and should be care
fully and seriously considered. We, as a denomination, have sought to
disencumber Christianity of the machinery of a sensuous ecclesiasticism.
We have had faith in its spiritual power, and so have returned to the
simple forms and usages of the primitive church. We have beheved
that the gospel, in the naked simpUcity in which Christ and his apostles
originally proclaimed it, is the divinely appointed means for the renew
ing of individual man, and for the elevating and purifying of the social
and-religious condition of the world. We have understood that Christ
has given his foUowers solemn charge to apply it faithfully for the accom
plishment of these great ends, and that he has pledged himself, so far as
this is done, to make it effectual by his co-operative providence and
grace. In the full enjoyment, as a people, of civil and religious freedom,
we have nothing external to embarrass us in so applying it. Never, on
the face of the earth, has there been offered a fairer opportunity than
here exists for the direct and thorough preaching of the gospel to the
masses of the people, and the infusing of its peculiar influences into aU
the relations and institutions of social Ufe. It would seem, therefore,

166 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
that here there should be furnished to the whole world an instructive
and stimulating example of what a pure, free gospel, preached by a
learned and godly ministry, can do to renovate and exalt a people, and to
adorn society with the charm of general intelligence, refinement, and
virtue. If evangeUcal Christianity faU here to fulfill its mission, where
is it Ukely to succeed? What, then, is to be said in view of the facts to
which we have referred? What, in particular, are the wants, as regards
the Christian ministry, which they forcibly suggest?
SECTION H.
PRESENT WANTS AS REGARDS THE MINISTRY.
1. First of all, there is wanted for the general needs of our Congre
gational churches a ministry in the ranks of which shah be found the
broadest and most thorough scholarship, — a scholarship no where to he
surpassed. It is indeed not necessary that every individual minister shall
attain, or attempt to attain, the highest eminence of learning. But
surely it would iU become us, who, from our earUest denominational
history, have set so high a value on clerical education, and whose form
of church organization and government supposes intelligence and free
thought, to lack in our pastors and educators the best learning, the most
finished culture, which the present age in any country can produce. At
a time when the most momentous Questions in theology, in philosophy
and morals, in philology and criticism, in science and in social and civil
economy, are engaging constantly the popular as weU as the educated
mind, we must have men to fiU the more important positions in our insti
tutions and our churches, who can bring to the discussion of these ques
tions not only the highest power of thought, but the most ample wealth
of knowledge. We have such men. We have always had them. Not
only some of the ablest thinkers, but some of the most accurate philolo
gists and most comprehensive scholars, Uving, may probably be found
among our clergy. The higher periodical Uterature among us, and
other publications connected with sacred learning, the result of the
labors of such men, compare well with the best of other countries. But
it must be admitted that such men are by far too few. Many more such
are called for by the exigencies of the time. We want them to repel
the assaults, so confidently made on critical, scientific, and speculative
grounds, on the very foundations of the Christian faith. We want them
for many and rapidly multiplying positions, which none but the best
scholarship can creditably fiU. We want them at the head of aU our
collegiate and theological institutions. We want them in our pulpits,
and on our platforms, to teach pretentious error to be modest. We
want them in the newer portions of our country, where the foundations
of learning for many generations must be laid, and the forming thought
of society be shaped. We want them abroad, where translations of the
Scriptures must be made, and many difficult tasks be performed with
the nicest scholarly care. Without such men in our ministry, we can
neither maintain our ancient prestige, nor meet the necessities of the
educated and thoughtful mind with which we have to deal.

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 167
2. A much larger number of men are at the present moment wanted
in the ministry; and this want is sure to become every day more press
ing. The carefully arranged statistical tables in the " Congregational
Quarterly " for January, 1865, abundantly justify this statement. The
total of Congregational churches is there given at twenty-eight hundred
and sixty-five; the whole number of nominal ministers, at twenty-eight
hundred and sixty-two. Of these ministers, seven hundred and fifty-six
are known not to be in the pastoral work. Besides these, there are reported
one hundred and forty whose status is not ascertained. Probably the
greater part of these are not actuaUy engaged in the work of the minis
try. Adding say one hundred of these to those known not to be so
engaged, we have eight hundred and fifty-six, who really have no rela
tion whatever to the supply of the churches, to be deducted from the
total of twenty-eight hundred and sixty-three given in the tables; leav
ing but two thousand and six persons who are in the pastoral work for
the supply of the twenty-eight hundred and sjixty-five churches. If,
therefore, every minister, better or worse, who is at this time engaged in
preaching, were to-day placed over a church, there would remain eight
hundred and fifty-nine churches for whom no minister could be supplied.
The fact that many of these churches are feeble, so far from weakening
the force of this statement, only gives it greater force, by showing that
their need of pastors is most urgent. The duty of providing these eight
or nine hundred churches with pastors, and aiding them, if need be, to
sustain them, is clearly pressing now upon us. To this we must also
add, that for the exploring of the vast regions in which churches ought
to be formed at once, or must speedily be formed, and also for the vari
ous departments of the foreign missionary service, many, very many
more ministers are urgently demanded.
3. But, further, the want which is becoming every day more pressing,
extends beyond mere numbers. We want men, who, by their natural
endowments and their special training, are adapted to the work that now
is not accomplished.
We are not now called upon, it is conceived, as churches, to make any
special efforts and sacrifices to raise up pastors for the well-paying and
prosperous parishes. These wiU, of course, need a steady succession of
thoroughly educated, able, and earnest ministers. But the supply of the
pulpits of such parishes may safely be left to take care of itself. With
due care to supply the proper facilities for education, and in view of the
number of Christian young men who are coming forward, it is quite cer
tain that those positions in the ministry, which are in themselves pleas
ant and desirable, wiU be desired and sought. It may occasionally hap
pen that a particular church, though every way attractive, will have
some temporary difficulty in finding the man it wants; but this may arise
from unreasonable expectations, or from the number of candidates pro
posed, or some such incidental embarrassment. In general, however, it
may safely be calculated on, that, as regards the more eUgible plaees, the
supply wiU keep pace with the demand. In saying this, we are casting
no reproach on either the churches or the ministry. The prosperous

168 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
churches are not to be blamed for desiring the best pastors they can
obtain. Ministers, when called by the churches to responsible charges,,
where, though the labors are great, the circumstances are congenial, are
not to be blamed for undertaking those charges. The simple fact to be
noticed is, that the law which holds in all other departments of social
life is Ukely to hold here, — namely, that what is in itself worth seeking,
somebody will certainly be found to seek. It is not in this direction
that the attention and the efforts, especially the charitable efforts, of
the churches should now be turned. It is not about the men required
for these positions that there is occasion speciaUy to concern ourselves.
We are specially called on to bring forward into the ministry, as soon
as possible, from eight hundred to one thousand young ministers, who
are fitted to the particular work of raising up the feeble churches of New
England, and the new churches in other parts of our wide country, that
must be feeble for a time. It is plain, that, for this service, men of a
certain type are needed. It is not disparaging the ministry, as a class,
to say, that, on all ordinary principles of calculation, it must be expected,
that, out of a given number who enter the sacred office, there will be a
certain per cent, who can not be successful. It is so in aU other pursuits
in which men are accustomed to engage, and, without a perpetual mira
cle, it wiU always be so in this. Some will lack in part, and some almost
wholly, after aU the processes of education, the pecuUar powers and
qualities which give influence over men.
It has, probably, been one of the practical errors of the past, to im
agine that this class of ministers might meet the wants of the churches
that are suffering from chronic weakness, and of those that have been
newly planted. On the contrary, inasmuch as the work to be done for
these is pecuUarly difficult, the men to do it must be men of special force
and tact. Only men of physical energy, of gristle, nerve, and pluck,—
men whom hard work, hard fare, and hard usage of aU sorts, wiU not
kill, — can be expected to meet the exigencies of such a service. There
must be, also, an intellectual adaptation not less positive and marked.
We Uve in stirring times. AU the pulses of social life beat quick and
strong. The minds of people of remotest places are reached by aU sorts
of stimulating influences, and thought and feeUng are intensified to a
high degree. Whoever is to exert a molding influence on a people in
such a state, must be himself alive, flexible, vigorous, sympathetic, hu
man, as weU as scholarly, inteUectual, and pious. He must have quick
ness to plan, and enthusiasm to execute; must know how to find access
to the hearts even of the prejudiced and hostUe; and be sagacious in
discerning, and prompt in meeting, the exigencies that every day will
bring. It is young men, who have the capacity for all this, that are de
manded. What we here say, in regard to the kind of men demanded for
the missionary work at home, is not less true in respect to those wanted
for the missionary work abroad. They must be men whom God, by
their natural endowments, has fitted to force and grapple with the ardu
ous and peculiar difficulties which that work of necessity involves.
4. But we must go still farther. The men now wanted in the ministry

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 169
must be men who, along with force of natural character, possess also the
higher force which eminent faith and the deepest Christian earnestness
supply. With the facts of the case before us, it is plain that ministers
are demanded who will be willing to enter, and willing to stay in the most
trying and difficult fields, if so the Master in his providence directs. To
go into obscure and feeble parishes, or into destitute regions to plant
new churches, or into the isolation and trials of a home among pagans,
and to be able and willing patiently to labor there, requires a vigorous
hold on things unseen, and a deep baptism into the spirit of self-sacri
fice. To do these things men must be had to whom the pleasures of
filling a conspicuous position, of preaching to refined and appreciative
hearers, of being surrounded by agreeable society, and even of having a
comfortable support, will hardly be taken into the account in accepting
a field of labor. They must be men who, not in some highly figurative
sense, but literally, count all things but loss in comparison with the priv
ilege of imparting the knowledge of Christ to those whose need of it is
greatest ; who feel that a woe is on them if they preach not the gos
pel, and are determined to preach it, paid or unpaid, with comforts or
without comforts, and have even a holy ambition to Work in the dark
est and most cheerless places where work is to be done. Is it doubted
whether it can be the duty of Christian young men to give themselves
to the preaching of the word at such a cost? Paul and the first preach
ers of Christianity did. There have been those in all ages of the Chris
tian church who have done it. If Francis Xavier, and Ignatius Loyola,
and others Uke them in the Romish church, could rise to such a heroic
self-devotion as they exhibited, is it too much to hope, that, under the
clearer Ught and higher inspirations of spiritual Christianity, men may
be raised up to emulate, in doing the work of Christ, their zeal, their
self-denials, their patient endurance of suffering? Without such men to
meet the present and prospective need, it is clear that our own country
can not be brought fully under the power of Christ's reUgion, still less
can the world ever be won to God. It will be of little use to increase
the number of young ministers, or even to bring the most gifted and
energetic of our sons into the sacred office, if, after aU, they have not the
subhme self-devotion which wiU make them willing to go any where, and
to face any discouragements whatever for Christ's sake. Without this
in the ministry, the work that now lies undone will still Ue undone;
moral wastes will multiply; churches will become extinct; and we as a
Christian denomination shall appear to have lost the spirit of our godly
fathers, whose faith and poUty have come down to us as a goodly heritage.
Apostolic faith and zeal, and unflinching readiness to do or suffer, —
nothing short of a ministry possessing these high spiritual endowments,
wiU meet the present want.
5. We want likewise, it must be, added, men for the ministry who un
derstand and heartily approve the system of faith and the ecclesiastical
principles of the Fathers of New England. It is the just glory of our
churches that they are of aU churches the most truly catholic. This
arises from the fact, that according to the teaching of Christ and the

170 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
apostles, and in opposition to corrupt ecclesiastical traditions, we have
placed vital Christianity, the renewing and saving power of the gospel
and the cross, first and highest in our religious system, and have made
modes of worship and forms of administration subordinate to life.
While others have deemed organic unity, an outward consoUdation of
churches, a thing to be desired, our fathers saw in it, and we see in it,
only a perU to the Uberties and to the purity of the Christian brother
hood. It has appeared to us, that, of aU men on the earth, Christian
men are most Ukely to be capable of self-government; and it has seemed
that the freedom and the responsibiUties of self-government must tend
to develop individual Christian activity, and to make church membership
a real commitment of each disciple to a practical and working piety.
We can not but think that our principles, as sanctioned ahke by reason
and the Scriptures, are, for our own sakes and our children's, worth
maintaining; and also, that, faithfully maintaining them, we shall exert
a most salutary influence on the large bodies of consoUdated churches
with which we come in friendly contact, in the way of infusing into them
a more Uberal spirit than naturally belongs to their own systems, and by
in some sort constraining them to respect the rights of individual be
lievers and those of the local churches. With these views of our polity,
it appears to us a sacred trust committed to the chUdren of the Puritans
for the good of the churches of all names, not less than for their own.
The men, therefore, whom the wants of our churches, in their present
rapid multipUcation, urge us to bring into the ministry, must be men
who are the sons of the Pilgrim Fathers, not by birth or in name merely,
but as grasping the same great effective principles which made them the
successful founders and vindicators of civil and reUgious freedom, and
breathing the same spirit of devotion to the authority of the Scriptures,
to earnest and progressive reUgious thought, and to a piety of deep expe
rience. Men who do not understand and love our principles, and can
not teach our churches to understand and love them; men who have in
them no sympathy With the great ideas that cluster historicaUy about old
Plymouth Rock, — who do not see that it is very much through the force
of these ideas that there is so much of Christian UberaUty, and so much
genuine cathoUc feeUng among the evangeUcal churches of all names
throughout our country, — are not the men to do the work that presses
on our hands. The hearts of great numbers of the people, in aU parts of
the land, are open all the more to receive our scriptural theology, because
they see it allied to a church organization and government so peculiarly
in accord with the progressive and practical spirit of the time. In such
a state of things, we want ministers who have positive convictions as to
the truth and the value of our principles; ministers, in a word, who are
Congregationalists in heart, to take the oversight of our churches, and
to conserve and make yet more perfect the precious religious heritage we
have received from ancestors whose names are among the most honored
of mankind. It is such men that the churches, and particularly the new
churches, are more and more imperatively requiring.
Such seem to the committee to be the chief wants, as regards the sup-

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 171
ply of a fit ministry, which, in view of the facts referred to in the begin
ning, are forcing themselves on the attention of the churches. We are
brought, then, to the inquiry, What shall be done, to the end that these
wants may be effectually met? SECTION III.
WHAT OUGHT NOW TO BE DONE?
1. In accordance with the well-known views of the fathers of New
England, and our own convictions as to the value of thorough theological
education, our theological seminaries should, as soon as possible, be
placed in a position to offer all facilities which the highest scholarship in
this department may require.
At present, none of our theological seminaries are properly endowed.
The number of professorships is wholly inadequate to the work that
should be done ; the necessary consequence of which is, that the profes
sors are often over-worked, and, after aU, the course of study is too nar
row. The Ubraries are comparatively meager, and fall far short of
meeting the wants both of the professors and the students. The provis
ion for' the pursuit of those branches of learning, which, while not
strictly included in the study of theology, are collateral and auxiliary to
it, amounts to almost nothing. As a large part of the presidents and
professors of our colleges and seminaries at home, and of the men who
must master foreign languages and Uteratures, and be the translators and
the educators at our foreign missionary stations, must be trained in our
theological institutions, the deficiencies which exist are the more to be
regretted. It has hitherto been a necessity, that those who have wished
to pursue their studies up to the highest range of scholarship should go
to Germany, or elsewhere abroad, in order to find the requisite facilities.
To this there are very grave objections; and such a course would no
longer be needful were our own institutions sueh as they ought to be.
It is far better that those who are to be at the head of our literacy insti
tutions, who are to shape the thought, and, to a great extent, to deter
mine the spirit and character of our churches, should be educated in the
moral atmosphere of our own country, than where influences prevail
which are not in harmony with the principles and habits which we have
inherited from our noble ancestors, and which have been a chief source
of our national power and glory. We can have, we ought to have, we
must have, theological institutions unsurpassed by any in the world in
the largeness and completeness of the advantages they offer, and, at the
same time, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Pilgrims. They
must lack nothing in the way of men or endowments or books, but must
be thoroughly equipped. To this important matter, it is conceived, im
mediate attention should be given. It has, been neglected aheady quite
too long.
2. It is also greatly to be desired, it is, indeed, an imperative necessity,
that the advantages of our theological seminaries, made thus ample, 6e
placed within the reach of all suitable candidates for the Christian ministry.

172 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
It wiU avail but Uttle to urge Christian parents to consecrate their sons,
or young men of piety and talents to devote themselves to Christ's ser
vice in the ministry, if the way is not fairly open for them to get the
needed preparation. The whole subject of charitable aid, in some form,
to those preparing for the ministry, must be taken up anew in the Ught
of experience, and with due regard to the change of circumstances which
the past few years have wrought. The expenses of Uving at any of our
seminaries are at least treble what they were thirty years ago. The
trifling assistance which could at that time be rendered to deserving
young men, and which then but barely enabled them to struggle through,
is wholly insufficient now. While the standard of scholarship has mate
rially risen, and the student can Zess than ever afford to have his studies
interrupted by efforts for his own support, he is more than ever under
the necessity of interrupting them if he wiU avoid the burden of hope
less debt. Our own institutions — a strange thing to be true in view of
our past history — are more deficient in the means of rendering aid than
those of other denominations with whom we affiliate. Because of this,
a very considerable number of our young men, within the last few years,
have naturaUy been induced, by the hope of more Uberal assistance, to
turn away from the seminaries in which our own doctrines and polity
are taught; and so, educated in another atmosphere, and forming other
associations, they have many of them been lost to us. We rejoice in the
thought that they carry somewhat of the free and cathoUc spirit of New
England, and of our communion as a whole, into churches where it is
likely to be useful; but to us as a fellowship of churches, the suffering
of this process to go on is suicidal. We want our own young men. We
ought to retain them for the service of our own churches and for the man
ning of our own missions. But the only way to retain them is to enable
our own institutions to give them the help they need. In order to this,
the wealthy members of our churches must be induced to endow scholar
ships, the avails of which may be granted, by examinations held, to
good attainments and general promise; so that every young man, who is
quaUfied by his talents, diligence, and piety to enter the sacred office,
may be enabled, without the interruptions and distresses of poverty, to
pursue a thorough course of study. The same provision, or something
equivalent to this, should also be made in the coUeges, that there as well
as in the theological schools, young men of the right character may he
helped forward toward the ministry, instead of sinking under discour
agements, or turning to other courses of Ufe. An adequate number of
scholarships, supplemented by the American Education Society, and per
haps, also, by some associations for the supply of clothing, and for the
care of students who may be sick, would place our institutions in an en
tirely different position from that which they now occupy in respect to
students. They would, in this way, be able to offer their advantages
freely to aU suitable persons who might be inclined to profit by them.
Without such Uberal provision we must expect to continue to lose many
of our best young men.
3. While such provision is made for the assistance of those who wish

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 173
to prepare themselves thoroughly for the ministry, pious and promising
young men, whose circumstances absolutely forbid a full course of study,
must be brought forward by a shorter process, and must be allowed to
resort to the theological seminaries for such limited periods and such par
tial studies as may seem expedient in each case.
In past years, it has been felt that there were strong objections to the
admission of students to the privileges of the theological schools unless
they could proceed in the regular order of study to the end. It was
feared that to aUow any to enter the ministry with any thing short of the
estabUshed course of study might tend to lower the general standard of
ministerial education. But necessity is an efficient teacher. In view of
the great and urgent wants of our country, as weU as of the world, it
has become quite certain that it wiU not be possible to furnish a suffi
cient number of highly-educated ministers to supply the demand. At the
same time there are found young men of good ordinary education, good
sense, or even superior natural abiUties, who, owing to something peculiar
in their circumstances, can not go through the regular course of study,
and yet,-, with a more Umited preparation, might be exceedingly useful as
preachers of the gospel. It is beUeved that the time has now fuUy come
when such young men should be permitted to enjoy the advantages of
our theological institutions for the purpose of taking any such partial
course as the exigencies of each case may render proper, and should,
with this, be commissioned and sent forth. Men of this class, like the
first disciples that went every where preaching the word, may do excel
lent service as faithful witnesses for Christ. Leaving to their more thor
oughly educated brethren the higher offices of the Christian teacher,
they may, perhaps with some advantage from their less scholastic tastes
and modes of thinking, come into close sympathy with common people,
and testify to them the truth as it is in Jesus. If it be true, as some
have thought, that — not necessarUy it may be, but really — the high
culture of our ministers has tended to place them sometimes too far above
those whom they should reach and save, a moderate number of earnest,
judicious men, with less of the spirit of the schools, might do a
special service in the way of counteracting such a tendency, and
maintaining a vital contact, a practical community of feeling, between
the clergy as a body and those who need the gospel. Certainly they may
help to make up the deficiency in numbers ; and a warm-hearted Chris
tian preacher and pastor, though lacking the best scholarship, may be
owned of God to the saving of many souls that must otherwise have
been left to perish. With due care, there seems to be no need to fear
that the admission of some men of special adaptation to the work of
preaching Christ, with an abbreviated course of preparatory study, will
either lower the standard of general theological education, or deterio
rate the general character of the ministry. We may safely, in this case
as in others, obey the caU of the providence of God.
4. Yet further: a general and earnest effort should at once be made to
awaken in the churches a new enthusiasm for the work of the Christian
ministry.

174 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
To the accompUshment of this, the reUgious press may effectively con
tribute; but the chief reliance must be on faithful presentations of the
subject by the pastors. Many of us can well remember when, through
the burning words of Porter, Griffin, CorneUus, and others of Uke ardor,
a fire was kindled in the hearts of Christian parents and Christian young
men that glowed with a notable intensity. It led godly fathers and
mothers with prayers and tears to consecrate their children from their
birfh to Christ's service in the gospel, in the hope that he would call
them to it; and to a conscientious and careful training of them with ref
erence to the sacred office. Possibly, at that time, too Uttle discrimina
tion was used in advising young men to enter on a course of preparation
for the ministry, — an error to be carefully avoided; but this was certainly
no reason why the whole subject should have been dropped, as we fear it
has been, to a great extent at least. We must come back again — the pas
tors must carry the churches back — to the old conviction, or even a
deeper conviction, of the value of the Christian ministry, and of the
honor and blessedness of the work, in spite of aU its crosses, when un
dertaken and performed in a truly Christian spirit. Young men must
be persuaded, by cogent arguments and stirring appeals, that to be a
good minister of Jesus is to occupy a position than which there is none
more worthy to be aspired to, none higher and nobler in the world. Such
an ardor as we have seen move the young men of the country to enlist
in the loyal service for the attainment of the grandest of earthly ends
must be awakened in the minds of the sons of Christian parents; an
eagerness to enUst in the army of the Son of God, as leaders of the host
that is going forth at his command to put down the great rebellion
against his throne. Every pastor has a personal responsibUity to see
that this is done within his own particular circle. Each must become an
earnest recruiting agent, using of course all due care to enrol those only
who have the requisite gifts and capabiUties for the service. The presi
dents and professors in our coUeges have equaUy a duty to perform. It
will no longer do to leave this subject to take care of itself. The most
attractive objects of ambition, the most inviting prospects of wealth and
worldly greatness and distinction, present . themselves to our young men
on every side, and must be expected to engage them in secular pursuits,
unless they can be made to see that the claims of Christ on them are
paramount, and that his rewards surpass infinitely aU- that earth can
offer. Until the churches are thoroughly aroused to this great matter,
so that our pious young men, sharing in the common impulse, shaU be in
spired with the spirit of a truly Christian chivalry, with the healthful
enthusiasm of a loyalty to Christ that shaU make his service the best and
highest to their thought, the ranks of the ministry are not Ukely to be
filled with the choicest sons of believing parents.
5. It is not less important, Ukewise, that those whose attention is di
rected toward the ministry, should be led, from the outset, and by the
whole drift and spirit of their education, to regard it os eminently de
manding a self-devoting and world-renouncing spirit.
Where the church is organically connected with the State, and so is

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 175
directly related to poUtical and civil life, the tendency, necessarily, is, to
regard the ministry simply as a profession, — as offering agreeable em
ployment, a respectable position, opportunity for literary culture, a
comfortable Uvelihood, and, with all these, a prospect of advancement.
It is but natural, that to those who enter the ministry with such a view
of it as this, — who choose it, as others choose the profession of law or
medicine, for the sake of the worldly advantages it offers them, — it
should seem entirely proper to desire, and habitually to seek to reach,
the highest and the best positions. But it wiU be a sad day for the in
terests of pure religion in, our churches, when our young men generaUy
shaU think of the pastoral office as they think of the secular professions,
and seek, in entering it, chiefly the gratification of their own tastes,
and their own comfort and respectabiUty in life. Any approach to such
a state of things mayweU excite alarm. Christ does not call men into
the ministry, as into a mere profession, in which to make agreeable pro
vision for themselves. He calls them into it as into a high and holy ser
vice, in which, with disinterested devotion to his person, to toil, to con
tend, to suffer, if need be, for the saving of men's souls, and for the honor
of his name. To seek one's own pleasure in entering the ministry; to
indulge, when in it, an ambitious and worldly spirit, — to be dissatisfied
with the position in which Christ has placed one, because it is obscure,
or because the people are not refined, or because one's sphere seems cir
cumscribed; in short, to be intent on personal advantages, and disposed
to get away from difficulties, instead of facing them with courage, is to
mistake, sadly and totally, the nature of the work which has been given
in charge to his ministers by the ascended Lord. All this is, in general
terms, admitted.
But is there not need to make the necessity of self-sacrifice far more
prominent, when the claims of the ministry are pressed upon the young
men of our churches, than it has been hitherto? If it is for the home
missionary work and for the foreign missionary work that we are now
specially concerned to raise up ministers, care must be taken to educate
them into such views and such a spirit as will fit them for these forms
of Christian labor. From the first, our pious sons must be taught to
dismiss the romantic notion, that they may look forward to the ministry
as affording a position in which to gratify their Uterary tastes, and to
enjoy inteUigent and refined society. They must be led to regard an
entrance into the sacred office as committing them to a service, high in
deed and honorable, divinely appointed, and connected with the sublim-
est satisfactions and rewards ; but yet attended, or liable to be attended,
With privations and trials, and even with personal sufferings, analogous
to those of which the Ufe of Christ himself, and of Paul and his fellow-
apostles, were so full. To this education of pious young men to higher
and more spiritual conceptions of the work of the ministry, and to purer
and more disinterested aims, Christian parents and the Christian pulpit
must contribute. CoUege officers must make conscience of lending aU
their influence to help it on. Above all, our theological seminaries must
give a very marked prominence to spiritual culture, in its course of train-

176 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
ing, and must be pre-eminently pervaded by a warm, vitalizing and in
spiring Christian atmosphere. Even the most ample learning and the
most complete dogmatic knowledge wiU fail utterly to give us the min
istry we need,- if not steeped in devout affection, and consecrated by the
baptism, and rich indwelling, of the Holy Spirit of God. It is for the
churches to look to this, and to insist that the cultivation of a fervent per
sonal piety shall not only be distinctly recognized as a prominent part
of the work to be accompUshed in the theological seminary, but shall be
made subordinate to nothing else. We beUeve it wrong to say, as has
been sometimes said that there is less of a devotional spirit among theo
logical students than among the average of Christians elsewhere. We
think it especiaUy wrong to blame the few and overtasked professors,
whose attention must necessarily be very largely occupied with their
several departments, for not doing aU that is needed to produce, with
steadiness, an elevated tone of Christian feeUng. Particular provision
ought to be made, in every theological institution, for the spiritual
training of all connected with it; to this should be added habitual and
earnest prayer for the young men themselves, and their instructors.
Then we may expect that the end desired will be attained. So long as
but Uttle is done, or thought necessary to be done, to produce, among
those who are designing to enter the ministry, an apostolic spirit, — a
holy self-consecration like that which made Brainerd, and the great
Edwards, even, wUUng to preach the gospel to poor Indians in the wil
derness, • — so long we shall lack the men whom the present wants of the
Christian cause, and of our own denomination, urgently demand. We
can not ' reasonably expect to bring forward a ministry of eminent
spiritual earnestness, of self-sacrificing and heroic zeal and energy,
unless we seriously propose this, and adapt our methods of training to
effect it.
6. While those who look forward to the ministry are taught to do it
in a spirit of self-sacrifice, the churches must be made to feel, far more
deeply than they have generally done hitherto, the necessity of a just and
liberal support of those who are in the work.
As the subject of ministerial support is referred to another committee,
which will, doubtless, present it fully, we do not propose to speak of it
here at length. Yet, standing, as it does, in very important relations to the
difficulties connected with the work of bringing young men into the minis
try, we can not properly omit to notice it. When we insist that our young
men must be ready to do and to suffer anything for Christ, we do not mean
to imply that ministers are under a different law of self-consecration; from
that which binds the members of the churches generaUy. If it is their
duty cheerfully to meet all the trials, and even hardships, which are
necessary, it is the sacred duty of the churches to see to it that they suf
fer none that are unnecessary, — none that an honest readiness to render
unto them a due reward of their labors would prevent. It can not he
doubted, that the want of justice in the adequate support of those who
serve at Christ's altars in word and doctrine, — a want of justice often
so palpable that it is seen and known of all, — is one of the most power-

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 177
¦
ful among the causes which operate to turn the most gifted young men
from the. ministry to other pursuits. Is it strange, if a young man sees
that after having spent ten years in hard study, and expended three or
four thousand dollars for his education and the beginning of a library,
the churches will not, on the average, pay him any more salary than is
given to a respectable clerk in a mercantile estabUshment, he is not able
to see it to be his duty to consent to such injustice? Is it strange that
he concludes that he has the same liberty as other men, to employ his
talents and his acquisitions in such a way that he may reap the fruits of
his industry and toil? Say that it would be wise in him to commit him
self to Christ, and leave the matter of recompense to him; but this does
not reUeve the wrong, on the part of the churches, of wishing ministers
to serve them without reasonable compensation; and, further, when
young men are called to decide the question of their future course, they
are commonly young in Christian experience, as well as years. They
can not be expected to take such views of the subject as might be taken
by one who had attained to the highest life of Christian faith. It is clear
that the members of the churches must be wilUng to share the burdens
and self-sacrifices of the ministry, and must honestly and fairly do what
they can to diminish these, if they will have the service of the young
men whom God has endowed with the choicest gifts in the pastoral work.
They can not expect, and ought not to expect, if they are not wilUng to
do this, that the gifted sons of Christian parents wiU be eager to give
themselves to the sacred office.
7. Let us add, still further, more systematic and faithful effort should
be made to enkindle in the churches, and especially in the children of the
churches, a heartier love for the simple worship and admirable polity
from which we have derived such precious spiritual benefits.
That there has been great neglect among us in respect to transmitting
the views and spirit of the fathers to the children, there is no need, we
suppose, to prove. For the last fifty years or more, pastors and churches,
colleges and theological seminaries, appear to have bestowed very little
direct attention on the matter. No provision has been made in the theo
logical curriculum for thorough instruction as to the history, the princi
ples, and the practical advantages of our church order. While our simple
forms admit of being made — all the more from their simplicity — pleas
ing to a healthful taste, attractive to the heart, and solemnly impressive,
they have been too often made to appear barren and uninviting, by a
careless, slovenly, and perfunctory manner, in the administrations of
God's house. It has seemed to be too much forgotten, in the leading of
the praise and worship of the pubUc assembly, and in the administration
of Christian ordinances, that with these things should always be asso
ciated a sacred comeliness and grace, so that it should be felt by all, that,
as in the days of old, strength and beauty conjoined were in the sanc
tuary. The result of these things has obviously been some degree, at
least, of decay of interest in our distinguishing pecuUarities, of which
others have been, and are now, ready to take advantage; and some of
Puritan descent have been led to place themselves again under the same
12

178 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
systems of ecclesiastical authority from which it cost their Uberty-loving
ancestors long struggles, and, in many instances, sufferings unto death, to
break away.
Plainly, then, it is high time that a new interest in this subject were
awakened. Are our ecclesiastical principles, as a denomination, true,
scriptural, and of great practical importance? Were they worth con
tending for, when for them so many of our venerated forefathers wore
out their best years in filthy prisons, or went to barbarous deaths to vin
dicate them for the sake of their posterity? Then are we recreant and
degenerate, indeed, if we fail to teach them to our children from their
early years, and to hold them dear to our own hearts. WhUe writing
these pages, it has been stated to us that it has become a common prac
tice in a section of New England to send to the theological institutions
of another denomination for students to supply, during their vacations,
destitute churches. We trust there may be some mistake in this singu
lar statement; and yet such an occurrence might not seem an altogether
improbable iUustration of the indifference which has sUently stolen over
us. Surely there is need to revive the spirit of John Robinson, of Shep-
ard, Hooker, and Davenport. We must reassert their principles. They
should be inculcated at the fireside. They should be taught in the pul
pit. They should be embodied in popular tracts, and sown aU over the
land. EspeciaUy should every theological institution have a professor
ship, or at least a lectureship, which should thoroughly discuss them;
and every theological student should' be required, as one of the conditions
of Ucensure to show himself able and wilUng to defend them. When
there shaU be such a revival of the spirit, and such a return to the prin
ciples, of the men to whom, under God, we owe our best reUgious bless
ings, we may expect to have a ministry adapted to our wants as lovers
of the largest healthful reUgious freedom.
8. Finally: the committee will only suggest further, that, in view of
the existing and the prospective necessities of the churches, as regards
the ministry, it becomes an urgent duty to labor and pray more earnestly
for the conversion of young men.
" Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he wUl send forth laborers,"
said our blessed Lord. Pastors and teachers were among the gifts
which, at his ascension, he received power to bestow on men; and these,
Uke other gifts, are dispensed under the law of prayer. The hinderances
to piety in the case of young men are, at this time and in a country such
as ours, so very great, that unless direct and special effort is made for
their early conversion, and that with strength of faith and persistency
of prayer on their behalf, we can not expect to see them devoting their
Uves from the outset unto God. It is needful to call attention very fre
quently to this matter. Especially in connection with the observance of
the annual day of prayer for colleges should the whole subject of the,
early conversion of young men, in aU its interesting relations, be set
faithfully before the churches. Such a soUcitude in respect to this should
be kept alive in the hearts of all who are engaged in the instruction of
young men, as shall lead them to propose it distinctly to themselves, as

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 179
an essential part of the best education of the precious sons of the church
to win' their hearts to Christ. Every thing, in a word, that can be done,
should be done diligently and on system, to bring those especiaUy who
are pursuing courses of Uberal study under the full influence of Chris
tian truth. No college officer should feel that he is doing his whole duty
if he is not striving to accomplish this. Revivals of religion in our
churches and our colleges, so deep and powerful in their effects that far
greater numbers than have hitherto been reached may be gathered unto
God, should be desired and sought with an earnestness that will not be
denied. If the measure of God's bestowment, both in the Ught of rea
son and the Scriptures, is seen to be — according to your faith be it unto
you — there should be a new MndUng-up of holy confidence in Christ,
the Head of the church and the dispenser of all grace, — a new spirit of
intercession for the sending forth of the Holy Ghost to renew unto
repentance and Christian life the choicest of our sons, and a deeper and
more general consecration, on the part of Christian parents, of their chil
dren to the work of the gospel ministry. When fathers and mothers
plead, and the united churches plead, and a faithful ministry plead, —
when the hearts, of all Christ's servants are set on the consecration of
the brightest jewels of their households unto God, — we need not doubt
that divine power will indeed work wonders, and that the ranks of the
ministry wiU find a multitude prepared to enter them. It is not enough
that we know this and say it; in good earnest we must act as if our
inmost hearts believed it. There is no need to enlarge on this.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
The committee have thus endeavored, so far as they were able, to bring
the more important aspects of the great subject referred to them to the
notice of the Council. They have not deemed it becoming in them to
indicate the particular action to be taken by this body. They have sup
posed that this should be left to be determined by the Council itself, after
fuU discussion had. They can not doubt that it will seem to the fathers
and brethren here assembled, that such measures should be adopted by
those representing the churches here, in regard to a matter so vitally
connected with our entire reUgious system, as will secure the inauguration
of a new era in our history, and lead speedily to the attainment of the
desired practical results. The urgency of our need and of the time for
bids delay, and demands that something effectual be done. Whatever
difficulties attend the subject, it calls us to face them without flinching,
and promptly, as ministers and churches, to address ourselves to the
work which God is imposing on us. By some it has been suggested
that a plan be devised to induce each self-sustaining church to pledge
itself to secure the education of a number of young men at least equal to
the number of ministers required for its own supply; since any church
failing to do so much as this, in fact, enjoys its ministry at the expense,
in part or altogether, of other churches. Some have suggested, also, the
creation of a Bureau of Clerical Education, at the head of which should
be placed one of the wisest, ablest, and most practical men to be found

180 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
among our pastors, who should devote his best and undivided energies
to the work of stimulating, enlightening, and guiding the efforts of the
churches, and setting forward, in all practicable ways, and throughout
the whole country, the momentous work that is needful to be done. The
Society for the promotion of Collegiate Education at the West has con
tributed largely, by its wise and efficient action, to the supply of an edu
cated ministry in that vast opening region, where the present and pro
spective need is greatest. To that society, vigorously sustained, we must
look for yet greater results in the era that now opens. It may be pos
sible for the Council to give some new impulse to the action of this noble
society. The committee may, perhaps, offer a brief supplementary re
port, with special reference to this. Other methods wUl, doubtless, be
suggested by the wisdom of this body.
Let, then, the CouncU determine that the things which, it has been
seen, we are as churches called to do, shall resolutely be done. Let
them indicate the course to be pursued, and take the initiative at once.
Not. a day is to be lost. We are like men standing on the shore when
the flood-tide is sweeping in; we must move forward, or be overwhelmed.
The well-being of our churches is waiting on us. The cause of true relig
ion in our land is waiting on us. The salvation of our country, which
the blessed gospel alone can save, is waiting on us. The providence of
God itself is waiting on us. Here, for a century to come, and much
longer, it may be, must be waged, between the kingdom of Christ and
that of the prince of darkness, a mighty moral conflict which shaU be as
the great battle of Armageddon, and wiU involve results which our
thought endeavors in vain to grasp. If, in past years, our hearts have
been stirred at the consideration of the work which we saw before us
and our children, much more should we now be aroused to comprehend
the greatness, the sublimity, of the coming struggle, and to address our
selves to it with manly earnestness and in the strength of God. Let our
faith be firm, that he who hath carried us successfully through the perils,
blood, and tears of the stupendous war just dosed, — who has placed
four mUlions of freedmen within the reach of Christian influence, — who
has caused our glorious flag — more glorious now than ever — to float
peacefully over the whole land, so that every part is open to the gospel,—
wiU crown with his abundant blessing the efforts of his servants to make
Christianity here triumphant, to the exaltation and happiness of this
great people. If now we show ourselves equal to the crisis, our coun
try, powerful, regenerate, and free, shall also stand, for coming ages,
illustrious, among the nations, as the home of intelligence, vir
tue, AND RELIGION.
Rat Palmer, )
Franklin W. Fisk, >- Committee.
John P. Gulliver,)
At twelve o'clock, the reading of the above paper was sus
pended, for tlie purpose of calling the roll, which was read over
and corrected.

PAPERS REFERRED. 181
Rev. Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts, read a list of persons to offi
ciate in religious services to-morrow, in various Congregational
churches in Boston and vicinity.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Wolcott, for the Business Committee,
Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed by this Council, to
consider the subject of securing, for the permanent use of our denomina
tion, a house of worship in the City of Washington; and, if they deem it
expedient for the churches of our order to engage in such a movement,
that the sa^d committee be requested to report to this CouncU a plan for
its accomplishment
Rev. Mr. Langworthy, from the committee on Nominations,
reported the following members, as the committee on the above
subject : —
Henry C. Bowen, of New York; Dea. Charles Stoddard, of Massachu
setts; Rev. Leonard Bacon,,D. d., of Connecticut; Hon. Douglas Put
nam, of Ohio; Hon. Samuel C. Pomeroy, of Kansas.
The report was adopted.
Rev. Mr. Quint, from the Business Committee, reported the
following papers, with recommendation of reference, as fol
lows : —
Papers regarding Lincoln College, presented by Hon. Mr. Pomeroy:
to be referred to a special committee on coUegiate education, hereafter to
be appointed.
Memorial respecting civU government as an ordinance of God: to be
referred to the committee on the state of the country.
Resolution respecting the declaration of faith, and the propriety of
having a catechism: to be referred to the committee on the Declaration
of Faith.
Communication respecting temperance: to be referred to a special
committee on temperance, hereafter to be appointed.
Papers presented by Rev. Dr. Post, in regard to the church in Utah:
to be referred to the committee on EvangeUzation in the West and
South. Communication prepared by Rev. Rufus W. Clark, respecting an Ameri
can Protestant Assembly: to be referred to a special committee upon
that subject, hereafter to be appointed.
Communication from CaUfornia: to be referred to the committee on
EvangeUzation in the West and South.
The recommendations were adopted.

182 MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN.
It was also
Voted, That a special committee be appointed, who shaU consider and
report to this CouncU, what deUverance, if any, it ought to make on the
subject of temperance. CHURCH POLITY.
Rev. Mr. Langworthy, of the committee on Nominations, re
ported the name of Rev. Enoch F. Burr, of Connecticut, as an
additional member of the committee on church polity:
The report was adopted.
The convention then adjourned, under the previous order, to
meet at Charlestown, at three o'clock, p. m., in the First Congre
gational Church. AFTERNOON SESSION.
In accordance with the vote of the Council yesterday the
afternoon session was held in the First Church, Charlestown, to
comply with the recommendation of the preliminary meeting
of state committees,, that a special service of devotion be held,
" for the acknowledgment of the marvelous and merciful deal
ings of Almighty God with the nation, in connection with the
war." The chair was taken at three o'clock by Rev. Dr. Thompson,
of New York, assistant moderator, who said : —
The hour has arrived to which the CouncU adjourned to meet in this
place. In the absence of Gov. Buckingham, who has been caUed to Con
necticut, and of Col. Hammond, who is elsewhere engaged, it devolves
upon me to take the chair, though the general direction of the meeting
will be in the hands of Dr. Adams, in behalf of the committee on devo
tional exercises. The Council will remember that we are now con
vened under a special order for "A service of devotion for the ac
knowledgment of the marvelous and merciful deaUngs of Almighty
God with the nation, in connection with the war, and for supplicating a
gracious dispensation of the Spirit of God upon the land, that our
restored national unity may be consecrated in righteousness, and in the
peace and joy of the Holy Ghost." Let us hear, then, the word of the
Lord, as it is written in the 105th Psalm.
The 20th Psalm was also -read, and a portion of the 12th
chapter of Revelation.

MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN. 188
The 1115th hymn was then sung, commencing, —
" Oh, God, beneath thy guiding hand,
Our exiled fathers crossed the sea,
And when they trod the wintry strand,
With prayer and psalm they worshiped thee."
Rev. Dr^ Adams, of Maine. As Dr. Thompson has remarked that,
after the introductory exercises, the general direction of the meeting
wiU be left with myself, acting in behalf of the committee on devo
tional exercises, I wUl now fulfill my vocation, and. give this direction to
the meeting: it is left to itself. No provision, so far as I know, has been
made for particular persons to speak. It is, as I understand it, a meeting
for the free and spontaneous utterance of exultation one to another, and
of desire in prayer to God; and the hope is, that the short time that we
may spend together wiU be occupied, in very small portions, by a great
number of individuals. Will Dr. Edward Beecher lead in prayer ?
Rev. Dr. Beecher, of IlUnois. I wish to say one word before we
unite in prayer. It is desirable that our devotions be not formal, but
that they may be the simple expressions of the feelings of the heart. I
presume there is no brother here who can not,'in going back through the
war, recall meetings in which, with his Congregational brethren, the bur
den of the nation was upon his soul. I recollect a meeting in Burling
ton, when the General Association of Iowa had appointed an hour for
prayer. I was struck with the deep current of feeling there. It was
like that expression which you will find in Romans, — " We know not
what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh inter
cession for us with groanings which can not be uttered." Our armies
were then around Yicksburg, and soldiers from all the churches scattered
around through that whole country were at that time engaged in deadly
conflict, and we knew not what we should hear next. Who can tell what
a depth of feeUng there was then? — what a movement of the Holy Ghost?
Now, brethren, who of us is there who can go back during the time
of the war and not remember some such scenes? Remember what bur
dens the providence of God laid upon us ; remember with what intense
anxiety we looked into the future, and remember what tides of emotion
flowed through our souls; take your stand-point there, and think how
we felt, how we prayed, how we wrestled, how we desired, how we
longed, and with that state of feeling compare what we are now and
where we arel Oh, what expressions of gratitude there ought to be!
How our hearts should overflow! There is no language that can ex
press what God hath done for us. So high, so deep, so long, so broad, so
great are his mercies, that words can not utter them.
Take one other instance: our feeUngs at the time of the election.
When, all over this land, we felt that it was possible the control of the
interests of this nation might pass into the hands of such men as made
the Chicago platform, that such a man as Yallandigham might be ap
pointed minister of war, — then the voice of prayer went up from the
church of God; and I beUeve that that election was as much controlled

184 MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN.
by prayer as any revival of reUgion ever was, — that there was as mani
fest an outpouring of the Spirit of God upon this nation. Let us go
back and think with what deep emotions the triumph which we then
achieved, in the providence of God, was received. How it filled our
thoughts! We have become somewhat used to these things; but let us
refresh the recollection in our minds, and wake up our souls to utterance,
that the voice of prayer and praise and thanksgiving may go up to God
as the real expression of the Congregational body. And, without in
tending to flatter, but simply intending to -speak the truth, those who
have Uved in the Mississippi valley know, that with regard to this great
movement of loyalty, that with regard to the great principles that have
been brought up and impressed upon the government, the voice of our
associations and the voice of our churches have always been in advance;
that they have held up that principle, which has been carried out; and
we ought to thank God that there is a record in regard to the position
of our churches on these great questions, as they have come up; which we
are not ashamed to read to-day. . And let us thank God that the spirit
of his Christ has been upon us, to enable -us, in this hour, to be faithful
to our God and to our country. Let us pray.
At the conclusion of the prayer, Rev. Dr. Todd, of Massachu
setts, addressed the assembly. He said : —
I have a claim to a moment of the time of my brethren, which per
haps no other brother here has. When I came in at the door this
afternoon, I found myself coming nearer and nearer the pulpit; and
when I say that, in my boyhood, if I ever knew any thing about the
religion of Christ and the mercy of the Redeemer, I learned it here; that
on this spot I consecrated myself pubUcly, by uniting with this ancient
church, and on this spot devoted myself to the work of the ministry, if
the Master would accept me, you wiU understand why I did so. My
memory goes back to the time when Jeremiah Evarts walked these aisles
as one of the deacons of this church, and to the time when, later, Prof.
Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, and his family were baptized. I re
call the image of old Dea. Miller, whom President Monroe, when he came
on to visit us, took with him as a guide, to tell him all about the battle ; and
in the course of his investigations, he said, " What about that, Mr. Mil
ler? " — " What about that? " — and " What about this? " " Well," said
the deacon, " Mr. President, I feel a little ashamed, that I can not tell
you more, but the fact is, I was very busy on the day of Bunker Hill."
[Laughter.] We have been so busy that we have hardly kept sight of
the influences that have gone forth from this spot, this old mother of us
all. Just before this church was organized, just before our fathers came
here, there was a colony planted on the James River, and another col
ony here on the banks of the Charles River, that we have just crossed, —
the principles of the two colonies differing entirely. The one sought to
make the gospel free to all, — to build upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone,-- to make

MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN. 185
labor honorable to every man, and to establish the principle, that if any
man would not work, neither should he eat. The other colony was
planted on the principle, that -if any man would eat, another should work
for him and earn his bread. The principles of these two colonies have
been in conflict from that day to this. They have struggled whenever
and wherever they have met, and the result has been, as you know, dear
brethren, that there was no end to the conflict, until at last we met upon
the battle-field. The sons of New England here and throughout all the
West accepted the issue, and we are met together this afternoon to con
gratulate ourselves and to thank God that the principles of the Charles
River colony, the principles of the Puritan fathers, the principles of this
ancient church, have prevaUed, and the land is free — is puritanized, or
wiU be puritanized, from one end to the other. ,
; Our errand here is to meet before God; and no more suitable place
could be selected than this sanctuary, where there has been much prayer
offered, — from whence many noble saints have gone, whose influence, I
hope and beUeve, has but just begun. Here, feeling that we can almost
feel the warm breath of our fathers, — we meet to rejoice, to thank God,
to take courage, and to go forth, dear brethren, feeling that we and our
churches and our church poUty and our nation now are joined to the
plans of the great Redeemer; and wherever his chariot- wheels shall go,
we shaU be near them.
Rev. James B. Miles, pastor of the church, was then intro
duced. He said : —
Mr. Moderator, and Fathers and Brethren of this Congregational
Council: — The committee of arrangements thought it fitting that the
pastor of this church should say a word of welcome to the fathers and
brothers who come up to this ancient shrine of liberty and of religion
this afternoon. I might well shrink from the thought of occupying a
single moment of the exceedingly precious time of this Congregational
Council; but, fathers and brethren, if you will allow me a few moments
at this time, you may feel assured that I shall not again, during- the ses
sion of the Council, trespass upon your patience, unless I shall discover
that you are in danger of departing from the soundness of the faith and
from the order of the fathers. If, at any moment, I shall discover that,
I shall feel bound, as one in the regular apostoUc succession, to rise, and
protest against any defection from the "faith once deUvered to the saints,"
or any departure from the order of the primitive churches of New Eng
land. I am oppressed with a sense of the inadequacy of any words that I can
command, upon the impulse of the moment, to express the deUght of
these Christian men and women, the members of this old church in
Charlestown, on welcoming you to our church edifice this afternoon.
In the name of all these devoted men and women, I welcome you to this
hallowed spot at this hour. Yea, in the name of all the churches in the

186 MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN.
immediate neighborhood of this city of Charlestown, who have honcred
me by sending me as their delegate to this Council, I welcome yon1 to
Harvard Hill, this afternoon. Yea, in the name of the sons, of Bunker
Hill, without distinction of sect, who are here, crowding these gaUeries
and the side-slips of the church, I welcome you to this renowned historic
city. For, fathers and brethren, these Christian men and women, these
sons of Bunker Hill, have already, over in the city of Boston, felt the
spell of your fervid eloquence; they have heard the expressions of your
devoted love of country; and they have heard those eloquent, those
warm words of salutation, and those expressions of love for Amer
ica, that have fallen from the lips of our distinguished and reverend
brethren who have come to us from the good old mother-country, from
England, from France, and from Canada, — and they welcome you all,
with hearts full of gladness and joy, to Bunker HU1 this afternoon.
Would that it were in my power, Mr. Moderator, to reciprocate, ade
quately, these expressions of feUowship and love. Standing on this hal
lowed spot, — the most sacred spot, I beUeve, on this continent, — I desire
to take you by the hand, and to extend, through you, to the members of
this Council, to these brethren from the regions beyond the Hudson
River, who have come to us from the great West, — to these brethren
from Tennessee, and from Maryland, and from Delaware, and from the
Pacific Coast, — to these fathers and brethren who have come to us from
the mother-country, from France, and from Canada, — to all the brethren
who are in this Council, I wish, through you, sir, to extend this right
hand of Christian feUowship, and to welcome you aU, and aU the churches
you represent, to this old home' of Puritanism, of Congregationalism, and
of Republicanism. [Loud applause.]
America's great statesman and orator, when standing on Plymouth
Rock, said, "The genius of the place awes and inspires us;" and we,
brethren, may feel that the genius of this place awes and inspires us.
Reminiscences, I must not speak of. They crowd into my mind, and I
should occupy all the time appropriated to this meeting, were I to enter
upon them. Suffice it to say, that, two hundred and thirty-five years
ago, that noble and sainted man, John Winthrop, — a nobler Christian,
I beUeve, has rarely Uved than he, — and his companions, immediately
after landing, bowed, in worship and reverence, before Almighty God,
under the spreading branches of an oak-tree that stood upon this hill;
and ever since that houf , with the exception of about three years, when
the town was burned, at the time of the attack upon it by the British, the
worship of Almighty God has been continued on this spot, without inter
ruption, and Christian men and women have come up hither to pay their
vows to the Most High. Christ and Him crucified have been preached
here. And let me say to you, who love our Congregational poUty, that
you see, I believe, in the perpetuity of this church down to the present
time, through all the mutations of states and empires, an illustration of
the nobility, of the sublimity, of our simple Congregational church pol
ity. Upon this spot a pure, Christian republic has been maintained,
from that hour down to the present; and though convulsions have shaken

MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN. 187
the nation, though the house of worship in which the Christians met was
burned, yet the bush was not consumed. The members of the church
were obUged to disperse, but the church Uved, and when it was safe to
return to their desolate homes, they came back to this hiU, and here, in
a rude block-house, erected by the enemy, they celebrated the dying love
of their Lord Jesus Christ. Down to the present hour, without any other
interruption, the worship of God has been maintained here. The faith
fulness of Almighty God, — this church is a monument of that; the nobil
ity, the sublimity of simple republican Congregational church govern
ment, — this church bears eloquent testimony to that.
Now, beloved fathers and brethren, we have come together on this
spot, to-day, — on this proud, high day for the sons of Bunker Hill; for
this is our patriotic and reUgious anniversary. You see the stars and
stripes floating from these flag-staffs, — you hear the strains 6*f martial
music; it is a proud, high day for the sons of Bunker Hill; and we wel
come you with joy on this day, praising and blessing Almighty God,
that that independence which, ninety years ago, was practically achieved
by the battle on the eminence yonder, has been maintained, that those
precious rights and privileges and institutions have been rescued and pre
served, and we come together with joy, that we may praise Almighty
God, who has wrought this great deliverance for us.
My friends, after a few moments, you wiU be invited, by the president
of the Bunker HU1 Monument Association, to look upon that shaft, which
uplifts its form in majesty on yonder eminence; and I beseech you, as
you look upon its uninscribed surface, to look intently, and see if you
can not read ,an inscription there. You may not discover any at first;
but we, who Uve beneath its shadow, and daily look upon it, in its maj
esty, and in its simple, plain beauty and grandeur, read many inscrip
tions there; we have read many during the past eventful four years.
Sometimes, when have come to us the sad tidings that our sons and broth
ers have been slain by hundreds upon the battle-field, and the hearts
of mothers, fathers, and brothers, have sunk within them, — then, through
our tears, we have looked at that plain, but noble, shaft, and while we
have read lamentation and weeping and mourning inscribed there, yet,
on looking a Uttle longer, there have come out, clear and legible, the in
spiring words, " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and insepara
ble! " [Applause.] When the hearts of strong men failed, when rebels
were'insolent and boastful, when our noble heroes were driven back upon
the battle-field, and people all about were saying, " It may be, that our
government must fall," we have looked at that noble shaft, to see if it
trembled or tottered, — but firm and immovable has it stood, and its
language has been, " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and in
separable!" And when the saddest of all tidings came to us over the
Wires, "Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, has been assas
sinated," and this whole community was crushed down, as if by a blow
of the Almighty, we looked through our fast-streaming tears, and we
saw the same inscription. Though the shaft seemed to be clad in deep
est mourning, we could yet distinctly read, " Liberty and Union, now

188 MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN.
and forever, one and inseparable! " And to-day, as the bright and glo
rious morning of peace dawns, — as our heroes, the sons of Bunker HiU,
who have fought shoulder to shoulder with the noble and brave heroes
of New England, of the West, and of all the loyal States, are returning
to their homes, and we are wreathing their brows with chaplets of un
dying honor, — to-day, I say, as you go up on that eminence, and look
upon that shaft, methinks you will see this inscription, having taken upon
itself new luster and beauty, and shining with dazzling glory, — "Lib
erty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"
[Loud applause.]
We are glad to welcome the representatives of old Mother England-
good Mother England. With aU her faults, we love her stUl; and we
feel that they need not have any unpleasant feelings to-day, as they stand
upon that spot. It is true, that, ninety years ago, Old England and
Young America met in dire and deadly conflict there; but it was only
a misunderstanding between mother and daughter. Mother loved daugh
ter too weU, and was not wiUing that daughter should depart from her
care and watchfulness, and daughter felt that she had reached the pe
riod of womanhood, and could be her own mistress. So there was a
misunderstanding, — a falUng-out, — and daughter prevaUed. We will
not be particular to say we won a great victory there, for the champions
of the mother-country say it was a defeat for us. We admit, it was a
defeat for us; but we add, with a great deal of confidence and gratifica
tion, that it was one of those defeats which is better than a victory; and
the immortal Daniel Webster, who stands, in enduring bronze, in front
of our State Capitol at this hour, said, "All that is noble and valuable
in the independence of America was bound up in that battle of Bun
ker Hill. When the sun of that day went down, the independence of
America was decided." It was a decisive battle; but we welcome the
representatives of old Mother England to-day. We welcome the repre--
sentatives of France. France! — we speak her name with joy, as we
think of Bunker Hill; for the illustrious and immortal Gen. Lafayette,in
1825, on stepping upon that spot, said, " I feel a profound reverence, as I
tread upon this hallowed ground." We owe a debt-of gratitude to Gen.
Lafayette. We feel kindly toward France; we welcome her messengers
and representatives to Bunker HiU. We welcome all to Bunker Hill,—
to its noble associations.
But, dear brethren and fathers, I must not protract these remarks. 1
WiU simply say, that, as I look over this congregation, and the thought
occurs to me of what is represented here, — three thousand churches on
this continent, and as many more in other countries, — a vision of glory
comes before my mind. You know, that some of the ablest astronomers
feel and beUeve that there is one central body or point in the system of
the universe, and that all the fixed stars, and the milky way, even, re
volve round that one central point, receive their law from it, and are
controlled by it. I say, it is a grand and surpassingly sublime concep
tion, giving 'us noble ideas of God, who, in wisdom, has made this uni
verse. But, as I look over this assembly, and remember of what it is

MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN. 189
composed, a sublimer vision is before my mind, — a more transcendent
and surpassingly noble conception; and that is, of individual Christian
churches, of the same faith and order as this, — "one faith, one Lord,
one baptism," — scattered over our land, and, in the progress of pure
Christianity and of republican principles, destined to prevail through the
length and breadth of the land, — all over the South, as well as New
England and the West; and when I think that, in the progress of the
simple faith of the New Testament, these churches are to be established,
not only on this great continent, but all over the world, and look upon
them as independent bodies, they seem to me to be revolving about one
central point, — one central sun, — and that is, the Sun of Righteous
ness,— the Lord Jesus Christ. No sovereignty but the sovereignty of
Jesus. That central point is not Pope Pius the Ninth, nor any pope, but
the Lord Jesus. AU stand upon the same level. " One is your Master,
even Christ, and all ye are brethren." And my prayer is, that "the
baptism of the Holy Ghost, sent down from heaven," may come down
upon us; that Jesus may come down into our hearts; that we may go
from this place with a new baptism, ready to labor, to spend and be
spent for Jesus; so that the day may speedily come, when there shall
be neither Englishman nor American, neither Frenchman nor Canadian,
neither Northern man nor Southern man, neither bond nor free, but
Christ shaU be all in all. May God hasten that great and glorious con
summation, and honor us as the instruments of its accomplishment, and
praise shall be to His name for ever I
The 1038th hymn (Sabbath Hymn Book) was then sung,
commencing : — " Oh, where are Idngs and empires now,
Of old that went and came 1
But Lord, thy church is praying yet,
A thousand years the same."
Rev. Dr. Adams, of Maine. I was reminded by the first verse of the
hymn, as well as by the remarks of Dr. Todd, of some reminiscences
connected with this church. Dr. Todd's claim to prominence here is
greater than mine in one particular, for he says he was born again on
this spot. Mine is greater than his in another, for I was here before his
time. Nearly fifty years ago, I sat in this house with my venerable
father and mother, who are long since dead ; my father's brothers, prom
inent men in this congregation, also long since dead; Jeremiah Evarts,
before he was deacon; Dea. Miller and Dea. Frothingham, then old men.
The Sabbath school connected with this church was established mainly by
the concurrent efforts of Jeremiah Evarts and my own father. We have
these personal reminiscences, which it is almost impertinent to mention,
and yet they mingle in weU perhaps with those higher considerations to
which reference has been made.
Rev. Milton Badger, d. d., of New York, then led in prayer.

190 MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN.
The Moderator. Although in strictness, the hour assigned for this
service has expired, yet, if some brother from the East or the West will
speak in brief, earnest words, or will offer up brief, earnest prayer, Iam
sure that another half hour can be spent with pleasure and profit. Yon
have the largest liberty of a Congregational prayer-meeting.
Rev. Dr. Budington, of New York. I can not claim the right to,
speak here, as my friend and brother Dr. Todd does, for I am younger
than he is, and have no right to claim the attention of this honored body;
and yet, as the tone of remark hitherto has been in the way of reminis
cence, perhaps I shall be pardoned for expressing the feeling that per
vades my soul at this moment. I think there is no spot on this continent,
all things considered, where a Congregational Christian should be more
deeply impressed than on this. Next to Plymouth Rock in political
significance, this is most important; and it seems to me, that standing
where we do to-day, between the heroic past and that future for the
contemplation of which and for the preparation for which we are assem
bled in CouncU, it is a solemn moment. It is now ninety years since the
flames of war and devastation swept over this devoted place, and the
steeple of this church fell foremost among the dwellings over which it
had been guardian and sentinel; emblem of the fact that it was the
Christianity of New England that met the foe at the outset, and emblem
of the fact that I believe will characterize the history of this country to
the last, that with the church of God wiU stand, and with the church of
God wiU fall, this republic. [A voice — "It wiU never fall!"] Never!
Half of the repubUc has fallen, because the church first apostatized and
fell with it. We must remember to-day, that half of this country would
never have presented at this hour a spectacle for men and for angels such
as was never given to them before since Adam stood in Paradise, but for
the fact that our brethren in the faith, ministers who officiated at the
altars of God, forsook the truth of the gospel, trampled upon the rights
of humanity, and when the hearts of their fellow-citizens were rightfully
shrinking back from the impending conflict, goaded them forward, and
madly plunged them into the abyss of ruin. [Cries of " Shame!
Shame! "] Near my residence in Brooklyn, the other day, one of the
truth-speaking ministers from Tennessee rose up in the General Assem
bly and said that, in the view of every loyal Christian man in East
Tennessee, every minister of the gospel there came before them with the
blood of at least twelve of their martyred sons staining their hands; and,
said he, " It is the unanimous declaration of all our people, never, never,
never will we listen to the word of God from then Ups again; never
shajl our children look up to them as shepherds of the flock." [Loud
applause.] Well, I recur to the remark that I made: Brethren, it depends upon
us, it depends upon the Spirit of God in our hearts, it depends upon our
fellow-Christians and the Spirit of God in their hearts, what the church
in this country is to be, and I am thankful to stand here, as I never ex
pected to stand, on the spot of my youthful ordination. Here, five and
twenty years ago, last April, I received the charge of this people, and

MEETING at charlestown. 191
for fifteen of those years I ministered to them in the name of God.
Here I took up the blessed, the holy sacramental furniture from this table,
— furniture which was borne aloft in the hands of that man of God
whose name has been mentioned through the fire and the storm of bul
lets in this town, and then brought back again with the return of peace,
— bearing, upon the solid silver, names that are memorable alike in our
church and in our state, — names that take us back to the days of Win-
throp, — names that are baptized with the blood and tears that made
us a nation. I am glad to stand here with you, my brethren, for it
seems to me that, standing on this soil, we imbibe something of that
spirit which I beUeve in God is the only spirit which is to make us
faithful and successful ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ. This hill is
consecrated to the memory of suffering. When our fathers came here
they were called upon to suffer in as large proportion as fell upon
their sons on Bunker Hill, or the more fatal fields of the South and the
South-west. They died in laying the foundations of this church and
this State, and we are assembled to-day over their forgotten graves.
John Harvard, who gave- his name to yonder University, was buried
here, and when that storm swept over the town, it buried his humble
memorial so that " no man knoweth unto this day his place of sepul
ture." This town was buried in the terrible struggle that gave birth to
the nation, and between 1861 and 1865, the sons of this town have been
just as prominent in the war of redemption, as it may well be caUed, as
their fathers were in that war of revolution — the war of our birth-pangs.
My dear friends, we are standing midway between the heroic past and
the grand future, -<- a solemn tie of connection between our dead Puritan
fathers and the mighty hosts of God who, in their intelligent and hearty
reception of those Puritan principles, are to spread them to the Pacific
shores, and down through all the ages of time to come ; and I believe
that the influences of this day are to tell largely upon the faithfulness
With which that work is accompUshed.
President Andrews, of Ohio. As you have invited speakers from
the West, sir, allow me to say, that as I heard this morning the firing of
guns and crackers, and the ringing of bells, I asked my host the mean
ing of it, and he said, " It is the 17th of June; " and in my simplicity, I
said, " What is the 17th of June? " [Laughter.] He told me it was an
'anniversary. " Then," said I, " It is like the 7th of April." On the 7th
of April, 1788, there landed upon the banks of the Muskingum, a colony
formed in Massachusetts, and headed by an old General of the Revolu
tion, composed of revolutionary officers who had lost their property in the
war, and who went to the West to build themselves new homes. It has
been my lot to labor for twenty-five years in that Plymouth of the West,
where the first landing was made, and my home is the old capital of the
North-west Territory, where the first Governor had his residence,
where the first courts were held, and where the first laws were enacted;
and this 17th of June is like the 7th of April, for we celebrate that day.
It gives me great pleasure to come back to New England, to meet
these brethren, and to feel that it has been my lot, for a quarter of a cen-

192 MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN.
tury, to endeavor to establish, and to carry out the principles of New
England, in a literary institution which lies nearer the equator than any
other founded after the New England model ; and I rejoice to know that
the same principles, which those brethren carried from this place, are
there yet; that the descendants of those old sires are there yet; that
there was established the first Congregational church in the West, and
that we worship in an edifice that was built at the very beginning of .
the century. It is pleasant for me to reciprocate these words of kind
feeling, and I beUeve that, as the result of this National CouncU, those
of us who have come up from the West and from the South-west,—
who have been laboring to establish these principles which you love,
and this polity which you revere, — will go back, to labor more zeal
ously, more faithfully, feeling better assured, I may say, of the com
mendation, of the encouragement, of the heartfelt love of our brethren
of New England, than we have sometimes felt.
My brethren, I can not forget that, thirty years ago, in Massachusetts,
in the same class-room with me, in one of your colleges, there sat two
men, who have made themselves men of mark. One of them preached
that memorable sermon at New Orleans, on Thanksgiving Day, in 1860,
in which he made the declaration, that the mission of the South was, to
conserve and extend slavery; and the other has been, for two years, in
Toronto, and the evidence brought out on the assassination trial brings
in his name in connection with that detestable scheme to introduce the
yellow fever into the United States. These men, I am thankful to he
able to say, were not members of our communion. Perhaps they might
have been, and perhaps they might have done as they* have done if they
had been; but, I thank God, they were not.
Rev. Mr. Gaylord, of Nebraska. As the West has been invited to take
part in these services, as well as the East, I desire to say a few words.
I will take but a moment or two simply to say to you, brethren and
friends, thatT come from about the center of the United States, — from
the banks of one of those great rivers that reach from north to south,
across the entire country; and I rejoice to say to you, that the same
principles which were planted here in the early history of our country,
are being transplanted, not only across the " Father of Waters," but also
across the " Big Muddy," — for that is the familiar name by which the
Missouri River is known among us. As we stand upon the banks of
that river, there are some suggestive thoughts that rush upon our minds.
As we look down to the landing, and see, as we did last year, the men
of Wisconsin and Minnesota, from Lacrosse, all the way down to St.
Louis, and then up the Missouri River, a distance of twenty-six hundred
miles, to Fort Benton, at the head of navigation, on their way to the
Rocky Mountains, we have some little conception of the vastness of our
great western country. And then, as we look off toward the setting sun,
away up that valley of which you have so often heard, coming down, as
it does, for a distance of more than six hundred miles, in an almost east
erly direction, from the Rocky Mountains, — a valley which is the great
thoroughfare of travel and of commerce across the continent, and up

MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN. 193
which the iron horse is already preparing to go forth, bearing the civil
ization and the population of this part of the continent across the Rocky
Mountains to the Pacific States, — I say, when we look out upon those
vast stretches, they open up before the mind the greatness of the work
which devolves upon the church, demanding her energies and her activ
ity in this day of miracles and of wonders ; and we feel that there is laid
to the hands of the American church a work such as no people and no
nation has ever before been invited to perform. But I will not dweU
upon this.
The Moderator. It has been thought necessary to draw this meet
ing to a conclusion now, by singing the 1111th hymn.
This familiar hymn, " God bless our native land," &c, was
then sung, after which prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. Bacon.
Rev. Mr. Miles then said : —
You wiU remember that a certain high functionary in what was called
the " Southern Confederacy," once promised, with a great deal of assur
ance, that he would call the roU of his slaves in the shadow of Bunker
Hill. I have the pleasure of introducing to you, Hon. Geo. Washing
ton Warren, President of the Bunker HU1 Monument Association,
who wiU conduct you to that spot.
Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts. Mr. Toombs is not there, — is he?
Mr. Miles. I wiU say, that the president of the association and my
self reside near that locality, and we are not aware that that promise
has been fulfilled. We presume that it has not; and such are the cir
cumstances of the country to-day, that we have good reason to beUeve it
never wiU be fulfilled. Men very often promise what they do not per
form. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. I trust we shall not adjourn here, but
proceed from this place to Bunker HU1, and make our adjournment there.
Rev. Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts. With the doxology.
Hon. G. W. Warren then addressed the Council, as fol
lows : —
Mr. Moderator and Gentlemen of the Congregational Council: — I am
happy to do my humble part in welcoming so honored a body to these
interesting scenes. You are here assembled, as you have been told, in
the house of worship of the first church of Massachusetts Bay, — here,
where Winthrop and his associates first gathered their flock together,
and from whence they afterward went to constitute the first church of
Boston. From this place, too, and about forty years thereafter, was
formed the Old South Church, in Boston, in whose temple your conven
tion was organized. Here was the scene of trial, where sickness and
suffering, for many a long and dreary day, thinned the number of those
¦devoted pUgrims who first landed and formed a settlement upon the
13

194 MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN.
banks of the Charles. This hill, and the fields below, were strewed
with the graves of our forefathers. They brought here the two grand
principles which have molded us into a great and flourishing country:
the principle of the separation of Church and State, and the principle of
Congregationalism, — of the independence of each individual church
and society. These were the principles which they maintained and
these principles were the foundation of our repubUc. "Hic, hic, cm- -
alula gentis." [Applause.] You do well to go from here in a body,
without adjournment, to that other mount of sacrifice, which, no less
than this hill, and in the same spirit of devotion, has made Charles
town immortal. There you wiU behold the monument erected by the
children of those men of the Revolution who staked their Uves and their
honor for the doctrines of the Declaration of American Independence,
which that battle ushered in. You will see, sir, in that monument, not
an Egyptian obeUsk, — not a monoUth, hewn out of the soUd rock, by
the labor of an oppressed people; but you wiU observe many massive
stones, welded together into one graceful shaft, reminding you of the
"E Pluribus Unum," and of that conglomerated body which we love to
call the people of the United States of America. [Loud applause.]
That monument was erected by the voluntary efforts and subscriptions
of the people from every part of the United States. Every one of those
here present has an interest in it; and I am glad that the East and the
West are come together to-day, to join in heartfelt and devout recogni
tion of the services rendered by our fathers on that spot, and also of the
heroic services rendered by our sons in defence of the principles there
first maintained. [Applause.] I trust you wUl not complain of the
heat of this day in that visit. It was, sir, about this hour, and, as history
informs us, on the hottest day of the season, that the Battle of Bunker
Hill was fought. And, more than all, it was on Saturday, — this very
day of the week, — and ninety years ago to-day, that that memorable
action took place. [Applause.] It will give me great pleasure to con
duct you to Bunker Hill, from the top of which you wUl observe a beau
tiful panorama, exhibiting the growing prosperity of the metropoUs and
its environs, and many of our national flags waving in the skies, on this
day of triumph, vying with the many spires built by a church-going
people, in grateful recognition of their dependence upon Heaven for its
continued blessing upon our common country.
Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York. In the name of the Council, I
cordially accept this courteous invitation, and thank you, sir, for the
privilege of enjoying such heroic and memorable associations. Indeed,
it is a special felicity that this service, which was contemplated six
months ago, in our preUminary conference, " in special acknowledgment
of the marvelous and merciful dealings of Almighty God with us as a
nation, in connection with the war," should have brought us to-day into
harmony- with your commemorative anniversary, on this historic ground.
We are thus carried back through all the period of the ninety years since
that 17th of June when our national independence was virtually pro
claimed upon this hill. Indeed, sir, in these past four years, we have'

MEETING AT CHARLESTOWN. 195
been Uving through all those ninety years, and not only so, — there have
been moments in which we have seemed to live through all the cen
turies that are gone, — to live over again in our own experience all that
was great and heroic and memorable in the past, — and to see all that
was grand and merciful in the. illustrative providence of God repeated
before our eyes. But especiaUy have we felt ourselves Unked with the
heroic men who here fought and died for Uberty. We have felt their
blood tingling through our veins and kindling our hearts in this new
conflict for the life of the nation and for the rights of man. We will go
with you gladly, sir. We, who are the sons of Bunker Hill, the rep
resentatives of the principles of the original founders of Charlestown,
the representatives of the principles of the heroic defenders of indepen
dence and nationality here, coming up from all this broad land, — we will
go with you gladly to visit that spot where they made the flrst stand for
that independence which God has honored and maintained, not only
against foreign foes, but against the severer trial of internal rebellion.
And as we go, there wUl go with us another and a mightier host,- — that
invisible host of their foUowers, who, Uke them, not counting their own
Uves dear unto themselves, were willing to give up aU for the life of the
nation, that God has given us again through them. We go with that
invisible host to gather around that sUent finger-post of the heroic past,
which ever points upward to the God of our fathers, — the God of their
children and their children's chUdren, from generation to generation.
[Applause.] The Council then formed in procession, and, escorted by the
President of the Monument Association, marched to Bunker
Hill, where Mr. Warren gave an interesting account of the
events of the ever-memorable 17th of June, 1775, and pointed
out the various localities to which special interest is attached
from their connection with the great battle of that day. At
the close of this explanation, the moderator said : —
Brethren of the Council, — We are honored with an invitation from
Admiral Stringham, who has done good service to the country in its
time of perU, to visit the Navy Yard. It has been suggested, however,
that it would be better for us to bring our session, as a Council, to a close
on this spot; and with renewed thanks to our kind friend, Judge Warren,
for the instructive and interesting explanation he has given us of its
memorable scenes, and following out the suggestion made in the church,
I would request you to unite in singing the first stanza of the familiar
hymn, " My country, 'tis of thee," &c, and we wUl close with the Dox-
ology, in long meter.
At the conclusion of the singing, it was, on motion of Dea.
Stoddard, of Massachusetts, —

196 FIFTH DAT.
Voted, That the Council adjourn to meet in the Mount Yernon Church,
Boston, on Monday morning, at nine o'clock.
Rev. Dr. Hopkins, of Massachusetts, then pronounced the
benediction. FIFTH DAY, MONDAY, JUNE 19.
In the absence of the moderator, the meeting was called to
order by Hon. C. G. Hammond, first assistant moderator, and
was opened with prayer by Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York.
The journal of yesterday was read by the scribe, and ap
proved. Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York, resigned his place upon
the committee on Evangelization in the West and South, and
his resignation was accepted.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio, in behalf of the Business Commit
tee, reported the order of business for the day. The report was
adopted. Also, the following resolution : —
Resolved, That the committee to whom was referred the Declaration of
Faith be instructed to report to the Council one or more samples of a
creed for the use of churches for doctrinal and not for controversial pur
poses, embodying as far as may be, in the language of the Scriptures,
the leading doctrines thereof as held by aU Congregational churches.
On motion, the resolution was laid upon the table.
Rev. Mr. Marvin, of Massachusetts, moved that the order in
reference to filling vacancies in the Council be taken from the
table. The motion was not agreed to.
Rev. Dr. Palmer, of New York, resumed and concluded the
reading of the report on Ministerial Education, contained in
yesterday's proceedings. Referred under the rule.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Todd, of Massachusetts,
Resolved, That the Council render thanks to Rev. Dr. Sturtevant for
the sermon preached at the opening of the Convention, and request a
copy for publication.
On motion of Rev. Mr. Langworthy, on behalf of the com
mittee on nominations, Rev. George Darling, of Ohio, was
added to the committee on the roll.

CHURCH BUILDING. 197
CHURCH BUILDING.
Rev. J. E. Roy, of Illinois, read the following paper, which
was then referred under the rule : —
The first instance in this country of aid in buUding a meeting-house
was that when the Pilgrim Church made its first contribution for any
object outside of its own wants to assist the Second Congregational
Church of America in erecting its house of worship. The example thus
set has been foUowed in many individual cases since. But the enter
prise, as a systematic poUcy, was inaugurated in 1852, by the Albany
Convention. When, in that assembly, the brethren of the East per
ceived the grace that was given unto the churches of the West in the
inheritance of the Faith and Order of the Apostles and Puritans, they
gave unto them the right hands of fellowship ; and, as a token of affec
tion, animated by the magnificent proffer of the mover of the project,
they resolved to put into those right hands the sum, of fifty thousand dol
lars to aid those churches in the erection of sanctuaries. Upon the same
Sabbath day, under an impulse of love, as when of old the people brought
more than enough for the service of the sanctuary, this offering of sym
pathy produced an overplus of eleven thousand eight hundred and
ninety-one doUars. That fund aided two hundred and thirty missionary
churches in buUding houses of worship.
So blessed were the results of that ministration of charity, and so
great was the pressure for additional aid of this kind, that a second
offering was called for on Forefathers' Day in 1856. It was a pious
effort to build a monument in memory of the Pilgrims, not in a single
pUe of elaborate architecture, but in sanctuaries that should perpetuate
their spirit and their principles. This effort resulted in a coUection of about
ten thousand dollars, by which about forty feeble churches were helped to
homes. Conviction was now confirmed of the need of some organic
method in this business. Whereupon the Congregational Union, accord
ing to a provision in its constitution, to wit, — " to promote plans of co
operation in building meeting-houses and parsonages," — assumed super
intendence of the work, under the care of its board of trustees and of
its secretary, who has prosecuted this enterprise with such wisdom, tact,
and zeal as entitle him to the grateful confidence of the supporters of
that institution and to the affectionate esteem of its hundreds of bene
ficiary churches. Under these auspices, during the eight years past, —
and those the years of our financial revulsion and -of our aU-engrossing
war, — the " Union," while meeting the difficulties and the prejudices
incident to its newness, has raised 'the sum of sixty-five thousand four
hundred and seven doUars, and has aided therewith in building one hun
dred and fifty-seven churches, an average of twenty per year, while the
" Union " is now pledged to thirty-two more, for which the money is in
hand. Thus that which was originated in an impulse of fellowship has
been transferred into an institution; the waters flowing from the smitten
rock are still foUowing our Christian Israel.

198 CHURCH BUILDING.
In the aggregate, four hundred and twenty-seven meeting-houses have
been built, — an average of thirty-five per year, — at an expense of one
hundred and forty-nine thousand two hundred and ninety-eight dollars.
But these sums total convey no adequate conception of the extent of
good accomplished. To arrive at this, even approximately, we must
gain an estimate from each church so aided, — its necessities met, its
hopes inspired, its influence and usefulness extended. Some of these
results may be generalized, as follows : —
I. This enterprise has secured the erection of many houses of worship
which would not otherwise have been buUt. It is astonishing how much
of stimulus is furnished by that sure amount of cash. It often starts the
work. Frequently the hope of aid is the first thing presented to inspire
courage to rise up and buUd. It furnishes the money for the necessary
articles of purchase, while much of the material and labor are subscribed
in kind. It sustains during the tedious progress of the work; it stimu
lates to the last grand effort of hope against hope to cover the final gap
between present possibility, already twice or thrice exhausted, and the
condition of freedom from debt. It often saves a church that would oth
erwise die out. At Lincoln, the county seat of Logan county, Illinois, a
town of three thousand five hundred population, and named for our late
beloved president, a Congregational church had Uved four years in a
small and unpleasant haU. Making no progress, the brethren began to
be discouraged and to talk of disbanding. " No," said the missionary,
" we must build." " Impossible," said they. Meeting caUed; dishearten-
ment complete. The " Union " proffers five hundred doUars. Hope is
rallied. The house is built at a cost of two thousand doUars. Since
the dedication, one year ago, the membership and the congregation have
been doubled, and the Sabbath school trebled. A revival has brought in
twenty hopeful converts. And the pastor writes me: " We owe our con
tinued existence and prosperity to-day to the encouragement the Con
gregational Union gave us in our hour of need." This is but a specimen,
and no uncommon case. Of the twelve Congregational meeting-houses
built in Northern Illinois during the last fifteen months, aU of which but
one had aid from the " Union," eight were incited to build by the proffered
help; — the remainder could not have buUt alone without incurring the
incubus of debt: The agent of the American Home Missionary Society
for Minnesota, says: "I can think of thirteen churches, which how have
houses of worship, that in the first instance were undoubtedly stimulated
to build by the proffer of aid. Without it, building in each case would
have been delayed longer than it was, and in several cases it would not
have been accomplished at all." The agent for Kansas says: "But for
such help, nine of these sixteen churches, built with aid from the Union,
would now be incomplete, probably not begun; four would have been
put off for months, perhaps for years; and but three at the utmost would
have been built without aid." And these sixteen are aU the Congrega
tional meeting-houses there are in that martyr State. The agent for
North-western Wisconsin says: "I am sure the prosperity, if not the
continued existence, of several of our more useful churches is largely

CHURCH BUILDING. 199
due to the fact that houses of worship were secured soon after their
organization; whUe several churches within my field, in villages of con
siderable importance, are now threatened with extinction because they
are not provided with places of worship whoUy their own." From
many years of observation, and after consultation with other persons
weU informed upon these matters, I am confident'that of the four hunr
dred and twenty-seven churches aided, one half would now be without
houses of worship, and one quarter would yet be burdened with debt or
with unfinished enterprises, had it not been for such assistance.
IL Church building has been an efficient auxiliary of Home Missions.
The Home Missionary Societies and the Congregational Union have to
deal with the same churches, the young and the feeble. One is the Com
missary department; the other, the Quartermaster's. All that can be
said of the influence of the sanctuary any where may be said of the
missionary church, while to it are thereby secured peculiar advantages.
In the East, churches could get along better without houses than at the
West. Here the people are assimUated; there they are heterogeneous,
and society lacks the attraction of cohesion. This want the church
edifice largely helps to meet. In the rude community it becomes a visi
ble representative of the gospel. It is a garner of generated religious
influences. So important to the children of Israel during their period
of training was the sanctuary, that, through divine wisdom, they were
furnished with the traveUng tabernacle. Many persons going West
make it an excuse for absenting themselves from the temporary places
of worship because there is no church edifice. When a house has been
secured, such in large numbers have been brought under the influence
of the gospel. A meeting-house ordinarily, doubles the congregation,
the pecuniary resources, and the power of the missionary church. It
lessens the amount of aid needed; it cuts short the period of dependence;
and often, at once, lifts it into self-support. Three such churches in Illi
nois, aided by the " Union " in building, have just dedicated their houses
of worship, the sUps of which were at once rented for an amount to
cover increased salaries and incidental expenses, — thus reUeving the
treasury of home missions, while the excess over the former income
came mainly from those who had been non-supporters. We find that in
Illinois thirteen missionary churches, thus helped to sanctuaries, soon
after dedication, became self-supporting; in Wisconsin, twelve: in Michi
gan,^; in Minnesota, three; in Northern Iowa, four; in Kansas, three.
The secretary of the " Union " reports that to five churches the sum of
one thousand five hundred and fifty dollars was appropriated to pay
"last bUls" on houses of worship, and that each of these at once became
a self supporting and a giving church; thus saving to the treasury of
home missions the annual appropriation of one thousand seven hundred
doUars for the support of preaching there. A pastor, now in the East,
formerly in the Wes't, writes to the same secretary: "I consider your
cause as one of the most important, as it increases immensely the efficiency
of the home missionary enterprise." In the June number of the Home
Missionary, a minister in Iowa, reporting the dedication of a house of

200 CHURCH BUILDING.
worship after three years of tugging and Ufting, and referring to the
three hundred doUars secured from the " Union," caUs it " the truest
helper to the home missionary that could possibly be invented." The
actuaries of the American Home Missionary Society, whose function it
is, on their respective fields, to explore destitutions, to organize and to
nurse the young and feeble churches, who are brought into pastoral sym
pathy with the weakest flocks, and under whose eye aU appUcations for
aid in church building pass, are unanimous and enthusiastic in their
appreciation of this enterprise as the right-hand helper of home missions.
j Their last resort, sometimes, in efforts to save a church, is to propose to
build, whUe the first incentive they use is the prospect of aid. They un
derstand that by thus securing church edifices they are doing the most
efficient home missionary work, knowing that in many such cases not to
build is to die. The secretary of the Old School Presbyterian Board of
Church Extension, writes: " We find that the completion of a sanctuary,
free from debt, almost uniformly adds largely to the congregation, at
least, on an average, doubles it; that revivals of reUgion are very fre
quent in such churches; that ministerial support is largely increased, and
the period of self-sustentation greatly hastened, by securing an unincum
bered church."
III. The church-building enterprise has proved itself one of true econ
omy, in benevolence. Its economy in saving the funds of home missions
we have already noticed. Then by its appropriations usuaUy seven times
as much is developed by the applicant churches. It was found that the
sixty-one thousand eight hundred' and ninety-one doUars of the first fund
stimulated the raising of three hundred and thirty-seven thousand seven
hundred and four doUars. . At the same average, the aid granted to the
four hundred and twenty-seven churches in aU must have caUed forth
, six hundred and twenty-six thousand eight hundred and sixty-three dol
lars from the beneficiaries. Then, again, this method has saved much
over the old mode of self-appointed agencies for particular churches. It
was truly said, in the Albany Convention, that such agents ordinarily
received but Uttle more than enough to pay their salaries and traveling
expenses. The .present plan obviates that waste. It saves the annoy
ance of such random calls. It saves pastors the trouble of investigating
each case. It secures, by the agents and committees on the ground, a
more rigid scrutiny into the merits of each application, and so saves un
worthy appropriations. And then, as managed by a Central Board of
Trust, the almoner of a sacred charity, confidence is inspired. The
economy of this work appears also from the fact that the churches, thus
helped to homes and so to self-support, become givers. In their state of
dependence they are trained to systematic contributions by the Ameri
can Home Missionary Society and the " Union," — a coUection every year
for these respective causes being the condition on which aid is granted;
so that this habit of remembering other feeble churches will be likely to
abide, and so too will every good cause be made the gainer by the
increase of the number of giving churches. One church in Chicago,'that
was aided by the fifty thousand dollar fund, gave, the last year, besides

CHURCH BUILDING. 201
a generous support of the gospel, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-
nine doUars to objects of benevolence, and paid five thousand six hun
dred and fifty-two dollars on a subscription of. thirty thousand doUars
for its permanent edifice. Of the thirty-two churches that contributed to
the Congregational Union in the quarter next to the last, seven had been
aided from the' same treasury. The district secretary of the Baptist
Home Mission Society for New England, after a three months' recon-
noissance at the West, said: " It is my profound conviction that rather
than sustain two missionaries in two towns for five years, it were much
better to sustain only one and build for him a good house of worship."
One, who is acquainted with the Western churches, is greatly surprised,
in reading over the Ust of those aided in building, to find how many
that are now prosperous and generous, were so recently recipients of
this .Christian charity. Only to read in this place the roll-call of the
churches thus helped out of weakness into strength, would be at once a
testimony and an argument in favor of the economy of this poUcy. *
IV. A precious result of aid in building sanctuaries is its influence in
promoting in them revivals of religion. The entrance upon such a house
has often been a signal for the manifestation of the Spirit; and such
seasons of revival following upon the dedication services have not been
few. At the consecration of the first church aided in IlUnois by the
Albany fund, the incense offered was that of the first love of several
new-born souls, and this was foUowed in a few months by a work of
grace that added some ninety persons to the company of believers.
Of the six churches aided in Southern Ohio by that same fund, all
received a baptism of the Spirit soon after dedication. Of those aided
in Illinois up to the present time, twelve have enjoyed revivals soon after
entering their new houses of worship ; in Wisconsin, seven ; in Minne
sota, five ; in Iowa, fifteen. Complete returns would show that very
many of these new church edifices have become at once places of spir
itual nativity. It is also noticeable that meeting-houses have frequently
been built immediately after seasons of spiritual refreshing.
Y. As a result of the church-erection scheme, it has contributed to an
increased prevalence of the principles and polity of the Puritans. Since
the Albany Convention, the number of Congregational churches in the
West, including Ohio, has increased from five hundred and seventy-
three to one thousand and eighty-four, and their membership from
twenty-eight thousand two hundred and ninety-nine to fifty-nine thou
sand nine hundred and sixty-eight. If we make the increase of the last
year, not yet reported, the same as the year before, then these churches
wiU have more than doubled in number and in membership since the
initiation of this enterprise. Various causes have contributed to this
growth. One was the natural force of this free and simple poUty; one
was the anti-slavery position of these churches ; another was the arous
ing, in some degree, of the people of this faith to the duty of dissem
inating the wisdom of the New Testament in regard to the church
constitution; and not the least of these causes was the policy of church
building. It is more than a coincidence that this era of the increase of

202 CHURCH BUILDING.
churches corresponds with the era of systematic aid in erecting meeting.
houses. Churches that would naturaUy take on the form of autonomy
have, by this help in securing their houses, been saved from yielding to
solicitation to assume an uncongenial poUty in order to gain the needed
aid in building. Not a few churches have been organized in places
where a house seemed to be a prime necessity, and where the Congrega
tional Union by its help has secured the organization of as many
churches in important positions. Take an instance. At Kokomo,
Indiana, a thrifty railroad town, a county seat, with a fine academy,
with a population of two thousand, where was only a Methodist church
and a CampbeUite, each with a feeble administration, another church
was seen to be needed, — one that should embody the smaU Calvinistic
element of four different denominations. And though there Was but one
Congregational family in the place, and though some who proposed to
come into the organization had never seen a Congregational minister
before, yet it was found that this mixed material could be most readily
affiliated under the poUty of the brotherhood. But a house of worship
was seen to be a sine qua non, inasmuch as two other efforts by other
denominations had miscarried through a failure in church building.
And so the proffer of aid from the American Home Missionary Society
was accompanied with an assurance of help for a house. Upon that a
church of seventeen members was organized, a minister secured, and
now the sanctuary is drawing toward completion, while the membership
has been doubled, and a rare position of influence and usefulness attained.
Without such aid, that church, which has just now entertained the Gen
eral Association of the State, and whose pastor is a member of this
Council, would not have been brought into Ufe.
VI. Our church-buUding enterprise has imparted a stimulus in the
same direction to all the other denominations. Taking the idea from the
Albany Convention, the New School Presbyterians, in 1853, raised a
church-erection fund, which now amounts to one hundred and twenty-
three thousand eight hundred and forty-six doUars, and has aided two
hundred and twenty-eight churches. In 1854 the Baptist Home Mission
Society undertook to raise a fund of one hundred thousand doUars, hut
has as yet secured only thirty-five thousand dollars of it. In 1855, the
Old School Presbyterians, instead of their committee of the Board of
Domestic Missions, set up a church-extension board, which calls for
annual collections, and has thus far aided five hundred and sixty-six
churches, besides the three hundred and eighty-two assisted by the old
committee; while their receipts, the last year, have been thirty-eight
thousand seven hundred and ninety-six doUars and ninety-eight cents,
and the aggregate of collections for this object has been three hundred
and twenty thousand nine hundred and ten doUars and ninety-three
cents. The Methodists have just set up a church-extension board for the
same purpose. Thus the denomination, nine-tenths of whose charities
have been given for undenominational purposes, and not a Uttle of that
to build up another sect, imparts to all the others a stimulus in the idea
and the plan of church erection. Not a little of the good done by the

CHURCH BUILDING. 203
buUding of these eleven or twelve hundred church edifices in other com
munions, is due to the Albany scheme. Such, then, — not to speak of the
binding of the East and the West together by this enterprise, not to speak
of its relation to patriotism iUustrated by the passage: "He loveth our
nation and he hath built us a synagogue," — such are some of the precious
fruits of this undertaking. It has helped hundreds of churches to
houses; it has been an auxiliary to home missions; Jit has increased
economy in benevolence; it has promoted revivals of reUgion; it has
disseminated Puritan ideas; it has led other branches of the church into
a hke work. How vast the amount of good accomplished by the outlay
of so small an amount as one hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars 1
Such results become in themselves a sufficient argument for the prose
cution of this enterprise, if, indeed, there be any thing more to be done
in that direction.
What, then, are the present and prospective necessities in this matter?
" The thing which has been is that which shall be." Read over the secre
tary's successive quarterly reports, and while you will be moved to grate
ful emotion in view of the good accompUshed by this agency, you will also
be oppressed with a sense of the vastness of the work left undone sim
ply for want of means. The statement of so many applications, ten,
fifteen, twenty, rejected for the lack of funds, becomes a painful recur
rence. Nor are these the same ever-waiting supplicants. Baffled in
their suit they retire, — some to struggle on with adversity, some to die;
while others take their place at the suitors' stand, only to be kindly but
peremptorily dismissed. Says one report: "But there are twenty-six
churches now urgently pressing their claims for small appropriations,
with many of which the question is 'to build or to disband;'" and
another: " Still back of these are scores of others, whose only hope of
success is to be found in our treasury; " and one of the very latest says:
"From scores that are waiting and longing for aid we must hold back
until the givers shaU afford us the means of aiding them." It certainly
must be a painful experience of the gentlemen who serve as the trustees
and the secretary of this interest, to see these successive bands of
Christ's disciples, in which are the elements of so much blessing, strug
gling for Ufe upon the waves of adversity, while they are themselves
powerless to respond to the cry for help.
Then we find that there are in Michigan, at the present time, fifty
Congregational churches that have no houses of worship; in IlUnois,
forty-four; in Wisconsin, thirty-nine; in Minnesota, forty; in Iowa, fifty-
eight; in Kansas, sixteen; and many in other States, so that, in all, as
nearly as we can ascertain, there are four hundred of these famiUes of
the Puritan sisterhood without homes, all of which need to be brought
into the holy habitation.
Then there is- no reason why we may not expect that in the next
twelve years, as in the last, the churches of this pattern will, at the
West, double their number, raising it from 'one thousand and eighty-four
to two thousand one hundred and sixty-eight, many of which, in embryo
communities, <wiU need aid in securing that first of all requisites in a

204 CHURCH BUILDING.
new country, a place to Uve in. There wiU always be, along our ever-
receding frontier, a cordon of such feeble churches, the outposts of our
Christian civilization, which will appeal to our sympathy. The opening
of the Pacific railway; the operation of the homestead law and of sol
diers' warrants; the tremendous stimulus to new settlement afforded by
the rich metals in all of the central mountain country; the flood of for
eign emigration; the manufacturing interest, the seat of which is work
ing westward, — all these influences will tend to hasten the filling up of
our intercontinental empire, which must be brought into aUegiance to
Christ. The extent of that country yet to be fiUed with Uving souls we
can but Uttle realize. The half-way place on the paraUel of New York
is yet two hundred mUes beyond the Missouri, seven hundred beyond
Chicago, the gateway of the North-west, seventeen hundred west of Bos
ton! The Territories upon the Rocky Mountains are aheady coming to
their majority, and asking of the paternal authority their portion of
goods. Unborn commonwealths are yet to come from that region to
knock at the door of our national capitol for recognition. The extent of
territory in those oncoming States staggers comprehension. And yet
into that region of vast distances and possibilities, the enterprise of
home missions is rapidly projecting itself, foUowing in the path of the
pioneer, the miner, the soldier. The Path-Finder threw out our glorious
stars and stripes from the loftiest peak of those Rocky Mountains; and
so the home missionary has unfurled the banner of Jesus upon the same
Alpine range; even into the region and shadow of death has he borne it,
setting up the claim of his King upon- the adherents of that system of
abomination which now occupies the heart of the continent. AU over
that region churches of the pilgrim faith wiU be born, and they must
have homes. Their Redeemer is already there, " waiting to find room."
And " as the mother of Jesus looked up wistfully to the guest-chamber
that cold night, drawing her Holy Thing to her bosom," so wiU these
new-born churches of Christ look longingly to our spacious and amply-
furnished sanctuaries for hospitaUty and blessing.
Then, in the older portions of the missionary field, away from the
original centers of population, away from the railway stations, in the
isolated townships of well-to-do farmers, there is yet a vast work to he
done. Many new churches are there to be organized ; many new houses
of worship to be built. If we are to profit by the experience of New
England, and by its awakened interest in home evangelization, we must
forestall the " waste places." Of this kind of work take an example:
A banker in Michigan City, Indiana, goes out seven miles to a neglected
neighborhood, cursed with a distillery, and starts a Sabbath school. A
revival ensues. The distillery is turned into a flouring mUl. A church
is organized, and the superintendent becomes the lay-preacher. The old
school-house is enlarged; a new one is built, and this is .outgrown by the
congregation and the aspiration of the brotherhood. A church must he
built. . People poor; prospect poorer. The " Union " proffers aid. A
neat and commodious sanctuary is secured; and, through the "Union,"
a young man in the First Church of New Haven, Merritt W.

CHURCH BUILDING. 205
Barnes, as a dying gift appropriates three hundred dollars, his Uttle all,
to pay the last bills, — a legacy of love commemorated by a tablet set
into the waU of that house of God. Last summer, during the vacation
of the Chicago Seminary, one of the students, under commission of the
American Home Missionary Society, relieved the lay pastor, and in the
new house was permitted to welcome nine persons into that fellowship
as the result of a spiritual refreshing in harvest time.
Then who can compute the demand for aid in church erection at the
South? The angel of the Lord is now saying to the Philip of our evan
gelism: " Go toward the South .... which is desert." If we had come
across this newly-discovered missionary field in any other part of the
globe, it would thriU the heart of Christians to occupy it at once. Though
their treason, in seeking' the life of our nation, has slain our sons and
brothers, and now our beloved President, yet thither we are bidden to
go with the gospel, even as the disciples were directed by their Lord to
begin at Jerusalem, the very city which had rejected and crucified him,
and even as Philip was to carry the Evangel of Jesus to that same
PhiUstia which had been the perpetual enemy of Israel. We are like
wise under special obligation to propagate there that system of church-
order, which, divinely appointed, like Christianity itself, is adapted to
man as man in all parts of the earth, — which by its simple form and
cathoUc spirit is weU fitted to unite and assimilate that disorganized
material which, by its affinity for freedom and its cleaner record, is suited
to that recoil going on at the South in intelUgent and conscientious minds,
and which, in its reproduced style of Puritanism, though long rejected
there, win be the most hopeful means of rescuing that fair land from its
moral desolation.
Now, then, the churches which, among both the whites and the blacks,
are there to spring up as by magic, must be housed. In that disrupted
society a chaste, comfortable church edifice will be a powerful attraction.
Said Dr. Lyman Beecher, in the Albany Convention: "If you want
martins about your house you must put up a martin-box." In the South
there wiU be special need of using the economy of church erection in
order to take up this great work at its flood tide. Not as heretofore in
the gradualness of the opening of the Home Missionary field, now whole
States, to the number of one third of our Federal Union, already popu
lated and seething with the antagonistic influence of irreligion, are thrown
upon our hands, and God says, take these, reform them, Christianize
them. In order to meet this exigency, we shall need aU the attracting,
sustaining influence of sanctuaries. When our soldiers went first into
the service, in the abandon of heroism, they cared little for entrench
ments; but, wiser by experience, they will now work cheerfully at every
halt upon some simple breastwork. The soldiers of Christ going South,
in order to save all their gain and to make irresistible their advance,
must have their series of fortifications. Neglecting this, though they
may gain important strategetic points, their safety and success will be in
jeopardy. At Hannibal, Mo., the "Union " has fortified one such posi
tion, which has stood through the rebellion a rallying center for loyalty,

206 CHURCH BUILDING.
has sent a stream of influence along the fine of raUway that 'crosses the
State, and now with its membership of one hundred, its home Sabbath.
school of three hundred and thirty pupils, its mission school of one hun
dred and fifty, and its school of four hundred colored people, is accom
plishing in that city a vast deal of work for Christ. Already appUcations
are coming in from the South for more of such defenses.
Such being the demand for church building at the West and at the
South, how grave must be the consequences of neglecting it! Imagine
this work of the last twelve years undone, a large proportion of these
four hundred and twenty-seven missionary churches left without sanc
tuaries, and some of them dead. What apology could satisfy the Head
of the Church for such dereliction? Then imagine the four hundred
famihes in our Christian sisterhood, yet without homes, deprived of all
prospect of aid from this source in the future, many of them doomed to
a protracted feebleness, which shaU deaden hope and finaUy Ufe itself.
Then consider the hundreds of churches yet to spring up, many of which,
if not planted in the house of the Lord, wiU droop and bear but Uttle
fruit. In the failure to provide these garners, vast harvests wiU go into
the earth.
Then, as a consequence of neglecting this work, many of these Puritan
flocks wUl be driven into folds not congenial. It would be a shame that
the body of churches, which led the way in this scheme of benevolence,
should fall behind in the enterprise, and actually turn its own people
over to those of other faith and order for hospitality. It would be worse
than a shame, — it would be a crime ; for " If any provide not for his own,
and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is
worse than an infidel." These which, by lineal descent or by adoption,
are the chUdren of .the Puritan family, have a right, by aU principles of
equity and of grace, to look to the parent for nurture and for protection.
The two denominations which have learned to do this work the most
efficiently are those that would make the most of a draft upon the Con
gregational material. We honor those branches of Christ's people; we
wish them all success in bringing their feeble churches into the sanctuary.
But we think that we have a more exceUent way; that the people of the
Puritan faith can do the most good under the forms of their own simple
polity, and that the Congregational swarms will do the best in Congrega
tional hives. We believe that, as a miracle was wrought to convince the
apostles that the gospel was to go beyond their own nationality, so now
God, by the marvelous revelations of war, is teaching us that the same
gospel is to be carried in the same church order to all parts of our land,
and that the crossing of no parallels of latitude or of longitude can justify
an exchange of that system for any man-made estabUshment. And it
will be neither with self-satisfaction nor with approval, human or divine,
that we come to the confession, " They made me the keeper of the vine
yards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept."
It is a favor of Providence that we have in the Congregational Union
an organ of this enterprise, well-manned, skilled by experience, settled
in its poUcies, and so, prepared for the crisis. Though its work is ger-

CHURCH BUILDING. 207
mane to that of the Home Missionary Societies, yet a wise division of
the labor, which has an appalling magnitude, the certainty of raising
more funds by a double appeal, and the mutual helpfulness of the two
departments, will make it wise to continue the present arrangement. All
the other denominations but one give to this cause a separate organ, and
one of these changed to a double acting machinery after having tried, the
single. The estabUshed principle of annual coUections has, over an
invested fund, the advantage of keeping the cause fresh in the thought
and sympathy of the churches, and of avoiding the risks of an accumu
lated capital, while, under the present demands upon benevolence, the
raising of any competent endowment would seem to be out of the ques
tion. As to the amount that wUl be needed for church building, year-
by year, it will not do to put the estimate at any thing less than fifty
thousand dollars.
But how can the treasury be kept in a condition equal to this draft?
We believe that all that will be needed will be to afford every congrega
tion in our fellowship the opportunity of making an annual offering to
this cause, and that, in order to this, every church place this object upon
its calendar. During the last reported year, only one hundred and fifty-
five, or one in eighteen, of the Congregational churches contributed to this
object. The secret of the success of the Old School Presbyterian Church
Extension Board seems to have been in getting collections from a large
number of churches. During the last year, seven hundred and fifty-one
church-contributions were acknowledged; and these, if we leave out the
gifts of two congregations in New York City, averaged only seventeen
dollars and sixty-seven cents, while four hundred and nine of the churches
gave but ten dollars and under. If but one half of the Congregational
churches would simply " go through with the motions " of a collection
for this cause, the treasury would not labor. But if, as one of the latest
appUcants, the Congregational Union can scarcely find room in the
calendar, then it may be well for this Council to advise the churches to
make a place for this feeder of all the other charities. In the plans recom
mended by the General Associations of Ohio, Michigan, IUinois, and
Wisconsin, this cause has its specific month; the system is growing in
favor, and this object meets with a pecuUar appreciation. Indeed, it
should be said for the encouragement of Eastern friends, who have given
so freely to the West, that the seed thus sown is now coming to the
harvest. A generous spirit is growing up in those Western churches,
which w'Ul join the East in Uberal giving for the New West and the
.South. That stream of New England theology and of Puritan ideas,
which has been poured across the West, has given character to its insti
tutions, and has thus magnified its power for good, as now the sweUing
current shall sweep down to the Gulf. And if the parental household,
by the exhausting of itself for the welfare of its emigrating offspring,
shah ever come to the need of succor, then with grateful, loving attention
will the children, natural and adopted, delight to reciprocate the blessing.
But stiU, in order to the fiUing of this treasury, in common with those
of all other benevolence, — in order to our rising to the sublimity of this

208 COMMITTEES. I
providential occasion, — we need a national dispensation of the Spirit that
shaU lead to a consecration of property and of life wholly unto the Lord.
Half an hour was spent in devotional exercises, Rev. Mr.
Turner, of Iowa, Rev. Mr. Clark, of Illinois, and others leading
in prayer.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Wolcott, it was
Voted, That this body, having learned that His ExceUency Governor
Andrew, of Massachusetts, is in the city, and would take pleasure in
paying his respects to this Council, and can not do so conveniently after
to-day, will be pleased to receive him at 3 P. M.
Rev. John L. Jenkins, of Indiana, was added to the commit
tee on the Roll.
Rev. Mr. Langworthy, on behalf of the committee on Nomi
nations, reported the following committees. The reports were
severally agreed to.
ON COLLEGES AND THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
Rev. Mark Hopkins, D. D., of Massachusetts; Hon. WilUam "W.
Thomas, of Maine; Rev. Henry E. Parker, of New Hampshire; Eev.
Silas McKeen, D. D., of Vermont; Rev. Thomas P. Field, d. d., of Con
necticut; Rev. Thomas Wickes, D. D., of Ohio; Rev. Adam S. Kedzie,
of Michigan; Rev. WiUiam Deloss Love, of Wisconsin; Rev. EUsha Jen-
ney, of Illinois; WilUam H. Watson, of Kansas; Jacob Bacon, Esq., of
California. ON AMERICAN PROTESTANT ASSEMBLY.
Rev. Jeremiah Taylor, D. d., of Connecticut; Rev. Edwin B. Webb,
of Massachusetts; Rev. Moses H. Wilder, of New York; Rev. Abel K.
Packard, of Minnesota; Rev. Philo C. Pettibone, of Wisconsin.
ON CHURCH BUILDING.
Rev. Samuel G. Buckingham, of Massachusetts; Dea. Henry P.
Haven, of Connecticut; Rev. Franklin B. Doe, of Wisconsin; Dea. Philo
Carpenter, of Illinois; Rev. Isaac Jennings, of Vermont; Rev. Joshua
M. Chamberlain, of Iowa; Rev. Edwin Johnson, of Maryland.
ON TEMPERANCE. •
Rev. Constantine Blodgett, d. d., of Rhode Island; Rev. Zedekiah S.
Barstow, D. D., of New Hampshire; Charles A. Stackpole, of Maine;
Dea. William Thurston, of Massachusetts; Dea. Lorenzo D. Dana, of New
York; Dea. Abram GriswohLof Ohio; Rev. Joseph CoUie, of Wisconsin.'

PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION. 209

ON PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
The committee appointed to introduce to the National Council of
Congregational Churches the subject of parochial evangeUzation, report
the foUowing
STATEMENT.
The work of our churches divides itself into several departments.
Efforts in behalf of other nations we call foreign missions; the founding
of new churches and the assistance of such as are feeble, within the Umits
of our own country, we name home missions ; while all chinches exist
for a particular work, styled, in the resolution appointing this committee,
parochial evangelization, — a work which looks toward the reconciliation
and sanctification of all the souls embraced within the communities that
severaUy constitute the proper parishes of the churches, and which aims
at a general and complete popular Christianization.
The object of the present paper is, to bring clearly to mind this glorious
duty and privilege of the churches, with some of the ways of its fulfill
ment. To this end it is necessary briefly to recall the true idea and office
of the church, and to consider, somewhat more at length, the modes in
which its estabUshed services and its administration may be most effi
cient. THE CHURCH tTNIVERSAL.
It is the chief end of man to glorify God, and share his joy; and of
the world, to be a place of nurture for souls thus fulfilling their end.
The church on earth embraces all who have begun to glorify and enjoy
God, and so is the essential realization of the end of creation ; but, being the
" body of Christ," wherein he dwells and whereby he works, it is also
the means of its realization. The conquest of the world is its proper
function; and it is no more really the natural quality of salt to save from
corruption, or of Ught to annihilate darkness, of leaven to leaven the lump,
or of a Uving seed to assimilate earth, air, water, and light, into its own
body, according to its own law, than for the spirit of Christ, working in
and through the church, to cleanse from moral corruption, disperse moral
darkness, fill society with a divine leaven, and incorporate with its own
body, and build up in heavenly beauty the alienated and lost souls that
surround it. God ordained the churches for this end, and they must be
esteemed equal to its accomplishment. In entering upon the considera
tion of our subject, we properly start with this assumption.
ORGANIC CHURCHES.
But, obviously, in order that our organic churches, which are, at best,
but an imperfect reaUzation of their idea, may justify such an expecta
tion, they must be really churches, and must be nothing else.
To this end, it is necessary, first, that they should be composed of be-
14

210 PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
lievers, — of those who have begun to love with Christ's love; a love in
which they are holy and a brotherhood.
Furthermore every church must needs embody its essential idea in its
organization, and be a brotherhood in form as weU as in spirit,— avoid
ing all semblance of such authority and subjection as are common in the
world. No " greatest," and no " master," can be recognized here. As
beUevers, we have one Master, and he is above: aU we are brethren.
The apostle disclaimed dominion, and aspired only to be a helper of joy
to his fellow-disciples; and our blessed Lord specifically instructed his
followers, with regard to the spirit and law of his church, when he washed
their feet.
The structure of a society embodies ideas and fixes relations; and
these ideas it is always teaching, and these relations are always shaping
character and action. The church needs to have the true church form —
of a brotherhood — or its organization wUl be subtly, or perhaps very
openly, counterworking its work. Its very organization should be the
birth of a love which annihilates caste and sense of hierarchy.
When churches have thus been organized of the right material, and in
the right form, they need to be careful, thirdly, to confine themselves to
their true end.
The one end of the church universal is the glory of God in human re
demption; and the local church finds its one chief end in the same result,
throughout the community which makes up its proper parish, — in other
words, " parochial evangeUzation." It may not aUow itself to be turned
to any other object; nor can it safely unite with other churches as a con
stituent in societies, either secular or semi-secular, whose operations in
volve large material interests or weighty financial cares. One thing it
has to do; and that is so immense and difficult, that it cannot give itself
to anything else. In one precious and eternal bond is it united with all
other churches of the Lord Jesus Christ; and it may not imperil this most
sacred of all conceivable relations, so peculiarly deUcate and sensitive,
by grosser mixtures, so often fruitful of strife. It is essential that each
church both hold fast to its exclusively spiritual end, and to its own sep
arate identity and responsibiUty, maintaining, indeed, the closest possible
spiritual union with other churches, in love, but refusing all corporate
and business ties with them, all authority (in the worldly sense) and all
subjection. This we hold to be essential to the prosecution of a thorough
and universal parochial evangeUzation.
When churches have thus been organized of the right material, in the
right form, and for the right end, it remains, fourthly, that they adopt the
right methods for the accomplishment of this end. The end, as aheady
stated, is the working out, under God, of human redemption from sin,
into love, blessedness, and holy service ; and the work of the church may
be viewed in three aspects, — as related directly to God, to believers, and
to man still in a state of alienation; thus having the three divisions of
worship, edification, and conversion; and its efficiency in aU these is
necessary to its success in parochial evangeUzation.

PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION. 211
THE CHUECH-WORK. WORSHIP.
The first great duty of the church is worship. This is God's due;' and
it is essential that every church render a pure and acceptable worship
before the throne of the Divine Majesty. But inasmuch as God is most
glorified by that which is so ordered as to be also the greatest blessing
to his children, its method may appropriately be considered when we
come to treat of what is essential to Christian edification.
EDIFICATION.
The second great object of the church, prominent in its work of paro
chial evangelization, is the edification of its members in the divine love.
By Worship.
The first means by which it furthers this aim is a worship in which it
becomes a channel of divine grace to all participants, and offers itself, as
such, to all witnesses of its act.
Worship is rendered (1) when the hearts and minds of a devout assem
bly are reverently yielded to the guidance of Holy Writ — records of the
divine dealings, breathings of penitence, prayer, and thanksgiving, and
the story of redemption — motions of minds moved by the Holy Ghost.
This is the river which makes glad the city of God. We need to go back
ever to these Sowings of the primal springs.
There are two ways in which this benefit of Scripture may be enjoyed by
a worshiping congregation; namely, listening ¦ to an expressive reading,
which re-clothes the sacred words with their original life; and chanting.
It is to be regretted that the latter is no more in use among us ; as, with
singing, it is almost the only way in which an assembly can properly
join in the outward expression of worship through the lips. Our congre
gations wiU probably never satisfactorily realize and appropriate the
meaning and preciousness of the most ancient songs of the Church until
they have learned to chant them, and 'this in more reverent and less
hurried style than prevails elsewhere. We should not be altogether wide
from the truth, if we were to say, that it requires the strength of a great
multitude to bear into our hearts the weight and sense of these words of
God. Our chUdren ought, from the beginning, to be made to feel the
grandeur and the gladness, the lowUness and the tenderness, of these
inspired Psalms. Each church needs them in the evangeUzation of its
parish. The two methods that have been mentioned are the only seemly and
proper methods in which congregations can use the Scriptures in the
pubUc services of the sanctuary.
(2.) The " service of song " in the Lord's house, it is now generally
conceded, needs to be chiefly rendered by the whole congregation, led by
a choir. But our churches have by no means, as yet, entered upon the
exceeding riches of the inheritance of the saints, contained in this elevat-

212 PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
ing, comforting, and transporting service- so full of blessing to devout
hearts, in its nearness and sweetness of communion with our Lord, and
so universaUy attractive and impressive. There is a mighty power of
edification and of persuasion in rhythmic, melodious psalms and hymns
and choral harmonies, which our churches and their schools have only
begun to realize. It can unquestionably be made a powerful instrument
in the evangeUzation of communities and of classes that now neglect the
sanctuary; and, indeed, has already often been of great service in attract
ing children to the Sunday school, and their parents to the place of public
worship. ,
(3.) As the mere reading of Scripture, in seemly style, becomes a
way of worship, so the preaching of the divine word often leads the hearts
of a congregation, in a contemplation of God and a beholding of his
glory, to thanksgiving, adoration, confession, and yearnings of deepest
aspiration and longing. If we dare look toward the Christianization of
whole communities, — and what minister or church dares aim at any thing
less, — how must we abjure all merely Uterary, logical, disputatious, de
nunciatory, or melodramatic and sentimental preaching, and strive to
bring our hearers in view of the eternal mountains of God, the mighty
truths whose foundations and whose summits are equaUy out of sight!
In those mountains are peace and joy; they are homes of power; and from
them flow the living waters. The deepest truth is most divine; and is
not merely pleasant, beautiful, and moving, but awful, glorious, trans
forming, and transporting. It is our privUege to wield this truth; and,
for our work, we need it. The people must worship while they hear.
It were vain to think of the Christianization of communities if we were
to forget this.
(4.) In public prayer, the most perfect union of hearts is probably
reached when one man of fervent and devout spirit leads the multitude,
in words, which, with Ms tones, are the birth of the moment, — the breath
ing of the Holy Ghost. But, that this may ordinarily be secured, even
in moderate measure, it is necessary that the person who leads should
be habitually in communion with God; and, furthermore, should be
accustomed to turn his inward communings into words. The usage of
our churches now lays this demand upon their ministers. It is a whole
some burden, and ought by no means to be removed. Having adopted
the highest possible ideal, we ought to seek to rise to its demand. The
effort, in our work of parochial evangelization, is to bring aU souls into
communion with God; and the Church maintains these public acts of
communion, in part, from the hope that the spirit of devotion may spread,
like leaven, from soul to soul, till all be leavened. But, that the leaven
may spread, it must be real, and real at the time which is its opportunity.
By Instruction.
The second method in which a church promotes the edification of its
members is by supplying instruction.
The instruction furnished in the church aims at the reconciliation and
sanctification of souls, by bringing them face to face with God, hi Christ;

PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION. 213
that, beholding his glory, they may be changed into the same image. If
it exhibit not that glory, it fails of its end. So far as it deals with
other than eternal reaUties, and with thoughts lower than the thoughts
of God, or is satisfied with a beauty inferior to that of Christ, it stoops
from its state, and abases its sovereignty. It ought to unveil eternity;
to unfold the mind of God; to take divine things, and show them unto
men; to make plain the ways of a heavenly life here on earth; and to
breathe something of the dignity native to souls regenerate and sancti
fied, — the dignity of a love Uke Christ's. While considering the methods
of parochial evangeUzation, neither the ministry nor the churches may
forget this. In Organization.
But verbal instruction is not all. As has been already remarked, the
very structure of the church, when what it should be, is mighty for the
instruction of its members and of the community at large. But while, in
its constitution and the general spirit of its administration, it needs to
express and teach the Christian love, and while in its worship and the
ministrations of its pulpit it must not fail to edify, it ought to do this,
thirdly, by furnishing special facilities and opportunities for the development
among its members of an active love.
Arrangements should be made by every church for bringing its mem
bers together, so that they should become acquainted, and acquainted
as Christians. For this purpose the weekly prayer-meeting is of priceless
value. So, too, are the smaUer neighborhood prayer-meetings, and all
social reUgious gatherings, and indeed all religious social assembUes, — in
many places too much neglected. ' In every practicable way the church
needs continuaUy to strive to bring about among its members the fulfill
ment of the Saviour's prayer, that " they all may be one." Upon this
largely depends the possibility of an extended Christian influence and of
the development of a system of church-work. The love is indispensable
to union in labor; and for the awakening and cherishing of love, there
must be acquaintance and intercourse. Our church members have aU
been welcomed with covenant vows of affection and help, which deserve
to be better kept; and, to facUitate this, special arrangements are neces
sary. But not alone in the delight and the impulse of love does the church
need to buUd itself up; it should edify itself also in love's wisdom, — in
that spiritual wisdom which only comes from Uving out Christ's precepts.
These precepts involve the most fundamental and comprehensive prin
ciples, which principles must be studied in their appUcation, and not
simply heard of from a teacher, in order really to possess the soul. Ac
cordingly, the church needs to throw upon its members the responsibility
of decision, in the application of Christian principles, especially of those
which are fundamental; and any church leader who undertakes to decide
for his church, or, worse still, to force his judgment upon them, or, worst
1 of all, to carry a judgment by intrigue or intimidation, misconceives his
office. His office is to guide, not to dictate, — least of aU to manipulate.

214 PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
It is his privilege to lead his brethren in the study of the mind of the
Spirit, so that they, all together, shall apprehend it, — not to declare it by
authority. He is guide, not governor. No man can be a master in the
church. And whoso departs from Christian simplicity, and assumes
control, or uses ",art," grieves the Spirit, sins against the brethren, and
breaks the constitution of the church. In Uke manner, also, any church
which submits to a dominion that duUs its life transgresses its fundamental
law. It is only by familiarizing men with the practical application of prin
ciples that they can be put in possession of them. This the church does
when organized and administered faithfuUy after the New Testament
model. When organized and governed after any other plan, its efficiency
is necessarily impaired.
Again: not only must the responsibility of decision, especially in im
portant questions, be thrown upon the members of the church, but for
their own spiritual good they all need also a share in the responsibilities
and the manifold benefits of church-work. So essential is this privilege,
that we may even declare it indispensable. But of this we shaU speak
more at large under another head. In Fellowship.
Again: each church needs to stand in suitable relations with other
churches, —recognizing and feeling its oneness, not only with those of its
immediate neighborhood and its own time, but with aU true churches
of every age. With its neighbors it should join in counsel and labor;
and it has no right to aUow any bonds of authority to divide it from such
communion. AU should be counted its neighbors, with whom it can join,
or whom it can reach, to bless. Nor should it lack a sense of unity with
the churches of other lands, of other days, and other names. Great
strength comes from a consciousness of the oneness of the Lord's king
dom; and this needs not at all a corporate unity, so sure to work disaster,
and to defer the accomplishment of our Saviour's prayer, but can best
exist without it. In the Sacraments.
Finally: each church needs for its edification to cherish most solemnly
and tenderly a sense of union with the Lord.
The unity of aU true churches of Jesus Christ with one another, and
of all beUevers with their Head, is commemorated, figured, ratified, and
perpetuated, in the sacraments, — those universal signs and seals, which,
shared by all, are a manifestation of their oneness from the beginning, —
of their oneness with Christ. We can not hold in too dear affection, or
celebrate with- too loving and careful solemnity, these seasons of grace,
in which all ages join and all disciples remember their only Lord.
Churches which propose the Christianization of their parishes need to take
all possible pains to secure the full blessing of these sacred opportunities.
Conversion.
The third great end of the church remains, namely, the bringing into a
state of reconciliation the souls that are alienated from God.

PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION. 215
We have, it is presupposed, a church composed of believers, — persons
who have begun to love with a love Uke Christ's ; organized a brother
hood; worshiping God ; instructing and edifying its members in the
wisdom, the power, and joy, of divine love ; entering into sacred bonds
of communion in the sacraments.
But the chief labor of Christ's militant church on earth has ever been
the reconciliation of aUenated souls, the saving of the lost. Not only do
our churches find their principal work here, but they can not even be
faithful toward their own members unless they engage them in efforts
for the spiritual benefit of those who are still out of personal covenant
with God. Very properly, therefore, is the inquiry urged home upon
us: How can a church be faithful and successful in this momentous work?
Trust in God.
First of all, it needs to be keenly sensible of the fact, that the work
of saving and sanctifying souls is the work of God; and that it is only,
as in union with him, that men are privileged or able to engage in it.
The Boctrine of the Church.
In the next place, it is in a high degree important, that the church
should understand its own nature and office. Its members need to be so
well instructed in the doctrine of the church, that the thought of God's
kingdom, and of his earthly kingdom and family, should occupy and
thrill their minds. There are no truths more full of Ught and power
than those which center here. Without them, churches wiU but imper
fectly grasp the idea of what they have to do, and will lack both the
courage and the faith indispensable to sustained activity and a compre
hensive and permanent success. Parishes.
In the third place, it is important that every church should definitely
recognize and accept its own particular work, — its parish. The very
form of the statement proposed for this Council's consideration, — the
subject of " Parochial Evangelization," — seems to assume that this has
. already been done; and yet how seldom in our day, is it really done!
But, if a church is to do its work, it must know its work, — know it as
a church. Nor can we reflect at all upon this matter, without perceiv
ing that when once this work has taken definite form in the mind of the
church, and has been solemnly acknowledged before God as his commis
sion, one important step has been gained. The divine call now sounds
clear, has been understood, and the church has answered, " Here am I."
Furthermore, so soon as a definite work has thus been recognized, its
parts begin to be distinguished, — some, perhaps, very difficult, but
others more immediately hopeful; and so an order begins to appear;
and now, no sooner has it been determined where to commence, than
methods suggest themselves, — a really intelligent beginning can be
made, a beginning of the whole; and the motive drawn from -the whole

216 PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
urges and helps the prosecution of each part; furnishing a great advan
tage to every working member, and especially to the pastor, whose duty
it is to superintend and incite.
In most rural districts, and in some vUlages, the natural "parish" of
the church is so obvious that no question can arise concerning its boun
daries; and where two or more churches stand side by side, and draw
their congregations from the same communities, the question is stiU one
of no difficulty; for here the churches obviously have a joint parish; and,
having agreed upon such division of labor as the case demands, may
each go forward with its own; recognizing, in reference to the whole, a
joint responsibility, while also owning a distinct care and duty. Nor,
where churches of other denominations are found, does this bring in any
serious compUcation. For, acknowledging with joy theirVvork for the
Lord, we shall find enough for our hearts and hands in caring for our
own and for neglected families.
But it may be said that this system of parishes is impossible at the
West, where missionaries sometimes have whole counties under their
charge. On the contrary, it is quite as easily arranged there as else
where, and is, perhaps, of greater importance than in Eastern communi
ties ; in every case, there is a community that forms the proper parish
of the church which the missionary makes his principal center. This is
that church's field; the rest is the minister's out-field, over which he exer
cises inspection, and where he temporarily bestows a certain amount of
labor, in preparation for other laborers who shall enter in and establish
permanent centers and parishes. It is of the utmost importance that the
young churches of the West, now in their formative period, be educated
to the idea of church responsibility for communities.
The plan suggested may possibly be thought to be impracticable in
cities. By no means; for it would supply what city churches so greatly
need, — a definite object and mode of practical union; and, indeed, is
absolutely necessary to the thorough occupation of their field. A cer
tain geographical allotment will, it is beUeved, be found expedient in all
our largest towns. The Home Prayer-meeting.
But a church can not be expected permanently to keep in mind a cor- ¦
porate duty, unless in its corporate capacity it regularly recalls and con
siders it. Inevitably, interest will flag, and efforts wiU wane, unless the
church holds regular meetings in behalf of its work. Wherefore it is
evident, fourthly, that "the home pray er^neeting" — that is, a meeting
devoted to prayer and counsel specifically in behalf of the church and its
parish — is valuable, and perhaps indispensable, as a means of remind
ing the church of its duties, besides affording occasion for that fervent
suppUcation which avails much.
Moreover, since all beginnings are in God, and aU human beginnings
leading to real success must be with God, it would seem impossible for
any church to make any wiser commencement of new efforts for its par
ish than this, of regular prayer in its behalf. No church is so strong

PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION. 217
that it can afford to neglect prayer, nor is any so weak that it can not
pray. If the difficulties that encompass it are so great that it sees no
way whatsoever in which it can make any beginning of new labor, then
surely, it is caUed to lay the case before God, to study it in his presence,
and with undoubting faith to await the guidings of his Spirit and provi
dence. Systematic Labor.
Fifthly. It is important that a church should prosecute its work upon
system. It has already been remarked, that, so soon as the church has
defined its parish, the several distinct parts of its work begin to appear.
The community is at once resolved into four principal classes, compris
ing (1) the members of the church; (2) members of the congregation,
and regular attendants who are not members, of the church ; (3) those in
some sense connected with the congregation, but not regular 'or frequent
attendants at the sanctuary; (4) families and individuals having no real
connection with any Christian congregation, and who come under no
stated reUgious influence. ^
Each of these classes, again, has a four-fold division, according to age;
into chUdren, youth, the mature, and the old. A watchful pastor un
doubtedly carries the analysis further, and classifies the members of these
subordinate portions in accordance with diversities of condition, charac
ter, and history, which indicate different ways in which Christian influ
ences may be expected to reach them with good effect.
Although we are not here called to enter in detail upon a discussion
of methods of church-labor, it may be proper to indicate certain points
that invite special attention.
And, flrst, with regard to the religious education of children. We
believe it possible, through the Sunday school and otherwise, to secure a
larger amount of valuable Christian instruction at the children's homes;
and that this is necessary.
This end would be promoted by giving a greater fullness and impres-
siveness to the mode of administering the baptism of chUdren (which
ought always to include a brief but solemn covenant, and an appropriate
chant or hymn), by a more frequent and urgent preaching of this duty,
and by a system of tender watchfulness, on the part of the church, over
the baptized chUdren of its charge, and over all the children of its con
gregation and Sunday school.
Furthermore, there is need of a competent revision of Scripture ques
tion books, of Sunday-school Ubrary and especially of Sunday-school
music books, and the relentless exclusion of all that are not of really
excellent quaUty. The amount of poor and bad material in our children's
singing-books is appalling.
Secondly. In respect to the religious training of our youth. It is a
question for those competent to decide, whether more pains may not
wisely be taken to exhibit the gospel in its glory, so that the young, who
are easily kindled with enthusiasm, may be led to feel that nothing else
can possibly be so glorious as the truths and reaUties contained in this

218 PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
" gospel of the blessed God." Also whether, in addition to general instruc
tion, special teachings for the purpose of guarding against prevalent
errors might not be of use. Whether succinct catechisms might not be
formed for this purpose; and whether lectures upon portions of church-
history, and the history of opinions, could not be turned to advantage.
Whether the influences of " society " may not be made more uniformly '
benignant and wholesome? Whether pastors are reaUy faithful in fol
lowing up with personal labors the effects of their preaching.
Thirdly. Are not persons of adult years often incorrectly presumed to
be practically out of reach? And would not a more sedulous care—
would not more system — in pastoral labor and administration, be fruit
ful of precious results?
It is certainly true that our churches do not study, methodize, and
watch their work as they should; and important portions of it are often
wholly neglected, while others suffer from the inattention necessarily
consequent upon lack of system. Business is impossible without method;
and a similar attention to system is indispensable to any compUcated or
long-continued work.
Fourthly. There are many families and individuals, and not a few dis
tinct communities, unreached by any stated ministration of the word.
Within the parish bounds of many churches, in all the States, there are
neighborhoods or districts the inhabitants of which belong to no Chris
tian congregation, and are reached by no regular reUgious influence.
¦ These outlying communities require the attention of the churches.
Within the bounds of parishes, and often in the immediate neighbor
hood of the sanctuary itself, there are numbers of famiUes and indi
viduals, — some of foreign, others of native birth, — who are equally
neglecters of the sanctuary. These outlying classes also demand the
attention of the churches.
The circumstances of these neighborhoods and districts, and the char
acter of these classes, are so various in the different parts of the country,
that it would be unduly occupying the time of the Council to enter here
upon their classification. The methods by which they are to be reached
by effective Christian influence are also various ; and the consideration
of them, in detail, belongs to the churches themselves, and to local and
State conferences, rather than to a National CouncU. The leading
methods, however, are famiUar to all: special visitation; systematic
visitation, accompanied with a distribution of Bibles, tracts, and reUgious
books and papers; branch Sunday schools ; neighborhood prayer-meet
ings, in private dwellings or in school-houses; neighborhood preach
ing, — with regular services of worship; and to these may probably be
added, what has been so well tried beyond the water, the employment of
" Bible readers."
Unquestionably our " outlying communities " and our " outlying classes"
can all be reached, if the churches wiU enter upon systematic, prayerful
endeavors in their behalf. It was for such work that they were made.
Let us not doubt that they can do it. Experience proves that a church
that is in earnest, and tolerably well guided, wiU meet with encouraging

PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION. 219
success; and that a well-adjusted system makes many things possible
that are otherwise hopeless. Lay Evangelists.
We have been wont to speak of the foolishness of preaching as the
power of God, and rightly. But we seem to have forgotten, that preach
ing needs not a pulpit or consecrated temple for its efficacy, but may do
its deepest work by any fireside or wayside, in any workshop or field.
Wherever a heart full of the divine love brings this love in the truths
of the gospel to bear upon any other heart, there the gospel is preached,
the " power of God to salvation." All faithful Christian parents, teachers,
and friends are instruments of the word and Spirit of God.
It is a, question, whether our churches may not safely set apart and
" license '' certain of their members — gifted with a suitable measure of
wisdom, knowledge, and power of utterance — as lay evangelists, to
superintend and carry on the Christian work, in out-stations, under the
particular counsel and oversight of the church, through its committee
and pastor. We are incUned to beUeve that an important portion of our
work now waiting to be done, can be done in no other way.
Local Conferences.
Fifthly, This whole matter is pecuUarly the proper and the principal
theme of church conferences.
It would seem to require no argument to prove that the immediate
work of the churches is properly their main concern. Would it not, in
deed, be a strange mistake, if, when assembled in conference, they were
to omit its consideration, or were to fail to give to it, ordinarily, the
. greater part of the time which they spend together? Our Sunday-school
teachers find enough to interest large conventions in the details of a com
paratively limited and simple task. How vastly more various, com
prehensive, and difficult are the responsibilities which come upon the
churches and their pastors ! There can be no question that these de
mand a profounder and more general study ; and, for the purpose of
bringing them statedly before the churches, in judicious form and man
ner, and of securing an intelligent comparison and summary of methods
and results, it would probably be weU for local conferences to maintain
standing committees on parochial evangeUzation. These conferences
can, also, by means of pubUc discussions and addresses, affect the move
ments of pubUc opinion, and create currents of sentiment which will
greatly assist each local church in its particular work.
State Conferences.
Sixthly, The larger conferences, embracing entire States, can render a
simUar service, appointing their commissions on popular Christianiza
tion, — gathering thus the results of the general experience for general
benefit, and marking the general progress, from year to year, and decade
to decade, in this. process inevitably bringing into prominence questions
of universal and permanent interest.

220 PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
The American Congregational Association1
Now have under consideration a plan for securing reports, summaries,
and discussions, that shaU cover the labor of aU the churches of the
country, — our national work of popular Christianization. We trust that
some arrangement to this end wiU be carried into effect.
GENERAL MINISTERIAL ASSOCIATIONS.
Another department of our subject merits more attention than can now
be given it. Error and sin intrench themselves behind defenses of learn
ing, while the truth itself is deep and wide, — a sea that no sounding-lines
fathom — a continent which no armies subdue. Hence the importance,
not only of a learned ministry, but also of ministerial associations, for
concentrating the best wisdom of the ablest minds upon the exposition,
inculcation, and defence of the truth. Whether the local associations,
which are now universal in the older parts of the country, are aU that we
need, and whether larger " coUeges," converging the learning and expe
rience of the ministry of entire States, may not have a place in the best
church system, are questions not yet answered. When we consider
how much is impUed in the thorough Christianization of any community,-
that the evangeUzation of our parishes not only involves the defeat of
iniquity in its high places and its palaces, but also an increase in the av
erage depth, and an elevation of the average tone, of popular thinking,
we can not but be deeply impressed with the importance of securing, on
the part of our ministry, a patient, united study of great reUgious themes
and issues. We need to join our strength, in the endeavor to think the
thoughts of God; to comprehend, expound, and defend the truth. Nor
do we despair of this result, but are incUned to beUeve that ministerial
associations, general, as weU as local, have an important part to play in
the grand work of popular Christianization.
OUR NEED AND OUR DUTY.
And now, if any are inclined to feel that your committee has dealt too
much with general views, and has had too Uttle to say of details, we re
ply : The details belong to the churches and their more local conferences;
and, furthermore, the general doctrine, with the impiUse which it breeds,
is what the churches now most need. When they have come to estimate
aright the sacred dignity, responsibiUty, and privilege which clothe the
church, as God's kingdom and family, and the agency which he has or
dained for the conquest of the world, they wiU assuredly find out for
themselves the best methods of Christian labor.
Immense interests are dependent on the proper prosecution of this
work of parochial evangelization. Unless the churches rise to a higher
efficiency, not only must multitudes of souls from their own communities
go down in hopeless paths of sin, but the work that calls to us from broad
Territories and from newly opened States must faU in its very begin-
» Until recently, known as the " Congregational Library Association."

PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION. 221
ning; and our institutions, flooded with a foreign tide, and penetrated
with a hidden decay in their very foundations, must yet come to their
fall. The hope of our land is in the success of its churches.
Our fathers expected to found a Christian people. This, their pur
pose, is our inheritance. Let us solemnly resume it in all its breadth;
lift up a standard to the people, and cast up highways for their return,
untU they shaU all have come in, a " holy people, the redeemed of the
Lord." In conclusion, your committee respectfuUy suggest the adoption of the
Mowing RECOMMENDATIONS TO CHURCHES AND MINISTERS.
1. That, when possible, every church, taking counsel if necessary with
neighboring churches, define for itself the territory embraced in its par
ish, and recognize a special responsibiUty to labor for the spiritual benefit
of aU Congregational and aU neglected families and individuals within
those bounds.
"When churches are so near together that this is impossible, it is rec
ommended that they accept the common territory as their joint parish,
and, with a simUar formal acknowledgment of responsibiUty, secure a good
mutual understanding for the best prosecution of their work. But, even
in cities, we counsel a geographical division, in reference to certain kinds
of labor. In the newer portions of the country, when convenient, an out
field, may be designated in connection with the parish proper.
2. We recommend to aU churches to devote one prayer-meeting every
month (or, perhaps, in the case of the feeblest country churches, one in
each quarter); to the special object of the church and its work, — giving
to this meeting the name of The Home Prayer-Meeting.
3. We would suggest that each church set before itself, as its work,
the complete Christianization of its parish, and enter methodicahy upon
the prosecution of this enterprise, — classifying the whole population in
trusted of God to its care, and endeavoring to shape its instrumentalities
so as to reach the whole; keeping, also careful records of all known la
bor, and all visible progress, and reporting the same, in proper form for
record, to their neighbor-churches in conference.
4. That the churches maintain, through local conferences, standing
committees on parochial evangelization.
5. That the churches, meeting in State conferences, create permanent
commissions on popular Christianization.
6. We shall be gratified to learn that the American Congregational
Association has perfected plans for the promotion of movements toward
popular Christianization throughout the country.
7. That all ministers of churches (1) take special pains to instruct
their people in the true doctrine of the church; bringing into special prom
inence (a) the character of its material — believers; (b) the form of its
organization — a brotherhood; (c) the dignity of its three-fold end —
God's glory in conversion, holiness, and worship; (d) the several methods
whereby it accompUshes its end; making especially prominent the duty

222 SYSTEMATIZING BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS.
of each church to be, within itself, a veritable family of God, and, for
those without, a band of loving missionaries; and sedulously inculcating
the doctrine of church responsibility for communities. (2) That the min
isters systematize the work of their churches, apportiomng it so that
none of it shall be overlooked, and none unnecessarily neglected; and
aiming to secure the effective employment of as many church-members
as possible in some form of Christian effort.
8. It is furthermore suggested, that the churches, in their local confer
ences take into consideration the expediency of endeavoring to meet the
wants of such outlying districts as can not be statedly suppUed with the
services of ministers of the gospel, by the employment of lay evangelists
regularly appointed by the church or its committee.
9. We suggest whether it may not be wise to test, by trial, whether a
State ministerial association can not be of service as a professional body
for professional ends, — a college for the promotion of Christian fellow
ship, and of the knowledge, wisdom, and skUl requisite for the inculcation
of the truth, the sagacious conduct of necessary controversies, and- the
successful administration of the pastorate, — thus rounding out, in full
symmetry, our Congregational organization.
Daniel P. Notes, ") n^^n*..
Henry M. Dexter, j Committee.
Boston, June 14, 1865.
Rev. Mr. Langworthy reported the following as the commit
tee, and the report was adopted : —
ON PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
Rev. Reuben T. Robinson, of Massachusetts; Rev. Amos S. Chese-
brough, of Connecticut; Rev. John M. Holmes, of New Jersey; Eev.
Henry M. Goodwin, of Illinois; Rev. David Burt, of Minnesota; Eev.
Richard Cordley, of Kansas ; Rev. James T. Ford, of Vermont.
CLASSIFICATION OF BENEVOLENT ORGANIZATIONS.
Rev. Israel W. Andrews, D. D., of Ohio, read the following
report, which was then referred under the rules : —
systematizing benevolent contributions.
The committee to whom was referred " the classification of benevo
lent organizations to be recommended to the patronage of the churches,"
have found themselves embarrassed by the difficulty of attaching precise
ideas to the subject on which they were appointed to report. In the dis
cussion of this topic at the preliminary meeting, three different classes
of views were presented.
The first contemplated an examination of the existing benevolent
organizations, with reference to re-arrangement and consoUdation. The

SYSTEMATIZING BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS. 223
conviction was expressed that two or more societies might profitably be
united into one, as having the same end in view; and that some others,
in consideration of the urgent wants of the times upon which we are
entering, should not be pressed upon the churches.
Another view gave prominence to the practical embarrassments to
ministers and churches arising from the multiplicity of objects, and the
confusion and conflict that sometimes result. The present workings of
our benevolent system were declared to be satisfactory neither to the
churches nor societies; and the beUef was expressed that measures ought
to be devised for their mutual relief.
The third view deprecated any consideration of the topic by the
National Council, deeming it an interference with the work of the indi
vidual churches, and not likely to be productive of benefit. In accepting.
the duty assigned them, the committee must, of course, put themselves
in opposition to this last view, though the responsibiUty belongs to the
preliminary conference rather than to them; still, the existence of such
an opinion adds to their embarrassment. If, in addition to this difference
of opinion as developed at the preliminary meeting, and subsequently by
consultation and correspondence, the sensitiveness of the churches on the
one hand, and that of the benevolent societies on the other, be. consid
ered, it wiU be manifest that a duty has been assigned to the committee
alike difficult and deUcate. It would be vain, therefore, to expect that
the views here presented would meet with universal favor. Whatever
value may be attached to them, they are given as embodying the results
to which the committee have been led by the best consideration they
have been able to give to the subject.
The individual Christian, as weU as the individual church, has a two
fold duty to perform; he is to grow in grace himself, and to do good to
others. And this latter duty is to be performed partly by personal
effort and -partly through the agency of others. Here is the sphere of
what is commonly called benevolence. The Christian expends money to
buy Bibles for himself and family; we do not term it benevolence. He
pays for the support of his own minister; it is not a benevolent con
tribution. But money given to procure Bibles for distribution, to sup
port a minister preaching to a feeble congregation, to send the Uving
teacher to the heathen, is said to be for benevolent purposes. Possibly,
Christians sometimes employ others to do what it would be better that
they should do themselves. It may be easier in some cases to give
money than personal effort. But the discussion of that topic belongs
not to this committee. Assume that there are no shortcomings in the
personal activity of the members of a church, — that no one of them
performs by proxy the duty which he should perform in person; still,
there is a boundless field in the cultivation of which others must be
employed, and for this benevolent contributions are indispensable. It
may be said, indeed, that the more of personal efficiency the Christian
manifests, the more will he give for objects beyond his immediate reach;
that the more perfectly he cultivates his local field, the more vividly wUl
he see and feel the wants of the great field, the world.

224 SYSTEMATIZING BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS.
The question, then, of benevolent contributions is one of great scope.
It comprehends a large part of the work of the Christian, - of the
churches. The giving of money is not enough; it should be given intel
ligently. To what causes shall our churches contribute? To what
organizations shall they intrust the expenditure of their money? These
are questions always important, always pertinent. Is there any thing in
the peculiar circumstances of our country, or the world, that makes
them specially important and appropriate at the present time? Has
there been any change in the relative importance of different organiza
tions? Even if nothing be said of the honesty, fldeUty, and abiUty with
which these organizations have been conducted, has not the progress of
events or rather the providence of God, rendered the claims of some
more imperative, of others less so, than formerly? Has not this Coun
cil been convened to consider anew the fields of Christian labor, and to
inquire how the work of Christian benevolence can be most successfully
carried forward?
The subject of benevolent contributions is thus broad and compre
hensive; and a discussion of it, while embracing, should by no means he
Umited to, the practical difficulties of which our ministers and churches
complain. These difficulties are, an undue multipUcation of organizations; too
many occasional contributions, which interfere with the regular causes;
a want of discrimination, so that more important objects sometimes
receive the smaller contributions; and, in general, an excess of friction
in the working of the machinery. Perhaps the difficulties may be re
duced to these two, — a lack of system in the organization of the
benevolent societies, considered as a whole, and a lack of system in the
arrangements for contributions in the individual churches. Has not too
much been left to accident, as weU in the formation of the societies as in
providing the means for their operations?
Our benevolent machinery should be as simple as possible consistent
with the highest efficiency. Two or more organizations ought not to be
established or continued to perform a work for which one is sufficient.
The churches have no surplus, either of men or money, for organizations
which are not strictly necessary. It has been said that appeals have
been made to our churches, for contributions in behalf of the Freedmen,
by twelve different organizations. Besides the useless expenditure in
keeping up so many associations, what confusion must be caused by
such a multipUcity of appeals for the same object! Nothing is plainer
than that no new society should be established without the most careful
examination of the field to be cultivated, and of the agencies already
engaged in the work. There should also be a wide consultation of intel
ligent, Christian men, both clerical and lay, before entering upon so
important an undertaking as laying the foundations of a benevolent asso
ciation, which is to be supported, if supported at all, by appeals to
Christian churches.
Akin to this difficulty arising from the multipUcity of organizations
is that from the numerous occasional calls for contributions. This evil

SYSTEMATIZING BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS. 22tl
is felt more in the cities and larger towns. Aid is needed for some object
not coming within the province of any regular association, and to secure
it, appUcation is made to one or more churches where it is thought a
hearing can be obtained. The appUcant deems his cause to be meritorious
in a high degree; and it is one, moreover, whose claims to immediate
attention are imperative. It is often difficult thus to withstand the various
influences brought to bear upon the pastors or officers of the church,
and the number of caUs of this character may become, in the aggregate,
very great.
But shall a ehurch absolutely close its doors to aU appeals except
from certain societies? By no means. With all our system, we can not
so look into the future as to see aU that a year will disclose. There
are good objects to which aid must be rendered outside of the regular
organizations. But the number wiU be smaU.
As it is, the churches complain, and with reason. Even if aU these
occasional calls were for worthy objects, their number is an evU. In
some cases private UberaUty should be appealed to. In others, the aid
should be given through one of the regular societies. Almost every
large church takes collections each year for objects which come legit
imately within the sphere of some one of the regular benevolent organiza
tions. . In the eyes of some men, independence is the cardinal virtue.
They wish to do things, in their own way. They care not to be ham
pered. If they raise the money which they think they need, directly
from the churches, instead of receiving it from the treasury -of a society,
they are sure of a wide discretion in its expenditure. This feeUng of
independence, this impatience of restraint, will account for many of these
occasional calls on the churches. Perhaps to the same source may be
traced the formation of some of our numerous organizations.
As illustrating the great advantage to the churches of rendering aid
miough the channel of a regular society, rather than in response to
individual appeals, reference may be had to the society estabUshed more
than twenty years ago for aiding colleges and theological seminaries in
the West. The churches were saved from a multitude of conflicting
apphcations. What they had to contribute they could give with perfect
confidence that it would be wisely appropriated. Substantial aid was
thus furnished to institutions reaUy worthy, while it was withheld from
those that were not needed.
Some, at least, of these occasional appeals will be for unworthy objects.
Yet it is often exceedingly difficult for the pastor, or the officers of the
church, to distinguish at the time between the good and the bad. Even
recommendations from men of the highest respectability are not always
proof that the object recommended is deserving. Names are sometimes
given without any expectation that they are to be used for such a purpose.
Thousands of doUars may be collected at a distance, on the strength of
recommendations from men who, Uving in the vicinity, and having per
sonal knowledge, would neither give a dollar themselves, nor take a
coUection in then*- churches. But men should have more firmness, it is
said. Of course they should; but the fact that aU have not this desirable
15

223 SYSTEMATIZING BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS.
trait makes it the more difficult for the churches to know to which of
these occasional caUs they should respond.
This class of appeals should be subjected to the severest scrutiny.
The churches have no funds to expend on unworthy objects; and when
men discover that they have given to such, their confidence is shaken,
and their general contributions are diminished.
In connection with these occasional caUs outside of the regular benev
olent organizations, allusion may be made to the taMng-up of a second
collection for a given cause in a single year. The exigency of the case
is the reason assigned. But as there are many societies which need all
the funds they can obtain, it is a question whether justice to others will
aUow any one to ask for a double opportunity. The precedent would
be sure to be pleaded, and thus the difficulties from which the churches
now seek relief would be increased. The year is the great unit of time
for our benevolent societies, and there is eminent propriety in adhering
to it.
These are some of the embarrassments under which the churches laboi.
The multiplicity of appeals for carrying forward the work of the regular
societies, as well as for the objects lying beyond their sphere, tends to
confuse the minds of the people, and subjects the pastors to a sore trial.
But these are not the only parties from whom complaints are heard.
The managers of our great charitable organizations are no better satisfied
with the practical workings of the benevolent machinery. The conflict
of appUcation prevents a fuU development of Christian benevolence, and
thus these organizations are often subjected to serious embarrassment
in their work. Those upon whom devolves the duty of presenting these
causes to the churches, find their work, which at best is never pleasant,
to be doubly disagreeable.
It should never be forgotten that the churches and the societies are
laboring for a common end, — that the latter are but the agents of the
former. There should ever be the highest Christian courtesy between
our ministers and churches on the one hand, and the officers and agents
of our benevolent societies on the other. The many appeals, sometimes
conflicting, that are made, coupled with the lack of system which prevails
in too many of the churches, furnish ground for complaint, it may he,
but not for the tone and manner in which that complaint sometimes finds
expression. It is easy to find fault with agents, but the time for wholly
dispensing with their services has not yet come. The number of pastors
who are both able and willing to do in their own churches aU that
is usually done by agents is increasing every year; and just as far as the
work can thus be done should other agencies be dispensed with. • Nothing
will tend more to hasten the day when extraneous help will no longer be
needed than a wise classification of benevolent organizations, and the
devising and executing in every church a thorough system of contri
butions. The pastors of the churches and the officers and agents of the societies
are laboring in the same great field. All desire that the benevolence
of the churches should be so developed and dh-ected as to accompUsh the

SYSTEMATIZING BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS. 227
highest good. If this requires the consoUdation of two or more societies
into one, no personal or official considerations should be allowed to stand
in the way of doing it. An organization may have been hitherto ab
solutely necessary, whose work can henceforth be done as efficiently and
more economically by another. Great changes are taking place, new
and wide fields of Christian enterprise have been thrown open ; our benev
olent operations must be adapted to the exigencies of the times, and to
the demands which God is making upon us.
As already stated, one of the great ends for which this Council has
been convened is to inquire what is the special duty of the churches
which we represent in relation to the great fields of labor which the
providence of God has opened to us. Having given this inquiry their
most earnest and prayerful consideration shall the Council then recom
mend to the churches the benevolent organizations through which these
fields are to be cultivated? Your committee have no hesitation in giving
an affirmative answer to this question. Not to make such a recommend
ation would be to leave then: work but half accompUshed. Nor is there
any reason to fear that the churches will deem it an interference.
If the members of an individual church are guided in great measure, as
to the direction which their contributions shall take, by the suggestions
of their pastor, who can doubt that the deUberate recommendation of
this large body of ministers and delegates will carry with it great weight?
The Council should not be deterred from such a recommendation, either
by a groundless fear of encroaching on the rights of the churches, or be
cause of any apprehended insinuations of inconsistency from those who
prefer some other poUty. The Congregational churches have been so
thoroughly pervaded with the spirit of cathoUcity, and so ready to do '
good wherever an opportunity offered itself, and to contribute money to
sustain enterprises, no matter by whom controUed, that the absence of
denominational feeUng has come to be regarded as their denominational
characteristic. And when action is proposed that has any look toward
providing for our own, and especiaUy for those of our own house, it is
hinted within, and asserted without, that we are abandoning the old ways,
and becoming like the nations around us.
The churches have sent up their delegates to deliberate on great ques
tions. ShaU the results of their deUberations be hermeticaUy sealed, lest
the churches shaU know what has been done, and be influenced thereby?
On the same principle, and with equal wisdom, suppress our Congrega
tional Quarterly, and give up aU our reUgious newspapers and period
icals. The ministry is the chief instrumentality by which the world is to be
converted to God. The gospel is to be preached at home and abroad.
This is the great work. Others are important as they aid and supple
ment this. This is the principal; others are auxiliary. We caU it the
missionary work, Aome'and foreign. But the missionary is a minister,
and the importance of his work may be estimated by that of the pastors
of our churches. Close the places of worship in these towns of New
England, and remove the ministers from their people, and then expect

228 SYSTEMATIZING BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS.
the ways of Zion to rejoice, and the kingdom of Christ to be built upl
When those whose fleld of labor is on our Western frontier^ have looked
over the wastes, and heard the importunate appeals for ministers, they
may be pardoned if sometimes they have asked themselves whether the
Christians of a county in Massachusetts or Connecticut would be quite
satisfied to have, as their sole spiritual guide and teacher, a colporter.
If nothing could be a substitute for the ministry here in New England1,
neither could it be in the West. Were the members of our churches to
make an estimate of the amount invested in church edifices hi the older
States, as well as the sums annually expended in payment of salaries,
and in defraying the other expenses incidental to sustaining pubUc wor
ship, they would have more sympathy with the feeble churches of the
newer portions of our country-, and their contributions to aid them would
be greatly increased.
The Christian ministry is the great agency to be employed. Those
churches which can not, unaided, support their pastor, must receive
assistance. Young men must be brought into the ministry, and the
churches must aid in defraying the expenses of their education. Houses
of worship are necessary, and a helping hand must be given in erecting
them. If permanent educational institutions have been found indis
pensable to the highest and truest reUgious progress in New England,
and especially as training-places for the ministry, they should for the
same reason be estabUshed elsewhere. So far as ministers and Christian
laymen can make more available their efforts to do good, by the circula
tion of the word of God, or by the distribution of tracts and other printed
matter, or by furnishing libraries to Sabbath schools, they should cer
tainly avail themselves of these auxiliary means. But it is of no Uttle
importance that these associations, which are engaged in thus providing
reUgious reading, should be regarded as merely supplementing the work
of the ministry. The special wants of our seamen should not be over
looked, though the duty of making provision for their spiritual improve
ment seems to devolve chiefly upon the members of our Churches on the
seaboard. So, too, a class in our own country, that can not be reached
directly by our domestic missionaries, may require special provision
for a time; and, through the same channel, efforts may be made for
bringing the gospel to those who dwell in papal countries. The peo
ple from whom the shackles of slavery have just fallen have a claim
upon us for the gospel and the institutions of religion and civilization,
which we have neither the right nor the desire to shake off. As yet, but
a smaU portion of that work can be done by our Home Missionary So
ciety; but another organization is already doing most efficient service,
whose antecedents give it the highest confidence of that people.
So far, then, as it belongs to this committee to classify organizations
to be recommended to the churches, we place first and foremost the
two great missionary societies, — the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions, and the American Home Missionary Society. If
the important work of church building could be performed by the lattei
of these two societies, the churches doubUng contributions, it would sim-

SYSTEMATIZING BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS. 229
plify to that extent our benevolent work. Whatever other causes are
overlooked by any church, these two should always be remembered.
The cause of education for the ministry has a relation to the missionary
work more intimate than that sustained by any other, and its importance
should give it place in all our churches. In some of the States, an edu
cational committee attends to the work of coUecting funds, and in others
the American Education Society has the matter in charge. Surplus
funds might weU be used, as hi some other denominations, in establishing
permanent scholarships.
As also directly connected with the missionary work, the Society for
promoting CoUegiate and Theological Education at the West should be
named. Its work in the past has been most salutary, and through no
other channel can Uberal men do so much to advance, in the West, the
interests of thorough inteUectual culture, under the auspices of reUg
ion. The American Missionary Association is understood to devote its
chief — perhaps its entire — attention to the freedmen, and the com
mittee take pleasure in referring to it as the fittest organization for that
work. The American Bible Society is too weU known to need any special
mention. In regard to contributions for furnishing Ubraries to destitute Sabbath
schools, the committee venture a single suggestion. It is, that a portion,
at least, of the contributions made by the children of our Sabbath schools
should take this direction, or that our churches, when raising funds for
replenishing their own Ubraries, should, at the same time, contribute for
feeble schools. Suitable books can be procured in many places, though
none more suitable, nor on better terms, than from the Massachusetts
Sabbath School Society.
AUusion has already been made to the American and Foreign Chris
tian Union, and to the American Seamen's Friend Society.
Most of the organizations caUed into existence by the exigencies of
the war wUl cease with the occasion which caUed them forth. The work
for the Freedmen, however, must continue; and, as already suggested,
the American Missionary Association seems to be the most desirable
channel through which our churches should contribute.
There are many points to which" the attention of the Council might be
called, for the discussion of which the( committee have not time. The
importance of conducting the benevolent operations of the individual
(Churches in a systematic and -business manner, to which aUusion has
already been made, can not be urged too strongly. The nature of our
polity makes this indispensable. While our churches abound with
business men, it is to be feared that in cases not a few the contributions
are managed with very Uttle reference to business principles. Let it not
be forgotten that benevolent contributions are a means of grace. The
individual Christian who gives is benefited no less than he who receives.
AU proper means should then be employed to develop the benevolence
of our churches. Among these means none is more important than the

230 SYSTEMATIZING BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS.
adoption of a weU-digested plan, such as is already in operation in many
churches. Suppose each church should, at the beginning of the year,
determine to what causes they wiU contribute, specifying the months.
The church, we say, not the pastor, or the pastor and deacons, for the
members must be interested that they may act intelligently. The num
ber of occasional contributions should be Umited, for it is those which
are responsible for most of the confusion. Let as Uttle as possible be
left to discretion, and nothing to accident. At the end of the year let a
full report of the contributions be made to the church, and entered upon
the church records. Let the appropriate committees, or the deacons,
present the receipts of the treasurers of the societies as the proper evi
dence that the contributions have reached their destination. All other
associations make their annual reports ; why should not our churches?
The members need to know what their church has done. In some
churches this knowledge is in possession, but not in aU. It is proba
ble that our members know less of the operations of their individual
churches, and less of what is done by the churches of their order
throughout the land, than those of any sister denomination. To what
ever cause .this may be attributed, it is to be remedied only by sys
tematic effort in the individual church.
The committee think that those churches which contribute to a regu
lar cause each month will have no difficulty in completing the cycle each
year. But no occasional cause should be allowed to crowd out one of
those decided upon by the church. Where collections are taken less fre
quently, two plans may be adopted. One is to make contributions
singly for the more important objects, and to group the others, that the
list shaU be completed each year. The other contemplates annual col
lections for the great causes, and biennial for the others. Each has its
advantages. Where two or more causes are presented at once, and the
collection divided, the impression must be less distinct and definite.
The members should give intelUgently, and clear statements should be
made by agents or pastors of the nature and object and workings of
every association for which funds are soUcited. The pastors assume too
much knowledge of our societies and their operations on the part of
their congregations. They forget that young people are aU the while
coming forward, and that men are brought into the church from the
world, with whom the American Board even is not a household word.
It is our conviction that a clear, business-like statement of the condition
and operations of a society, occupying ten or fifteen minutes, would be
more potent with the men who give the money than an impassioned
appeal of an hour.
In conclusion, the evils of which so much complaint has been made
can be remedied by the pastor and the churches, and by them alone.
The adoption of rigid system, as to contributions, is indispensable to the
prosperity of every church. Irresponsible agents must be excluded, and
churches must decide for themselves to what they wiU contribute.
Their plans and the manner in which they are executed should be put on
record. The history of the benevolence of a church is worthy of pres-

EVANGELIZATION IN FOREIGN LANDS. 231
ervation. Because money is given for benevolent purposes, it does not
follow that it should be given at random. Perhaps, by virtue of their
office, the deacons should look after these matters; but if they do not,
the minister must. Let him not fear a Uttle contact with business
details. Other things being equal, the more practical talent he pos
sesses, the greater wUl be his success.
The field of benevolence is large and open. A great work is before
us. God has given wealth to our churches, and, to some extent, they
acknowledge their stewardship. What is speciaUy needed is system,
both in the individual churches and in the benevolent organizations con
sidered as parts of one whole, and as doing a common work; it is needed
in the former, that the treasury of the Lord may be kept always fuU; in
the latter, that from every expenditure the best results may flow.
Israel W. Andrews, )
Ray Palmer, i- Committee.
Henry E. Parker, )
Boston, June 14, 1865.
It was accepted, and reference ordered to a special commit
tee. The convention then took a recess until 3 o'clock, p. m.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
The Council was called to order at 3 o'clock, Rev. Dr,
Thompson in the chair.
The report of the committee on Evangelization in Foreign
Lands was read by the chairman, Rev. Dr. Budington, as
follows : — EVANGELIZATION IN FOREIGN LANDS.
The committee appointed by the CouncU upon the work of evangeliza
tion in foreign lands, submit the following report: —
As CongregationaUsts we are not only committed to the prosecution
of foreign missions, but our place is that of pioneers in the enterprise.
We have taken the lead of all the denominations in our land in the
origination of agencies, and the contribution of men and means. The
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions is the child of
the Congregationalists of New England; and although instituted in the
comprehensive , spirit of cathoUc Christianity, and common to us with
the Presbyterians, and formerly with the Reformed Dutch Church, it
has all along been the favorite of our people; and there is no distinction
which we cherish more fondly than this of having originated and been
foremost in sustaining American missions to the heathen. New England
was at the outset a mission. Our fathers came here on this distinct
errand, as professedly and as really to preach the gospel to the Indians,

232 EVANGELIZATION IN FOREIGN LANDS.
and to extend the Redeemer's kingdom, as to make new homes for them-
selves; train up their chUdren for God, and lay the foundations of a
Christian State. Congregationalists, therefore, come legitimately by
their zeal for foreign missions. We should be unworthy of our ances
try, and recreant to the trust we have received from them, if we should
make the commandment of Christ to preach the gospel to every creature
secondary to any other duty or interest. EspeciaUy incumbent is this
declaration upon this First National Congregational Council ; and not
the less because we are assembled at a solemn juncture of our country's
history to enter afresh upon the work of home missions, and adjust our
selves to the new openings the war has made for the estabUshment of
free churches and a free gospel in' the South. We are planning and
praying for the enfranchisement and regeneration of our country; hut
we do not stop with this, — r we wish to give our country to Christ, that
through it the world may be the more speedily redeemed. A patriotism
that ends in coldness, or antagonism toward the rest of mankind is sel
fishness and crime. Our country, its reconstruction and evangelization
is just now our first soUcitude; but so far from separating the. home
field from the foreign, we beUeve them to be one and indissoluble, and
it is only as we are loyal to Christ that we can hope that he wiU be pro
pitious to us.
Your committee, therefore, recommend that the CouncU, as represent
atives of the churches, do testify their deep sense of the importance of
Foreign Missions, and their unabated devotion to the prosecution of the
enterprise. We need it for ourselves. The work wUl die at home, if it
languish abroad. It is the sign of our feUowship with Christ. It is the
condition of his blessing. We need it in every sense, and for every
reason. Our piety needs it. It is the purest form of benevolence on
earth; and it sustains and intones every other form of benevolence in
church or State. If we withhold from the heathen, God wiU withhold
from us. If we keep back our sons and daughters from the remotest
people for whom Christ died, the spirit will be wanting in them for the
service of God in this our dearest country. For every true missionary
of the cross who has died on the foreign field, God has poured the spirit
of consecration into the hearts of our youth at home; and we have been
the richer in spirit arid material for every such loss. We can not afford
to shut off this source of supply, now that we are entering a wider and
more destitute fleld of missionary effort than was ever open to a Chris
tian people before, and we need resources of men and money which
nothing short of the Spirit of Christ in the best ages of missionary zeal
can impart. For ourselves, then, and the work of home evangeUzation,
we must cultivate the missionary spirit, and bound our sympathies only
where Christ bounded his.
Besides this, God has so greatly blessed us, given us such success in
regions so wide and inviting, so many populations are looking to us for
the gospel, and by the tacit consent of Protestant Christians are left to
us, and made dependent upon us, that we are beholden of God to pros
ecute the work. No branch of the church has missions relatively more

EVANGELIZATION IN FOREIGN -LANDS* 233
important to the evangelization of the world than ours. Some of the
most interesting peoples, and, when converted, the most influential, are
ours to labor for, and by the blessing of God redeem. No missionaries
from any land, in any part of the world, have won a more enviable name
than the Congregational and Presbyterian missionaries connected with
the American Board; nor has greater success been vouchsafed to any
laborers than to them. The Turkish Empire is open to us as to no other
nation, and the decayed Oriental churches are receiving almost entirely
the gospel at our hands. And it is a pure gospel. The churches gathered
among the Armenians are as worthy of confidence as those gathered by
the apostles, arid by the blessing of God may be made as efficient in
spreading the truth. In India, we have a wide and most important field
among the Mahratta and Tamil races. In Northern China the openings
are more numerous than we can enter. In South Africa we have a lim
ited but interesting field; and Western Africa affords to us one well fitted
to caU forth the energies and educate the Christian zeal of the Freedmen
of our country, and it seems to have been held in reserve for us by God
to meet the wants of our colored people, and assist in their development.
Africa and America, whose destinies have been so strangely blended in
the past, are to react upon each other in blessings that shall efface the
memory of the wrongs and cruelties of the age of slavery. As to the
islands in the ocean world, it is enough for us to point to the Hawaiian
peoples whom our missions have given to the community of nations ; and
though they are in a transition state from dependence upon missionaries
to a condition of self-support, we must defend them from invasion and
injury by others tiU they shall ba able to preserve, by their own intel
ligence, the free institutions we have given them. And there is -also the
Micronesian mission, a most hopeful enterprise, an offshoot of Hawaiian
zeal, and doubly precious to us, as a seal of the true Christianity of those
recently regenerated islands. How intimately, therefore, are we related
by past labors and present commitments to the whole world of mankind,
and how much is the speed and thoroughness of the world's evangeUzation
dependent upon the continued activities of Congregational Christians!
We can not, if we would, disengage ourselves from the work ; we would
not, if we could.
Wm. Ives Budington, "
Zachary Eddy,
C. C. Parker, f Committee.
Benjamin Douglas,
William Carter,
This report was accepted and adopted.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio, of the committee on Business,
reported the following resolution, without any recommenda
tion : —
Resolved, That the Committee on the Roll be instructed to report the

234 WELCOME TO GOV. ANDREW.
names of those members only who furnish a Ust of the churches that
actually participated in the vote by which they were chosen.
The resolution was adopted.
The committee also reported the following resolution : —
Resolved, That the Committeee to whom the Report on Home Evan
geUzation was referred, be requested to consider the expediency of or
ganizing some system of benevolent effort, by which in the various regions
of the country where the education of the whole population is not pro
vided for by law, teachers may be sent forth, in company with missionaries,
and schools be established wherever churches are gathered.
The resolution was adopted.
At this point, His Excellency, Gov. Andrew, of Massachusetts,
entered the church, accompanied by Rev. Dr. Kirk and Major
Wm. L. Burt. On reaching the platform, he was welcomed by
the Moderator, in the following address : —
We are very happy, Gov. Andrew, to welcome you on this occasion.
I am happy to present your ExceUency to this councU, representing three
thousand Congregational churches in our land — a body with whose
constitution your ExceUency is of course famiUar.. When fuUy organized,
as at first, we are, in a sense, a Christian State as weU, having for our
head an honored Governor of a sister State, who has stood by you,
sir, shoulder to shoulder, in our dark and terrible struggle. [Ap
plause.] — That noble man, from whose Uve-oak the wisdom of Con
necticut, for seven successive years, hath hewn out her pUlars of State.
[Renewed applause.] And yet, sir, when he sits here among us, it is not
in his capacity as a governor, but as a deacon«of one of these Uttle Chris
tian Commonwealths, and as a member of the body of Christ, serving
with us under Him who is Head over aU principaUties and powers, and
who is Head over aU things to his church.
It is no new thing, sir, for a body of Christian men, of Congregational
men, to tender their expression of loyalty and respect to the State. These
are loyal men; they have been loyal to the nation from first to last; and,
sir, they have been loyal to good old Massachusetts, acknowledging her
lead in this dark and terrible conflict. [Applause.] And we have' rejoiced
to feel, sir, that that State, whose Quincy Adams and Charles Sumner
were the flrst confessors in this great moral conflict, and whose noble
sons, in the streets of Baltimore, were the flrst martyrs in this material
conflict, has been so nobly led through this dark and terrible storm,
[Applause.] We honor you, sir, while with you we honor Him who hath
ruled over aU these mighty deeds for the restoration of the land; who
himself hath taught us that a great redemption from a great sin comes
only by a great sacrifice. While we bow reverently, acknowledging the

RESPONSE OF GOV. ANDREW. 235
hand of God, we rejoice also to honor those who have been his honored
instruihents. We thank you, sir, for your promptitude, your energy,
your firmness throughout all this struggle; and we thank you, especiaUy,
for words that have roused the hearts of the people, — words such as few
of our pubUc men have been gifted to utter in this conflict. [Applause.]
Words, stirring words from your lips, flashing across the wires,, have
thriUed our hearts in other cities and other States; and you, sir, have
taught us to apply the words of Scripture as mottoes of patriotism,
charging us, as I well remember, in one of our darkest hours, to go for
ward in this conflict • " with the high praises of God in our mouths and
the two-edged sword in our hands." We remembered, sir, that Massa
chusetts had once more, according to her motto, drawn the sword, that
she might have again the sweet repose of Uberty, — a sword drawn, only
for the defense of justice and Uberty, — and we knew that when she
drew it, it would never be sheathed until justice and liberty were won.
We welcome you to-day, sfr, as the representative of Massachusetts,
in that long line of iUustrious governors, excelled by the record of no
other States. Governor of Massachusetts, this CouncU tenders you its
respects; this Council will remember you in its prayers; this Council
now waits the pleasure of your words. [Loud applause.]
To this address, Gov. Andrew responded as follows : —
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: — You ought not to expect one of my
experience, — I say nothing of my years, — to be embarrassed. [Laugh
ter.] I took the liberty to inquire this morning, concerning the hours of
the afternoon session of your Council, because, being under the necessity
of visiting Western Massachusetts and Connecticut to-morrow and next
day, I feared that your body might adjourn before an opportunity should
come to me of seeing it in session, and of paying my personal and official
respects to the gentleman who is the permanent President of the organi
zation, — Governor Buckingham of Connecticut, with whom I have had,
for several years, a most agreeable intercourse, and for whom I entertain
the highest respect. I did not know, nor suspect, that in visiting the
Council I should be placed in any situation where attention would be
caUed to my person or presence, differing at all from that of any other .
visitor; but since it has pleased you, Mr. Chairman, and you, gentlemen
of the CouncU, to recognize in the person of an official representative, the
merits and worth and history and character of that grand old Common
wealth which it is my fortune to attempt to serve, I can not, either in
respect to her or to your kindness, omit to respond, out of place as per
haps, in other respects, I might be upon your platform, with such poor
words of my own as may be given me to say.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the cordial words with which you have
alluded to the history of Massachusetts, and to the pubUc services of her
public men. I am sure there is no man or woman in aU our domain who
does not catch with gratitude and sentiments of cordial reciprocity, every
sincere and kind word looking either to our past, present, or to our future;

2,36 RESPONSE OF GOV. ANDREW.
for we recognize in our Commonwealth of Massachusetts, only one of the
representative States of the American Union, patient to foUow:, and also
prepared to lead. [Loud applause.] If in .the past, either as leaders or
followers we have been found faithful to the great ideas which characterize
American liberty, to the great duty which Divine Providence has laid upon
this people, to the great hopes foreshadowed for us and for all mankind
in the principles of that very Gospel in whose service you are met, we
are grateful to that great and good Being who is the Father of man and
the Sovereign of nations, that he has given to us such measure of Uberty,
that he has given to us such measure of grace. And, more than all, sir,
we are grateful for the opportunities of this present hour, which opens
to the faithful, devoted servants of universal truth to-day, a work for
mankind which it was never the province of the sword to accomplish.
[Applause.] Mr. Chairman, the hour has come when the duties of statesmanship
are before us, transcending in importance a thousand times, either the
duties or the hardships of war. War, sir, is a question of science; war
presents a problem of mathematics; and almost any one can solve that
problem by a shrewd guess in advance. Assure us on which side are the
strongest and heaviest battaUons; assure us that the. side on which the
strongest and heaviest battaUons are wiU never give up, and mathematics
prove to us who wUl win. Let us be assured, Mr. Chairman, that truth and
justice are on our side, and I do not know that we wUl win, in this our
day. The days of God are long — those of men are short. The work
of God is in eternity — the work of men is in time. The question now
presents itself to the American people whether they are capable, hy
reason of conviction, by reason of a firm purpose, by reason of a suffi
ciently intelligent comprehension of their own duty and their own case,
to link themselves with the fortunes of eternity, and in the great moral
battles of the universe, fight with God. [Loud applause.] And I trust,
Mr. President, that the meetings of such associations as yours, that the
convenings of men led and inspired by high conceptions of duty, whose
hearts anchor themselves to the Eternal Throne, may help to encourage,
instruct, and inspire the people. [Applause.]
I know not how far I agree or how far I differ with a majority of the
gentlemen, or any one of the gentlemen present, upon questions of dog
matic theology, and I suppose that neither you nor any one else cares.
But I do know that you, as faithful citizens and Christian men, do care
whether the people of Massachusetts, and those to whom, for a time, it
is given in any measure to represent Massachusetts, are grounded in
those doctrines, principles and methods of the Bible upon which were
originaUy founded the free commonwealths of America. [Applause.]
In a common purpose, with a common hope, encouraged by the expects?
tion of good in this Ufe and the promise of supernal good in that which is
to come, let us devote ourselves, with one heart and one mind, toward
the realization of the highest hopes of humanity, toward the perfection
of all that which distinguishes and characterizes us as a free people, that
which inspires the song of angels, and adds to the beatitude of heaven.
[Loud applause.]

RESOLUTIONS. 237
Bev. Mr. Quint, in behalf of the Business Committee, submit
ted the following resolutions : —
Whereas, all true principles of civU and religious freedom have origin
ated from the Bible, and can be estabUshed and- sustained only by the gen
eral circulation of the Word of God through all the channels of popular
education, Whether in the school or in the sanctuary; therefore,
Resolved, That we honor the wisdom, as well as the piety of our Pu
ritan fathers, in ordering the daily use of the Bible in the schools estab
lished for the education of the people.
That we regret any departure from this time-hallowed usage, as
destroying the life-giving power of popular education, which has no true
basis but in those great principles of human brotherhood and equality,
taught alone in the Holy Scriptures.
That, in our efforts to promote the education of the people, and to train
up an intelligent, patriotic, and Christian community, understanding
their rights and duties, and prepared to carry out the great mission of
freedom and reUgion opening before this nation, we pledge ourselves to
maintain the right of the Word of God in the school as in the sanctuary,
and to resist, steadfastly, any and every encroachment on that wise pro
vision of our fathers which carried the Bible into the daily education of
the people.
The resolutions were adopted.
The committee also presented the following resolution, which
was referred to the committee on Declaration of Faith : —
Resolved, That, in the gathering of new churches in the West and
South, the National CouncU recommend that only those essential doc
trines of the Gospel in which evangeUcal Christians generally are agreed
should be made the condition of church feUowship.
The following resolutions were also submitted by the com
mittee, and severally laid on the table : —
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to report an order of pubUc
Sabbath services in our churches, that will reUeve us from the present
confusing diversity by some appropriate order of service that will secure,
in the denomination, general harmony.
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to consider and report on the
expediency of recognizing, as part of the Congregational system, a class
of ministers specially devoted to the work of promoting revivals of reUg
ion, in connection with pastors.
Resolved, That inasmuch as the enemies of Christianity are at this day
persistent in their attempts to overthrow the Bible through the medium
of science, a special committee be appointed by this Council, to give

s

238 WALDENSIAN CHURCH, ITALY.
utterance to our confident beUef that the Bible wiU withstand all the
assaults of its opponents.
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to which all historical and
statistical documents shaft be referred.
The Business Committee also presented the following inquiry
to the Council, which had been submitted to them : —
" Is it according to Congregational principles for a minister, who is not
a pastor, to represent a church in an Ecclesiastical CouncU ? "
The question was referred to the committee on Church Polity.
The following resolution was also submitted by the same
committee : —
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to consider, and, if they deem
it expedient, report upon the relations and duties of our denomination in
relation to reUgious books and tracts.
On motion of Rev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut, the resolu
tion was referred to a special committee of three.
The following letter was read by Rev. Dr. Wolcott, and, on
motion of Rev. Dr. Sturtevant, referred to a special committee of
three : —
The Synod of the Waldensian Church, of Italy, to the Christians of th
United States.
Brethren in Christ: — The Synod of the Waldensian Church,
lately assembled for its annual session at San Giovanni, Piedmont, has
felt it behooved it as a Christian body, to record, in their acts, their
sympathy for you in the loss you have sustained by the death of your
late President, and ha"s directed me to convey to you, in writing, an ex
pression of their feeUngs.
Need we say, brethren, with what horror we received the news of the
atrocious murder which deprived your nation of its chief magistrate?
We had watched the course of that great and good man; we had seen
him raised, in the providence of God, to be the Uberator of an oppressed
race, and, after years of war, preparing to be the pacificator of his coun
try, as full of clemency in the hour of the triumph of his cause as he had
been steady in carrying on the deadly struggle. We were rejoicing with
him and with you that at last peace was dawning again on your country,
when suddenly we were called to mourn and weep with you.
May God sustain you in this national bereavement, and make aU your
afflictions fruitful of good for your people!
As to Abraham Lincoln, he neither lived nor died in vain. A Christian

committees. 230
life like his, humbly devoted to the right and to humanity , made great by
great and good deeds, and crowned with a martyr's crown, adds to the
moral wealth of mankind, is an immortal honor to your nation, and an
evidence of the truth and power of our common faith such as no words
could ever give.
By order, and in the name, of the Waldensian Synod.
„ 10„ Leon Pilatte, the President.
May, 1865.
Rev. Mr. Langworthy, from the committee on Nominations,
reported as follows : —
committee on ministerial support.
Hon. Edward D. Holton, of Wisconsin; Rev. Hiram Elmer, of Mich
igan; Rev. Edwin N. Lewis, of IlUnois; Marshall S. Scudder, Esq., of
Massachusetts; Dea. Selden M. Pratt, of Connecticut; Rev. WiUiam
Salter, d.d., of Iowa; David S. WiUiams, Esq., of New York.
committee on benevolent societies.
Rev. WUliam A. Stearns, d.d., of Massachusetts; Rev. Joel H. Lins-
ley, D.D., of Connecticut; Rev. Wooster Parker, of Maine; Rev. Jere
miah Butler, of New York; Rev. Calvin B. Cady, of Vermont; Martin
Wright, of IlUnois; Rev. Henry A. Miner, of Wisconsin.
Rev. Dr. Hopkins, of Massachusetts, asked to be excused
from serving as chairman of the committee on Collegiate and
Theological Education, and by vote of the Council he was ex
cused, and, on the recommendation of the nominating commit
tee, Rev. Seth Sweetser, d. d., of Massachusetts, appointed in
his place.
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, of New York, in behalf of the
Messrs. Hook, organ-builders, tendered an invitation to the
Council to attend an exhibition of their last and best organ at
the Church of the Immaculate Conception, to-morrow, at five
o'clock. Mr. Bowen, of New York, from the committee on the Estab
lishment of a Congregational Church in the city of Washington,
submitted the following resolution : —
Resolved, That the authorities of. the American Congregational Union
be advised and requested to take into consideration the importance of a
well-sustained Congregational church in the city of Washington, and
having ascertained what faciUties there are for the establishment of such
a church, and what aid wUl be necessary, to institute such arrangements,

240 STATE OF THE COUNTRY.
according to their best judgment and discretion, for building or purchas
ing a suitable edifice in the national capital, in which a Congregational
church may maintain the preaching of the gospel and the public worship
of God.
Rev. Dr. Anderson, of Massachusetts. It would be rather conven
ient if that resolution could Ue on the table for a Uttle while. There is
another object, not to conflict with this, and yet upon which it might be
weU to consult before this matter is brought before the CouncU.
No objection being made, the resolution was laid on the
table. The committee on the State of the Country were then called
upon for their report, and it was read by Rev. Truman M.
Post, d. d., of Missouri, the chairman, as follows; — ¦
Whereas, In the beginnings of our national history, the God of out
fathers brought them, the confessors of civil and religious Uberty, to
these shores, and gave to them to plant the germs of a free Christian
civiUzation for a new world; and,
Whereas, After the lapse of more than two centuries, during which
that civilization has extended over vast regions, and to the shores of the
Western Ocean; and at the close of a terrible civil war, we, the repre
sentatives of churches adhering to the reUgious faith and order of those
fathers, and witnesses in our times of the marvelous judgments and
deUverances of God, have been gathered by his hand, from the breadth
of a continent, to this cradle of our national Ufe, as a National Eccle
siastical Council, in a crisis of solemn moment for the future of our
country and the kingdom of God: we, therefore, feel it befitting the
capacity in which we are assembled, and the hour in which we stand, to
make the foUowing utterances in regard to our country in this juncture
of its history.
First of all, humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God in
contrite acknowledgment of the righteousness of his awful judgments
afflicting our entire people, we yet record our grateful trust in his in
finite mercy and everlasting truth, and we do in his presence this day,
thus Resolve, First, That for the deliverance of our nation from the insur
gent and anarchical power that treacherously and remorselessly sought
its Ufe; for the preservation of our Union and of the integrity of our
territory; for the triumph of right over wrong, of Uberty over slavery,
and of lawful government over usurpation ; for the redemption —
though at a terrible cost — of our country from the curse of slavery,
and for the emancipation of four milUons of our fellow-men from bond
age; for the faith and hope, the intrepidity and endurance, given to our
people in the days of calamity; for their patient and unstinted sacrifice
of blood and treasure for the right, and their unwearied labor and liber
ality in works of Christian sympathy and beneficence; and for the final,

STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 241
crowning victory granted to. our arms; we do this day ascribe praise and
glory to the Lord of hosts. We also render thanks to the Lord that he
has given to the members of our government — administrative and
legislative — a faith that has never despaired of the republic, and a
patience, courage, and sagacity that have not only triumphantly upborne
us in the agonism of this rebellion, but guided us safely through compli
cations threatening us with foreign war.
We offer thanks to our brave defenders, by land and sea, whose hero
ism has, through the hand of the Lord, achieved for us the victory; and
we invoke for them, living or lying with the glorious dead, the love and
honor, and, for the widows and orphans of those who have fallen, the
generous protection and fostering care, of a grateful people; and we
regard the rendering of this in the light of a most sacred debt of the
repubUc. Resolved, That we profoundly sympathize with the grief and horror
of the nation at the assassination of its late beloved chief magistrate,
Abraham Lincoln, and with that sentiment of our countrymen and
of the civiUzed world which now places him among the foremost in the
ranks of the martyrs for Uberty and humanity in the history of mankind.
Resolved, That we extend to his honored successor, President Andrew
Johnson, assurances of our earnest sympathy and hearty co-operation
in the momentous and arduous work devolved on him, by God, of the
restoration of order and tranquillity to the country after the shock and
ruin of this war, and of reconstruction, where needed, on the eternal
principles of truth, Uberty, and justice; and of so closing up the bloody
gulf of this rebellion that neither treason nor ambition shall ever re
open it.
Resolved, That we regard rebelUon against a government so just, be
nign, and beneficent as ours; so incorporated with the essential rights of
man and the hopes of human Uberty; so created and administered by
the people for themselves, and sheltering a prosperity so vast and so
brilliant; as a crime transcending the enormity of treason recorded in
the history of other countries, or of conspiracy against other forms of
political order ; as a crime against freedom, civilization, and human
nature itself; and we feel that it is due from our government in its final
adjudication upon this highest of crimes, that, while blending mercy
with justice, it shall so deal with treason that the sense of its guiltiness
be not impaired, and that of the majesty of law and the divine sanction
of legitimate government be sustained in the mind of the nation.
Resolved, That wrongs' committed against our people and our soldiers,
beyond the measure of the laws of war, — such as assassination, arson,
introduction of pestilence, the massacre of captives, and the deliberate
and systematic slow murder of tens of thousands of prisoners by ex
posure and starvation, — are crimes that can find no shelter under the
pretext of being " poUtical offences," and are beyond the pale of amnes
ties, challenging upon their authors, whenever and wherever lawfully
convicted, justice from our own government as well as the wrath of
Heaven. ' , 16

242 state of the country.
Resolved, That we regard the late civU war as the judgment of Heaven
upon slavery, and upon a nation in compUcity with its mighty wrongs;
a judgment punishing our practical infraction of our social and poUtical
Ufe-principles, and demonstrating that such infraction is national suicide.
Resolved, That justice, honor, the maintenance, of loyal contioliirthe
lately revolted States, and the safety of the nation, and gratitude for
their eminent miUtary and other services rendered during the war, im
peratively require that we deal in a spirit of Christian sympathy and
charity, and of a generous humanity, with a race held by this people
two hundred years in bondage, and now thrust upon the perils and trials
of new Uberty; and that we see to it that they be protected and fortified
in their new status by inteUectual and religious culture, and the rights
of the elective franchise, and aU the privUeges of freemen.
Resolved, That whUe we hail with gratitude the fact, that, by the
removal of slavery, and the social and ecclesiastical conditions aUied with
it, vast regions are newly opened to a pure and free gospel, we, more
over, beUeve that by this war the mind of the nation at large, having
been stirred to its depths by passion and suffering and the manifest
tokens of a present God and a divine government in human affairs, has
been thereby prepared for profounder convictions of Christian truth, and
larger effusions of the Holy Spirit, and for a vaster reUgious movement
than in the past.
Resolved, That we also at the same time recognize with soUcitude the
hazard, that from the disturbance or dissolution of old order, and from
the shock given to former habitudes and ideas, and from new practices
and modes of thought and feeUng generated by the war, conditions of the
popular mind may arise, that, unless illumined and restrained and guided
by education and Christian truth, may project us upon courses wUd, rev
olutionary, and ruinous.
Resolved, therefore, That in view of the above facts, we regard the
present as a crisis in this nation's Ufe, demanding the immediate appli
ance of the most effective means of education and evangeUzation in our
power, and that amid the agencies, creative and organic, of social and
political reconstruction' on the eternal foundations of Right and Liberty
and Truth, we regard as most effective and beneficent the reUgious Paith
and Order of our Forefathers, — agencies primordial to our national life,
and approved in history as the most powerful of vitalizing and conserva
tive forces ; and we therefore deem it as due to the perpetuity of our
national well-being, that the churches which inherit that Faith and Order
should endeavor to diffuse them throughout the extent of our country,
and especially to those sections now in social and political ruin.
Resolved, That we who are now placed on this hight of history, and
who have been permitted to behold great and terrible things which ow
fathers have not seen, having emerged from the stormy deeps of a civil
war, and standing on the verge of a vast and mysterious continent of
the future, do this day lift the psalm of thanksgiving where our fathers
lifted it, mingling, as did theirs, with the roar of the Atlantic surge, to
Him that sitteth King and Lord for evermore; and we commit our be-

STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 243
loved country to him in humble prayer, that as he has been the God of
our fathers, so he wUl be our God and the God of our children and our
children's children, — even till above our national starry emblem shall
be seen in heaven the sign of the second coming of the Son of man.
Signed, T. M. Post, J. C. Webster,
Seth May, A. Fish,
James D. Bell, E. D. Holton,
A. C. Barstow, A. B. Bobbins,
Dudley R. Wheeler, Charles Seccombe,
Henry Morris, S. C. Pomeroy,
O. E. Daggett, E. M. Lewis,
J. M. Holmes, L. P. Fisher,
Edward Hawes, Geo. H. Atkinson,
Abner H. Bryant, W. W. Crawford,
Edwin Johnson, Milan Harris,
J. A. Thome, Committee.
Kev. Mr. Savage, of Hlinois. We aU of us beUeve that our beloved
President, Abraham Lincoln, was made what he was largely by the
prayers of God's people; and I feel that we ought, in connection with
this report, to unite in special prayer for President Johnson.
Kev. Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts. No one admires more the com-'
prehensive wisdom of that report than I do; no one was more gratified
at the various tributes which were rendered to the different classes who
were mentioned in it than I was; but there is one class, it seems to me,
that has been neglected, that should have the most earnest tribute of this
body; and that is, the women of our country, whose patriotism, whose
energy, whose fidelity, whose humanity, whose beneficence, have been
unparaUeled in the history of the world. [Loud applause.] I hope
that a resolution may be incorporated with the rest, significant of that
wonderful part of our history and the history of the world.
Kev. Henry Ward Beecher, of New York. I am very thankful
for those resolutions, — for every word in them; I only ask that there
be more such. And especially one resolution, which should cover a
ground which I think has not even been alluded to. There have been
thousands and thousands of loyal men in all the rebelUous States, who
have taken their lives in their hands, and have endured incalculable
misery. They have been chronic martyrs in this great cause. We
ought not to forget them. Besides that, it seems to me, now that the
rebelUon is broken, that the common people of the South, who have been
duped and deceived, by their ignorance made the easy creatures of their
leaders, ought to receive from us some assurance of kindness, of hope
fulness, that they may not feel that there is rancor in our hearts toward
them. While their leaders should be given' to justice, it seems to me
that we ought to express a kind and sympathetic feeUng toward those
who have been misled by them in the South. With a recognition of the
loyal citizens of the South, and also some kind remembrance of the
lommon people, I know not how that report could be bettered.

244 STATE OF THE COUNTRY.
Rev. Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts. I would move that the report he
referred back to the committee. There may be some other matters to
be rectified, which would be brought to the attention of the committee,
if it were recommitted. For instance, it seems to me there ought to be
some recognition of the vast amount of work performed in the army by
volunteers, for it was invaluable in its influence upon the soldiers and
the nation. And then, moreover, I would suggest whether we are not
bound to have some reference to our friends in foreign lands, — such
men as the Rev. Dr. Raleigh and the Rev. Dr. Massie, who are with us,
and who fought our battles in the midst of the opposition of our enemies
in Europe. [Loud applause.]
Rev. E. P. Marvin, of Massachusetts. There is another suggestion.
I have heard nothing special about our colored friends at the South, and
their remarkable loyalty and fideUty; but if there are any persons in
this country to whom we are peculiarly indebted, under God, for our
success, it is to them.
Rev. Dr. Linsley, of Connecticut. I want to know if this report is
presented as the unanimous action of the committee?
Rev. Dr. Post, of Missouri. I wiU answer that. It was the report
of all we could get together this morning. I may be permitted to state,
Mr. Moderator, that there is much that ought to be said that can not he
said there, unless you write a history of the war. (Laughter and ap
plause.) We can not pay tribute to everybody to whom we owe it, for, I
thank the great Giver of helpers to us, we have those to whom we are
indebted all the world over. Are not the women of this country in
cluded among " the people " to whom we render thanks for their liber
ality and for their sympathy? I had in view the Christian Commission
in the words I employed there; I could not spread out the thought with
out making a report to which I beheved your patience would be inade
quate. Rev. Mr. Thome, of Ohio. As a member of the committee, I desire
to say, that I hope action will be taken now. We shaft never be better
able to act with unanimity and cordiaUty than we are at this time. I
cordially join in the suggestion, that after the adoption of the report, we
unite in prayer.
The Moderator. (Hon. C. G. Hammond). The chair would suggest,
that it is perfectly proper to adopt the resolutions offered, if Dr. Kirk
will withdraw his motion, and then, if other parties wish to introduce
these other topics, they can do so.
Dr. Kirk said he would withdraw his motion, his object having been
accompUshed. ^ Hon. Mr. Pomeroy, of Kansas. It is not to be supposed that in a
single resolution or two resolutions the committee could report what
would be acceptable to everybody. Our only effort was to hit upon
some general topics on which we could aU agree, and report them to the
Council. The fact is, the report would suit me better if we spoke out a
Uttle more plainly about hanging somebody. [Applause.] I am very
willing to mingle our justice with mercy to the common people of the

invitation from the pilgrim society. 245
South, as has been suggested by our friend Henry Ward Beecher; but
it does seem to me it is time somebody was hung. (Applause.) Some
wholesome hanging, I think, would have settled this1 question in the
minds of the American people long ago; and I do not believe that a
convention, even of this character, composed largely of clergymen, —
men who love forgiveness and mercy, — would be harmed if it adopted a
Uttle stiffer resolution on this question. I will only say, that I yielded
to this report, on that question, for the sake of harmony, because I
thought everybody would go for it; I never supposed that anybody
would want to temper it more mildly. If the report is adopted, I will
take it upon myself to offer a resolution expressing my own views on the
subject. Kev. H. W. Beecher, of New York. I would inquire if other mat
ters can be added to the report, after it is adopted?
The Moderator. Yes, sir.
The question was then put, and the report adopted.
Rev. Mr. Dexter read the following invitation from the
trustees of the Pilgrim Society, Plymouth, which was ac
cepted : —
To the Congregational Council: —
Gentlemen, — In anticipation of your intended visit to Plymouth,
June 22d, in behalf of the trustees of the Pilgrim Society, you are
invited to visit PUgrim Hall. It will be open on that day for your re
ception, and a committee will be appointed to accompany the different
sections to places- of interest.
(Signed) Timothy Gordon,
One of the Trustees.
Boston, June 19.
Rev. Mr. Langworthy, of the committee on Nominations,
Reported the following committees, heretofore ordered, and the
reports were adopted : —
COMMITTEE ON BOOKS AND TRACTS.
Kev. Henry Ward Beecher, of New York; Rev. Leonard Bacon, D.D.,
of Connecticut; Lowell Mason, jr., of New Jersey.
COMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS FROM ITALY.
Rev. Edward N. Kirk, D.D., of Massachusetts; Rev. Julian M. Stur
tevant, D. d., of IlUnois; Rev. Edward Beecher, D. D., of Illinois.
Rev. Mr. Quint, of the Business Committee, offered a report,
recommending that the business for to-morrow be the hearing

246 TITLE OF " CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES."
of the report of the committee to whom was referred the
report on the Evangelization of the West and South ; that the
whole day be given to its discussion, if necessary ; that all
the speakers be limited to twelve minutes ; that, if the discus
sion be not closed at five o'clock, an evening session be held,
at eight o'clock ; and that the consideration of the subject be
ended to-morrow.
The report was adopted.
The moderator then called for the report of the committee
to whom was referred the communication from the Massachu
setts Convention of Congregational Ministers ; and it was read
by the chairman, Rev. A. H. Quint, of Massachusetts, as fol
lows : —
REPORT.
" The Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Ministers " re
quests this Council "to use such language in their proceedings as a
Trinitarian Congregational Council, as shall recognize the fact that there
are Unitarian and other Congregational churches in this Commonwealth.''
In addition to this communication there has appeared in the pubUc prints,
though not laid before this body, a protest against the terms of the call
for the assembUng of this Council, as imperUing interests valuable to
the members of a body styled a " Ministerial Conference," in whose be
half it is signed. The eminent standing and character of the persons
who sincerely feel that a real grievance would be occasioned by the
course against which they protest, as weU as the respect due to the
denomination which this Council represents, requires a just and deUberate
avowal of the grounds upon which we use the title of " Congregational
Churches of the United States."
Our denomination is the same with that of the first churches of New
England. We trace back our lineage in an uninterrupted line to that
period. The same fellowship has been perpetuated, based upon a par
ticular system of doctrines and poUty, to which we now hold. The
denomination which we represent has thus had a distinct and recognized
existence, as clear as history can make any historical fact, by aU requisite
limitations and declarations.
This denomination has always had the distinctive name of " Congre
gational churches."
It is needless to quote authorities; for, from the days of John Cotton,
the name Congregational was used to designate a particular denomina
tion, of a faith well defined and now unchanged, as weU as a pecuUar
polity. Nor did any others, so far as we can learn, though holding the
same polity, assume that name while not belonging to this denomina
tion. This distinctive denominational name is stiU our heritage from the
fathers.

TITLE OF " CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES." 247
It is true that some other churches now hold the same polity, in a
greater or less degree of strictness, whUe differing from us in points of
doctrine. In addition to some Unitarian churches, Baptists, Free- WiU
Baptists, and Universalists hold similar views of church poUty. But
it is an historical fact, that in America these denominations came into
existence after the denomination which we represent had acquired an
undisputed right to the title which we stiU hold.
Some of the churches formerly in our denomination became separated
from it early in the present century, by reasons of convictions which led
them to renounce the doctrinal principles which were and are essential
to the feUowship of this denomination, as declared by our platforms, and
established by uninterrupted practice from the days of our fathers. But
the separation of a section in Massachusetts, where its chief strength lay,
which, in 1820, numbered, so far as can be learned, but a small portion
of the denomination, does not, it seems to us, deprive the old and recog
nized denomination of its ancestral name. That some separating churches
may retain the same kind of government does not affect the fact that they
do not belong to the denomination which has always kept its distinctive
title. Nor does such a secession or separation render it at all necessary
that the denomination should either give up its old name, or add any
distinctive prefix. When the Wesleyans left the Church of England, the
latter was not caUed upon to modify its title. When the Protestant
Methodists separated from the Methodist Episcopal Church, that church
took no new name. When several bodies of Presbyterians were sepa
rated from the Presbyterian Church in the United States, that body re
tained unquestioned its old designation, although the seceding bodies
held the same views of church polity. The separating portion might
weU adorjt a new title; but the denomination remaining needed no
change, nor could any be rightfully demanded.
We find it also to be a fact, that the churches, in whose behalf complaint
is made, have as a denomination, deUberately adopted a new title. In
their official capacity, a recent convention, representing the Unitarian
churches, whoUy ignored the term Congregational, and, as " Christian
churches of the Unitarian faith," organized a permanent body styled
" The National Conference of Unitarian Churches." It is thus evident
that there can be no conflict whatever to cause confusion or misunder
standing between the two denominations.
We are also unable to find that the Unitarian churches require ad
herence to the Congregational platform as a condition of denominational
fellowship. Many of their churches are said to be Independent, not
Congregational. In some places church organizations have been utterly
abandoned, as seems to have been recognized in the call for their recent
convention, which asked delegates from societies as well as churches.
While stating that as a denomination we hold a denominational name
to which no other lays claim, and which the parties complaining do not
assert belongs to any other denomination, we are far from denying that
there are other particular churches which maintain the same polity with
ourselves. This fact was distinctly recognized in the call under which

248 TITLE OF " CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES."
this Council is assembled. That call was addressed to " those Congre.
gational churches in the United States which are in recognized feUowship
and co-operation through the general associations, conferences, or con
ventions, in the several States." How far this may extend, it is clear
that it recognizes that there are Congregational churches other than these.
We do not see how any doubt could exist as to what churches were in
tended. It would be idle to say that any churches are in recognized fel
lowship through the Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Minis
ters. Indeed, the fact that only those of our denomination have appeared
shows that the call was sufficiently understood."
We see no reason, therefore, why we should prefix the term Trinitarian
to the name of our denomination. We are no more Trinitarian than we
are Unitarian. If we prefix Trinitarian to distinguish us from Unitarians
and Universalists, we must take some other prefixes to distinguish us
from Baptists and Free- Will Baptists. We see no need of either.
But inasmuch as it appears that some of those who protest have par
ticularly in view a fear lest, if they adhere to the name of their denomina
tion as recently officially promulgated, and we adhere to the name of
ours, some rights of theirs to property, held under the name of Congre
gational, may be jeopardized, we do now declare that we should deem it
dishonorable and unchristian to interfere with any of their present rights
to funds or other property under whatever name their holders act, or to
attempt to pervert funds given for one kind of reUgious doctrine to the
use of another, whether in coUeges, churches, or other bodies. And we
distinctly put on record, that, from our retaining our old name of ^Con
gregational," without any modification or prefix, — as we intend to do, —
there should be no inference whatever drawn to the legal prejudice of
any bodies not in our fellowship, as to any funds or other property to
which those bodies lay claim.
We are happy to know that so many of these churches still retain the
old poUty. And whenever their convictions of duty wiU aUow them to
stand on the old platform of faith, of their and our fathers, gladly will
we feel that we are one again.
Respectfully submitted.'
Alonzo H. Qutnt,)
W. T. Eustis, Jr., > Committee.
Asa Freeman, )
Rev. Dr. Patton, of Illinois. I move to strike out that portion of
the report which says, " We are no more Trinitarian than we are Unita
rian," It is sure to be misunderstood in some quarters. That is the
only objection.
This motion was not seconded, and the question being put,
the report was adopted unanimously, and, on motion of Kev.
Mr. Eustis, of Connecticut, it was ordered, that it be tran
scribed, and forwarded to the Massachusetts Convention of
Congregational Ministers.

CHURCH IN WASHINGTON. 249

A CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE.

Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of the committee on Business, presented
the following resolution : —
Resolved, That the National Congregational Council are pleased to
learn that the American Congregational Society has undertaken to erect
a Congregational House in the city of Boston, as a suitable memorial
of the present meeting, which shall serve as a secure repository for our
Congregational literature, in a National Library, — as a place of resort
for our brethren, coming to this ancient home of the denomination and
the fathers, and also as a convenient center of operations, designed to
promote a knowledge of our principles and polity, and the unity and fel
lowship of our churches throughout the land; and while this object,
involving an outlay of $100,000, is commended first of all to the enter
prising citizens of Boston and vicinity, with whom it originated, it is also
cordially commended to the Uberal co-operation of our churches through
out the land.
Kev. Dr. Anderson, of Massachusetts. Mr. Moderator, — I do not
think, at this stage of the business, that it is proper to enter into any
explanation with regard to this object. I ought, however, to explain
Why I objected to the passage of the resolution proposed just now. I
had been detained from the meeting, to discharge the duty of chairman
of a committee from the American Congregational Association, and on
coming into the house, I was told that there was a proposition coming
before this body to raise $100,000 for a church in the city of Washing
ton, and very Ukely it might be weU to have some understanding before
these two propositions came before your body. On further explanation,
however, I became convinced that there iwas no reason for objecting to
that proposition at all. In regard to this resolution, I do not propose to
make any remarks upon it at the present time, but would propose that it
be referred to a special committee, to report to this body.
The resolution was so referred.
CHURCH IN WASHINGTON.
The resolution in regard to the establishment of a Congrega
tional Church in Washington, was then taken from the table.
Kev. Dr. Sturtevant, of Dlinois. I only wish to say, that there is
a very serious doubt in my mind in regard to entering into this matter
of church-building with a view to any particular place, — even Wash
ington city. The question is, whether it would not be much better to
take up the matter as a whole, — the subject of church-building in Wash
ington included, — than to take up each place separately. I can not
obtain the consent of my own mind, at this present moment, to vote for
that proposition, in the shape in which it is.
Kev. Dr. Budington, of New York. Let me caU the attention of

250 CIVIL RIGHTS OF REBELS.
Dr. Sturtevant to this fact: that the passage of the resolution does not
commit us to any thing of the kind. I share with him in the feeling to
which he has given utterance, and I should have spoken to the same pur
port if there had been any thing in the resolution conflicting with the
sentiments which he has expressed.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio, the resolution was
referred to the committee on Church-Building.
Adjourned. SIXTH DAY, TUESDAY, JUNE 20.
The Council was called to order at 9 o'clock, a.m., and
opened by prayer from the moderator.
The journal of yesterday was read by the scribe and ap
proved. CIVIL RIGHTS OF REBELS.
Rev. Dr. Post, of Missouri. It was the tacit understanding yester
day, when the resolutions from the committee on the State of the Coun
try were adopted, that I should prepare two or three more which should
be subjoined. I have prepared three resolutions for that purpose; but I
offer them upon my own personal responsibiUty, not having had time to
consult with the committee.
The Moderator stated that under the rule the resolutions must come
before the Council through the Business Committee.
On motion, that rule was suspended.
Rev. Dr. Post resumed. These resolutions relate, first to two classes
of society in the revolted States to which the former resolutions made no
special allusion, and were therefore objected to. There was also objec
tion because the Sanitary Commission and Christian Commission were
not alluded to. That I have regarded as being embraced in the sub
stance of the resolutions. I have thought it proper to add a resolution
in regard to the services and sacrifices of the women of the country; not
because I did not before design to embrace them among the people of
the country. I felt that it was as impossible to separate the services
and heroic devotion of our women from our people, in this war, as to
separate the sun from the Ught of day. But as the resolutions were not
understood as distinctly ascribing credit and expressing gratitude to this
portion of our people, I felt that it would be my pleasure and the pleas
ure of the Convention that there should be such a distinct recognition;
and I have therefore introduced a resolution to that effect. I should feel
exceedingly sorry, — I should feel ashamed, Uving where I have been dur
ing the years of this war, witnessing what I have witnessed of the ser-

CIVIL CONDITION OF REBELS. 251
vices of the ladies of our State, which have rendered dearer to me the
dearest friends I have on earth, if I could be supposed, in this grave body
and in this grave crisis, to present resolutions which should omit proper
mention and honorable mention of this portion of our brave people.
Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York. At the request of Dr. Post, I
will be to him what Hobab was to Moses, — I wiU be eyes unto him.
The resolutions are these : —
Resolved, That we extend to the inhabitants of the late revolted States
who have been snared into this rebellion through ignorance, surprise, or
overbearing violence of pubUc sentiment, or forced by the power of a
mercUess conscription, our sympathy and commiseration, and our readi
ness to welcome them back to civil feUowship and fraternity under the old
flag. Resolved, That those who have maintained steadfast loyalty amid gen
eral treason and revolt, undaunted by popular rage or despotic violence,
braving, in the cause of the country, the terrors of imprisonment, torture,
robbery, and starvation, and of death itself, rank amid the noblest heroes
and martyrs of this war, and deserve lasting honor and gratitude.
Resolved, That the heroic devotion and self-sacrifice of the loyal women
of the country, during this war, wiU ever be gratefully remembered as
having been of vital efficacy to the triumph of our cause, and will excite
the admiration of history, as examples of moral beauty and sublimity,
unsurpassed in human story.
Kev. Mr. Quint, of Mass. I wish that first resolution was expressed
a little differently, — at least, the latter part of it. It seems to me a little
too strong. For one, I am not prepared to now welcome back those
people who have fought against us, to full feUowship. Persons so easily
snared through ignorance are not the persons to be welcomed back im
mediately to fuU civil rights. If they are, as sure as the sun shines to
day, they will again become the tools of those leaders, again be snared
in just the same way, and again support the same sort of men. They are
unfit for civil rights until they are a Uttle more enUghtened and intelligent.
Those men have been fighting through the war against us. They are
brave men, — for I have seen something of their work, — but they- are
uncommonly stupid and ignorant. They do not know any thing near as
much as 'the blacks there. I say that until they repent, they are unfit
to come back and be trusted with a vote. Every one of this class ought
to be disfranchised for a reasonable time. [Applause.] I move to strike
out the last clause.
Hon. Mr. Hammond, of LUinois. Why not let it read, " upon evidence
of repentance " ?
Rev. Mr. Quint. Because I want their repentance to have years long
onough to prove itself genuine. [Applause.]
Hon. Mr. Hammond. " On evidence of genuine repentance," then?
Kev. Mr. Quint. No, — that is not enough; I want it fixed that that
evidence shaft be by waiting long enough to make the thing clear and safe.

252 FINANCIAL. REPORT.'
Rev. Dr. Post, of Missouri. I never designed to convey the idea that
they should be restored to citizenship or the rights of franchise. I see that
the resolution may be misunderstood, and I wiU strike out the word " civil."
Rev. Mr. Qutnt. I wiU not object to that, for one, although it goes
terribly against my grain ever to see one of those scoundrels under the
old flag again. [Applause.]
Rev. Mr. Bliss, of Tennessee. It seems to me that even with that
modification the idea wfil be that after all they are to be restored to
general citizenship. Upon this subject I think the Council should give
no uncertain sound. The language, even as it now stands, conveys
the idea that we are wilUng to welcome them back at once to all the
rights of citizenship. That we are not ready to do. If I understand the
tone of pubUc sentiment, we are not ready to welcome back any man who
has borne arms or held a civU or military commission against the gov
ernment of the United States. [Applause.] The amendments to the
Constitution of Missouri, and the amendments to the Constitution of
Tennessee, from which State I now come, prescribe a term of years be
fore even the rank and file, with all the evidence of repentance they can
bring, can be restored again to the right of suffrage. [Applause.] This
is as it should be; and we are safe in no other way. [Applause.] Would
that these views might ring through the nation, that we must by a term
of years give space for repentance; and even then let there be no general
law by which they shaft come back, but let evidence be required of
genuine repentance. [Rene*wed applause.] By this course alone can we
be safe. I would suggest, therefore, that there be an amendment em
bodying in the resolution the idea that a suitable term of years should
be given as" space for repentance before these men should be aUowed the
full rights of citizenship.
A member moved to postpone the further consideration of
this resolution indefinitely.
The motion was rejected by a decisive vote.
Rev. Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts, suggested the addition of
a saving clause at the end, " the right of the citizen to fran
chise excepted."
Dea. Eddy, of Massachusetts, moved to refer the resolutions
to a special committee.
Rev. Dr. Dutton moved to amend by referring it to the same
committee that had been formerly appointed upon the State of
the Country.
The motion to refer to that committee was agreed to.
On motion of Hon. Mr. Douglas, of Connecticut, Rev. Mr.
Bliss, of Memphis, Tennessee, was added to the committee.
Rev. Dr. Todd, of Massachusetts, suggested that this resolu
tion should be placed last of the three reported this morning.

RIGHTS QF MEMBERS. 253
FINANCIAL REPORT.
Dea. Stoddard, from the committee on Finance, reported that the
amount of funds received from 360 churches was $3,972, of which 176
Western churches contributed $1,479, and 184 Eastern churches, $2,493;
being an average of $9 to each Western, and $13 to each Eastern
church; the dividing line being an imaginary meridian line through cen
tral New York. The total amount of traveUng expenses was $7,818;
double the amount received. The committee asked for further instruc
tions as to the distribution of the fund.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Thompson, the matter was referred
tq a select committee, which, on behalf of the Nominating Com
mittee, he named as follows : —
NEW COMMITTEE ON FINANCE.
Hon. Charles G. Hammond, of HUnois; Hon. Amos C. Barstow, of
Rhode Island; Asahel Finch, Esq., of Wisconsin; Daniel S. WilUams,
Esq., of New York; Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, of New York; Hon.
Henry P. Haven, of Connecticut; Hon. Samuel WilUston, of Massachu
setts; Dea. Samuel Hblmes, of New York; Hon. Douglas Putnam, of
Ohio; Dea. Sherman S. Barnard, of Michigan; Dea. Simon Page, of
Maine; Rev. Samuel G. Buckingham, of Massachusetts; Dea. Philo
Carpenter, of Illinois (subsequently added).
The committee, as named, was agreed to.
COMMITTEE ON AMERICAN CONGREGATIONAL ASSOCIATION.
Eev. Mr. Langworthy, from the committee on Nominations,
reported the following names for the committee on American
Congregational Association : —
Kev. Christopher dishing, of North Brookfield, Massachusetts; Rev.
Ezekiel RusseU, D. D., of Massachusetts; Dea. John Smith, of Andover,
Massachusetts; Rev. Samuel D. Cochran, of Iowa; Rev. Samuel G.
Wright, of IlUnois; Hon. Walter Booth, of Connecticut.
ON BOOKS AND TRACTS, — ADDITIONAL.
Rev. Jacob Ide, d.d., of West Medway, Massachusetts; Timothy
Dwight, Esq., of Beloit, Wisconsin.
The report was adopted. RIGHTS OF MEMBERS.
Rev. Mr. Quint stated, in explanation of the action of the
Business Committee, that that committee had no discretion as
to admitting subjects proposed, but were required by the rule
to report all matters referred to them to the Convention.

254 i SUFFRAGE.
A member moved to amend the rule, so as to leave it to the
discretion of the committee what they' should report.
Hon. Mr. Hammond, of Illinois. That will never do. We are all
elected as peers, and each has a right to bring before the Council what
he thinks best, upon his own individual responsibiUty. This committee
was only permitted to be appointed on that condition. If we are foolish,
we can not help it; and the churches who sent us are responsible.
Rev. Mr. Quint. The committee do not ask for a change in the rule,
but merely wish to escape censure for reporting unnecessary matters.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. If any thing comes before the
committee which strikes them as particularly fooUsh, they should say so
to the gentleman who brings it to them,
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE.
Rev. Mr. Quint, from the Business Committee, reported the
following resolution : —
Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to proceed to Wash
ington and present in person to President Johnson the resolutions on
the State of the Country, and especially that part in relation to the pun
ishment of traitors and universal suffrage.
Hon. Mr. Child, of Massachusetts, moved to lay the resolu
tion upon the table ; but withdrew his motion.
Hon. Mr. Hammond, of HUnois. There are some gentlemen here
who feel much interested in presenting to the President the resolutions
on the State of the Country; and I understand that they are going to
Washington. If we strike out the words " proceed to Washington and," .
so that they shaU merely present the resolutions to the President, I think
there wiU be no objection to the committee.
The resolution was amended accordingly.
Hon. Mr. Child renewed the motion to lay the resolution
upon the table.
The motion was rejected.
Rev. Dr. Beecher, of IlUnois, said. I think that the topic men
tioned in these resolutions is practically the most important topic he-
fore this nation, and one upon which every influence that can be ex
erted is important to be exerted at this time. I see by the morning
papers that the proclamation to reorganize the Southern States, by Pres
ident Johnson, has gone forth, with reference to at least four States,
upon the white basis. It is also reasonable to beUeve that when a
patriotic man takes a course which appears to be dangerous in its re-

SUFFRAGE. ' 255
suits, there must be some considerations for that course. Upon that
ground I suspend my judgment with regard to the action of President
Johnson in the premises. I have been informed, as I suppose credibly,
that President Johnson supposed he should not be sustained by the pub
lic sentiment of the nation, if he proceeded upon any other basis, and that
he is at least disposed to extend universal suffrage to the colored people.
I feel that if there is any one thing about which we ought to be solicit
ous, it is that this matter of reorganizing these States on the- white
basis shall not go so far that the whole we have gained by the war shaU
virtuaUy sUp out of our hands. We are, in my judgment, more in dan
ger upon that point than upon any other point whatever. [Applause.]
And we are bUnd to the interests of the country, if we who have been
standard-bearers, — for I say that the Congregational body have had
more sagacity and more prominence in holding up the true principles
than any other body of men in this country, — if we do not exert the
moral influence we can exert by sending a committee directly to Presi
dent Johnson. If we allow the resolutions to slumber in the pages of a
newspaper, perhaps President Johnson to the year's end may never see
them; for he does not read every newspaper that is published. I hope
that the resolution wiU pass.
Rev. Dr. Sturtevant, of Illinois. I do not know but I am going to
make a remark that wfll throw me into the minority in this Christian
CouncU. If it does, I can bear it, for I have been in the minority before.
I am opposed to the phrase " universal suffrage," occurring in that resolu
tion; and nobody can ever make me vote for that. I am in favor of
striking out from our statute book all disqualifications which depend on
color. I am in favor of letting the colored man have the same rights as
any other man has. But I am not in favor of universal suffrage; and I
suspect that the minority who will be with me, if I am in the minority,
will be a very respectable one. I shall therefore want the resolution so
amended that the Convention shall not commit itself for universal suffrage
through this land.' Universal suffrage does not exist in Massachusetts or
in Connecticut. Both Massachusetts and Connecticut have set a noble
example, which the whole nation should follow, of the limitation of suf
frage to intelligent men, of the Umitation of suffrage to men that can read
and write their own mother tongue. [Applause.] I want the resolution
so modified as to be consistent with that view of the case.
Hon. Mr. Child, of Massachusetts. I hope the Convention will con
sider for a moment what is involved in the proposition now before them.
If President Johnson and his advisers have settled upon a poUcy that is
to guide them upon this question of voting in the reconstruction of the
States, — whether that be right or whether it be wrong, I am not now to
say, — is it wise for this Council to adopt a resolution to send a delega
tion of its members to arraign — for that is the effect of it — the decision
of the government upon such an important question?
Again, sir; it says, " in favor of universal suffrage; " and to what does
that apply? It applies to all the people of the rebel States. It proposes
that this CouncU should say to the administration, that they should

256 ¦ suffrage.
adopt a rule, with regard to these people, admitting them to vote, when
they could not to-day vote in Massachusetts or in Connecticut.
I will say that the idea that the word " white " should ever have been
in the constitutions of these States, I abominate. A man is not to be
excluded because of the color of his skin, nor is he to be admitted to vote
because he is black. There are restrictions in Massachusetts. There.'
are restrictions in all the States. I think we are going too far in regard
to this matter. All the States have their different quaUflcations,— in
New York, one; in Pennsylvania another; in Rhode Island another; in
New Hampshire and Yermont, others and different. And now we pro
pose to declare the sentiment of this Ecclesiastical Council upon a great
question of public policy lying at the very foundation of the government.
I think it would be better to declare great principles without going into
these details. For one I am not willing to vote for the resolution because
it involves a principle beyond that adopted even in Massachusetts, and
far beyond most of the New England States.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. There is another view of the ques
tion which does not seem to have occurred very clearly in any thing that
has been uttered here as yet. We are an Ecclesiastical Council. We
take cognizance of the things that pertain to the kingdom of Christ. We
have a right to take cognizance here of aU moral questions, because what
is moral is reUgious. We have a right to say here, in the name of Christ
and of the New Testament, that God hath made of one blood aU natipns
of men to dwell upon all the face of the earth; and that aU these distinc
tions which rest upon the color of a man's skin, or the straightness or
kink pf Ms hair, are unchristian and impious. We have a right to say
that;. let us say it.
But is it our province as an Ecclesiastical CouncU to interfere in what
is purely and simply a poUtical question? It is not a question of univer
sal right who shall vote in an election to the legislature. The right of
voting is not a right of human nature. I have known men to come from
New Hampshire into Connecticut with high-flown ideas of the rights
of man, and insist upon voting without the six months' residence which
our laws require, without having become citizens of Connecticut, and
approach very nearly to a violation of the law in other particulars
in order to get their vote into the ballot box of Connecticut. If that
were a universal right of human nature^I could justify such men in a
measure. But I do not beUeve that the right to vote is any part
of the rights of human nature. The right of suffrage is a right
which society confers upon classes of society. The infant of yesterday
does not vote; nor does his mother or his nurse vote for him. The right
to vote in the State of Alabama is a right to be determined by the laws
and Constitution of Alabama, and we are not to dictate to the President
of the United States, nor in an ecclesiastical capacity and character are
we to send a commission to argue with him upon a question of Con
stitutional law. I hope this Ecclesiastical Council wUl not compromise
its dignity Or its authority as a Council of churches of Jesus Christ by
going into this poUtical question. I agree fuUy and perfectly with all

suffrage. 257
that has been or can be said in behalf of the right of the negro in the
Southern States to vote on the same footing and the same terms as the
white man, and I believe that the salvation of our country in time to
come depends upon their attaining that right fully.
(A member inquired whether this debate was relevant, and the mod
erator repUed it was.)
Dr. Bacon resumed : I am speaking against presenting these resolu
tions to the President of the United States. In order to avoid the mis
constructions which cOntinuaUy arise, I was saying that I am ready to
concur with everybody here and with every loyal heart in the North, that
the salvation of the country depends upon the attainment of the right of
suffrage by the black men of the South and upon their standing upon the
same poUtical level in all respects with the white men of the South. But
I agree with President Sturtevant fuUy that this principle of universal
suffrage is one to which we ought not to commit ourselves. We do not
believe in it. There is not a mother's child among us that believes in it.
Rev. Dr. Beecher, of HUnois, interposed and called attention to the
fact that the resolutions offered yesterday said nothing about universal
suffrage; and called upon the committee therefore to lay before the
President something that did not exist.
iThe Moderator explained that it included the resolutions offered this
morning and referred.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of HUnois, suggested the substitution of the phrase
" impartial suffrage."
Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York, moved to strike out the last part
of the resolution consisting of the words: — " and especially that part in
relation to the punishment of traitors and universal suffrage."
Rev. Dr. Bacon resumed: I agree to that entirely; but I do not agree
to the idea that we are to teU President Johnson, directly or indirectly,
that he has mistaken his business and duty and power; and, furthermore,
I do not agree to the idea of those gentlemen who suppose President
Johnson to be invested with the power of imperial government over the
Southern States. Let him give account of himself to God; let him give
account of himself to the people of the United States; to the House of
Representatives, to the Senate if the House of Representatives shall im
peach him, and to the Supreme Court of the United States ; but let us
not as an Ecclesiastical CouncU, undertake to guide him, to dictate to him,
or even to counsel him on a question which is a law question and not a
religious question, not a question of ethics.
Andrew Johnson wUl proceed, if I understand his nature, in the course
in which he has been organizing the governments of the Southern States
by the votes of those people, who, under the Constitution and laws of
those States as they existed prior to the pretended secession, are the
sovereignty of those States under the Constitution of the United States.
I beUeve he agrees with us — I have every reason to beUeve he agrees with
us and with every intelligent and loyal man in the beUef that the right
of suffrage must be given to the black people of the Southern States upon
the same basis and under the same conditions with the white people; but
17

258 western collegiate education.
he beUeves that that thing must be done in a legal way, and not done by
the right of conquest. We ought to be careful how we commit ourselves
upon questions which are among the deepest and most perplexing and
disputed questions of constitutional- law, now before, or soon to come
before, not only the Houses of Congress but the Courts for adjudication.
I have no objection to laying the resolutions upon the State of the Country
before the President, but I object to proceeding one inch beyond that, to
give him as an ecclesiastical body counsel upon questions of constitu
tional law.
The amendment was agreed to.
The question recurred upon the resolution, as amended.
A member moved to lay the resolution upon the table.
The motion was rejected.
The resolution, as amended, was then adopted by a decisive
vote. EXCURSION TO PLYMOUTH ROCK.
The committee of Arrangements announced that the train
would leave for Plymouth at 9J o'clock on Thursday morning
instead of the earlier hour before reported.
TOBACCO.
Rev. Mr. Quint reported from the Business Committee the
following resolution offered by David' S. Williams, of Flushing,
Long Island : —
" Resolved, That the committee appointed by this CouncU to consider
the evil of intemperance be also requested to consider its twin vice, the
improper use of tobacco, particularly by ministers and church members;
and in case the said committee shall decide to bring in a report or testi
mony against the former evil, they are hereby instructed to bring in at
the same time some suitable report or testimony against the latter."
On motion of Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio, the resolution was
so amended as to leave the subject discretionary with the com
mittee, and then referred to the committee on Temperance.
western collegiate education.
Rev. Mr. Quint, from the Business Committee, reported reso
lutions regarding the Society in relation to Collegiate Education
in the West ; which on his motion were referred to the com
mittee on Colleges.

evangelization in the west and south. 259

the state of the cottntrt.
Rev. Mr. Bliss asked and obtained permission, from the com
mittee appointed to^ revise the additional resolutions offered
this morning by Rev. Dr. Post, on the state of the country, to
report ; and reported the same with a few verbal amendments.
A member moved to insert the words " or forced."
The amendment was agreed to.
The resolutions were then adopted as follows : —
Resolved, That we extend to the inhabitants of the late revolted States
who have been snared into this rebelUon through ignorance, surprise, or
overbearing violence of pubUc sentiment, or forced by the power of a
mercUess conscription, our sympathy and commiseration, and our readi
ness, after a suitable time has elapsed, to welcome them, on satisfactory
evidence of loyalty, to civil fellowship and fraternity under the old flag.
Resolved, That those who have maintained steadfast loyalty amid
general treason and revolt, undaunted by popular rage or despotic vio
lence, braving, in the cause of the country, the terrors of imprisonment,
torture, robbery, and starvation, and of death itself, rank amid the
noblest heroes and martyrs of this war, and deserve lasting honor and
gratitude. Resolved, That the heroic devotion and self-sacrifice of the loyal
women of the country during this war wftl ever be gratefully remem
bered as having been of vital efficacy to the triumph of our cause, and
will excite the admiration of history as examples of moral beauty and
sublimity unsurpassed in human story.

EYANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, from the committee to which was referred
the Report upon Evangelization in the West and South, read
the following repor,t: —
The committee, to whom was referred the Report on EvangeUzation in
the West and South, would state to the Council that we have carefully
examined that report, and have heard many communications from per
sons .specially acquainted with the West and South which confirm and
illustrate its positions and reasonings. We commend that report as
comprehensive, thorough, and able, and move that it be adopted by the
CouncU. We see no necessity of using the precious time of the Council by
adding to the facts and arguments presented in the report. We would

260 EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH.
only bring them to a practical issue, by deriving from them, and pre
senting for adoption by the CouncU, certain definite recommendations to
the churches. We propose, therefore, the following result, namely:
This National Council, in view of the vast and promising fields of
evangeUcal labor opened by the rapid growth of our country toward the
West, the North-west, and on the borders of the Pacific Ocean, espec
ially in the mining regions, and opened also by the sublime and awful,
yet blessed providence of God in subduing rebeUion, and giving their
rightful liberty to four millions of bondmen, fields of labor, requiring for
their proper culture, and requiring immediately, a large increase of la
borers and of funds for their support, do recommend to the churches of
Christ whom they represent, —
First of all, that they seek a large measure of the Holy Spirit, to
inspire them with the zeal and faith, the courage and self-denial, neces
sary to make them wftling and happy to give all the men and all the
money needed to meet this extraordinary and critical exigency of the
kingdom of Christ in our land.
Then to the organizations which, in the grace and providence of God,
these churches have ready and well fitted to this work, the Council
recommend that they devise Uberal things: To the American Home
Missionary Society — which, according to its constitution, aids feeble
churches in sustaining the administration of the gospel, and sends the
gospel to the destitute in whatever circumstances found, and by itinerant
as well as local preachers, and which, from its beginning many years
since, has performed its work with wisdom and fideUty that deserve uni
versal gratitude and honor — $300,000 during the year. To the American
Missionary Association — which, by its past fideUty to the rights and spir
itual interests of the negro race, and by its evangelical character and
comprehensive plans and labors for the education and reUgious instruc
tion of the Freedmen, is providentiaUy prepared for the great work of
their evangeUzation so suddenly thrown upon the Christian people of the
land — $250,000 the present year.
And since there are some places in the country, and especiaUy in that
part of the country which has just been delivered from the curse of
bondage, and has been impoverished by the war unsuccessfully waged in
behalf of bondage, where churches of central influence and of the Con
gregational polity, that has no guilty impUcation with slavery to be
remembered against it, might at once be prosperously estabUshed if
suitable houses of reUgious Worship and instruction were built, we
recommend that a special fund of $200,000 be raised by the American
Congregational Union, and expended under its direction for the building
of sanctuaries in such places.
And because of the great importance of occupying such places at once
with preachers and pastors of experience as well as abiUty, we recom
mend that churches at the North should exercise in some instances the
self-denial of relinquishing for that purpose their chosen and beloved
ministers, if not permanently, at least for a time.
In view, also, of the ignorance of the great body of the poor whites

EVANGELIZATION IN THE SOUTH AND WEST. 261
of the South, who at present form the chief constituency there, accord
ing to the precedents of Virginia, North Carolina, and Mississippi, we
recommend the plans of the American Union Commission for a univer
sal common-school education, and for a wholesome emigration from the
Northern States, with a view to the industrial improvement of- society,
as worthy the encouragement and support of all Christians and pa
triots. But the pecuniary want of the present exigency is not the greatest
nor the most difficult to be supplied. To meet the extraordinary call
which is now made from these various fields for preachers of the gospel,
and which must be met at once, or much will be lost for the country and
for Christ, are required (it is not extravagant to say) ten times as many
as are now offered by the ordinary process of education for the Christian
ministry. The Council therefore recommend that while the churches
and ministry do not abate any thing from .their zeal and effort for
" thorough and accompUshed theological education, but rather add thereto,
and whUe they use all proper urgency with Christian young men to pre
pare for the ministry by a thorough or partial course in our theological
seminaries, they also commend to the proper ecclesiastical bodies the
consideration of the expediency of approving, and if necessary of or
daining with such conditions as they may deem best, laymen residing
within their Umits whom God has endowed with gifts and grace. And
the CouncU do earnestly invite such Christian laymen to hear the voice
of the Lord, and enter into this work.
And because of the woful need of intelligent preachers among the
Freedmen, the Council recommend to the churches the speedy establish
ment at the South of an institution for the training, by a short course, of
colpred ministers.
Moreover, this Council, while they exhort to the culture and practice
of that enlarged catholicity which is according to the nature and habit
of CongregationaUsm, they do also exhort to watchful and thorough
fideUty to the church poUty and faith of the New England fathers, pre
eminent, as- they beUeve them to be, in their accordance with scriptural
principles and primitive practice, and in their harmony with republican
ism in the State; and they would urge that that poUty and faith be pro
moted and extended by aU honorable and Christian means, and by no
other means.
These recommendations, this Council, under a solemn sense of their
responsibiUty to God, send to the churches whom they represent, beseech
ing them, and not only them, but all patriotic, philanthropic people in
the congregations connected with them, by the love they bear to their
country, by their gratitude to God for its recent great and signal deliv
erance, by their sense of justice to four millions of their fellow-men
divinely restored to their natural rights, and by their love to Christ, who
has called them into his kingdom, that they might co-operate with him
in seeking and saving the lost; that they enlarge their minds and hearts

262 REPORT ON CHURCH BUILDING.
and labors to a thorough and glorious obedience to the commands of Ms
word and his providence. In behalf of the committee,
S. W. S. Dutton,
Samuel Williston,
Benjamin P. Stone,
L. H. Parker,
D. Clary,
F. D. Parish,
J. Guernsey,
W. Crawford,
J. Bacon,
Geo. H. Atkinson.
The report was accepted. CHURCH BUILDING.
On motion, the orders of the day were suspended, in order to
allow the presentation of the report on the kindred subject of
church building.
Rev. Samuel G. Buckingham, from the committee to which
was referred the report on Church Building, then read the fol
lowing
REPORT.
The plan adopted by the Albany Convention in 1852, to aid feeble
churches in building houses of worship, was regarded at the time as not
the least important result of their deUberations. But the wisdom of this
plan could never have been comprehended as it now is, after it has been
in operation for thirteen years, and the results are gathered up as they
are in the report before us. It has furnished so many churches with
sanctuaries; it has been such an efficient aid to home missions; it has
proved itself such an economical form of benevolence; it has done so
much to promote revivals of reUgion; it has so spread the faith and
church polity of the Puritans, and so stimulated other denominations
to take up and prosecute the game Christian work, — that we shah never
cease to bless God for the wisdom that conceived of such a plan, and the
faith, and enterprise, and UberaUty that undertook to put it into operation.
But the demand which existed for such Christian work then has greatly
increased since that time. Emigration is flowing Westward as fast as
ever, while that wall of exclusion which shut it out from the South and the
South-west is broken down, and it is Ukely to overflow and fertilize all that
region also. And every consideration that ever urged us to engage in this
work does so now, and with increased force. For if it was ever worth
while to build sanctuaries for feeble churches, if still is; and there never
were half so many that needed to be built as are Ukely to be called for
hereafter. We must therefore assume the duty that is laid upon us, and
prosecute^the work with becoming vigor. The altered condition of the

REPORT ON CHURCH BUILDING. 263
country may require some modification of our plan and mode of work
ing, but the work is essentiaUy the same, and the duty more imperative
than ever.
Tour committee on " Evangelizationin the South and West " caU atten
tion to such cities and larger towns as Baltimore, and Washington, and
Richmond, and Norfolk, and Wilmington, and Cairo, and Memphis, and
New Orleans, and regard them as coming within the scope of this enter
prise. As centers of population and influence, they very properly rep
resent them as " strategic points " in our moral warfare, and recommend
that no time be lost in taking possession of them in the name of our
Great Captain. The wisdom of this recommendation must commend
itsetf to all. But it is equally apparent that appropriations to churches
at such points, to be of any value, must be very much larger than any
that have hitherto been made. Instead of three or five or seven hun
dred dollars, it wUl require some thousands to secure the erection of a
house of worship in such a position, and this will be doing no more for
them than the former sum has accompUshed for a church in some Uttle
village. In the mining region, also, where the expense of building is so
great, appropriations must be made on an increased scale of UberaUty to
accompUsh the desired object. This, however, will require vastly more
of funds than we have hitherto raised for any such purpose, and also
require some modification of our mode of raising funds, as well as of our
scale of expenditure.
We do not regard any new agency as needed to take charge of this work.
The Congregational Union, to which it has hitherto been assigned, has
labored most assiduously, with the scanty force at its command, to col
lect funds, and distributed them with wisdom and impartiality. And
with our confidence in those who have the charge of this society, and
with their experience already acquired in the management of such a
charity, we may safely intrust this enterprise with them.
The committee recommend that all applications for aid in church
building be made to the Congregational Union ; and that, having
received their indorsement, special agents shall be assigned to particular
fields for their coUections, after the manner so successfully followed by
the " Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Educa
tion at the West."
We also recommend that we embrace within our plan of church build
ing the affording of aid in the erection of church edifices to feeble
churches in the cities and large towns of the South and West, and that
our appropriations to them be upon a scale commensurate with the im
portance of their position and the increased cost of affording such aid.
We further recommend, that in order to meet the increased expendi
ture which such an enlargement of our plan impUes, and also in view of
the present demand for church-edifices at the West, and the prospective
demand for them in the South, the sum of two hundred thousand dollars
be raised at once, and that a much larger sum than has hitherto been
raised for the purpose be secured annually to carry out the above plan.
In conclusion, we would merely add, that ff we can not rear any fit

264 DISCUSSION OF REPORTS.
monument to the piety of our fathers, and to God's good providence
over them, on Plymouth Rock, let us scatter these sacred and enduring
memorials of such faith and grace over the length and breadth of the
land, and thus show our appreciation of such faith, and gratitude for
such grace. (Signed) S. G. Buckingham,
F. B. Doe,
Philo Carpenter,
Isaac Jennings, \ Committee.
J. M. Chamberlain,
Edwin Johnson,
H. P. Haven,-
The report was accepted.
The question was stated upon the adoption of the report.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut, suggested that the two reports be
referred to a joint committee consisting of the two committees incor
porated into one.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut, stated that this was unnecessary,
the committees having already conferred with each other and made their
reports to harmonize.
Rev. Dr. Sturtevant, of HUnois, inquired whether it was in order
to consider the two reports together.
The Moderator repUed that such appeared to be the understanding
of the Convention, although that upon church buUding was alone strictly
before the Convention.
On motion of Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut, it was voted that
the two reports should be discussed together.
Rev. Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts. It appears to me that it is danger
ous for us to recommend the organization of African colleges. We do
not want African, Irish, or German colleges, but American coUeges,
without distinction as to the color of the skin. I hope that point will
be well considered, because it involves a great deal.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. The committee put that in at the
urgent request of Mr. BUss, of Tennessee, and we would Uke to have
him defend his child.
Rev. Mr. Bliss, of Tennessee. In appearing before the committee
yesterday, I was led in the course of my remarks to suggest the impor
tance of distinct educational estabUshments in the South for the training
of men as teachers and as preachers of the gospel through that region.
There is no question of prejudice of color at aU in this matter. Those
who know me know that- with me that subject was settled full twenty or
twenty-five years ago. In looking over the field for nearly two years in
Missouri, and the last year and a half in Mississippi, and along down
the Mississippi river, I have found that there was a mighty work to be

DISCUSSION OF REPORTS. 265
done for the colored people. Any one who has heard these preachers
preach and pray wiU feel distressingly the necessity of training teachers
for the four milUons of freedmen. This work has not yet been fuUy
entered upon; but already we have at Memphis colored schools contain
ing from 1800 to 2000 people of color ; and one high school established
with a Congregational minister and his wife at the head of it. There is
in that neighborhood an opportunity for training these men for the min
istry and for the position of teachers. We must enter into this work
early. The colored people themselves demand ftp and the times urge it
impressively upon us. The question of color is not to be brought in.
We do not have any thing to do with it there. We are working for them
to the best advantage we can; and we need there an institution which
shall he academic, and coUegiate, and theological combined, Uke many of
our young Western institutions, so that these young men can enter, and,
by perhaps a shorter course than usual, be prepared to preach to their
people and to instruct their 'people.
Memphis is a central point, with railroads running into it from vari
ous points, from Charleston in S. C, from Louisvftle in Ky., and from
Little Rock in Ark. Being a central point, it is one of the most impor
tant in the whole Southern region. The city of Memphis alone has a
population of 40 or 50,000, the colored population amounting to 10 or
15,000, whUe they are coming there from all points. And you wiU find
there, in the providence of God, an institution now given up, in just the
place for just such an estabUshment as is required for these people.
We can not keep calling upon the North for teachers, for we can not
begin to supply the demand. A work must be commenced there, to
instruct the preachers who are to teach the people themselves. I look
in the same missionary point of view upon the colored people in the
South, and think we must pursue the same course with them as is now
being pursued with the people of other lands, regardless of color, — - the
whole question of caste and prejudice being left entirely out of the
account. It is not to be considered at all in this proposition.
The colored people there have their own churches and associations
without any question of color being raised. There need be no question
of that kind. There is no wish to exclude; but they naturally flow
together from their social affinities, without any question of color being
raised. These things, we trust, are buried for ever in this land.
I introduced that provision with a desire that it might be fairly con
sidered here, and in order that some of the more wealthy men at the
North might create such an institution, giving to it a name to immortaUze
themselves, while at the same time it will prove a blessing to untold mil
lions in that Southern region. This work has grown upon my mind
since I have been in the South. The great question how we shall pro
vide instructors and preachers for four millions of people staggers the
mind with the attempt to grapple it. We do not begin to reach it by
sending a few teachers from the North. There must be raised up men
of their own color, and living there among them, for teachers, and for
preachers of the gospel among them.

266 telegram from the president.
telegram from the president.
The hour having arrived which had been dedicated to devo
tional exercises, the moderator read the following telegram
received this morning from the President of the United States,
to the Council : — ' Washington, June 19.
To Gov. Wm. A. Buckingham, Moderator of the National
Council of Congregational Churches, Boston —
I receive with profound thanks the dispatch of your CouncU. In the
arduous and' embarrassing duties devolved upon me, I feel the need of the
co-operation and sympathy of the people, and of the assistance of the
Great Ruler of the Universe. These duties I shall endeavor to discharge
honestly and to the best of my judgment, with the conviction that the
best interests of civil and reUgious Uberty throughout the world wUl he
preserved and promoted by the success and permanency of our country.
Let us all labor to that end, and the mission upon which the people have
been sent among the nations of the world will be accompUshed.
(Signed) Aotjrew Johnson.
The Moderator proceeded to say. You aU know, my Christian
friends, the request which President Lincoln made at the time he left
Springfield, that the people would pray for him. In aUusion to that sub
ject, in a private interview which I once had with him, he threw out
this intimation very clearly, that he felt that it was in consequence of
those prayers, and in answer to those prayers, that he was enabled to
bear the heavy burdens which were imposed upon him by the position
which he occupied. I am sure that any man occupying a position as
prominent as that of Mr. Lincoln during the last four years, must feel his
entire incompetency to bear the burden placed upon him, without the
divine aid. No man needs it more now than the President of the United
States; and surely it is not too much to ask these Christian hearts at this
hour tp unite in earnest prayer that God would strengthen him stfll more
for the duties which devolve upon him, and give him that wisdom to meet
the necessities which the times demand. I wftl'ask brother Carter, of
Illinois; to lead in prayer with special reference to the President of the
United States.
Prayer was offered' by Rev. William Carter, of Illinois, Dr.
Adams, Dr. Dutton, and others, and hymns were sung, — these
devotional exercises occupying the allotted half hour.
EVANGELIZATION IN THE SOUTH AND WEST.
The consideration of the two reports, that upon EvangeUza
tion in the South and West, and that upon Church Building,
was resumed, each member being limited to twelve minutes
under the rule.

EVANGELIZATION — CHURCH BUILDING. 267
Rev. Dr. Sturtevant, of Illinois. I take the floor at the opening of
this discussion modestly, and at the request of brethren whose request I
did mot feel at liberty to disregard. How to speak twelve minutes on
this subject is to me almost incomprehensible. To speak hours would
be easy. We speak of this great Council. When I compare this Coun
cil with the work which stretches away before us and around us, it does
not seem to me great, but unspeakably small : we have just had — and the
Lord in his merey has deUvered us — a mighty physical conflict. That
was a conflict for the foundation principle of our political system, the
equal rights of man ; and how hath it taxed the energies of this great
nation! Fathers and brethren, that conflict is only the emblem, and a
very feeble emblem, of another conflict which is now before us. We are
now to have a mighty conflict for those religious principles which lie
down deep at the foundation of our whole structure of civil and political
freedom, which are the hope of our own souls, the hope of our chil
dren, the hope of our schools, the hope of our nation. If the physical
conflict has been a mighty one, what wiU the reUgious conflict be?
There is just as much necessity, just as stern and absolute a necessity,
for carrying through the reUgious conflict to the complete triumph of
those principles of reUgion upon which the whole rest, as there was for
carrying through the physical conflict. Where would we have been if
we had not had, or if we had been defeated in, that confiict? Just in that
position shall we be if we do not enter upon, and if we do not conquer in,
this religious conflict.
What is our problem? To plant over all the West and South such a
local church that it wftl take into its care the entire moral and spiritual
wants of the entire community within the boundaries of each and every
local church. Do not misunderstand me. If that church owes allegi
ance to the General Assembly of the United States, if it will do that
work I am not the man that will quarrel with it, or plant a Congrega
tional church by the side of it to rival it. Not at aU. I advocate our pol
ity simply because I beUeve it is* the best instrumentality to achieve this.
But God speed our Presbyterian friends, and God speed our Methodist
friends to do all of this work that they can and wftl do. [Applause.]
There is no such thing as a system of popular and effective universal ed
ucation that does not draw its life from the local church. We have a fine
system of common schools in the State of IlUnois. The people of Illinois,
in any school district, may have under the State law just as noble, a school
as they desire. But it is necessary to- have a people who are under the
influence of moral and religious -principles to give Ufe to that system of
education; and over vast regions of that State there is no such Ufe-giving
power, and therefore that system upon our statute book is a dead letter1.
And so it will be every where. The universal diffusion of the Church
of Christ is the only condition of the education of our people to be free
men, to be inteUigent voters, to be men in whose hands the sacred inter
ests of religion and of political freedom can be safely deposited.
How are we to achieve this result? Any one in this assembly may
WeU answer from the depths of his heart, the Lord teU us how. But

268 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
there is one suggestion I can make with very great confidence. Every
one of us sees the necessity of self-denial. What sent these brethren to Illi
nois, Missouri, Colorado, Oregon, and California? Have golden visions
drawn them there? We know the meaning of self-denial for Christ
Brothers and fathers, in the name of the Lord we bring this duty of self-
denial and lay the burden of it upon the conscience of every disciple of
Christ in the city of Boston, in the city of New York, in the State of
Massachusetts, in the State of IUinois, because there is wealth there
too that is not consecrated to Christ. We say that whatever stern self-
denial this cause lays upon the missionary or the minister, shaU be laid
right down upon every private member of the church. Brother, sister,
the mortgage is upon your homestead; the mortgage is upon your land,
upon your son, your daughter. Are we to succeed in this grand en
terprise? We are to succeed in it by completely breaking down the
perverse distinction so long made between the duty of self-denial in the
ministry and the duty of self-denial in the private membership. The
Lord has as good a claim upon every disciple of his that Uves in these
ceiled houses as he has or ever had upon me, or upon that brother who
is upon this floor from Colorado. If we are not going to transact the
whole business upon this principle, there is no hope for us at aU.
I am going to speak plainly. As I have seen how this burden of self-
denial and self-sacrifice is laid upon the Christian ministry, — none too
much, for we have not borne half what we ought to have been willing to
bear for the sake of the Master, — while those who dweU in their palaces
of ease and luxury, and press their velvet cushions every Sabbath day,
throw those burdens from themselves, my soul has been exceedingly
filled with scorn for them that are at ease, and with contempt for the
proud. Brethren, there is wealth enough in the church of Christ; not as
much as there ought to be, if to-day we would abandon ten thousand of
the miserable fooleries and ostentations of fashion, and be far more
earnest workers even in our material interests than we are, and practice
self-denial and economy, and thus accumulate wealth far more rapidly
than we do. But on the other hand I would write " HoUness to the
Lord " upon all that wealth; and as to those figures that have been rolled
up in this report, $200,000 here, $250,000 there, and $300,000 there -
there would be no difficulty at aU in the matter.
The difficulty is this : a large portion of our people feel as I once heard
a brother say, " I have not volunteered; " " I am on the stay-at-home list;
I will give a Uttle, but you must not interfere with my pleasures. My
wealth, my home, none of that is mortgaged; the Lord has no hold
upon that. I can not part with my luxuries." [The time expired.]
Rev. Mr. Pike, of Massachusetts, said: I rise but for one moment,
and will then leave this discussion for abler hands than mine. It seems
to me that the great question before us is not whether we have a large
field open, — for that is granted; nor is the question whether this field
is to be mainly occupied by regularly authorized ministers instead of
any other form of effort "to bring the people to Christ,— for that, I take
it, is granted also. The main point is whether or not it is necessary for

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 269
us to have a second tier of ministers. That, I believe, is brought dis
tinctly before us by the report this morning, that such is the necessity of
our situation, that our associations or conferences, or whatever body this
matter may be intrusted to, are to license and bring in ministers less in
telligent and less fitted for this great work. I desire that the remarks of
brethren fitted to instruct us may be directed to this point. I regret it, but
I do not know but we shall be obliged to come to this. H so, let us come
to it in the fear of God and with the earnestness of our hearts. The throw
ing open to us of this wide field, and raising up so many millions that
need to be immediately instructed in the things of the kingdom of God,
certainly bring us toward that point. If we have come to the place
where we need this kind of ministry, let us enter upon that duty at once.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. One word of explanation. That
had special reference to the region of the South and West, and had not
much reference to New England.
Hon. Mr. Pomeroy, of Kansas. I desire only in a few brief words to
say that I approve those reports that have been read to the Council. Of
course I shaU have to leave out vastly more than I can say, and I can
not confine the remarks I want to make to the topic just presented.
First of all I want to say that I feel called upon to express the gratitude
of the churches of my own State for the aid they have had from the
Congregational Union; and especially of the church of my own town,
of which I am a member, for the $500 contributed and sent to us to aid
in building a church. With that aid, we buUt a church that cost us
18000; and on the 14th of May of this year, it was pronounced com
pleted, and dedicated, at an expense of $12,000; a church out of debt,
free, and which I think can be said to be self-supporting. And I wiU
add that if this CouncU sends to us now for a contribution to aid in
building other churches, it will be responded to, and that money can and
shaU be returned.
I rejoice also to say that in my State there are thirty-two Congrega
tional churches, sixteen having their houses of worship completed, and
sixteen more either having them in the process of erection, or being
unable to erect. I think Congregationalism pecuUarly adapted to a new
country, and to all new fields. I remember very well leaving Boston
eleven years ago, in a party of two hundred and thirty-one men and two
women; and in that company there was a Congregational church, as we
found after we planted ourselves in Lawrence, Kansas, on the first Sab
bath. We found that we had eleven persons, members of Congregational
churches somewhere, and" they gathered together in Kansas, a church
without a minister and without a bishop. CongregationaUsm will plant
itself Wherever beUevers go. If they are members of churches any
where, they can come together bringing letters from the churches of
which they are members, and naturally and easily form a Congregational
church. The Home Missionary Society very soon sent us a missionary,
and our church was recognized with other churches. This system of
policy is adopted every where. It can go south and so encompass the
country and the continent.

270 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
On the second topic I would say that I do not suppose that in reference
to my own State any extra effort need be made. We are not an inviting
field of labor, now that the country is open to us, — the continent almost.
We are living " in a grand and awful time," and I wonder if we feel that
" to be living is sublime." Never before was this country open to New
Englanders, or to men of our sentiments, as it is open to-day.
I want to say, just here, that we have a Capital now. I was in Wash
ington before emancipation, and I have been there ever since; and I want
the churches of this country to feel that they have a Washington, — a Cap
ital, from which we are not shut out as we have been. There are ten
thousand young men in Washington from the free States, many of them
from New England. The clerical help employed in the departments is "¦
largely from New England. A Congregational church might be gath
ered there of two hundred young men to begin with. If we are going
South, Washington is the gateway to the South; and there are reasons
why a Congregational church should be planted in Washington, that do
not so urgently exist in my mind why they should be planted in other
places. The city of Washington is peculiarly our field, — the field of
the whole nation. Baltimore is in Maryland; Richmond is in what was
Virginia — I do not know what it is now; — Charleston, Savannah, and
all the Southern cities, must eventually come under some local organiza
tion; but there are reasons why a national convention should concentrate
some peculiar energy upon the national capital. It is your home and
mine. Its very soil has been consecrated to the Union, the government,
and, thank God, latterly, to freedom. [Applause.] It is as free a city
as Boston. I remember when we used to walk there with weapons, and
did • not know whether our Uves were safe or not. But if we are safe
any where, we are to-day safe in Washington. To think that the Amer
ican Congregational Churches should neglect it, should not have a large
representation there, especially since your churches and young men have
so large a representation there, seems strange to me. I beUeve that the
resolution in the hands of your business committee, that the Congrega
tional Union should take specific measures to establish a permanent
church of our ^denomination there, should be brought forward and cor
dially adopted as the sentiment of this Convention.
T know all about the failures we have had in the past. Congregation
alism will always fail with slavery. You could not plant a successful
organization of our denomination where a part of the church were free
and a part were slaves. Our principles would not allow that the few
should outvote the many, or that a part should be disfranchised entirely.
I want to say, in conclusion, that this subject commends itself to the
Council, because this is a peculiarly favorable time to make the effort.
We want a church there that shall reflect credit upon our denomination,
and shall accommodate our people. A church in Washington, with such
a minister as I could select, could have a congregation there of two
thousand every Sabbath. There are more than twenty Congregational
ministers, now employed as clerks in the departments, that would go into
a church and make useful s members ; and a Sabbath school could he

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. ' 271
organized with their aid, such as could be found in no other city. These
ministers, broken down in their health or their voice, although no longer
competent to labor in the ministry, are good earnest men; and the Con
gregational church should make the most of them, as teachers in the
Sabbath school, and members in the church. And their influence would
extend from Washington all through the South.
It is time that we were taking possession of that Southern country.
War has desolated it more than the frosts of the North destroy vege
table life. There is a new creation springing up; and we should be
there; our seeds should be in the ground.
The doctrine that we are to organize those States again where they
broke off to go into the rebelUon is a monstrous heresy. Let the gov
ernments be inaugurated by those men, coming back as they Would now
come back, — taking to themselves seven spirits more wicked than the
flrst, — and I assure you that the last state wUl be worse than the flrst.
[Applause.] Society must be organized by beginning at the bottom
and turning it bottom side upward, because it has heretofore been so
constructed as to need this overturning. But I will not prolong my
remarks upon this point, as there is to be a meeting at Faneuil Hall at
12 o'clock to-morrow, upon the subject of reconstruction, and the rest of
my speech in that direction I shall make there.
Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, Jr., of Missouri, said: I do not know, Mr.
Moderator, whether I can say a quarter of what I want to say, in
twelve minutes, but I feel that those who have come far, some pf them
half as far as our foreign delegates-, and some quite as far, should say a
word at least in this CouncU. My home is in Missouri. I have seen there
some of the work of reconstruction. It has gone further in some respects
there than any where else; and I beUeve that in our experience there are
some lessons for the church.
When I went to Missouri, five years ago, it is no violent language to
say that there was no such thing as free speech in Missouri, out of a few
of the principal cities. I have been told by travelers in England that
our English friends can not beUeve that in a civilized community, there
¦ ever was such a thing as a suppression of free speech. From the very
county where I have my home, Dr. Nelson was chased by men hooting
and howUng for his Ufe, and that only a few years ago. And in the streets
of our county seat, only a few years ago, they burned, — what paper do
you think? — for anti-slavery utterances, — the "New York Observer."
[Laughter.] I have heard elders of the Presbyterian church and pastors
of the same denomination rise before their audiences and confess that
they had been silent on the subject of slavery in the State of Missouri,
When their consciences bade them speak, and ask God's forgiveness and
the forgiveness of the Christian community for that silence which for
years they had not dared to break.
But that silence has been broken. It was broken when the chains
grew so tight, the demand for subserviency so violent and excessive, that
no man could stand it. At last, speech is free there as it is here. But
such a change as this could not occur without a thorough visitation of

272 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
God's judgment upon those who had suppressed free speech, and a thor
ough contempt for those who had been suppressed. Their power is gone
for ever; and the very organizations with which they were connected are
almost in some places refused an utterance in the community. God has
turned society upside down. The men who scarce dared say their souls
were their own are the leaders of society to-day.
The old churches have been closed, — some of them by the soldiers,
because they naturaUy quartered themselves upon their enemies, and
their worst enemies were the old-school Presbyterian and Southern Meth
odist churches. They have made their homes and their hospitals in
those churches, the ministers of which have gone off into the rebel army
or fled the country. There is nothing left of the old teachers of the peo
ple. These changes have cut people loose from old denominational lines,
strict as those Unes have been in the West. A community sent word
recently, " Brother Turner, wont you send us a real Yankee preacher? "
That is what they wanted. They felt that such a man could be trusted.
Besides, the new constitution of the State cuts off from teaching and
preaching, everybody that can not swear he has always been loyal
to the government. Such has been the change that I verUy believe
nearly one half the citizens of the interior of the State wiU move out
in the year and a half which commenced last spring; and others must
come in and take their places. Those that are left desire, in reUgion and
poUtics and social Ufe, something entirely different from what they have
known before. We feel therefore that this is a glorious time to plant
Congregational churches with the new institutions. We began with fear
and trembUng. We expected to stand alone. We expected to be com
plained of by men in prominent positions. We supposed it was the
work of years to make the people understand what Congregationalism is.
To our surprise we had no sooner explained what it was, — an assembling
of the people that loved God and Christ, for forming a reUgious society
to be governed by the majority, — than the people rallied around it, and
we formed churches in weeks where we expected to be months about it.
Let me be very plain here. We did not form a theological seminary to
teach our candidates the catechisms and confessions of faith before we
received them. In fact we receive people into the church just as we
marry people. We marry people that love one another, and are not
already married to somebody else; and we receive people into the church
that love God and Christ, and the gospel for Christ's sake, and are not
already connected with any other church. [Applause.]
Somebody has accused me of building a church out of Methodists
and other denominations. I put no Methodists into the church but what
I found lying around loose; and every Christian man that I find lying
round loose I propose to build into the church of Christ. AU these
churches are orthodox. We state in plain terms the fundamental prin
ciples of the gospel, and we bring them to unite upon those principles.
We have to be careful to state them in simple language, so as to he
understood; and if any body is afraid we are heterodox, I can only say
that I met upon the Council a man from Maine, one from New Hamp-

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 273
8hire, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and one or two more; and when we came
together we found that we agreed very well upon what constituted the
church of Christ.
In the present movement, which was rather interrupted by a guerilla
movement, we heard from fifteen towns, and in all but one of those fif
teen towns there was an immediate call from a Congregational church.
for a Congregational minister; and that was a failure for special reasons
that are not Ukely to last. And I speak within safe limits when I say
that there are fifty more, north of the Missouri river, just as likely to
afford places for ministers as those fifteen. But they must be occupied
at once, or the opportunity wiU pass. And these churches, though small
in numbers, are promising to have a firm hold upon the community.
Many of them are in towns once flourishing, and now so surrounded by
fruitful fields and advantages that they must renew their prosperity; and
they are oftentimes the only churches in the community where they are
planted. We can not wait until a church can be started with all the ele
ments of power and success that belong to an old community. We must
make them feel that we bring them the gospel in their weakness. We
must say to those men that love Christ, If you are feeble and few, we
wiU help you; and then when men come from the East to the West, we
must say to them, Here is a church for you, a small church, but a church
of Christ; come with us and we wUl do you good. This work will make
the State of Missouri a thoroughly Christian community so far as the
best organizations can go to make it so.
Rev. Prof. Bartlett, of Illinois. I feel as though we had now just
reached the great thing for which we are here together. It is a great thing
to declare theoretical principles, — to set forth our faith, or our polity ;
but the great thing we have now to do, after all, is to go to work and take
care of our land for Christ. We feel at the West oppressed with the
greatness of the work laid upon us; and we sometimes feel that even the
plans laid before you are unworthy and- insufficient, when we think of
the multitudes of the troops we have sent to conquer the South. What
is it that we propose to do? To devote to purposes of church buUding
just about one half the annual cost of a single cavalry regiment; and
the whole income of the Home Missionary Society falls far below the
annual cost of an infantry regiment. Yet with this preparation we are
proposing to conquer the whole South! When we look around upon the
churches here, and. remember the want of churches in our own vicinity,
We feel that our brethren here upon the old homesteads have yet to learn
what is the work before them. We want not merely men but money.
It has been said this morning that money is not the chief thing we
want; but we do want money to do the work. We want institutions,
churches; and we can not even plant them, to secure an influence, without
money. There are societies to help the churches. The Tract Society,
and the Bible Society, the Sunday School Union, and many others, will
help the church, when the acorn shall be planted, to grow up into a
mighty oak spreading its branches all over our heads. Our want at
the West in our vicinity, is largely money. We are poor. We see our
18

274 evangelization — church building.
churches bought out from under us by men who can come and bid more
for them, and can perhaps take up a mortgage upon them. We can not
provide for young men who want to be educated for the ministry,
because we have not the means. Even our own men have their thoughts
largely concentrated upon the old homestead. Two years ago we read
the record of some $1,500,000 poured out upon this Atlantic coast, which
went into the old institution's that have been planted and watered for
two hundred years. I felt that what you were consuming here for your
daily bread, might have been, at least a portion of it, our seed corn,
which we want and can not do without.
As to the education for the ministry, we find that there is a class of
men whom we must employ, — men whom the Master calls, practical busi
ness men, of tact and judgment, educated by contact with men, and not
always by contact with literary institutions, — men with a Ufe and -force in
them which men who have gone through a protracted course of study do
not often have ; and we must still continue to take these men whom the
Master honors, and put them into the work.
What we want is to give a true conception of the work opening before us
at the West and at the South and to get up something like that spirit of
patriotism and loyalty to Christ which our soldiers have exhibited dur
ing the campaign. When we look around and see that a milUon of men
have fallen directly or indirectly by the war, who might have had their
Uves saved, and aU the losses of the war prevented, by a band of a thou
sand, and I might almost say one hundred ministers of Christ spreading the
word of truth in its purity and power aU over this land, we can not hut
mourn the lack of foresight that failed to spread the gospel. It was the
institutions which you, Christian brethren and fathers, gave to us, which
kept the troops of IlUnois, Wisconsin, and Iowa from being marshaled in
deadly conflict against the men of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and
Yermont. That was the reason why Ulysses S. Grant, instead of lead
ing our armies to victory at Richmond, was not taking your own capital
from you at Washington.
Rev. E. P. Marvin, of Massachusetts, moved to amend the report
by adding the words " and faith " after the word " poUty," so as to recom
mend " to watch carefully over, and protect, and extend the church polity
and faith of our New England fathers."
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. I have no objection whatever to
that amendment.
Rev. Mr. Marvin. The distinction between us and the Unitarians is
more in the faith than in the polity; and while I would be wilUng to go
as far as any other reasonable man in this Council to receive those that
are weak in the faith, and not to doubtful disputation, stiU I would not
have it go forth in this report that the poUty is all we want. We want
that which sustains the poUty and which has sustained it hi aU the try
ing times of the past. I trust it will go forth that we have not lapsed
from" the faith of our fathers ; that the Congregational churches, repre
sented in this great Council, stand by their polity in their faith.
Rev. Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts. I hope this question of Chris-

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 275
tian- faith WiU not be pressed upon this house so suddenly. There is a
report upon the subject, and it ought to be known when it is to come up
that there may be an expression of opinion upon it.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of IlUnois, read the third article of agreement of
the Saybrook platform, as the Western doctrine, —
" That none shaU be admitted as members in full communion in all the
special ordinances of the gospel, but such persons as are known to be
sound in the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion, without
scandal in their Uves, but in judgment regulated by the word of God,
and persons of visible holiness and honesty credibly professing cordial
subjection to the will of Jesus Christ."
The amendment was agreed to.
Rev. Dr. Todd, of Massachusetts, said: when this Council was called
together, we hardly knew what the providence of God indicated by its
can. I was repeatedly asked what was the object, the central idea,
bringing together this great body of men to-day. I think that before we
separate we shall all feel that it was the providence of God that brought
us together, the spirit of Christ that dwelt in us, and the power of the
Holy Spirit that will follow us home. Our brethren at the West can
hardly imagine with what joy we meet them, and greet them, and hear
them speak, and feel their fire, and see their energy, and rejoice in the
soundness of their faith and spirit. I thought yesterday, when our Gov
ernor Andrew sat here looking at you, that he must say in his heart that
we are a respectable family; that he would feel that here was a house of
heads. I wish that he could see the hearts that have made these heads
grow old, the cares and anxieties and labors of these dear brethren in
that best and hoUest of aU causes, the cause of our Master.
We are called upon to vote great sums of money. When we met at
Worcester last autumn, under the leadership of brother Anderson, we
had to vote $600,000 for foreign missions, and he then told us to go home
and collect it. Now you are calUng upon us for as much more. I don't
wonder that my brother Badger's face looks long as he thinks of the
thousand home missionaries he has to provide for; or that. brother Bald
win, the father of all the coUeges of the West, has an anxious heart.
We have a great burden laid upon us. I begin to feel it already; and I
have no doubt that before we leave this Council, we shaU feel that we go
home with such a burden resting upon us as we have never had before
and can never have again while we live on God's footstool.
I am asked, what are you doing here? What are the results? We
can tell fifty years hence, or one hundred years hence, better than to-day.
The results will be beyond all that we can to-day describe or imagine.
It is not because we vote so much, or speak so much, but it is because we
feel so much. It is the moving of the heart under the influences of the
Divine Spirit, and the spirit of the Divine Redeemer. These $750,000
— can we get it from our churches ? It makes us feel that we have a
heavy load to carry, we who are pastors and must take this home and

276 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
lay it upon the heart of selfishness and covetousness and worldliness.
But I want to say one word to reUeve this feeUng.
When this great rebellion broke out at the South, we felt that there
was a power behind the army of the South that we could not meet, —the
power of four millions of human hands working to support and sustain
the South and their army; and we wondered how in the world we should,
ever achieve the victory with that power, that reserved army, behind
them. We forget that in New England and the free States we have one
hundred milUon of hands behind us, 'working for us day and night. I
mean the machinery in your factories, your mowers, your reapers, your
spinners, your water-wheels. The machinery in the free States now
is doing every day the work of one hundred miUions of hands. That
has created the wealth that has carried us through this war. And that
wealth, that power, that reserved army, if it is brought in to help us in
this cause, will give us the money. I have no fear about that. There is
wealth enough. It is being created fast enough. No, sir; it is the great
danger of our New England, Northern churches that we shall be
swamped through avarice, through worldliness, through the prosperity
of this world.
Now we have two things that we want to do. We want consecrated
young men to enter the ministry, well educated. If it were in my power, I
would send the best man in this house for the purpose to every college in
New England. I would have him caU together aU the pious young men
in each college, and talk with them, and pray with them, and get them to
pledge themselves to enter the ministry. I was surprised, not long since,
upon visiting a college where there had been a deUghtful revival of re
Ugion, to find that that subject had not been brought before them. I
could blame nobody for it. But when the subject came to be pressed
upon them, there was a response; and there wiU be a response in every
coUege in New England if we may come to the ear of the young men
who there profess Jesus Christ. Let them understand the trials, the self-
denial, the labors, and the glory, and they will enter the ministry.
One other thing we want. We must enter upon a new experiment.
We must send out half, third, quarter educated men ; — a sort of system of
lay preachers. We can not help it. The providence of God calls for it;
and we, old conservatives at the North, will go as far as any of you in
any of these great plans which the providence of God leads us to take
up. [Applause.]
One thing more. I feel that when we leave these meetings and go to
our homes, we must have a power behind us beyond that which brought
us here, or we can neyer meet the responsibiUties of this day and hour.
We can never meet these responsibiUties unless the Spfrit of God rests
upon us, and goes with us to our homes. We must carry the Holy
Spirit in our hearts; and we must go home to our churches taking hold
of the mercy-seat, and asking, expecting, believing that there will be a
tidal wave of revival reaching over our churches and over the land, that
will prepare .us and prepare our churches to meet these awful responsi
biUties. Dear brethren, beUeve and you shaU receive. Go home expect
ing and praying for this great revival, and we shaU have it.

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 277
Mr. Pratt, of Massachusetts. If the raising of $750,000 strikes such
a dread and terror to the hearts of the ministers, what must it be to the
laymen who wUl have to raise the money? It has been proposed to
erect a Congregational Church in Washington city at a cost of $100,000.
Such a project would startle the people of the West and South, for the
money proposed to expend for that purpose and f&r similar objects,
would build five hundred churches -for the destitute of the West and
South. Bev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut, raised the question of order
that the subject of the church building in Washington was not
under debate, being in the hands of a committee.
The point of order was sustained.
Hon. Mr. Holton, of Wisconsin. I was called out of New England
by the inviting inducements held out by the West twenty-five years ago,
and made my home in Wisconsin. The opening was indeed tiien very
great; and I feel constrained, at this juncture of our meeting, to say a
word upon the growth of things in that State under my own eyes. We
need sometimes to encourage ourselves by examples from the past, as
well as by peering into the future. When I first went to Wisconsin, it
had thirty thousand inhabitants only. I have seen the march of the emigra
tion from the East, of men who have come to make their homes in Wis
consin. Following that emigration came the men sent out by your noble
Home Missionary Society; and I have seen the gratifying consequences.
There grew up two hundred churches of our faith, and two hundred
learned and able men came and took their posts there as servants of
the Lord to lay the foundations of Christian society. As I have seen
coming in, the men from foreign lands, the German with his infidelity, I
have paused and said, What shall stay this? It is only God that can stay
it. Fifteen years ago, the Infidels said : Let us have a convention at Water-
town, that we may put down the Sabbath. We gave them a severe
letting alone. They expected, considering the treatment they had had in
the Old World, that we should come there and put them down by force;
but we gave them a severe letting alone. They held their convention,
adjourned sine die, and never came together again. But we went and
gathered their children and brought them into our Sunday schools; and
thus our system, so silent, so mighty, so potent, has turned aside to a
great extent that infidelity; and we have a joyful hope now, that we
shall be instrumental in leading this foreign population into right ways,
through our system and poUcy we are pursuing there.
When you of New England have sent aid to our churches in Wis
consin, I can stand here and testify that the results have been noble and
encouraging. I am an humble layman myself; but I have seen these
things. Since I have been here I have been sent out upon a committee, and
there I met brother Salter. Twenty-two years ago this spring, when the

278 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
steamer passed the port of MUwaukee, one Saturday night, ten or fifteen
of your men, sent out from New England, stopped to keep the Sabbath
there, on their way to Iowa. Mr. Salter, then in his primal youth, was
one. I might compliment him to-day that he is stiU a boy; that he has
kept that youth. What have these men done in Iowa? They have
turned back the accursed influences of the South, which were creeping up
from the Southern States. I have marked those men with singular inter
est. They have filled coUeges and schools, and they are they who have
by their influence kept back the inroads of slavery, so that to-day Iowa
blossoms Uke the rose.
I point to these glorious fruits of what we have done in a narrower
fleld in the twenty years that are past. But now our rebeUion is done,
and we have not only the eight milUons of men on our own soU, whose
eyes are turned upon us; but do you know that there are a hundred
million of eyes turned to us from across the water? Do you know
that this highway across the sea is to be traversed as it was never trav
ersed before. In Germany, in Ireland, and throughout Europe, their
eyes are turned upon us, their hearts bend toward America, and they
are coming as they never came before. We must make our calculations
not only for the eight milUons here in such perilous need, but for twenty
milUons more from across the water.
I come then and say that we ought to rise and build now, and lose no time
Mr. Beecher said that the foot of slavery is shod with iron, and goes
slowly. And if it is also true that the foot of freedom flies fast, we should
make haste, when the duty is laid upon us to build the waste places for
the cause of our divine Master.
Dea. Shelton, of Connecticut. The practical question appears to
be, how the $750,000 are to be raised. There is a single feature of this
which presses upon my mind, and I rise with great reluctance and great
diffidence, for the purpose of provoking abler minds to bring it before
the Convention. It is that the business portion and the wealthy portion
of our churches should be brought to adopt the apostles' method of sys
tematic benevolence, in principle, if not UteraUy, laying aside upon the
first day of the week according as the Lord hath prospered them; and
until this is done, we shaU not reach the standard of the gospel, nor shall
we be able to meet the necessities of the times. Twenty-five years of
observation in regard to the working of this principle, when adopted
conscientiously, have tended to deepen the conviction of my mind that
this is the great sheet-anchor of our business men, to keep them from
drifting away from the spirit of the gospel. I look upon the active
business man of the present day as in exceeding danger, in these days
of railroads and telegraphs, this age of steam, and in the pressure of
business, of losing the spirituality of his heart and Ufe. The remedy
appears to me to be that it be laid upon his conscience that once a week,
on the first day of the week, every Sabbath, he ask what God hath done
for him in a pecuniary point of view, and respond to his duties in that
respect, and his obUgations to the church of Christ and his Saviour.
Those things being brought before him in his closet every week, he

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 279
changes his Sabbath-day reUgion to a week-day religion; and he shows
that the conversion of his heart to Christ meant the consecration of his
property also to the Lord his master. I believe until something like this
is adopted by the church of C lirist, to put a stop to the absorbing cares
of the business of the world, and arrest the .current and turn it into the
channel of Christ,- and a conscientious devotion to his cause, there will
surely come up from week to week and from year to year this question
with all its pertinency, where is the money to come from? But when
this can be done, when our young men can be led to the altar of Christ,
to consecrate their talents, their affections, and their money to the Lord,
and to inquire week by week how much he demands, then the spiritual
ity of business men wiU not be consumed by the pressure of their occu
pations. FINANCE REPORT.
Hon. Mr. Hammond, from the special committee on Finance,
reported the following resolutions, which were accepted and
adopted : —
Resolved, That the finance committee be requested to pay the minis
ters who have presented a statement of the amount of their expenses in
attending upon this Council, fifty per cent, of the amount so presented*
provided, that no person shall receive a sum exceeding $200; provided,
also, that no one shall be paid any amount toward his expenses who
receives an annual salary of $1500 or over.
Resolved, That as soon as the finance committee shall have ascer
tained the total amount of these expenses, they have permission to make
further report as to the manner of securing the needed sum.
The hour of one o'clock having arrived, the Council took a
recess, under the rule, until three o'clock, p.m.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
The Council was called to order at three o'clock, the mod
erator in the chair. The consideration of the reports on the
Evangelization of the South and West and on Church Building
was resumed.
Rev. Mr. Howell, of Liverpool, N. S. (leave having been
granted), addressed the Council. He said : —
Mr. Moderator and Gentlemen of the Council: — •
I felt a desire this morning, ^when brother Bliss, from Tennessee, I
presume, was addressing the Council, to say a word or two in confirma
tion of his views in relation to the necessity of a college for the instruc
tion, of colored men, to fit them for labor in the Southern field. It was

280 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
my happy privilege to labor in the Island of Jamaica at the time of the
emancipation of the colored people there, from 1836 to 1840; and it
was found necessary, in our small field, to introduce a class ot laborers
of this order, not only in connection with the London Missionary Society,
of which I was the agent, but also in connection with the efforts of our
Baptist, friends on the same island, and, I believe in other parts of the
West Indies; and we have found it work exceedingly well, under the
supervision of the missionaries connected with those islands. That
supervision, I presume, wiU long be needful on the part of the various
agencies that may be employed in the Southern States.
I am introduced to you as from Liverpool, N. S. I haU from thence
at present. I might have hailed, but for my sympathy with Kansas in
its suffering, from the State of Michigan; but being denied the privilege
of advocating the democracy of the Bible there, and fearing that it
might be so in other fields, I removed across the border. But still I have
sympathized with the brethren of this body in all their movements. I
have met some very dear friends here, with whom I have labored in that
State, and many others whom I have seen elsewhere; and I rejoice to
meet them here^ I want to express the rejoicing that I feel in the pros
pect that is before you; and to assure you that I have had cause to sym
pathize with you in the past in relation to your armies. I wftl mention
that two of my sons have been fighting your battles. I rejoice that they
have been preserved. I am now laboring in a church planted by de
scendants of the Pilgrim fathers, in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. We are few
in numbers, and exceedingly weak; but our hope is, as yours, to go for
ward. Rev. Mr. Turner, pf Iowa. I have been long enough in the West to
have some knowledge of it. It has been my lot to be with and mingle
with the common people. Although my immediate associates in the
ministerial associations have been of those who are sometimes caUed the
educated class, the great majority of ministers by whom I have been sur
rounded all my Ufe have been those whom we caU uneducated. The
inquiry has come up whether we should put a class of men in the minis
try who have not been through college. I should be glad to have all in
the ministry educated to the highest degree, if you please; but then, I
should be very sorry to have them educated to death [Laughter]; and
my conviction is, that a certain amount of education wftl disqualify them
entirely for entering our new fields. If we could have them so educated
that they would be wilUng to go to work in any place, in any position,
and use all their powers and capacities, and take things just as they come,
why, the more such men we have, the better. But when men are edu
cated above their position, above usefulness and above wiUingness to
labor in the cause of Christ, the less you have of such education the bet
ter. [Laughter.] We have had some examples in our Uttle association
of Dubuque. We have taken up several whom we have found out there
upon the prairies, who have never been in a theological seminary, never
been through coUege, and set them to preaching; — and what has been
the result ? Why, one of them wandered down here to Massachusetts,

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 281
and you took him and made him a Doctor of Divinity. [Laughter and
applause.] Moreover, you have kept him here I Against this we put
in our protest. There are two others, who are laboring with us, who
have come on here; and I must confess that I was almost afraid to have
them come to your Eastern churches forx fear you would keep them.
[Laughter.] My conviction is, that if we are to supply ourselves with
ministers, we must take such men as we have, and ask God to endow
them from on high with the capacity and the ability to preach the
gospel. I wish to say a word with reference to our Congregational polity. I have
been an advocate for this poUty a great many years. I was its advocate,
¦I believe, before the fathers in Massachusetts were — when they ignored
it. I have conversed with a great many men upon the subject, in times
past, and I do not recollect a single instance in which the poUty was not
approved by those before whom it was laid. But while this is true, there
is a large class of men, — the majority in our Western States, — who do
not know what CongregationaUsm is. They know what Presbyterianism
and Methodism are; they know what Baptist societies are; but speak to
them of CongregationaUsm and they ask, " What is it ? " I have heard
the question asked whether it was a new denomination, which had sprung
up in the West! And then the inquiry is, " What do you beUeve ? "
WeU, we teU them we beUeve the Bible, and try to preach the Bible.
" WeU, where is your book of discipUne ? " We have never had any
thing of that character to show them; and in some aspects, we do not
want any thing, while1 in others we do. I hoped, when the subject of a
declaration of faith and a declaration of church poUty was proposed for
the consideration of this Convention, that there would be a simple, com
prehensive, common sense Declaration of Faith, written for the common
people, — not written for Andover or East Windsor, or for theologians,
but written for the people; something that the people could understand,
and feel that it expressed the truth of the Bible; and by the side of that,
I hoped there would be put a declaration of polity, so short that it could
be read and understood by all, and circulated as a tract among our West
ern people, so that they would, get the great idea of our polity and our
doctrines into their minds.
Now, you may think it strange, perhaps, but if a man should go out in
many regions of the West, though he should be the President of one of
our noblest colleges, or come from one of our theological seminaries, and
the people should be told, " He is Dr. Su'ch-an-one " — " He is President
Such-an-one," it would not have the sUghtest influence. " Let us see
him, and hear what he has to say, then we wiU judge of him." There
is no respect for titles, there is no respect for a man's standing; but —
" What is the man fit for? If he has any thing to say that is common sense,
that is Bible, let us hear it! " The mass of the' people really believe the
Bible, — that is, they give an intellectual assent to it, — and they are
ready to hear it, and ready to hear any thing that commends itself to
their judgment, and to common sense, and to the Bible. We do not
Want, in expressing our belief, to teU what our forefathers believed two

282 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
hundred years ago: that will not satisfy the people of the West. And
what our catechisms, or what our confessions of faith are, is of but little
consequence to them; they want to know what living men now believe,
what living men now preach and teach; and they think that a body as
large- and as respectable as this, is competent now to tell what we believe.
[Applause.] It has been my hope, I say, — but I fear I may be disap
pointed, — that such a short and comprehensive declaration might he
made that we could say, as a Council, " We beUeve it" We need not
put into it all we believe, but make a statement of what we actually do
beUeve with reference to the most important doctrines of the Bible, such
as we wish to have float down among the common people, and affirm before
the world, " Now we believe this." As I have just remarked, we need
not teU them it is all we beUeve, and we need not teU them that we shall
not make a better creed when we come to have another CouncU; but if
we can agree upon one, which expresses our present beUef, and which
agrees with the word of God, even if it has no technicahties, even if it
will not interest especially those who are guards upon our Zion, my be
Uef is that such a declaration would be of great moment.
Rev. Mr. Johntson, of Maryland. The only claim, Mr. Moderator;
that I can have upon even a few moments of the time of this Council -is
found in the fact, that I am here representing, with only one companion,
a whole State; and yet that would hardly seem to constitute a valid
claim, since we have but a single Congregational church in the State, and
that a little one — the very Benjamin of the flock. But you will not on
that account despise it, nor despise its representatives.
Congregational Christianity makes its first home in Maryland in a large
city, — in the city of Baltimore; and on that account it may be proper
that I should say a few words with reference to that part of this report
which relates to the work in cities, because, also, there it is a new work,
and because there may be more questionings concerning it than any thing
else that is recommended. It would seem to be perfectly natural that in
this enterprise, as in every other that we should undertake, with a view
to extending its ramifications into various parts, we should seize flrst
upon the foci, the centers of trade, and population: and if we look back
to the primitive and apostolic days, we shall find that this natural
process is precisely in accord with the genius of Christianity itself, and
has the sanction of the Master; for the apostles went into the cities of
Asia Minor, the cities along the Mediterranean, and the cities of the Ro
man Empire, not stopping until they reached the great capital itself; and
in all these cities they ordained elders over permanent local churches. We
are but following their steps, if, entering into a new region of our country,
we look to the great cities as the points to be first occupied.
But this work is peculiar. There are special objections that may arise.
There are some upon the ground itself. For example, let me come down
to that particular field into which I just now entered, the city of Balti
more. Baltimore is, one might almost say, a city of churches. There is
more quiet there on Sunday than in Boston. There are no street cars
running on Sunday. I think that quite as large a part of the population

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 283
attend church there as in this city. A great many of the churches are
Roman CathoUc; then there are Episcopal, Episcopal Methodist, Baptist,
and Old-school Presbyterian churches, and one small New-school Pres
byterian church. "Why," it may be asked, "go upon this ground,
already preoccupied? Why run the risk of collision with these, some of
them Protestant, sects ? " Well, my friends, we think (not to mention all
the matters that might be mentioned in answer to that), that our brethren,
our sons, have a right, if there is room, to worship God after the manner
of the fathers, in the way of their own choice, and according to the dic
tates of their own consciences ; and though there are Christian churches
there, there is room enough in any great city for a new enterprise, and if it
has any special excellence about it, then it has as much right to build on that
soU as any other Christian denomination. We beUeve our denomination
has some excellences. Here is the matter of church poUty, which I
do not think we have praised too much, nor are Ukely to. I hope we are
not going to say hereafter, as we have said before, too many of us, that
that is a matter secondary and indifferent. It is secondary, and it may
be indifferent, if it does not involve a transgression of the equal law of
Christ. The denial of that law is just as much heresy as the denial of
the doctrine of the atonement, of the trinity, or any similar doctrine. It is
anti-Christ. And teU me, from what other source have flowed such
streams of corruption, and wickedness as the transgression of Christ's
principles in the church itself ? We are going to put a value upon our
church poUty, yet not so as to deny the Christian brotherhood and equal
rights of our brethren who prefer some other form. We prefer this, and
have a conscientious beUef that it is the best, and has the sanction of the
Scriptures. Then our methods are different from those of our brethren who
aheady occupy those regions. Our preaching, not superior to theirs,
not abler, not more eloquent, is different from theirs, in that it is less
technical, less doctrinal, and more practical. It includes, as part of the
practical application of Christianity, the duties of men in the State and
to the State. We preach poUtics in a high and true sense. I do not
say that none preach it in a wrong, partisan sense; but I beUeve in
preaching it in this sense, that the principles of the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ are to be applied to man's relations to society and to the
state. . Our Puritan fathers taught us that the scriptures were composed
in large part of politics, — the appUcation of religious principles to poU
tics. We have been taught from that source, and therefore our exist
ence in the South is significant. Most of the churches on that soU (I do
not speak with definiteness, for I have not definite knowledge enough)
have been, I believe, derelict and false to the Master, in that they have
either preached disloyalty and secession, or else remained silent; and
our sons and brothers who have been there have felt as- our fathers did
When, in HoUand, they heard strange speech, such as their fathers had
not heard, and turned with longing eyes to their old home, and then
looked away to a new home, where they could plant the institutions of
their own choice and conviction. So do our brethren feel in those South
ern cities.

284 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
Now there are objections to estabUshing churches in cities on the
score of expense. We can not plant churches in cities without incurring
more expense than in rural districts. Here, for example, is a little band
of twenty-five people, organized into a church in the city of Baltimore
about four weeks ago, by a council called for that purpose, and among
them only three or four of any pecuniary means. What can they do?
What have they to do? First, pay current expenses, which, with any
true economy, wiU not be less than $2000 a year. Then they must either
worship in a hall where to-day there may be preaching and to-morrow
dancing, — a place fiUed with those associations which do not attract
devout people, — or go to work and fix somewhere a center around
which the church may crystaUze, and draw toward itself those who are
scattered over a wide field.- In the first place, they have got to purchase
a lot, and they can not get it for two or three hundred doUars, as they
could if it was in the country, but they must pay $100 a foot, the best
they can do; and it will tax them ten, twelve, or fifteen thousand dollars
to get the lot. What can they do unless they are helped? My brother
Gulliver, who preceded me in Baltimore, preaching to this Uttle flock,
said to them, " Brethren, go on, and the North wUl help you. The Con
gregational Christians of the North will not say, 'Walk alone!' because
you are in a city. They wUl see that you are infants, and can not walk
unless you have a finger or a hand stretched out to help you, and they
will extend the whole hand to help." I told them so the first time I
visited them, when I had no expectation of being identified with them as
their minister. I said, " I know by the beating of my own heart how
the hearts of the sons of the old Puritans wUl beat with you and for
you, and I know that they will respond to any call that you may make
for help." Now, they want a Uttle help. They want to build a little
chapel. They do not ask any one to endow them with a great church
edifice. If they ever want one, they will grow to it and build it; hut
they ask for a little chapel now, in order that they may grow. I speak
of Baltimore, not because I want to make it a specialty, but because I
know it, and because the presentation of the state of things there will
disclose to you the condition of things in other places. Maryland and
Baltimore have some claim upon you. It was Maryland that first
wheeled from the ranks of Secession into the ranks of Liberty, and she
ought to have the first Puritan church. More than that, it was in Mary
land, in the streets of Baltimore, that the first martyrs of the war, sons
of Massachusetts, fell by the hands of Baltimore ruffians. We must
retaliate, — in the name of Christianity, we must retaUate, by giving
them good for evil; and we must give them the b'est we have, and that
is, the Church of the Pilgrims; — and this we must do over all the
South. Rev. Dr. Eddy, of Massachusetts. I came here charged with a
speech; but the twelve minutes' rule has dissipated what little prepara
tion I had made. I do not complain of that rule, because I see that the
idea is, that the edifying counsel shall be in the reports, and the hard
facts in the speeches. I stand here as a witness. I have recently re-

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 285
turned from the city of New Orleans, where I have been in very familiar
intercourse with various individuals and classes, and I beUeve I can state
some facts which will be of importance to the Council, in connection
with the subject under discussion.
I will say, first of all, — it is due to the band of noble men and women
there who. have appUed for assistance to the American Home Missionary
Society, -r- that I was very cordially received; that I found them ready,
so far as they could, to co-operate in any enterprise which had for its
end the estabUshment of a loyal Congregational church in that city.
There were some obstacles, however, which I need not enumerate here.
I propose simply to call your attention to a few facts bearing upon this
question. Is there a call for a church of our order in the city of New
Orleans? (which is a representative city.) If there is, what is the method
proper to be adopted for the accomplishment of that end? That there is
a call for such a church, I would infer from this. The Northern people
there, and the loyal people who have long resided in the city, imbued
with evangelical views, look around them in vain among all the old
churches of the city for a single, place in which they can, with comfort,
I had almost said in which they can without a violation of their con
sciences and the compromise of their sacred convictions, worship God.
Our New England people would look naturaUy first to the Presbyterian
churches, of which there are three. The first of these churches is
famous aU through the land, and its former pastor, — its present nominal
pastor, — the Rev. Dr. Palmer, is known wherever the rebeUion has been
heard of. He stiU remains the pastor of that church; the people stUl
pray for his return; and I was assured by several members of the con
gregation, that he would be most cordially welcomed when, in the
providence of God, he should be restored to them. The acting pastor of
that church is a Northern minister, I believe a Scotchman by birth; and
in order that you may understand the kind of preaching that they now
enjoy in those Presbyterian churches, I will give a short account of my
own attendance upon a single service. It was on the Sabbath which had
been set apart by the military authorities for a public thanksgiving, in
view of the great national successes which resulted in the capture of
Richmond. Having no engagement in the morning, I went to the First
Church, — the most elegant and commodious church edifice in Louisiana.
The Psalm that was read was the twenty-third Psalm; and especial
emphasis, the significance of which could not be missed by any, was laid
upon the words, " Thou preparest a table before me, in the presence of
mine enemies." The prayer, which ought to have been a thanksgiving,
was a prayer that God would give his people there, and throughout the
land, a spirit of submission to his righteous judgment. The tone of the
prayer, from beginning to end, evidently rose from the feeling, that they
had been called as a people to endure very severe chastisements. Then
followed the sermon, — an Orthodox sermon of approved staple in that
respect from beginning to end. But what struck me in the sermon, —
in which there was no allusion to national victories or national trials, —
was one remarkable display of courage. In the midst of the sermon, the

286 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
venerable minister was about to assert a truth, as it would seem from
his manner, under imminent danger of martyrdom. He said, with up.
Ufted hands, "If I were to be led to the stake for saying it, if I were to
lay my head on the block for saying it, I would stUl assert that man is a
sinner, and must be saved by the grace of God." [Loud laughter.] , I
have given you, not an exaggerated, but a perfectly candid description
of that religious service; and there is no church in the city, of the Pres
byterian order, which holds out greater attractions than that church to
our New England people. There remain, it is true, two Methodist
churches, occupied now by ministers under a military order, and a Bap
tist church, given over, by a military order, in the same way, to a loyal
minister; and many of our New England people have very properly,
with great earnestness and zeal, thrown themselves into those churches,
and are doing what good they can in connection with such ministrations
as they there enjoy. The substantial gospel, doubtless, is preached, hut
you can well understand that those who have been trained up in our
New England churches are hardly satisfied with preaching, the sub
stance of which, to say the least, is Arminian. There is a call, there
fore, by the loyal Christian people of New Orleans for an evangelical
church; and I think the preference among them is very decidedly (al
though it must be said the majority have been formerly Presbyterian)
for a church order which has not been compromised by any connection
with slavery or with the great rebelUon.
There are difficulties in the way of the organization of such a church.
One of the principal is want of a church edifice. I believe to-day, that if
you would give me $35,000, 1 could estabUsh, in the city of New Orleans,
a Congregational church, the influence of which would be felt aU over
the Southern States. A church edifice can be bought now for less than
half its original cost, which would amply accommodate aU who might
desire to attend upon a Congregational ministry for years to come.
In regard to the colored people, of whom there are about 40,000 in the
city, I will say that I formed a very close acquaintance with them; and
I enjoyed my intercourse with the colored ministers and my attendance
upon the colored churches more than any other labors which I performed
or any other privileges which I enjoyed. Much has been said of the
ignorance of the colored people. I want frankly to say, that the colored
people of New Orleans, with whom I had such large acquaintance, did
not strike me as so extremely ignorant. Many of the free colored people
of that city are very thoroughly educated, and several of their ministers
are very well quaUfled to instruct them, not only in religious matters,
but in their rights and duties and privileges as citizens. The very best
address I heard in the city on the assassination of our beloved President^
was by an aged colored minister, — an address which thrilled me from
head to foot, and made my eyes overflow with tears. There is not a col
ored person in the city who is not loyal. [Loud applause.] And how
ever much I might assent to the general principle, that the exercise of
the elective franchise ought to be conditioned upon a certain degree of
education, — looking over the population of Louisiana, I beUeve that

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 287
those who are at present best quaUfled for the exercise of that privilege
are the free colored people and the freedmen. [Applause.] I went down
South a bit of an old fogy; but I came home greatly changed in that
respect. [Applause.]
The colored people need thorough instruction of a moral even more
than of a religious nature. Their ideas and conduct, in regard to two
or three of the cardinal virtues, are perhaps somewhat questionable; and,
if I can have the time, I would like to relate two incidents-, in as few
words as possible, for they illustrate the very vices which prevail among
them, and which must be uprooted by proper instruction. A colored
woman, regarded as eminently pious, who had been long an inmate of a
Christian family, was sent, on one occasion, to the market. There she
saw a fat goose. She had a craving for the goose, and sUpped it under
her apron and carried it home. She was detected; and when, the next
Sunday morning, she asked her mistress if she had permission to go to
church, her mistress said, " Mary, you know you stole that goose the
other day; how can you go to the sacrament? Don't you remember that
goose?" "Lor, missis, do you think I'd turn • my back on my blessed
Jesus for dat old goose? " [Great merriment] The other fact is not
an amusing, but a significant one. While I was in the city, a quadroon
woman, splendidly dressed, having a nurse with a baby in her arms,
stood up in the colored church to offer her infant for baptism; and a
white man, with whom she had Uved for years, appeared with her. The
child was his. The minister was asked afterward by a friend of mine, —
"Were those persons husband and wife? " " Oh, yes, husband and wife."
"But I mean, have they been married? " " Oh, I don't know about that,"
said he; "probably not.'7 That answer will suggest to the minds of this
CouncU a great deal of solemn, and perhaps very sad, reflection.
Rev. Mr. Thome, of Ohio. Brethren of the Council, — I may be per
mitted to say that I belong neither to the East nor to the West, but to
the North and to the South. To the latter, originaUy, natively, and
therefore by ties which can never be whoUy sundered, let the South do
¦ as she may. I am very strongly reminded, on being in Boston now, that
thirty-one years ago, this month, then a youth from Kentucky, and just
emancipated from the trammels of a slave-holding family, I had the honor
of speaking in this city on the then rising, and since great question of
the land and of the world, — the emancipation of the enslaved. Now,
after the lapse of thirty years, I meet here, not a handful of the citizens
of Boston, but a great multitude of the representatives of the numerous
churches in the East and in the West, who have come here to look down
from their elevation upon the South, apd to entertain the great, and, as it
seems to me the paramount inquiry, " What can we do — we who dwell
in those States that have been blessed by the institutions of the Puritans,
and have seen their blessings springing up in the institutions of the
church, the. famfty, and society, — what can we do to disseminate our
hallowed institutions in the South? "
I wish to speak for the South; not for Baltimore ; not for New Orleans;
not for a few prominent metropoUtan positions in the South, — but for that

288 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
great field, that magnificent empire which the war has opened to us —
opened to us, pre-eminently, among aU the Christian peoples of this land.
I find myself, sir, as representing that great field before you in an hum
ble capacity, between two great peoples there, in both of whom we ought
to feel a profound interest. On the one hand is that class who are known
as " the poor whites," who have been more or less involved, indeed, in
the war of the rebelUon, but who, after aU, have but Uttle of the crimi
nality of that rebellion resting upon them, and who, in their ignorance,
in their reUgious destitution, in their utter distrust of .the reUgious estab
lishments which have hitherto been in operation among them, look now,
they scarcely know whither. They look by a divine guidance, no doubt,
to us, for religious institutions that shaU be adequate to their necessities.
I speak for them to-day; and I speak in their behalf with intense
earnestness, that we may heed the caU of Providence, and, seeing by the
eye of faith their outstretched hands, asking us to come to their help,
may avail ourselves of this opening of Providence, and introduce the
Christianity which we represent into and among the families of this
poorer class of the whites of the South, — always poor, rendered poor
by slavery, and now rendered doubly poor by the rebelUon, which has
desolated their country, and crushed them under the heel of a military
as well as a civU despotism.
Then, sir, on the other hand, I see millions of the lately oppressed,
redeemed from their oppression, Uberated from their bondage, ¦ — oh, how
strikingly, and how gloriously, — ¦ by a sudden stroke, the stroke of war
and the stroke of the President's pen; Uberated from oppression and
bondage! — and yet, not Uberated from the dark bondage of ignorance,
of reUgious demoralization and debasement. Now, the query with me
is, how shall that people be elevated most rapidly? With aU the advan
tages that may be secured to them by poUtical action, or by the magna
nimity, generosity, or justice of the government elevating them to the
position of citizens in this land, and introducing them as rapidly as prac
ticable and expedient to the fullest privileges of citizenship, • — after all this,
which may be a question of time, and, indeed, which may await^in part,
our action, — there stiU lies at our door a work of a reUgious and educa
tional nature, Which they are calUng earnestly upon us to render to them;
and as I have studied their wants, their necessities, — their most pressing
present necessities, — I have felt that the providence of God had most
manifestly convened this Council at this time, more especially that it
might look upon this degraded and outcast people, now being Ufted up
into view, and that it might provide for them those reUgious institutions
which are so well calculated to elevate them. Our churches are local
churches; that is the prominent idea in our system of church poUty; and
the establishment of churches, not merely in the cities of the South, but
all over the Southern country, where on the one hand the poor whites,
and, on the other, the poorer blacks, may find true Christian nurture,
and a position of equality, if not in the State, at least in the church,
where they shall be self-governed, and have the charge of theft own
reUgious affairs, would be the very best and most rapid means of pre-

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 289
paring them, as we well know for the discharge of their poUtical duties
and their civft duties also.
It is on this ground, Mr. Chairman, that I wish to urge the importance
of that work which is now being done by the American Missionary As-
•sociation and kindred bodies, — but especially by that body. In one of
our reports to-day, honorable allusion has been made to this Association,
as a body which has rendered its claim paramount to our support and
countenance in its endeavor to diffuse a true Christian poUty and true
Christian faith among the colored people of the South. Let us labor
through this instrumentaUty, not discouraged, not with faint hearts, but
with strong confidence that God, having opened this field to us, will per
mit us to occupy it.
Rev. Dr. Post, of Missouri. Mr. Moderator and brethren of the Coun
cil,— I do not know that I should occupy your time at all, but that I
have thought you might think it a Uttle strange that one who has been
for many years an out-^posi [Laughter] of your denomination, — toward
the extreme of your denominational watchmen to the South and West, —
should not add a word in regard to the experience of the years which he
has there spent, and which furnish some results that may guide in the
present crisis of affairs.
When I first took charge of a Congregational church that had estab
lished itself in St. Louis, the question was asked by many, " What is the
need of a Congregational church in this city, and what call is there from
Providence for it? " — such questions as have been propounded to us by my
brother from Baltimore. I have Uved long enough to see that God had
an end in view in planting that church there, in the. focus of this great
moral strife, and at a time in the history of this country when a power
such as gathers round the principles of your polity and your faith, has
had a most beneficent vocation and influence; and I beUeve that the
existence and action of this church (I may say it without challenging
any thing for myself), have had much to do with the condition of Mis
souri to-day, as a loyal State, and one that has decreed the aboUtion of
slavery. I therefore beUeve that it wftl be found to be of moral profit
to aid the beginnings of churches in cities, after the apostoUc plan. Not
that the country should be neglected; but the idea has been entertained
by some that no aid was required in such places. You never render aid
where it wUl produce more important results. Graft a church upon a
growing metropolis, and it grows with the metropolis, and it acquires
power as the men gathered in it have power; it becomes a progressive
thing, and at last a mighty thing.
One word about the obstacles in Missouri. The obstacles that have
been thrown in the way of the progress of that church have not been so
much opposition to us on the ground of our anti-slavery, as hostility, for
some strange reason, to the church principles that we have advocated.
And I wftl say, too, that it comes from your own children, — because
they are your own descendants. Those who have been nourished by
your money, and sent forth from the bosoms of your famiUes, from your
churches, and from your seminaries, have regarded CongregationaUsm
19

290 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
and Abolitionism as two isms too fuU of vague evil and odium to carry
through that country.
I wish to say one thing here. We are, brethren, very glad to welcome
members of your churches there, but I hope, if they come there, they
wftl understand something of the difference between your church polity,
so dear to your fathers — for it was regarded as one of the greatest gifts
of God to them — and aU the other forms that come in to lay claim to
them and draw them to themselves. There was a time when I felt this
more bitterly than I can tell. We do not need your help now, but there
may be others in the same situation, and remember them.
There is in Southern Missouri a vast field for the enterprise that we
are now projecting, or talking of ; and I wish to put in one protest in
regard to the churches that may be there formed. Brethren, do not
require of us that we be exactly correspondent to the old type of the
church in New England. There are many communities there where the
old ecclesiastical organizations have been broken up, and the disinte
grated fragments have been scattered, with no principle of union. They
stand looking each other in the face, none of them strong enough to form
an organization, — their chUdren growing up in barbarism; and when
they would unite, some string of dissent or maUce draws them apart.
Now, some Christian man with great common sense will rise up, eventually,
and say, " Brethren, what do we here ? ShaU our chUdren grow up
in barbarism? ShaU we have no Christianity, no preaching of the gos
pel? Why not come together on common-sense ground? Cleaving to
the essential principles of the gospel of Christ, and laying aside those
which distinguish us from each other, let us come together on the princi
ples of brotherly equality, one man possessing the same franchise as
another. You have a Congregational church in consequence, and yon
have the great articles of faith, which may not be a very complete sys
tem of theology, but which, if they were more complete, would be in
complete and imperfect for the object for which such a system is there
required. I wish to say one other thing in connection with that. Do not be
alarmed at it. Do not be afraid we shall go to wreck and ruin and de
struction in consequence of it. There is less danger of it now than there
was years ago. The* reason is, we have been placed in circumstances
where work has been required ; and I wish to say, that I haU this rolling
by the Almighty of a burden upon our denomination as a great blessing
this hour, a great means of preserving us pure in doctrine and keeping
us to the principles of our church poUty, keeping us in proper order;
anil under this influence, aiming to convert men, the churches wiU grow
in orderliness. The ships saiUng toward the same port, guided by the
same star, will find that they are not very far off, though they do not
stop to consider each other's latitude and longitude as they pass.
One word more here. Although I feel grateful to those who present
complete systems to us, — the symbols that represent us before the world,—
I do not have any apprehension for the loss of Christian faith or true
orthodoxy, while the church is doing its great work, is practicaUy awake,

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 291
any more than I have of the loss of the theory of Copernicus, or the
theory of gravitation, while men are working amid the great dynamics
of the outer world. [Applause.] While rivers roll, and masses fall, and
the stars are wheeled in their spheres, men will hold to it, without a set
of philosophers getting together every few years, and resolving that the
Copernican system is true. [Applause.] Now, Christian brethren, this
great system of our dynamics is alive; it is no theory; no logic can
prove it; no words can evolve it; it is a thing into which men and com
munities grow, and you might as well attempt to carve out a populous
city of beauty and life from northern icebergs, under the eternal win
ter, — you might as weU undertake thus to create a living city, as, stand
ing still, without doing the Lord's work, by your logic and theses, and
comparison of the various forms of theologic thought, hope to build
up a Christian church. The eternal ice will not waste under the light,
however brUUant, of the aurora; but call the sun into the heavens, let
him strike down into the germs of life, let him wake up the seeds of
vitality there, and they will grow into beauty, and the ice-fields will
change themselves to paradise. So it will be with the ecclesiastic world.
The great work to which God calls us to-day is the force of moral grav
itation which draws his church toward one mighty center. As water,
when standing stiU, becomes stagnant and breeds pestilence, but when
brought under the influence of the great forces of nature, becomes a liv
ing, vitalizing power, and scatters bloom, Ufe, and health along its track,
so it must be with the great stream of life which flows through the
church, of God. [Applause.]
Rev. Dr. Beecher, of IUinois. I speak, not to make a speech, but
because there is something I want to say, — something that I feel deeply.
I had great anxiety with regard to this meeting of the Council, when I
perceived, from the doings of the committee at New York, that the
declaration of a creed, and a declaration in regard to church polity, were
" included among the matters to be brought before it. Not because I did
not feel the importance of both these items, but because I was deeply
convinced that the original idea of this movement, in the Triennial Con
vention at Chicago, and further South, where it originated, was simply
practical; it was simply and only to promote the work of evangelization;
and I have felt, ever since I have been here, afraid that there would be
a disposition to spend the time in talk, in remembrances of the Pilgrims,
in visitations, and in the many things which are very agreeable, in them
selves considered, but which, in the end, amount to nothing, unless they
are connected with distinct and definite enterprises, clearly laid out and
resolutely undertaken. If I were asked to state what I consider to be
the essence of this assembly, I should say, — Three hundred thousand dol
lars to the Home Missionary Society, — two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars to the American Missionary Association, — two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars to build churches. When you have stated that (you
may put more on, if you please, and include other objects), and fairly
put your shoulders beneath it, with a resolute purpose to raise that
amount of money; if you separated and did nothing else, you would

292 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
have done the thing for which this body came together. [Applause.]
That is what I wish to burn into the minds of this assembly. We all
know that in mechanics, if you undertake to lift a heavy weight, you
must put your force beneath the center of gravity, and when you do
that, you Uft the weight. You may apply the force so that the weight
will revolve upon its axis, and there will be a great deal of motion, but
you do not Uft it; and we all know, too, that if you undertake tomove
a tree, and only take possession of the root, the top branches will go
with the root. So it is with regard to this question which we are met
to consider to-day. The root which wiU carry the branches is this
$750,000. I have been more interested in the $750,000 than I have in all
the reports. [Laughter.] Not that I have undervalued the reports. I
consider them in the Ught of material to make steam, if they are prop
erly used; but it is the $750,000 that we are after in this movement,
[Applause,] and if we gain it, we gain the end for which we have come
together, and if we do not gain it, we do not gain the end. There is no
power to move these great masses of men, there is no power to move
these great enterprises, unless we can place our power beneath that which
is the center of gravity, and lift that; unless we can place our power be
neath that which is the root, and Uft that, — we carry the branches with
it, of course. Who does not know that men are needed in the ministry?
Who does not know that we need men of a lower grade of education?
Why, the other day, when I went to ordain a man in Iowa, a brother of
Mr. Thome — a practicing physician — came to me and told me that
the grace of God was burning in his heart; that there was a field in Mis
souri, and he felt he must go and preach the Gospel; but he was not an
ordained minister, and how could he go? Well, half a dozen pastors
said, "We will give him a written recommendation to go and preach;"
and we gave him a recommendation to go into Missouri and preach and
gather churches as fast as he could. [Loud applause.] I gave him a
letter of recommendation, also, to brother Turner, who is the agent in
that field; and, by-the-by, he is a sprout that came out of the college at
JacksonviUe, where brother Sturtevant is President.
Now, the question is, how can you get up that enthusiasm, how can
you get up that earnestness, how can you get up that resolution in New
England that shall bring out the power there is here? The agent who
went through New England in behalf of Iowa college, Dr. Holbrook
(and I imagine he is the person brother Turner referred to when he
spoke of somebody who was stolen from the West), succeeded very well
in his enterprise up to a certain point, and then, for reasons best known
to himself, but no doubt valid, located himself where he is now, — a very
useful man, I have no doubt,— in the central part of New York. But
what I have to say with regard to aU such movements is this: that just
as surely as New England shall retain an amount of wealth within her
self which is enough to produce corruption, or in so far as the principle
of self-denial to which brother Sturtevant referred is not made really to
go down to the depths of the property there is in this State, we shall fail
of our object. That brother said, it was perfectly astonishing what

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 293 _
wealth there was in the churches of Massachusetts alone. Now, what I
say is, if we have a power of Christianity, if we have a power of con
viction, if we have a power of persuasion and faith, that shall not only
warm but heat all this mass of mind, and go down and take hold of this
wealth, and take hold of it enthusiastically, we can raise the $750,000.
[A Voice. " Make it a milUon."] Add on $300,000 more, if you please;
it can be carried! It is the easiest thing in the world to raise it, if we
only have the power. It is just as it is with those prodigious steam-en
gines that we have in our Western steamers. You go on board one of
those boats, and while the engine is cold it has no power. But kindle a
fire under the boiler, and make it burn, and then you see the smoke com
ing out of the pipe, you hear the steam hissing through the cracks, and
presently the boUer is full, and the piston begins to rise and fall, and the
whole machinery is instinct with Ufe; the steam plays with it as though .
it were a mere plaything, and the vessel moves on triumphantly. Now,
what we want is that steam power; we want that pervading, that pene
trating earnestness of conviction, with regard to these great interests,
that shaU not only make New England wiUing, but shall make New
England truly unable to do otherwise than to pour forth its power, its
energy in this great work. Oh, what is money worth, if it is not to be
used for such work as this? Such a country to save! such a society
to reorganize! such a future as there is within our reach, just as cer
tainly as cause foUows effect, if we apply the proper means ! What is
the worth of money when God thus, as it were, hangs up in heaven these
great signs, these great omens; and when God thus calls, as it were, from
heaven, — what is the worth of money, except to respond to such a call,
to save such a country, to penetrate and fill with the pure Ught of the
gospel aU those vast regions that are open to us, and which are to affect
the country even down to the millennial age, and beyond it, to eternity.
Dr. Kirk, in behalf of Gardiner G. Hubbard, Esq., of Cam
bridge, presented an invitation from that gentleman to the
Council to take tea with him to-morrow evening, at 5i o'clock.
The invitation was accepted.
Mr. Bowen, of New York. Mr. Chairman, — when this great rebel
lion broke out, one of the flrst questions that came up was the money
question. I was delighted when the Rev. Dr. Beecher introduced that
question here, for I think it very opportune that it should come up at the
present time. The fact is, we must go to "business now, and go to the
raising of the $750,000, or we shaU fail of the great work, the practical
work, that has brought us together. I have had some acquaintance with
the working of the $50,000 fund which was raised in Albany a good
many years ago. I well remember when that convention came together,
and when the committee was appointed (of which I was a member), to
consider the question of church building, and it was proposed to raise
850,000 for that object, they said it could not be done, and recommended

294 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
a smaller sum. But when the brother from the West, who has been
referred to, who has lately gone to the State of New York, to settle, pre
sented his argument to the committee and told his story in regard to the
wants of the West, and we had heard also from brother Turner, who
spoke earnestly in behalf of raising that money, we decided that $50,000
could be raised, we resolved that it should be done, and it was done.
Sixty or seventy thousand doUars were raised in one day by a collection
in all the churches for that object. That collection, Mr. Chairman, and
brethren, was one of the best gifts that the church of Christ, in my judg
ment, ever gave to the cause of this country; and now we are called
upon to do a much greater work, and yet a work which, if we think of it
properly, and with a right spirit, will be a smaU work for us to do.
There are six hundred delegates present, if I remember right. These
six hundred delegates, representing the Congregational churches of
this nation, can settle that question before they return to theirhomes.
There are various ways to raise money. Business men find out, when
money is to be raised, where money is to be had, and they come at that
point. I propose to make a few remarks in regard to the method to be
taken to raise this money. Suppose any of you, from however poor a dis
trict, perhaps from one receiving aid from the Home Missionary Associa
tion, were asked to raise a thousand dollars, would you not say, whether
layman or minister, if that work was put upon your shoulders, " Yes,
if it must be raised, I can raise it in my district." Now, if each one of
you will raise a thousand dollars, you wftl have $600,000. There is a
proposition for you to think of. H .we pass this resolution to raise
$750,000, we must take hold of it in earnest. And that reminds me of a
Uttle story that I heard when I came into town. A friend went to the
Lunatic Asylum to see a very estimable and formerly very useful woman,
that he might report to her friends what her condition was. She ap
peared very sane, and he did not see any traces of insanity about her.
She talked, he said, like a lady and a Christian, and as he got up to go
away,' he could not help making the remark, " My friend, I am surprised
to see you here; I think you ought to go home to your- friends." " Oh,"
said she, " you don't understand me; you don't know what is the matter."
" Why," said he, " what is the matter? " " I wiU teU you what is the
matter — I have got a hobby. Don't you know what a hobby is?"
" No," said the minister. " WeU, there are fwo kinds of horses. If you
get on a four-legged beast, that has got flesh, and blood, and bones, you
can get off when you please; but if you get on a hobby, you can't get
off. I have got on a hobby." That was her difficulty. I think there is
a good deal of instruction in that. No great work was ever accom
plished without a persistent determination to carry out that work. What
could the Home Missionary Society have done, if they had not had men
who made it a hobby— made it a life-work to take hold of the matter
and carry it through? What would the Foreign Missionary Society
have done, if men had not taken hold of it as a hobby? Now, let us
make this a hobby for the time being; we can get off when the work is
done. Let us devise some plan by which we can raise this $750,000.

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 295
We can do it. It may stagger you to think of it ; it is a very large sum
of money to raise in these times, but, brethren, it can be done. The
nation is roused as never before, and we ought to be aroused as Chris
tians, to do the work which God has placed upon us; and I call upon
you, brethren, and fathers, every one of you, to take hold of this matter,
and to carry it through. Relying upon the blessing of God, we can
carry it through, and who of us can tell the results? — who of us
can estimate the good that would be accomplished by raising $750,000?
Why it would shake the nation ; it would shake the world. Christendom
would rejoice and give thanks to God; we should have a day of thanks
giving, and we ought to have one. It is not a great work, after all; we
can doit; and therefore I say, that I hope the question of how to raise
funds to carry out the objects concerning which we have had such able
reports, wiU be carefully considered. When we go home, brethren, this
matter in regard to the raising of the $750,000 will be about the only
thing that we shall remember of the Convention. What can you remem
ber that occurred at the Albany convention except that the $50,000 fund
¦originated there ? If that fund had not been raised, there would have
been scarcely any thing about it, that we should remember now. Let
us do this work, and we shaU have something to remember and praise
&od for as long we Uve.
Rev. Dr. Budington, of New York. I would like to ask what the
distinct question is that is before us? What do we commit ourselves to
when we vote?
The Moderator. The first question to be presented to the Council
will be the adoption of the Report on Church Building.
Rev. Dr. Budington. Is that question still before us?
The Moderator. That is the question stiU before us. I will state
the position of the business before the Council.^ There was, in the first
place, the Report of the Committee on EvangeUzation, which was ac
cepted, and therefore before the Council. Then it was moved, and car
ried, to suspend action on that report, and the Report on Church Building
was introduced. The question on that was one of acceptance, which
was carried. The question then was, on the adoption of the report. It was
afterward moved, and voted by the Council, that the two reports should
be considered as one in the debate; so that, when the debate shall close,
the question wiU recur on the adoption of the Report on Church Building.
Rev. Dr. Budington. I beg pardon; I do not exactly understand, and
I think the brethren around me are in the same state of mind that I am.
When we debate a report which ends in a series of questions, the adoption
of the report, I believe, according to our rules, signifies that the Council
becomes responsible for the principles embodied in those resolutions only.
Now, what I want to get at is this: How much, when we come to vote
on the reports, will this Council commit themselves to in the way of ap
probating the principles here set forth? I have observed, in the reading
of these reports, that very important principles are commended to the
adoption of the Council in the body of the report. I do not think that
the distinction has been observed in drafting the reports, which our rules

296 EVANGELIZATION — CHURCH BUILDING.
bave presupposed. Now, there are several points of principle, which
have been alluded to by the various speakers, upon some of which I feel
a personal and special interest, and, before the vote is taken, I wish to
have them distinctly brought up before the minds of the Council. I
should be very sorry if we should vote blindly, generically, so as not to
commend to the churches, distinctly and unders-tandingly, the principles
that have been incorporated in these reports.
The Moderator. If I understand the position of the business, it
is that these two reports are stUl before the CouncU, and are to be con
sidered together, but they are not to be acted upon, or voted upon as if
they were one, but they wiU be separated, and when the vote is taken, the
question wiU be on the adoption, first of the Report on Church Building,
and then of the Report on EvangeUzation. When adopted, the Council
do not adopt the principles laid down in the report, but simply the recom
mendations contained in the resolutions.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of Illinois. The brother confuses the reports of
the preparatory committees with the reports that have just been read.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. The report of the committee is in
the form of recommendations to the CouncU, which constitute the whole
body of the report.
Rev. Dr. Budington. When I took my fareweU of my church, I
told them I expected to present to them, on my return, a deUverance, on
the part of the Council, as to their duties as a church, in regard to the
evangeUzation of the country, and in regard to the development of the
lay talent in our church. Now, I want to carry out my plan, and to be
able to say what in the opinion of this body, is the duty of the churches
in regard to the development of the slumbering lay talent in our churches,
which I understood Dr. Todd to say was demanded in order to occupy
the outlying stations of Christian effort, which are the germs of distinct
churches, round about that ancient Puritan church. The case is the same
with my own church. I believe there are men in my own church, who,
for their own spiritual good and for the growth of reUgion in the city
of Brooklyn, need to have this urgency brought upon their understand
ings and hearts, and I, as their minister, desire to be instructed, that I may
bring this conscientious obligation upon them; and I have risen for that
purpose, — to know whether this Council are deUvering themselves now
upon that one point of Christian poUty.
Hon. Mr. Walker, of Michigan. I have been interested in hearing
the gentlemen who have spoken of the value of Congregational churches
in our frontier cities. , I have had something to do in planting churches
in some of the frontier cities of the West. I am a Western man, in the
matter of experience, and what I have to say wiU be concerning coUegi-
ate institutions, and that method of propagating CongregationaUsm; —in
my opinion, after an experience of forty years, the most effective method
of aU in advancing the principles of the Puritans, and theft forms,
throughout the West, the North, and the South. I mean to speak but a
very few moments in regard to the question of promoting Congrega
tional interests in the North, the South, and the West by emigration.

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 297
The very best centers of CongregationaUsm, in the West, — the cen
ters from which have been diffused almost all the Congregational power
that has been built _ up at the West, — have been the centers that were
colonized from New England, by New England men, by New England
women, who have planted in those centers their institutions of learning,
and they have gathered about them New England Congregationalists,
their children have been educated by the institutions, and they have sent
forth large numbers of men to preach the gospel, and of women to teach in
the schools of the West; and they have carried with them spiritual Chris
tianity, and other institutions which are dear to this body to-day, — dearer
than they were some years in the past.
, To Ulustrate the matter, let me refer to the institution with which I
have been connected recently. That institution has sent four hundred
teachers into the schools of Ohio, and one hundred ministers of the gos
pel into Ohio and the West in five years; ft has gathered about it men
from New England^ who have brought their children there to be edu
cated. I need not name the institution, but I have no hesitation in say-
ing that it has revolutionized the poUtics of the State of Ohio, and
through that institution, two-thirds of the Congregational churches that
are planted in the State of Ohio were originated.
Now, fathers and brethren, go from Ohio into Michigan, and there you
will find a nucleus of Congregationalists settled in the townships. When
they settle in a township, they bring in the school, the academy, and the
college, and from that center goes forth the influence that propagates
Congregational forms and Congregational forces through the wide West.
It is not from the isolated churches in the country, it is not even from
the isolated churches in the cities, that Congregational principles • are
diffused, — it is from these centers of power.
¦ The last words I have to say are these: I went into the pulpit from
business as a layman, and I have endeavored by experiment to learn
what was the best method of evangeUzing the West and South. I have
left the old places, and old associates, and the old dweUing, and have
gone and Uved in a log cabin in the extreme northern parts of the south
ern peninsula of Michigan, and I have settled five townships, and organ
ized a Congregational church in each of those townships ; and in three
of those, townships there was nothing else but Republican votes cast at
the last election. We expect to organize three more townships this
year, and at the center of each of these townships will be a Congre
gational school; and in the center cf Bay county, where there was not
an inhabitant six years ago, we expect to establish a college that will
propagate Congregational principles, and be the means of furnishing
teachers through the south-western part of Michigan. We have now the
means of accomplishing that end, in part, throughout that region. I see
men here — men whom I respect as highly as any man here, though I
respect every one of them with all my heart — who know that Congre
gational churches have been planted there. I see Dr. Beecher here; I
see the agent of the Home Missionary Society here; and they know that
to be the fact. We were on the ground first. We brought in Congre-

298 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
gational forms from New England, and planted them in the center of the
townships of Southern Michigan; and we have made Congregational
townships in Northern Michigan, and in the center- of those townships
we will plant the churches and schools which wiU disseminate Congre
gational principles away up in the mining region, where there is not a
Congregational church, but which is now teeming with population, wait
ing to be visited by Congregational teachers.
Dr. Todd presented an invitation from Hon. J. Z. Goodrich,
collector of the port of Boston, to make an excursion down
the harbor, in the U. S. steamer Pawtuxet, at such time as
might suit their convenience. [See p. 384.]
Rev. Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire. I want to say just one word.
The difficulty with us in this part of the house is, that we do not know
what all this talk is about. We have had some good speaking, but we
were all ready to vote, and could have come to a vote just as weU at
eleven o'clock as now, and saved our time for other purposes.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio. Permit me to say, that there has been
a departure from what has been regarded as the order of business for
to-day; to wit, that the report should be read, and discussed, and no
vote taken until the last man had said his last word. We lost an hour
in discussing the amendment this morning.
The reading of the Eeport on Evangelization was called for,
and it was again read.
Rev. Dr. Budington, of New York. Is it in order to take a vote
on this subject?
The Moderator. Both the reports are open for discussion, but
when the debate shaU cease, and we come to vote, we vote first upon the
question of the adoption of the Report on Church Building.
Rev. Dr. Budington. I move that the debate now cease.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. I hope we shall not have the pre
vious question in this body. I wish, sir, you would aUow me one word
of explanation. I desire to say, that there appeared before the commit
tee a great number of gentlemen, representing various institutions of
the West and South, and various destitute parts of the country. We
told them we could not embody their details in our report, but that the
substance of what they had to say was what should be said before this
Council, to stir up our minds to the work which it had been doubted
whether we should enter upon or not. Therefore the committee made
their report that this matter should be laid before the Council, and the
debate continued through the day, and into the evening, if necessary,
that these deliverances might be made to stir us up, and that then we
should vote.

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 299
Rev. Dr. Budington. Well, I am stirred up now — I am ready to vote.
[Laughter and applause.] Mr. Moderator, cui bono ? We are a nation
of speakers, or have been, our English friends think, and can talk with
out limit. I am willing to hear talking if any brother has any thing
fresh to say; and if any brother desires an opportunity to address the
Council, I will not press the motion I have made.
Rev. Mr. Twining, of California, I hope, brethren of the Council,
that what I have to say will not seem to come from one who is not inter
ested in this subject, or who has nothing to say that is worth saying.
The churches of CaUfornia, who have sent me here, desire that you and
the churches you represent should be informed of the peculiar state of
things upon that coast, and that, in consequence, they should have the
benefit of your prayers, of such deUberations as you engage in here,
and of such plans as you adopt.
The churches of CaUfornia full well understand the great importance
of that field which is now opening in the South. They would do nothing
whatever, in urging their claim, to the prejudice of the claims of the
churches in that field. They fully understand, and have always under
stood, the great claims which the churches of the West, and which the
new fields of the West, have upon the Christian public. But they feel
that there has risen among them a new state, — a state and a civilization
which are to be developed under new conditions, and which, as surely as
the sun continues to roll over those lands, will be a great, rich eivUiza-
tion; that there wiU grow up there a population most numerous and
most powerful, and which is destined to act a most important part in the
future of this country; and they feel that upon them is rolled a great
burden of responsibiUty, in the time to come, to possess this field and to
win it to Christ.
I can not go through here, in the very few moments that remain, with all
the details and statements which I should like to make; but there is one
view and one idea which I wish to present to you, and that is this: that this
California sphere, and this whole Pacific sphere, and all the churches con
nected with that, sphere, are distinct and separate from the churches in
the East. It is away off toward the setting sun, and there is no connec
tion between you and it. When the churches of the West fall back from
the outposts, they faU back upon an older country, upon stronger
churches, upon more numerous churches, upon coUeges, and at last they
come back to Plymouth Rock, — to what we consider the foundation of
New England. But when CaUfornians faU back from their cities, when
they move away from San Francisco, they fall back upon the wild Indian
and the wilderness. There is a distinct, separate State, which has its
own center, and in one sense is far away by itself, and yet which is to be
the germ of a new civiUzation, and a civilization developed under pecu
Uar circumstances, and differing from any thing else upon this continent.
It is of the utmost importance that a State so growing, that a State so
separated from the other parts of our country, and from the churches of
our country, should have the fullest benefit of all the plans of evangeli
zation which are adopted by this Council. They feel that they must

300 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
have help, and the principal help which they want at this time is men.
It is men to preach the gospel; it is men to occupy the vacant posts; it
is men to stand up amid the mining population in the new towns and in
the new cities, and to preach Christ in such a way that they shall be
heard, and shaft have an effect in shaping the growth and giving charac
ter to that people. They are greatly thankful for such pecuniary help
as has been or may be sent; but what they want, and want most of all,-
is men, — men to pray and labor with the people, and preach to them.
I recollect receiving a caU from my brother Atkinson, when I had the
fortune to be in Oregon. He did not know, at that time, that he should
be here, and be able by his own word of mouth to urge his plea, and the
burthen, the refrain of what he said to me was, — " Send us men — good,
faithful, earnest pastors — to fill these pulpits, to do this duty; " and the
very last words that were spoken to me, as I was on board a steamer in
the harbor of San Francisco, were, — " Remember, there are six or
eight new churches that are without pastors, and that will look to the
East and to the older churches to send them men; and we wiU give the
promise that we wUl support them." Now, brethren, there stand,
to my certain knowledge, within the boundaries of CaUfornia, eight
churches, in communities that will support the men, if they shaU be sent
there. They want these men to come to them and labor, and if they
come, they wUl support them. Therefore, what I have to say is, that
the great want, the first petition of those churches is, that you wiU send
them men, who shaU be men, Uving men, to work with them, among
them, and for them.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of Connecticut, moved that when the Coun
cil adjourn, it be until eight o'clock in the evening, and that
the debate continue until half past nine, and then the vote be
taken. After some discussion, the question was put and the
motion lost.
Rev. Mr. Webb, of Massachusetts. I want to occupy one moment of
the time of the Council, to say this. We are here proposing to give men
to this work of evangelizing the continent. We are proposing to raise .
$750,000 for the same thing. How are you going to do it? Do you
expect to get any thing out of my pocket? There isn't much there. I
thought this morning, when these resolutions were read, that I was ready
to vote; but the more I think about this, the less I am ready to vote. I
am not nearly so ready as I was this morning; and why? Because I
am beginning to feel a personal responsibiUty in this matter; and if you
vote this thing, if I have a son or a daughter, I don't see but I am com
mitted to give that son or daughter for a teacher; and if I have a hun
dred doUars, I don't see but I am committed to give that. I don't want
to vote, until, with a new consecration, a new baptism, I can do ft. If
you are ready for that, let us vote. [Yoices — " We are ready."] Then
I say one thing more, and only one. When this Council was caUed, it

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 301
was proposed that the churches that sent delegates here, should take up
a collection to defray the expenses of this Council. We have heard what
the result of that was. Now, it is easy to vote money; it is not quite so
easy to get it Not one half the money has been raised that is necessary
to pay the expenses of this Council; not one half the churches have re
sponded to that vote with a doUar. It is idle for us to vote, and go away
and say, "WeU, the church at Hartford, or the church at Chicago, or
somewhere else, may raise this money." The simple question is, Are
you ready, brother, to give your thousand dollars for this purpose?
That is the feeling I want to find in me, before I vote, and pledge myself
before Almighty God and my brethren here to accompUsh this thing.
A motion was here made that the vote be taken, which was
lost. A motion to adjourn was also lost.
Rev. Dr. Patton, of HUnois. Mr. Moderator, — Dr. B eecher , in the re
marks which he addressed to the brethren, properly stated that this money
question is the great practical question; by which he did not mean that
there should be a unanimity of sentiment in this body with reference to the
propriety of raising the money, but that there should be a unity of deter
mination on the part of this body to secure that money. I wish to say one
thing, which is a practical iUustration of the spirit of the West. I think I
have a right to say, of the characteristic spirit of the West, where the move
ment for the assembling of this CouncU was initiated. A layman of the
city of Chicago, feeUng a deep interest in the objects proposed by this
body, assured me, that if the proposition now before this body to raise
the money specified in this recommendation could be carried out, he
would give $10,000 toward the amount. [Loud applause.] I have been
waiting aU the afternoon for an opportunity to state this fact, in the hope
that it would stir up other laymen to foUow suit, and the pastors of lay
men to manifest a kindred spirit, so that we might electrify one another
and go home to rouse our congregations to take hold of this work in
earnest. That is the reason why we need to prolong the debate; but I
Bee the brethren are more disposed to vote for a sentiment than to take
measures to have that sentiment carried out.
Some discussion followed on a proposition to have an evening
session, and a motion to that effect passed, but was subsequently
reconsidered, so many members being entertained out of town
that it was thought inexpedient to hold evening sessions.
At six o'clock the Council adjourned, after singing the Dox-
ology in long meter.
SEVENTH DAY, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21.
The Council was called to order at nine o'clock, and prayer
offered by assistant moderator Hammond. The minutes were
read and approved.

302 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
On motion of Hon. Linus Child, of Boston, the resolu
tion adopted yesterday, authorizing a committee to proceed to
Washington, to present to the President the resolutions on the
state of the country, was reconsidered, for the purpose of
amendment. Mr. Child then moved to amend by substituting, that the res
olutions, attested by the officers of the Convention, be trans
mitted to the President of the United States by the moderator
of this Council.
The amendment was adopted and the resolution passed.
Rev. Mr. Quint, in behalf of the business committee, pre
sented the order of business of the day recommending, —
That the discussion be continued on the subject before the Council
yesterday afternoon until quarter before eleven o'clock, and that the vote
be then taken; and that each speaker be limited to twelve minutes. The
committee also recommended, that at the close of the devotional exer
cises, the first business be the report of the committee appointed to pre
pare a response to the foreign delegations, to be followed by the report
on the letter from Italy, and the report of the committee to whom was
referred the paper on the Declaration of Faith.
Rev. Mr. Adams, of New Hampshire, moved to amend by
inserting eight minutes, instead of twelve, and the amendment
was carried.
A motion was made to amend by substituting quarter after
ten, instead of quarter before eleven, but the motion was lost,
and the report adopted.
EVANGELIZATION AND CHURCH BUILDING.
Rev. Mr. Burr, of Connecticut. I think, sir, that we may safely ven
ture to assume that the gentlemen of this Council possess a competent
knowledge of the religious condition of the South and West. We fully
recognize the importance of that work, and the need of promptly plant
ing in all those regions religious institutions of the right sort. But how?
— that is the point to be considered. Will the building of a Congrega
tional House in the city of Boston do very much toward that end? Will
the building of a showy Congregational church in the city of Washing
ton help this matter very much? Will it be well, sir, to open the doors
of the Christian ministry to an untrained crowd of Christian laborers, to
meet the demands of the South and West? Allow me to say, that I
think this is not the wisest plan. No one shall exceed me in the desire
to have lay labor in the church, and in the service of God. I should be

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 303
very glad to have our Christian laymen, by thousands and tens of thou
sands, go every where, teaching the religion of Jesus Christ, telUng the
story of Jesus; estabUshing Sabbath schools, estabUshing prayer-meet
ings, and reading exceUent sermons, under the title and with the distinc
tion and standing of " Bible readers," or " lay evangelists." I should 'be
exceedingly glad to see this, and, if it were necessary, I would invoke a
persecution, to scatter our Christian laymen abroad on this Christian
business, as it scattered the primitive laymen. Oh, yes, sir, I am in favor
. of multiplying the Christian force in the service of Christ by the whole
multiplication table. At the same time, I must confess I am not in favor
of admitting to the full standing and status of the Christian ministry an
untrained throng of even good men. Sir, " with a great price have we
obtained this freedom; " and if there are any persons who are put upon
us as free born by the dispensation of Providence, — men who are born at
the point which we have reached only by patient study and culture,— why,
sir, we will take them by the hand, as we would take the hand of Mr.
Spurgeon, or of Mr. Whitefield, and introduce them into the gospel min
istry. 'But, sir, it seems to me it would lower the standard and the stand
ing and the influence of the sacred profession immeasurably to introduce
this class of men, in the manner proposed, into the ministry.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. Will my brother allow me to
interrupt him one moment. He loses sight of one phrase in the report.
It authorizes the Ucensing of laymen " by the .proper evangeUcal bodies
with such conditions as they may deem best."
Rev. Mr. Burr. But I am not sure that it would be wise even to send
abroad a class of non-ministerial laymen, to be supported, even in a
modest way, by a board estabUshed for this purpose. I confess that
yesterday I had a different view of the case, and I was prepared to say
I would do all I possibly could for the purpose of securing a body of
lay evangelists to go forth; but on mature reflection, it seems to me it is
inexpedient. I am persuaded that we have agencies enough. God bless
the American Home Missionary Society, which has done so much for the
West! God bless the American^Missionary Association, which is able to
do so much for the South! Sir, if we place $750,000 in the hands of
these organizations, to spend on the platform of Christianity, and are
prepared to do our work, it strikes me we shall do more and do it faster
for the cause of evangeUzation in the South and West, than can be done
by any new scheme that may be proposed.
Rev. Mr. Atkinson, of Oregon. Mr. Moderator, fathers, and breth
ren, — I have not occupied your time one moment since I came into this
Council. I am sorry that I am here alone from Oregon, but you sent me
out .alone, in 1847, when we had Oregon only on the Pacific, — then a
territory containing 300,000 square miles. We had no California, or Ne
vada then. Oregon has now 100,000 square .mUes only, because you have
taken off three territories from it, that are to be three States, — Wash
ington, Idaho, and Montana; but I may claim, perhaps, properly, to rep
resent what was originaUy Oregon. The present Oregon will still be
divided, leaving about 30,000 square miles in the Willamette vaUey, and

304 EVANGELIZATION -*- CHURCH BUILDING.
another State between that and Idaho, a mining region; so that I may
say, in brief, we shall have five States in the area originally caUed Ore
gon;— an important fact, politically, certainly; when it is felt in the
senate, it will be felt as an important fact in the councils of the nation.
But, sir, the time which you give us does not allow me to touch upon
but one point. I must leave the agricultural capabihties of the Willa
mette Valley, where we have a few churches, and a college started; I
must leave the great lumber and coast region of Washington Territory,
west of the Cascade Mountains, from which your Maine lumbermen are
carrying timber all over the Pacific, — to California, the Hawanan Islands,
the Society Islands, the whole Polynesian group, — and supplying even
Calcutta, and sending their spars to England and France, — a region des
tined to become the great lumber field of the whole world; I must leave
all that region, — where we have not a Congregational church or min
ister and only one in Washington Territory, and he but three miles
north of the Oregon Une, — I must leave aU that region, and speak
briefly of one simple interest which \ have felt to be a growing interest,
and one marking a feature in God's present dealings with us as a nation.
I refer to the mining interest. That came upon us suddenly, and we of the
West felt it more than you did. I was then preaching in a Uttle church
in Oregon city; a great room was fiUed night after night, and Sabbath
after Sabbath, when news came, " There is gold in CaUfornia." Some of
us tried to discredit it. It was repeated, — " There is gold in California,
that you can pick up by the handful." Our men started, and they left
me with only women and children to preach to. It was said, " Ton
can't get to CaUfornia except by sea." These men, who had crossed the
Rocky Mountains, said, " We wiU go to California." The Fur Company's
men said, — "You can never get there; there is only a track; " but they
said, " We will go." They loaded what provisions they had upon then-
wagons, and they rolled down the mountains, and reached Sacramento,
traveUng seven hundred miles, where never a wagon had gone before.
And they came back, and said, " There is gold in California," and others
started. I attempted to stop some of my church with the text, " He
that maketh haste to be rich shaft not be innocent; " but the text was not
sufficient to check them; they went over it; and for seventeen years, we
have had an excitement that has taken the church members and aU
classes of men, and left us the women and a few men, who could not go
very weU, to sustain our church operations. I was almost necessarily
obUged to examine this question, and ask myself, "What does God, in
his providence, mean, by sending us out here to form churches, and
then taking away our followers? " — and, sir, I have learned this lesson,
that God had a mighty magnet in the Sierra Nevada, and Blue Moun
tain regions, and I have learned that our people have just as much right
to go mining as your Cape Cod fishermen have to go fishing. What
has been the result? They have discovered, not only the mines of Cali
fornia, but the silver mines of Nevada, and they have made a noble State
within the last five years, — the first to adopt the amendment to the con
stitution. [Applause.] We are loyal upon the Pacific. I would not

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 305
forget that; and you have helped us some. We had slavery in Oregon,
but your home missionaries stood up for the " higher law," for freedom
and Uberty, and their influence has been felt, and we are loyal there as
yet. WeU, sir, those men, tempted by the riches of California, have not only
discovered mines in that State, but thence annually raid, so to speak, into
the mountain regions of Oregon, — those barren, God-forsaken regions,
which, apparently, had no compensation in them for their discoverers, —
and they have discovered mines over a range five hundred miles in length
and four hundred and fifty in width. These mining spots are developing
gold and silver in large quantities. I was told, by an agent of Wells, Fargo,
& Co's Express, that we are now sending two millions a month of the
precious metal from Oregon; and those men who have lately discovered
silver mines north of Nevada are now investing hundreds of thousands
of dollars in stamp miUs, without the least fear. - 1, have conversed with
men who are ready to invest all their property in stamp mills, for the
development of the sUver and gold in these mines.
Now, what is the meaning of this immense mining magnet? It means
that God intends to draw population there. He has made a CaUfornia,
a Nevada, and an Oregon there; he is making an Idaho and two other
States there. What is this population? It is heterogeneous. It comes
from aU the States of the Union; and, lest I forget it, let me say, it
comes now very largely from the South. [At this point, the rule limiting
speakers to eight minutes was suspended, and Mr. Atkinson was allowed
twelve minutes, in order that Western missionaries might be put upon a
par with their Eastern brethren.] We have in Oregon, people from Mis
souri, Arkansas, and the extreme pioneering regions of the West. It
was hard work to labor' among them, — ¦ it is yet, though they know now,
as they did not when I first went there, what a CongregationaUst is. We
are drawing somewhat largely from the North now, but more largely,
as I have said, from the South. After the battle of Pea Ridge, in which
Price was defeated, the men who could get away from the Southern
army, went over to Oregon and Idaho, and they changed the delegate of
Idaho last fall, and came very near changing the electoral vote of Oregon.
The brother from Missouri told us that the central counties of that State
are to be depopulated. He did not teU us where the people are going,
but he knew, and I know, where they are going. They are going to
Idaho and Oregon. You have the whole North to take care of the
South; you send the whole South out to Idaho and Oregon, and you send
half a dozen men to take care of them. Not even that! I came here
for six men, and I fear I shall not get one to go to that coast. We- have
also an enterprising population. It takes an enterprising man to start with
his family and cross two thousand miles beyond the outposts of which
Dr. Post spoke so well yesterday; and it takes enterprising men to open
new countries so distant from any bulwark of strength to faU back upon.
They are enterprising men; they are noble men, in many respects; they
are Uberal men. They are earnest men — those miners; they are men in
an unsettled condition, to a certain extent, but if you wftl only give them
20

306 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
a stand-point around which they can cluster, give them any kind of or-
ganized institution which commends itself to their common sense and
Christian convictions, and they will gather around it with characteristic
energy and zeal.
Now (as I must be very brief), what we want in this mining district
between the Cascades and the Rocky Mountains is a few men to go in
there and be sustained, and we want church buUdings. We will do our
part. We want men to go to Ruby city, and Carson city, and Le Grand,
and Boise, and Idaho city, and the other principal points in the mining
regions and put down their feet and say, " Here is a church, here are
men who will help you, and I will start the matter and preach the gospel
to you, and estabUsh a common school and a Sunday school, and get
matters well organized." That is what we want; and I came here for
nothing else but to say to you that God has put upon us, who have been
laboring with those. Uttle churches, a tremendous burden, and that we
feel, more strongly than I can express in words, that we must have help;
and to ask this Congregational CouncU to feel with us, that we must have
help, and must have it now.
Rev. Mr. Kedzie, of Michigan. I understand that when we get
through with the business of this Council, and pass a vote of thanks to
the good people of Boston for their kind hospitaUty, and to the officers
for the faithful discharge of their duties, there is to be proposed a vote
of thanks to the brethren who have not said any thing. [Laughter.] I
had hoped to come in for my share of that, but I shaU have to forfeit it,
because there is one point that ought to be brought up; and as it has not
been, I want to speak to it.
We have been perfecting our scheme, lubricating our machinery, and
now the question is, whether we can get force enough into it to make it
go — whether we can raise this sum of $750,000. In order to stimulate
our friends to this, we have been looking at the needs and wants and
greatness of the work. We have had brethren from Oregon and the
South and aU around the country, laboring to create a vacuum, to see if
we can not suck this money out of the churches; but it don't come in
that way. It may help some, but there is another force needful. How
is it that during these last years of the war, we have been able to get, for
the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, milUons of dollars? It is be
cause there has been patriotism in the hearts of the people, including the
women; and because there has been a sympathy with our soldiers who
have gone forth for the defense of our country. This power,this pro
pulsive power of patriotism, has secured large sums. It is not by creat
ing this vacuum in front of us that we shaU be able to raise this amount;
there must be a propulsive power of a higher character working within
us. In our meetings at home, before we came here, there was a looking
upward, with the eye of faith, for a special and remarkable outpouring
of God's Spirit, and it is by the power of that Spirit, by the revival of
His work, by the power of piety in our hearts, by the indwelhng of God's
Spirit in the churches, that this money is to be brought out. It is by " the
propulsive power," as Dr. Chalmers says, " of a higher affection." And

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 307
now, whether that shall be the case, whether an outpouring of God's
Spirit shall flood this country, leading all to feel that they live only for
the great work of evangeUzing the world, wftl depend upon the spirit of
faith and the spirit of prayer in the churches. Whether there shall be
that, wiU depend upon the spirit of faith and the spirit of prayer in the
ministry. Whether there shall be that, will depend upon the spirit of
faith and the spirit of prayer in this Council. Here, then, we can decide
the question whether that money shall come. I know it is of God's own
sovereign free grace and mercy that his Spirit ever comes; but when it
comes, it comes by this preparation of prayer and faith in the churches
and in the ministry. When that Spirit comes, when the Spirit of the
Lord shall do for us what patriotism has already done (and it can do
what patriotism never has done), then shall this work be accomplished,
and all shall feel that they are not their own, but that every thing they
have belongs to Christ. I have laid up during some fifteen or twenty
years in the ministry, a little fortune for my children. I have got three,
and I have laid up a hundred dollars for each of them ; and I believe that
the time may come when it wiU have to go into the treasury of the Lord.
We have got to wake up to new conceptions of the power of God and
the claims of God, and a new experience of what God can do for us.
[Applause.] The gospel was meant to save just such a world as this,
and it can do it, and God has organized an agency adequate to do it; and
when these ministers shaft be thus imbued with the spirit of the Lord, and
shall show the churches what God gives them money for, and instruct
them Uberally on that point, there wiU be no difficulty.
Rev. Mr. Bliss, of Tennessee. It is with no desire of my own to
occupy the attention of this Council that I speak at this time. I was
requested to come here and bear testimony to the wants of the South, and
I have come from Memphis for that purpose. I first began my missionary
work in the northern part of Missouri, as the exploring agent of the Amer
ican Home Missionary Society; and having some little part in doing a
work there, I was requested to visit Memphis, by the same Society. I
went there, certainly feeling that there might be an open door, and that
something might be done, but I did not expect to stay there. I found,
however, that, having driven the nail, I must clinch it on the spot, and I
therefore remained two months, and secured the organization of a Con
gregational church almost in the very center of the rebellious territory.
This is an important point, and we have felt that the wants of the South
were the wants to be specially considered by this Council (not to the
exclusion of others), for there is a wide and effectual door open in that
great region, and we want to know what is to be done.
We have, at the outset, met with opposition, — just as we expected, —
because we are Congregationalists. One man intruded himself upon the
platform after I had preached a sermon to a large audience on the subject
of Christian Union, and commenced his remarks by saying that he
endorsed every word I had uttered, and then said, " After all, what is a
Congregational church? Why UniversaUsts, and Unitarians, and Spir
itualists, and Come-outers, and every other form of ism is Congregation-

308 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
alism." These are the things we have had brought up to oppose us at
the outset; but these things did not avail. We have organized a church
numbering forty members; we have a congregation of from one hundred
and fifty to three hundred; we have a Sabbath school of one hundred
members; and we raised last year for the support of the church and inci
dental purposes, $2500. They have delegated me to represent them here,
and to secure, if possible, the means for erecting a church. We purpose
to be very modest in our request. We do not ask for any $100,000 or
$50 000, but we want a few thousand dollars to give us a start. In other
words, we do not ask you to do our work, but simply to give us a lift.
We have been self-sustaining so far. We have had no help from the
American Home Missionary Society. Land is very high in Memphis.
We shall have to pay $10,000 for a building lot. It is the great central
point in the valley of the Mississippi; it is a place to be occupied as the
base of operations^ — as the secretary of the Home Missionary Society
wrote me again and again, — and we are entering upon that work Not
only have we organized a Congregational church there, but measures
have been taken to secure preaching to the colored people. We have
also secured the appointment of a district secretary of the American
Tract Society; we are planning a religious depository, and endeavoring
to secure there various agencies, so that we may be an effective base for
that whole region.
Society in the South is in a perfectly chaotic state: lay that down as
an axiom. Where our soldiers have gone in and occupied the field,
Northern men go in and occupy the ground. They already control two-
thirds of the business of Memphis, and some of the merchants are
extending branches into the country. The old slave-holders in the coun
try will tell you, " You can not raise cotton, you can not raise produce,
with free labor." One old slave-holder told me, " You can't raise cotton
enough with free labor to make night-caps for the old women." That
idea fills the minds of these people, and they feel there is nothing for
them to do. Property is changing hands ; the great plantations are to
be cut up into farms, and then what is to become of the old settlers?
Why, sir, they are all moving Uke a great tidal wave, across Missouri,
into Idaho, Colorado, and Nevada, and that whole Western region; and, asv
one gentleman recently from Matamoras told me, there is a steady stream
setting forward into Mexico. The tide of events leads them to move
away, to change their old associations. They feel, now that the rebeUion
is cast down, that they must go about in that community and in the nation
with the curse of Cain upon their brows. We are to go in and occupy
the great central points. They must be occupied immediately and effect
ively, and we ask your sympathy, your prayers, and your pecuniary
assistance; for we can not enter that great field and occupy those large
cities without much pecuniary assistance.
Let me say now one word in regard to the colored people. They are
in a most interesting condition. A great many evil reports are started
with regard to mutinies. It was said there was a great mutiny in Fort
Pickering. I inquired of the commandant, and he told me that there

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 309
was not the shadow of any thing of the kind. Yet that story went
through all the Northern papers, with the design of prejudicing your
minds. Beware of these stories. The wonder is, that these blacks have be
haved so well as they have. [Applause.] The wonder is, that, after aU the
provocations they have received from their old masters, who have marked
their backs with stripes, and sold their children before their eyes, — the
wonder is, that they can keep their hands off of them. But we bless
God that they have been so forbearing, and now we must beware of
prejudice against them. Do not listen to the evil reports that come to
you, for very few of them have any foundation. The schools for colored
children are flourishing. There are already two thousand scholars in the
colored schools of Memphis. We have already a high-school established
among the colored people. We want an academy, a theological semi
nary, and a coUege established there, to train these high-school scholars
for preachers and teachers of the gospel, to four millions of colored peo
ple. This is a work of great interest, and it must be done. While the
demands are great from all parts of the country, here is the whole South
ern region, with four mUUons of people in darkness and ignorance to be
lifted up and enlightened and blessed by the gospel and the free institu
tions of the North.
And here let me say one word in regard to our own church order.
We need in the South the breaking of the manacles on pulpit and press
and speech and free institutions generally, just as much as the slave
needed to have his manacles broken. This is as simple as an axiom.
You find that the curse of slavery has worked everywhere, and poisoned
every drop of blood in the social system. Every single church in Mem
phis was swept overboard by the tide of treason; and what was true
there was true in most of the Southern cities. Now, we must plant
there the institutions of New England, and among them, our own Uberty-
breathing and liberty-loving CongregationaUsm. I believe, under God,
it is to this church order, so free, so Uberty-loving, so careful of the rights
of the churches, that New England owes her flrst and chiefest superiority
among the States of this nation.
Rev. Mr. Guernsey, of Iowa. That report says that our chief want,
after afl, is not money; and I think there is more truth in that statement
than some of the brethren have seemed to admit. We want men, too,
who wiU be wilUng to undertake a work that no amount of money would
ever persuade any man to undertake. Since I have been here some
brother said in this Council or elsewhere, speaking of a particular fleld,
" We don't want any six-hundred-dollar men for that place." Sir, we have
scores of men on our prairies, whom we would not exchange for your two-
thousand-dollar men [Applause], who are living on salaries of four, five
and six hundred dollars. If they are six-hundred-dollar men, it is not
certainly on the ground of the measure of influence they have exerted in
behalf of Christ and in behalf of the country. If they are six-hundred-
dollar men, it is not on the ground that they could not command in their
profession a higher compensation than that. They occupy the fields in
which God has placed them, because it seems to them that the preaching

310 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
of the gospel is needed there, and that it is their duty, in response to
God's call, to preach it with such compensation as the church shaU give.
In the State of Iowa, which, as brother BUss said to me a few moments
ago, is an old field, — it is almost twenty-five years old, and we have one
hundred and sixty churches, — in the State of Iowa, there is territory
larger than the whole State of Massachusetts put together, lying in a
body without a single Congregational church and without a single Con
gregational minister engaged in the work of preaching; and there are
some fifteen or twenty counties in which there is scarcely any preaching
at aU. Send us your sixrhundred-doUar men, if you have them, and we in
Iowa will make two-thousand-doUar men of them in a little whUe. [Ap
plause.] In Iowa, in any new country, where things grow by the jump,
men grow in the same way.
I have had application, since I have been at this Council, from a dozen
brethren, perhaps, for opportunities to labor in Iowa, but they want just
such fields of labor as are supplied, or as we could supply every day in
the year, while we have scores of fields for which no apphcation comes.
Send us your men. A' year ago, a good brother in Massachusetts, a
classmate of mine, — and a noble fellow he is, too, — wrote me that he
wanted to come to Iowa. But what sort of a parish do you suppose he
asked for? He wanted, first, a village of some two or three thousand in
habitants; and we have plenty of them where the gospel is needed; he
wanted an academy; he wanted a meeting-house; he wanted as good
society as he should leave behind him in New England. Those are all
very pleasant things, and no man is to blame for asking for them; but
he might as weU have asked me to locate him in Paradise as to make
such a proposition in relation to my field. [Laughter.] That portion
of this report which refers to the employment'of lay talent in preaching,
seems to me to present the only prospect for any thing Uke an adequate
supply of laborers in our field. We want to take such men as we have
in our churches, — and there are not a few of them, — lawyers and phy
sicians, and give them the sanction of Associational approbation, and send
them out to preach the gospel (even while they continue in their secular
business), in the destitute neighborhoods that Ue in the regions of coun
try, ten, fifteen, twenty, or fifty miles between our several churches. We
want such men; and if now and then we find one among them who
proves to be skillful in the work, and shows by his efficiency in it, and
by the education he gets in it, — and that is the best sort of education we
have, in Gome respects, — that he is adapted to make the ministry of the
gospel bis life-work, then we will ordain him, in accordance with the
recommendation of this report. And that is no new thing with us. We
have done it over and over and over again; and we have from one to
two thousand men of that stamp at work in Iowa, and aU we ask of you
is, that you will let them work on, with their salaries of four, five, or six
hundred dollars, and not tempt them away, as has sometimes been the
case with your offers of two thousand dollars.
One thing more. I believe in the importance of the Southern work.
I beUeve that all the impression that brother Bliss and others who have

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 311
spoken here can make will be all too small in behalf of it. But I believe,
also, that the only way to carry on that work to a final and successful
consummation is to take care of that great field through which the influ
ences are to pass which are to reach and mold the South in the future.
Something has been accredited to us in the work of subjugating the
South in connection with the rebellion; and that has been largely due,
as has been already said, to the influences of our Home Missionary
Society. Now, take care of that fleld, and we wiU roll a tide of moral
power into the South, in years to come, that shall be as resistless as were
the hosts that marched under the command of Grant and Sherman. [Ap
plause.] We have there one college planted by Home Missionary efforts,
and in that college we have already trained teachers who are at work in
the South, and we wUl gladly train more of them, — all we can raise up
on that ground, and all you wUl send us; and we will train the black
teachers, if brother BUss wUl give them to us, for their work. While,
then, we seize these important points at the South, and press the work
there as rapidly as possible, let us have the men for our work at the
West, and let us prosecute that as a part of the work of the South — for
a part of the work of the South it is.
The Moderator. I propose to make a very short speech, which is
all ready to my hands, and which I think will be acceptable to the audi
ence: —
The Moderator then read a note from a friend of Southern
Evangelization, expressing his interest in the cause, — signed
"A Friend of Liberty." x The Mqderator proceeded : —
Accompanying this note is a bond of the city of Boston for $1000.
[Loud applause.] I beg leave to say to other gentlemen, similarly situ
ated, that in spite of orders of the day, or any motion to adjourn, the
moderator will entertain such motions. [Laughter.]
Rev. Mr. Crawford, of Colorado. (The rule was suspended to allow
Mr. Crawford to speak twelve minutes.) Coming as I do a distance of
two thousand mUes, — seven hundred of it by coach, — to attend this
CouncU, I feel as though I might presume upon your attention for a few
moments. Coming at an expense of $500, more than half of which I
expect to pay from my own private purse, I feel as though I would like
to get, partiaUy, at least, the worth of my money.
A day or two since, the question was put to me," How far do -you live
from Nowhere ? " [Laughter.] I replied, that my home was in Central
City, seven hundred miles west of Atchison, forty miles west of Denver,
one hundred miles north of Pike's Peak, six hundred miles east of Salt
Lake City, and eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. [Laugh
ter.] Standing on this watch-tower, and looking abroad over the moun
tains, I wftl tell you what I behold. In the first place, looking west, I
see the new State of Nevada. I see there Yirginia City, containing a pop-
1 Neither the note, nor a copy of it, appears in the phonographic report, nor in the
official record of the secretaries. Inquiries in various directions have proved unavailing,
and it is necessarily omitted.

312 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
ulation of from ten to fifteen thousand, and Rees' River Mines containing
as large a population; and we have no Congregational minister in that
State. Looking at Montana, north of Colorado, I see there an immense
population, and one city, Yirgmia City, again, containing a popula
tion of from six to ten thousand. I know we have many New England
brethren among the Congregational people there. I know that among
them are the famUies of the governor and attorney-general of the ter
ritory. I have heard of two ' ministers in that great city; one a Baptist
minister, who is clerk of the court, and cook of a boarding-club, and
the other a Methodist minister, who, I believe, attends more strictly to
the Lord's business. Now, we want Congregational ministers at once in
that territory. Looking west again, I see the State of Utah, and I have
been interested of late to know that we have now, in the very metropolis
of Mormondom, a Congregational church of eighteen members. [Ap
plause.] When Dr. Kendall, secretary of the New School Presbyterian
Board made his overland tour, last summer, he made a visit to Brigham
Young, at Salt Lake City, and put to him this question, — "Have you
any objection to my sending a missionary to the Gentile population of
this city ? " for the Gentile population there now numbers from six
hundred to one thousand people. He said, "None at aU; and you may
send missionaries among the Mormons, if you Uke." President Blan
chard (of Wheaton College) said there should be a minister there at once,
and, coming to Denver, spoke to Mr. McLeod. With the enthusiasm
of a western man, Mr. McLeod fired up at the prospect of preaching Christ
where he had never yet been heard. I told him to go and God would be
with him, and I would get another man to supply Denver. He went,
and has organized a church of eighteen members. He has a congrega
tion of three or four hundred people, of whom many are Mormons, and
has a Sabbath school of four hundred and fifty. He also preaches at
Camp Douglas. The people have raised for the support of the church
$2000 a year. Mr. McLeod wrote to me that he desired me to represent
him in this Council.
Now let me come to Colorado. The first city which meets you after
you have crossed the plains is Denver, — a city covering an area a mile
and a half long and three-quarters of a mile wide, regularly laid out
with large brick buildings, three or four stories high, built with consid
erable architectural beauty, and which would do no discredit to your
Washington street. There are firms in Denver,, which in the spring sear
son will seU not less than $10,000 a day, day after day. There is in that
city a Methodist church building that cost over $20,000; an Old School
Presbyterian church which cost over $5000; an Episcopal church which
cost some three or four thousand dollars; and the Baptist minister has
lately raised $8000 at the East, to which he will add some $5000 there, to
build a Baptist church; and we have a little Congregational church, with a
flock of twelve members. In the year 1859, a Congregational church
might have been organized there of twenty-five members, and if a man
could have been found to occupy the field, we should have had there a
large structure, and a self-supporting church, giving their money into the
foreign and home missionary treasuries. Dr. Beecher can tell you the

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 313
story. There are men there to-day who blame him for not sending min
isters there, when in truth there were no ministers to be found. I had
the honor of founding the first Congregational church established on the
slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and since then, I have organized, with
the help of others, another church. My church numbers twenty-nine
members, and for the past year has been self-supporting, raising $2000.
We have also raised $6000 for a church edifice, which will cost not less
than $14,000; we can raise $4000 more; and if I can raise $4000 more
here, the work is done. My people are liberal, but there are impossibUi-
ties which they can not accomplish. At Boulder City, we have a church
of fourteen members, and they have been calUng for a minister. We
want a minister for Denver, another for Empire City, and another for
Canon City. We have a population at Denver City of five thousand; at
Central City, within a circle of four miles, a population of from seven to
ten thousand; at Boulder City, nearly ten thousand; at Canon City,
where there are large oil fields, nearly fifteen thousand, and those places
must be manned.
One single word in regard to ways and means. One of the purposes
of this report is to secure men. Now, there are many here who can
leave their old fields and go into new territory. We don't want sticks;
we want men of ability, devotion, and energy ; and if there are any such
men here to-day who covet the opportunity of laying the foundations of
a chinch and preaching Christ in a new country, let them make applica
tion to Dr. Badger, who sits here before me, and whose crown of glory
can always be seen from every part of the house. [Applause."^ That is
a practical suggestion.
Another thing. We want money. And let me teU you that this
church building enterprise is the most desirable on your Ust. Brother
Langworthy said to me, " I fear our cause is not to have any place in
the plans and affections of our churches." Let me say to you, brethren,
that you must pay just as freely to him as to any other cause. Give us
a church, and we can support it ourselves. You may keep a home mis
sionary in the fleld for five years, at an expense of $300 a year, and a
church wftl have to be built at the end of that time; but give to that
fleld one or two thousand doUars, and a church building is put up at
once, and the church becomes self-supporting at once. That is the more
economical way.
Another thing. If you are going to help us at the West, you must
preach upon our church poUty. Our Congregational brethren do not
understand this, and when they go to the West, they go into Methodist
churches and Presbyterian churches, and say that they wouldn't turn
their hand over for the difference between them. Now, if our principles
are true, if we are standing on the right ground, if we have found the
" old paths," let us stay therein. [Applause.]
One word more and I am done. The question has often been asked
me, " How did you happen to start off to that distant region? " I wftl
teU you. Two years ago, I heard a voice crying, "Whom shaU we send,
or who will go for us?" and after waiting and hearing no response,!

314 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
said, " Here am I; send me." I am not a pioneer from choice, but from
necessity. Are there any other men who feel the same necessity to
preach the gospel where Christ has not been named?
Rev. Mr. Gaylord, of Nebraska. You have been hearing reports of
great interest, and claims are pressing upon you with great weight from
the vast territories that lie stretching off toward the setting sun; terri
tories that are fining up, as I can bear testimony, from the- vast stream of
population that is flowing annually through the region where I Uve, with
a rapidity that challenges the earnest attention of every friend of his
country, and of the cause of Christ. I came to speak to you of a ter
ritory that Ues in the very heart of this great country, between the
States and these mountain territories, that are opening up with so much
promise, and with such demands upon your attention and your interest
The field which I represent is the great vaUey of the Missouri, lying
north of the State of Kansas and the State of Missouri. The Missouri
river runs directly through the great heart of my home missionary dis
trict; and that is a very important section of the country, not for its
mining resources, but because it is the section from which the mining
population are to draw those suppftes that sustain physical Ufe, while
they are engaged in unearthing the hidden riches of the mountains; and,
as my brethren from Iowa and from Colorado have said, so I can reit
erate. Our great want is men; men to occupy the opening fields; men
to man our towns and villages; and men to go forth with hearts warm
with the love of Christ, and of souls, to take pur scattered population
and lead them to Christ, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of
the world. On the whole Une of the Missouri river, for two hundred
miles in our territory, we have but one stationed'minister at this present
time. I occupy the position of agent of the American Home Missionary
Society. We have at Nebraska city the only Congregational minister
on the whole line of the Missouri river for two hundred mUes on our
eastern border; and it is a region of country rich in its natural resources.
It is fertile, it is productive, and is to be filled with an active and enter
prising population. After I left home, I received a letter from Sioux
City, in reference to Yankton, the capital of Dacotah Territory, asking
for a Congregational minister, and saying that the Congregational ele
ment was in advance of all others, and stronger, probably, than aU others
put together; yet the only minister they have is an Episcopalian, with
whom the people are not in sympathy. A few weeks ago, I was way up
the valley, to Platte, eighty mUes west of Omaha, on the Une of the
great tide of emigration that pours over, year after year, to the Pacific
coast and the mountain territories; and there, at the central point of
the United States, is an opening for a Congregational minister, who
might be the center of influence in the place if he were there to-day; and
within twelve months, the cars of the Union Pacific Railroad will be
running from Omaha city to that place. In aU probability, it is destined
to be the future capital of the territory or State of Nebraska, — the cen
ter of a wide section of country, that will be filled with an enterprising
population.

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 315
~ Thus the fields are opening on every hand. We need men who are
willing to endure hardness, who are not looking for fat places, such as
brother Guernsey described, but who are willing to go out on the frontier,
who are willing to drive the first stake, and to preach if need be, in a
log cabin, or a private room, or on the open prairie, and are willing to
sleep there, upon a bed of down or a bed of husks, or if necessary, upon
the grass itself.
Dea. Bryant, of Delaware. Mr. Moderator, — This subject of Evan
gelization in the South is one in which I am deeply and' personally
interested; for, if there is any part of our land that needs Evangelizing
or Unionizing, it is that part which I represent. I come before you as
the representative of the only Congregational church in the State of Del
aware. We are the pioneers in the Emigration Enterprise, inaugurated
two years ago by the Delaware Improvement Association, and which is
rapidly filling the State with Northern men of energy and enterprise.
We have heard, sir, much of the West and its pressing wants, and there
seems to be enough there to engage all our attention; we have heard, too,
from the South, — and a vast fleld looms up before us in that direction,
which must be occupied ; and I can not aUow this discussion to close with
out calling your attention to my own State, which has so long been under
the blighting influences of slavery, that not only have the people become
ignorant, destitute, and many of them rebellious, — but the very soil
seems cursed and almost refuses to yield to the demands of the husbandman.
Delaware is in great need of and is worthy to receive from the North that
" Gospel which makes men free ; " — the Diamond State is ripe for New
England institutions. We want the church, with its sacred ordinances,
its means of grace and reUgious instruction; — we want the School-
house, too, as weU, — so that the light of intellectual as well as moral and
religious truth may penetrate the darkness, if it can not dispel it, which
envelopes many a noble mind; and I ask you to-day, that in considering
the wants of other sections of our land, you will remember that if Dela
ware has not been as faithful in this great crisis as she ought to have
been, it is only because she has been deprived of the religious privileges
and blessings that you enjoy. In 1860, the population of Delaware was
112,216, of which 90,589 were whites, and 21,627 were blacks; there were
at that time, 1798 slaves in the State; but at this time, there are not
probably 100 slaves, the majority having either been drafted or enlisted
in the service of the country, and the balance have run away, so that the
State is practically free. Of the whole population of the State, it is safe
to say that three-fourths are without any reUgious instruction. We have
no Sabbath school organization in the State and but few Sabbath schools
outside of Wilmington. Over 500 famiUes from the North have moved
into the State within three years; — and still they come, — and by the
first of November next, enough wUl be there to change the political char
acter of the State; — and our copperhead legislature evidently see the
" handwriting on the wall," which foretells a grand funeral celebration
(if I may use the expression), on next election day over the last vestige
of copperheadism and slavery in our State.

316 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
We are establishing a Northern rural village in the center of the State,
and enough are already there to feel the want of reUgious and educa
tional privileges to which we were accustomed in our Northern homes.
New England, New York State, and Pennsylvania, are contributing
principally to our settlement. Although strongly urged to organize a
Presbyterian church, with the promise of assistance, yet we clung to
the Congregational form as the one best suited to the wants of that
growing community; — and, as there will be a demand in that section
for other Congregational churches, we feel that most important results,
in the extension of the Redeemer's Kingdom in that South-eastern portion
of our country, rests upon the success of this enterprise in Canterbury.
Our church consists of twenty members; we should have a congrega
tion of two hundred, if we had a house of worship; but we are obliged
to hold reUgious services in our houses, — our means being too Umited to
build and furnish a church. We have no pastor at present, but have one
in view; — and we think, ¦ — with a Uttle help now, — our church will
soon be self-sustaining. We want to buftd a neat vUlage church that will
seat three hundred persons, and the estimated cost of which complete
will be $3500. We have strained every nerve in the raising of $800 in
money and materials among ourselves ; the Congregational Union gives
us $500, and a friend $200, with which to pay last biUs; so that we have
$800 to begin with, — but we must raise $2000 more before we can get
the $700 which wiU complete our building;- — and we are obhged to
appeal to our Northern brethren to lend us a helping hand. We come
to you in His name who said " Ask, and ye shall receive," beUeving that
you will cheerfuUy assist us in planting in Delaware a branch of the
true vine, — and promising on our part to be such faithful workers that,
with the blessing of God, that now barren waste wftl, in due time, become
a fruitful vineyard of the Lord. Oh, that I could ring such an appeal in
the ears of my Northern brethren, as would move their pure minds and
open their full pockets. A gentleman who has just given me $50, says he
will be one of twenty to give $100 each, to make the amount required.
Can we not raise this amount on the spot, and let it be a part of the
$750,000 which we are- going to raise? If obUged to wait until that
amount is raised, we shall starve and die; but give me $2000 now, and I
will have the flrst Congregational church in Delaware, ready to dedicate
by the flrst of next November.
We have put our " shoulders to the wheel; " Christian brethren of the
North, will you not give us a lift?
Rev. James Massie, d. d., ll. d., of England. Mr. Moderator,— I
have listened with deep and intense interest to the statements concern
ing the West and the South; and I would not have obtruded myself on
this platform had I not felt that I had a message to you and a word of
encouragement. I will not dilate upon any of the points, but endeavor
as briefly as possible to express what is in my heart.
It has been my privilege to spend the last twelve months mostly on
behalf of your freedmen, in the service of the Preedmen's Association,
formed at London. I have traveled between three and four thousand

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 317
miles, and attended more than thirty meetings, in company with an
American from Cincinnati, — Mr. Levi Coffin, identified with the under
ground railroad. [Applause.] I have thus been brought into connection
with the Priends, or Quakers, as they are better known, throughout Eng
land, Ireland, and Scotland, and have found their sympathies ready to be
awakened concerning your country, and especially the benevolent portion
of your work in the South, if not also in the West. We have worked
together in connection with the Preedmen's Association of London on
this principle. The London committee, consisting of members of the
Society of Priends, clergymen, and members of the established church,
ministers and members of non-conformist churches, welcomes and en
treats the assistance of all classes of society in its object, and only
seeks to give such aid, physical and educational, and to apply such moral
and reUgious culture as shaU, under the divine blessing, enable the once
down-trodden and degraded slave to act for himself, and to give evidence
of his capacity for the blessings of freedom. That society has sent off
to America more than £4000, — and sent it so that the friends in America
might have the benefit of the exchange. [Applause.] It has been idenT
tified with a congenial institution formed among the Society of Priends,
and the two together, with the society of the Midland counties, working
at Birmingham, have sent £25,000 in money and goods, to your Preed
men's Associations. [Applause.] I beUeve that, since I left, as much as
£5000 more have been prepared to be sent, if not already sent.
I should Uke to read the principle on which these friends operate in
your behalf. It is weU that you should know what is felt concerning you
in the country from which I come. Speaking of your efforts in the Sani
tary Commission, in the Christian Commission, and in the Preedmen's
Associations throughout the country, our friends say: —
" With aU these efforts, the work is so vast, that it altogether overtaxes
their strength. This is the time oe America's need. She helped
ITS IN OUR NEED. SHALL WE NOT HELP HER IN HERS? We speak
not, of course, of her need in war. With that we can have nothing to do.
And ii is with no feelings of poUtical partisanship that we now address
you. But the hundreds of thousands of freedmen in her midst, who
need food, clothing, nurture, and Christian instruction, and who are the
helpless victims of circumstances over which they have no control, are
as reaUy a burden cast upon her, and claiming and deserving our sym
pathy and help, as the starving thousands of Ireland and of Lancashire
were a burden cast upon us, and deserving (and obtaining too, be it
remembered, to a vast extent), American sympathy and help."
Then foUow some paragraphs, which I pass over, proving that there
was received from America, more than £200,000, in money and goods, to
help Ireland and Lancashire, during the distress of those two periods.
And now they say: —
"In issuing a revised edition of this appeal, after the fall of Richmond,
the surrender of Lee, and the awful assassination of President Lincoln,
— at the eve, we had trusted, of the return of peace to the United
s, — we have felt that, so far from damping our zeal, these events

318 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
are in themselves a call for redoubled efforts to meet the increasing scale
which the work is Ukely to assume.
" May England answer to the call! May her ministers and statesmen
especially feel that the expression in ParUament of national sympathy
with America in her struggle to remove such an evil as slavery, is no less
a duty now, than was the expression of national gratitude to America in
1847 for her generosity to Ireland. It may be that various opinions have
been held in England with reference to the war; but with the return of
peace, every fair and generous critic wiU feel that the condemnation of
acts which seemed to him blameworthy, constitutes in itself an obUga
tion to recognize those which he can not deny to be worthy of praise."
I feel I ought not to trespass upon your time after reading these
extracts ; but I wish to say, that I think it is in your power, as a Council,
to secure the co-operation of the Congregational Union of England and
Wales in your missionary enterprises among the colored people of this
country. I know not what your response wiU be to the delegation who
have come from that Union, — a Union of which I am a member, and in
which I had the honor to propose the appointment of the delegation,
and the nomination of one of the best of our men, who is amongst you;
but that Congregational Union wiU regard the missionary organization
sanctioned by this CouncU as one in which they can have confidence. I
believe the Society of Priends wiU aid you in your efforts without refer
ence to sectarianism in any sense.
Rev. Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts. Mr. Moderator, — It is with ex
treme reluctance that I rise in this assembly at this time; or it would be,
did I not feel it to be an imperative duty. I regret the occasion, but will
ingly assume the responsibiUty, under the circumstances.
The two papers which are before this body seem to be united in the
debate. They are the joint-stock property of this CouncU, and I regard
myself as a stockholder in it, and therefore have a right to speak. I have
rejoiced in all the testimony which has been given, and in all the sympa
thy which has been expressed, in relation to the two great objects which
have occupied the attention of this house. However much others may
feel on this subject, I can say that no one feels more than I do; and I
have been exceedingly unwilling to interrupt the strain of feeling that
has been so often expressed and listened to with such constant interest
by this assembly. But, sir, there is one clause that has been introduced
into the report of Dr. Dutton, to which I object, and against which I
protest, and that is, that we declare our consent to, and belief in, the doc
trines of our fathers, as they have declared them, in respect of what may
be called the substance of doctrine. There is one great doctrine which
is regarded as fundamentally true by a considerable portion of this body,
as a cardinal doctrine, which is regarded by another portion of this assem
bly, and that a large one, as cardinally and fundamentally false, — and that
is the doctrine of " original sin," as held by our fathers, and by those
who were in agreement with them in the country from which they came.
I say, sir, if you send forth that document, with that declaration in it,
you send forth a declaration to all our Congregational churches, that is

EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING. 319
not true; and you send forth to all other denominations of Christians,
you. declare before the whole world, and you make it the record of his
tory, to be read in all coming time, — a sentiment which carries a Ue in its
right hand. This is a subject that is greatly misunderstood by many in
this body. Though I would not assume anything for myself, I will say
here that I have examined that subject historically with great care and
for years; that I have read much, thought much, and given it my most
deliberate and earnest and conscientious consideration; andT say, sir,
that the pubUc mind in our churches and among our ministers has been
obfuscated upon this subject; that that state of things, sir, has been
brought about by those high in position as teachers of theology; and that,
to accompUsh this end, they have interpolated tiie catechism itself, — they
have changed its language, and given it a form and expression that do
not belong to it. I will say, sir, that on this subject, I feel prepared to
. meet the question anywhere and everywhere, and, that I intend to meet it
on another platform, broader than this, and to show historically that that
declaration of sentiment is false. And, sir, did not the brother who intro
duced it know that he has been contending on that very subject, — con
tending earnestly, as for "the faith once deUvered to the saints," —
contending that the. Congregational churches in the land were divided
extensively on this subject, — that it was a controverted point? Who does
not know it?
Eev. Dr. Bouton, of New Hampshire, called for the order of
the day, to wit : the question on the adoption of the report on
Church Building, and, the vote having been taken, it was de
clared adopted.
' A motion was then made that the recommendations of the
report on " Evangelization in the South and West" be taken
up separately ; which was lost.
Eev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut, moved that the report be
divided into three parts, and that the vote be taken first on the
portion preceding the recommendation in regard to the employ
ment of Christian laymen ; next on that recommendation ; and
then on the balance of the report. This motion prevailed, and
the first part of the report was adopted.
Eev. Dr. Barstow, of New Hampshire, moved that the sen
tence in regard to " rail-splitters and tailors " be stricken out
of the next recommendation ; and the motion was carried.
Eev. Dr. Patton moved to strike out the word " license," and
substitute the word " approve," which was carried.
Hon. Mr. Child, of Massachusetts. I wish to suggest another amend
ment. This is a very important matter, I apprehend. Indeed, it is upon
a subject very deUcate; and I should prefer that, instead of seeming to

320 EVANGELIZATION  CHURCH BUILDING.
decide, as the recommendation now stands, on the propriety of approv
ing and ordaining laymen, it should be so altered as to refer that question,
— the question of its expediency, — to the local associations.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. That is so, sir.
Hon. Mr. Child. I beg pardon of the chairman of the committee.
The report reads, — " They also recommend to the proper ecclesiastical
bodies that they license for the needed work, and if necessary ordain, with
such conditions as they deem best, Christian laymen," &c. The amend
ment I would suggest is, " that this Council commend to these local asso
ciations the consideration of the expediency of licensing, or approving
laymen within their bounds." I fear, sir, that if it goes out from this
Council that that class of men —
Rev. Dr. Holbrook, of New York. I rise to a question of order.
Is this question debatable? If it is I have something to say on the other
side. The Moderator. (Mr. Hammond.) Debate is not in order. The
question must be taken on amendments without debate.
Hon. Mr. Child. I move to amend by striking out the words, " They
also recommend to the proper ecclesiastical bodies that they Ucense for
the needed work, and if necessary ordain," &c, and inserting in their
stead, " They also commend to the proper ecclesiastical bodies the consid
eration of the expediency of approving, and, if necessary, ordaining with
such conditions as they may deem best, laymen residing within their
respective Umits."
The amendment was adopted.
Mr. Child moved further to amend by striking out the words,
" and the Council do earnestly invite such Christian laymen to
hear the voice of the Lord and enter into this work." The
motion was lost.
The recommendation was then adopted.
Rev. Mr. Jentstey, of Illinois. I move to amend the passage which
speaks of the use of " all other honorable means," by erasing the word
" honorable," — as if there were any other than honorable means that we
could use!
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. There are other means, and Con
gregationalists sometimes use them.
Rev. Mr.'jENNEY, of IlUnois. If that be so, let us not publish it to
the world.
The motion to amend was lost, and the remainder of the
¦eport adopted.
Rev. Dr. Bouton, of New Hampshire, moved the adoption of
the report as a whole, and as amended, and it was adopted.
A recess of five minutes was then taken and spent in devo
tional exercises.

r

RESPONSE TO FOREIGN DELEGATIONS. 321
RESPONSE TO FOREIGN DELEGATIONS.
Eev. Dr. Bacon, preUminary to reading the report of the commit
tee appointed to prepare a response to Eoreign Delegations, said: I am
hound to say that to one of the members of the committee this report
has not been read since its preparation. It has been unanimously ac
cepted and approved by the others. The mover of the resolution to
prepare such a response (Rev. Henry Ward Beecher), at my request put
into my hands an outline of what he conceived could best be said.' If
the report, as I have drawn ft up in conformity with that outUne is found
too long, let him bear part of the blame.
Bev. Dr. Bacon, then read the following
REPORT.
This Council has been honored with the presence of brethren who have
brought us friendly and fraternal greetings from various Christian bodies
in foreign countries. Our neighbors beyond the St. Lawrence have sent
to us the Rev. Edward Ebbs, the Rev. Henry Wilkes, d. d., the Rev.
John Wood, the Rev. E. J. SherriU, the Rev. A. Duff, the Rev. D. C.
French, and Theodore Lyman, Esq., who appear as delegates from the
Congregational Union of Canada. Brother W. H. Daniels comes to us
from the Congregational Union of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
From the EvangeUcal churches of France, a youthful brother, bearing
a beloved and honored name, the Rev. Theodore Monod, delegated by
the Union of those churches, has stood among us, and from his eloquent
lips we have received a new assurance that the Evangelical Protestant
ism which in that great country was so long persecuted and oppressed,
is yet to be a power in the conquest of the world for Christ. The Con
gregational Churches of Wales, worshiping God in their own ancient
language, and inheriting that primitive British Christianity which is
older than the name of England, have been represented by the Rev. John
Thomas, C. R. Jones, Esq., and J. Griffith, Esq., deputed for that service
by the Glanmorganshire Association. From the Fatherland of our own
Pilgrim Fathers, two distinguished ministers, the-Rev. Robert Yaughan,
D. d., and the Rev. Alexander Raleigh, D. D., commissioned by the Con
gregational Union of England and Wales, the Rev. S. R. Asbury, com
missioned by the North Staffordshire Congregational Union, and another,
who needs no letters of recommendation to us, the Rev. Dr. James W.
Massie, have come to renew and confirm the alUance which ought ever
to be firm and intimate between the CongregationaUsm of England and
the CongregationaUsm of America. The presence of these brethren in
our National Council gives us the opportunity of testifying the Christian
fellowship of our churches with aU in every land who are sincerely seek
ing to advance the kingdom of Christ.
To our brethren in the neighboring British Provinces, we need only
.respond with grateful recognition of their interest in us and in the work
committed to us. Their pecuUar work is in some degree co-ordinate with
21

322 RESPONSE TO FOREIGN DELEGATIONS.
ours. It is for them, though under many discouragements, to maintain
and propagate in their country those reUgious ideas and organizing
forces which our fathers brought with.them to New England, and which,
whenever they have had free course upon this continent, have made the
wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose. May God give them enlarge
ment and prosperity!
The salutations of the French EvangeUcal churches remind us of the
many points of contact between the history of their country and the his
tory of our own. Here in Boston there was once a congregation of
French Protestants exiled for their reUgion. The Huguenot migration
to New England and to aU the English colonies was one of the streams
that made up by their confluence the American race and nationality.
Names that were once French, and that were brought hither by fugitives
from persecution almost two hundred years ago, are borne by thousands
of our people, and some of them are illustrious hi our history. The rela
tion of Prance to the achievement of our national independence can
never be forgotten by the American people while the memory of Lafay
ette is blended with the memory of Washington. From the earliest
stages of the French Revolution to the present hour, our people, more
intently perhaps than any other, have watched the vicissitudes of liberty)
and especiaUy of religious Uberty, in that country. Our churches have
watched with prayer and with praise to God the rekindled Ufe in the
dying remnants of French Protestantism, and gladly have they contrib
uted something of substantial aid to a movement so fuU of hope for
Europe and for the world. Yet when the terrible storm of adversity
burst upon our country four years ago, and we looked to aU parts of the
world for sympathy from the wise and the good, we Uttle expected that
from a Protestant Frenchman there would come, to invigorate our confi
dence in God, and to reassure the consciousness of our relation to his
work who is making all things new, such a tribute to the grandeur of our
cause, and such an appeal to the Christian world in our behalf, as came
from the illustrious Count Ajenor de Gasparin. We were in a position
which made us know with lively sensibiUty what was said of us and what
was thought of us in every country of the civUized world. It gave us no
discouragement to find that everywhere the enemies of liberty and the
upholders of military and priestly despotisms were in full sympathy with
our enemies. But to know, as we knew from the beginning, that the
friends of liberty and progress throughout Europe, and especially in
France, were our friends, and that they recognized the identity of our
cause with theirs, gave added courage to all our loyal people. To know,
as we know, that the reUgious aspects of the conflict, and its relations to
the work and kingdom of Christ, were understood and appreciated by the
revived Protestant churches of France, and that their prayers were
unceasingly offered for us, was to all our churches a fresh inspiration of
faith and hope. From our experience of what their words of cheer have
been to us in our darkest hours, we would learn, for our own guidance in
all future time, how much good the Christian people of one nation may do
to the Christian people of another nation, in times of peril and of trial,

RESPONSE TO FOREIGN DELEGATIONS. 323
by speaking to them and speaking for them, words of Christian sympa
thy and confidence, in the free, clear tone of Christian manUness.
Our brethren in the principality of Wales assure us, by their delegates,
that, in the great struggle of our nation for civil and religious Uberty,
their sympathy with us has been constant and outspoken, and that their
prayers have been offered to God for us in the time of our calamity. It
Would hardly have been strange, if, in the seclusion of their ancestral
mountains, they had felt that a conflict on the other side of the globe,
though all the world beside should be shaken with the Titanic struggle,
was no concern of theirs, and that the military neutrality proclaimed by
the government of their country required them to suppress their moral
and reUgious sympathies. But the mountains are ever the home of free
and brave hearts; and the ocean over which adventurous Madoc is
reputed to have sailed seven hundred years ago, has been crossed in more
modern times by thousands of Welshmen who have retained in their
homes among us their own language and their communications with their
kindred in the land of their fathers. The Welsh settlements in our country
are settlements of Congregational Calvinists, and everywhere they have
been thoroughly loyal to their country and to liberty. To them in part
we owe it that the Congregational churches in Wales have so weU under
stood the merits of our cause, and have so frankly given to us, in our
conflict with oppression and with treason, the Cambrian steadfastness of
their sympathy, and the Cambrian fervor of their prayers.
In England, too, our country and our churches have had, from the
beginning of the great agony, firm and enlightened friends. Perhaps it
was a fondness on our part, but, in that love for old England which so
many ages of separation had not extinguished, we have cherished the
belief that the sovereign lady, whose womanly and queenly virtues hare
so adorned the throne of her ancestors, has not forgotten with what
enthusiasm of hospitaUty her royal son was received by the American
people, and has freely given the homage of her personal sympathy and
regard to the grandeur of the sacrifices which God has required of us
for our country and for the welfare of mankind. In the highest rank of
the British aristocracy, one at least was found (alas that we can not join
the name of Shaftesbury with the name of Argyle!) who at the first
perceived and openly declared the necessity that was upon us, as patriots
and as men, to defend in arms and at all hazards, not our national inher
itance only, but our national Ufe. Among the foremost statesmen in. the
British House of Commons, such men as Bright and the lamented Cob-
den,— whose names, like that of Hampden in his day, are greater than
titles of nobiUty, — among philosophic thinkers in the sphere of political
science, such men as Stuart Mill, and Goldwin Smith, have been the
champions of our cause before their countrymen. But notwithstanding
all this, the prevalent opinion of England and of Scotland has been noto
riously adverse to our cause. Though we had able defenders among those
Who control the journalism of Great Britain, the most powerful of the
organs that sway and express the pubUc opinion of Great Britain, the
roost ponderous reviews, the most popular magazines, the most widely

324 RESPONSE TO FOREIGN DELEGATIONS.
circulating and authoritative newspapers, whig and tory, conservative
and radical, high-church and infidel, if they could agree in nothing else,
were weU agreed in their hostiUty to us and in their sympathy with the
rebellion. This was not what we expected. It struck the hearts of thousands of
our countrymen with a pang like that which any man might feel when
some friend whom he loved and trusted has suddenly become bis enemy.
Yet this is what we might have expected if we had adequately consid
ered the infirmities of human nature and the forces by which national
antipathies are generated and determined. Our kindred in Great Britain
had seen with mingled pride and apprehension the portentous growth of
the United States, and had been sometimes disgusted with that boastful
and vain-glorious habit which has hitherto entered so largely into our
national character. We can not wonder that the British nation had some
feeling of reUef and satisfaction at the apparent downfall of a power that
had seemed Ukely to rival " the mistress of the seas," and that might have
attempted some day to wrest the trident from her grasp. The political
institutions of the United States, though in some sense an outgrowth of
ancient EngUsh law and Uberty, had no place for the theoretical mon
archy and the actual and powerful aristocracy of the British constitution.
We can not wonder that thousands of loyal subjects in Great Britain
accepted with a cheerful feeUng the apparent ruin of our federal democ
racy, and made haste to . infer with joy the impossibility of any poUtical
welfare without a powerful aristocracy. In the United States there was
no estabUshed Church; but all forms of worship were alike protected by
the law, and alike dependent upon the voluntary offerings of the people.
We can not wonder that in England, where the EstabUshed Church is
ubiquitous in its presence and its power, and where all church parties,
High Church, Low Church; and Broad Church, and aU theologies in the
church from ultra Calvinism to ultra RationaUsm, agree in venerating
the sanctity of tithes and in abhorring the impiety of a nation without a
church by law established, there was a reUgious feeUng, widely diffused,
which devotedly interpreted our national calamity as a revelation from
heaven of God's wrath against our national impiety. Nor was this alL
The island of Great Britain is one great hive of manufacturing industry;
and British commerce has been for many ages the cynosure of British
statesmanship. But on the other hand the people of the United States
have shown a determination to enrich their own country by a large
development of manufacturing industry; and the commerce of the United
States had seemed Ukely to rival the world-wide sweep, and to surpass
the daring enterprise of British commerce. We can not wonder that the
nation which the first Napoleon, in the insolence of a robber, thought
to stigmatize by calUng it " a nation of shopkeepers," and in which the
great manufacturers and traders already share with the ancient aristoc
racy of land-owners the actual sovereignty of the empire, was moved
with something Uke a national joy at what seemed to be the final paral
ysis and ruin of a great commercial rival. Yet there was one class in
the population of Great Britain which surprised the world by standing
firmly and bravely for us.

RESPONSE TO FOREIGN DELEGATIONS. 325
The operatives in the manufacturing districts were the first to suffer
from the effects of the American conflict. But as if by some instinct
divinely given, they felt and knew that the conflict was a conflict for the
rights of labor and the liberty of all mankind; and from flrst to last they
steadfastly resisted all attempts to bring them through their sufferings
into any sort of fellowship wfth the impious power that was struggling
to found an empire on the principle that the proprietors of land and cap
ital ought also to be the proprietors of their less fortunate fellow-men. Let
us give due honor to the humble operatives in the mills and forges and
countless workshops of Great Britain, whom God enabled to stand firm
in the day of their calamity and of ours.
From our brethren of the Congregational churches in England, we
expected at the first an unequivocal and constant declaration of sympa
thy with the American people. Were they not our brethren, inheritors
with us of the faith and order for which the martyrs of Congregational
ism suffered under Queen EUzabeth? Did they not glory in our Pilgrim
Fathers? Was not our history their boast? Was not our reUgious pros
perity, our civU Uberty, our marvelous progress among the nations, the .
most powerful of arguments for their principles? Were they ashamed
of Milton and of Cromwell, or of the position which Britain held among
the nations when a Congregationalist Lord Protector reigned in the
place of the perjured and persecuting Stuarts? Was not our cause " the
good old cause " of the Puritan against the Cavalier, acknowledged and
proclaimed as such by our enemies? Had they not in the freedom and
fidelity of Congregational feUowship, rebuked us at sundry times, and
in divers manners, publicly and privately, through the press and by
official communications, for the lukewarmness of our zeal and the imper
fection of our testimony against the wickedness of slavery? And when
at last the American people, roused in part by such remonstrances as
theirs, and moved by the pressure of a purely religious feeling through
out the free States, — a feeling to which the CongregationaUsm of New
England and the North contributed more than its full share of glow and
impulse, — rendered, in the unequivocal form of a national election, its
purpose to arrest the extension of slavery and to resist the insolent
demands of the slave-holding and slave-trading interest, though at the
hazard of war and national dissolution, — was it not to be expected that
the Congregational churches and ministers of England, with one voice of
no uncertain sound, would testify for the righteousness of our cause,
not only as the cause of order against anarchy, and of constitutional gov
ernment by votes against government by violence and arbitrary power,. —
not only as' the cause of reUgious Uberty and the universal diffusion of
knowledge against a system which made the Bible an incendiary book and
the teaching of the alphabet a crime, — but also as the cause of personal
freedom, and of every man's right to his own limbs and faculties, against
the hideous atrocity of subjecting a race to perpetual servitude, hopeless
and unrewarded, and the impiety of perverting the Christian reUgion into
a divine warrant for that atrocity.
Our brethren who bring to us in this assembly the congratulations of

326 RESPONSE TO FOREIGN DELEGATIONS.
the English Congregational Union must not be permitted to return under
any impression that we have not felt deeply and sorrowfuUy, through
these four years of national agony, the actual position of English Con
gregationaUsts. We know that among them there have been some,
whom it might be invidious to name, because we could not name them all,
who have been from first to last, our most constant, devoted, and faithful
defenders. We frankly and gratefully acknowledge, on the testimony of
the honored delegates here present, that the majority of the Congrega
tional ministers and churches in England have sympathized with us, and
have prayed for our deUverance from our enemies, and our victory over
the Antichrist that rose up to destroy us. But faithfulness to them and
to Christ forbids us to forget that the dominant influences in the Congre
gational Union, and the ostensible organs of Congregational opinion in
England, were against us, or that honored brethren who went from us to
them, for the purpose of explaining our position, and asking^for their
sympathy and their prayers, were refused a hearing. Yet while we
remember this, we remember it not as retaining any unkind remembrance
of an injury to us. We accept the presence of the beloved and honored
delegates who have stood in our assembly as a proof that they now
understand us, and that the ancient fraternity and unity between them
and us shall be perpetual, and as a hopeful omen that between these kin
dred nations there shall be peace, ever growing more intimate and indis
soluble by co-operation in aU works of beneficence to mankind and of
glory to God.
Leonard Bacon,
' Henry Ward Beecher,
J. M. Sturtevant, V Committee.
Rufus Anderson,
J. B. Walker,
Rev. Mr. Qdtnt. I make the motion to accept and to adopt this report
I feel easier and breathe easier than I have since last week. I have had
the sound of those cheers weighing down upon me ever since the recep
tion of our foreign brethren, and I am glad now to hear this manly and
clear utterance.
We have felt the position of England toward us. I have felt it my
self particularly, because I have seen its effect. England is now, I sup
pose, converted and on our side; for England is Uke Providence, " always
on the side of the strongest battalions," always ready to follow the pow
erful, and always ready to crush the weak [A few hisses]; robbing in
India, plundering in Ireland, and in connection with our affairs worse
than that.
Some of you think I feel strongly upon this. I am wilUng you should;
and when you have earned the right to feel as strongly as I do, and
earned it in the same way, by a three years' devotion of your Ufe in the
service of your country, and have had England to fight all the way, then
you may hiss if you please; you wUl then be entitled to the respect which
I am, and which I claim. [Applause.]

response to foreign delegations. 327
When those cheers were given the other day I could not help thinking
that, notwithstanding they were intended for the adroit eloquence of the
venerable brethren whom we welcomed, they could not vindicate by that
eloquence the facts which have been brought out in this report.
When I went to settle in the place where I live I found that my peo
ple's property, being upon the sea, had been given to the flames by Brit
ish pirates, vessels of war, built in England, manned, and supplied
there. But when I was in the service of my country and saw my com
rades dead, when I saw friends from Wisconsin, Indiana, and New York
dead side by side, I knew that they fell by British buUets, from British
muskets, loaded with British' powder, fired by men wearing British
shoes and British clothing, and backed up by British sympathy. [Ap
plause.] But now they are converted. Yes! Their attention was arrested at
Atlanta. Their convictions were awakened at Savannah. They were
very strongly convicted of sin at Petersburg, and tolerably converted at
Bichmond; and I hope they will not fall from grace by the sin there was
in the skirts of Jeff Davis. [Laughter and applause.]
When I heard those cheers the other day, and I say it with the utmost
kindness of feeling toward these brethren, I wanted to cheer them, too,
but I thought I heard in the sound of those cheers [Referring to Dr.
Vaughan's' speech before the Council, on Thursday the 15th], the whiz of
the bullet, the crash of the bursting shell, the groans of the wounded,
the weeping of the orphan, and the waiUng of widows at home, made so
by British sympathy. Brethren, I could not cheer!
But what did our own brethren over there do ? ' How did they feel ?
How did they talk ? I quote extracts from their leading periodical
[British Quarterly:]
" We have no faith in the doctrine, that the continuance of the colossal
Union which has grown up over that vast territory is desirable. We' feel
convinced that some division, and perhaps more than one, would be favor
able in many ways to the progress of international harmony, and of
Christian civilization.
" The most self-governed people in the world have become the most
ill-governed. The world, it seems, was to see how a colossal repubUc
may become a colossal Napoleon ; how the former may become as am
bitious as the latter, and fully as heedless in regard to the costs of its
ambition. " The manhood of seven milUons of people reduced to that. If this be
anything Uke true, has the world ever witnessed a carnage so deliberate
and so horrible ? And all for what ? That slavery may'be annihilated,
is the answer of some well-meaning but mistaken men. For the perpet
uating of empire is the answer from the majority of the Northern people.
Bisguise it as we may, it is that America may be the seat of a Republic
as large as Europe, and that it may be strong enough to issue maritime
law to Europe.
" The issue is narrowed to a single point. Independence is the one
word, comprehending everything at the South. Submission is the one

328 . response to foreign delegations.
word comprehending everything at the North, — a submission, however,
which means the future rule of a vanquished minority by a conquering
majority. Wise men must be as aUen from the spirit of the invaders in
the struggle as from the slave element of the invaded."
When I heard those abominable tory principles of suffrage, which I
ached to oppose, advocated yesterday, I expected something different here;
I did not as to England. But while I felt this with regard to England, and
with regard to the CongregationaUsts there, and the position they took,
after having attacked us so much on slavery on every occasion, I felt
also in my heart that we could afford to be generous to them, if they.
were frank to us.
It has been said in some of the remarks that " we do not want war." I do
not want war. I know what war is; and I teU you, brothers, give your
selves to peace always, if you can do it without dishonor. But we want it
understood we are not afraid of war, — we have had two with that coun
try; the last ended at New Orleans, and if we begin again, we can begin
from that point, and with the vantage ground of Grant, Sherman, and
Farragut too. We shall say to England we have got a biU for you to
settle, and if you don't, these are the sheriffs we send after you, — that's all.
" We could sweep from the ocean each other's commerce," one of the
brethren says. Brethren, they swept away ours ; but then their pirates
ran into ports where we could not follow them; the next time, we foUow
them. Now, whatever this Council does, I plant myself on the record that in
the present position of EngUsh CongregationaUsm I do not hold myself
responsible for any fraternal fellowship; but when they express theft re
pentance for the past, it is different. I would say that " WhUe the lamp
holds out "
[Time expired.] [Laughter and applause.]
Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York. I rise to second the motion upon
grounds altogether different from those upon which the adoption of it has
just been advocated. I like every word of that report. I like its truth;
I Uke its candor; I like its manliness; and I Uke its kindness. I think
this body is prepared to adopt it unanimously, and therefore I shaU be ex
tremely brief.
When we are thus just, as I think we are to our EngUsh brethren, let
us not forget to be just to ourselves. An Englishman has ten reasons to
study fee political geography of continental Europe and the East, where,
prior to this war, he had one to acquaint himself with the geography and
institutions of the United States. His relations to us were for the most
part simply commercial. If you will look into the school-books of Great
Britain, and see how small a portion is assigned to American affairs, you
will find some excuse for our brethren for their non-acquaintance with
our institutions.
When President Buchanan was called to confront secession from his
official post, he announced to the world the impossibility of coercing a
state. As the representative of the United States, he declared to all
mankind the right of secession, and denied any constitutional or material

response to foreign delegations. 329
power on our part to prevent it. It was a monstrous crime in him
equivalent to a participation in treason [Applause], but he did it. Then
when our honored and lamented and beloved Lincoln came into office
in his inaugural address, in the vain hope of soothing the excited feelino-s
of the South, he went out of the way to say, and it was true as he un
derstood ft, " I have no right and I have no disposition nor intention to
interfere with slavery in the States where it exists." Now put these two
things together, and judge an Englishman by the declaration of our two
presidents; President Buchanan's declaration that we had no right to
coerce a state, and President Lincoln's that he had no thought of inter
fering with slavery, and can you wonder that he should say, what in the
world then are you fighting for ? Is it wonderful that they suspended
their judgment ?
Then there came the unfortunate Trent complication, exciting blood in
them, and exciting blood in us. I think this much is due to them. They
made a sad mistake; they lost a grand opportunity — those Congrega
tional brethren of ours. We have labored with them. I have myself
been in constant correspondence with the leading paper of the Indepen
dents in London; and the brethren who have read those letters can testi
fy whether I tried to deal faithfully with their consciences upon this sub
ject. They have done me the justice to print every line I sent, except
an exposition of General Butler's conduct in New Orleans, which may
have failed to reach them, and which did not appear.
I know that the silence in their Congregational Union is not a token
of an explicit want of sympathy in our cause, because they have had to
study, as we have had to study here, those nice balancings of policy so as
not to create a division among themselves, and interfere with their great
work of the salvation of souls. They have had to watch against dividing,
disturbing causes among themselves; and knowing that they did not all
cordially agree and see eye to eye, they have forborne to have a contest
upon that ground. Dr. Budington, as a Committee of the Congregational
Union, wrote to them about the Bi-Centenary Association, and made a
declaration of principles concerning the war ; and they sent back a compli
mentary letter about the Bi-Centenary Association and ignored the war.
It was wrong; it was a mistake; and we felt it; but I do not think we
should stand here to-day and criminate them because we have given them
so good an excuse for it. Have we not as a nation been in such com
plicity with the system of slavery as to blind our brethren across the
sea? Now, that our hands have been washed of that guilt in the most
precious blood of the land, shall we stand up before God and man and
say, "We have washed our hands in innocency; stand by, for we are
hoher than you " ?
Eev. Dr. Yaughan, of England. I think I can disabuse your minds
a Uttle on this subject. I am one of the very few men now Uving who
had to do with the formation of our national representation — the Con
gregational Union of England and Wales. When we set about that
work, we found it, to our surprise, a very difficult work. Many of our
old and most influential men stood aloof from it, and were opposed to it,

330 response to foreign delegations.
under the impression that it might grow into an organized invasion of
the Uberty of our independent churches. Our Presbyterian brethren,
too, were not slow to taunt us with having found out the weak places of
CongregationaUsm, with taking a leaf out of their book, and being about
to come over to them. Our Congregational Union has outlived all that.
It has come to be for us of vast importance. It has given us a place
and a power in the eyes of our country which CongregationaUsm has not
possessed in England since the days of the Commonwealth. It has been.
seen from fts history that it is very possible for institutional indepen
dency to be aUied with a very effective organization. The independency
of the churches may be allied with all the advantages, within certain lim
its, of concentrated action.
How have we done this? It has been by a determination not to allow
any question, relative to which there is a strong division of opinion
among ourselves, to come up as a question to be decided in our Union.
Had we allowed questions producing excitement and narrow divisions to
be carried by bare majorities, or it may be by impatient and boisterous
majorities, our Union would have been anything but what it is. A large
portion of our more thoughtful and influential men would have withdrawn
from it, and it would have become the representation of a part, — a sec
tion, — and not of British CongregationaUsm. We may have been in
error in adopting this course, but that is the course we have pursued.
Now, in not allowing the discussion of the events of your war, to come
up in our Congregational Union, we have done by you just as we have
been doing for the last thirty years by ourselves. God's law requires
that a man should love his neighbor as himself; but I do not know that
it requires that he should love his neighbor beyond himself. We were
divided, not as to being friends and enemies of your country, because
there has not been an enemy to your country to my knowledge within the
range of CongregationaUsm since these troubles have come upon you; and
I think I know more of English CongregationaUsm than any other Eng-
Ushman. If there has been such a r'ara, avis as an EngUsh Congrega-
tionalist opposed to your country, it has not come under my notice.
There has been diversity of opinion, but not of that kind. When you
remember what has been said by my esteemed friend, Dr. Thompson,
when you consider the three thousand miles of ocean rolling between you
and us, and that we were not Ukely to have had our attention drawn to
these things, you will see that we had some reason for hesitating to risk
our union for the sake of giving expression to our opinion what the re
sults of the war ought to be.
Our press was open to you everywhere. Scores and hundreds of our
pulpits were open to you if you chose to occupy them. They were oc
cupied! in your behalf by many of our ablest men. We simply required
that our Union should restrict itself to the reiteration of its emphatic ut
terances against the slave system. Now I leave it to your candor,
Condemn us if you think fit; but I hardly think you wiU.
Now, sir, a wc-rd for myself. Since I have come to this country I
have been in many instances, relative to this question, rather severely

response to foreign delegations. 331
criticised. I have been so under this roof to-day. It is quite true, my
brethren, that at the outset of your troubles, I was one of those who had
the impression that from the nature of the country and from other
causes, the conquest of the South was not practicable. My impression
further was that, if it should be practicable, it would be at the cost of
such a fearful amount of suffering, both in the process and consequent
upon conquest, that it was hardly to be warranted that even the extinc
tion of slavery should be sought for at such a terrible price.
If I was a sinner for thinking thus, I can assure you that I was a sin
ner in company with many of our most enlightened and of your most
warm-hearted friends in our country. I can say here, in your presence,
and in the presence of the Searcher of hearts, that I have not uttered a
sentiment concerning your affairs at any time that has not been a solemn
conviction of my mind according to the evidence that has been before
me at the time. I have never said a word that could be painful to you that
was not connected with much more pain in my own mind than it was
likely to bring to you. My affection for your country is, and ever has
been, next to the affection that I bear my own. [Applause.] My brethren
in England all know that; you may not know it, but they do, and they
have grounded the wisdom and justice of sending me here upon what they
know relative to my feeling toward you.
I have been represented as being a great check to the Congregational
Union, preventing its speaking for you on more than one occasion. I
think in the course of four years I have in two instances uttered a few
sentences, a very few, relative to it; to the effect that I thought we would
better go on as we had been, and avoid the hazard of wrecking our
union by introducing what would be a divided question.
Then I think I may venture to say, without the fear of contradiction,
that I have done more in my country for the exposition and defense of
our common principles as CongregationaUsts, than any other EngUshman;
and I think I have done more for the defense and exposition of your
Congregationalism than any other Englishman has done. It is only
three years ago, when we were engaged in our Bi-centenary controversy,
when our Episcopalians were ransacking your annals, and bringing out
of them all the instances they could select to show the ignorance and in-
tolerance-of your -forefathers, and thus attacking your CongregationaUsm,
that I was able to put an end to it; and I did. [Applause.] I gave the
story as it is, — not garbled as they gave it; and there was an end of that
kind of warfare.
It is because my brethren know my heart has been with you, and
I have been as ready to fight your battles as theirs, that they imagined it
would be a fitting thing for me to stand here to-day in your presence, and
bid you God-speed. [Applause.]
Then as to this war, and as to what is said to have taken place at our
last annual meeting of the Congregational Union; I am said to have
breasted opinion, to have opposed the expression of opinion in your favor.
With submission, that is just the reverse of the truth. Instead of that,
I consented to the passage of resolutions drawn up, calUng for sympathy

332 RESPONSE TO FOREIGN DELEGATIONS.
m your behalf ; and said then, in the presence of all my brethren,—
without the slightest idea of coming here to say anything Uke it,— the
substance of what I said the other day in your hearing. My brethren
know this; and on those grounds they sent me.
Then I wish just to say that I have not become converted, as the rev
erend gentleman who has addressed the Convention just now, in the
course of his remarks seemed to imply, from some cowardly motives
changing my views. I am no coward; not a bit of it. [Applause.]
And I think I am not a selfish man either. I have said what I have said
when I have been obliged to speak against you, frankly and honestly;
and I say everything I say to you, that is kindly and acceptable to you,
just as frankly.
Now, what I have seen, from what has been brought before my mind
during not merely the last year but the whole of this struggle, I have
certainly received, with regard to your affairs, Ught I had not before. I
now believe that those Southern provinces that you have vanquished,
were the homes of a society that were so corrupt that there was no other
way of effectually dealing with it besides that you have taken. [Great
applause.] And I do thank God and congratulate you on the triumph
of the Northern armies over that portion of your country. [Renewed
applause.] I would say again that I think if you could have drifted
those Southern States a thousand leagues off into the Atlantic, to take
their pest-house with them, and left them there, it would have been a
good thing for you to do. But you could not do it. They must be side
by side with you; and for them to be side by side with the systems at
work at the North, I see clearly, would have been to entail upon yon
mischiefs perpetual, and mischiefs the most compUcated. Providence
has dealt with this matter, I beUeve, in the way intended for your gen
eral good, and for the good of humanity. I sincerely congratulate you on
this account.
Why have I said this? Not that I might win favor of those who have
cast their sneers upon me. I do not ask them for favor. I do not ask
them for justice. I leave them to what may be pleasing to them. But
I am very anxious that you should see this matter as it is; that you
should see the case of our Congregational Union as it is; that you should
see on what ground it is that they have sent me here into your midst
And I make no secret of saying, that though I shaft never perhaps look
upon any face among you again, after a few days more, I should Uke to
Uve in your hearts with the character of an honest man. [Great applause.]
The hour of /taking the recess having arrived, and Mr.
Beecher being loudly called for,
On motion of Rev. Mr. Allen, the order of the day requiring
a recess to be taken at one o'clock, was suspended.
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. When I landed in England last year,
not far from this time, no man could well have persuaded me, from what

response to foreign delegations. 333
I saw, and felt, and observed in others that felt, that England in any of
its parts, had either direct or remote sympathy with us. It seemed to
me that they were given up to beUeve a Ue that they might be damned;
and I felt incensed when any man told me there was a deep feeling of
sympathy for our country two years ago. After I had cooled myself off
in Switzerland, and come round through phlegmatic Germany, when I
came back to London, some of the brethren were kind enough to deal
with me; and as the result of their faithfulness, and my more intimate
acquaintance with things, I at last had the eyes of my understanding
opened, so that I felt, — " Confound those Englishmen, I love them in
spite of myself."
I could not deny that the aUegations that we made on our side, were
founded, as we looked on things, in justice and in truth. And I could
not deny, when I saw the interior working of things in England, that
for the most part the brethren there had reasons and motive causes of
action which we neither understood on this side, nor, from the nature of
our institutions and customs, could be made well to understand. But I
did come to feel, whUe I was in England, that while there was great dis
crepancy of judgment among even those who were our friends, and still
more among the lukewarm and our enemies, there was a cordial, influen
tial feeUng among the Dissenters of England, for our strife and our
cause in America; and I have never had any occasion to change the con
viction that I brought with me from my father-land. I loved England
before I went there with a kind of romantic and poetic love; and it was
not decreased, although I was tossed a night and a day upon the sea
there, and had some fights with the wild beasts at Ephesus;- for I think
my feelings came back to my father-land with just as much enthusiasm
and with deeper veneration than before the insurrection broke out.
I do not say these things to smooth over the matter. I think they are
an excuse, a palliation, but not a justification. I think they ought to have
taken a different course. Their convictions were sincere; they were
thoroughly honest; they believed they were doing their duty; but I dif
fer from them in judgment very seriously in this regard. The French
men had just as many reasons for mistake; and I felt thoroughly
ashamed that in a nation speaking another language, they could see like
daylight through aU our difficulties and appreciate our position so weU,
while those from whom we borrowed our customs, our polity, and most of
our ideas of government, speaking our own language, stumbled and could
not see. I felt bad about that; and as for their teachers I did not feel that
there was any palUation or justification. It was their place to see. They
were appointed for seers, and put upon the mountain-top, to distinguish
between good and evil the world over, to draw the lines the world over;
and if they have no function for that, what is their function? [Ap
plause.] But that is all past. We felt it needful in receiving these brethren
they should understand that we saw, and that they should see, the facts
of the past, and that they should know that we were not in any manner
deceived. But that is all; there is nothing more to say; and now let the

334 RESPONSE TO FOREIGN DELEGATIONS.
past bury the past; let the dead bury the dead. There is no enmity be
tween England and America to-day. [Applause.] I do not believe
there will be any cause of offense given by the English government. If
that which I understand to be the demand of our government, as unques
tionably it will be, reparation for the losses we have suffered through
their malfeasance and defective administration, is denied both to be valid
and to be just, let it be referred to some just and disinterested party.
[Applause.] I think I may say that the Christian population of America
are perfectly wilUng to refer our losses to arbitration; and that if a just
arbitrator is found, and if he decides against us, we wiU repeat one of
the sublimest spectacles the world has ever seen, — our action in the case
of the Trent. The moment our Secretary of State said — and it was
said to the hot heart and fierce zeal of this enkindled nation — that we
were in the wrong, and we must take such a course, there never was a
single word pronounced against it by newspaper, caucus, or people. We
say that this people, by virtue of their Uberty, and intelligence, and by
virtue of their civil and religious poUty, are a nation loving law better
than any other nation on the earth can. It is the glory of our institu
tions that it makes the people at once the fountain of the law, and then the
mothers and nurses of that law they themselves bring forth. Nowhere
else is there a disposition so universal to observe that which is found to
be just by the proper tribunals. And if the tribunal to which we shall
jointly refer this, shall determine that these losses are not the fault of
England, and she must not be held responsible, we never shall say
another word on the subject. [Applause.]
More than that; we have an account to settle with England. There is
a reckoning between us, and we tell these brethren they have got to
come to that and can ' not shirk it. We are bound to do more for the
world than they can. [Applause.] We are bound to send two mis
sionaries where they send one ; and better fellows too. We are bound
to work more for the education of the common people of the globe. I
should not wonder if we sent missionaries even to England yet. [Laughter
and applause.] We acknowledge the tie that binds us to you. It is not
a vain saying that we are proud of our origin. It is for no offense that
I say that our greatness arises in our own judgment from the antagonism
of England. Some have thought that we dominated them. They know
not our feeling toward them. During the time that Southerners swag
gered in our councils, we did; but never, since the days of Washing
ton, when Northern counsels prevailed. We are not a warlike people,
although capable of war on a just occasion. It is not to our taste. It
is not in consonance with our poUty, the current of our thoughts or the
occupation of our minds. Where did you ever see so large a war so suc
cessfully carried on? Where did you ever see so large an army dissolve
as the snows of March dissolve when April gives advice to them. They
have gone back to the forge, and the field; and now, everywhere, east
and west, we are bent again upon the arts of peace and civilization; and
in an enthusiastic spirit we are bent on evangeUzation. And New Eng
land to-day, the most hated of aU the parts of the continent, New

RESPONSE TO FOREIGN DELEGATIONS. 335
England that has been hated, kicked at and cursed everywhere, goaded
and pursued for the last fifty years, — what is New England doing to
day? Councils, and caucuses, arid conventions are working to procure
money to pour school-books into the South, to support missionaries and
teachers there, and considering how we shall bind up the wounds we
were obhged to make. While the South is in trouble, we have stood like
the father of the whipped boy, crying as much as the boy did. Every
blow smitten upon them was smitten upon ourselves as well. For my
self I never' felt as much yearning affection for the South as I feel to-day,
as a part and parcel of us. To labor for the South is to help' not the
South alone but all mankind. We feel that God has given us to-day this
large territory, unobstructed with old hereditary institutions, with the evils
of past generations cleared out of the way, as a field inexhaustible for
us to cultivate. It is not that we may pride ourselves, or enjoy luxury
or leisure, but that we may work harder and do more for the regenera-
. tion of the world than those nations tied up and hampered by institutions
that have come down to them from barbaric ages. And in this great
work I throw down the gauntlet to you and defy you to outdo us ; while,
in the name of your Christian brethren in America, I extend in greeting,
the right i hand of fellowship, to you, brother Raleigh, whom I knew
across the seas, and to you, brother Yaughan, whom I met for the first
time here. [At this point, Rev. Mr. Beecher, shook hands cordially with
Dr. Baleigh, and Dr. Yaughan, amid tumultuous applause, cheering, and
waving of handkerchiefs, concluding with three hearty cheers for " Eng
land and America forever." ]
Go back then; tell your brethren what we have honestly said; that if
we have spoken to your blame, it is not because we are angry, or cherish
animosity, not because there is lurking in us any warlike feeling, but
that we are in the full spirit of fellowship and Christian love with you,
and long to go on with you side by side in the great work of the civiliza
tion and Christianization of the globe. For though the French peo
ple have sympathized with us and better understood us in this great
struggle, after all " blood is thicker than water." [Applause.] I would
rather have an Englishman back me in- a difficulty than any other man
on the face of the globe, unless it be a Scotchman or an Irishman, and I
count them all three to make only one EngUshman. [Laughter.] In
this country it takes but one man to make a man,^ [Renewed laughter.]
And now, sir, I hope there is peace among us; and aU I ask is, that if
there is, and if I have helped to make it, I may have some of the bless
ing promised to the peace-makers. [Applause.]
Eev. Dr. Raleigh, was greeted with loud applause, and said: I have
but one word to say; I think it will be better to say but one word, and
not even to attempt anything that might be regarded as "adroit."
[Laughter.] I bethink me of an old minister in Scotland who had the
habit in teaching his people, — and a very good habit let me say, — of
expounding the Scriptures book by book and chapter by chapter; and
of course the good man sometimes came to passages hard to be under
stood; and his way of getting over a difficulty, —just such a difficulty I

336 RESPONSE TO FOREIGN DELEGATIONS.
think as we have on hand this morning, — was very convenient, to say
the least of it. He would say, " No doubt, my Christian brethren, there
is a great difficulty here, as all the commentators are agreed upon that;
so let us look the difficulty boldly in the face, and — pass on." [Great
laughter.] A Member. Isn't that " adroit " ? [Renewed laughter.]
Rev. Dr. R. proceeded: We must pass on, sir. We must pass on into
a new time, to higher and hoUer duties that are awaiting us, through
all the chequered experiences which come to us as to you in the service
of our' Master. I have, as I said, but one word to utter now; and that
is, in the spirit of all I have said among you, that I hope we shall pass on
hand in hand. May God bless you for the kindness, abundant and con
tinual, manifested to us in your homes, and the kindly reception given to
the poor words we have uttered in your sanctuaries and meetings. May
God bless you, and make you a blessing; and in the memory of the suf
fering you have passed through, and in the prospect of the work waiting
for you to do, may he make you patient and loving, even as he has made
you strong, and fearless, and free. [Applause.]
A member moved to amend the address by striking out the
expression, " With the insolence of a robber." [Referring to the
Emperor Napoleon.]
Rev. Dr. Bacon objected. He had' thought of putting it, "with the
insolence of a slaveholder; " but he preferred the expression as it stood.
The amendment was rejected.
Rev. Mr. Gulliver. I move that the passage characterizing the
nation as " boastful and vainglorious," be omitted. I think that was
true of us when the slave-holders governed and were the mouth-piece of
the nation, and gave tone to its pubUc- sentiment; but I hope that we
shall not say that it is true of us now.
The passage was read.
Rev. Dr. Bacon. I submit that that is true, every syUable of it; and
that it is very becoming in us to say it under the circumstances. It is not
the habit of our government under the administration of Northern free
men to be vainglorious and boastful; but it is the habit of our demo
cratic people to-day; and how much of it we have on this platform now.
Rev. Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts. John Bull boasts down in the
belly, and we in the mouth. He feels as large as anybody.
Rev. Mr. Gulliver. Every traveler in Europe has this thrown in
his face; and I say it is not true of this nation that we are more boastful
or vainglorious than other nations. It would be wronging ourselves to
adopt that expression, and it would be quoted against us everywhere.

DEBATE ON 'ADJOURNMENT. 337
A Member. I hope it wiU be quaUfled by adding " m common with
all nations." [Laughter.] %
Dr. Bacon. The passage reads: " Our kindred in Great Britain had
seen, with mingled pride and apprehension, the portentous growth of the
United States, and had been sometimes disgusted with that boastful and
vainglorious habit which enters so largely into our national character,"
" and which we inherit from them," — suppose we put that in. [Laugh
ter.] If that clause is stricken out, this very sentence will be an instance
of the vice. They " had seen with mingled pride and apprehension the
portentous growth of the United States." There is Jonathan for you.
It is necessary that some clause of voluntary humility should be added.
*
The amendment was rejected.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Bacon, the word " hitherto " was in
serted, so as to read " which has hitherto entered so largely," &c.
The report was then adopted.
—It was now half past one o'clock.
Hon. Linus Child, of Massachusetts, moved that the Council
meet this afternoon at half past three, instead of three o'clock,
and continue in session for two hours.
%: The motion was rejected, upon division ; ayes, 75, — noes, 82'.
The Council then took a recess until three o'clock, P. M.
AFTERNOON SESSION. ?
The Council were called to order at three o'clock, P. M., by
Hon. C. G. Hammond, First Assistant Moderator.
Eev. Dr. Budington, of New .York, moved that the Business Com-*
mittee be instructed to prepare the remaining business of the Coun
cil, with the view to adjournment at 5 o'clock, p. it., on Friday. If the
business was not completed by that time the Council would be kept over
another Sabbath. Many delegates would be unable to remain; and
rather than have the business left to be transacted by a small mi
nority,, h,e would prefer to hand the subjects remaining over to com-
nujttees'to prepare reports, to report at an adjourned meeting six months
or a year hence;, or to refer them to committees representing aU shades
of of inion, to prepare reports, with foot-notes, expressing the. various
opinions; such reports to be printed and distributed to the CouncU.
Bev. Messrs. Savage, of Illinois, and Gulliver, of Connecticut,
opposed the motion, on the ground that the business of the CouncU would
require the session to be continued over the Sabbath.
The motion was rejected.
22

338 FREE ITALIAN CHURCH.
FREE ITALIAN CHURCH.
Rev. Edward N. Kirk, D. d., Chairman of the committee on
Italy, reported the following resolutions :
Wliereas, The Spirit of the Lord has breathed on the people of Italy,
and rekindled the fires of godliness extinguished by the Roman hie
rarchy; and
Wliereas, The providence of God is leading this people out from the
bondage of superstition and of a tyrannic priesthood; therefore,
Resolved, 1. That this Council recognize with fraternal sympathy, and
with thankfulness to God, their attainment to the blessings of civil and
religious liberty.
2. That this Council entertains a Uvely sympathy with every soul,
however obscure, there and elsewhere, earnestly searching God's word
to learn the character and will of God.
3. That this Council congratulates the various little bands of beUevers
who are striving to organize themselves into churches of Christ under
any of the several forms adopted in our Protestant countries.
4. That this Council regards with peculiar interest those who -are
founding free ItaUan churches, independent of foreign control or dicta
tion; seeking to rebuild on the foundation of apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone.
5. That the Couneil request the Rev. Messrs. Clark of Milan, and
Hall of Florence, to convey to our Italian brethren the expression of
our sympathy, and the assurance that, by prayers and pecuniary contri
butions, we will do what in us lies to promote the advancement of Christ's
kingdom in their beautiful and classic land.
Rev. Dr. Kirk, said: Rev. Mr. Walker having just returned from
Italy, will present to the CouncU a very succinct and impressive view of
the religious condition of Italy. I will merely say that the progress
of free government has Uberated the consciences of the Italians from
priestly domination. The Bible is now extensively circulated in Sunday
schools on our plan, and the gospel extensively preached. There are
three classes of converts; 1st, those who have embraced the gospel under
the influence of the British Wesleyan missionaries, who are the first
missionaries who preached the gospel to them, but who are now drawing
the lines tightly round them to organize them as a part of the Metho
dist church; 2d, the Waldensians, who are trying to form Waldensian
churches ; and 3d, a body organized upon Congregational principles, and
called the Free Italian Church. They know nothing of our principles;
but they have studied the Bible, and do not want to be British Christians,
or Waldensians, but Italian Christians. One remark they make requires
a word of explanation, that the Waldensian supreme body is called the
Waldensian Table. These men say they have left the Papal Chair, and
do not want to be covered by the Waldensian Table.
Rev. Edward A. Walker, of Massachusetts (recently from Italy).
I come bringing you the news that there is at present going on in Italy

FREE ITALIAN CHURCH. 339
a movement which for power, extent, and spiritual purity, has scarcely
been equaled in the history of modern Christianity. You may not be
aware that at the present time there is being convened in the ancient
city of Bologna what might be called a national council of the Congrega
tional churches of Italy. There was some talk when I left of calling this
meeting the Alliance; but whatever the name of it may be, the tenden
cies of this movement are distinctively Congregational. You may hear
through Presbyterian and Church of England channels, these churches
Stigmatized as Plymouthists. The Plymouthists, as you may know, do
not recognize a ministry. Their ministers are tradesmen or mechanics
during the week, who go into the pulpit on Sunday. These men in Italy
are not Plymouthists ; for there evangelists are set apart to preach to
them, and nothing would more fuUy meet their feeUngs and principles than
the estabUshment of a theological seminary for the training of an effi
cient ministry.
Again, these are not independent churches ; but in all matters which
concern the brotherhood of churches they co-operate with one another.
They recognize this to be a duty as fully as we do. Again, they are not
Presbyterians, because this mutual government is only advisory in its
nature. They plant themselves on the Congregational principle that sov
ereignty in the church as weU as in the State is vested in the people and
can not be delegated by them to a synod, any more than it can be usurped
by a hierarchy of priests. Thus those free Italian churches are distinctly
Congregational.
I With regard to the extent of this movement and its power, I am justi
fied in saying that it is one of the most important that the Christian
world has ever seen. In the first place, it is a popular movement. It is
not carried on by the influence of a few individual minds, but it is rather
the flowing together of many individual currents of thought and feeling
forced out of the hearts of the people by the fear of papal oppression.
It is not an intellectual movement. No new statement, as to doctrine,
has been brought out by it. It is not a sentimental phenomenon,
resulting from extensive revivals. But ft is a determination on the part
of a priest-ridden people, that they wiU have their rights, that they will
throw off for ever the power of priestcraft, that they will have the Bible
in their own hands, and interpret it with their own minds, and govern
themselves according to its precepts.
Hence this movement is popular. It is a favorite with the people and
spreads among them with great rapidity and power. In the city of
Milan, there is at the present time a church of fifteen hundred members,
as good Congregationalists as we are. And in Bologna, Cologne, and
other cities of Northern Italy, are churches already founded and estab
lished upon this basis. We only need men and means to establish a
Congregational church in every city and town in that land. Let me say
here that this movement is especially popular with the middle classes,
file working men of Italy.
With regard to the spiritual power of this movement, it is strong and
full, because it is a movement with the Bible in hand. At a meeting

340 FREE ITALIAN CHURCH.
which I attended a few weeks ago in the city of MUan, I was struck with
the fact that almost every person present had a well-worn copy of the
Bible; and whenever a' quotation was made from the Scriptures, every
one at once found the passage in his own book. They seemed to be,;
unwiUing to take anything from the Ups of a preacher, without confirm^'
ing it by the word of God.
I asked whether the members of these churches were spirituaUy con
verted men in every sense of the word ; and was assured that they were.
In that respect they differ from the Waldensians, and the other church;
for those churches are national institutions, and multitudinous. Every
body belongs to a church there, either Catholic or Protestant; and par
takes of the communion once a year for the sake of securing his civil ,
rights. But in these churches, it is not enough for a man to hate the
pope and priests; he must love the Lord Jesus Christ, or he can not
be a member of the church.
When we look at this movement, thus spontaneous and national in its
character, we are struck with this fact, that these people, left to them
selves, in their reaction against the power of papacy, and taking the
Bible in their own hands to be governed by its precepts, naturally come
down into Congregationalism; and we have every reason to beUeve that
they wiU be true to the Congregational principles upon which they now
stand. It is in this movement that lie our strongest hopes for the regenera
tion of Italy. When we contrast this movement with the other agencies
at work there, we shall see this more clearly. When Italy was first
thrown open to the gospel, many agencies went to work to plant the
Bible throughout the country. These agencies are all of them feeble,
and to a certain extent they operate against one another. The Wesleyans
try to bring in their own peculiarities and force them upon the Italian
people. The Episcopalians try to force upon them the sine qua non of a
prayer-book. The Waldensians must bring everything under the con
trol of their synod. These different agencies have done an immense
amount of good; and yet there is a want in the hearts of the Italian
people which they have not reached. The ItaUans do not want to be .
Wesleyans, Church of England people, Scotch Presbyterians, or Wal
densians. They want to be ItaUans; to preserve their own national
pecuUarities, and not accept any of those foreign peculiarities which these
agencies have tried to bring upon them. ' Thus this movement has come
out of the free hearts of the people, — a free ItaUan church, a Congrega
tional church; and it is upon this movement that the people everywhere
rely. Now, I love the Waldensians. You all love them. You know their
history. There is a romance about them; and in their historic antiquity,
there is something that satisfies the cravings of many of the ItaUans them
selves. But after all, these Italian Congregationalists, in their reaction
against Papacy, go back of the question of historic legitimacy, as they
are bound to do. They fall back upon the archaic, principle that the
government of the church belongs to the members of the church; that

BOOKS AND TRACTS. ,;41
Pie servants of Christ are to reign priests and kings with him; not the
^clergy with gowns and bands, but all the members of the church. This
% the principle. It is older than the apostles. It is as old as creation.
Men feU from it in Adam, and were restored to it in Christ. And althouo-h
the seed long slumbered in the ground, it has at last become a tree with
healing in its leaves for the healing of the nations. [The allotted time
tee expired.]
The report was accepted, and the accompanying resolutions
were adopted. BOOKS AND TRACTS.
Eev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut, from the committee on Books
and Tracts, read the following report : —
The committee to whom was referred the subject of the relation of our
^Ifimination to Books and Tracts respectfully report :
, They have considered the subject in the following order: I. What are
the existing relations of the denomination to Uterature ? II. What are
the disadvantages of the present order of things? III. What measures,
if any, may wisely be introduced to obviate these disadvantages?
I. The Congregational churches, in all systematic operations by means
R8f books, stand practically related to literature mainly through six differ
ent book-manufacturing and book-selling corporations; namely, 1. The
^American Bible Society. 2. The American Tract Society, Boston. 3. The
American Tract Society, New York. 4. The American Sunday School
Union. 5. The Massachusetts Sabbath School Society. 6. The Congre
gational Board of Publication.
R'Our method of operation through these corporations is simply this: to
pay our charitable contributions (amounting to a very large sum annu
ally) to the treasuries of these corporations, by which they are expended,
partly in the preparation of stereotype plates and the manufacture of
books; partly in the donation of books to missionary societies, churches,
Sunday schools, and other distributing agencies independent of the pub
lishing societies; and partly in the maintenance of a system of book
selling or distribution, through depositories or colporters, by the publish
ing: societies themselves. But our contributions fordoing good by the
circulation of good Uterature all pass through the hands, and are sub
jected to the discretion, of those concerned in the manufacture and sale
of books, and are necessarily more or less complicated with their busi
ness arrangements.
H. Bisadvantages of our present method. 1. Literary and Moral. 2.
Economical. 1. The literary and moral disadvantages of our present method of ben
evolent operation by means of books may be stated briefly thus : that it
shuts us up almost wholly to the use of the books issued by the societies
which are the recipients of our contributions. The narrow classes of liter
ature, to which we have been thus disastrously restricted, may be thus
defined: (1.) A negative religious literature, from which all character-

342 BOOKS AND TRACTS.
isticS of any individual or party have been scrupulously eUminated;- (2.)
A merely sectarian literature. And even within these very narrow lim
its we have had no access in our benevolent operations to the general
field of such literature, but have been debarred from the publications
of all private firms, and of societies other than those through which we
have operated.
Some of the sorts of Uterature from the public use of which we have
thus suffered ourselves to Ue excluded are these: (1.) Christian secular
literature. For certain religious and philanthrophic uses, — as for in
stance, for ship, and garrison, and hospital libraries, — an exclusively
religious literature is inadequate. (2.) GeneraUy the works of men
characterized by the highest force and originaUty, whose writings cannot,
without an excess of mutilation, be brought within the prescribed Umits
of the publishing societies, whether on the denominational, or on the
" catholic," basis. (3.) The works of good men of other denominations
which are marked by any of their denominational peculiarities. (4.) The
books from the publication of which our own societies have been fore
stalled by the activity of other societies or private firms, or from which
they axe debarred by copyright; and this class includes a large propor
tion of the best productions of our own time and country.
It can not be doubted that one of the most serious disabilities with
which Puritan principles have been crippled in their progress has been
the bondage under which they have been placed to publishing societies,
and especially to those which have been constructed on that fallacious
" catholic basis," which presumes that the condition of Christian union
is the repression of individual convictions.
At the same time, it must be considered that in some cases, being de
barred from the use of the best literature, we have been paying lavishly
for the circulation of much that is second-rate or third-rate. It is es
pecially true in the case of the old publication societies, the New York
American Tract Society, and the American Sunday School Union, that
their catalogues are cumbered with many works proved to be unsalable,
or grown obsolete and superseded by better works on the same subject,
which, nevertheless (the stereotype plates being on hand), continue to be
manufactured, because, although they can not be sold, they can be given
away at the expense of the churches.
It is by no means the least of our present moral disadvantages in this
matter, that the essential and recognized inadequacy of the system of
publishing societies to supply the books needed, especially for Sunday-
school libraries, has brought in among us a mixed multitude of books
that have passed no responsible revision, and from which the majority of
purchasers have no means of making wise selection. The mixture of
pernicious books in Sunday-school libraries is a grievous evU, to which
our present arrangements afford no remedy.
2. Economical Disadvantages of our present system.
It is theoretically bad economy to intrust large sums of money for the
purchase and, distribution of goods to the discretion of the same concern,
which, manfactures the goods and keeps them for sale. Theoretically, it

BOOKS AND TRACTS. 343
would be better that if various concerns, public or private, have under
taken to produce good books and tracts, and offer them for sale, the
Charitable gifts of the public should go into the hands, not of these inter
ested parties, but of other and disinterested parties, who shall expend
them wherever they can get the best books for the least money.
We should not press this theoretical point against a system which, on
IhS whole, was found to work well. But, in fact, the very evils which
.might have been predicted from this system are widely believed to exist.
This evil, certainly, has occurred, — that in consequence of their double
position, as being at once the buyers and the sellers, the publishing so
cieties have been subjected to constantly renewed suspicions, which, how
ever undeserved, have been to them an annoyance and a hindrance. If
they had been either buyers only, to give away, or manufacturers only, to
Bell, they would have escaped these imputations. If our donations had
been intrusted to disinterested parties, with Uberty to go into open mar
ket for the goods, they would have brought to bear on these various man
ufacturing corporations the healthful influence of competition, both with
each other and with private enterprise. Private booksellers have constant
ly declared, that, if they were allowed equitably to compete with charitable
corporations, they could undersell them. There could be no imaginable
loss or disadvantage to the Christian public in giving them the chance.
3. What measures, if any, may be wisely introduced to obviate existing
disadvantages f
. We will not undertake, in this place, to lay out the details of a better
system than the present. What we want is some arrangement by which
the church may reach forth her hand into every department of literature,
and take the best books for her use, and place them wherever they are
needed, distributing mainly by the hands of her servants, as an incident in
the main work of spreading the gospel. Such an arrangement we do not
beUeve to be beyond the wit of man. It would require a board of Chris
tian scholars and critics, who should thoroughly winnow the vast mass
of books and tracts that are offered to the public by societies of every
sort and sect, and by private firms, and present the public with a new
catalogue, made up only from the best among them all ; and a board of
Capable business-men, who should see that the alms of the churches were
hot spent to disadvantage, and who should undertake to apply donations
according to the intent of the donors. It would be a simple and inexpen
sive institution.
The committee take pleasure in announcing the fact, that these consid
erations have been for some time before the minds of some of the best
and wisest men in the country, and that preliminary steps have already
been taken, under the auspices of President Woolsey, of Yale College,
President Hopkins, of WilUams College, and others, which, it is hoped,
will result in supplying this desideratum.
(Signed) H. W. Beecher,
Leonard Bacon,
Lowell Mason, Jr.

344 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, remarked, while reading the above: The chairman
of the committee (Rev. Henry Ward Beecher) stated to me that he
found, a year or two after his settlement in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn,
that in the Sunday-school Ubrary they had complete sets of the works of
Captain Marryat and of Bulwer's novels. I told him that if he were to
make that statement here, there would be surprise, first, at the books
being there, and second, at his having objected to them. [Laughter.]
Hon. Mr. Hammond, of HUnois. Will you teU us what reply he
made ?
Rev. Dr. Bacon. I think I had better not say. He intimated that
he had not so much objection to them as I thought he ought to have
had. The report was accepted.
The question being upon the adoption of the accompanying
resolution, several members objected to it, especially upon the
ground that it was indefinite and incomprehensible.
The Moderator. (Hon. C. G. Hammond in the chair.) If the res
olution were omitted, the report would go to the churches for what it was
worth. On motion of Rev. Dr. Eddy, of Massachusetts, the resolu
tion was stricken out.
The report was then adopted.
DECLARATION OF FAITH.
Rev. J. 0. Fiske, of Bath, Maine, chairman of the committee
to whom was referred the report of the preliminary committee
on a Declaration of Paith, read the following report : —
PRELIMINARY REMARK.
The committee, on presenting the following report to the Council, regret
that time and circumstances would not allow them to prepare a condensed
statement of the doctrines held by our denomination. We desire it to
be distinctly understood that the brief confession of the faith which we
• hold in concert with the great body of believers, is in no sense designed
to be regarded as a creed for our churches.
REPORT.
When the churches of New England assembled in a general synod
at Cambridge, in 1648, they declared their assent, " for the substance
thereof," to th<5 Westminster Confession of Faith. When, again, these
churches convened in a general synod at Boston, in 1680, they declared
their approval (with slight verbal alterations) of the doctrinal symbol

DECLARATION OF FAITH. 345
adopted by a synod of the Congregational churches in England, at Lon
don, in 1658, and known as the " Savoy Confession," which in doctrine is
almost identical with that of the Westminster Assembly. And yet
again when the churches in Connecticut met in council at Saybrook, in
1708, they " owned and consented to " the Savoy Confession as adopted
at Boston, and offered this as a public symbol of their faith.
Thus, from the beginning of their history, the Congregational churches
in the United States have been allied in doctrine with the Reformed
churches of Europe, and especially of Great Britain. The eighth article
of the " Heads of Agreement,'7 estabUshed by the Congregational and
Presbyterian ministers in England in 1692, and adopted at Saybrook in
1708, defines this position in these words: "As to what appertains to
soundness of judgment in matters of faith, we esteem it sufficient that a
church acknowledge the Scriptures to be the word of God, the perfect
and only rule of faith and practice, and own either the doctrinal part of
those commonly caUed the Articles of the Church of England, or the
Confessions or Catechisms, shorter or larger, compiled by the Assembly
at Westminster, or the Confession agreed on at the Savoy, to be agreeable
to the said rule."
In conformity, therefore, with the usage of previous councils, we, the
elders and messengers of the Congregational churches in the United
States, do now profess our adherence to the above-named Westminster
and Savoy Confessions for " substance of doctrine." We thus declare our
acceptance of the system of truths which is commonly known among us
as Calvinism, and which is distinguished from other systems by so exalt
ing the sovereignty of God as to " establish " rather than take away the
" liberty " or free-agency of man, and by so exhibiting the entire charac
ter of God as to show most clearly " the exceeding sinfulness of sin."
At the same time we re-affirm the fundamental principle of Congrega
tionaUsm, that the Bible is " the only sufficient and invariable rule of
religion; '" that, in order to attain a faith which is " right and divine, the
word of God must be the foundation of it, and the authority of the word
the reason of it." l We " ought to account nothing ancient that will not
stand by this rule, and nothing new that will." ' " It was the glory of
our fathers, that they heartily professed the only rule of their religion,
from the very first, to be the Holy Scripture." '
Besides thus expressing the faith which we hold as a denomination, we
deem the present a fit occasion to express the earnestness of our sympa
thy with all those Christian churches who are agreed with us in the essen-
titlx truths of the gospel; especially as our common faith is now assailed
by popular and destructive forms of unbeUef, which deny the living and
personal God, which reject the possibility of a supernatural revelation
by Jesus Christ, which exclude the fact of sin and the hope of redemp
tion. Against these dangerous errors, we, in common with all Christian
believers confess our faith in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy
1 Preface to the Savoy Confession as adopted at Saybrook in 1708.

346 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
Ghost, the only living and true God; in Jesus Christ the incarnate Word,
Who is exalted to be our Redeemer and King; and in the Holy Comforter,
who is present in the church to regenerate and sanctify the soul
With the whole churchy we confess the common sinfulness and ruin of
our race, and acknowledge that it is only through the work accomplished
by the Ufe and expiatory death Of Christ that we are justified before
God and receive the remission of sins; and that it is through the presence
and grace of the Holy Comforter alone that we hope to be delivered from
the power of sin and to be perfected in holiness.
We believe also in the organized and visible church, in the ministry of
the word, in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, in the
resurrection of the body, and in the final judgment, the issues of which
are eternal Ufe and everlasting punishment;
We receive these truths on the testimony of God, given Originally
through prophets and apostles, and in the Ufe, the miracles, the death, the
resurrection of his Son our divine Redeemer. This testimony is pre
served for the church in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament
which were composed by holy men as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost. We affirm our beUef that those who thus hold " one faith, one Lord,
one. baptism," together constitute the one cathoUc church, the several
households of which, though called by different names, are the one body
of Christ; and that these members of his body are sacredly bound to
keep " the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," and to dweU together
in the same community in harmony and mutual fellowship;.
We hold it to be a distinctive exceUence of our Congregational system
that it exalts that which is more, above that which is less, important, and
by the simplicity of its organization facilitates, ib communities where
the population is limited, the union of all true beUevers in one Christian
church; and that the division of Such communities into several weak and
jealous societies, holding the same common faith, is a sin against the
Unity of the body of Christ, and at once the shame and scandal of
Christendom. We bless the God of our fathers for the inheritance of these doctrines
which have been transmitted to us their children. We invoke the help
of the divine Redeemer, that, through the presence of the promised Com
forter, he wUl enable us to transmit them in purity to our children. We
rejoice, that, through the influence of our free system of apostoUc order,
we can hold fellowship with all who acknowledge Christ, and act effi
ciently in the Work of restoring unity to the divided church, .and of
bringing back harmony and peace among all " who love our Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity."
We beUeve that these truths and this free spirit have blessed our coun
try in the past, that, they have made New England what she is in the
presentj and have carried her principles, by other denominations as well
as our own, throughout the Union, while, in our recent struggle, they
have largely contributed to redeem and save the nation.
In the critical times that are before us as a nation, times at once of

DECLARATION OF FAITH. 347
duty and of danger, we rest all our hope in the gospel of the Son Cf God.
It was the grand peculiarity of our Puritan Fathers, that they held
this gospel; not merely as the ground of their personal salvation, but as
declaring the worth of man by the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son
of God; and therefore applied its principles to elevate society, to regu
late education, to civilize humanity, to purify law, to reform the church
and the State, to assert, to defend, and to die for liberty; in short, to
mold and redeem by its all-transforming energy everything that belongs
to man in his individual and social relations.
It was the faith of our fathers that gave us this free land in which we
dwell. It is by this faith only that we can transmit it to our Children, a
free and happy, because a Christian Commonwealth.
We acknowledge the duty that is laid ivrjou Us by the Redeemer to
carry this gospel into every part of this land and to all nations; and
to teach all men the things which he has commanded us to observe and to
do. May He to whom all " power is given in heaven and in earth "
fulfill the promise which is all our hope: " Lo, I am with, you alway; even
to the end of the world." To him be praise in the church for ever,
Amen. For the Committee, JOHN 0. FISKEj Chairman.
The report was accepted.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott^ of Ohio, moved its adoption.
Rev. Mr. Balkam, of Maine, moved tb substitute the original
paper, read by Rev. Dr. Thompson.
Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York. I hope that amendment will not
prevail. I wftl give you my opinion on that subject in a very few words.
Notwithstanding the services rendered by Dr. Lawrence in preparing
the report for the committee, that report cost us no little thought and
labor and care. But I am sure that I speak the sentiments of my breth
ren upon the committee, as weU as my own, when I say that we have not
the least personal desire that that particular document which we pre
pared should be adopted by this body in preference to any other. Our
aim in the preparation of that document was, hot to bring forward our
own opinions specifically, and to urge thein upon- any body, but to pre
pare, as we were instructed to do, a declaration of the faith commonly
received among our churches. And we met and prepared that declaration
upon a basis which, by anticipation, might be acceptable to the great and
most respectable body of brethren and fathers who would be here con
vened. I have given this but a hasty reading here, but it strikes me as, in sev
eral particulars, a decided improvement upon the document which I had
the honor, as chairman of the other committee, to submit. It is based
upon the same general principle; and I am sure that we can agree to a
declaration of faith upon no other principle. We canvassed that matter
so thoroughly, I am sure we were not mistaken. We said, The Council

S48 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
may do as they please with the words, but they must come back to the
two essential ideas: maintaining the historic unity of our body in that
grand system of theology which has been the life of our churches here,
and which our Western brethren need to-day, more than our fathers
needed it two hundred years ago; and, on the other hand, we must, in
these present times, reach forth widely the hand of fellowship tb aU who
love our Lord Jesus Christ, by avoiding any offensive statement of pecu-
VUarities of doctrine. We prepared our paper upon that principle, with
such measure of wisdom and grace — and we humbly thought and felt
that the grace of God was with us — as was vouchsafed to us.
This declaration adheres to that principle. It is an improvement to
place it in the form of confession, " We believe," instead of the abstract
form of declaration which we had followed. This comes from practical ''
gentlemen, theological professors, and not from such speculative gentle
men as were engaged upon the other. [Laughter.] But whatever may
be the verbal comparison we may institute between these two documents,
the fact that we have had upon the committee which made this report, a-
large representative body of pastors and deacons of all schools — if it is
worth while to talk of schools here ; I do not belong to any myself — and
from all parts of the country; and we have added to these a representa
tive from every one of our theological seminaries. They have sat upon
this document carefully and prayerfully, in whole committee and by sub-
commitee, as I understand, for these many days; for which they largely
deserve the thanks of this Council; and some of us know how tedious
and responsible that sort of work is. They largely deserve thanks from
us for denying themselves the pleasures and excitement of this meeting
to attend to this work. Their work is well done, and I should be very
sorry, although I acknowledge the compUmenfary courtesy of the
mover of this amendment, to have any other declaration brought up here
to impede the passage of that which this committee have to-day reported
to us.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio. I should not have risen to advocate
any motion upon this subject, had I not felt constrained, at an earUer
stage of our proceedings, to offer a resolution relative to this general sub
ject. As my vote will rest not alone upon my conviction of the excel
lence of the declaration now submitted, nor alone upon my conviction of
the wisdom of issuing such a declaration by this CouncU, I can not ex
plain it without a brief recurrence to the steps by which the CouncU has
been brought into its present relations to this subject; and I think the
consideration of this may bring those who* have not been in favor of issu
ing any declaration, to the unanimous conclusion to adopt the paper be
fore us.
The preliminary meeting of the State committees in New York, sent,
in the letters missive to the churches, a proposition, that, among other
topics, we consider the expediency of issuing a declaration of our faith.
So far as the Ohio delegation is concerned, and I suppose it is true of
other State committees, that preUminary meeting was authorized to call
a National Councft, if thought advisable, for certain specific reasons, of

DECLARATION OF FAITH. 349
which this was not one. They were pleased, however, to include this
in their letters missive; and it has been responded to by all the churches,
and they aU came up to consider the expediency of issuing such a declar
ation. The paper submitted to us by the committee appointed at the preUm
inary mefeting did not argue that question. It assumed it. The whole
, paper rested upon the assumption that the issuing of such a paper was
! expedient. There were considerations bearing upon the expediency of
the thing, wholly irrespective of the merits of any paper that might be
presented here. We co,uld not do what was asked here, without taking
that question into account. The committee on Church polity did discuss
it, and gave reasons in favor of the adoption of such a document. There
fore, under the. rule which precluded the discussion of a paper, but left
us entirely free to instruct a committee, I moved the reference to a com
mittee with instructions.
I was understood, I find, by more than one in favor of that motion for
¦ instructions, to argue in favor of a certain view and opinion upon the gen
eral measure, which I could not have conscientiously done, because I had
not, at that time, any opinion upon the general subject which I wished to
maintain respecting the paper, or the expediency of issuing any declara
tion. I urged that the committee should be thus instructed for the valid
reason, that this topic did not enter into the original conception of this
Council; that it was one upon«which our churches were traditionally sen
sitive — naturally and justly so. And, if we accepted the issuing of the
paper as a foregone conclusion, without considering the expediency of it,
I felt that the result would not be satisfactory to the churches. But, as
able a committee as the body could raise have taken the whole subject
under advisement, and have thought it expedient to issue a declaration,
and have united in the declaration which is now before us. .My individ
ual opinion is, that the faith of our churches never stood in a fairer Ught
before the world than at the time this Council came together; and that
what we wanted was not so much to declare our faith, as to prove our
faith by our works, — making more account of the fact that we are
Christians than of the fact that we are CongregationaUsts, though by no
means overlooking the latter; but coming together as members of the
Church of Christ, to occupy the field which the providence of God has
given to us, to lay our plans for taking possession of ft in the name of the
Lord. I thought it desirable, if we could, to come together as a National
CouncU, for this practical work, without discussing the faith and polity
of the churches; because, if that is understood to be the work of a Na
tional Council, we can not meet oftener than once in a century, or, per
haps, two centuries; while, upon the other plan, we might secure the
, .benefit of occasional, and, perhaps, stated meetings of this kind.
''>'¦ But whatever may have been my opinion originally upon the question
of the expediency of issuing such a declaration, I certainly think we
should now be Uable to grave misconception, if we should faft to send
one forth at the stage which the matter has now reached. I heartily join
in the adoption of the paper now submitted, although I regarded the for-

350 ¦ DECLARATION OF FAITH.
mer paper as a very able document, and could have voted for it. I give the
preference to that which has been read this morning, for this reason
among others, that I observe in it a hearty recognition of other churches
of Christ, churches of other denominations; and I feel that we are bound
as Congregationalists to recognize as true churches of Christ these local
companies of beUevers connected, according to their own ideas, .with na
tional organizations which we ignore. ' To the churches themselves, as
Christian brethren, we ought to extend the right hand of fellowship; and
as far as permitted, we should co-operate with them in our work of
faith and labor of love.
Rev. Mr. Balkam, of Maine. I trust that this Council may be ex
pected to vote for the paper which it prefers, and not out of deference to
any committee. In moving the adoption of Dr. Thompson's report, I
did not move it as anything complimentary to him, or to the committee
of which he was chairman; but because I preferred his report and be
heved that it was right, and that it expressed in a remarkable degree the
convictions of this CouncU. I can not doubt that the CouncU, if it will
follow its own convictions, will prefer the first report.
There are some things in the report which has just been read which I
Uke very much indeed. I thought it was great feUcity in the admirably
conceived and admirably expressed report of Dr. Thompson, that it did
pursue what it characterizes as the abstract form; that it did not say,
" We believe." I thought the Congregational churches were indepen
dent churches,. and were jealous of having any councU, even a national
council, prescribe forms, of faith to them. I thought this original report
very ingeniously avoided any objection of that kind, by saying, " We
bear testimony to these doctrines; we do not prescribe them; we do not
enjoin them upon anybody; but this Council, an assembled body of
Christians, meeting in Boston, begs leave to bear its testimony so and
so." I submit that it was admirably done; and if the CoimcU prefer the
original report, I hope they wiU adopt it.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. It is with regret that I obtrude any
thought of mine upon the Council at this time; but I feel constrained, —
being such an one as the apostle Peter speaks of as " Paul the aged,"
for I am a little of an old man, — I feel constrained to say a few words
upon the subject now before the Council. It has seemed to me from the
beginning that the whole scheme of an advance and aggressive action in
this country, and especiaUy of our aggressive action upon the States re
covered from the late rebelUon, is dependent upon being able to declare
with one heart and one voice what our faith is — what is our united faith
as a Christian body.
I must say here, and I hope I may 'be found to be in error, that I have
had some apprehension that some of our brethren in some parts of the
country have an idea of Congregationalism that it consists in believing
nothing in particular. I remember a brother who read here yesterday,
as a sufficient declaration of our faith, the ancient and present condition
of membership in our churches. We all of us hold, I trust, that every
disciple of Christ, however weak his faith, if he have inteUigence enough

DECLARATION OF FAITH. 8.0 1
and faith enough to make it manifest that he beUeves in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and trusts in him for the salvation of his soul, and intends to fol
low him, has a right to come to the Lord's fable, and be recognized as a
feUow-disciple, and be a member of any of our churches.
I beUeve all our schools, so far as we have any schools, are agreed
upon this. But I do not beUeve that a profession of personal faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ, be it ever so satisfactory, is a sufficient profes-r
sion of faith for a church to make that offers itself for the more int>
mate communion and feUowship of the Congregational churches; nor do
I beUeve it is a sufficient profession of faith for a man to make, who, at
the caU of any ehureh, is presented before an ecclesiastical council as a
candidate for ordination for the work of the Christian ministry. I beUeve
that for the Christian ministry we are to require also a general declara
tion, not simply of personal faith and repentance, — repentance toward
God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, — but such a profession
of doctrinal beUef as shall show the competence of the man rightly to
divide the word of truth.
I beUeve, furthermore, — I am making something of a declaration of
faith myself, — that it is the right and the duty of any such body of rep
resentatives as those representing the Congregational churches of the
land, to stand up, and with one heart and one voice to say what we be
Ueve, — what we unitedly beUeve, and not what this or that particular
colleague beUeves or would like to have other people believe ; not what
a few perhaps would Uke to impose by some sort of force or coercion
upon people that do not believe it, but what we ourselves believe; be
cause we who are here assembled know that, one and all, there is a great
body of Christian doctrine upon which we are unanimous; not unani
mous, perhaps, in any possible statement of it, but unanimous as to the
substance Of it, and which we know our churches hold as the basis of
their special fellowship and communion, and co-operation in the advance
ment of the kingdom of Christ.
We are not Arminianists, and we do not want to invite the body of
Arminian clergy, or the Arminian Methodists, to come in and be as one
with us. We should faU out by the way very speedily. But I am will
ing and desirous to' make such a declaration of our, common faith as
shaU disarm the hereditary prejudices and antipathies of other bodies of
Christians, and show them, if possible, in its attractiveness and beauty
and power, our common system of faith.
There is this difference to be observed, which I think the brother who
spoke last did not adequately realize : there is a difference between a
profession of faith made, and a confession of faith imposed. It is the
history of Congregationalism to protest everywhere against imposed
confessions of faith. I protest against them everywhere. An imposed
prayer-book I, protest against. An imposed confession of faith I protest
against. I protest against that entire Presbyterian system of imposing
confessions of faith. I hold it to be not only inconsistent with the high
est freedom and purity of the churches, but actually and absolutely de
moralizing. It is an idol set up in the church of God. I go any length in

/

So 2 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
opposition to that whole system of imposed confessions of faith which a
man does not make for himself, which he does not understand, about
which judicatories dispute and wrangle, and which every man, under
penalty of losing his living, shall swear by, through thick and thin. It
is an idol, and contrary to the second commandment. [Applause.]
Let me make my own profession of faith, and I can make as good a
one, and, if need be, as long a one, as anybody else. But we do not want
to make a long profession of faith here; and no profession of faith we
may make can by any possibility be imposed upon anybody. No pro
fession of faith we may make can bind anybody's conscience. Surely,
if we can unite in adopting a report Uke that placed upon your records,
we can unite in adopting a report like that now under consideration.
We can say as a- Christian assembly, as a representative assembly of
Christian pastors and messengers, that we do hold in substance to that
great, strong, iron-ribbed doctrine which was the common faith in the
Reformation; which has come down from Paul, through Augustine, and
Calvin, and, among us, through Edwards and Hopkins. We can say
that we hold the substance of that; not that we swaUow the whole of
Hopkins' body of divinity at a gulp; not that we swaUow even Dwight's
more diluted system of theology; not that we swallow the entire West
minster Catechism, in every angle of it, — but the great body of the doc
trine; and, like the New Orleans minister, we wftl hold it, though we die
for it.
At the same time we can say, as this last report says, here is a body
of doctrines which we do not profess to be pecuUarly ours, but which
are held by all evangeUcal Christians with whom we co-operate or desire
to co-operate, which we hold in common with them. I hope — I am con
fident, that when the question is put to this Council, " Will you accept
this report, and adopt this declaration of your faith? " the yea wiU be
unanimous ; and we shall unite, as the Council or Synod of 1648 united,
in an anthem of praise to God for the unanimity.
Professor Porter, of Yale College. I rise for the purpose of say
ing a few words in order to put the committee right with reference to
the previous report, and also to express the view taken by the commit
tee of the document now presented. We ^understood, when we were
called together, that it was the desire of the Council that some change
should be made; and we have acted under that impression. For aught
that I know, every individual of us would have been wUUng to accept
the declaration reported by the preliminary committee. I certainly, for
one, was entirely ready to- receive it. We acted rather as the servants
of the Council in preparing this report. I can assure you that we did
not act to please ourselves. I presume that not a single individual of
the committee would say that the document is such a one as he for him
self would have prepared. But as the servants of the CouncU, we de
sired to construct a document which would meet the varying views of
the representatives of 2,500 or 3,000 churches. We accordingly abridged
the historical statement, and changed in form, somewhat, our adherence
to the old confessions. Then it seemed desirable that we should, in a

DECLARATION OF FAITH. 353
more devotional form, — in the form of a confession, — express the com
mon faith we held in all our churches, at a time when the common foun
dations of aU Christian faith were openly assailed and secretly under
mined in all our communities.
With reference to this condition of things, which it wUl not do for us
to ignore, however much we would like that it should not be, we thought
it proper that all who beUeve with us should confess our common faith,
in a personal God, in a God incarnate, in a Redeemer, — the great truths
without which Christianity is nothing, and the church itself can not exist
It seemed not only proper, but our bounden duty so to do. It seemed
desirable to do it in somewhat briefer terms, and in a somewhat different
manner, from that which was adopted by the preliminary committee.
Then it seemed desirable to confess our faith concerning the church, —
which also is one of the great questions of our times, — concerning the
church, the house of God. There is in aU our communities a great
moral and Christian movement, with which I confess I sympathize,
toward the restoration of the divided body of Christ. We must recog
nize that movement. We, of all the so-called sects, are alone prepared
to throw ourselves upon it, to guide it, to assert our vantage with respect
to it. 'CongregationaUsm, with aU the rigor of its Calvinism, with all
the energy of its theology, with aU the directness and manUness of its
piety, is yet the only denomination which is truly in its principles unsec
tarian. So was it from the beginning. The five dissenting brothers, —
among whom were those two conspicuous stars, John Owen and Thomas
Goodwin, — the five dissenting brothers in the Westminster Assembly,
were set apart, among the rest, as asserting this great truth. We are
true to our traditions, and true to our spirit. Acting in that spirit, we
have given away to other denominations hundreds upon hundreds, which
might have been our churches. We might have had hundreds more
here represented, churches which are now Presbyterian, if it had not
been that we cared more for the gospel than we cared for a form of pol
ity. This it seemed right to assert, to assume for ourselves this vantage
position, and place it before the world. Our order is apostolic, and
therefore it is unsectarian.
In addition it seemed proper for us to assert, in a word or two, the fact
which is notorious, that the truths, the forms in which we have held
Christianity, Calvinism, has been eminently favorable to the reformation
of men. The Puritans, who pre-eminently were CongregationaUsts, have
held Christian truth in'aU possible applications to reform; and that is one
of our pecuUarities.
These are the special points which you wiU find expanded in this dec
laration. It seemed desirable, as this declaration will be looked at with
great interest, that in language which could be understood, which though
condensed might be followed, we should express our faith in these vari
ous aspects; our faith as Calvinists, our faith as unsectarian, and our
faith as reforming Puritans.
Rev. Prof. Lawrence, of Connecticut. I stand in a pecuUar relation
to the motion now before the Council, inasmuch as my hand was in the
23

354 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
formation of the first report made to this body, and also of the second.
I am rather a father to both. They are my children, and I am ready to
recognize that relation. I do not regard them exactly in the Ught of
Esau and Jacob, and yet I have a decided preference for the younger. I
am not very new-school in my theology, yet I prefer this- because it is
the newest, as well as because I think it is the best. It propounds some
of the modern issues of the times more distinctly, more Uvingly, and, I
am persuaded, more satisfactorily to the body, and to the whole denomi
nation. I Uke both the reports on this ground, because there was the
old and the new, and because they were combined in one, having this
attribute of our holy Scriptures, an Old Testament and a New Testa
ment. It should be remembered that our fathers have fought the great
battles of truth and freedom on the basis of the old. Our distinctive de
nomination under Calvin obtained deUverance in Geneva. CromweUand
the Independents of Old England fought against the RoyaUsts upon this
ground, and conquered. Edwards, in the last century, and Hopkins and
Bellamy, " fought it out on this Une " to victory. In the opening of this
century, Morse and Worcester and Woods and Stuart and Beecher
fought Unitarianism and conquered, as we believe, though the victory is
claimed on the other side, and we allow them the victory. Here then
in this Council, after one hundred and fifty years and a Uttle more, we
resume our standing upon this time-honored ground upon which our
fathers have stood.
Then I like the new, because we have defined clearly our position as a
denomination. We step upon the high platform of faith with the other
denominations, and we invite them to a unity of faith against Romanism,
Heathenism, and all other isms that assail our common foundation. I
like both the old and the new. I like both my children, the elder and the
younger; but I like the younger better, and I hope this Council wiU
adopt it and make it its own, and that the denomination wUl adopt it and
make it its own.
Rev. Mr. Balkan, of Maine, withdrew his motion to amend,
and the question recurred upon the adoption of the report read
by Rev. Mr. Fiske.
Rev. Dr. Leavitt, of New York. I move as an amendment to this
document, to strike out from the third paragraph the words " which is
commonly know<n among us as Calvinism," &c. I make this motion,
not because I am not a Calvinist, as the word is generally understood,
for I am so, and have always been so. I am so firmly a Calvinist that I
have never been afraid that the system which is caUed Calvinism could
not stand alone and take care of itself without being continually dinned
into people's ears under the name of Calvinism. The historical prelimi-
nary statement need not be altered, because it is historicaUy true that
our fathers did accept those confessions of faith in substance of doctrine.
It is also true that they have always adhered to those systems of faith
in substance of doctrine. But by aUowing the denomination to be char-

DECLARATION of faith. 355
acterized by adhesion to those confession's of faith, we have lost the coun
try which was once ours.
Those systems of faith we do not hold as systems. As systems they
were devised and formed for organized churches, not for free churches
Uke ours. As systems they are characterized by qualities, and have
been the cause of consequences which are injurious, which are deleteri
ous to our well being as a body of Christian churches. As long as you
persist in calling yourselves in this way; characterizing yourselves as
Calvinists, which you are not in the sense in which the word is under
stood by those outside of ourselves, so long you have the whole of that
system of faith continuaUy thrown in your teeth, and brought up for
your destruction. While this is true, — while we have seen our congre
gations melting away from under us by the use which has been made of
these ancient, worn-out, obsolete confessions, — it is also true that the sys
tem of doctrines which you teach, and hold, and preach, has made itself
felt, is almost openly adopted, is certainly realized in the inmost convic
tions of large bodies of those who consider themselves bound by their
position to reject the name of Calvinism.
I am familiar with ministers and members of Methodist Churches, and
I say they hold this system Of doctrine, the greater part of it, as tena
ciously and as intelUgently as we do ourselves, with the only exception of
some technical terms, and the name of Calvinism. If we are to bring
them to the test of Calvinism, they can not come to us without a greater
strain than is naturally to be expected from poor human nature. I have
known instances where able men, and better preachers than the average
of us have been deterred from accepting invitations to become the pas
tors of our churches, simply by the dread of the scrutiny and screwing
to which they might be subjected by an examining council to see wheth-
¦ er they were Calvinists or not.
Bev. Dr. Patton, of IlUnois. I wish to say a word in support of that
motion, not upon the ground upon which it was made by our brother, but
upoh the ground that our Lord Jesus told us to call no man father.
A member. Master.
Dr. Patton. Master and father both. I consider it a great blessing
that I was not born in the Lutheran denomination, to bear all my life
long a man's name in connection with my religion. I consider it a hap
py thing that the Congregationalists, although we hold the substance of
his doctrines, do not bear the name of Calvin. I think we ought to avoid
falling into that snare ; and while we retain the acknowledgment of the
doctrines, we should strike out the human name.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. I give my hearty concurrence to
the two brethren who have just spoken. It is time that we ceased to call
ourselves by any human name. Why not call ourselves Edwardians as
well as Calvinists. We propose to take the Bible as our rule of faith, in
stead of Calvin. It is customary with other sects to put horns and hoofs
Upon Calvinism; and if we adopt the name, they put the horns and hoofs
Upon us and veritably believe they belong to us.
Rev. Dr. Sturtevant, of IlUnois. I am not prepared to vote for this

356 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
document unamended; but I do not know that I can find any considerable
number to sympathize with my views. I agree with Dr. Bapon entirely
that we wish to propagate all over our country and the world a great,
unique, definite system. I have no misunderstanding on that point at aU;
and I testify for all my western brethren that they think so too. If Dr.
Bacon or any other man supposes that there is any lukewarmness on
that subject at the West, he is simply mistaken.
What I want is, that if we are to have any declaration of doctrine at
all, — and I have pretty nearly come to the conclusion that we ought to
have, although I doubted it very much at the outset, — I want a declara
tion of doctrine that goes the whole length of stating, in original Uving
words of our own, in this year of grace 1865, what our view of that sys
tem is. If those brethren who have reported this document wftl take the
language back again, and put their heads, and their hearts, and their
prayers at work for six months, and draw up for us such a document, I
wiU come from my home to another meeting of this Council, and bear
my own expenses, that we may have such a document as wiU actuaUy
express the faith of these churches here and now, with no reference
whatever to any past formula, that shaft be the Boston Confession, if
you please; that shall be the sentiment of the Congregational churches
in the year 1865, in words of their own choosing. '
One word. more. I am sorry for these references to the old standards.
I do not know how many wUl agree with me there. I wiU teU you why
I am sorry. There is language in every one of those old standards
which not a man upon this floor receives.
A member. " Substance of doctrine."
Rev. Dr. Sturtevant. I wish to be excused from that phrase when
I make a confession of faith. I want a confession of faith to express what I
mean; and it will be hard work for me to vote for it if I know there is
phraseology in it which I do not mean. In all my controversies with
the Presbyterian Church, they insisted upon my subscribing their for
mula for substance of doctrine. I wanted to be simply an honest man;
and I want these brethren to be simply honest men, and to accept a con
fession of faith which every one of them does in his heart and soul be
lieve, without any phraseology or statements in it which we could wish
were away, with no expression to be a stumbling-block to every profes
sor of theology and to every man in this house. I have sat here and
doubted and doubted whether to make this speech or not; but I have
- made it, and here I stand.
Rev. Dr. Barstow, of New Hampshire. I hope we all hold to the
old formula of the Westminster Assembly's Catechism, and the Savoy
Confession of Paith, and I hope every member wftl be ready to reaffirm
it. Several members. No, no.
Dr. Barstow continuing. The same phraseology our fathers used in
1648. We say we beUeve for substance of doctrine the confession of the
Westminster Assembly. I stand upon that ground now, and I hope the
brethren of this body will.

DECLARATION OF FAITH. 357
Kev. Prof. Park, of Massachusetts, said : I do not feel able to say a
word this afternoon, in consequence of my having been kept in a cellar1
for two or three days [Laughter], and being now quite feeble in health.
But, sir, we are Calvinists, mainly, essentially, in all the essentials of
our faith: and the man who, having pursued a three years' course of
study, — having studied the Bible in the original languages, — is not a
Calvinist, is not a respectable man. I have a high respect for this Council.
I have a great reverence for this Council; and although 1 have been im
mured in a cellar for so long a time, yet when I have seen members of
this Council, I have seen that they were inteUigent and able men, — such
men as are very seldom assembled in any one body. But I should alter
my opinion of it at once and totally, if it should discard the name of Cal
vinists. I confess I should be utterly and perfectly ashamed to have this
amendment pass. I should be ashamed to see it published in the news
papers. We should be a hissing and a by- word among the people ; be
cause we are such in substance of doctrine, and we avow ourselves to be
such in the main and in the essentials. We use these expressions very
frequently. And if we can not go before the world, and say we are such,
then I think we have misunderstood the nature and the spirit of this
great system. This is an historical name ; and I would not be cut off
from our historical connection with the great fathers of our churches. I
hope by all means that this amendment will not pass this afternoon at
this late hour. If the brethren insist upon considering it further, I hope
that the subject will be deferred until to-morrow.
Rev. Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts, rose to speak, desiring to
occupy but one minute.
The hour of 5 o'clock having arrived, the Moderator stated
that it would not be in order.
On motion, the order was suspended to allow Rev. Mr. Allen
two minutes.
Rev. Mr. Allen stated, and appealed to Professors Park, Lawrence,
and others, to sustain him; that the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's
sin was not to be found in Calvin's writings. He believed in total cor
ruption, but not in imputation. Those who beUeved in imputation,
therefore, were not Calvinists.
The question being taken upon the amendment, upon divis
ion, there was manifestly a large majority opposed to it, and it
was declared rejected without a count.
Rev. Mr. Ferrin, of Vermont, moved to lay the report upon
the table.
The motion was rejected.
1 The basement of Mount Vernon Church, in attendance upon committees.

358 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
Rev. Dr. Eddy, of Massachusetts, moved to adjourn.
The motion was rejected.
Rev. Mr. Byington, of Vermont, raised the question of order,
that the Council must be declared adjourned, unless this order
was further suspended, without a motion.
The Moderator ruled that the Convention had just, by its
vote, declared otherwise.
Rev. Dr. Eddy, of Massachusetts. I protest against having a confes
sion of faith imposed upon us.
A member moved to postpone the further consideration of the
report until the next session.
The motion was rejected.
Rev. Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts, moved to suspend the
order fixing the hour for adjournment until further vote.
Rev. Mr. Balkam raised the point of order, that even that
motion was out of order after 5 o'clock.
The point of order was overruled by the Moderator.
The motion to suspend was agreed to.
Rev. Dr. Leavitt, of New York, moved to amend the. report
by inserting after the word " above-named," in the third para
graph, the words, " Doctrinal Articles of the Church of England."
Rev. Dr. Wolcott. I should deprecate exceedingly pressing this
matter to-night to a decision of the Council. I move that we hear some
notices from the Business Committee, and then adjourn.
Rev. Mr. Dexter, of Massachusetts, suggested as a modifica
tion of the motion, that it be to meet to-morrow morning, at
11 o'clock, on Burial Hill, in Plymouth, unless it be rainy, in
which case, to meet in Rev. Dr. Kirk's Church.
Rey. Mr. Wolcott accepted the modification, and the motion
as modified was agreed to.
Rev. Mr. Quint, of the Business Committee, introduced vari
ous papers, which were appropriately referred ; as follows : —
(1.) Whereas, The use of tobacco is a great and growing evil in our
land, and large treasures are wasted in forming and cherishing a habit
that is not only expensive but highly injurious; therefore
Resolved, That this Council do, in the most solemn and decided man
ner, raise a voice of warning against this evil, and exhort our churches
and our people everywhere to set their faces Uke a flint against it, that

SABBATH.  CHURCH IN BALTIMORE. 359
our precious youth may be saved from its baneful influence, and the fair
est portion of our earthly heritage from foul desecration.
Accepted, and referred to the committee on Temperance.
(2.) Resolved, That we recommend to all the churches represented in
this Council the observance of the  day of  as a day of special
fasting and prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the land,
to crown with success the results reached by this body; and that we
send a brief address to those churches, to be laid before them on that
occasion. Accepted, and reference ordered to a special committee to be
appointed. (S.) Whereas, Our Pilgrim Fathers regarded the strict observance of
the Sabbath as a duty they owed to God, and also as indispensable to the
formation of a free Christian repubUc; and
Whereas, The desecration of the Sabbath is proverbial, both by the
nation and by individuals, and thereby one of the fundamental principles
on which our fathers reared this mighty nation is greatly imperiled, and
the God who ordained the Sabbath dishonored: therefore
Resolved, That we as a Council greatly deplore the general desecrar
tion of the Sabbath in our beloved land, and feel called upon to use aU
proper efforts, in the pulpit and by the pew, by prayer, and if necessary
by our petitions to Congress, to restore to the nation the sanctity of the
Christian Sabbath, once so dear to our fathers.
Reference ordered to the committee on the " Declaration of
Faith." (4.) Whereas, This Council is informed that a band of Christians in'
Baltimore, many of whom are known to have been flrst among the fore
most in the great movements in Maryland during the last four years for
Uberty and the Union, have recently been organized into a Congrega
tional Church; and
Whereas, These representatives of the New England polity and spirit
have with great self-sacrifice devoted themselves and their property to
the enterprise of building, upon a commanding hight in that city a
Church edifice worthy of their cause, and of gathering from the large
number of inteftigent and liberty-loving citizens of that emancipated me
tropolis a vigorous and influential church; and
Whereas, We have reason to believe that the success of one such en
terprise would lead to the early estabUshment of other strong churches in
Baltimore, and that such a church, standing in the gateway of the South,
would insure the organization of many more in the regions beyond, and
would itself become a light and a power over the whole land: therefore
Resolved, That this National Council commend this initial enterprise
at the South to the sympathy and most Uberal aid of our whole denom-

360 REPORT OF FINANCE COMMITTEE.
ination, as one of the highest importance to our country, to the interests
of liberty, and to the cause of Christ.
Accepted, and referre'd to the committee on the Evangeliza
tion of the West and South.
(5.) Resolved, That it is inexpedient and improper that pastors of Con
gregational churches should assume, or retain, membership in another
denomination. Accepted, and referred to the committee on Church Polity.
(6.) Resolved, That a committee be raised to devise ways and means
to raise the $750,000 voted as expedient for national evangeUzation.
Reference ordered to a special committee to be appointed.
(7.) Resolved, That this Council wiU adjourn sine die on Saturday
next, at 12, m.
Reference ordered to Business Committee.
(8.) Whereas, The expeditious securing of the $750,000 which our
churches have been recommended to raise is of the first importance to
our land and the Church; and
Whereas, An equitable apportionment of this sum among the churches
of our several States, according to their several ability, would greatly
faciUtate the obtaining of the entire sum:
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to make as equitable an ap
portionment as possible of the sum to be raised, among the different
States, and in due time to inform the churches of each State what por
tion of the fund it properly belongs to them to furnish.
Accepted, and reference ordered to the special committee on
Ways and Means of obtaining the 1750,000 fund, previously
ordered. The special committee to whom was referred the report of the
Finance Committee reported by resolutions, as follows :
Whereas, The failure of a large number of churches to respond to the
call made by the preliminary meeting, for contributions to meet the ex
penses of this Council, has resulted in a lack of means to meet the just
demands upon our treasury: therefore
Resolved, That the Finance Committee be authorized to caU upon the
more wealthy of those churches which failed to make contribution, for a
sum not less than one thousand dollars to meet such deficit; and that
said committee be directed to pay over any balance which shaU remain
in their hands, after discharging all just claims against this Council, into
the hands of the Congregational Union.

DECLARATION OF FAITH. 361
Resolved, That the delegates to this Council, representing the churches
to which this call shall be addressed, be requested to aid the committee
in their collections.
Accepted and adopted.
After singing the Doxology, the Council adjourned, at half
past five o'clock, P. M.

EIGHTH DAY, THURSDAY, JUNE 22.
The Council met on Burial Hill, Plymouth, on the spot
where the first meeting-house of the Pilgrims stood, at Hi
o'clock, Assistant Moderator Hammond presiding.
On motion, the reading of the minutes of yesterday was
omitted. Rev. Mr. Qltnt, of Massachusetts. I have been directed by the Busi
ness Committee to read a paper which is in their hands. The idea was en
tertained that it might possibly meet the views of all present. If it did,
well; if it did not, It could be quietly dropped. The paper is as follows:
DECLARATION OF FAITH.
Standing by the rock where the PUgrims set foot upon these shores,
upon the spot where they worshiped God, and among the graves of the
early generations, we, Elders and Messengers of the Congregational
Churches of the United States, in National Council assembled, like them
acknowledging no rule of faith but the word of God, do now reiterate
our adherence to the faith and order of the Apostolic and Primitive
Churches as held by our fathers, and as substantially embodied in the
Confessions and Platforms which our Synods of 1648 and 1680 set forth
or reaflirmed. We declare that the experience of the nearly two and a
half centuries which have elapsed since the memorable day when our
sires founded here a Christian commonwealth, with all the development
of new forms of error since their times, have only deepened our confi
dence in the faith and polity of these fathers. We bless the God of our
fathers for the inheritance of these doctrines, which have been trans
mitted to us, their children. We invoke the help of the Divine Re
deemer, that, through the presence of the promised Comforter, he wiU
enable us to transmit them in purity to our children.
In the times that are before us as a nation, times at once of duty and
of danger, we rest all our hope in the gospel of the Son of God. It
was the grand peculiarity of our Puritan Fathers that they held this
gospel not merely as the ground of their personal salvation, but as de
claring the worth of man by the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of

362 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
God, and therefore applied its principles to elevate society, to regulate
education, to civilize humanity, to purify law, to, reform the Church and
the State, to assert and to defend liberty; in short, to mold and redeem,
by its all-transforming energy, everything that belongs to man in his in
dividual and social relations.
It was the faith of our fathers that gave us this free land in which we
dwell. It is by this faith only that we can transmit it to our children a
free and happy, because a Christian, commonwealth.
We hold it to be a distinctive excellence of our Congregational sys
tem that it exalts that which is more, above that which is less, important,
and by the simpftcfty of its organization, faciUtates, in communities
where the population is limited, the union of aU true beUevers in one
Christian Church; and that the division of such communities into sev
eral weak and jealous societies, holding the same common faith, is a sin
against the unity of the body of Christ, and at once the shame and
scandal of Christendom. [Inserted on second reading.]
We rejoice that, through the influence of our free system of apostolic
order, we can hold feUowship with aU who acknowledge Christ, and act
efficiently in the work of restoring unity to the divided Church, and of
bringing back harmony and peace among aU " who love our Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity."
But recognizing the unity of the Church of Christ in aU the world,
and knowing that we are but one branch of Christ's people, wHle adher
ing to our own pecuUar faith and order, we extend to all beUevers the
hand of Christian feUowship upon the basis of those fundamental truths
in which all Christians may agree. With them, we confess our faith in
God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the only Uving and true
God; in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, who is exalted to be our Re
deemer and Bang; and in the Holy Comforter, who is present in the
Church to regenerate and sanctify the soul.
With the whole Church, we confess the common sinfulness and ruin of
our race, and acknowledge that it is only through the work accomplished
by the life and expiatory death of Christ that we are justified before
God, and receive the remission of sins; and that it is through the pres
ence and grace of the Holy Comforter alone that we hope to be deUv
ered from the power of sin, and to be perfected in holiness.
We believe, also, in an organized and visible Church, in the ministry of
the Word, in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, in the
resurrection of the body, and in the final judgment, the issues of which
are eternal Ufe and everlasting punishment.
We receive these truths on the testimony of God, given originaUy
through prophets and apostles, and in the life, the miracles, the death,
the resurrection, of his Son, our divine Redeemer, — a testimony pre
served for the Church in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments,
which were composed by holy men as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost. Affirming now our beUef that those who thus hold " one faith, one
Lord, one baptism," together constitute the one cathoUc Church, the sev-

DECLARATION OF FAITH. 368
eral households of which, though called by different names, are the one
body of Christ, and that these members of his body are sacredly bound
to keep the " unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," we declare that
we will coroperate with all who hold these truths. With them, we will
carry the gospel into every part of this land; and with them we wiU go
"into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
May He to whom " aU power is given in heaven and earth " fulfill the
promise which is all our hope: " Lo, I am, with you alway, even to the
end of the world." Amen.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. I want to make a suggestion, which
I think wiU meet the entire approval of the Council.
When we adjourned last evening, I felt that a providence of God had
intervened to prevent the adoption, at that time and place, of the
Declaration of Faith that was then before us. I felt that on this conse
crated spot, to us " the hoUest spot of all the earth," we should become,
all of us, more deeply and fervently conscious of our relation to the past,
and of our relation to the boundless continent, and to the boundless
future, than we could be even there, and that there was a fitness in our
here uniting in giving our testimony to the faith and to the order
which our PUgrim Fathers brought with them when they came to this
spot and laid the foundations of empire, in their humility, and their un
consciousness of the grandeur of their destiny. I wish to suggest then,
Mr. Moderator, that in adopting this paper which has now been laid
before us, we are to be understood as adopting it according to the old
forms, the old "use of language, substantially ; adopting it, not as if every
one of us was going to swear by those ipsissima verba, but adopting it in
its essence, in its meaning, and in its scope. Then, if it be fit, we may
adopt the other also, — although I do not perceive any deviation in this
from the other; — and then, for the sake of perfecting the document,
grammaticaUy, rhetoricaUy, and in respect of logical arrangement, —
although I think this is an improvement upon the first one in that re
gard,— it may be referred to a large and representative committee, who„
by a sub-committee of their own appointment, shaU make it as perfect
as possible, in all respects, and shall then certify to the world, in giving
it out, that this is the Declaration of Faith which was made on this
sacred spot, by this Council. I beUeve the suggestion is understood, and
trust it will receive the unanimous approval of the whole Council here
assembled. Bev. Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts. In the name of our fathers, I pro
test, from this consecrated hill, against that Declaration. It is sectarian.
The Moderator. Any protest against our action may be filed with
the Secretary, and put upon the record in the proper way.
Dea. Stoddard, of Massachusetts! I hope the Declaration will be
adopted, in accordance with the suggestion of Dr. Bacon.
Rev. Prof. Porter, of Connecticut. I have no very special objection
to most of the paper which has been read, which is taken, in substance,
from the document that was before us yesterday ; but it seems to me

364 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
scarcely in keeping with the traditions concerning order which we have
received from our fathers, that a paper should be presented under cir
cumstances like these, in which all debate must be necessarily excluded,
in order to carry a point which, perhaps, on deUberation, might be agree
able to us all. I noticed, still further, the omission of what I deem to
be an important paragraph in the paper reported by the committee,
and that is a paragraph which is near the bottom of the second page,
where we assert the value of our system in promoting what I consider
a very great movement at the present time, — the unity of the Church.
I think that paragraph ought to be retained; and, if it is, I have no
objection to the paper.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. My intention was to move that the
substance of the paper which was before us last evening, and of that
which has now been read, be adopted, and that the two papers be referred
to a committee, to be perfected.
Dr. Dutton moved that the paragraph referred to by Prof.
Porter be incorporated in the paper which had been read by
Mr. Quint'; but the Moderator ruled that the motion was un
necessary, as Dr. Bacon's motion included the substance of
both papers.
Rev. Dr. Eddy, of Massachusetts. I felt yesterday that we were
crowded to a vote ; I felt the tyranny of a majority. I feel the impropriety
of this proceeding this morning; but, under all the circumstances, I feel con
strained, in conscience, aU things considered, to second the motion which
has been made, and hope we shall adopt the substance of these papers.
Rev. Mr. Cochran, of Iowa. I have not had a word to say in the
Council on any of these questions. I supposed, when we separated last
evening, that this matter was laid over until Friday, and I think that
was the general impression. I have not heard this paper, and a number
did not get here in time to hear it read; and I desire to hear it before I
vote upon it.
Mr. Quint again read the paper, and at its conclusion, said :
The idea in preparing this document was, honestly and heartily to en
deavor to avoid the points on which we seemed to spUt yesterday. I, for
one, think we are all of one heart, but there may be some differences of
expression. Now, this paper has been prepared to embody, briefly, the es
sential parts of yesterday's paper, with certain new parts in a new frame
work, and thus to avoid, if possible, any difficulty or conflict. I think it will
not be best — although I do not care to argue the matter —to adopt the
two papers, when this was intended to avoid some difficulties growing
out of the other. It seems to me that it would be better, on several
accounts, to adopt only one paper, and that, this paper. Further than that,
I would say that I am not ready to give to any committee, which shaU sit
after this Council adjourns, power to promulgate any creed they please.

DECLARATION OF FAITH. 365
[Bightl] I am ready to give a committee the privilege of making such
verbal alterations as may be necessary, which will not affect the sense, or
interfere with the feelings or prejudices of other persons, — nothing fur
ther than that; -but even that should be reported for the action of the
Councfl. I would also have the paragraph referred to by Prof. Porter
inserted, for I think it extremely valuable, and am sorry it was inad
vertently omitted, and, if permitted, will insert it.
I move to amend the motion before us, so that it read that the Coun
cU adopt the paper now read; and that a committee be appointed to
suggest such verbal alterations, not affecting the sense, as may seem
needful. Rev. Dr. Bacon. I accept his amendment; that is, that we now
adopt the paper which has been read, including that paragraph, with the
understanding that the whole paper is to be referred to a committee of
revision, to perfect the diction, and to report to this body before its final
adjournment. The question was then put, and the motion adopted with
but two dissenting voices.
On motion of Rev. Mr. Dexter, of Massachusetts, it was —
Voted, That the first business to-morrow morning be the election, by a
ballot, of a committee, consisting of one from each State represented, to
whom the paper just adopted shaU be referred for revision.
Rev. Dr. Daggett, of New York, then addressed the
Throne of Grace in a fervent and most impressive manner,
concluding with the Lord's Prayer, in which the members of
the Council audibly joined.
Edward S. Tobey, Esq., of Massachusetts, then made some
statements in regard to the arrangements for the remainder of
the day, after which, it was, on motion,
Voted, That when the CouncU adjourn, it be to meet at the Mt. Ver
non Church, Boston, at 9 o'clock, to-morrow morning.
The Doxology " Praise God from whom all blessings flow,"
was then sung, and the Council adjourned.
After the adjournment, the members of the Council proceed
ed, in a body, to Forefathers' Rock, and to Pilgrim Hall, to
inspect the various memorials of the Pilgrims there sacredly
preserved. They were then hospitably entertained according to
arrangements by the preliminary committee, and the collation
was followed by addresses.

ADDRESSES AT THE TABLE.
ADDRESSES AT THE TABLE.1
ADDRESS OF REV. A. L. STONE, D. D.
Fathers and Brethren of the Council, — The Committee of Arrange
ments have offered you this excursion not simply as a pleasant railroad
trip, — not simply as a day of rest and recreation amidst the arduous
and. weighty cares of your protracted session, nor merely as a pleasant
• visit to one of our fair New England towns, with its quiet bay and its
green islands, but with a deeper intent and purpose regarding the fit
ness of things. It was fitting, we thought, that the apostles and confes
sors of our faith and order, — gathering from every part of the land to
look upon one another's faces, take one another by the hand, and
strengthen one another to enter in and possess that magnificent future
of our heritage for God and the old Puritans, — should have their reunion
in the old Cradle of the Puritan city, the metropoUs of the common
wealth and of New England. And now it is fitting, in the second place,
that we, children of the Pilgrims, tracing back the steps of our forefa
thers with love and veneration, should not suffer our feet to pause until
they come quite to the memorable Bay and to Forefathers' Rock. This
is the earlier and the holier shrine. To have come so near and not
to have reached it, not to have touched it, not to have clustered around
ft, to renew our vows of everlasting fealty to our reUgious faith, in its
doctrines, in its order, in its memories, in its inspirations, would have
been such a mistake and blunder as history — the history that writes the
doings of these days that we are freighting so deeply for the future, —
would have deemed incredible. Now, it wiU be regarded as one of the
grand reminiscences of this hour, as congruous and chiming in well with
the spirit, and calling, and work, of this Council, that we came hither
that we might, by contact with the electric forces of this scene, thrilUng
through every mind,and soul, put ourselves into closer communion with the
fathers and their ever-Uving principles. It is well that we follow the stream
back to its fountain, that we may drink again at the ancient spring
fresh and pure, — drink, every man of us, until our souls overflow, r— '
drink until we ourselves become channels, brimming full, in which the
external and religious life of the past, cherished in our hearts, shaU flow
forth to all the saints of the common family.
Oh, how good it is to stand on Plymouth Rock once more! — to feel
something soUd beneath our feet! Amid all the fluctuations of the pres
ent, amid the tossing billows of that storm of war, and the agitations
that succeed, which show that the great sea is not quiet yet, to find that
our feet are on the immovable granite, where nations, ages may build,
and no flood can overflow ! [Applause.]
It is not mine, I will not ask that it shall be mine, to name even one
element of' that flrm-supporting faith, on which, as on an everlasting
rock, our fathers planted their feet, and on which our feet have come to
1 Though not a part of the official proceedings, the exercises after the collation are
recorded, on account of their peculiar interest.

ADDRESSES AT THE TABLE. 367
be planted too; for we are sons of those sires by more than natural de
scent; we are one with them by more than the bond of a common faith,
though that bond be so mighty, so indissoluble. We are one with them
by a common experience now. What they saw we have seen, and the
more clearly ; what they heard, we have heard, and the more audibly.
We have seen the mighty hand of God in our personal story; we have
heard his voice near to us again, here, in the old Puritan commonwealth.
Nay, more: in all the land, men walk and talk and sit and commune
with a present, living God, as our fathers walked and talked and sat and
communed with him. God is nearer from the bending heavens to all the
children of the Puritans to-day than ever since the old Puritan days.
We are at one with the fathers by that common and blessed experience.
Our souls will keep fresher for our visit to this scene; and it will grave
every line of that earUer scene deeper into mind and heart and memory.
In most of the pictures, you know, that artists have given us of that
earlier scene, they drew largely upon the imagination. Art steered the
Mayflower at first into this harbor, and anchored her in the background;
art rowed a boat-load of living, breathing tnen, women, and children, ar
rayed in festal attire, to the sacred Rock; art grouped the wild Indian,
in picturesque costume, in the background of the wood. But history
tells the story differently, — that the Mayflower found her first anchor
age in Provincetown Bay, on the eleventh of November; and three ex
peditions, you know, were sent out from the Mayflower, the third of
which came to this point. One, on foot, moved as far as Wellfleet; an
other, by boat, entered Pamet Bay, Truro; then the shallop, that bore
the sacred seed of a grand harvest, — the shallop came in on Thursday
night: the first keel that ever parted these waves, over which only the
light canoe had skimmed, and the wild fowl of the ocean. It came, not
at first to this rock, but to that green island across the bay, — Clark's
Island. There the Pilgrims passed Friday and Saturday (perhaps in
repairing their boat; for they came in, in a fierce north-easter, their rud
der gone, and the boat steered with difficulty by two oars, their mast
overboard, in three pieces), and there they kept the sacred Sabbath;
and, on Monday morning, the 11th of December, 1620, — the 11th, old
style, the 21st, new style, — that shallop came to the rock and unloaded
its freight of precious Ufe thereupon, and the continent was ours. [Loud
applause.] I am trespassing upon a rule which I shall shortly impose upon all
who follow me [Laughter], — to be very brief, and to remember all who
are to come after them. But the welcomes of this occasion will not be
made complete untU you have heard, on behalf of the people of this
town, whose pleasant faces and gala attire- and thronged streets and
winning smiles, are one, and not the least memorable, part of our wel
come [Applause], — until you have heard, on behalf of this town and on
behalf of the Pilgrim Society, doubly represented here by a gentleman
to whom I shall presently refer, and by this gentleman [Dr. Timothy
Gordon], whom I shall ask to complete my welcome, in the name of
the town. From these gentlemen you will have other and perhaps

368 ADDRESSES AT THE TABLE.
warmer words of welcome. Will you listen to Dr. Gordon, of Plym
outh, a member of the Pilgrim Society, and the gentleman at whose
instance Pilgrim HaU was opened to us to-day, and to whose active in
strumentality so much that is pleasant in this scene is due?
KEMAEKS OF DE. TIMOTHY GORDON, OF PLYMOUTH
Fellow-citizens and Friends, — I rise simply to show you my face, for
I can have no expectation of interesting you, after the words of elo
quence and beauty to which you have just Ustened. I will merely say,
that the citizens of Plymouth bid you welcome, and that the Pilgrim So
ciety, also, bid you welcome, thrice welcome to these shores whereon our
Pilgrim Fathers first set their feet. I trust that what you have seen to
day will make such an impression upon your minds that you wftl be dis
posed to come again and to send your children and children's children
to view the same spectacle which you have seen on the shore of Plym
outh. [Applause.] '
Rev. Dr. Stone. This salutation is from the citizens of Plymouth,
and, in part from the Pilgrim Society. The president-elect of that
society is present, and being a very modest man, as aU Bostonians are
[Great merriment], he is afraid I am about to introduce him to the au
dience; and unless I take him by the hand, and lead him to the chair
[" suiting the action to the word"], I have no expectation of overcoming
that difficulty, so that he can address you. I will whisper to you
softly, the name of Edward S. Tobey, Esq., President-elect of the Pilgrim
Society. REMARKS OF HON. EDWARD S. TOBEY.
Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Congregational Council, and
Ladies and Gentlemen, ¦ — I am highly gratified, in the first place, at the
exceedingly proper estimate which the distinguished chairman has
formed of your speaker [Laughter] ; but I am more than vexed at the
thought that he expects me to make complete what he was pleased to
consider incomplete. I beg leave to differ from him. I consider his
speech so complete, that but Uttle can be expected from me. And yet,
ladies and gentlemen I should feel that I had hardly performed the duty
which you had a right to expect, even from a president-eZeci of the PU-
grim Society, should I fail to add my most cordial welcome in behalf
of that time-honored institution represented in every part of our land.
I have the privilege of saying to you, that, not only in the name of that
association, but in the name of the people of this town, I bid you a most
cordial welcome to this sacred spot. And yet, in doing this, we do not
wish to have it understood that we have any exclusive rights in this spot,
either as the Pilgrim Society or as the people of Plymouth. We shall
not consent that one fragment of that rock shall be takenfrom this place,
but we shall ask you, all of you, to draw fresh inspiration from that
consecrated spot, and transmit it throughout our land; and we believe it
will be transmitted to the end of time. We have heard it said that the
time is not distant when even our erring sister, South CaroUna, wUl claim

ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH. 369
a part of Pilgrim Rock. [Applause.] I beUeve we shall need to transplant
the principles of Pilgrim Rock, and it should be our chief concern to
propagate those views throughout our country.
It is a sublime thought, that we are assembled in this peculiar period
of our country's history. Perhaps at no time since our fathers flrst
planted their feet on that spot, has there been seen a more grand, a more
expressive representation of all that is valuable or likely to be valuable
to this nation, than the present occasion. A most singular providence
of God has ordained that the blood of the chief magistrate of our na
tion should be the last shed in seaUng the Uberties of our land. The last
drop of blood shed was that of our beloved and revered chief magis
trate, Abraham Lincoln; and it is fitting and proper that we here, at
this early day, should come to renew our vows of fidelity to the princi
ples for which this civil war has been waged, and to pledge ourselves,
from every portion of our land, to go forth to our respective homes, and
there, in every way, to disseminate the true principles of civil and reUg
ious freedom.
But, ladies and gentlemen, I do not feel at liberty to enlarge on this
1 topic. We have been very kindly admonished by the chairman, by the
very lengthy speech he made himself, that we are not to talk long,
[Laughter] and I will conclude, by simply repeating that the Pilgrim
Society will gladly have you cherish in your memories this interesting
occasion as one of the brightest spots of your Uves ; and while I feel
myself the great privilege of extending this welcome to people from the
remotest parts of our land, — even from Colorado and Nevada, from Ore
gon and from California, — I am equally glad to extend the right hand of
feUowship to those from what we are compelled to call a foreign land,
but what we had better, perhaps, call our fatherland. The time has
come when we can welcome to this spot those of our friends who repre
sent reUgious Uberty on the other side of the" water; for, be it remem
bered, whatever course may have been pursued by a portion of the peo
ple from whom we descended, we have had a vast number of friends,
who are represented here to-day by those who are ready to extend to us
the congratulations of that country, and to join hands with us in seek
ing to carry forward the great work of Christian civilization the world
over. Bev. Dr. Stone. Thrice over have we had the hand of welcome
extended to us, and perhaps you would Uke the privilege of interchange
ing greetings with our friends, and saying whether you accept these sal
utations. His ExceUency, Governor Buckingham, the Moderator of the
Council, could not be here to-day, and I wiU ask Colonel Hammond by
What voice it shaU please him to respond to these salutations.
REMARKS OF HON. CHARLES G. HAMMOND, OF ILLINOIS.
Mr. Chairman, — The system which we recognize and which we in
tend to perpetuate is one of order. Order is its first law; and that says,
that there is a place for everything, and everything should be in its
24

370 ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH.
place. As it was not the place of any to talk of war in the presence of
Hannibal, so it is, not my place to address you in the presence of my
colleague; and therefore you wftl permit me to introduce to you the
Rev. Dr. Joseph P. Thompson.
REMARKS OF REV. JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, D. D., OF NEW YORK.
Mr. Chairman, — Should I attempt to express our gratitude and
admiration for the well-ordered and munificent hospitality which has
been extended to us from our first assembUng as a Council to this hour,
I should transcend the boundaries of all space and all time; [Laughter]
for I am to-day the mouthpiece, not only of my own burning, responsive
heart, but of five hundred hearts and voices, who wish to speak through
me. [Applause.] It wiU devolve upon His Excellency, the Governor,
or, in his absence, I insist that it shall devolve upon my military supe
rior, Colonel Hammond, to return the thanks of the Council to you in
Boston, in Mt. "Vernon Church, for the totaUty of this reception; but I
wish to-day, in a few words, to express our thanks to you, sir, the chair
man of the Committee of Arrangements [Rev. A. L. Stone], to you, gen
tlemen, who have represented the town and the society of the Pilgrims,
for bringing us to this particular spot. I remember, when I first saw a
cathedral in England, — I remember when, back of that, I saw the re
mains of the old Roman walls, there was an oppressive sense of antiq
uity. - When I went to Greece, the weight was heavier. When I went
to Egypt, it was so vast that it disappeared in the infinity of space. I
walked with Abraham and the patriarchs. Well, sir, when we came up
to the Old South, I experienced the same feeUng. When we went to
Mt. Vernon Church, though that does not have the same odor of. antiq
uity, yet we were led back to the old fathers by that earnest, loving
disciple, who carried us back so far that he only stopped short of origi
nal sin. [Laughter.] Then, sir, we were led out to Charlestown, and
there felt ourselves in sympathy with the early founders of that church.
And now, to-day, we are brought to the most hallowed and most ancient
spot, where aU our local associations of antiquity merge themselves in
that grand past that lies beyond the sea, and we feel ourselves Unked, on
this spot, with the holy men of old from across the waters, and, far back,
with the whole church of God, through all the ages of time.
Some may have come here — I have been here before — expecting to
find Pilgrim Rock a dead old fossil rock, or, perhaps, an utterly inor
ganic rock. Instead of that, we have found it a most lively Stone
[Laughter and applause], and we desire to join ourselves thereunto, and
to build with this living /Stone from this time forward. [Renewed ap
plause.] Our friends in the western part of the continent, having rich
ores of their own, desired to transport this polished Stone to build into
their temple. You refused us that gift ; but now you shall not prevent
us from carrying back from this spot Pilgrim Rock. We shall carry it
with all its grand memories, with all its inspiring associations, back to
the busy marts of commerce in New York and Chicago; we shall carry
it across not only the Alleghanies, but the Rocky Mountains. It shaU

ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH. 371
be planted, with all its living associations and power of truth and grace,
upon the far shore of the Pacific. Henceforth, Pilgrim Rock is ours;
Boston is ours. You have nothing hereafter apart from every one of us.
[Applause.] We have to-day caught the very spirit of the fathers. That scene, in
which we engaged on the hill yonder, was a beautiful reproduction and
illustration of their very spirit and methods. Some thought we were in
a hurry. I remember reading, in a preface to the old Savoy Declara
tion, — which, you know, we have now reaffirmed, verbatim, and literally
adopted, — I say, I remember reading in a preface to that old declaration,
which was prepared by a committee of six, — Drs. Owen, Goodwin, and
Nye, Bridge, Caryl, and Greenhill, — that they were engaged only eleven
days, excluding Sundays, in preparing that momentous document. By way
of apology for not spending more time upon it, they said it was prepared
by men accustomed to think for themselves, who knew what they thought,
who could communicate to the Council what they thought and believed,
and who thought and beUeved all alike. Now, how beautifully we have
reproduced that thing! We" have had a committee of five hundred men
examining their faith for themselves; we have compared our views, and
we have found that we all feel exactly alike. Why, Mr. Chairman, the
able document prepared in the flrst instance by two city pastors, with
the concurrence of two very highly esteemed theological professors, was
found to be altogether too abstract and metaphysical. Then we remand
ed that document to a large committee, and on that committee we had,
I think, seven living professors of theology.
Bev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. Do you mean seven professors of
Uving theology ? [Laughter.]
Bev. Dr. Thompson. I did not say that, sir. It was apprehended,
on all sides, that when that document was brought in, we should have
collisions between the various schools, and that everybody would want
to alter it. But when it was brought in, we found we were all agreed,
"for substance of doctrine; " and this document, which has been care
fully elaborated by seven theological professors, is remanded to a com
mittee,— for what purpose? To eradicate any lurking heresy? No;
to correct a few grammatical mistakes. [Laughter.] Now, Mr. Chair
man and gentlemen, I believe this Council to be orthodox, and I have a
right to certify to it. If any man tells you your faith is not up to the
old standard, there are just two men who can stand up in your vindica
tion. There are two men whose Calvinism is unimpeached and unim
peachable, — Dr. Park and myself [Laughter]; and just as surely as any
man tells you your faith is not orthodox, Prof. Park will open his great
gun in the " Bibliotheca Sacra," and I, with the permission of brother
Dexter, wiU fire my Uttle squibs in the " Congregational Quarterly;"
and with that assurance of your Calvinism, we wiU carry it through,
even to the Pacific coast.
Now, sir, we are here, as I have said, catching the spirit, and intend
ing to illustrate the principles, of the fathers; and how well have we not
only rehearsed and renewed their faith, but illustrated their order! It

372 addresses at Plymouth.
was a meeting acting in order. Those men who came to these shores
taught us another lesson. We do not need waUs around us to give us a
sense" of order. No; when the Uving men touched this soil from the
Mayflower, there was a State; and when the living souls, joined to
Christ, came from that ship to these shores, there was a Church, without
walls, without roof ; and they have taught us that the principle of order
and of organic life and unity is in ourselves, and not in the external ar
rangements of the hour. We therefore met in order; we acted in order;
we illustrated the other grand principle, the conservative principle of the
polity of our fathers, that,- wherever, with a beUeving faith, men are
convened for the work of Christ, there is the spirit of Christ, and there
is the order of the Lord's house; and I maintain that no confession has
ever gone forth from any Council prior to this, under circumstances of
more grand and imposing order and solemnity than were witnessed on
yonder hill to-day.
Sir, we shall go now, in the spirit of this poUty and this faith, remem
bering that the first act of those noble men, before they built their own
houses, was to put up a rude house in which to worship God, and, when
threatened by enemies, to make it a battlement for their defense. You
know that they did not dare (ah! this is why we can not identify the
resting-place of those honored dead !) — they did not dare to put up the
rude monument or raise a mound upon their graves, lest the Indians,
counting the number of the fallen, should come and lay waste the whole
settlement. Brethren, what, after all, have we known of sacrifice, of con
secration, and the baptism of blood! Let us take upon our souls, — God
hearing and blessing us in this hallowed hour, — let us take upon our
souls the faith and the duty of the fathers, and over their uncounted, name
less graves, of which we can only know that here they who gave them
selves for their country lie, let us move forward in the grand march of
God and humanity, for the redemption of this land unto Christ, and the
building here of a temple that shall overarch the continent. [Applause.]
Rev. Dr. Stone. These are the home-voices to which you have Us-
tened ; these the greetings, these the salutations of those who know one
another here. But stranger voices, foreign voices, speaking in our own
mother tongue, and speaking in our own hereditary faith as well, wiU not
be discordant with these home salutations. We are glad that English
men should see the house upon which the winds came and the rain feU,
and against which the torrents roared, and "it fell not, because it was
founded upon a rock. [Applause,] The first Indian salutation, when the
wandering feet of the dusky race came over yonder hill to the Pilgrim
encampment, near Burial HiU, was also in our own native tongue, to the
surprise of our fathers; and that first salutation, from the Ups of Sa-
moset, was, "Welcome, EngUshmen!" We are prepared to give that
greeting to our visitors from abroad.
Sir [addressing Dr. Vaughan], I ask you to stand upon your feet, that
I may have you by the hand. We have welcomed you to our shores and
to our hospitality, and I think we have become tolerably familiar with
you. We have opened our whole heart to you. [Laughter and ap-

ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH. 373
plauso.] We have said everything that w:as down in the bottom of our
heart; it is all said; we have made a clean breast of it [Laughter]; it is
all out; there is nothing more hidden there, you may be sure. We feel
a great deal better about it, and I dare say you do. [Loud laughter and
applause.] The relation between us is now a thousand-fold more cordial.
We ask you not to carry away any grudge, and we know you will not.
[Applause.] REMARKS OF REV. ROBERT VAUGHAN, D. D., OF ENGLAND.
They talk about English fervor sometimes; but to get up to American
fervor, I feel is a very difficult thing to do. [Applause.] I am very glad
of it.
It is now one-and-twenty years ago since I started a periodical in Eng
land, intended to vindicate the principles of CongregationaUsm, and the
first article in that periodical was upon the Pilgrim. Fathers. At that
time EngUsh non-conformists were thinking but very Uttle about the Pil
grim Fathers, and, I am sorry to say, very little about American Con
gregationalism ; but they have learned to think a great deal more of
them since that time. In writing that article I had a map of this neigh
borhood before me. I studied it in all its details, to the best of my abil
ity, and pictured to my imagination the scenes that I supposed to have
taken place in the year 1620. You will readily understand that I have
come to this spot to-day with a good deal of interest, remembering how
I felt in relation to it in those distant times. I have tried to picture to
myself that boat which came off from the Mayflower; the dark clouds, as
they floated through the sky; the descending sleet, as it came upon the
men who rowed the boat, and upon all who were within it, and coated
them over with ice, as if they were dressed in mail; and how they land
ed upon that spot, and there, amidst the cold, wintry night, with diffi
culty kindled their flrst fire upon the soil, and offered up their first even
ing prayer. It is pleasant now to be able to see, that though there were
things they hoped to realize here that they did not, Providence was ac
complishing by them results greatly beyond anything they dared to ask
or think. They did, as you are accustomed to believe, lay the founda
tions of empire for this continent; and it is deUghtful to me to feel as
sured, that what was done by them and those who came in their track,
and which has become embodied in your institutions, and enshrined in
your reUgious faith, formed the elements that are to leaven your whole
country, in ages to come, to a far greater degree than now. It is a de
lightful-thing to be able to see, that the seeds that were then sown, are
seeds which we can fully anticipate are to achieve great things. Chris
tianity itself grew up in the world without observation. It did not make
its way through the earth from senates and monarchs downward ; it made
its way through the earth from the people downward. [Applause.] We
get our tailoring and our milUnery from court pageants; we get our
opinions from ourselves. [Applause.] And this is God's way of carry
ing on his work in the world.
I feel sure, my friends, that you have a very imperfect impression of

374 ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH.
the feeling that has prompted my brethren in England to send myself
and my valued brother, Dr. Raleigh, into the midst of you. I am quite
sure they are counting the days until we get back again, that they may
hear what we have to say about you; and I am thankful that we shall be
able to tell them that which they will be glad to hear. [Applause.] I
am confident that I see about me, in your midst, the budding influences
that are to achieve great results in the new circumstances in which Prov
idence has placed you. When Christianity came into the world, two
thirds of the human race were slaves to the other one third. Christian
ity was to sweep away that. The serfdom of the middle ages was an
other form of servitude that came into the place of the ancient; and the
last vestige of that servitude has been swept away, to his infinite honor,
by the Emperor of Russia. [Applause.] And now, the last Unk of the
slave in Christian nations may be virtually said to have been struck off
by you. [Applause,.] It is a great thing to have been called by Provi
dence to bring that great evil to humanity to the issue to which we have
reason to believe it is now brought. It would seem a sad thing, indeed,
that eighteen hundred years should have been needed thus far to regen
erate the great mass of society; but God's ways are slow; it has been
accompUshed in his time; and there is no chapter in your history that
will be more to your honor than your having recorded your inextinguish
able antagonism to that institution, as unchristian, unrighteous, and in
human. [Applause.]
I would just say, further, the good men who came over here from
England came, as you know, not merely as a church, but to found a
state. The necessities of their circumstances were such that they were
obliged to do so. They are charged with having enacted exclusive laws;
with having become great persecutors. I am quite sure that portion of
their history is but very imperfectly understood. They came, at indes
cribable cost, to secure for themselves the settlement which they ob
tained on this soil; and when that was accomplished, having made their
church-membership their franchise, and founded their Uttle state, — the
church and state being carried on by the same men, — they said to aU
the world, " We have founded this state at great charge and perU to our
selves. Any man wishing to have the benefit of it is open freely to take
that benefit, but he must respect the conditions on which we have
founded ft. If he wishes to introduce something different from what we
have regarded as right toward man and acceptable to God, the world- is
before him; let him go and found a state according to his fancies. [Ap
plause.] Let us have that which has cost us much, which is properly
our own, and have it we will; no one shall invade it. If the attempt be
made to force disorder into our community, we will force that element
out of it." Now, sir, if I had Uved among those men, I should
have done just that. [Applause.] I should have taken precisely that
course; and instead of its being a course at variance with what was
wise and good, it was the very course that that patriarch of Congrega
tionaUsm, John Robinson, laid down as grave counsel for these early set
tlers. He told them they could not afford to have their Uttle settlement

ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH. 375
rocked in every direction by all varieties of opinion; that they should
settle their system for themselves, and uphold it until it could bear a dif
ferent poUcy; and that was the course they pursued. It is a mistake,
therefore, to charge these men with having been narrow-minded perse
cutors. They were wiser, by far, than the dilletanti critics who presume
to sit in judgment upon them. [Loud applause.]
Now, my friends, I am looking upon you here about Boston for the
last time. I am about to go home to my own people to live and die
among them; and I think I shaU be able to do a little more good in
God's world than I should otherwise have done, from having come into
this neighborhood, and being able to return with the report of you that
I can take. [Applause.] My countrymen shall know what has taken
place here to-day. They shall know what has taken place in that Coun
cil of yours. There shall be a clearing out of my heart, as well as
yours. [Loud applause.] I respect the man who does that, — the man
who gives out what God has put in him to-day, as God has given it; and
if he has something different to bring out to-morrow, gives that out to
morrow. [Applause.] I was in the midst of an elite assembly the other
day in London, consisting of a grand gathering of our literary men,
who all got at loggerheads about something that was to be done ; and
after I had sat and heard the quarrel for a long time, I said to them,
" Well, now, you have had a pretty good clearing out all round. Are
you Englishmen? Are you willing, after all this, to shake hands and go
to work and do the thing that is to be done? " That simple putting pro
duced at once a laugh; and then they said, " Really, that is the best
way; " and the thing was done. Let it be so here. Let there be a clear
ing out. I have nothing in me that you don't know now [Laughter];
and I am glad that you have called it out. I shall go home quite confi
dent that you do give me the place of an honest man, and that we shaU
love each other all the more for aU this coming to pass. Our hearts are
with you. [Applause.]
Bev. Dr. Stone. Nothing that has been said needs confirmation; but
you know it is written, that " out of the mouth of two or three witnesses
every word shall be established;" and we must go according to Scrip
ture. I shaU therefore call upon the colleague of Dr. Yaughan, Dr. Ra
leigh, from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, — and the whole oj
Great Britain. [Laughter and applause.]
REMARKS OE REV. ALEXANDER RALEIGH, D. D., OF ENGLAND.
I shall be very happy to take my part, on returning to England, in
the telUng of all that has happened to us here; and in telhng our Eng
lish brethren who have sent us, that we feel that all that has happened
has been, as we trust, for the furtherance of the gospel. I shall be very
happy to see any of you on the EngUsh shores; and if I knew the ship
by which that gentleman who spoke first yesterday morning [Rev. A. H.
Quint] would come, I would go to the shore to meet him and bid him
welcome.

376 ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH.
I did not know until to-day that it was the shortest day of all the year,
the 21st of December, — a cold, bitter, wintry day, — when the Pilgrims
landed down yonder. It is rather a singular coincidence that we are as
sembled here on the longest day of all the year, — the 22d of June, —in
the bloom and hight of mid-summer. " The winter is past, the rains are
over and gone, the flowers appear upon the earth, and the time of the
singing of birds is come." [Applause.] They landed down yonder, a
few men, comparatively, representing principles rather than any great
number of persons. We here to-day may be said to be the representa
tives of a great multitude, which could hardly be numbered, out of
many nations, and peoples, and tongues. They fled, not from perse
cuting England, but from England's persecuting government; and there
is rather a difference between these two things, remember. [Applause.]
We are here to-day, EngUshmen and Scotchmen, representing, how
ever imperfectly, yet truly, the best part, and, I take leave to say, —
although that is not according to the document that was carried yester
day morning, ¦ — the greatest number of the English people, uniting with
you, in cordially honoring the memory and adopting the principles of
those men in the main. [Applause.] They fled for shelter and for safety
in the wilderness ; and now the wilderness has been changed into a fruit
ful fleld, and you have made this place now more than ever an asylum
and home for the oppressed of all the world. What a change! And
yet, I bethink me to-day, " that which hath been is now, and that which
is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past." I
look around upon you, American citizens, who have struggled and fought
and bled in your representatives and servants, and I say, Are you not
standing to-day in that shadow of Calvary in which the PUgrims stood,
and which is over all the earth? Have you not been drinking of their
cup? Have you not been baptized with their baptism? Have you not
been fighting, under different conditions, and in a wider field, the same
battle of freedom which they fought in their expatriation and Ufe-long
endurance? I feel it an honor to-day, — I speak solemnly, and as in the
presence of God, — I feel it an honor to be permitted to stand here in
your presence, and to assert my solemn belief that you never so much as
now were worthy to call yourselves the sons of those great fathers.
That social state which they founded you have guarded, you have de
fended, you have preserved, you have laid, if I mistake not, on a more
soUd if not wider basis than at first. You have fought, as I said, the
self-same battle, — a battle extending over a wide continent, continuing,
without interruption, through four long, weary years; but the fruits ol
it who can number or tell? Liberty to the slave, — elevation to the
South, — the hand of true brotherhood to all free nations, and aU nations
that wish to be free! Your own part, in short, and that not a little part,
in that benediction from on high, " Glory to God in the highest, on
earth peace, and good- will among men! " [Loud applause.]
Rev. Dr. Stone. May it please the court, — we desire to swear in
one more witness to this point. You will hear the testimony of Dr.
Massie, who is invited to take the stand.

ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH. 377
REMARKS OF REV. JAMES W. MASSIE, D. D., LL. D., OF ENGLAND.
I wish I were qualified to do justice to the subject, to the scene, and
to my own feelings. But ." I am no orator, as Brutus is." [Applause.]
I can not " put a tongue in every wound " of your country, and make it
speak as it ought to speak, to stir you on, not to a " flood of mutiny,"
but to a flow of love between yourselves, and between America and
England. [Applause.] I have met many during the proceedings of
this Council who have taken me by the hand and have asked if I was
indeed Dr. Massie, and expressed their thanks for the humble services
that I tried to render your country two years ago, and that I have been
trying to render to your cause during the interval of my return to
England until the present hour. [Applause.] I know what England is.
I have met the operative classes, and the skilled mechanics of the coun
try, in all parts of England, and in that plrt of the kingdom of which
my friend Dr. Raleigh is so proud, and to which I belong as well as he,
— for I am of the good Scotch blood that he so rejoices in, — I say I
have met the mechanics of that country, even to the shipwrights, and
some of them building vessels that were designed to run the blockade,
or to fight the battles of piracy, and I have challenged them to come
upon the floor and answer for it whether they, with their hard hands,
could sympathize with the ministers of oppression, who only sought to
estabUsh the Confederacy that they might put down labor and its rights
amongst men. [Applause.] I know what the middle classes of England
are, for I have been engaged by them, sustained by them; I know their
benevolence and UberaUty; and I say that the men who are the cream
of the middle classes of England are with America. I have said to Dr.
Baleigh to-day, that my firm conviction is that three fifths of the popu
lation of England, Ireland, and Scotland are with the North, and have
been with the North, through all its struggle until this hour. [Applause.]
I went to the borough of Mr. Lindsey, the member of ParUament who
stood up in the house and confessed that he had been guilty of the folly
of going to Louis Napoleon, in order that they might confer for the
recognition of the South. I went to his borough, and met a committee
of his representatives, and defied them to sustain him in his infamous
conduct; and they felt that it was needful he should go down to soothe
them, to speak sweet words to them, after I had had two full meetings
of his constituents, and lectured for an hour and a half on America; and
then they did not dare to put a resolution in his favor to the audience.
Do not, therefore, suppose that we three individuals are the representa
tives of a fraction only of England, Ireland, and Scotland. I dare say
there is another fifth who are for you now. [Applause.] I dare say
the " Times " will tell you that Jefferson Davis has sacrificed his party
by stupidity [Laughter] ; that Gen. Lee, after all, was no great general
[Benewed laughter] ; and that, in fact, the Southern party have alto
gether failed because they were not fit to be an empire! [Merriment.]
Take the " Times," and you wiU take a lying slanderer for your witness,
only fit to be the companion of your own " New York Herald." [Laughter
and applause.] Nay, it is fed upon the garbage that has flowed through

378 ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH.
the sewer of the " Herald " office. Don't suppose that it represents the
English public opinion; it may try to catch it sometimes, and try to mis
represent it. The " Daily News," the " Morning Star," the Manchester
"Examiner and Times," the Leeds " Mercury," . the " Caledonian Mer
cury," the " Spectator," of London, and a dozen other papers that I could
name, would tell you what England is a thousand times better than the
" Times " does. [Applause.]
But I am not here to talk of these things, as if you needed to be per
suaded toward our country; nor am I here to speak on behalf of my
brethren, who have so well spoken for themselves. I am sure, however,
that Dr. Vaughan never would have set his foot upon the American shore,
if he had not been satisfied it was his duty to come, and if he had not
been determined to do his duty to you, as a faithful witness and friend
of Uberty, and the champioft of the truth everywhere. [Applause.] I
can not pretend or profess to describe what I have seen during the last
ten days. I have been to Niagara and marked the Palls there, and read
descriptions of them, and I have wondered that men would attempt to
describe Niagara. Why, they might as well attempt to fathom every
foot of the ocean deep. And I rather think my friend, Dr. Yaughan, wiU
find it a task to 'teU what he has seen and what he has yet to see in this
vast country. [Applause.] He is going to New York, to Washington,
to Richmond, to Chicago, to the Mississippi. Let him roU the waters
of the Mississippi back again, and then he will be able to describe a
country whose arms stretch out to the farthest heavens, whose riches go
down to the deepest depths, and whose population are destined, in my
humble judgment, to be the mightiest people in the earth. [Applause.]
I wish we could get a united banner. [Applause.] I wish the Union
Jack might be in the right corner, and the stars — I wont say in the left
[Laughter] — the stars in their own proper places [Applause] — that
England and America might be one in the missions that are to be con
ducted amongst your colored people, — missions that7 are, I trust, to be
conducted with the same efficiency and fidelity that characterize the
management of your foreign missions. I have divided my bread with
the American missionary. I have been welcomed as a guest in the
American Mission House, in India; I have traversed that country in
company with American missionaries ; I went forth with Gordon HaU
in the last journey that devoted servant of God took, when he died upon
the way, serving his Master; and I tell you, that as far as I can judge
from my reading and from my personal intercourse, there is not, in aU
the branches of the church of God, a more faithful, a more efficient
body, a body more worthy of the confidence of those who send them,
and of those who meet them, than the men and women who are mission
aries from America to heathen lands. [Applause.]
Rev. Dr. Stone. There was a blending, in the earlier days, the old
days of storm and strife, of a foreign flag with ours. We shall never
forget that the flag of France was blended with the stars and stripes in
those early days. Old France was with young America then; and
though America is a Uttle older now, she is stiU youthful America; and

ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH. 379
young France is, in her heart of hearts, with us. And, on this shore, no
person could more fltly represent young France than our young brother
Monod, from Paris.
REMARKS OF REV. THEODORE MONOD, OF FRANCE.
Mr. Moderator, Ladies and Gentlemen, — It is with great joy and with
honest pride that I find myself here to-day, the representative of the
land of Lafayette in the land of Washington; and, what is higher yet
the representative of the land of Calvin in the land of the Pilgrims.
[Applause.] What I feel this day, I will not even attempt to describe
to you. I cannot describe it to myself. But this one great thought seems
to underhe aU the others, — that we are brought face to face with what
is the very source of all your greatness and of aU your influence, — yea,
of your very life. We have been hearing and we have been talking,
during these last days, of that great war into which and through which
and out of which the hand of God has led you; and although our minds
were Ufted up so high, and our hearts glowed with such warmth of feel
ing, that it seemed as though there could hardly be a higher or a warmer
feeling, yet I do feel that all this, — the overthrow of this rebellion, the
future that Ues before you, the work that you have in your hands is
comparatively a smaU thing, if you put it side by side with what we see,
or, rather, what we think of to-day. What would your nation be worth
without the faith of the PUgrim Fathers? That monument on Bunker
Hill is a great monument, and 1776 is a glorious year; but all that, even,
fades away before the glory of the light that shines from this place.
[Applause.] What would Uberty itself be worth without the faith of
the Pilgrim Fathers? Liberty is nothing but an instrument; and what
is Uberty good for unless it has the grace of God to inspire it, — unless it
has the glory of God for its aim, and the laws of God for its bounds?
[Applause.] Here, then, we are brought face to face with these Pilgrim Fathers ;
and when we reach them, — ah! we have not reached the foundation yet;
and they would be the first to tell us so, — we reach to God in them.
And if there is 'a feeling to-day in our hearts, it is the feeling that God is
here; that God who was here, who is here, and who will be here, " the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." And if you would (and you know
this far better than I do) carry on the work that Ues before you, if you
would remain the home of Uberty and the hope of mankind, if you
would remain as a light-house on the ocean shore to all the people of the
earth, be true to the faith of the Pilgrim Fathers, who are our fathers
also; for did they not bring from us, — not only from England, but
from us over in Holland and in France, from Calvin and others, — the
glorious truth that they brought with them here? This is what I need
not say here; but oh, how I need to say it in France! Oh, that I may
say it with more inteUigence and earnestness than ever before! We
have some intelligent writers in Paris who speak of America, and who
say, " There is liberty there, and every man respects the rights of every
other man and that is a very fine thing; " and they want us to have

380 ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH.
American institutions as far as we are able. Then they say, " In Amer
ica, they have a great many inventions,— they have the sewing-machine,
and many other things. Why, they read the Bible in the morning and
the evening in their families, and they have a great deal of preaching."
They just dispose of the whole subject of Bible preaching as they would
tell that you have rocking-chairs in your houses. They seem to
take it as an incident of American life; they do not look upon it as
a vital principle. That is what we want to learn from you. And
in order that we may learn from you^you must continue to teach us,
and teach us more and more. You must go on and on, in view of the
great work you want to do, " seeking first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness, and aU things else shall be added unto you." [Applause.]
But I will not preach to you myself. I will read to you a sentence
that I copied from the grave of Robert Cushman. " You," he says,
" my loving friends " (and I may well call you " my loving friends "),
" the adventurers to this plantation, as your care has been first to settle
religion before either profit or popularity, so, I pray you, go on." You
go on; be true to yourselves; be true to George Washington; be
true to Abraham Lincoln. [Applause.] Aye, more: be true to the Pil
grim Fathers; be true to the world that looks upon you. And you will
do all this, if you are true to the Lord Jesus Christ. [Loud applause.]
Rev. Dr. Stone. Now we come back from over the sea; and I am
going to cross the breadth of the continent, to the very shores of the
Mississippi, that the tide of the " Father of Waters " may answer back
to the voice of " the bay where the Mayflower lay." While I am step
ping over the Alleghanies for Dr. Post, I will ask Dr. Adams, of Maine,
to sing the " Battle Hymn of the RepubUc."
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's popular hymn was sung by Dr.
Adams with thrilling effect, the audience very generally joining
in the chorus.
Rev. Dr. Stone. While Dr. Post is coming over the Alleghanies, I
wiU say that we have just twelve minutes to remain here, which will give
us an opportunity to hear four speeches of three minutes each. [Laugh
ter.] REMARKS OF REV. TRUMAN M. POST, D. ,D., OF MISSOURI.
Mr. President, Gentlemen and Ladies, — I feel oppressed as I stand in
this place, and am called upon in three minutes to say anything worthy
1 of the position; but I will say, in the flrst place, that I am glad, I re
joice, that at these portals, through which History entered this new
world, we commune together to-day, not only with each other, but with
representatives from the old world; and I feel that it is fitting we should-
do it here, rather than in Boston harbor.
We have been engaged for two hundred and fifty years in a mighty
experiment. When, from the storm and conflagration of war that envel-

ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH. 381
oped the old world, like a frightened bird emerging from the tempest
was seen the Mayflower hovering off your coast, when it furled its sails
within the harbor of Plymouth, it seems to me, in looking upon that
scene, that I see emerging from that ship, not simply human personali
ties, but the representatives of mighty principles, vast ideas, that, emerg
ing from the conflict of the old world, the baptism of blood and tears,
and the storms of the great deep, touched these hills, and sent a thrill
that is to stretch through the ages and through the length and breadth
of this continent, tiU time shall be no more. [Applause.]
To-day we inquire, what has been the history of those principles since
that hour; and I seemed to see, as we stood upon that hill, forms that
were not walking among us or of us, that came from other times and
inquired of us what we were' doing with that which they brought to work
thus mightily here. And we could point to states and empires that have
been gathered and built up in the far West ; we could point to the
achievement of the Uberties of a great nation; to mighty works wrought
in the name of civil and religious Uberty and the rights of man. But,
alas! a bloody gulf rose up before us, and in it there was another form
emergent; and that form had well-nigh stricken down those ideas which
came forth in the persons of Winthrop and Bradford and Brewster, —
and that were represented, too, by the lovely Rose ' that came so soon to
wither in the frosts of the new world. There had been a struggle be
tween the Ught and the darkness, and from that struggle the principles
of light had at last come forth triumphant, and we could point this day
with exultation to the fact, not only that from the shores of the Atlantic
to the golden coast of the Pacific, yonder beauteous and glorious emblem
Ufted its folds to the breeze triumphant, but that with it had gone their
principles and their ideas, and they were this hour ascendant.
I wftl not detain you longer, brethren, with my three minutes' speech-;
but I bid you, in the presence of the genius of this place, in the midst of
these friends that are around us, in the presence of friends from other
parts of the world, and of those who have come up here from other ages
to meet us in the light of this descending sun, farewell. Brothers, let us
stand together, and not only cover this continent with our institutions of
liberty, but with those principles of eternal truth that this day we have
sworn to again upon the graves of our fathers. [Applause.]
Bev. Dr. Stone. It would be pleasant to have at least one voice from
the Capitol. There is a United States senator somewhere in the grounds,
whose voice has always been true to Uberty, and the first principles of
an old Puritan faith, against any and every antagonism. [Voices —
" Wilson " — " Wilson."] As you have introduced him, I need not name
. him. Senator Wilson not appearing, the chairman continued, —
While Senator Wilson is trying, timidly, to approach, — as he also is
known to be a sensitive and shrinking man [Laughter] — I will cover his
approach by asking- you to Usten to a voice from New Haven, Conn.
1 The wife of Captain Standish died Jan. 29, 1621, a month after the landing.

382 ¦ ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH.
REMARKS OF REV. LEONARD BACON, D. D., OF CONNECTICUT.
What is the use of a man, who is essentially long-winded, undertaking
to make a speech in three minutes?
Rev. Dr. Stone. You shall have five.
Rev. Dr. Bacon. Well, I have only one thing to say, and I wiU say
it in short meter. I would. Uke to make quite a circuitous approach to
it, but I will come right up. [Laughter and applause.] We sometimes,
heretofore, have talked of the mother country, and have recognized our
English friends as the elder branch of the family. This late war of ours,
in the providence of God, was a war of independence. Our poUtical in
dependence was recognized in the year 1783; but our social, moral, and
intellectual independence has not been recognized heretofore, and we
have not been conscious of it ourselves. I said to some of our English
friends, four years ago, "At the end of this war, when we come out vic
torious over all the powers of evil, and this broad continent is never
more to be cursed with the footstep of a slave, we shall set up to be the
elder branch of the family " "[Applause] ; and what our brethren have
been saying to us to-day and yesterday, gives the explanation of that
prophecy. You know the prophets always spoke in a double sense, and
didn't know the extent of what they said. The principles that came in
at this gate of history are victorious not only here, but henceforth in
England; and not this "boundless continent" alone is theirs, but that
boundless continent also is theirs, by a predestination that is at last re
vealed. The principles of liberty, civil and religious; the principles of
indefinite progress; the principles of universal human welfare, that, in the
providence of God, were embarked on board the Mayflower, and that be
gan to be planted here two hundred and forty-four years and six months
ago this day, — those principles are yet to receive the homage of aU aris
tocrats, of all imperial thrones, for those principles are the Gospel of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and the day is dawning when a voice
shaU be heard on high, saying, " The kingdoms of this world are become
the kingdoms of our Lord, and he shall reign for ever." [Voices —
"Amen!"] As I came in sight of this harbor this morning, — I never saw it be
fore —
A Voice. You ought to be ashamed of it.
Rev. Dr. Bacon. I am not, because I have been, aU my life, a labor
ing man, and never had time to indulge in the pleasures of sentimental
ity. Forty years ago, for the first time, I entered Boston; and I have
been in Boston a great many times, and have passed through Charles
town a great many times; but the flrst time I ever saw Bunker HiU was
last Saturday; the flrst time that ever I stood within the walls of Fan-
euil Hall was yesterday; and to-day is the first time I ever was at Plym
outh. I am going, by and by, to a better Plymouth than this.
I was about to say, that I was thinking, as I came in sight of this
harbor, and the spot was pointed out to me where the shallop rounded
the point and came so near being wrecked, why it was that they were

ADDRESSES AT PLYMOUTH. 383
saved. It was because of Calvinism. That explains it all. The des
tiny of the world was in that shallop. Csesar was a bit of a Calvinist
when he told the pilot not to be afraid, for the boat in which he sailed
carried the fortune of Csesar. That shallop could not be wrecked, be
cause the destiny of the world — God's purposes — were in that boat.
And so it rounded the point in the darkness, shot into the calm and tran
quil waters of the harbor; and the destiny of the world was safe, be
cause it was in the hollow of God's hand; safe untU
" The waves of the bay where the Mayflower lay
Shall foam and freeze no more."
Rev. Dr. Stone. Now, is that lost senator here? [Voices — " No,
sir."] Then shall we not, before we join in the Doxology, have a voice
from Brooklyn Hights? Mr. Beecher is not here; but we can have a
voice from those Hights, if you desire it. .1 will call upon the Rev. Dr
Budington. REMARKS OF REV. WILLIAM I. BUDINGTON, D. D., OF NEW YORK.
I wftl say one word, brethren and friends. I will say this: that I un
derstand to-day, as I never did before, that our Congregationalism is a
spiritual power, a history. Multitudes, who have gone to Niagara, say
that they were disappointed. Multitudes, who have come to Plymouth,
have said they were disappointed; that Plymouth Rock, of which we
have heard so much, has disappeared in the soil of America. It scarcely
crops out above ground ; while the graves of the fathers are not to be
found. John Robinson's house, in Leyden, can not be made pilgrimages
to; the graves of the honored and beloved dead here can not be made a
pUgrimage to. Why? Because the cause of truth, which the Pilgrims
bore to our shore, is a spiritual one; and that spirit is now taken to the
very ends of the continent. And I claim to-day Abraham Lincoln as
the main agent who has consummated the Puritan spirit and Puritan
history. [Applause.] It fell to me last autumn, as the mouthpiece of
the Congregational Association of New York, to carry loyal resolutions
down to Washington, and lay them before our now martyred president.
I told .him that I came to him with principles that landed more than two
centuries ago on Plymouth Rock; that I came to him in the name of
the advocates of those principles that were now spread across the conti
nent; that we believed the war then raging, and over which he was pre
siding, was a war that had grown distinctly out of the cause that
landed on Plymouth Rock; and that every man, woman, and child of
the sons of the Pilgrims was with him. And what do you think our
president said? Looking me steadily in the eyes, and elongating that
form of his, his eyes flashing upon me, he said, " Sir, I think that is ex
actly the state of the case." [Applause.]
The Doxology, " Praise God from whom all blessings flow,"
&c, was then sung, after which, the company hastened to the
cars, and returned to Boston, having spent a most delightful
and profitable day.

384 DECLARATION OF FAITH.  MISCELLANEOUS.
NINTH DAY, FRIDAY, JUNE 23. '
it
The Council was called to order, and opened by prayer, at 9
o'clock, a. m., by the First Assistant Moderator, Hon. C. G.
Hammond, of Illinois.
The Scribe read the proceedings of the last two days, and the
record was approved. DECLARATION OF FAITH.
The first business in order was the appointment, by ballot, of
a committee to revise the Declaration of Faith in its phrase
ology. On motion of Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut, the vote re-
quiring the committee to be nominated by ballot was reconsidered.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Eddy, of Massachusetts, a committee
of three, to be appointed by the Moderators of the Council, was
substituted. FINAL ADJOURNMENT.
Rev. Mr. Quint, of the Business Committee, reported that,
according to present appearances, a day or two of next week
would probably be required to finish the business of the
Council. Rev. D^. Holbrook, of New York, moved that the committee
be instructed to arrange matters if possible so as to adjourn to
morrow at the usual hour. A large proportion of the members,
to his knowledge, would leave this week, and the important
matters should first be acted upon.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio, stated that the business could not
be finished without restricting debate to an extent the commit
tee did not feel authorized or disposed to recommend.
Rev. Mr. Gulliver and Rev. Dr. Bacon were opposed to the
motion. Rev. Dr. Holbrook modified his motion, so as to instruct the
committee to present the more important matters for action
first. The motion, as modified, was laid upon the table.
MISCELLANEOUS.
The thanks of the Council were tendered to the Hon. Collector

PROTEST.  MINISTERIAL SUPPORT. 385
Goodrich, for his polite invitation to the Council to make an
excursion down the harbor.
The Business Committee reported the order of business for
the morning session of to-day.
On motion, the order was amended so as to bring the report
upon systematic benevolence before the report on the Congre
gational House ; — ayes 85 ; noes 49.
Rev. Dr. Bouton, of New Hampshire, moved that a committee
be appointed to express the views of the Council in regard to the
first report upon the Declaration of Faith.
The motion was laid upon the table.
PROTEST.
Eev. Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts. I rise to a question of privilege.
At Plymouth, yesterday, on Burial Hill, I entered my protest against a
paper then read by Brother Quint, and was specially desired by the Mod
erator to present the same in writing after the adjournment to this place.
When I entered my protest, it was, on my part, unexpected, unpremedi
tated, and entirely extemporaneous, growing out of the character of the
paper as then and there presented. I now take the earUest opportunity
to present that protest in the entire spirit of it, and, as nearly as I can
recoUect, in the exact words :
" Standing over the ashes of the Pilgrim Fathers, and on the summit
of this hftl consecrated to their memory, I solemnly protest against the
, adoption of the paper here and now presented, as being too sectarian for
their cathoUc spirit, and too narrow to comprehend the breadth of theft-
principles of reUgious freedom."
On motion of Hon. Mr. Hammond, of Illinois (the Moderator
having taken the chair),
The protest was accepted, and ordered to be placed on the
minutes of the Council.
The following members were appointed as the committee
upon verbal revision of the Declaration of Faith :
Rev. William A. Stearns, D. D., of Massachusetts.
Rev. William W. Patton, D. D., of IlUnois.
Rev. Julius A. Reed, of Iowa.
MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
Hon. Edward D. Holton, of Wisconsin, chairman of the com
mittee on the paper on Ministerial Support, made the following
verbal report : 25

386 MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
The committee felt themselves embarrassed by the magnitude of the
question submitted to them, and the subject matters that were perpetu
ally pressing upon them. They drew up sundry resolutions, which at
one time they adopted; but flnally reconsidered them, and laid them all
aside. There came before them complaints of the meager and inade
quate support of the ministry. There was testimony as to the meanness
and narrowness of societies, to a degree that was truly painful. But
upon the whole, looking carefully over the admirable paper of Dr. Shep-
ard, we concluded that we could add nothing to what he had said. upon
that point. That report recommends the system of ownership of the
property, so that the pews can be rented for the support of the ministry.
But in new communities- this can not exist, or must be meager at best,
and the old method of subscription must still be resorted to. The report
of Dr. Shepard deprecated resorting to festivals as a method of eking
out the support of the ministry. Your committee, while they would not
discard this pleasant method of contributing to charitable objects, agree
with the original report in deprecating its use in the support of the min
istry. Your committee are also of opinion that the societies of our denomina
tion who may hereafter build churches, should not, by the selection of a
miserable place, and the erection of a wretched house of worship, un
sightly to behold, entail upon their societies a Uving death, and such cir
cumstances that it will ever be almost impossible to estabUsh or sustain
a ministry in such places. The papal churches select the sightly and
beautiful places throughout the land to erect their edifices upon; and
make them commodious and handsome, that the youth of the community
may be attracted there. So should we pay such attention to the exter
nal surroundings of the house of worship, and make the associations so
pleasant, that the minister may be able to caU around him those of suffi
cient abiUty to contribute to his support. But considering this subject
as rather belonging to the Committee on Church Building than to them
selves, they left it out of their report.
Your Committee testify to the nobleness and great-heartedness of
many brethren scattered through the churches, through the length and
breadth of the land, and hope that it may incite a like-minded liberality
among them everywhere. The question of extravagant salaries paid by
some churches also came to the attention of the Committee; and they
recommend that while good salaries be given, the societies give more to
missionary associations, instead of inciting undue ambition among the
ministry in that direction.
But after all, your Committee considered that this Council was not
one of cardinals and popes, to give direction and instruction to Congre
gational bodies, how they should act, and they therefore laid aside all
their resolutions, and present the following report:
" The Committee to whom was referred the paper submitted to this
Council by the preUminary committee through its chairman, Bev. George
Shepard, D. d., on the subject of Ministerial Support, have had the same
under careful consideration, and beg leave to report it back to this body

CONVENTION AT CLEVELAND. 387
with their cordial approval, and with the recommendation that it be
adopted by the Council, and that at least 10,000 copies be printed, if
within the province of the Council so to do, and circulated among our
churches as an approved compendium of the relative duties existing be
tween pastor and people.
Edward D. Holton,
William Salter,
Hiram Elmer,
Edwin N. Lewis,
Selden M. Pratt,
Marshall S. Scudder,
David S. Williams."
CONVENTION AT CLEVELAND.
The Moderator read the following telegram from the Conven-'
tion of Non-Episcopal Methodists now in session at Cleveland,
Ohio: " Cleveland, Ohio, 22d June, 1865.
"To the Moderator of the Congregational Council:
" The Convention of Non-Episcopal Methodists, in session at Cleve
land, send their fraternal greeting to the Congregational Council at Bos
ton. (Signed) W. H. Brewster,
J. Kost,
John Scott."
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio. That is a very important convention,
consisting of three ecclesiastical bodies, --- Protestant Methodists, Wes
leyan Methodists, and Independent Methodists, — that have seceded from
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and have dropped the Episcopal feat-'
ures. I move that the Moderator be authorized to respond to this tele
gram, in the name of this Council.
The motion was agreed to.
The following reply was sent by them, viz. :
"To the Moderator of the Convention of Non-Episcopal
Methodists, at Cleveland, Ohio, care of Rev. H. B. Bright:
" The National Council of Congregational Churches, standing upon the
basis of Christian Union, and CathoUcity in faith, cordially responds to
the fraternal greeting of the Convention at Cleveland.
W. A. Buckingham,
Charles G. Hammond,
Joseph P. Thompson.
" Boston, 23d June, 1865."

COMMUNICATION FROM BOSTON, ENGLAND.
COMMUNICATION FROM BOSTON, ENGLAND.
Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York, read the following com
munication, dated at Boston, Lincolnshire, England, certified
in due form with a seal, and beautifully engrossed.
The Pastors and Delegates of the Independent Churches of tlie
County of Lincoln assembled at their Imlf-yearly meeting in the Town of
Boston, to the President and Members of the Convention of Congrega
tional Pastors and Churches assembled in the City of Boston, Massa
chusetts, U. S., Greeting:
Dear Brethren, —
Having learned that the Transatlantic Churches of our Faith and Or
der are to assemble by their representatives, in the City of Boston, almost
.concurrently with the half-yearly meeting of our own County Associa
tion in the old town of Boston; — we deem it fitting to address to you a
message of fraternal affection and sympathy.
It would have afforded us a high satisfaction to have been able to de
pute one of our own brethren from our County to your Assembly, charged
to express with the Uving voice, the deep interest we take in your pros
perity, and especially in this the hour of your Country's mingled triumph
and sorrow. The ties by which the mother Town and her daughter are
connected, have in various ways been recognized, but in no previous in
stance, that we can discover, have the CongregationaUsts of Lincolnshire
addressed the descendants of the illustrious John Cotton, and those " of
the Congregational way," who with him sought, in the wilds of Massa
chusetts, that freedom to worship God, which was denied them in their
own land.
We therefore eagerly avail ourselves of the opportunity which your
gathering presents, to assure you how much we rejoice in the large
measure of success, which the Redeemer has vouchsafed to your Church
es ; and how earnestly we pray for its continuance and increase. We are
not discouraged by the recollection of the sore trial through which the
great RepubUc has been called to pass. We beUeve that you have been
engaged in a struggle for right against wrong, — for freedom against
slavery ; — and we entertain the most profound conviction, that both your
Political and ReUgious institutions wUl be stronger, and more powerful
for good, because of the discipUne through which you have passed. We
have watched the evolutions of your mighty drama with the most intense
anxiety. But amidst all its varying fortunes, we have held firmly to the
belief, that however it might be protracted, ft must issue in the triumph
of righteousness and mercy.
We were stunned by the blow which deprived you of your noble
President, and the world of one of its Kings of Men. But already it has
become apparent, that Abraham Lincoln, the martyr, is rendering to the
cause of his Country and of humanity, by his death, a more signal ser
vice than would have resulted from his prolonged Ufe.

COMMUNICATION FROM BOSTON, ENGLAND. 389
Go on, then, Honored Brethren, in your work. May it be given you
to secure for our principles a development higher, and more comprehen
sive than has ever been attained in the Mother Country; — to reconcUe
the fullest individual liberty with the most perfect order in the Churches
of the Saints; — to maintain inviolate the sovereignty of the Redeemer
over his Church; — above all, by the preaching of the Gospel in your own
Country, and amongst the Heathen to extend the blessings and augment
the triumphs of the Common Salvation.
That your meeting in Convention may tend largely to promote these
great ends is the Prayer, Dear Brethren, of
Yours most fraternally and affectionately,
in the bonds of the Gospel of Christ,
Joseph Shaw, Pastor of the 1 Ch .
Church, Red Lion Street, Boston, } anman-
Joseph Ruston, Treasurer.

Enos Metcalf, Pastor of the ) ™
Church, High Street, Lincoln, }

Signed in behalf of the
Lincolnshire Asso
ciated Pastors and
Churches of the Con
gregational Order. Thomas Davey, Pastor of
Boston, June 1st, 1865. Grove Street Church, Boston.
REPLY. Boston, U. S., February 14, 1866.
The 'Pastors and Belegates of the National Council of Congregational
Churches in the United States of America, assembled in Boston, in the
State of Massachusetts, June 14, 1865, to the Independent Churches of
the County of Lincoln, in England, Greeting:
Dear Brethren, —
It was a great gratification to the members of the National Council of
Congregational Churches assembled in this city, in June last, to receive
from the " old Town of Boston," in England, from which the city of our
own solemnities derived its name, a letter of Christian salutation and en
couragement from the Pastors and Delegates of the Independent Church
es of the County of Lincoln.
If the undersigned, as a Committee of the Pastors and Delegates of our
American Churches, to whom the pleasing duty of answering your " mes
sage of affection and sympathy " was assigned, have not returned an ear
Uer reply, it has been on account of special circumstances in which the
Chairman of the Committee has been placed, and not from any want of
heartfelt thankfulness and joy, on the part of the Council and its Com
mittee, in receiving such an assurance of your affectionate interest in the
objects and acts Of your American brethren. ,
The words of your message show that you fully sympathize with us
in appreciating the blessings of Christian liberty inherent in our mu
tual forms of church government; and that your minds expand with the
benevolence and wisdom of the gospel of our common Lord, in compre-

390 REPLY.
hending the momentous interests connected with our late national strug
gle for liberty and law.
You have mourned with us over the loss, by assassination, of our late
excellent President; you have felt and expressed the deep and grateful
conviction that God has graciously made his death the occasion of good
to our country; you have, with the fervor we have long known to be glow
ing in the hearts of our Congregational brethren in England, rejoiced in
the advancement of human freedom connected with our victory over re
bellion; and the widened fleld for the advancement of the gospel, in the
forms of our mutual church polity, throughout our country, and in hea
then lands, opened by the blessed results of our late civil conflict.
All these encouraging events, so wonderfully ordered by the good
providence of God, amid the conflicts of human passion, you have rejoiced
in with us. And, we are happy, and, we trust, grateful to God, as we
assure you, that their increasing developments, since we had the pleasure
of receiving your letter, have exhibited the loving-kindness of our heav
enly Father the more brightly to our eye of faith, and called the more
loudly for corresponding works, on our part, to meet his mercies with
the action of our thanks.
We are happy, also, in assuring you, that the results of the Council,
since its session, have been cheering to our hearts; — that a fresh and in
creased interest has been awakened, throughout the Congregational
Churches of our land, in the adaptation of our ecclesiastical system to
our republican forms of National and State governments ; and that we
are advancing, as one of the great Christian denominations, in gathering
churches to shine as lights, and hold forth the word of Ufe in aU parts
of it, — nrft forgetting the duty of striving to have the Word of God
" sounded out " from us to " the regions beyond."
At this time, there are very strong and encouraging indications that
the special influences of the Holy Spirit of God are accompanying the
means of grace used by the churches, and giving blessed promise of re
vivals of religion in many parts of our country.
We take encouragement, also, from " the signs of the times," dear
brethren, to hope confidently that we may rejoice together in the passing
away from the political sky of those clouds which have made us, some
times, fear lest the tempest of war might break the harmony which has
now, for so many years, existed between England and the United States.
And we heartily congratulate you and ourselves in the pleasing pros
pect thus spread before us of yet closer ties of Christian love and feUow
ship, that we may, with one mind and one spirit, strive together for the
faith of the gospel.
Yours, dear brethren, most affectionately,
in the gospel of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
George W. Blagden,)
Edward N. Kirk, > Committee.
\ Henry M. Dexter, J

CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE. 391
' Rev. Christopher Cushing, of Massachusetts, chairman of
committee on a Congregational House, read the following re
port :
, REPORT.
First. The Desirableness of a Congregational House. Without attempt
ing to present an exhaustive statement on this point, we would call at
tention to a few considerations.
(1.) A Congregational House is rendered desirable by the necessities
of the Congregational Library.
(a.) The American Congregational Association have already in their
possession a library of over five thousand bound volumes, and over fifty
thousand unbound pamphlets, many of them exceedingly rare, and most
pf them of great value as Ulustrative of Puritan history, and of the faith
and poUty of the Puritan churches.
This Ubrary, as it is now situated, is Uable any day to be consumed by
Are; and it is an imperative necessity, which as CongregationaUsts we
can not fail to appreciate, that this .treasury of knowledge should have a
safe place of deposit.
(b.) There are many individuals who have carefully selected private
libraries, or at least a few books, of special historic interest, and pamph
lets rescued from the paper-mill, that great foe to antiquarian researches,
who would gladly contribute them to the American Congregational As
sociation, if a fire-proof building were furnished to guarantee their perr
manent preservation.
Thus, in a few years, this library could be made richer in ecclesiastical
'Uterature than any other in our land.
We owe it to our own denomination to provide a place where those
who love our order, and possess reftcs of the fathers, may come and pre
sent their gifts.
(<2.) Again, a Congregational House is rendered desirable as the means
of increasing our devotion to our own denomination.
We aU know, our Western brethren feel, that we have not properly
discriminated between sectarian zeal and denominational interest. In
avoiding the former, we have neglected the latter. The American Con
gregational Association desires, by procuring essays and lectures on
questions of a denominational character, to promote our appreciation, as
a branch of the Church of Christ, of our distinctive peculiarities; and
they would "be greatly aided in this work by a house in which such es
says may be read and lectures delivered.
(3.) We need a place where those societies which are doing the work
of our denomination may have their centers of operations, whether they
make provision for the feeble churches, publish theological works for
ministers, Sabbath-school bpokg for chUdren, or tracts for the congrega
tions. (4.) We need a home to which, as Congregationalists, we may resort.
This city, as the home of our fathers, is endeared to us by the most

392 CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE.
sacred associations— the most haUowed memories. It is on this account
that we are convened here on the present momentous occasion.
We need a home here to. which we can repair, not as a CouncU once in
a century, but as individual members of the Congregational family, as
often as God in his providence shall favor us with the opportunity.
Such a home will give " a local habitation" to what might otherwise
have only " a name." It will serve to promote union among the churches
of our order in this city, and thus strengthen the denomination where it
was first estabUshed. It will give fresh interest to our anniversaries. It
will also promote union between the East and West. It wftl enable the
sons of the Pilgrims, the adopted sons, and the sons-in-law, when they
come from their distant homes, to rekindle the torch at the old fireside,
and bear forth its light to any Egyptian provinces where they may be
called to sojourn.
It may, in this connection, be well to call to mind that the erection of
such an edifice by us will be nothing pecuUar.
The Presbyterians, of both assemblies, have such houses in Philadel
phia; the Methodists in New York; and our Congregational brethren in
England have just raised by subscription two hundred thousand pounds
sterUng, as their bi-centennial fund, out of which, among other objects
important to their denomination, they propose to erect such a building,
for purposes similar to those which we contemplate, with the title of the
" Memorial HaU." It will be a happy circumstance if we can have such
a memorial, not only of the Fathers, but of the meeting of our present
National Council.
Second The Agency for the erection of a Congregational House.
We have no occasion for any new organization. The American Con
gregational Association, incorporated in 1854, under the title of the Con
gregational Library Association, which name was changed in 1864, is
authorized to hold property to the amount of $300,000, and " to do such
acts as may promote the interest of Congregational churches, by pubhsh-
ing works, by furnishing libraries and pecuniary aid to parishes, church
es, and Sabbath schools, by promoting friendly intercourse and co-op
eration among Congregational ministers and churches, and with other
denominations, and by coUecting and disbursing funds for the above ob
jects." This society, already in the field, is everything, so far as respects an
agency to secure a Congregational House, which could be desired.
Third. What has already been accomplished.
The American Congregational Association have at the present time
property in real estate to the amount of about $10,000, and have recently
secured a subscription of $20,000 in Boston and vicinity toward the erec
tion of a Congregational House; and such is the faciUty with which this
has been accompUshed, that the conviction is expressed that it will not
be difficult to secure an increase of this subscription, in this city and
vicinity, to $50,000.
Fourth. Tlie plan proposed.
It is thought that $100,000 wftl be needed for this object, and it is sug-

CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE. 393
gested that, should the subscription in this city and vicinity be increased
to $50,000, the remaining $50,000 should be secured chiefly from Massa
chusetts, or at least New England.
Fifth. Objections.
(1.) It may be objected to this proposition that the raising of this
amount of money for this object will interfere with the raising of the
$750,000 already proposed for other objects. To which we reply, that
the raising of the $750,000 proposed is not so formidable as at first ap
pears, for we have been accustomed to raise large sums for the Ameri
can Home Missionary Society and the American Missionary Association,
and something also for the American Congregational Union. And the
past year we have raised a very large amount for the Freedmen; and as
the $750,000 includes the objects of all these societies, the portion of the
$750,000 which is over and above what we have been accustomed to raise
is not appalUng.
Again, as the Congregational House is designed to conserve and foster
an interest in our own denomination, its erection will be the means of
rendering it easier in the end to raise money for other denominational
purposes. (2.) It may be objected that the existence of such a house will involve
continued annual expenses; but this it is estimated will be met in part,
or entirely, by the rents which such a building will yield. With the un
derstanding that the money shall be raised chiefly from persons in New
England, and particularly in Massachusetts, who are able to contribute
large sums, and that the Congregational House shaU not be a " House of
Bishops," nor the source of a centralized power for the control of Con
gregational bishops or churches, but a home for all the brethren, to form
or renew acquaintance, promote Christian fellowship, and the interests
of the great denominational family to which we belong, we commend the
American Congregational Association and its enterprises to the confi
dence and co-operation of our churches.
(Signed) Christopher Cushing,"
Emerson Davis,
E. Russell,
S. D. Cochran,
S. G. Wright,
Walter Booth,
Boston, June 21, 1865. --
The report was accepted.
Bev. Dr. Anderson, of Massachusetts. I have ho such special connec
tion with this enterprise as involves the duty of addressing this body; but
it seems desirable that a few things should be said in relation to it, that
the body may feel prepared to give their sanction to the enterprise. It has
been suggested to me that there are some persons who. feel that the sum
desired for erecting this building, and putting it into working condition,
would be so much taken out of the amount otherwise to be contributed
to the funds of the Council. In my opinion the reverse is the fact; and

Committee.

394 CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE.
this portion of your enterprise is just what we need here to develop the
spirit of Congregationalism among our churches in the East, and espe
cially in this city and vicinity.
I have felt that we have not reaUzed at all the importance of the de
nomination to which we belong, not only in New England but all over
the country, not as a sect, but as a portion of Christ's visible kingdom.
I have had in view for a number of years the object contemplated by
this enterprise; to wit: something in Boston to bring forth the spirit of
our churches, and make us feel that it is important for us to extend the
denomination over the far West, and now, if may be, over the far South.
I can not think of any one thing that is so Ukely to accomplish the object
as this particular enterprise, so ably brought before us by this report
that I need not go into the subject in detail.
We had in this city, not long since, a meeting of merchants, the larg
est and best meeting of merchants for an object that contemplated a sub
scription, that I have seen in this city for twenty years past or more.
We brought the proposition before them to raise $50,000, which was as
much as we thought if would do to ask for an object not fully compre
hended. But the enthusiasm of the meeting was such, based upon a
clear understanding of the facts brought before them, that it was thought
best that we should aim at raising $100,000, in order to obtain a buUding
adapted to our purpose. Toward that amount five merchants have sub
scribed $2,500 each, with the understanding that it shall be payable as
soon as $50,000 have been pledged. Another gentleman in the interior
sent us $2,000; and I have no doubt at all, as he is a member of this
Council, that, if necessary, he will add to that sum. Others are ready to
contribute $1,000, and others $500. There has been no object proposed
in Boston for a long time in the importance of which reUgious men have
been so united as in this.
We have obtained from the legislature the power of holding $300,000,
in property ; which will include all that is needful to carry out the ob
jects as they are contemplated by the directors.
I do not think it necessary for me to go further into the subject, as
there are others, living in other parts of the country, who will say some
thing upon it. I wiU close by stating my own conviction that our West
ern brethren, by giving their sanction to this enterprise, are doing the
best thing they can to raise a working power which will bring to them
more than half a miUion dollars in a very few years. I rejoice, that the
American Congregational Union have been authorized to raise $200,000
for the building of churches. New York is our great commercial center,
and that is the best place, I have no doubt at aU, for that society to op
erate in; but Boston is the place for the Library, and Boston is the place
from which to issue Congregational Uterature; and this society, which
does not contemplate to become a purchasing institution, would be the
best to advise Sabbath schools and churches of our denomination
throughout the country what are the best books for them to purchase.
Bev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio. The Senior Secretary of the American
Board, who is known to many of us to have taken a very deep interest

CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE. 395
in the subject, and to have devoted a great deal of time, and thought, and
soUcitude to it, before rising, appealed to me, as the representative of
the Western Conference, to confirm, if I could, by a word or two, his
impression respecting the sympathy, or rather, the identity, of the inter
est between the West and the East with regard to this subject. I do this
with the greatest pleasure. I regard this as one of the most important
practical suggestions which has been brought before this Council. I do
not deem it an exaggeration to say that the success of this project is es
sential to the full success of every other measure which has been pro
posed here.
Now, sir, with reference to the West. While our faith and polity
have, during the last thirty years, made wonderful progress, we have not
yet, in many locaUties, obtained that social vantage ground which is oc
cupied here. We are overshadowed by churches of another denomina
tion that have drawn their strength from New England, made up mainly
of emigrants from New England, and their descendants, sons and daugh
ters of the Pilgrims, and of the Puritan faith and polity. Some of our
own churches, comprised of those who have adhered to our polity, which
is as weU adapted to the West as to the East, and is as much needed at
the West as at the East, are overshadowed by the older churches; while
others have become as strong* as they. Others are becoming stronger,
and amid great difficulty and discouragement are attempting to hold up
the banner for Christ that it may be displayed for the truth.
These churches first of aU Uft their eyes to the eternal hills whence
cometh their help ; but they do also Uft their eyes occasionally to the
hills of New England, the monument of our poUty combined with evan
gelical faith; and it strengthens and cheers us to be able to turn to New
England as a specimen of what such a faith and such a poUty, under
God, can accompUsh.
The Western delegates to this Council have come up here, able and
strong ; and it was a special pleasure to them to meet in this National
CouncU, because it was to meet in this home of our youth, in this Jeru
salem of our Congregational Israel, which is free and gendereth not to
bondage. I find that a large number of my brothers in the West have
never visited Boston before ; and it does them good to walk about,
seeing how tall are her towers, to mark her bulwarks, and consider her
palaces, that they may teU to the present as well as to the following gen
eration who are to people the broad West in the future, where must be
( derived so largely the strength of our churches.
I believe that the interest which is felt in this cause by the churches of
the West, is fuUy as great as that which is felt in the East, and that they
WUl gladly respond to this proposition, and, according to their abiUty,
will cheerfully subscribe. I hope some steps will be initiated before the
CouncU shall dissolve, by which the suggestions of this able paper shall
be reaUzed, and that a subscription paper will be started here which will
give us some reasonable assurance that, in the good providence of God,
the object here proposed wUl be accomplished.
Eev. A- P. Marvin, of Massachusetts. This is a subject in which I

396 CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE.
have felt the deepest interest from the beginning. Living as I do some
seventy miles from the city, I have never been able to be present at any of
the meetings of the Association ; but I have found no man here who has felt
more interest than I in that subject. I never had an opportunity to con
sult with any person about it except the late most excellent and lamented
Eev. Joseph Clark. When I saw such a meeting called, my first im
pulse was to come here, simply from the interest I felt in it ; but know
ing that I could do nothing to aid the movement, I concluded to stay at
home. I am glad now to be able to be here. I only regret that the sum
has been put at $100,000 ; for I do not see how the object can be accom
plished, as it should be, for $100,000. Perhaps the business men here
can understand that. They may hope, from the rents of the buUding,
to be able to do what is necessary ; but for a building so large, and ar
chitecturally so beautiful as I desire, it seems to me that $100,000 wiU
not be enough.
I wish to speak only on one point, the relation of this institution to
our history ; not only to Congregational history, but to New England
history. I beUeve this point has not yet been touched upon. Brethren
who have not turned their attention to it, may wonder what good this is
going to do ; how a Ubrary and a great coUection of manuscripts in Bos
ton will be of any use to all the churches' between here and Oregon. I
suppose if there is any information gathered here, it wiU be easy to com
municate it. This will be the center where all the facts of our history
will be stored up ; and we shall have a librarian who can answer "any
question with regard to it, upon any topic which may be interesting con
nected with our history, or our polity, and our local as well as our gen
eral history.
You know we have been, I was about to say, " damned Uke Crom
well to everlasting fame," almost infamy, in a certain sort of Uterature
current in England, and beginning to be in this country. The fact is,
that our forefathers, and the friends of our forefathers in England, were
all covered over and blackened by the poets and letter-writers in Eng
land ; and it is only in recent days that we have been getting this black
rubbed off, so that we begin to shine out and to be understood by the
world. We have ourselves men rising up, poets, novelists, editors, ly-
ceum lecturers, ready to throw out their slanders and their misrepresent
ations of the character and history of our ancestors. I want simply to
collect the facts and have them ready to answer aU these misrepre
sentations. One of the designs of Mr. Clark was this very thing. He said there
were continual misrepresentations going out, of writers in Boston, or
Massachusetts, or other parts of the country, which could be corrected
by the facts which we were beginning to collect. I recoUect the remark
of one formerly noted lyceum lecturer, who said, " Yes, the Puritans
were a noble people ; but I am glad they Uved 200 years before I did."
He was fuU of prejudice, from his want of knowledge of the history of
New England. Mr. Palfrey has done a great thing for us, as weU as for
himself, in his candid and noble history. But if we can have a Ubrary

CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE. 397
here, and a suitable building properly conducted, and a librarian who
understands his duties, and who is not merely a custodian of books, ft
will change the current of opinion, and will do very much to make our
name honored, as it only needs to be known to be honored ; and our
brethren and friends, and our posterity, in the West and in the South,
wiU be proud of the name of their ancestors.
Rev. Mr. Quint, from the committee on Business, stated that
the committee on the Declaration of Faith were prepared to
report. On motion of Hon. Mr. Hammond, of Illinois,
the report was made the special order for 12 o'clock.
Half an hour was then spent in devotional exercises, prayer
being offered by Rev. Dr. Dutton, a hymn being sung, and re
marks being offered by Rev. Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts, Rev.
6. S. F. Savage, of Illinois, Dea. Charles Stoddard, of Massa
chusetts, Rev. Dr. Adams, of Maine, Rev. Dr. Sturtevant, of
Illinois, Rev. Dr. Gates, of Iowa, and others.
The Council then resumed the consideration of the report of
the committee on a Congregational House.
Hon. Mr. Hammond, of HUnois. I wish to say a word or two m refer
ence to this report, and perhaps my remarks may be a Uttle wider than
the report. I very much approve of this building in Boston, and wish it
had been done long ago. I think it ought to have been done; and that it
would have been done, if the ministry of New England had preached to
their people on the subject of their polity as much as they ought. I think
if the people of New England, with all her money, and intelligence, and
refinement, had been made, by the watchmen upon the walls, to under
stand the value of their church poUty, they would have poured out their
money and buUt the house, and we should Lave had that home. Still more,
if we had had that home, as the result of that conviction, the polity would
have been carried to the West by those who have come there, and they
would have Uved by it; whereas, in the town I came from, the larger
number of our Presbyterian ministers came from the Congregational
ministry of New England. Instead of their'being the most efficient lead
ers of the Presbyterian church, we should have had them to assist us.
When we have had but a little band, in want of sympathy as we have
been, I have thought, " Oh, that the people of New England loved their
poUty, and would teach it to their children, and teach them to love it! "
I am sure that if New England — rich in money, thought, and education,
and aU that makes New England glorious — loved this policy as they
ought, and had been taught it as they ought, they would long ago have
built this house.
I have been distressed since I came to this Council, and before I came
here, by the fear that we should separate and only skirmish round about,

398 CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE.
and not come to meet the enemy face to face and conquer. What have
we to do? What did we come here for, Christian fathers and brethren?
Did not we come here for the purpose of devising ways and means by
which to enlist a thousand men, and by which to equip and drftl a thou
sand men, and to furnish the commissariat for a thousand men or more
to go forth and bear the glad tidings of the gospel to those regions in
which there is now so much desolation? Is there before us anything else
so important as to determine how to raise these men, how they are to be
equipped, drilled, and supported in carrying forward this holy war? If
there is anything else so important, I will sit right down and let any
brother state what it is. No; there is nothing else.
The fact is patent to every one of us, that the reason why the gospel
does not extend wider and farther, and does not bring more to its sup
port, is that its privileges are not sufficiently appreciated; it is because
we undervalue the gospel. Do you not know that some persons, who
profess to be godly men, say there is such a thing as paying too much
for the' gospel; and they can not afford to part with so much of their
money as they are called upon to do, to support the gospel? Let me tell
you that, whatever it costs to support the gospel, it costs a great deal
more not to do it. I have seen that as a business man, in the different
towns which have grown up alongside of each other in the West. I have
seen one town planted upon a whiskey-barrel, and another planted upon
the gospel of our Saviour. Commencing with the same advantages, the
one has become a light to all around, while the other has gone out in
darkness. This is true, and wiU always be true.
Now, what is the reason that there is such an undervaluing of the gos
pel? I verily believe that the gospel is undervalued quite as much by
the ministry as by laymen. How many of the ministry — the reverend
fathers before me, and those we have left behind — are wUUng to come
up to the laymen, and tell them that no farther than they consecrate their
property to God have they the means of grace? How many will tell '
them that never, until it is all sacrificed, have they the evidence that they
are Christians? How often do you hear faithful sermons to rich men?
How often are we laymen, who are so apt to be covered up in the world,
and buried in the care of the dollars and cents, met by one who wUl look
us square in the face and tell us to consecrate all to God? How often
are we told that the only privilege is to hold so much property as is
necessary in the performance of the duties of our calUng or profession?
One man may be a merchant, requiring a capital of $500,000; another
may require $50,000, and another $5,000; another maybe a manufac
turer, and God only knows how much he needs. But he knows, and
God knows, how much income he should reserve. And he knows, or
ought to know, — and if he does not know it, you ought to teU him, —, that
he owes all that he makes over and above the necessary support of his
family, and laying up sufficient to educate his children, and what is neces
sary to keep up the tools of his profession, as the library of the lawyer,
to God. Do you believe that if you talked thus, with all the earnestness
with which you ought to teach us, we should want for $750,000? Do

CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE. 399
you believe we should want for the money which is necessary to raise
and educate these men, to establish these schools and colleges, and to
carry out these great objects which must be accomplished, or we shall
sink with a weight of guilt upon us which no one can estimate? He who
reads the Bible is taught to consecrate himself and all he has to God.
I know some of you say, We must not talk about money to our peo
ple. You do not estimate the laymen aright. They require this teach
ing, above all things. -They are, for six days in the week, wrapped up in
their business, and are very Ukely to overestimate the value of the good
things of this world. If you only speak to us about faith, and patience,
and hope, and justification, and these glorious truths; if you say nothing
about the particular duty of daily consecration of all that we can make,
aside from what I have said may properly be excepted, do you believe
the brethren will be ready to consecrate this money to God? It is not
so. God has ordained that by the foolishness of preaching he will save
those that beUeve; that by the foolishness of preaching he will prepare
us for salvation; that by the fooUshness of preaching he will instruct us
in our duty and bring us up to it.
How difficult it is for a man to know, and then to be brought up to his
duty! You know you can not bring us up to this, unless we see your
soul in it; unless we see you so determined to do it, that you will not be
afraid to offend a rich man because he is covetous. That sin of covetous-
ness, — O Lord, deliver us from it I If we could but be delivered from
that, we should want but a very few moments so to arrange our plans as
to be sure of extending the gospel of God. When we reach the practical
sacrifice of consecrating aU to God, then we may be assured that the
glory of God and the extension of his kingdom is secured through this
broad land — yea, throughout the world. [Applause.]
Hon. Mr. Douglas, of Connecticut. Some of us had the pleasure and
gratification yesterday of visiting the old consecrated ground at Plymouth,
and the opportunity of looking on what our immediate fathers have done
toward laying the foundation there of memorials of those goodly men.
There we saw the foundations of an immense monument to the memory
of our Pilgrim fathers. We saw the foundation also for another over
that holy rock, — that sacred spot where first they placed their feet. A
canopy is to be erected to protect that from the wearing drops of the
storms of heaven, and from ruthless hands that might endeavor to gather
fragments from that precious rock to carry to their several homes to 'look
upon. The grand forethought of our immediate fathers and friends in
laying these foundations to preserve these sacred reUcs, and in the erec
tion of Plymouth Hall for the preservation of the memorials handled by
our godly fathers, which to look upon did our hearts good, may well be
imitated by us to-day. If it strengthened us to see things which our
fathers looked upon and handled, is not the same thing true of our old
Congregational church, especiaUy here in this Puritan city, its early
foundation? Shall we not put up some monument here to commemorate
their labors, their prayers, their tears; — something that our children in
future time, as they come to this business mart, may look upon, to see

400 CONGREGATIONAL HOUSE.
what their fathers did to preserve the memory of their church? Shall
we not erect ¦ here the monument of the Congregational church here
founded, so near the old rock upon which our fathers landed?
I think we have neglected these things far too much. The Congrega
tional church has been truly a pioneer church. We have. marched our
armies through the fields, over the territory, conquering city after city;
but we have failed to garrison the cities as we have gone through
What would have been thought of Sherman, if, in- his triumphal march,
he had marched from city to city and failed to garrison them? We must
garrison the cities, not against other sects of orthodox persuasion, but
against the enemies of Christ's kingdom. I think the best way to garri
son this old city of our fathers is to erect here a memorial building for
our children to look upon.
I think, with the gentleman who has just spoken, that our clerical
friends have been too tender-hearted in this matter, too mealy-mouthed,
too afraid to ask us — the laity — to contribute to these objects. It has
been often spoken of among the laity, that upon this matter of calling
for contributions the clergymen are backward; that they are afraid of
hearing what has been caUed the " Judas jingle " in our churches. I Uke
to hear it. There is nothing which does me so much good as to hear the
church-plates go round. Do not be too mealy-mouthed; pass round the
plates, and we wiU give the money.
Hon. Mr. Barstow, of Rhode Island. I wish for a Uttle Ught before I
vote for this. I should like to be informed of the number of the corpora
tors, and their locaUty, and whether the matter is perfectly guarded, so
that we may be sure that this buUding wiU represent our poUty in future
generations. We have seen such things sUp out sometimes.
Rev. Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts. The association, although incorpo
rated by the Legislature of Massachusetts, is composed of members of
Orthodox Congregational churches without regard to locaUty, each paying
one doUar or more into its treasury, and thus becoming a Ufe-member.
The number of corporators, therefore, is the whole number of those church
members, who choose to become such by the payment of one doUar.
There is an annual meeting held in Boston at the time of the anniversa
ries in May. The list of officers will show the names of those connected
with it. The officers are elected annually by ballot.
Hon. Mr. Barstow. I think the corporation is too open, if the pay
ment of one dollar makes a man a member for life. No matter what his
change of faith may be, he is still a voting member.
Rev. Mr. Dexter, of Massachusetts. That is guarded against. He
must be and remain a member in good and regular standing in an Ortho
dox Congregational church, or he can not vote.
The report was adopted. declaration of faith.
The hour of 12 o'clock having arrived,
Rev. Dr. Stearns, on behalf of the committee to revise the language

DECLARATION OF FAITH. 401
of the Declaration of Faith, said : Your committee have confined them
selves strictly to the duty intrusted to them. They have not attempted
to introduce any new matter whatever, or to modify any old matter, so
as surreptitiously or by any possibility to introduce new matter which
was exceptionable. Nor upon a review of this document did they desire,
all things considered, to introduce anything of that kind. They confined
themselves simply to modifications of language, regarding somewhat
euphony, but more especially perspicuity, in order that the sentiments
here expressed may go out intelligently and satisfactorUy — so far as the
document itself is satisfactory — to all.
In paragraph 1, substitute "declare" for "reiterate"; " substantially as embodied,"
instead of " as substantially embodied " ; strike out "as" after "primitive churches."
In the sentence commencing " We bless the God of our fathers," make it read " We bless
Ood for," etc., and strike out all after " doctrines."
In paragraph 2, after " the state," insert " and."
In paragraph 6, change "But" to "Thus" for the first word; and read "should
agree," instead of " may agree."
In paragraph 7, before " are justified," substitute " believers in him " for " we " ; after
" before God," strike out " and " ; after "remission of sins, and," strike out " that it is" ;
after " Comforter," strike out " alone that we," then substitute " are " for " hope to be " ;.
and strike out " to be " before " perfected."
In paragraph 8, substitute " the " for " an" before " organized."
In paragraph 9, strike out " originally."
Rev. Dr. Stearns then read the revised Declaration of Faith,
as follows :
Standing by the rock where the Pilgrims set foot upon these shores,,
upon the spot where they worshiped God, and among the graves of the' •
early generations, we, Elders and Messengers of the Congregational
churches of the United States in National Council assembled — Uke them
acknowledging no rule of faith but the word of Gdd — do now declare "
our adherence to the faith and order of the apostolic and primitive
churches held by our fathers, and substantially as embodied in the con
fessions and platforms which our Synods of 1648 and 1680 set forth or
reaffirmed. We declare that the experience of the nearly two and a half
centuries which have elapsed since the memorable day when our sires
founded here a Christian Commonwealth, with aU the development of new
forms of error since their times, has only deepened our confidence in the
faith and polity of those fathers. We bless God for the inheritance of
these doctrines. We invoke the help of the Divine Redeemer, that,
through the presence of the promised Comforter, he wftl enable us to
transmit them in purity to our children.
In the times that are before us as a nation, times at once of duty and
of danger, we rest all our hope in the gospel of the Son of God. It was
the grand peculiarity of our Puritan Fathers, that they held this gospel,
not merely as the ground of their personal salvation, but as declaring
the worth of man by the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God; and
therefore appUed its principles to elevate society, to regulate education,
to civilize humanity, to purify law, to reform the Church and the State,
26

402 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
and to assert and defend liberty; in short, to mold and redeem, by its
all-transforming energy, everything that belongs to man in his individual
and social relations.
It was the faith of our fathers that gave us this free land in which we
dwell. It is by this faith only that we can transmit to our chUdren a free
and happy, because a Christian, commonwealth.
We hold it to be a distinctive excellence of our Congregational system,
that it exalts that which is more above that which is less, important, and,
by the simpUcity of its organization, facilitates, in communities where
the population is limited, the union of all true believers in one Christian
church; and that the division of such communities into several weak and
jealous societies, holding the same common faith, is a sin against the
unity of the body of Christ, and at once the shame and scandal of Chris
tendom. We rejoice that, through the influence of our free system of apostoUc
order, we can hold fellowship with all who acknowledge Christ, and act
efficiently in the work of restoring unity to the divided Church, and of
bringing back harmony and peace among all "who love our Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity."
Thus recognizing the unity of the Church of Christ in aU the world,
and knowing that we are but one branch of Christ's people, whUe adher
ing to our pecuUar faith and order, we extend to all beUevers the hand
of Christian fellowship upon the basis of those great fundamental truths
in which all Christians should agree. With them we confess our faith in
God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: in Jesus Christ, the in-
joarnate Word, who is exalted to be our Redeemer and King; and in the
PJiloly Comforter, who is present in the Church to regenerate and sanctify
the soul.
With the whole Church, we confess the common sinfulness and ruin of
our race, and acknowledge that it is only through the work accomplished
by the Ufe and expiatory death of Christ that beUevers in him are justi
fied before God, receive the remission of sins, and through the presence
and grace of the Holy Comforter are deUvered from the power of sin,
and perfected in holiness.
We believe also in the organized and visible Church, in the ministry
of the Word, in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, in the
resurrection of the body, and in the final judgment, the issues of which
are eternal Ufe and everlasting punishment.
We receive these truths on the testimony of God, given through proph
ets and apostles, and in the life, the miracles, the death, the resurrection,
of his Son, our Divine Redeemer — a testimony preserved for the Church
in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which were composed
by holy men as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Affirming now our belief that those who thus hold "one faith, one
Lord, one baptism," together constitute the one catholic Church, the sev
eral households of which, though called by different names, are the one
body of Christ, and that these members of his body are sacredly bound
to keep "the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," we declare that

DECLARATION OF FAITH. 403
we will co-operate with all who hold these truths. With them we will
carry the gospel into every part of this land, and with them we will go
into all the world, and " preach the gospel to every creature." May He
to whom " all power is given in heaven and earth " fulfill the promise
which is all our hope: " Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the
world." Amen.
Bev. Prof. Porter, of Connecticut. I move that the report be adopted.
I was somewhat disturbed, I must confess, at the proposition that the re
port should be passed so suddenly yesterday morning. The reason why
I was disturbed was this. When I came to this body, and especially,
when I became acquainted with the committee to whom was entrusted
the preparation of this document, I felt it to be my Christian and sacred
duty to prepare a document which would represent every phase of faith
held by members of this Council in such language as they could con
scientiously accept, and in such form that they could cordially unite in
putting it forth as a confession of their united and common faith. I felt
sacreuly bound to act truly and faithfully in the interest of every phase
of doctrine here represented. Under the pressure of this acknowledged
duty, all the committee acted in presenting their report, the result of
three days' deUberation. They were so happy as to find that the report
was generally and cordially accepted.
A certain portion of the assembly, however, objected to two or three
paragraphs, in which the name of that most eminent reformer and theo
logian, John Calvin, occurs, whom we are proud to honor as one of the
ablest theologians and noblest thinkers that Christendom has ever pro
duced. [Applause.] In the objection, however, to the introduction of
that name, both representative wings of doctrine united. Those who held
to the extreme forms of Calvinism, and some individuals more Calvinistic
than Calvin himself, objected to the introduction of any human name.
When, then, it was found the next morning, that the proposition to
pass at once a modified report was to be acted upon, I felt hurt, pained,
disturbed, grieved; for I feared that a portion of the Council — that por
tion which may be said to be most strenuous for the characters and the
names of the fathers — might feel that their rights were not respected.
For that reason I interposed my objection.
I was afterwards so happy as to learn that the whole project originated
in the brain of an individual who represents that phase, if he represents
any school, — the suggestion of a happy or unhappy inspiration, — and
that, it did not originate with any of those who might be supposed to
tend in a looser direction. The knowledge of that fact removes all my
objection to passing the document as modified. I am now prepared to
vote for it, and think we are all as' well prepared to vote for it now as we
shall be after two days of discussion. [Applause.]
Rev. Dr. Barstow, of New Hampshire. What is the meaning of the
expression, "all who acknowledge Christ"?
Rev. Dr. Adams, of Maine. Is it proper for the committee to make
any explanation of the meaning of the report?

404 DECLARATION OF FAITH.
Rev. Dr. Barstow. A great many say they " acknowledge Christ,"
whom we do not acknowledge.
Rev. Prof. Porter. We have professed Christ in a certain form, and
we say that we can hold fellowship with all who acknowledge Christ in
this way.
Rev. Dr. Barstow. Say that, and we will go for it.
Rev. Prof. Porter. That is implied. It was intended to state our
faith in the shortest and most devotional way. Let the critic whine and
the objector cavil. No honest man will misunderstand the meaning df
the Council. I stand upon my responsibiUty before aU classes of theolo
gians in this Council, and before the Christian world, that there can be
no misconstruction in language of this sort.
Rev. Dr. Barstow. My object is answered, if this explanation goes
out with the Declaration of Paith.
Rev. Prof. Porter. I think ft will. We are here as a Council rep
resenting aU phases of Christian doctrine, including those theologians
irreverently called the " twice-baked crackers," and also if there be any
like " cakes unturned," who need to be put into a theological seminary
and baked again, we include them. We include representatives from the
Eastern shore of Maine to the Western shore that is washed by the Pa
cific ; and now from each beach let there go up in the face of heaven our
united speech " We are one." [Prolonged applause.]
Rev. Dr. Stone, of New Hampshire, moved to amend the clause
confessing faith in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
in Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Comforter, so as to read, "we
confess our faith in one only living and true God, consisting in
God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost."
On motion of Rev. Mr. Bliss, of Tennessee, the amendment
was laid upon the table.
On motion of Rev. Mr. Bliss, of Tennessee, it was ordered
that there be no further debate upon this report.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Adams, of Maine, it was ordered that
the Declaration of Faith be again read, that prayer be then of
fered, and the question be then taken upon the adoption, riot
only of the report, as to verbal amendments, but of the Decla
ration of Faith, as a whole, as reported by the committee this
morning. The Declaration" of Faith was accordingly again read, in a
distinct and impressive manner, by Rev. Dr. Stearns;
Prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. Palmer of New York.
The vote was then taken by rising upon the adoption of the
above Declaration of Faith, and it was adopted, nem. eon. [Ap
plause.]

CHURCH IN WASHINGTON. 405
At the suggestion of vRev. Prof. Porter, it was agreed to sing
" My faith looks up to thee," to be followed, at the suggestion
of Rev. Dr. Stearns, by the old doxology, " To God the Father,
God the Son;" and, at the suggestion of Hon. Mr. Hammond,
the Council rose while singing.
The Council then took their usual recess until 3 o'clock
p. M. AFTERNOON SESSION.
The Council met at 3 o'clock.
Rev. Mr. Quint, from the Business Committee, submitted
some resolutions, without any recommendation, which were, on
motion of Dr. Dutton, referred back to the committee, to be
disposed of by them as they should think proper.
Rev,. Mr. Quint also submitted the following resolution, which
was referred to the committee on the Erection of a Church in
Washington :
Resolved, That this Council recommend, that from the amount raised
for church building in central locaUties at the South, a sum not exceeding
$50,000 be appropriated by the American Congregational Union, for
the establishment of a Congregational church in the city of Washing
ton, D. O, provided that an amount equal to the sum appropriated by
the American Congregational Union aforesaid be received from other
sources. The following order was also submitted by the Business Com
mittee :
Ordered, That a committee be appointed to report to this Council a
brief paper on the subject of worship — not an order of worship — but
worship both in public and private.
Bev. A. P. Marvin, of Massachusetts. I wftl say to the Council that
this does not propose the adoption of an order of worship, or a form of
worship. It is no crotchet about altering our forms of worship, but simply
worship; and it is brought in in consequence of a conversation with Dr.
Kirk. As he has not brought it in, I have; and if I may be allowed a
suggestion, without interfering with the business .of the nominating
committee, I would suggest that Dr. Kirk be the Chairman of the Com
mittee,. The order was adopted.
The following resolution was also presented by Mr. Quint, in
behalf of the Business Committee :
Resolved, That as our Lord Jesus Christ always spoke openly, and

406 AMERICAN CONGREGATIONAL ASSOCIATION.
said nothing in secret, and is alone entitled to the unqualified faith of his
followers, this Council hereby utters its solemn testimony against all
secret associations which bind their members by extra-judicial oaths or
obligations. The resolution was laid upon the table.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. May I interrupt the reading of the
report of the Committee on Business with one suggestion? Is it not time
for us to instruct the Business Committee not to bring any new business
before this Council? We may sit here longer than the Council of Trent,
if we are to entertain every pet notion that anybody may choose to lay
before that committee.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. I wish Dr. Bacon would modify
the motion, so that the committee be empowered to use their discretion
about submitting matters to this body. There may something come
before them that the Council would Uke to act upon.
Rev. Dr. Bacon. The order could be suspended, if anything extraor
dinary came up. But I would move ''that the Business Committee be
instructed to present no new business.
Bev. Dr. Dutton. We shall not save ourselves in that way. These
matters will force themselves through the body, if we shut up the Busi
ness Committee in that way; but if we empower the Business Com
mittee to use their discretion, we shaU have no new business that is not
important. I move that amendment.
Rev. Dr. Bacon accepted the amendment, and the motion, in
that form, passed.
Rev. Mr. Quint presented another resolution regarding rais
ing money, which, on motion of Rev. Dr. Holbrook, of New
York, was referred to the committee already appointed on that
subject. Mr. Quint also submitted the following resolution from the
Business Committee, stating that it originated from the ques
tion raised in the morning whether unlimited membership was
perfectly consistent with the security of the property of the
American Congregational Association, and was prepared by
Hon. Mr. Barstow, of Rhode Island.
Whereas, this Council has recommended that the sum of $100,000 be
raised for the purpose of erecting, in the city of Boston, a suitable TiuUd-
ing for an American Congregational House, therefore, '
Resolved, That said association be requested to seek such change of
its charter, or make such change in the 3d article of its Constitution,
as shall better secure the property held thereby to those who represent
our faith in coming generations.

RESOLUTIONS. 407
Bev. Dr. Anderson, of Massachusetts. I would move that the name
" Congregational House " be substituted for the phrase, " building erected
for the Congregational Association."
Bev. Dr. Barstow, of New Hampshire. I hope that alteration will
not be made. The name in the preamble is exactly what the Associa
tion bears; and, whatever name we give to the house, it will be controlled
for ever by the Association to which we give the name. It is a house to
be erected for the American Congregational Association.
Bev. Dr. Anderson. I want to say that there are conveniences in
having the name retained, if you retain the other name. I would suggest
that it read, " A Congregational House, for the use of the American Con
gregational Association."
The amendment was adopted and the resolution passed.
The Business Committee also submitted the following resolu
tions, which were referred to a special committee : —
Resolved, That this Council desires to record its sense of the impor
tance of the worship of God's house, independently of the sermon, usu
ally and justly holding with us so conspicuous a place, while there is
reason to apprehend sufficient attention is not always given to reading,
prayer, and praise, with a view to make them, in the highest practical
measure, attractive, awakening, and edifying.
Resolved, That our mode of public worship, especially of prayer, — so
plain and simple, but happily affording scope for the utmost variety of
thought, and beautiful adaptation to the ever-changing experience of
hfe, — should be conducted, not with reference to instruction, or asser
tion of doctrine, or notification to men of passing events, which is a
degradation, but with a view pre-eminently to the producing of devout
emotion, and the commingling of aU hearts in one spirit of confession,
supphcation, and praise. *¦
Resolved, That we recommend to ministers to give much more atten
tion to this part of divine service, and to teachers in our theological
seminaries to endeavor to impart a better preparation for this part of a
minister's service.
The following preamble and resolutions, also presented by
the Business Committee, were referred to the committee on
Devotional Exercises : —
Whereas, We, the members of the National Council, recognize in our
deliberations a degree of unanimity and cordiality which was hardly to
be expected in view of the wide separation of our churches in space, and
the diversity of experiences and influences under which they have been
trained in the Providence of God. Therefore,
Resolved, 1st, That we do hereby cordially and unanimously assert
our assent to the general course of action in this CouncU.
2d. That we devoutly thank God for the evidence developed in this

408 APPORTIONMENT COMMITTEE.
assembly that we are harmonious in our views of the teachings of God's
.word, and the leadings of his providence in our times.
3d. That before the close of this Council we wUl unite in the observ
ance of the Lord's Supper (at such time and in such manner as the com
mittee on Devotional Exercises may deem best), whereby we trust aU
our minds may be turned to Him who is the source of all our hopes and
convictions as Christians, and all our hearts united in the love of our
Saviour, the great Head of the Church.
Mr. Quint stated that the Business Committee recommended
that the session be extended until half-past six, in the hope that
the business might be finished by to-morrow noon. The recom
mendation was adopted.
Rev. Mr. Langworthy, from the Committee on Nominations,
offered the following report : —
COMMITTEE ON THE APPORTIONMENT OF THE $750,000.
New York. — Deacon Samuel Holmes, Rev. John C. Holbrook, d. d.,
Eev. L. Smith Hobart.
Maine. — Charles A. Lord, Rev. Uriah Balkam, Rev. Seth H.
Keeler, d. d.
New Hampshire. — Rev. Alvan Tobey, Rev. Henry E. Parker, Hon.
Thomas J. Melvin.
Vermont. — Rev. Lewis O. Brastow, Rev. George P. Tyler, Hon. Ira
Goodhue. Massachusetts. — Rev. Ariel E. P. Perkins, Hon. Allen W. Dodge,
Marshall S. Scudder.
Connecticut. — Rev. Davis S. Brainerd, Bev. Hiram P. Arms, D. D.,
Deacon George W. Shelton.
Rhode Island. — Hon. Amos C. Barstow.
New Jersey. — Lowell Mason, Jr.
Pennsylvania. — Rev. Edward Hawes.
Belaware. — Deacon Abner H. Bryant.
Maryland. — Nathaniel Noyes.
Ohio, — Rev. Thomas Wickes, D. d., Rev. John C. Hart.
Tennessee. — Bev. Thomas E. Bliss.
Indiana. — Deacon A. G. Willard.
Blinois. — Rev. Richard C. Dunn, Rev. William Carter.
Michigan. — Rev. Herbert A. Read, Rev. Hiram Elmer.
Wisconsin. — Rev. Edward G. Miner, Rev. Isaac N. CundaU.
Iowa. — Rev. Jesse Guernsey, Seth Richards.
Minnesota. — Rev. Charles Seccombe.
Missouri. — Rev. Julian M. Sturtevant, Jr.
Kansas. — William H. Watson.
Nebraska Territory. — Rev. Reuben Gaylord.
Colorado. — Rev. WUliam Crawford.
California. — Jacob Bacon.
Oregon. — Rev. George H. Atkinson.

APPORTIONMENT COMMITTEE. 409
COMMITTEE ON PRAYER AND FASTING.
Bev. Leonard Swain, d. d., R. I.; Rev. Geo. A. Oviatt, Conn.; Rev.
Erastus Maltby, Mass.
Bev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. I want to ask what the first of
these committees is for ?
Eev. Mr. Langworthy. I was not present, and, so far as I can learn,
neither of my colleagues were, when this committee was ordered.
Bev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. It was to apportion the $750,000.
Eev. Dr. Bacon. If that is the meaning of it, I say the raising of
' the $750,000 becomes an impossibiUty the moment it is attempted in
that way.
Bev. Dr. Thompson, of New York. I would ask if we have not just
now passed a resolution covering that whole ground, and defining that
that was not an amendment, but a reconsideration ?
Eev. Dr. Holbrook, of New York. I understand this committee to
be a committee to devise ways and means for raising the $750,000.
Bev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. I understand that the idea is (and
if I am wrong, I desire to be corrected), to assess, in the form of a
recommendation, the $750,000 among the several States. That being
the motion before us, to appoint a committee who shall consider that
method of raising money, I want to say that, supposing a programme
comes out, saying, specifically, that the churches in Massachusetts should
pay a certain portion of it, and the churches in the State of California
pay a certain portion, and the one church in the State of Delaware pay
a certain portion, if the one church in the State of Delaware don't pay
that portion, it never will be paid; and if the churches in California
don't pay their portion, no other State will make it up ; for the utmost
that you can expect, when you make such an assessment, is that any
church or State on which a certain amount is apportioned, will raise that
amount. A good many wUl inevitably fail to make up their part, and it
will be impossible to secure the $750,000. The only way of raising the
money is to appeal to the universal sympathy, love, charity, and zeal of
the whole body of our churches.
Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York, raised the point of order
that the Council had already voted to appoint a committee to
consider this subject, and that the committee just nominated by
the Nominating Committee was the committee thus ordered,
and the chair so ruled. The report of the committee was then
adopted. Rev. Dr. Dutton, from the Committee on Evangelization at
the South and West, reported, in reference to a church in Balti
more, that they would move that this Council commend the
object, and refer it to the special consideration of the American
Congregational Union. Adopted.

410 BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Badger (representing California),
Hon. Samuel A. Chapin, of Virginia City, Nevada, was admit
ted as an honorary member.
Rev. William A. Stearns, d. d., of Massachusetts, from the
committee to whom was referred the paper on Systematizing Be
nevolent Contributions, submitted their report, as follows : * —
EEPOBT OF COMMITTEE ON BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES.
The committee to whom was submitted the paper entitled " Systema- .
tizing Benevolent Contributions" ask leave to report, that they have
given as much time to the consideration of the subject of the paper as
your intervals of business and their other engagements would allow,
and see no reason to dissent from the general views and statements pre
sented by the original committee.
They were evidently embarrassed, as aU who give attention to the
facts and circumstances of the case must be, by the number of existing
organizations engaged in important enterprises, and by the difficulty of
connecting those organizations by any wise and practicable plans of con
centration. If the authors of the paper had any such end in view when
they commenced the work assigned them, they were evidently brought
to despair of its accomplishment. Your committee fully agree with
them in the opinion that much less can be safely attempted' towards
reducing the number of benevolent associations, and giving greater
breadth and power to a few which might be specially recommended to
public confidence, than the inexperienced in such an effort would natu
rally imagine. Most of these societies have long since attained to the
dignity and stability of years and experience, and have acquired confi
dence by valuable services. Most of them have their own charters, their
own endowments, their own special patrons and friends, and their own
specific works. They have also a history and a life, and would be de
stroyed only by undesirable pressure and violence. The work of evan
gelizing the heathen and nominally Christian nations abroad, and of
converting the population of our own country wholly to Christ, is the
one work, generally speaking, which as Christians and Congregation
aUsts we are all interested, in connection with the upbuilding of our own
churches, to achieve j and we suppose it to be an established fact that
this work must be carried on among us through the agency of the great
missionary and other benevolent associations which have been estab
lished for the purpose.
It must not, however, be forgotten that new and great opportunities
for Christian effort have been opened to us by the results of the war.
The colored freedmen, the long neglected whites of the South, the in-
rushing, enterprising, diversified populations of the West, even more
than before, all demand Christian sympathy and assistance, which can
? The report is here printed as finally adopted, — the original paper not being obtain
able. The slight alterations made from the original will be easily gathered from the
discussions.

BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES. 411
be best afforded, sometimes by the old organizations, and sometimes
perhaps by temporary associations formed expressly for their benefit.
We can not restrict the liberty of the churches in selecting the fields of
their labor, the objects of their benevolence, and the channels through
which they would bestow theft contributions.
Tour committee, therefore, in view of the whole subject, would limit
themselves to a few simple suggestions, and those chiefly in accordance
with the sentiments of the paper before them.
1. They suggest that it is exceedingly desirable that the disposition to
Christian giving should be greatly intensified and extended — that all
the members of our larger churches should be educated and accustomed
to it, and that pains should be taken to interest not only the smaller, but
the smallest churches in it. Of this last character, it is believed that
there are large numbers which are rarely visited by the agents of be
nevolent societies, for the reason that such agents do not find this work
pecuniarily remunerative to the associations which employ them. In
consequence of this neglect, while the pecuniary loss to the kingdom of
Christ is great, the loss of Christian growth, through the disuse of giv
ing, is far greater and deplorable. We would caU the attention of min
isterial associations, church conferences, agents of benevolent societies,
pastors, and churches, to this subject, that they may inquire, in their
respective localities and relations, what can be done to develop the
benevolence of all churches and Christians- within the reach of their
influence.
, 2. Your committee suggest, that it may be safe and wise to presume
that intelligent Christians, in selecting societies, will naturally give their
preference. to those- whose work, as defined, come nearest to that " fool
ishness of preaching " by which Christ saves those who believe.
3. Your committee suggest, that without infringing upon the Uberty
of the churches and of private Christians, in their selection of societies,
and because we are afraid that many churches, especially at the West,
would esteem it a great favor to be informed of the facts, it may be well
for this body to say that the American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions, the American Home Missionary Society, and the
American Missionary Association, have the confidence of our churches,
and have been accustomed to receive and disburse most of the charities
intended to subserve the ends for which these societies were formed;
that the American Education Society, for the increase of the number of
Christian ministers; the Society for Promoting Collegiate and Theologi
cal Education at the West, having the same general object in view; the
American Bible Society for the translation and distribution of the Word
of God; the American and Foreign Christian Union for diffusing the
simple gospel among nations and communities whose Christianity has
been sadly corrupted, and in some instances almost destroyed by human
additions and superstitions; the old and well-established societies for the
benefit of seamen, and for the gathering and improving of Sabbath
Schools, and the Christian education of children in them; the Congrega
tional Board of PubUcation, and the American Congregational Asso-

412 BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES.
ciation, — have all been sanctioned by the customs of the churches, and
by the recommendations, often repeated, of numerous religious bodies
among us; also that the objects for which the American Tract Societies -
were instituted, namely, the distribution of religious books and tracts,
especially in settlements supposed to be destitute of them, are considered
by this Council as of great importance, and are cordially recommended
to the churches; also that, whereas there are many associations for the
benefit of the freedmen, — the paper under consideration says at least
twelve, others say as many as eighteen within their knowledge, — it
would seem desirable to concentrate such agencies, so far as our contri
butions are concerned,' into some one responsible body sufficiently known
and approved to be worthy of our confidence; and as the American
Missionary Association has undertaken this work, we are happy to say
that in our judgment there is no existing organization which has better
adaptations to the successful performance of it; also, and as a matter of
special importance, that an effort to encourage and aid church building,
especially at the West and South, should be earnestly carried forward
by the Congregational Union, which has undertaken this enterprise.
4. Your committee suggest, that while it is not expedient for this
Council to attempt constrained conjunctions of societies, nor in their
power to furnish perfect systems of Christian giving which may be
applicable to all cases, it is the legitimate business of each church, and
would conduce greatly to its order and comfort, to decide, after full
consideration for themselves, what objects they will patronize, what
societies they wiU employ as their organs, and at what times they will
make their contributions. They can adopt either of the plans suggested
in the paper before us, or construct a plan each for itself, always regard
ing the ability of the church, and adopting such courses as may be
most conducive to good order and most fruitful in good works. Tour
committee can not think that impulsive giving to irresponsible soUcitors,
when the circumstances can not be weU understood, is either required by
our Lord, or is conducive to the edification of his church. New objects
of high importance will often demand consideration; but ft enter
tained at all, they should be regarded only as occasional and extraor
dinary. Finally, your committee suggest that it would be a great saving of
expense and confusion, and for the edification of the churches, if the
pastors would undertake, as far as may be practicable, to act themselves
as agents in behalf of the several objects for which the churches under
their care may choose to contribute; and that while agents may be
invited when necessary to communicate information, the systematic
efforts of pastors and churches should be our main reliance for securing
those stated contributions which our churches may choose to bestow.
W. A. Stearns,
J. H. Ltnsley,
Wooster Parker,
Calvin B. Cady,
H. A. Miner,
Jeremiah Butler.

AMERICAN CONGREGATIONAL UNION. 413
Eev. Mr. Adams, of New Hampshire. I would suggest a single verbal
alteration. In the place of " The Foreign Evangelical Society," what
' I suppose the committee meant was " The American and Foreign
Christian Union."
-.'.The amendment was accepted.
A Member. I notice the omission of any reference to the Congrega
tional Board of Publication, which is to our denomination what similar
boards are to other denominations. It has a fund, and is prepared to
issue tracts to supply missionaries at the West, to a certain extent.
Eev. Mr. Langworthy, of Massachusetts. I would like very much,
Mr. Moderator, with your permission and the permission of the Council,
to say a word, as I could not get the floor when the subjects of Evangeli
zation at the South and West and Church BuUding were under discus
sion. After sixteen or twenty other good societies, — they are all good,
brethren, — I have not a word to say against one of them, — after these
other societies have reaped the field, the committee kindly suggest that
the American Congregational Union is a very good society through which
to aid in building houses of worship at the South and West. Now, I do
want, exceedingly, an expression from this body in regard to church
buUding. There was a general " omnibus bill " passed here the other
day, saying that it would be a good thing to raise $200,000 to build
churches. I have very Uttle hope from that expression. It does not -
reach the point. Not one half of the churches have ever recognized this
object. They have looked upon it as a very clever thing in its way to
do something toward building meeting-houses, but they have never lifted
a finger to help. I have worked at this matter for eight years, and 1
have said a good many things — some of them, perhaps, not very wisely.
The brethren of the West have felt themselves very dependent upon this
aid; and I say, if this matter is passed over in this way, we shall not
raise the $200,000, nor even $20,000. If you make this object dependent
upon putting another month into the year, — as one minister told me, he
would take up a collection for the Congregational Union if I would
make thirteen months in a year, — I say, if you make this object depend
ent upon that, nothing will be done.
All these commercial societies are doing a good work, but are they
flrst, second, or third in importance to our churches at the present time ?
If you so decide, let this matter sUde; let it take care of itself; I cer
tainly do not want to press it upon you. To me it is a very important
and vital thing. It seemed to me that if there could be two or three
short resolutions passed, something to this effect: " That we will do our
utmost to double our contributions to the American Home Missionary
Society and the American Missionary Association, and go on in the same
way year after year," (for these societies wiU need double) ; and then
if you would say, " We will put the church building work of the Ameri-

414 AMERICAN CONGREGATIONAL UNION.
.can Congregational Union on our calendar for annual contributions, and
recommend others to do the same,"— I say, that if some such resolutions
could be passed, something would be done. We never shaU raise one half
or one quarter of $200,000 unless this society comes nearer to you than the
fifteenth or sixteenth to which you are caUed upon to contribute. Can
there not be something said that will make this report a Uttle more de
cided, and so that we shaU know the opinion of the CouncU on this church
building work ?
I feel keenly on this subject. It is my specialty, you say; but I have
been called upon to make it so, and I beUeve it is vital to our denomina
tion that this matter should be acted upon by the Council. Do you ask
me how many of the churches in Massachusetts and Connecticut con
tribute to this object ? About one in twenty; and most of these only at
my importunity. Not fifty churches in New England have it on their
calendar, and make regular contributions to it.
I ought to say now, that since this Council commenced its session; I have
received letters which assure me that, if the good work of the Lord shall
prosper in Southern Missouri for twelve months, as it has for the last three
months, our receipts of last year, and our prospective receipts for the
year to come, would not meet the demands for church building in Mis
souri alone. Perhaps there wUl be a cessation, but if brother Turner
goes on as he has been going on for three months, we shall not have
enough to meet the wants of that State; and that, too, without appropri
ating more than $500 to any one church. And yet, from all the South
and West are coming floods of letters asking for contributions.
Rev. Dr. Holbrook, of New York. I sympathize very much with
the remarks of Mr. Langworthy, but I will not add anything except to
say that this subject will come up again in connection with the report of
the committee which has just been appointed for devising ways and
means for raising funds. It was my purpose to propose a plan, if nobody
else did, by which that sum of $200,000 should be raised for church
building. When that committee shall report, the whole subject wUl be
before us.
Rev. Dr. Stearns, of Massachusetts. A word of explanation. The
committee, in preparing this report, did not overlook the importance of
this society, and did not intend to put ft in an inferior position. We
hardly thought it was best to begin with that society, and we thought
the next best place was the end, as the beginning and the end are more
likely to attract attention than any other parts. [Laughter.] We
thought we gave this society a good position, — not the highest, but
perhaps what might be next to, it. Besides that, we supposed there
might be a special resolution on the subject, and I should be very glad,
for one, to vote for one presented by the secretary of that society, or by
some committee which should urge this object with as much eloquence
as it is proper to introduce into a resolution. But we could not do every
thing in a little report Uke this.

THE TRACT SOCIETIES. 415
On, motion, the report was amended by the insertion of the
" Congregational Board of Publication."
Bev. Dr. Thompson, of New York. I move to amend the report by
omitting the paragraph referring to the two Tract Societies. I don't wish
to discuss the question. I have no desire that the Council should express
itself in favor of either of these societies. There are obvious reasons
why we should specially urge the claims of the society whose center is
in this city of Boston, and whose history has been one of unswerving
fidelity to the cause of freedom and humanity. [Applause.] But I do
not care to discuss the matter. As it stands now, the two societies are
evenly balanced, and while neither is specially commended, they are
thrown out before the pubUc as having, equally, the sanction of this
body. I much prefer that we should say nothing about either.
Bev. Dr. Budington, of New York. I would ask if the motion con
templates striking, out the reference to the N. Y. Society in the original
report ?
Eev. Dr. Thompson. Not at all. I hope the original report wiU
remain, to be printed with the various documents before the body. That
involves no action on our part. The action now proposed is action by
this body on that report.
Bev. Dr. Budington. I am perfectly willing that no reference should
he made to the two Tract Societies — perfectly wiUing ; but, for one, I
should feel as though the courtesy which is due to the various opinions
of this denomination was violated if we should, directly or indirectly,
put the seal of our approbation as a Council upon either of those socie
ties. I stood by the side of my brother, Dr. Thompson, at the time of
the revolutionary proceedings in the Brick Church, and in Lafayette
Square Beformed Dutch Church, and I am free to say that my sympa
thies were strongly with the policy that enforced upon the original
society the introduction of those topics that were then agitated. If I
understand the matter now, both societies are based upon the same prin
ciples, and doing the same work of patriotism, in the spirit of a common
catholicity and Christianity. I am quite sure that this Council, — ¦ in view
of the course it has taken hitherto, of respecting not only the opinions
of the minority upon all points of theological sentiment, but the opinions
and feeUngs of the smallest minority among us, — would not be willing,
but on the contrary would take special pains not to throw its influence
against any organization which at the present time is the cherished
organ of persons who, hand in hand and heart to heart, are doing the
common work alike of patriotism and of reUgion.
The object I have in rising is simply to say this : that if Dr. Thompson
contemplates the erasure from the original report of that unkind, and, as it
seems to me, unchristian and uncourteous reference to a society in which
I have no special interest, and with which I did not sympathize at the
time of the agitation to which I have referred, but with which I feel

416 the tract societies.
obliged to sympathize now, if I can sympathize with the society at
Boston, — as I cordially do,— I can have no objection to nis motion.
But I am not willing, as a member of this Council, that we should
commit ourselves to a censure upon a body of men who, by their
action during the past four years, have shown themselves to be as
cordial, as intelligent, as whole-hearted in the work of the world's evan:
gelization and the redemption of our country from the sin and curse of
slavery as any body that is recognized by our Congregational churches.
All I wish, sir, is that this society be let alone.
Hon. Mr. Hammond, of Illinois. Let them confess their penitence.
[Great applause.]
Rev. Dr. Budington. Very well, sir. I have heard that the dif
ference between the societies comes at last to this : we acknowledge
that, at present, as those societies are working, they are working for
our Lord and Master, and there is no difference in spirit or action
between them ; but we require of the old society that they humble
themselves before us in a confession of the wrong they have done.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I do not feel that this Council, or any other of the
representatives of Christ's church, is called upon to ask any such act as
that. Does the fact that they are not wilUng to go back over the heated
and angry disputes of that period, and renew the flames of that spent
controversy, constitute any reason why we should censure them ?
Sir, I will say again, in closing, that I speak the more freely on this
subject, inasmuch as my sympathies were with my honored and beloved
friend, Dr. Thompson, aU* through that controversy ; that is, I felt that
the society should adopt those principles of action, the non-adoption of
which led to the spUt. But when, in the providence of God, there rises
up throughout this land one common spirit of patriotism and Christian
ity, which, like the great flood of Noah, submerges every division line
upon the face of the earth, I am mistaken very much with regard to the
feeUngs and character of this body, if now, when we want a union
that shall be a union of heart and of hand in the great and more difficult
work of reconstruction, we are again to renew the heart-burnings, and
alienations and divisions of that period, which seems now to be indeed
like the period before the flood. If it is the intention to strike out all
reference to both Tract Societies, so that this Council can, neither really
nor constructively, be understood as passing a censure upon either one
or the other, I heartily endorse it.
Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York. I do not intend to debate the
question for one moment, but simply to explain, in reply to my friend,
Dr. Budington's, inquiry.
This Council has not yet determined what shall be the final disposi
tion of the several documents presented to it by the preliminary com
mittees. If those documents are ordered to be published, they do not
commit the CouncU to any of their statements or sentiments, beyond the
action of the Council in its own reports or resolves thereupon adopted.
For example: if the Council shall see fit to print, in an appendix, the Dec-

THE TRACT SOCIETIES. 417
laration of Faith that I had the honor to submit, nobody can present
that as the Declaration of this Council. It goes for just what it is worth,
nothing more, with the names of the committee subscribed to it. So
with each and every one of those reports. The intent of my motion is
to strike out all reference to the Tract Societies, and just leave it an
open question. The report as it stands expresses too much confidence in
one of those societies.
Eev. Mr. Wellman, of Massachusetts. I hope this motion wiU not
prevail. If I understand it, the committee have recommended to the
Council that these two Tract Societies be commended to our churches.
The motion now is to erase this recommendation, which would place
both these societies upon the same level. Whatever of odium, therefore,
there is in the motion comes upon both societies alike. For one, I make
a distinction between these two societies. My personal wish is, that we
should commend the Boston Tract Society to the churches. I am not
wilUng to commend the New York Tract Society to the churches.
[Applause.] I do not beUeve, as the brother who has spoken does (Dr.
Budington), that the New York Tract Society is yet worthy of the con
fidence of the churches of our denomination. [Voices — "No."] I
took pains, at the time of conflict to which reference has been made, to
go to New York to be at that meeting; and, having witnessed the action
of the New York Tract Society at that time, I have not seen any action
on their part since that seemed to me to make them worthy of the com
mendation of this Council; and I do hope that we shall not, at the end
of this conflict, say that the Boston Tract Society, which has been true
from the beginning to liberty and humanity, shaU be placed on the same
level'wfth the New York Tract Society. [Applause.] For one, my
wish would be that we should make a discrimination; that we should
erase from the report the New York Tract Society, but not the Boston
Tract Society.
Eev. Mr. Savage, of Illinois. It seems to me that the simple ques
tion is this : Are we willing to sustain those who, at the cost of large
sacrifices to themselves, took a stand, previous to the war, in favor of
truth and righteousness ; or shall we take a stand for those who delayed
their action until they were compelled to it ? [Applause, and cries of
"Hear, hear."] Our churches at the West feel strongly on this matter;
and I beUeve that every Congregational association in the Western
States has passed resolutions indorsing fully the American Tract Society
of Boston, upon the ground that it is worthy to be sustained by Con
gregational churches, both for the principles avowed and sustained, and
for the great work which it is doing; and I am sure that we should do a
great wrong if we should say, that all this in the past is to be entirely
obliterated, and go before our churches throwing the influence of this
great Council against the society that has, as I have said, in the face of
opposition, and when it cost largely of self-denial and of self-sacrifice,
taken its stand on the side of right and truth.
Bev. Dr. Stearns, of Massachusetts. I wish to explain. I beUeve
27

418 THE TRACT SOCIETIES.
none of the committee had any strong feeling on this subject ; I do not know
that any of them were in any sense partisans of the New York Society;
but a paper was put into their hands, on which they were caUed upon
to report, bn examining that paper, they found these words: "The
American Tract Society at Boston is worthy of the confidence of our
churches for many reasons, and should be specially commended for the
manner in which its business affairs are managed, and for restricting its
operations to its own appropriate sphere." Now, it may be true, or it
may be false, that it should be commended for such things; but there is
a strong and sharp intimation that the other society does not conduct its
business operations in a manner worthy' of the confidence of this body;
and, moreover, that it does not confine its operations to its own appro
priate sphere. Whether they do or not, I do not know; I am not caUed
upon to judge. It seemed to the committee, that if this paragraph was to
remain untouched, unnoticed in any way, we should arraign the society
and condemn it without a trial. If this were a proper Council, and
proper witnesses could be summoned, and it could be ascertained that
the society at New York does not conduct its business operations
properly, and, moreover, that it does not confine its operations to its
appropriate sphere, and if, after a full and fair investigation, that should
be the opinion of this Council, and this body was the proper body to
take action upon it, then I say, it would be all right. But to have these
statements come in here and receive the sanction of this body, without
their knowing anything about it, did not seem to the committee to be
right, and therefore they presented their report as it is,' saying that these
bodies have the sanction of this Council, without specifying the pecu
liarities of either of them; not denouncing either of them; but proposing
that what is in the original report censuring one of the societies
should be stricken out; and we did that partly to meet the views of the
friends of the Boston Society. One gentleman, a friend of that society,
came and said, " If that paragraph goes in, I shall turn my contributions
to the other society, for it is an act of impropriety and injustice."
Now, in view of this explanation, if the Council decide to leave that
paragraph in, so be it.
Eev. Mr. Bliss, of Tennessee. It seems to me that the difficulty can
be very easily obviated. If the two societies are to be commended to
the confidence of the Christian public, it might be expressed in a few
words, and then special confidence expressed in the Boston Society, in
view of its fideUty in the hour of trial. I think some little testimony
like this should be paid to the Boston Society for its faithfulness to its
principles. This is due to it, due to us; and due to all the interests at
stake in this matter.
Bev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. Confidence in the New York
Society is what I can not express. " Confidence is a plant of slow
growth." That society forfeited our confidence at one time — at any rate
it did mine, and my confidence has not yet grown so that I can express
it. Dr. Budington is more generous in his nature, and his confidence

THE TRACT SOCIETIES. 419
i
has grown very rapidly. But I choose to exercise more caution than
is involved in his position. If we are going to express confidence in
either of these societies, for myself, it must be expressed only in the
Boston Society.
Mr. Wellman moved to amend the motion of Dr. Thompson,
so that the name of the New York Society should be erased,
instead of both societies, and Dr. Thompson accepted the
amendment. Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio, asked that the sentence might be
read, and the chairman of the committee, Rev. Dr. Stearns,
read it. *
The Moderator. The name, " American Tract Society " does not
appear. The amendment is really not applicable.
Eev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. I move to amend by striking out
the whole paragraph.
Bev. Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts. I want to know if that strikes out
the Boston Society ?
Rev. Dr. Stearns. It leaves the report of the original committee,
recommending the Boston Society, " for the manner in which its business
affairs are managed, and 'for restricting its operations to its own appro
priate sphere." i
Rev. Dr. Thompson, of New York, moved to amend, by sub
stituting, for the paragraph referred to, the following :
" That the object which the American Tract Society, originally found
ed in Boston, has in view, in the manufacture and distribution of reU
gious books and tracts, in settlements supposed to be destitute of them,
is considered by this Council of great importance, and is cordiaUy com
mended to the churches." /
Eev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. I did not intend to say a word on
this matter, but the course of discussion constrains me just to throw out
a suggestion or two. Is the American Tract Society, in the first place,
a missionary society ? Is it not formed on the catholic basis of issuing
nothing but what the Publishing Committee, composed of four or five
different denominations, unanimously concur in ? Is it, therefore, con
gruous for a society, formed on that catholic basis, to employ missiona
ries to go abroad and preach the gospel ? That is the flrst question.
And, in the second place, is it worth while for a society with a capital of
about $750,000, at present rates, — all that we ask for in this great year
of jubilee, — to be commended to our churches as an object of charity ?
[Ldud applause.]
Eev. Mr. Bodwell, of Kansas. I would ask the privilege of reading
the resolutions which the General Association of Kansas passed on this
subject:

420 the tract societies.
Resolved, That this Association views with surprise and grief the con
duct of the American Tract Society, of New York, in that the course
they once declared forbidden by their constitution, they now pursue, with
no Christian acknowledgment of the wrong they then did, or are now
doing, to the feelings of " Evangelical Christians." [Laughter and ap
plause.] Resolved, That in once suppressing the pubUcation, even of Bible de
nunciations of man-steaUng and oppression, and in rudely preventing
free discussion in their great annual gatherings, we do hold them guUty
of encouraging the growth and insolence of that power, which, by sword
and starvation, has slain scores of thousands of our best citizens; has
filled the land with widows and fatherless children; and has wasted the
treasures of the nation in a long and bloody war. [Applause.]
Resolved, That we ask the older and more influential associations of
our order to join us in calling upon this society for such an expression
of penitence, for the wrongs done the country and the cause of Christ, as
shall warrant a restoration of that confidence, which, by upholding the
wrong, it has justly forfeited. [Great applause.]
Bev. Mr. Hurd, of Michigan. I wish simply to bear my testimony
on this matter. The New York Tract Society could not get into any
one of our one hundred and forty churches in Michigan, unless they stole
their way in.
A Voice. So in HUnois.
Another. So in Iowa.
Another. So in Wisconsin.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio. I hope the amendment of Dr. Thomp
son will pass. For one, I have no desire, as a member of this Council,
to utter any word of censure or reflection on the American Tract Society
of New York. That society missed an opportunity which God in his
providence seldom sends more than once to any individual or to any or
ganization, in my judgment, to place itself in a position in which it could
go down to the future with moral power. I do not doubt that that soci
ety is now, and has been for the past three years, doing a very patriotic
work; but I have a Uvely remembrance of the experience of some of the
beloved brethren of this body who attended its pubUc meetings with all
the rights and responsibilities of members, who had to fight their way
through amid interruptions and despotic decisions so numerous, that the
man who was anciently condemned to walk blindfold among burning
ploughshares had an easy time compared with them. [Laughter and ap
plause.] But, sir, I leave that society to God, and to the providence of
God; I have no vindictive feelings in regard to it; but I do feel that we
ought to commend that society which, like the seraph Abdiel, was "faith
ful among the faithless found." [Applause.]
Eev. Dr. Blodgett, of Bhode Island. I have not opened my mouth
in the Council. I prayed, before I left home, that I might not do any
harm here, and I have found grace, so far, to keep silent; but I do feel
constrained to say, now, that with whatever protestations of friendship

THE TRACT SOCIETIES. 421
brethren may come, with the proposed action, the result of that action wiU
be to reflect dishonor upon the New Tork Society, and draw ah invidious
distinction between the two societies,ywhich, it seems to me, if I may be
allowed to say it, is not in accordance with the spirit of the times, and
with the spirit of the discussions in which this Council has been engaged.
Neither does it look with an aspect of favor to the great work of home
evangeUzation, which we are caUed upon as a Council to undertake, to
begin this new dispensation,, by placing a brand upon one of the great
instrumentalities of evangeUzation which God has thus blessed; and I
am sure that, when it is very doubtful whether a rebel of the last four
years, except Jefferson Davis, — and a Uttle doubtful whether he proves
an exception, — wiU be hung, it is no time for this Council to go, as it
were, for hanging the American Tract Society. It seems to me that,
when the whole spirit of the times, coming out of such a terrible conflict
as we are now, is that of large forbearance, we should look with leniency,
so far forth as we can in conscience, upon the shortcomings of any of our
associations in times that are past. It is no time to stand on points of
ceremony and of difference of measures, such as formerly existed be
tween these two great associations that have, under the force of events
that are stronger than men, been brought to march side by side in the
great work of seeking the salvation of souls throughout this land. It is
no time in this Council to interpose and say, " We can not, by implica
tion even, approve the course of the American Tract Society of New
Tork; " and we do say this if we adopt the Une of action that is contem
plated. If I understand it, I should be very, very sorry to have anything
go out from this Council of that character.
Eev. Mr. Bradshaw, of New York. I wish to inquire to whom the
American Tract Society belongs ?
Eev. Dr. Budington, of New York. It is a cathoUc society, as Dr.
Bacon says. I am under the necessity, very much to my grief, indeed, of
leaving this house in a few moments,,and if any brother thinks I am ob
truding, I throw myself upon his mercy, while I say a few words.
I came up to this assembly with some fears and many hopes, and my
¦ fears have all disappeared, and my hopes have risen into one jubilant
thanksgiving to Almighty God. That independent men, having among
them different sympathies and Unes of action, should come up here, and,
respecting one another's feelings, tastes, preferences, prejudices, locality,
and everything of that kind, still meet in the spirit Ipf one catholic Chris
tianity, prepared to unite in an aggressive movement upon all the forms
of atheism in this country and the world, seemed to me the culmination
of the grand principles of Congregationalism. Let me appeal to the
Council through you, Mr. Moderator, not to dissolve the charm of that
union which I believe is the outgrowth of the Spirit of God in the hearts
of these brethren, kept alive and glowing there by that half hour of
prayer every forenoon. Do not, I beseech you, in a moment of angry
haste, stab the reputation for Christianity, and for patriotism, of men

422 THE TRACT SOCIETIES.
who love their country as much as any other men — men who have
given —
A Member. I protest against the words, " angry haste." ,
Bev. Dr. Budington. I will take them back ; I am sorry I used
them. I did not mean to say any word which any brother could miscon
strue. I respect, sir, with all my heart, that steadfast loyalty to principle
that animated my brethren of New England throughout that contro
versy ; but I do desire, for the cause of our common country and our
Union hereafter, that we may not rake up that old controversy. These
resolutions from Kansas arraign our brethren in New York as having
done an unchristian thing ; so unchristian that, in order to the restora
tion of confidence, they should come forward and confess it. [Voices. —
" True," — " true."] I have only a word or two to say. My grand desire
is the unity of our churches in a Ufe-long work for the conservation of
the interests of this country ; and I ask you, in God's name and in the
name of our Redeemer, not to divide brethren who love the same cause,
and who are pursuing the same cause by the same methods, simply be
cause, in times past, they differed, and as brethren differing do, said hard
things about one another.
I do wish to say, brethren, that those gentlemen, who have been
arraigned here on this platform, were many of them, I know, as anxious
to do what was desired in the matter of publication as any gentlemen
in Boston were, but they felt themselves bound by that constitution of
catholicity which I understand Dr. Bacon to comment upon, — and in his
comments I cordially agree. I think it is not the organization for us ;
and I agree cordially in that report, which seems to have been forgotten
by some of us, which has reviewed the whole underlying poUcy of both
these Tract Societies. I beg you, brethren, do not arraign men because
they felt themselves bound by the constitution under which they were
acting, and, under that constitution, felt themselves unable to pubhsh
anything which any section of any evangelical church, co-operating in
that united society, objected to. Do not arraign gentlemen who felt
themselves bound in honor and in conscience to the course which they
pursued. Brethren, we had Dr. Vaughan here before us; we had brother Beecher
a short time afterwards, endorsing what Dr. Vaughan said in regard to
the position of England toward our country ; although in the first instance
he could not understand it; but having cooled himself among the glaciers
of Switzerland, and come round through phlegmatic Germany, he did
understand the feeUngs of those brethren who, sympathizing, as Dr.
Vaughan tells us, with this country, thought the constitution of the
" Union " forbade them to introduce the vexed question of the American
war, and realized that it was only as a matter of self-preservation, and
not as casting any censure upon us, that they pursued the course they
did. Will you have charity for a " Union " over the water, and refuse it
to a " Union " among your own brethren, engaged in doing the same
work with you ? I beseech you, brethren, for the sake of harmony and

THE TRACT SOCIETIES. 423
efficiency in our efforts for the consummation of the work to which we
are now giving ourselves, dto not, directly or indirectly, arraign the char
acter for patriotism of your brethren in New York.
Bev. Mr. Bradshaw, of New York. I inquired to whom the N. Y.
Tract Society belongs. Does it not belong to us as much as to any other
people in this land ? We argue that we are so zealous to have a force
to go into the West and South that we are ready to recommend the
Ucensing, and perhaps ordaining, of men uneducated. Now, the Ameri
can Tract Society have done things that we did not approve ; but are we
going to rake up that ? That society is a power, a great power, —
$750,000, Dr. Bacon just told us. Now, why should we alienate that
society ? Why should we throw ourselves into an attitude so that we
cannot appropriate that to the great work we have in hand, after a
little, if not now ? One half of these brethren are members of that so
ciety. In the name of common sense, of good poUcy, and of our Saviour,
for whom we labor, let us not repudiate that society. .
Bev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. I want to say a word or two, in the
hope that this question will .be disposed of immediately and kindly.
There is a brother [Dr. Dutton]*Whom I love as I do my own soul. He
has a very forgiving spirit, and so have I. He has forgiven Gen. But
ler, and yet I have never heard that Gen. Butler made a confession
of his sin. He was as big a sinner, before Fort Sumter, as the American
Tract Society, and has never said to this day that he has repented.
We have forgiven ever so many men who never made any confession,
and I am wilUng to forgive these men — every mother's son of them.
[Laughter.] I am perfectly wilUng to forgive them, and hope I shall
remember nothing against them of what happened " before the flood," as
the brother said. I want to dispose of this matter in such a way as
shall leave no scar and no unkind feeling anywhere, either in the mind
of brother Budington, or Dr. Kirk, or any of us. Can we not say that
the object of doing good by the distribution of books and tracts is com
mended to our churches ? That I am ready to say. I do not permit
the representative of brother Eirk's society, nor of any Tract Society,
to stand in my pulpit, and ask money for a manufacturing and trading
corporation. Bev. Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts. We don't ask it.
Eev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. No, you don't ask it. But your rep
resentative goes round among my people, — and I am glad to have him, —
and solicits money for an increase of the capital, or for the charitable oper
ations of your society ; and the other man comes, whether I am glad or
not [Laughter]; he knows the beat; he got the track long ago; but some
times he has complained, of late years, that he has got more kicks than
coppers ; and I am sorry for the kicks he gets, and a little sorry for the
coppers [Laughter and applause]; because my judgment — my private
and personal judgment — does not go along with the scheme of doing
good which is prosecuted especially by that society. The publication of
books, whether by the Carters or by this exceUent PubUcation Society

424 THE tract societies.
here in Boston, is a good thing; and the giving away of books is a good
thing; and I have a contribution taken in my church every year to buy
books for the purpose of giving them away, and we buy them of this so
ciety, but not exclusively; and what we can not give away in our own
parish, and to the Germans and others in New Haven, we put into the
Home Missionary barrels, and send them to the home missionaries to
give away; and we put in these books of the American Tract Society,
and all sorts of societies, taking a little pains to see that the books are
worth the freight. [Laughter.] Now, let us get rid of this difficulty,
and say nothing of either of these societies, but merely say, that the ob
ject of doing good by the distribution of books and tracts is commended
to the churches.
Bev. Dr. Stearns, of Massachusetts. I will not object to the amend
ment, provided the passage in the original report is stricken out, and
provided these words shaU be put in: "without passing judgment on
other organizations."
The amendment was accepted.
Bev. Mr. Bliss, of Tennessee. There are some here who know my
interest in the Boston Society. I attended the three days' session at New
York, and when at last it was concluded to draw off, I may be pardoned
if I state that I made the first motion to that end. Three amendments
were offered, which I moved to lay on the table, which brought the mat
ter to an issue. I am just as, cordial a friend of the Boston Society as
any man can be; but while thus friendly to that society, I should dislike
to introduce anything Uke a firebrand to divide and aUenate the brethren
of this body. Sir, there is no call for it, no demand for it, whatever.
We have a large interest in the New York Tract Society. We have not
come up here as a Council to call upon that society to make confession
and pay obeisance to us. That is not our province. It is a matter of
small moment, in view of the grandeur of the work before us, whether
they shall in so many words confess their sins, or whether they shall,
" forgetting the things that are behind, press forward to the things that
are before." That is the great question before us ; and while that is so
I would not throw a straw in the way of that society ; I would not do a
thing in this Council to aUenate one brother. There is no need of ft ;
there is no call for it. All I would say, would be simply to commend both
these organizations in common, for they are both doing a great and blessed
work in our day. Only look over the literature of that New York Tract
Society. What a treasure of religious truth, — what a treasure of the
richest gospel and Christian experience is to be found in their pubUca-
tions ! Why need we do anything here that shaU seem to cut us off or
alienate us one moment from that society ? There is no need of it. We
have a large interest in that organization, and now that they have right
ed themselves, let us do nothing that shall cut us off from that society or
prevent our drinking largely from their fountains of love and Christian

the tract societies. 425
truth and experience. No man could grieve more deeply than I did over
the terrible fault, mistake, or error (the sin, I call it, for it seemed to me
a dreadful sin), of that society in neglecting and persistently refusing to
testify on the great question of American freedom. Those were my feel
ings then; but they have at length "righted themselves," as we express
it at the South ; and now, doing God's work as they are, let us not alien
ate or divide brethren on this question. But it seems to me, that while
commending that society, a reference ought to be made to the faithful
ness of the Boston Society in the hour of emergency, when it still stood
forth and testified for the great principles of freedom and righteousness
in the land. It seems to me that this would be wise, kind, forgiving, and
loving. Bev. E. P. Marytn, of Massachusetts. . I will not detain you long; and
having voted with the Boston Society throughout all that time of division,
I am sure I shall not be misunderstood in the remarks I am about to make.
I am feeling exceedingly anxious in the line of thought that Dr. Bacon
suggested. Does this Council wish to throw $750,000, with all the New
Tork Tract Society can raise in New York and throughout the country,
into the hands of the Presbyterians ? Do we want to make the same
mistake which they have made, — a sad one for them, too, — in regard
to the Home Missionary Society ? Men who do not forgive, who are not
kind and cordial, when everybody must be forgiving, are very sure to
make mistakes; and while I beUeve that the Tract Society in Boston
ought to be commended, I do not wish to say a single word in this Coun
cil which shall aUenate that society. If you do, you will find rich men
and rich societies and ministers and men of influence throughout New
England, — a great many of them, — who will give their money to that
society, and it will go against the interests of the Congregational denom
ination. Here is an argument which, to my mind, is perfectly conclu
sive. Do not alienate that powerful society, which will command money
by hundreds of thousands of dollars in New England, in spite of any ac
tion which you can take here to-day. Let us have what commendation
you choose for the Boston Society — though I do not think it needs it,
where there have been so many local commendations; but I beg you not
to say anything that shall be construed into opposition to that great so
ciety, and especially into opposition to it on the ground of the manage
ment of its business affairs. If we are to say anything on that subject,
even by implication, we ought to call upon some of our shrewd business
men to decide that question, for there is a dispute about it. I understand
that some of our own friends do not wish that we should put that to the
test, because good men differ in regard to it. I have been somewhat be
hind the scenes, and I know that the question has been submitted to a
committee of business men in New York, and I know a proposition was
once made here in Boston to submit it to business men here; and while
I would not wish to intimate at all what the decision would be, I beg of
you not by implication to censure that society.
Bev. Mr. Mills, of Michigan. If we had any special responsibility

426 THE TRACT SOCIETIES.
as pertaining to this matter, I should favor a thorough, sharp discussion
of the question, and some thorough, sharp decision; but we represent
independent bodies of Christians all over this land, who are able to form
their own judgments, and have, for the most part, formed them. "We
have no special responsibility with reference to the manner in which
they shall give to this object. If there was a necessity for making a
sharp declaration, I should be wilUng to make one. I have my own
judgment, my church has its own judgment, and I presume it is a good
one; and it is clear that the great mass of .the. churches represented here
have their own judgment.
Now, sir, I am exceedingly anxious that nothing shaU be said which
shaU be felt as a hardship by any single member of this Council. "We
are independent men, we are independent churches, and we have no
right in a matter where we are not caUed upon to act, to be a hardship
to any one. Inasmuch as we gain nothing by a positive utterance,
I am in favor of the manner in which the thing was put by Dr.
Bacon, — and I-wish he had presented it as an amendment, — that the
cause of the societies be commended to the churches, leaving ft to the
churches themselves to judge between them. Why do we need to get
into heat and embarrassment by discussing this question, and by sharp
divisions on this matter ?
Rev. Dr. Barstow, of New Hampshire. I wish this report might be
recommitted to the committee. We are doing infinite mischief by this
discussion. Bev. Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts. I think the house could be har
monized by introducing an amendment to this effect: after passing
what has been suggested, adding, " without judging any other society,
but bidding God-speed to every society having the same object as our
own." Rev. Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts. I beg the privftege of saying a
word. I think that, just as Satan, when he saw Adam and Eve in Para
dise, happy, contrived some way to get in there and tempt them to eat
the apple, so he has done here. It is ten thousand pities that we ever
got on this track; and I must say, that Dr. Budington did it.
Now, let me say, as an official of the Boston Tract Society, that aUwe
wish is, that you shall not put us out as if we were not one of your
societies. Only refrain from that, and we shall be satisfied. We are not
a court of justice, and are not trying the brethren of the New Tork
Society; and I pray God and my brethren that we shaU end this after
noon as we ended this morning, in the spirit in which we shaU go to
heaven. A motion was made, that the report be recommitted to the
committee, and carried.
Rev. Mr. Langworthy, from the committee on Nominations,
reported the following names as the

REPORT ON CHURCH POLITY. 427

COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC AND PRIVATE WORSHIP.
Eev. Abijah P. Marvin, Rev. Nathaniel H. Eggleston, of Massachu
setts; Bev. Jonathan L. Jenkins, Rev. Orpheus T. Lanphear, of Connecti
cut; Eev. Joshua Leavitt, d. d., of New York.
The report was accepted.
A recess of five minutes was taken, after which, Rev. John
P. Gulliver, of Connecticut, read the following as the report of
the committee on Church Polity : —
REPORT ON CHURCH POLITY. •
The committee to whom was referred " the statement of Congrega
tional Polity" respectfully report.
Tour committee found it necessary, in the opening of their considera
tion of the subject referred to them, to fix definitely in their own minds
the precise limits of the functions of a Council like this in issuing a state
ment of Church polity. These Umits are defined, —
1. By what we have a right to do.
2. By what we have time to do.
3. By what it is expedient for us to do.
In respect to the first question the answer is plain. We have a right
to issue as complete and comprehensive a statement as we are able to
secure, for the consideration of the churches whose representatives we
are, so lopg as, in the language of Richard Mather, we claim no more
authority for such statement " than there is force in the reason of it."
In respect to the question how far it is possible for a body of five
hundred men, in the time at our command, to issue a perfected state
ment concerning a subject so extensive, and embracing such variety and
number of details, your committee were soon convinced that only an
approximation could possibly be made to that precision and compre
hensiveness and conciseness which must characterize such a document,
if it shall be worthy of this National Council ur generally acceptable to
the churches we represent. Your committee, therefore, became con-
yinced, early in their deUberations, that all that this Council could possibly
do, under the most favorable circumstances, would be to give a general
approval to the documents reported to it, and that it would be com
pelled at last to commit them with such emendations and additions as it
might direct, and such as might be brought out by open discussions, or
private suggestions by members of the Council to a committee, for final
revision and publication.
And in these necessities of our position we found an answer to our
third question, as to how much it would be expedient for us to do even if we
should have at command all the time we could desire. On this point
your committee have been led to the conclusion, that inasmuch as the

428 REPORT ON CHURCH POLITY.
action of this Council is to go forth over large portions of our country,
in which the idea of church authority and ecclesiastical legislation pre
vails, to the nearly entire exclusion of the conception of our free Con
gregational forms, it would prevent much misconception and misrepre
sentation, if such a document, after receiving the general approval of
this Council, should go forth to the world with the full indorsement only
of the gentlemen whose names shall be appended thereto.
In this manner we might hope to find a middle course between the two
extremes of too great authority on the one hand, and of the entire absence
of authority on the other. We might hope, in other words, to avoid all
appearance of legislation for the churches, while at the same time we
might commend to the churches a statement of polity which should carry
with it prima facie evidence of its correctness: first, from having
received the general approval of this National Council; and, secondly,
from the minute and absolute approval of a large committee carefully
selected by this body, who shall have received the benefit of an extended
discussion of the papers now under examination, for months to come, by
the whole body of our ministers and churches.
Having settled in their own minds these general principles, your com
mittee appUed themselves to the close and careful study of the two
papers presented to them.
They found the longer of these papers to be an able, comprehensive,
and, in their view, a generally correct statement of the principles of the
Congregational polity, and well worthy to be the basis of the platform
which we now desire to take the place of the ancient Cambridge Plat
form. They found a close similarity to that long-revered work of our
fathers, large portions being Uttle else than a substantial reproduction of
that document. *
They found the shorter of these papers to be concise and yet com
prehensive, and in these respects well calculated for ordinary use in our
churches, and for insertion in our church manuals.
A careful examination on the part of the committee of the detailed
statements contained in these documents, and of written suggestions sent
in to us by members of this body, reveals the fact that special attention
is necessary in the final revision to the foUowing points :
1. The insertion of proof-texts, after the manner of the Cambridge
Platform, and also of references to standard works on CongregationaUsm.
2. The definition of Church Polity.
3. The definition of the Church Visible, and the whole arrangement of
the definitions of the church, local and universal, visible and invisible,
militant and triumphant, with reference to the question of genus and
species, and of logical consistency.
4. The statement concerning councils, as to their action in certain
cases as boards of referees; as to the propriety of admitting persons as
corresponding members not invited in the letters-missive; as to the pro
priety of sending stated supplies to act as pastors on councils; as to the
propriety of using the word " Synod."

REPORT ON CHURCH POLITY. 429
5. The relation of eccZesiasiicaZ societies to the churches, and the
degree and kind of control which such societies should have over Church
property, and also as to the recognition and commendation of the prac
tice of dispensing with the " ecclesiastical society " altogether, when the
civU law allows.
6. The relation of baptized children to the church.
7. The designation of the church members who may properly vote in
church meetings.
8. The more distinct recognition of the aggressive and missionary
functions of the church, and the question of a more direct control by
the church of the various benevolent enterprises which they maintain.
9. Sundry questions concerning ministers and the pastoral office, such
as these : — Should a minister be a member of the church of which he
is pastor ? Are the statements of the platform under consideration, con
cerning the eldership and the presbyters, on page nine, correct ? What
should be the office of the pastor in inaugurating and administering
discipUne in the church ? Is a pastor, ex officio, the moderator of all the
meetings of the church ? Are the rights and. powers of a pastor cor
rectly stated ? Should the pastor have entire control of the service of
teaching or preaching in his own pulpit ? Should a church ordain and
depose from the ministry, or only a cozwiciZ f
10. The grouping of aU the churches of a city or town into one
church, page six.
11. The scriptural requirement that the Psalms be used in public
worship. 12. A more precise specification of the only mode of separation from
the church.
13. The importance of introducing more fully the doctrines of the
Cambridge platform, concerning the withdrawal of feUowship from a
disorderly church by its sister churches.
14. The importance of sharply defining, in a separate chapter, the
distinction between the church poUty of Congregationalists and the
poUty of other denominations.
15. The principle and law of fellowship through councils and the
proper functions of ex-parte councils.
16. The statement made on page thirteen, article six, concerning the
treatment of excommunicated church members.
17. The statement made on page eighteen, section twelve, respecting
the confederation of churches, and the question whether there should be
a recognition of standing councils.
18. The expediency of securing the preparation of a catechism upon
the cardinal principles of our faith and poUty, for the use of the churches.
Such your committee have found to be the general character of the
two documents submitted to them, and such are the points which seem
to require special attention and revision.
In conclusion, your committee recommend the following action on the
part of the CouncU :
Resolved, That this Council, having received and duly examined the

430 REPORT ON CHURCH POLITI.
two statements of church polity presented to them, hereby express
their approval of the general principles and scope of the same.
Resolved, That these documents be referred to the committee report
ing them, consisting of Rev. Leonard Bacon, d. d., Rev. Alonzo H.
Quint, and Rev. Henry M. Storrs, D. D., which committee shaU be en
larged by the addition of twenty-four members, of whom six shall be
professors selected, one from each of our six theological seminaries ;
viz., Bangor, Andover, New Haven, East Windsor, OberUn, and
Chicago, to be nominated by the committee on Nominations, and ap
pointed by this body, who shaU revise and publish the same under the
following instructions :
1. All members and ministers of Congregational churches, either in an
individual or associated capacity, and especially the committee who
framed these documents, shaU be invited by the committee of twenty-
five to indicate such additions, emendations, and omissions as they may
judge proper.
2. The committee shall take into special and careful consideration the
points to which attention is now called in this report, and in general shaU
be empowered to make such changes and additions to the documents
in their charge as they may deem advisable, and as may not be incon
sistent with the general principles now approved.
3. In cases where, without a violation of the cardinal principles of
Congregationalism, the usages of Congregationalists differ, the mode
preferred by the committee shall be inserted in the text, and the varying
usages shall be indicated in a foot-note.
4. The origin and history of the document shall be set forth in a
preface, to which shall be appended the signatures of the committee.
5. An appendix shall be added, containing such ecclesiastical formulas
as the committee may deem expedient.
John P. Gulliver,
Edwards A. Park,
Samuel Harris,
S. C. Bartlett,
N. Bishop,
Chas. C. Salter,
J. Guernsey,
J. S. Hoyt,
J. G. Davis,
J. D. Liggett,
E. F. Burr.
Rev. Dr. Leavitt, of New York, presented a minority report,
as follows : —
MINOEITY REPORT ON THE STATEMENT OF CHUECH
POLITY.
The undersigned, a minority of the committee of the National Congre
gational Council, to whom was referred the statement of Congregational

report on church polity. 431
Polity presented by the Committee of the Provisional • Conference at
New York, respectfully report : —
That the Council, and the churches they represent, are under obliga
tions of gratitude to the Provisional Committee for the pains and study
they have bestowed in the preparation of this document, which is both
instructive and valuable as a presentation of the ancient principles of
Congregationalism in their appUcation to modern' circumstances.
Should, it be published, as it ought to be, either among the doings of this
CouncU or in a separate work, or in both these ways, it will add one
more to the many attempts of wise and good men to reduce these
principles and their applications to the form of a consistent and harmo
nious code. As the latest in the order of time, it will be found among the
most complete and useful of similar compilations in our language. But
valuable as aU must admit it to be in its general character, and worthy of
high respect as a comprehensive statement, it is quite beyond both the
province and the capacity of this Council to .determine, with the needful
deliberation, the innumerable points of detail of so extensive a work.
And it would be neither right nor wise for the Council to seem to
attach the authority of its sanction to statements which it has neither
formed nor considered in their minute expression and multifarious appli
cation. What is rather appropriate for this Council, would be such a
statement of the general principles of Congregationalism, and such an
exposition of the bearing of those principles upon the civil and religious
' liberties of the country, upon our free institutions, and upon the growth
and character of our American civilization, as would be fitted to com
mend their principles to the respectful consideration of those that are not
Congregationalists, and illustrate the benefits which would accrue to
churches and Christians of every name from the general adoption of the
simple methods of church government exhibited in the New Testament.
If Congregational principles are destined to meet with general preva
lence throughout our country, I apprehend that it will not be done
by the present slow process of training up Congregational ministers in
Congregational seminaries, who shall gather Congregational churches,
forcing their way in antagonism to aU the other churches, so much as by
ministers and churches of other denominations coming by convincement
of fact and conscience to the belief of the soundness of our principles,
and the safety and good effects of maintaining church life and efiiciency
With such simple machinery.
The CongregationaUsts of England and Wales, some of whose churches
are older than our own, and whose numbers and efficiency, the learning
and orthodoxy of their clergy, and the general inteUigence and piety of
their members, entitle their views and practices to great weight, and
With whom we hold equal fellowship, have pubUshed a general statement
of their principles of faith and order, which may afford a useful hint in
regard to the business before us. It was prepared at the annual meet
ing of the Congregational Union of England and Wales in 1832, sub
mitted to the ministers and churches of the respective county and dis-

432 report on church polity.
trict associations, and, having met with general approbation, was unan
imously adopted in 1833, " with the distinct understanding that it was
not intended as a text, or creed, for subscription." Of this document,
the " Principles of Church Order and DiscipUne " occupy about one page,
and this has been found, for more than thirty years, to be a sufiicient
exposition of the nature of their church order and discipline. The most
important parts of this declaration may be given with stUl greater
brevity, omitting such portions as relate to their particular circumstances,
and with such changes of phraseology as may give to the principles a
greater distinctness of expression.
1. They hold it to be the will of Christ that believers should assemble
together to observe religious ordinances, to promote constant edification,
to perpetuate and propagate the Christian religion, and to advance the
worship and glory of God ; and that such society of beUevers, having
these objects in view, is properly a Christian Church.
2. That the New Testament contains, either in the form of express
statute or in the example, and practice of apostles and apostolical
churches, all the principles of order and discipline requisite for consti
tuting and governing the churches ; so that human traditions, fathers,
and councils, canons and creeds, possess no authority over the faith and
practice of Christians, and all questions are to be settled by appeal to the
Scriptures. 3. That the New Testament authorizes every Christian church . to
elect its own officers, to manage all its own affairs, and to stand inde
pendent of all authority, saving that only of the Lord Jesus Christ.
4. That the only officers placed by the apostles over individual
churches are the bishops or pastors, and the deacons, in numbers accord
ing to the necessities of the church ; and to these, as the officers of the
church, is committed respectively the administration of its spiritual and
temporal concerns, subject to the approbation of the church.
5. The power of admission into any Christian church, and rejection
from it, is vested in the church itself, and to be exercised only through
its officers.
6. That no persons should be received as members of Christian
churches but such as make a creditable profession of Christianity, are
living according to- its precepts, and attest a willingness to be subject
to its discipline ; and that none should be excluded from the fellowship
of the church but such as deny the faith of Christ, violate his laws, or
refuse to submit themselves to the discipUne which the word of God
imposes 
10. That it is the duty of Christian churches to hold communion with
each other, to entertain an enlarged affection for each other as mem
bers of the same body, and to co-operate for the promotion of the
Christian cause ; but that no church nor union of churches has any
right or power to interfere with the faith or discipline of any other
church, further than to separate from such as in faith or practice
depart from the gospel of Christ.
11. That it is the privilege and duty of every church to call forth such

report on church polity. 433
of its members as may appear to be qualified by the Holy Spirit, to
sustain the office of the ministry ; and that Christian churches unitedly
ought to consider the maintenance of the Christian ministry in an ade
quate degree of learning, as one of its (sic) especial cares ; that the
cause of the gospel may be. both honorably sustained and constantly
promoted. 12. That church officers, whether bishops or deacons, should be chosen
by the free voice of the church ; but that their dedication to the duties
of their office should take place with special prayers, and by solemn
designation ; to which most of the churches add the imposition of hands
by those already in office.
13. That the fellowship of every Christian church should be so Uberal
as to admit to communion in the Lord's Supper aU whose faith and
godUness are on the whole undoubted, though conscientiously differing in
points of minor importance ; and that this outward sign of fraternity in
Christ should be co-extensive with the fraternity itself, though without
involving any compUances which conscience would deem sinful.1
In comparing these passages with the document referred to this
committee, or any other accredited pubUcation on American Congrega
tionalism, several considerable differences are apparent, both in the pre
sentation and the appUcation of the practical rules drawn from the one
fundamental principle which is common to both countries, the perfect
autonomy of the local church. For instance, they do not require the
strictness of an actual covenant to the being of a church, but take prac
tical union in worship as a sufficient basis of church power and church
responsibUity, which is all that can be clearly proved from Scripture.
They give the binding, force of law to no custom or inference not
clearly found in Scripture. They give more distinct and express prom
inency to the tenet that the church is " independent of all authority "
but Christ's. On the other hand, their requirement, that all church
action should be "through its officers," would not be weU received
among us, where aU our people are accustomed and trained to take an
active part in the management of affairs.
A stiU more important difference appears in their broader presenta
tion of the rights and relations of churches, so as to include, not Con
gregational, but all " Christian churches," aUke in their claims and
responsibilities. Has not the time come, and is not this Council the
appropriate agent, for American CongregationaUsts to take this elevated
ground, and, looking away beyond the narrow bounds of a denomina
tion, proclaim to all Christian churches our recognition of their right to
all the liberties which we enjoy, and our readiness to embrace in our
feUowship of the churches all who give evidence that Christ acknowl
edges them for his ?
This view of the possible duty of the Council suggests another reason
why the document referred to us is not quite appropriate to the occasion.
It is based upon the Cambridge Platform of 1648, and is a transcript of
i See Hanbnry, Historical Memorials, vol. iii. pp. 599, 600.
28

434 report on church polity.
much of that famous and valuable record, including as weft its antiquated
phraseology as its uncouth and lumbering logic. But that platform was
an outgrowth of the circumstances in which our Pilgrim Fathers then
found themselves, only twenty-eight years after the first settlement at
Plymouth; and it is submitted that the circumstances in which this
Council convenes call for an utterance as different in tone and aim as our
present situation, duties, and responsibilities differ from theirs. If we
throw ourselves back into their case, we shall find a synod summoned
and authorized by the civil power, embracing the representatives of
thirty or forty feeble churches, the only Christian lights of about as
many thousand civilized inhabitants, sprinkled through the dense wilder
ness from Salem to Hartford. They were pressed down with two great
anxieties which they looked to the synod to aUay. First, their hearts
longed, even to bursting, in their solitude and weakness, to feel the fel
lowship and confidence of the churches of the Old World, so large and
so strong. And secondly, they felt that the future welfare and even life
of their whole enterprise depended upon the preservation of entire unity
among themselves. And their utterances naturaUy took the forms cal
culated to meet these their greatest necessities. As the churches of the
Old World with whom they were in correspondence were aft Calvinistic,
and mostly Presbyterian, the synod gave full and emphatic assurance
of their own adherence to the Calvinistic formularies, but only " for
substance of doctrine ; " and were also careful to put such a face on their
own Congregational usages as was best fitted to make them appear as
good as Presbytery. And on the other point, they made the cords of their
unity fully as stringent as could possibly appear consistent with the car
dinal principle of the autonomy of the individual church. And from
that time to the present, CongregationaUsm has suffered itself to be shut
up in a corner of the country, and has presented itself as on the defensive
in the presence of the more organized and governed bodies of Christian
churches in this country ; and all its utterances have been more or less
apologetic in their tone. And in like manner, it has been the great care
of our leading minds to cherish the spirit of unity among ourselves ; to
consoUdate our ranks as a sect among sects ; to tone down diversities,
and repress everything out of the ordinary course ; often sacrificing
efiiciency to uniformity ; trying to elevate usage into the rank of law;,
and to lower the sacred sympathies of fellowship into the character of a
code with despotic power. This first meeting in a National Council,
of the Congregational churches, naturaUy calls us to take an account of
the results of this whole restrictive poUcy. And what do we findi?
Why, just this, that we have kept our churches in unity and order, but
have lost our hold upon the people. Whereas, at the beginning of our
national existence, CongregationaUsm embraced the whole population
of New England, except in Bhode Island, and a few congregations of
Episcopalians and of Baptists elsewhere, at the present time we are
in a minority in every county and almost every township of New
England. Why should we take measures to spread ourselves over the

report on church polity. 435
whole country by pursuing a policy which has not enabled us to keep
what we once had firmly in hand ?
The very circumstances under which this Council assembles, by their
strong contrast with those of the Cambridge Synod, might well suggest
to us that the time has come for a trial of a different policy. The popu
lation of the country has increased well-nigh a thousand-fold, and even
our Congregational churches have multiplied about a hundred-fold.
The glorious issue of a glorious war for the defense of our national ex
istence has placed our nation in the fore-front among nations, and laid
upon us a proportionate responsibility in reference to the establishment
of Christ's kingdom. The same social convulsion which has thrown
down the hitherto impenetrable barrier to the extension of our princi
ples in one half of the country has deprived the great organized and
governed bodies of churches of no small share of their strength, both of
members and of vivifying energy. Let us now realize our opportunity,
raise ourselves up to the flight of our privilege, look beyond the narrow
field of denominational aggrandizement,- and see what we can do in
giving to the great fundamental principles of CongregationaUsm the in
fluence they deserve, and which the interests both of religion and of the
country so perilously need. We do not now need to seek the guidance
of Europe, or court its favor ; for Europe now comes to us with its
explanations and professions, and asks of us the good-will which we are
ready to give, and the example which they will be glad to follow. We
no longer stand on the defensive in the presence of presbytery, or prel
acy, or itinerancy ; but are able and bound to stand upon our pure
scriptural basis, and let them apologize as well as they can for their un-
scriptural usurpations, and their imposition of unlawful burdens which
the churches are unable and ought not to bear. With our order and
unity as fully recognized and firmly established as the Union and gov
ernment of the nation itself ; with our doctrinal soundness and harmony
in the great principles of Christianity, and freedom and divinity in the
modes of presentation ; with our learned ministry and numerous col
leges and seminaries ; with our educated population and the vast wealth
diffused among the people ; with our benevolent Boards and Societies
which have been and are the exemplars of all others ; and with the kind
favor- of God in giving*so great prosperity, as well as in pouring out his
Spirit upon our congregations, — surely it is not becoming for us to offer
any other explanation or apology for our faith or order than to point at
their fruits, "known and read of all men." In what remote country or
in what benighted corner is it necessary to raise an argument or ad
duce vouchers to prove that the Congregationalists of the United States
of America are a body of evangelical Christians, enlightened and benev
olent, and worthy of as much respect and confidence as any other body,
of any other name, or in any other country ? With abundant reason to
be humble before God that our good fruits are so far below our ob
ligations, we stand up before all Christian men, and offer and demand
a perfect and equal reciprocity of respect and confidence and coopera
tion. Neither is it becoming for us, after the scenes we have passed

436 REPORT ON CHURCH POLITY.
through, and the experience we have had in two hundred and fifty
years, to cherish or allow the continuance of distrust and harassing and
captious anxiety, lest our freedom of thought, controUed only by the
government of opinion, should be unable to preserve the soundness of
the faith, or lest our allowed diversity of gifts and methods of action
should at length prove incompatible with the Christian unity which is
practically necessary for our highest usefulness and honor. It is our
duty now to assume the sufficiency of our ecclesiastical system by boldly
commending it to others as tried and trustworthy; to commend our
way to the confidence of others by writing as if we believed it ourselves;
to spend as Uttle time or strength as possible in the indulgence of cavils
and fears ; and, in the assurance that we are right, to go forward in the
most unreserved manner to give the widest influence to our principles,
and aim to secure at the earliest period the universal adoption of our
ecclesiastical order by all churches of every name and diversity that have
a right to be called Christians.
With this view, and without asking of the Councft their publication of
this report, or any sanction of its statements and reasonings, the under
signed recommend that, besides ordering the pubUshing of the provis
ional report, the following resolutions be adopted as embracing the
declarations and indicating the poUcy which this body might appro
priately put forth in place of the lengthy document referred to the
committee : —
Resolved, 1. That the laws of Christ, which give to the individual or
local societies of beUevers alone the right of self-government, including
the election and continuance of their own officers, and the admission and
retention of members, and the power of discipline for deUquency, nec
essarily make such churches alone responsible for the exercise of these
important functions, and the discharge of these solemn trusts; and from
this responsibiUty they can neither discharge themselves, nor is any
human authority competent to absolve them, with or without theft own
consent. 2. That the existence of these rights and responsibilities, and all the
consequent duties and privileges, does not depend upon any compact,
usage, or human recognition, but solely upon the fact that any society is
in reality a Church of Christ.
3. That the duty of individuals or other churches to recognize such
society as a church of Christ arises from the reasonable evidence they
have that Christ himself so regards and treats it.
4. That the relations of fellowship between churches are estabUshed
by the laws of Christ, and do not depend at aU upon any agreement
among themselves, any modes or forms in their organization, any name
they may assume, as Congregational or any other, or the presence or
absence of any peculiarities whatever, but arise and attach inseparably
to every Church of Christ in respect to every other Church of Christ,
and can neither be remitted by a church, nor dissolved by any human
authority, usurped or otherwise.

REPORT ON CHURCH POLITY. 437
5. That this Council, representing the body of churches in the United
States commonly called Congregational, bound together by strong sym
pathies and/haUowed memories, desire to lay aside all claims, all usages,
and all sentiments, inconsistent with these principles, solely because they
are not in accordance with Christ's laws; and we hope to shape our
future course of action as nearly by this standard as human infirmity
will allow.
6. That we cordially invite all other Christian churches in this country,
by their love to Christ and regard for the interests of religion among us,
to adopt a similar course; to renounce all human authority over them,
whether presbyterial, prelatical, or itinerant, which would hinder them
from the exercise of these rights, or the maintenance of these principles ;
so that we may aU stand together and act together as one united brother
hood and host of the Lord.
7. That it is the natural right of the churches, as it is of individuals,
to form special intimacies, either transitory or permanent, with those to
whom they are drawn by similarity of views, objects, and habits; but
this should never be allowed to interfere with the duties of justice, kind
ness, and friendly aid, which they owe alike to all who are entitled to the
name of Christian Churches, irrespective of any peculiarities or differ
ences whatever. As surely as they belong to Christ, the things in which
they agree are immeasurably greater than the things in which they
differ. And we are all one in Christ Jesus, churches as well as persons,
and our unity of relation and consequent duties of fellowship with all
depend not upon human volition. Joshua Leavitt.
Eev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. Before this report passes from
the hands of the committee, by its acceptance, it seems to me necessary
that a brief statement should be made of the principles upon which the
report of the majority has been founded. The simple effort has been, to
enable this Council to do as much as it was possible for them to do, by
way of propounding to the churches a system of church discipline. The
committee became convinced, at a very early period, that it would be
utterly impossible, physically impossible, — I think myself, morally im
possible, — for this CouncU to go over the whole of this extended docu
ment, covering twenty-seven large and cldsely-printed pages, and exam
ine every item, every expression, every word, noting all omissions, and
making every emendation that might be deemed desirable, and do this
work in a manner satisfactory to themselves, or that would be likely to
be satisfactory to the churches to which it is to be presented. We aU
know how much trouble there has been in bringing to perfection that
very brief Declaration of Faith, which I understand was adopted this
morning, and we can easily understand the very great dftficulty there
would be in perfecting such a document as this, — so multitudinous in its
details, and so extended in its bulk, — by an assembly of this kind. The
committee, therefore, gave that up as impossible. They, however, de
cided that the foUowing things were possible for the Council:

438 REPORT ON CHURCH POLITY.
In the first place, that it was possible for this Council, in the opinion
of the committee, to form a general estimate of this document; to know
whether they are prepared to adopt, and to commend to the churches, the
general principles upon which it is founded. The members of this Coun
cil are prepared, after having had this document in their hands for nearly
a week, to say whether they will adopt and commend the principles con
tained in it, or whether they wish to discuss, to propound, and to indorse
the principles which have been so ably presented in the minority report
at this time. We can do as much as this. We can give our general ap
proval to the general principles and scope of the document now before
us. The committee thought the Council could take another step: that it
could appoint a committee of twelve (as it has done), which committee,
in their name, should give that attention to the subject which the great
body of the Council could not possibly give. That committee was an
nounced just a week ago, I believe, and since that time, they have been
in almost constant session and labor, hardly taking time for sleep, de
priving themselves of the enjoyment of nearly aU the pubUc proceedings
of this Council; and they have, collectively and individuaUy, gone over
that document, article by article, item by item, — some of us going over
it repeatedly, and with very great care and deUberation. The Council
could, we thought, through such a committee, designate the points which
need attention. We did not beUeve that the Council, through its com
mittee, nor any committee in behalf of the Council, could settle all those
points ; but we did think the committee could do as much as this : they
could cull out the points that needed further attention, and present them
to the Council as possibly requiring revision.
The committee thought the Council could do another thing: that it
could indicate to the committee such emendations and omissions as indi
viduals should think needful. Accordingly, pubUc invitation was given
in the Council, that such emendations should be suggested to the com
mittee. They have been suggested, and they have all been at least
substantially embraced in the statement which we have made of- those
points in this document which we considered worthy of further attention.
Then we thought that, after the Council had done all in these various
steps which ft could possibly do at its present session, in its present ca
pacity, it might still, for the future, go one step further. It might ap
point, by its own selection, and by its own authority, a committee, — a
large committee, — a committee that should represent the current leaning
of our denomination in regard to this subject of church polity; and that
committee, being so appointed by the Council, might complete the work
which the Council itself could not do; and that the completion of the
work, the perfecting of these minuter details, could be made known to the
world und|r the name and by the authority of the committee thus ap
pointed by the Council.
In this manner, your committee have endeavored to lay out, as dis
tinctly as they could, what was possible in regard to this matter on the
part of the Council, and what was impossible in respect to it, and to

CHURCH POLITY. 439
recommend the adoption of a plan which embraces all that is possible,
bo far as we are able to form an opinion concerning it, and excludes all
that is impossible to you. This is the basis and principle upon which
the majority report, which has been made in your hearing, is founded. -
Bev. Dr. Leayttt, of New York. I should be glad to make a single
word of explanation. The document referred to the committee is of the
nature of a code of practice; so it would be caUed by lawyers, I think.
Having had in my youth some little famiUarity with law-books and theft-
use, I have endeavored to imagine to myself a convention of lawyers,
delegated in the proportion of one to every ten from all parts of the
United States, assembled together to construct a code of practice. Those
who are famiUar with the matter can imagine for themselves what sort
of a book it would be. Books of practice, with which lawyers are famil
iar, are necessarily the product of individual minds, and there are, per
haps, a score of them in use, more or less, among lawyers. Some of
them are smaU books — duodecimo; some octavo^, some two or three
volumes octavo; more or less extensive, and of greater or less authority,
according to their estimated worth.
Now, we are not wiser than the children of this world. We can not
make a code of practice by a convention, nor by a committee, — it is not
possible. If it is made at all, it wiU be the product of one, or, possibly,
of two or three minds, or else it wftl be a hodge-podge that will make its
authors a laughing-stock in future generations. I predict that.
Now, sir, a desire is evidently felt to get a code of practice in Congre
gationaUsm that shall possess authority, when all we have said here,
during all these ten or a dozen days, has been to prove that we have no
authority in Congregational churches except that of the Scriptures. I
look upon this proposition, — the least injurious that could be made,— to
appoint a committee of twenty-five leading and learned men to form that
code, as an attempt to clothe the product, which that committee shaU
bring forth, with authority.
A Member. I rise to a question of order. Is it in Order to discuss
the merits of this question, before a motion is made?
Bev. Dr. Leavitt. I don't know that I am going beyond the prece
dents. The Moderator. The question is one of acceptance. I beUeve the
speaker is in order.
Eev. Dr. Patton, of HUnois. I hope he may be heard.
Eev. Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts. I move that the reports be ac
cepted. This motion was carried.
Rev. Dr. Eddy, of Massachusetts, moved that the report of
the majority be adopted.
Eev. Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts. While not differing very materi
ally from the conclusions to which the committee have come, I would

440 CHURCH POLITY-
like to take a little time to explain a few things in regard to the report
of the preliminary committee, which I think ought to be understood. I
should not presume to do it, in the presence of the venerable man who is
so much better able to do it than I am, were it not that, as it is weU
known that the main statement was written by him, with scarcely a
touch by any other hand, he will feel, with his instinctive modesty, a del
icacy in saying some things about it, which I can say.
Allusion has been made to the production of a code of practice, &c.
I want to say, that the principle on which these documents was pre
pared was not that of making a new code of practice, or anything of the
kind; it was simply to put upon paper, in the clearest way, the princi
ples, and, connected therewith, the present usages of the denomination;
not to legislate or make anything new, but simply to record what is the
practice of' the churches.
It has been said, in substance, that it is well for us to show what we
believe in our present system, that people may see it, instead of arguing
to estabUsh it; but is it any harm for us to put on paper what that sys
tem is ? I can not see that it is. There is no attempt here to introduce
a novelty; I want that understood. Lest brethren should be frightened
with the idea that there is an attempt to force something new on the
churches, I will say that there is not a single point in that report that is
not believed to be the simple, healthy principle of our churches. The
starting-point was this. There are two principles in our poUty. One is,
the entire completeness of each local church for its own government;
and the other is, the principle which relates to aU those duties and privi
leges which grow out of the relation of one church to another. Every
thing that conforms to those two principles, everything consistent with
them, is good CongregationaUsm; everything opposed to either of them
is bad Congregationalism. We beUeve that in this paper there is noth
ing that interferes with .either of these principles.
Our system allows flexibility; it is adapted to every place where it is
needed; but, at the same time, there are fundamental principles which
will always keep it, in practice, from going far out of the way. These
are the two principles that have been followed in the report of the pre
liminary committee.
Then the Cambridge Platform has been followed, to a great extent. I
do hot agree with the feeUng manifested by Dr. Leavitt, when he speaks
of its " uncouth phraseology." I do not object to the language because
there is an antique ring to it; I rather prefer it, — very much as I prefer
King James's version of the Bible to Sawyer's translation. [Laughter.]
I don't think that a little spice of antiquity will hurt us, any more than
I think that the gray hairs, which are quite plenty in this congregation,
now injure the appearance of this body. As to those fathers not being
qualified to explain what Congregationalism is, because of their leaning
to Presbyterianism, I am sorry to say, I differ historically from the
brother who has spoken of that matter. Some years before that plat
form was euunciated, the fathers of CongregationaUsm were defending
Congregationalism against Presbyterianism, not leaning to it. There

CHURCH POLITY. 44l
were one or two ministers who did, but not the bulk. I have books in
my own library written against Presbyterianism by those very minis
ters. They did not attempt to court it.
Then I don't think these men were ignorant, if they did Uve two hun
dred years ago; and in reiterating our love for the doctrine and faith
they held, and for their polity? I don't believe there is any harm in fol
lowing that platform. I have felt it was best that this body should as
sert some such thing; and I felt it the more strongly when I took up the
" Independent " of this week, where I found an article from the eloquent
brother from Connecticut [Bev. J. P. GulUver], in which he says:
" Why then, we must still ask, do we need a platform of discipline,
emanating from this National Council, and the product of its combined
wisdom ?
" It is that the poUty which now exists may be distinctly enunciated,
with all the modifications which an experience of more than two centu
ries can .give.
" It is that the poUty, which is now so weU understood by New Eng
land men, may challenge the attention of all, and command the respect
which is its due. •
" More than aU, it is that the polity which is so abhorrent of the letter
which kiUeth, and so instinct with the spirit which giveth life; the pol
ity which is so tolerant of minute variation, and so flexible in its practi
cal details, may yet live in its great principles."
I could not, if I talked all day, find expressions that come closer to the
truth than these.
This body could not consider all the details of the report; therefore
they appointed a committee to consider them fully. I am inclined to
think that committee was too large. If it had been a committee of three,
I think they would have come to a conclusion three or four days ago.
We have seen how it operated in regard to the Declaration of Faith. The
larger the committee was, the worse we were off, until we got rid of all
committees on that subject, and then we settled down on something. I If
this committee had been smaUer, I think they would have agreed. I
know, if I was one of a committee of twelve, I should have my pet hobby,
and ride him very thoroughly. These large committees' remind me of
the story of two deacons, who were supposed to be somewhat obstinate.
They had a controversy about the location of a school-house, and a great
deal of aUenation arose. At last, after months of trouble about it, one
of the deacons went over very early one morning to his brother deacon's,
and said he, "Brother, I haven't slept all night for thinking about this
matter. It isn't right to differ so about it; we must agree; and, brother,
you have got to give up, for I can't." [Laughter.] That is very much the
way with large committees. The result is, that instead of agreeing about
details, they see any number of questions rising about this matter and that.
I was amazed at the variety of petty things that were brought up by this
committee. Nine-tenths of them ought to have been settled in ten min
utes. Many of them are perfectly explained in the paper itself. If the,
original committee had been consulted in regard to them, they could in

442 CHURCH POLITY.
two minutes have swept off two-thirds of them. When a document has
been thoroughly studied for months, and extensive correspondence had,
there may be some expressions that would seem natural to those who
prepared it, that would not to others; yet a committee not tenacious of
mere expressions I think could have shown why they should agree in a
little time.
This body, as I said, could not examine all the details, therefore they
appointed a committee to examine and report about them, which they
have not done. Little matters about ex parte councUs and the Uke are
objected to. The very statements that are questioned have passed under
the eyes, not only of students of these matters, but of legal men, weU
versed in ecclesiastical history, and familiar with our usages. Then, it is
questioned whether a minister should be a member of his own ¦ church.
That question should not be settled. There are things that we want to
remain in doubt. We don't want to be tied down in reference to aU
these petty details. While I think a minister better be and ought to be
a member of his own church, I am not going to complain of any man
who thinks it is not best, and say he has got to be, or not be a minister.
There is one thing that might offend somebody, and that is to say that a
Congregationalist minister ought to be and must be a member of a Con-
gregationalist church, not of some other church. Such a declaration, I
can well imagine, might stir up some people. [Laughter.]
There are a great many of these things; and I only want to say, that
this formidable list of questions could be swept off very easUy.in a few
moments, and I think they ought to have been swept off. I say this
without any disrespect to the committee. It was too large; there was
the great difficulty. This difficulty of working together reminds me of a
mule team that I saw down near Atlanta last year. There were six of
them, and when the two in front were pulling, the other four were not;
and when the two in the center pulled, the two in front and behind stood
still; and when the two on the pole pulled, the others backed. [Laugh'
ter.] That is just the way with large committees; you can't get them
to pull together.
Now, this committee recommend that we repeat this error. They rec
ommend that a large committee — a committee of twenty-five — be ap
pointed, to whom this matter shall be referred. Now, if it took them
eight days to get through, and you appoint this committee of twenty-
five, you may go home ; you will never see that document again in this
world. [Laughter.] Dr. Leavitt need not be at all alarmed.
Rev. Dr. Leavitt. I'm not.
Rev. Mr. Quint. If you appoint a committee at aU, appoint a small
one. Twenty-five men, scattered all over the country, — when can they
get together ?
Rev. Prof. Bartlett, of Illinois. The committee were not divided;
they were substantially agreed.
Eev. Mr. Quint. I take it back. The committee were agreed. Here
.'are twenty-five questions that they couldn't settle, but— the committee
were agreed. If you appoint this large committee, you may order them

CHURCH POLITY. 443
to report to .the National Council that will be held one hundred and
eighty-five years from now, — it would be of no use to expect it sooner.
[Laughter.] If this report is to go out in the way suggested, appoint a
committee of five, and they will be able to agree, and accomplish the
work. And I will venture to suggest another thing. I do not Uke the sug
gestion in this report, that the chairman of that preUminary committee,
learned as he is in this whole matter, shall be deUberately excluded from
this committee.
I will close by moving, as an, amendment, that instead of a committee
of twenty-five, there be a committee of five appointed, to whom this
whole matter shall be intrusted.
Bev. Prof. Bartlett, of Illinois. I wish merely to say a word or
two in regard to our course. It is very evident from the speech just
made, that if there had been a very small committee, and that a commit
tee of one, and that committee the speaker, the whole thing would have
been settled.
It is, perhaps, courteous, Mr. Moderator, for these remarks to be
made in reference to " mule teams," and things of that kind ; and it may
be modest for an individual to speak in this way of a committee who have
iabored carefully upon this document, and now present the result of
their deUberations ; — I leave that to the body to judge. Our report is
not founded upon disagreement; it is founded upon a careful examina-
•tion of the document, article by article, conjointly and individually. I
do not wish to open the whole subject of the document, with all its con
tents; but we deliberately concluded that the matters requiring revision
were not superficial. We stand in that judgment eleven men, with no
parental or personal relation to it. Our deliberate opinion is, that while
it is an able document, of great depth and comprehensiveness, — no
doubt as able as any three gentlemen in this body could have prepared, —
it stiU contains omissions that are, in the judgment of each of these
eleven gentlemen, important omissions; and we have specified those
points. We also thought that some of the statements, — important fun
damental statements, too, — required careful revision. We found some
of them questionable, some loose, some contradictory. As, for example,
in the second chapter, where it is stated, in the flrst paragraph, that
"The visible church consists of those who belong to Christ; " declaring
them to be, " in the phrase of our ancient platform, ' saints by calling,' "
whereas the Cambridge Platform declares that they are those who, " in
charitable discretion may be accounted saints by calling." And the next
article declares the visible saints to be those who " make a credible pro
fession of religion." And so I might go through the document. Our
judgment was unanimous, that there were several articles which needed
revision. These twenty-five points enumerated include a great many
other points, so that they amount to forty or upwards. We found that
we could not put these matters into proper shape at this time, and it
seemed to us that any document which we could lay before you, which
might then be passed, would be passed very unintelligently and unad-

444 CHURCH POLITY.
visedly. It seemed to me, for one, that that would not be in accord
ance with our Congregational usage. It seemed to me that a document
so voluminous, not to say luminous,— twenty-seven solid pages, — could
not be adjusted by us as it ought to be done. There were brethren who
thought it could be done, and we entered upon the trial. We labored
together five or six days, and then those brethren who were most enthu
siastic in the belief that this could be made aU right, and poUshed for
acceptance and adoption here, were convinced it could not be done.
Some of us felt, too, that, under the circumstances, it was more congre
gational, after having expressed our view of the substance of doctrine,
to refer this document to a committee, carefully selected, who should
then put it forth, not as the authoritative utterance of this whole Council,
which would be an entire revolution, but as the utterance of able men,
carefully selected, deliberately considering, and also deliberately and pro
tractedly consulting together. That was our idea: that these individuals
should take time; consider profoundly; go to their friends and invite sug
gestions ; gather all these thoughts, and then come together as a whole,
and take a week, or two or three or four weeks; and then, having got
the voice of the committee, in conference with these able men as well as
others, get the united voice of the churches as far as might be, and then
produce a document which should bear all the weight to which it was
entitled from the character of the men and the deUberation they had
expended upon it, and no more. That, in my judgment, is the true
theory of Congregationalism.
Eev. Prof. Park, of Massachusetts. I have only one word to say.
I know that I speak as a " mule ; " my only hope is, that I may speak as
a respectable one. [Laughter.]
Rev. Dr. Patton, of Illinois. Does that mean a Calvinistic mule ?
Rev. Prof. Park. I don't know how any one could be more respect
able than that. I am glad that the Council have been informed that
these questions are not proposed because the committee could not agree
upon the topics alluded to. We did not wish to express our disagreement
with the preliminary committee in a bold manner, in a mulish manner,
and therefore we have suggested our opinion on topics to be considered.
And one reason why some of the questions were proposed is this: that
there are varieties of usage, and great varieties of opinion with regard
to some of them. The question which has been alluded to is one:
" Should a minister belong to his own church ? " There are some coun-
cUs which wiU not ordain a minister unless he will promise to belong to
the church over which he is pastor; and there are some councils which
wftl not ordain a minister if he does belong to the church over which he
is pastor. Now, this is an apparent difference of opinion! [Laughter.]
It appears to the committee, Mr. Moderator, that where such great diversi
ties of usage exist, they should be stated, and the reasons for one usage
and the reasons for another usage be stated, and preference be given to
one over another, provided there be any such preference found in the
minds of the able men who may be appointed to present this document
to the world. They think, sir, that there are many instances in which

CHURCH POLITY. ¦ 445
there are the greatest diversities among the churches, and that those
instances may very properly be specified in the document that this
Council may issue.
I think, sir, that whatever document is published under the express or
implied sanction of this Council will have very great influence. It will
have, doubtless, more influence than our opinions as a Council really
merit. We are a multitudinous body ; we are in Boston during the
heat of summer ; and it is impossible for us to give that attention to that
document which we might give individually, each one in his own study.
Still the document will be considered- as having the authority of the
Council. Now we propose that it be pubftshed under the superintend
ence of a committee appointed by this Council ; but yet, this committee
will not be considered as having the authority of the Council for all their
utteranees. We desire it to be a large committee in consequence of the
great variety of usage in the country, and in consequence of the great
variety of opinions in different parts of the country ; and we have sup
posed that the different parts of the country would consider themselves
better represented by this large committee than if we had a small one.
Then, sir, there may be, as it appears to the committee, many references
to be made and books to be consulted in regard to it, and it is no small
labor to impose upon any one man, or any two or three men, to collect
these references and properly adjust them. We supposed that the work
might be divided and sub-divided, in such a manner that the labor would
not be so great but that each one of the committee could easily endure
it. We thought, also, that the influence of the document would be
greater on our missionary stations, and in courts of law, if it came under
the careful supervision of a large committee, who will have the benefit
of the suggestions made by aU the members of this Council, and by the
different churches to whom this document, prepared by the committee,
and under consideration by the Council, may be sent, and who may di
rect to the committee of twenty or twenty-five their hints and sugges
tions. Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. Although I have very little sensi
bility, parental, in regard to the fate of this document, I think, at the
same time, I might be excused for having a great deal ; for I may say it
has cost me a great deal of labor, and if, instead of bringing it here, I
had kept it, the copyright of it, I think, would have been worth 8500 to
me. At any rate, the labor I have bestowed upon it I might have
bestowed in a way to make it worth all of that to me. I might, there
fore, perhaps, be excused if I had a Uttle parental sensibility in regard to
its fate.
I took my first lesson in CongregationaUsm, in reality, from the author
of this minority report. The whole modern development of Congrega
tionaUsm, as I conceive, even that which has resulted in the convocation
of this assembly, really proceeded from an article which was written by
that brother, and published in the "Quarterly Christian Spectator," at
New Haven, in the year 1830. Prior to that, I, having been educated at
the feet of GamaUel, (Dr. Woods), at Andover, had no more conception

446 CHURCH POLITY.
of Congregationalism than other people educated in the same way.
[Laughter.] But I have from that time to this been profoundly and
increasingly interested in the Congregational church order, in its
natural growth and development from its roots, which are its first princi
ples, and in the distinction between the Congregational form and concep
tion of church order and poUty, and that of every other sort and name;
and the great incumbrance upon CongregationaUsm, almost from the
time when the Cambridge Platform was shaped and laid down, — almost
the greatest incumbrance upon its progress has been that the working
of it has been confided to th£ hands of a ministry who either did not
understand it or did not beUeve in it. I go back (not in my personal
repoUection exactly) to the time when, in Connecticut, the Congrega
tional churches and ministers were called Presbyterian. I think I could
take down in the Congregational Library a volume of sermons, or some
such work, by the immediate predecessor of Dr. Hawes, who styled him
self " Pastor of the North Presbyterian Church in Hartford ; " and I
recollect seeing, a few years ago, a certificate signed by Dr. Nathan
Strong, and Dr. Nathan Perkins, of West Hartford, and another d. d.,
or a person of the same standing, certifying that the churches of Con
necticut were Presbyterian. That is where we were a few years ago ;
and for a long time we have been trying to tinker up CongregationaUsm
by borrowing, — and the process is not ended yet ; — borrowing a usage
or a principle from Presbyterianism ; borrowing some Uttle bit of ritual,
perhaps, from Episcopalianism ; — borrowing in this direction and borrow
ing in that, instead of developing our system from its original ideas, in
which it has its whole being, as the chicken is in the egg and the oak in
the acorn.
I think the work of that Cambridge Synod which produced the plat
form of 1648 was not adequately represented by the author of the mi
nority report at all. That synod met flrst in 1646. That, by the way,
Mr. Moderator, was the only National Synod or Council of the Congre
gational churches that ever met in America. The subsequent synod —
that of 1662 — was a Massachusetts Synod, and neither Connecticut nor
New Haven was represented in it. Nay, under the influence of John
Davenport, my predecessor, the whole colony of New Haven sent a
remonstrance against the aim and objects of that memorable body. So the
synod -of 1680 was a Massachusetts Synod, as much so as that of 1708,
which made the Saybrook Platform, was a Connecticut Synod. That
Cambridge Synod met flrst in 1646, continued in session about a fort
night, discussing matters, elaborating, making its preparations, and then,
at the end of that time, appointed a committee to draw up a platform.
They met again in 1647, but remained in session only a very short time,
the prevalence of an epidemic disease throughout New England break
ing up the synod, — an epidemic of which, that very season, Thomas
Hooker died at Hartford. Then it met a third time in 1648, and after
sitting as long as we have now, it resulted in that memorable and most
important document, the Cambridge Platform. The same synod, at
the same time, declared its assent to the substance of doctrine con-

CHURCH POLITY. 447
tained in the Westminster Confession. It was not with the idea of
concihating Presbyterianism that that synod was called, I apprehend.
The Congregational element was just beginning to be developed.
At this point, the hour of adjournment (6£) having arrived,
Dr. Bacon yielded the floor, and after singing the Doxology, the
Council adjourned.
TENTH DAY, SATUEDAY, JUNE 24.
The Council met at 9 o'clock, and prayer was offered by the
Moderator. v
The minutes were read, arid, some corrections having been
made, approved.
Rev. Mr. Quint, from the Business Committee, reported the
order of business for the day, with a recommendation that
speeches be limited to eight minutes. This was amended by
reducing the time to five minutes, and the report adopted.
Eev. Dr. Thompson, of New York. Yesterday, sir, the duty of re
plying to that admirable document from Boston, England, was intrusted
to yourself, with the Assistant Moderators; and now, in the name of us
all, I beg to move that the document be referred, instead, to a committee
of pastors in this city, in order that the local references from old Boston
to new Boston may be properly considered. I would suggest the names
of Dr. Blagden, Dr. Kirk, and the Scribe, Mr. Dexter, who wiU give an
official signature for the body.
This motion was carried.
' Dr. Sweetser, chairman of the committee on Ministerial Ed
ucation, presented a resolution, recommending that the res6lu-
tion submitted to them in reference to collegiate and theologi
cal institutions at the West be referred to a special committee.
Adopted.
CHURCH POLITY.
Eev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut (Dr. Bacon yielding the floor).
There are two or three points that need to be brought up here, and I
think they will very much facilitate the business we have now before us.
A paper was referred to this committee, by vote of the Council, which
never came before the committee, in reference to the preparation of a
Catechism; and the committee desire, so far as I have been able to see
them, — and I know it will be their unanimous desire, — to amend their
report by inserting that as one of the items, if there is a general assent
thereto. There is another point: The committee, in the report which was pre-

448 CHURCH POLITY.
sented to them yesterday afternoon by their sub-committee, found a pro
vision that Dr. Bacon and Mr. Quint should constitute a joint committee
with the committee of twenty-five, having certain powers superior to
that committee. That proposition was considered very objectionable,
and the result was, that in the haste of our deliberations, at the close,
they appear to have been cut off from that committee entirely. I am
not able to speak now in the name of the committee, but I can as an
- individual member of that committee, with the approbation of aU whom
I have been able to see, make this suggestion, which I do in the form of
an amendment to the proposition to appoint a committee of twenty-five,
— that this Council re-appoint the committee previously appointed by
the meeting in New York, — Dr. Bacon, Mr. Quint, and Dr. Storrs, —
and that that committee be enlarged by the addition of those members.
Another point. Brother Quint [absent in committee] wishes me to
say that, upon explanations, he has changed his view with regard to the
number of which this committee should consist, and desires me to with
draw, in his name, the amendment he proposed. That brings us back to
the original proposition, that a committee of twenty-five be appointed,
and the amendment to that, namely, that the original committee be re
appointed and added to the committee of twenty-five, making twenty-
eight in all. I am prepared to give reasons, which I think wftl be en
tirely satisfactory to this CouncU, as they have been to brother Quint,
why there should be a committee of this size.
Rev. Mr. Burr, of Connecticut. I would inquire whether it is in
tended that Dr. Bacon shall be chairman of that committee ?
Rev. Mr. Gulliver. That follows, necessarily.
Rev. Prof. Bartlett, of Illinois. I would inquire whether that is a
correct statement, — whether it is not always in the power of a committee
to choose its own chairman ?
Rev. Mr. Gulliver. That is the way it struck my mind; that is the
expectation. The Moderator. In reply to Prof. Bartlett, I will say, that I un
derstand that ft is competent for any committee to appoint its own
chairman, unless the body appointing that committee designate the
chairman. Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. I am altogether at a loss. I find a
rule that every speaker shall be limited to five minutes; and I don't see
that I can do any good whatever by speaking five minutes, or help any
body to a conclusion.
Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. I move that that rule be suspend
ed in the case of Dr. Bacon, who was chairman of the committee and
wrote the report, and certainly has a right to explain it.
This motion was passed.
Rev. Dr. Bacon. Gratefully acknowledging the kindness of the
Council toward me, I desire to be interrupted if my remarks are pro
tracted beyond any reasonable Umit, as there is danger that they will

CHURCH POLITY. 449
be, because I can not judge as well as the brethren can as to the amount
of what I say nor the pertinency of it.
I was speaking, last evening, about the Cambridge Platform — the
origin of it and the meaning of it; and I have taken the liberty to bring
here this morning the record of the Massachusetts Colonial Government,
which called that synod; and the intention with which that synod was
assembled is upon the record, and will be suggestive to us in relation to
the business now before us. It reads thus:
" The right form of church government and discipline being a good
part of the kingdom of Christ upon earth, the settling and establishing
thereof by the joint and pubUc agreement and consent of churches, and
by the sanction of civil authority, must needs greatly conduce to the
honor and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the settling and safety
of church and commonwealth where such a duty is duly attended and
performed; and inasmuch as times of pubUc peace, which by the mercy
of God are vouchsafed to these plantations (but how long the same may
continue we do not know), are much more commodious for the effecting
of such a work than these troublesome times of war and of public disturb
ances thereby, as the example of our dear native country doth witness at
this day, where, by reason of the pubUc occasion and troubles of the
state, the reformation of religion and the estabUshing of the same is
greatly retarded, and at the best can not be perfected without much diffi
culty and danger; and whereas divers of our Christian countrymen and
friends in England, both of the ministry and others, considering the state
of things in this country in regard of peace and otherwise, have sundry
times, out of their brotherly faithfulness, love, and care of our well-do
ing, earnestly by letters from thence solicited and called upon us that we
would not neglect the opportunity which God hath put into our hands
for the effecting of so glorious and good a work as is mentioned, whose
advertisements are not to be passed over without due regard had there
unto, and considering withal that through want of the things here spoken
of, some differences of opinion and practice of one church from another
do already appear amongst us, and others, if not timely prevented, are
like speedily to ensue, and this not only in lesser things, but even in
points of no small consequence, and very material, to instance " — then
foUow some particulars.
"Therefore, for the further healing and preventing of the further
growth of the said differences, and upon the other grounds, and for the
other ends aforementioned, and although this Court make no question of
their lawful power by the Word of God to assemble the churches, or
their messengers, upon occasion of counsel for anything which may con
cern the practice of the churches, yet because all members of the church
es, though godly and faithful, are not yet clearly satisfied, it is therefore
thought expedient for the present occasion not to make use of that pow
er, but rather hereby declare it to be the desire of this present General
Court, that there be a public assembly of the elders and other messen
gers of the several churches within this jurisdiction, who may come
together and meet at Cambridge upon the first day of September now
29

450 CHURCH POLITY.
next ensuing," &c. (Eecords of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, vol.
iii. pp. 70-72.) '"
Afterward, there is a section inviting the plantations under the juris
diction of Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, to send there the
leaders and messengers of their churches also.
It appears plainly enough from what I have just read, that one object ¦
which the framers of the Cambridge Platform had in view was to give
light and help to their friends in England, who were then contending
against the Scotchmen or Presbyterians — against the attempt to bring
the " Solemn League and Covenant " into England, and by the force of
that " Solemn League and Covenant," to establish what was called a
" covenanted uniformity " of doctrine and of discipUne throughout the
three kingdoms, England, Wales, and Scotland. That " covenanted uni
formity " is sought for, quarreled for, and suffered for to this day. Con
gregationalism was spoken of, in old England, as " the way of the New
England brethren." It was understood that there was a way they had
in Scotland, which they had borrowed from Geneva and the continent,
and there was another way, which the brethren who had moved from the
Old World into the New, for the purpose of practicing, as they expressed
it, " the positive part of church reformation," had struck out here in the
wilderness ; and it was for the sake of setting out that way, in a clear
light, not only for themselves, but also for their friends in England, that
this Cambridge Synod or National Council was palled. And I may say
here, that the whole history of the CongregationaUsm of England, and
the present status of it, as compared with the history and present status
of the Congregationalism of New England, have not been such as to in
duce me to seek, as yet, for the model of CongregationaUsm in old Eng
land, as the report of the minority of the committee seems incUned to do.
Our Congregationalism is not Brownism. Brownism is older than Con
gregationalism, in one sense; older, except as CongregationaUsm is as
old as the apostles. Brownism was the great step forward in the discus
sions and inquiries which resulted in that boon that was given to our
fathers, — free Congregationalism ; and Brownism is essentiaUy the
scheme that is set before us in the report of the minority as that which
will bring in the millennium straightway. Brown hit upon a capital
idea, — the idea of the duty of church reformation, — to be practiced by
everybody, without waiting for government. There was the point of
division between the " Separatists," or " Brownists," as they were called,
indiscriminately, and the Puritans. The Puritans were waiting and
., waiting for the government to reform the church. That was theft posi
tion. The " Separatists " took up Brown's principle, namely, that every
man was to reform for himself, and that the State had nothing to do with
it. In that principle Ues the germ of Congregationalism, and the germ
of all our liberty to-day, civil and reUgious, — in the idea that every man
was to practice for himself the reformation of the church, — in the idea
of the freedom of the church, not by asking leave of Csesar or of Eliza
beth, but by asking leave only of the Lord Jesus Christ; and that is
where we stand.

CHURCH POLITY. 451
But ft is not given to any one man to discover the whole continent of
truth. Columbus discovered the West India Islands, and we call him the
discoverer of America, — and he was buried in Cuba. It is one of his
followers who is said to have discovered the continent which bears his
name. Brown only discovered an outlying island, as it were ; a conti
nent Ues beyond it, and we acquired the continent. I have no notion, for
one, of going back, with the author of that minority report, to the little
island where Brown was. [Applause.]
Now, not to take up too much time, let me suggest, briefly, this :
The report has in it, I may say, three leading ideas or principles, and I
want a distinct expression of the Council as to the correctness of those
three leading principles. The first is the principle of the autonomy of
every particular church or worshiping assembly of Christians, perma
nently embodied and organized ; that there is no church other than the
parochial Congregational church, organized for government ; that no
church censure, or admonition, or excommunication, no ordination of a
minister, no inauguration or deposition of church officers, can be had by
any other authority than that of the particular or local church. That is
the first principle, out of which our whole moral system proceeds ; but
that is not the only principle. That is the principle of the minority re
port, in reaUty ; there is a word or two said of fellowship.
The next great principle is the principle of the communion of churches
one with another ; and the development of that principle, added to the
development of the flrst, makes Congregationalism. And there lies the
difference between the Congregationalism of New England and the
Congregationalism of Old England — in the development or application
of the principle of the union of churches one with another. Do we hold
that principle ? The brethren in England hold it vaguely, generally,
obscurely, in a sense, as it is held forth vaguely, obscurely, indefinitely,
and in a manner incapable of application, in the report of the minority.
It is the definiteness with which we hold that principle which makes us
one body, and which gives us power to recognise one another, and to act
together as a common body, in mutual confidence. In the Cambridge
platform, that principle of the common union of churches one with an
other is developed theoretically. When that synod met, less than twenty
years from the landing at Charlestown, the question of the communion
of churches one with another was the great theoretical question before
them, the great question of the future, the great question for England
as well as for themselves, and they developed that principle as well as
they could in their one chapter on "The Communion of Churches
one with another." In this new draft which has been submitted to the
Council, that chapter is extended into one distinct part or division
of the entire scheme, the parts being — first, some few general prin
ciples and definitions ; second, the autonomy of the particular or
local church ; thirdly, the communion of churches one with another, and
their mutual responsibiUty. First, the theory, which is essentially the
same with that of the Cambridge platform ; second, the development of
the theory, which gives occasion (1.) for a chapter on Councils, (2.) a
chapter on Conferences,, and (3.) a chapter on National Councils.

452 CHURCH POLITY.
Now, I want to secure the attention of the brethren, before we take
a vote upon the subject, to this question : Do we beUeve in the impor
tance of the communion of the churches one with another, as that idea
has been developed and appUed in the experience of the two hundred
and seventeen years that have elapsed since the Cambridge platform was
formed ? Do we believe in it ? I do, for one ; and I beUeve in it so
firmly that I will have nothing to do with any body or (as the word is
here) denomination, — I do not Uke the word, but I use it because it
seems to be inteUigible, — • I wftl have nothing to do with any denomina
tion of CongregationaUsts in which that principle of the communion of
churches one with another, and their responsibiUty to give account of
their proceedings one to another, in aU matters of common interest, is
not recognized and acknowledged. [Applause.]
Now how do our brethren in England ordain their ministers ? Ac
cording to my understanding of it, a church elects its pastor and ordains
him, and it is nobody's business who he is or what he is. According to
our principle, the church elects its pastor and ordains him, and it is the
business of all the churches who he is and what he is ; and the church
that ordains him is responsible to aU the churches to give an account
whom it is that they elect to that office, and of his ordination — what he
is, what theology he holds, what faith, what principles of order, — what
qualifications he has by nature, by education, and by the grace of God
for the performance of that duty ; and if a church, falling back on its
reserved rights, its extreme powers, says : " We wUl have nothing to do
with other churches, we will elect whom we please to be our minister,
and we will turn him away when we please," we say, " Yery weU, only
you don't ride in our troop, that 's all." [Applause.]
So if the Mt. Yernon Church excommunicates a man, and the Old
South Church takes that man into its communion the next Sabbath, there
is a breach of fellowship between those two churches. There is no
remedy or redress in such cases among our EngUsh brethren, as I under
stand their system — no help ; but these churches must stand frowning
over <>ne against the other, and stand in perpetual opposition and hos
tility until Time comes to heal the wound. Our system is otherwise.
We say, that if a man is excommunicated from this church, he shall not
be received into any other church in fellowship with this, without the
intervention of a council to examine the case, and to give advice to this
church, and to give advice to the person who has been excommuni
cated ; and if this church refuses to follow the advice, then the person
has his redress, and may be received into the Old South Church, or any
other church that sees fit to receive him — not because the council has
put him in there, but because the council has examined into the case,
and is of opinion that the feUowship of the churches will not be broken
by one of them receiving that man to communion 
I refer to these things for the sake of showing what our system is.
We have no power over a particular church but the power of the church
of Christ and the authority of the Scriptures ; and then these individual
churches, all responsible to Christ alone, aU deriving their powers di-

CHURCH POLITY. 453
rectly from Christ, recognising the obligations of good neighborhood and
mutual fellowship, and recognising their duty, whenever called upon in
an orderly way, to give an account of any of their proceedings to each
other. I have been a member, in my life-time, I beUeve, of three ex parte
councils. One was in this wise. A man had been expelled from a
church in Brooklyn, New York. He thought he was unjustly and un-
scripturally dealt with, and had a long argument to show it. He asked
the church to unite with him in calling a council, and the church said the
case was plain enough, they didn't want any help in it, and they wouldn't
caU a councU. He called an ex parte council, and the church was
courteous enough to appear before us, and explain its proceedings. It
turned out that the man was a very troublesome church member ; he
was always making motions ; he didn't like the ininister, and was
very troublesome indeed, — and if I had been the minister I should have
wanted to get rid of him very much. At last the church got out of pa
tience with him, and a motion was made that he be excommunicated,
and that he have ten minutes to reply to that motion [Laughter] ; so that
he was excommunicated after the fashion of a drum-head court-martial.
Was that right ? According to the report of the minority of this com
mittee, the man would have had no redress whatever, and it would have
been no interruption of order, no violation of any comity to a brother,
for that church to have voted in that way.
Another instance of an ex parte council was in this wise. A church
(there are a good many members here who will recollect the case I now
refer to), had got into trouble — lots of it — and had been wrangling, and
going Uke a machine when one of the principal wheels is broken ; and
at last, by calling in all the women and children to vote, they voted out
just about a moiety of the members of the church, without trial, if I
recoUect the story right; but whether it is right or wrong, it is good
enough for an Ulustration. Then they said, " We are independent, and
don't want any council about this; we are an independent church, and
wont have any council." Now, I say, if a church says it is independent,
and wont have any counsel, then it don't belong to us — we have nothing
to do with it [Applause] ; and wherever that church is, whether it be in
Boston, in New York, in Chicago, or in San Francisco, it don't belong to
what we call our denomination 
Then we had another instance quite recently, in the place where I Uve,
where there was a similar division of a church, and the majority, which
was constituted by calUng in the women and children to vote, having
settled a minister in defiance of the communion of the churches, who
assumed to call himself pastor of the church and all that kind of thing,
refused to recognize the right of the claim to be heard by a majority of
the brethren on the ground. Well, the council decided — and it was a
large council, called from all parts of the State — that a church which
proceeded in that manner and fashion was not, in the common accepta
tion of the word, a Congregational church, and the churches of Connec
ticut have followed the advice of that council, so far as I know, without

454 CHURCH POLITY.
a dissaiting voice. That church claimed to be an independent church,
and so ft was; but independency, in that sense, is not Congregationalism.
There is one point more in the scheme of discipline, of order and fel
lowship, which is laid down in the report which was submitted to this
body; namely, that there is recognised among us a ministry,- a profes
sional ministry, consisting of men devoted and consecrated by ordination
to the work of preaching the gospel. That is not in the Cambridge
Platform. It was not really in the theory of the founders of the New
England churches, for they did not see, in all respects, the working and
appUcation of their own principles. They held to lay preaching — what
they called " prophesying," — but they did not see how to recognise any
man as a minister of the gospel who was not an officer of the church.
That distinction is clearly made in the document under consideration.
A man may be a minister of the gospel who has received the right-hand
of fellowship. He' may be employed in the work of the ministry in
foreign missions. Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, was pastor of a
church over here in Boxbury as long as he Uved. The churches at that
time had no idea that a man could really be an ordained missionary, a
missionary having the powers of a minister of the church, unless he was
an officer in the church.
We have outgrown that, and it is an inevitable necessity for us to out
grow it. We have none of the fear which they had, that a ministry
would be a hierarchy. Our churches have grown to age, and can take
care of themselves. There is no danger of a hierarchy; and the fact
that Dr. Leavitt is a minister of the gospel gives him no power or juris
diction in the church of which he is a member, but that which belongs
to his judgment, intelligence, learning, and personal character; and so
of any other minister. Dr. Anderson here, is a minister, and a member
of a church, but he is an officer in no church, and has no more power in
the church of which he is a member than any other member. That is
the distinction which is clearly laid down and insisted upon in the docu
ment under consideration.
Now, are the members of this body, as a body, ready to adopt these prin
ciples: first, that a church is a church, and there is no other; no church
but a congregation of believers, ordinarily consisting of those who can
meet for worship in one place, and whose affairs are managed by one
administration; no church government including a great many congre
gations, governed by a representative assembly; no church governed by
a synod; no church governed by a prelate, and stretching over a diocese;
no national or ecumenical church, governed by a pope or by a council;
but only the local church ? Are we ready for that ? Are we ready for
this — that the local church has no power but what it has a warrant for
from Christ ? — that no church has a right to enact any rules or by-laws
which are inconsistent with or additional to the New Testament ? If we
are not, we can not go on. If we insist that the local church may make
itself something besides a church of Christ, if we insist that it can under
take to run an india-rubber factory, for example, or that it may under
take to mine and " strike ile " [Laughter], or anything of that kind, then,

CHURCH POLITY. 455
so far forth, it ceases to be a church; and if if assumes to be anything
other than a New Testament church of Christ, it is guilty of usurpation
over its members.
That is the first great principle: that a church is a church, and derives
its power and authority from Christ, — notfrom'a voluntary compact, —
mind that I Not that a certain number of men may come together and
say, " We will be a church, and we will be a political organization, too ; we
wUl be a church, and we wiU build a railroad at the same time; we will
be a church, and we will be something else." That kind of voluntary com
pact does not make a church. A church is made simply by the members
of it agreeing — expressly or impliedly agreeing — to walk together in
one assembly, under the rules of the New Testament, trusting in Christ,
doing his work together, helping one another, administering the Word and
the sacraments. We hold that. Do we also hold the communion of
churches ?
Do we also recognize a ministry — a ministry with no powers, no pre
rogatives, no jurisdiction or authority over the churches ? If we do,
then we have got the essential things of the platform before us; and I hope
that the CouncU will so far adopt the platform (if I may call it so) that has
been submitted here, as to be understood distinctly as sanctioning these
three principles. If so, the matters of detail will be easily adjusted.
I wUl say here, that some of the things which seem to have stumbled
the committee are misprints, — clerical or typographical mistakes. For
example: there is a word left out in the first part of chap. i. part 2.
'fThe visible church consists of those who belong to Christ," &c. It
should read, " The visible church consists' of those who visibly belong to
Christ." That was commented on yesterday, and very properly. It is
simply a case of omission. I mention this as an illustration of similar
errors which have crept into the report that Ues before you; and for that
reason alone, even if it were adopted entire, and without qualification, it
ought to be referred to some such committee as is here proposed, to be
perfected. — I ask pardon for having spoken so long.
Rev. Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts. I wish an explanation from Dr.
Bacon himself, lest we should misunderstand him on an important mat
ter; and that is, in relation to the position of unsettled ministers. Are
they regarded by the principle laid down by Dr. Bacon as still ministers
of the gospel, or as brethren only ? The ministers don't aU know where
they belong. This body, according to the call, was to be composed of
pastors and delegates from the churches, — meaning those not pastors.
Now, the question has risen repeatedly in this body, whether ministers
were authorized to be chosen under that call.
Bev. Dr. Bacon. Certainly.
Bev. Mr. Allen. If that is admitted, that is aU.
Eev. Dr. Beecher, of Illinois. There are special reasons why I
made an effort to obtain the floor; I will state what those reasons are.
Before the National Council had been called, the General Association of
the State of Illinois put in operation a train of measures designed to pro
duce or procure a work on Congregationalism, adapted to the wants of

456 CHURCH POLITY.
the West, — adapted to the field in which they were laborers. I was
chairman of the committee the first year, and made a report to the meet
ing at Quincy, which report was accepted. In that report, I laid before
them the outline of two works, — one a large work, the other a manual
based upon the large work. Both were adopted by the General Asso
ciation, and I was requested to finish the large work on my own respon
sibility, and to finish the manual and. report it to them. I reported the
manual to the General Association of Illinois, at their meeting at Peoria,
just before the meeting of this Council. The report was accepted and
adopted, but, at my suggestion and request, was recommitted, in order
that I might attend the meeting of the National Council, and hear what
should be presented there. A proposition was also made to instruct the
representatives of that association to request this body to have the man
ual, which had been laid before the Association, read before this Council.
To this I objected, inasmuch as there was a course inaugurated, and I
felt, from the ability of the committee that had been appointed, that it
would be thoroughly carried out, and I preferred not to seem to inter
fere or to commingle myself with that movement. I am now caUed upon
to vote with regard to the proposition that is before you; and in order
that I may justify the vote which I feel it is important to have passed in
this assembly, I ask the liberty of stating, in brief, what it was that the
General Association of Illinois instructed me to do, and what, in the
opinion of the Association, it is important should be done. A part of that
work would be accomplished by that report; a part would not be accom
plished. To meet the wants of Congregationalism at the West, which,
after a residence there of twenty-four years, I think I understand, it is
important that certain things should be done, and they should be done in
. a way in which they would not be Ukely to be done by an individual who
has grown up in the midst of the Congregationalism of Massachusetts
and Connecticut, and has not resided at the West.- As the new fields —
missionary fields — are specially important at this time, so it is specially
important that Congregationalism shaU be contemplated in reference to
aggressive movements; or, if not aggressive, that they shaU be move
ments in which the system shall be so presented as that it shaft he best
adapted to carry the convictions of those to whom the document shall
be presented. •
The five minutes having expired, on motion of Dr. Patton, the
Council voted to allow Dr. Beecher fifteen minutes more, in
view of the relations sustained by him to the whole subject at
the West.
Bev. Dr. Beecher resumed: In order, then, that I may distinctly
bring before this body those things which it seemed important to the
General Association of our State should be done, I will in the first place
read an outline of the large book I reported to them, and upon the basis
of which outline the manual was prepared, which was reported at the

church polity. 457
last meeting of the Association. After having, in the first place, given a
general view of the works on Congregationalism which have authority
among us, both in England and in this country, coming down as late as
the correspondence and works by Brother Dexter and by Brother Quint,
and others who' have written in the " Congregational Quarterly" (cover
ing the ground up to that date), I proceeded:
" There is reason to beUeve that the providence of God demands, and
has prepared the way for, a more complete and comprehensive work
than now exists, not, indeed, for the introduction of novel speculations or
theories, but to unite what the spirit and providence of God have devel
oped in the wide range of discussion and argument of which an outUne
has been given.
" Your committee wiU give an outUne of what such a work ought to
contain, and make suggestions as to its preparation. It should contain,
" 1. A statement of the teaching of Scripture as to the principles and
facts of the original ecclesiastical organization and government of the
churches, free from modern additions and extensions, confirmed by au
thorities and concessions; and also a tracing of the recognition of these
facts and principles by history into the first and second centuries. These
scriptural facts and principles are too often commingled with subsequent
ideas and practices; as, for instance, councils, mutual and ex parte. This
scriptural portion should be wrought out with care, discrimination, and
impartiality. " 2. An investigation of the scriptural phUosophy of Congregationalism,
so developed. By this is meant a view of its end, relations, adaptations,
and place in the system which God is administering in this world, taken
as a whole, and considered in the light of his Word. Here different views
have been taken. The fathers of modern Congregational development
took the ground of a jure divino system of CongregationaUsm. Others
in modern times have called all other systems organizations of Satan.
From this, some recoil to the idea that the scriptural facts involve no
enjoined system, but contrarywise; that there is a providential room for
diverse modes of organization, in a pliant indefiniteness as to outward
organization. The question is, was not the divine original adoption of
the Congregational, that is, of the anti-hierarchal, system, based on rea
sons common to all ages, and is it not essential to the full development of
the kingdom of God, which is foretold ? If it is, then this adaptation and
its reasons should be developed and set forth as a means of giving tone
to the feelings of the professors and defenders of the system, and of se
curing that final result.
" 3. A statement of the modern development of Congregational princi
ples, including what is not taught by express command or example in
the Bible, but what is introduced on the ground of the Ught of reason,
viewed as a divine revelation; for the early fathers of the system agreed
in the propriety and necessity of an appeal to this standard, as well as to
scriptural principles, commands, and examples. Punchard and others
state the, case too strongly of an appeal to the Bible alone. Upham and

458 church polity.
others, especially the fathers, take the true ground of an appeal to the
Ught of nature, as the voice of God.
" This statement should include two parts : 1. The local church,
viewed individually, as to its materials, formation, powers, and organ
izations. 2. The relations of Congregational churches, taken in the
aggregate, to each other on the principles of church fellowship. Here
will be found to be the widest field for an appeal to the light of nature.
" 4. A development of the system in action, that is, a description of
actual Congregational usages and precedents as to the mode of organ
izing churches, receiving or dismissing members, electing and ordaining
officers, administering discipline, calling and conducting councUs. Of
this kind are Cotton's Way of the Churches of New England; Mather's
Batio Disciplinse ; most of Upham's work by the same name ; the
fourth part of Punchard's work; the third part of CroweU's; and of other
works a part.
" 5. A historical outline of the modern revival and development of the
system, with a reference to the causes affecting it during this progress,
both in England and America, and the errors for a time held hnd at
length eliminated. Designed also to expose the dangers to be guarded
against in its use, in the Ught of experience, and to give cautions against
its perversions or corruptions, and suggestions as to what should be done
to perfect its development and action."
I attach very great importance to this point. The subject of councils
in Massachusetts has been considered in a very able article, which is to
appear in the July number of the " Boston Beview," by the Hon. Wood
bury Davis, a lawyer, and is entitled, " Congregational PoUty, Usages,
and Law." He introduces the decisions of civil courts, and endeavors
to make out what he calls Congregational usage as an existing fact.
But there are no principles stated by which Congregational usage, as an
existing fact, can be judged of, and by which the question can be
answered, " Is that usage right or wrong ? " " Ought that usage to be
aboUshed or not ? " Existing usage may tend to evil, and there is need
of principles to know whether it does tend to evil or not; and in Massa
chusetts, in particular, it is a matter of very great moment. Any one
who knows anything in regard to the original introduction of councils,—
of which the most satisfactory account I know of is given in Palfrey's
"History of New England," — knows that they were introduced under
peculiar circumstances, and that there were then peculiar influences
operating upon councils. The Constitution of the Civil State of Massa
chusetts was such, at that time, that none were voters but those who
were members of the church. The formation of a church was then, of
necessity, the introduction of so many voters into the civil State. No
church could be formed that did not affect the question of voting; and
therefore it was ordered in the civil State, that certain regulations should
be introduced with regard to councils in the formation of churches; and
the whole development of Councils was affected by that relation to the
civil State. It is incumbent upon us to be capable of judging with

church polity. 459
regard to this development, and therefore we need a calm historical
analysis of the origin and progress of the system, and the causes that
were operating at the time of its development, while it took the form-in
which it actually revealed itself, and we shall never understand anything
of New England CongregationaUsm as we ought until we do this.
I would state, still further, that I have been called, in Massachusetts
especially, to act on ex parte councils. One ex parte council occupied
me for months, in laborious investigations. The council met and
adjourned and a report was made out, and that report was afterward
accepted. The main object of that council was to correct certain modes
of abusing Congregational councils, or abusing the interior structure of
the Congregational church — of abusing the influence of ministers who
had been upon a council subsequently to that council. I might enu
merate five or six modes which have been practically adopted in the
churches of Massachusetts of perverting and abusing the system of
Congregationalism; and I say deliberately, at this time, from my knowl
edge of it, that the danger in Massachusetts is, of tying up the churches
and reducing them to bondage under the name of fellowship, — whidh is
a sacred name, a holy name[Applause], — so that they shall be beneath
a power indefinite, which Presbyterianism is not, and yet doing the very
things which Presbyterianism does — doing them without its guards,
doing them without its definiteness.
This historical outline, therefore, of the modern revival and develop
ment of the system, with reference to the causes affecting it during its
progress, and the errors for a time held, and at length eliminated, is of
fundamental importance at this moment, and in this attempt to extend
the Congregational system and augment its power, that we may have
it free from local influences, free, if I may say so, from New Englandism,
—for New England, in its past history, you know, was a commingling
of church and state, and it has not been until very lately that New
•England has worked itself clear, and we are bound to work Congrega
tionaUsm clear from aU the corrupting influences that have come into it
from this or any other source.
The last point is a statement of the advantages of Congregationalism,
in itself, and in comparison with other systems, and answers objections;
and for the practical purpose of spreading Congregationalism, this is of
very great moment. A mere naked statement of what Congregation
alism is, you may find in many works, but if we are intending, as a body,
to carry out this movement to spread Congregationalism, we must put it
in a form to spread.
The manual reported to the General Association of IlUnois is a carrying
out in part of the points in this outline, and it was my purpose, according
to the recommendation of the General Association, to prepare a larger
work, upon my own responsibility, on this general plan.
I would say now, in applying these statements, that I myself could
not consistently vote for the report of Dr. Bacon, as though it were suf
ficient to accomplish all that for which I feel that such a work ought to
be prepared. I feel that the manual of Dr. Bacon is a very able and

460 church polity.
valuable one, and that it does a given work well, but not all that is
required at this time. If the powers of the committee shaU be so con
strued as to include the right to introduce whatever in their judgment
the present exigency demands, I shall cordially vote for the appointment '
of the committee, and for the reference of Dr. Bacon's manual to them.
Bev. Dr. Patton, of IUinois. Mr. Moderator, — The brethren at the
West, as is well known, feel a special interest in this topic ; and the in
terest they feel in it is not, as I suppose, because they have any quarrel
with New England, or any antagonism with New England, — nothing
of that sort, — but because they wish to have the poUty which prevails
in New England moje thoroughly known, and understood, and practiced
at the West. I think that is the general feeUng of the brethren at the
West. We know the value of this poUty. We love it, because, when
we Uved at the East, we Uved under it. We have desired to take it with
us in removing out to the West, and we desire to have it presented to
the Western mind as free as possible from aU objections. Now, our
difficulties are these. In the flrst place there are multitudes who come
from the East to the West who do not understand their own polity, —
and that is not strange when we find facts coming to our notice, in
Connecticut and Massachusetts, such as these. When I was a lad, I
used to go to Stonington sometimes to recreate. There is a Congrega
tional church in that place, but the people all supposed they had a
Presbyterian church, and called it so. They talked about the Presbyte
rian minister, and I dare say they talk so there stiU. I had occasion,
shortly after I was settled in Hartford, to exchange with a good brother
in West Hartford. I went into the pulpit and took down the Bible, and
saw this inscription upon it : " Presented to the West Presbyterian
Church of Hartford," by so-and-so. Why, the brethren in Connecticut
didn't know but what they were Presbyterians, a few years ago, and
some of them haven't found out to the contrary yet, we have reason
to fear. [Laughter and applause.]
Now, sir, when material of this kind floats out West, you can easily
see why it does not always go into Congregational churches, and why it
very naturally deposits itself in Presbyterian churches. We think it
desirable, therefore, that there should emanate from this body some
thing that should be for the instruction of the East as weU as of the
West. It is not merely a boon which we desire for our own people, but
we desire that it may go out and draw the attention of the brethren, min
isters, and laymen at the East, to the Congregational polity and its ad
vantages, in order that they may be prepared intelUgently to adopt it
when they remove to the West ; and of course still more do we need
such a manual for the instruction of the churches at the West, composed
of very heterogeneous materials, and increasingly so, because we stand
in great favor at the West. Inquire of almost any denomination in the
West, and they wUl tell you that, next to their own, they love the Con
gregational denomination, and that, if they were to make a change,—
and some of them intimate that perhaps they will, — the change would
. be into Congregationalism. That is exceedingly common testimony.

CHURCH POLITY. 461
Now, sir, many are coming to us from all quarters in the laity and the
ministry, and they are ignorant of our usages, and, to some extent of
our principles, especiaUy of the great second principle enunciated by
Dr. Bacon, that of the communion of churches. I have been battling,
ever since I have been at the West, this principle of introducing men as
acting ministers of churches, who Uve on, year after year, without any
ordination, as a violation of one of the fundamental principles of Con
gregationalism. It is pure Independency. The brethren in Chicago
generally share these views, and they desire that some document shall
go out to instruct our brethren throughout the West as to the true
doctrine of CongregationaUsm on this point.
Prof. E. A. Lawrence, d. d., of Connecticut. I think, Mr. Modera
tor, in view of the lucid explanation, — I may say, exhibition, — which
has been given us this morning of our poUty, from the chairman of the
committee, there are a good many who feel, as is suggested by my
brother on the left, that we are likely to " save our Bacon," and that we
must have our Bacon upon the committee to help save it. [Laughter.]
The principles which have been proclaimed, namely, — first, of a
church distinct from Presbyterianism, from Episcopacy, from Roman
ism, is a fundamental principle ; the second principle, the community of
churches, is equally fundamental. The two distinguish between what is
confounded by all the other theories. They give us the church and the
churches ; they give us independency and fellowship ; they give us a
ministry and they give us pastors ; and from these principles we can
never depart and maintain our denominational integrity. We can never
secede from them, any more than from Plymouth Rock, where we stood a
day or two since. Our whole history is based on those principles ; our
councils are based on them ; our experiences are identified with. them.
"We can never blot out Bunker Hill. We can take down that mouument,
if you please, but we cannot erase Bunker Hill. We can never blot
from our recent history the names of Gettysburg and Richmond, though
those places themselves might be destroyed ; they are wrought into our
language. So these principles, and the history they throw light upon,
have become part of our existence as a denomination. I therefore wish
to indorse the proposition' that the old committee be placed upon this
new one.
Eev. Dr. Eldridge, of Connecticut. In the interesting speech, Mr.
Moderator, made last evening by Mr. Quint, our attention was drawn,
in terms of deliberate commendation, to an article contained in the last
number of the "Independent," written by the chairman of the commit
tee to whom the documents on polity were referred. That article was
spoken of, as I say, in terms of deUberate and strong commendation.
Having great respect for the views of Mr. Quint, my attention was
drawn to this article, and I found in it the following statement : — "It
has mattered Uttle that the Consociationism of Connecticut has striven
for long years to extinguish one of the two 'cardinal principles of
Congregationalism — the absolute independence of the local church in
matters pertaining to its internal affairs."

462 CHURCH POLITY.
I was entirely content to say nothing upon the report, most able and
lucid, of Dr. Bacon, although he alluded to the Consociation system of
Connecticut very briefly, yet respectfully, cautioning the Council to be
on their guard against pushing it so as to override, in any way, the
fundamental principles of Congregationalism ; and I do not rise now
with any purpose of propagandism, but simply in an attitude of self-
defense. The friends of that system are charged' with the intention of
uprooting one of the fundamental principles of CongregationaUsm. Now
if there is any man in Connecticut who is exposed to that charge, I am that
man. I have been working that system, in the same locality, for thirty-
four years, and I am the oldest pastor, I suppose, in the State, who has
been located there and on the same ground continuously. I have too
much regard to my own comfort to be very easily provoked, and there
fore I do not avail myself of every opportunity to be indignant, when
indignation might be justifiable. I entertain, also, very great respect
for the chairman of the committee. He is one of that class of men who
see very clearly objects that are not too large [Laughter], and who
pursue, with great energy and perseverance, individual objects, not
always taking into sufficient consideration the bearings and the relations
of the object. I impute to him no intention of injury, and I rise now
not to vindicate Consociationism, or myself as one of its representatives
and friends in Connecticut, but there are gentlemen from the far West
for whose good opinion I entertain a regard.
A Member. Is this discussion in order ?
The Moderator. Perhaps not, strictly.
Rev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. I wish to say that I shaU claim
the privilege of reply, if personal attacks are to be made on me on this
floor, and I don't know how long that will take.
Rev. Dr. Eldridge. I am not going into any discussion.
A Member. All these views and ideas can go before the large
committee of twenty-five.
Rev. Dr. Eddy, of Massachusetts. I hope we shaU not choke down
Dr. Eldridge ; he has not opened his mouth before.
Rev. Dr. Eldridge. I am entirely at your disposal. It is true that
I have not opened my mouth before, but I will close it now, if you say
so. I was going to say this : that if those who work this system are en
gaged in overthrowing or uprooting one of the fundamental principles
of CongregationaUsm, they are engaged in it innocently and unconscious
ly. We are not desirous of being despots, and we do not mean to be
slaves. Now I will state, in a very few words, just how the thing is, that those
who never have heard anything about Consociationism, except in terms
of reproach, may get some gUmmering idea of what it is. The churches
within a certain boundary, say twenty in number, meet together and form
a constitution developing the very principles of comity that are supposed
to exist. They say, "There may be cases in churches where individ
uals shall be aggrieved; there occur instances where churches will not
permit a pastor to be settled, and there may/be difficulties occurring

CHURCH POLITY. 463
among the churches themselves. Now, we agree, whenever any such
question shall arise — whenever an individual or a church shall be
aggrieved, whenever a pastor is to be settled or dismissed, whenever
anything of that kind is to be done, — we agree to invest this Council
with power to act, and we wiU consider it invested with all that authority
which properly belongs to a council. There may be, in some of these
constitutions, verbal expressions that are unadvised; but the practical
working of the system is, that we do by this organization, say, what
councils do otherwheres.
Now, as to the advantage of it. It is known; it is permanent; it is
responsible. We have a printed constitution, which has been accepted
by every church, who feel bound to abide by it until it is changed. We
keep a record of our proceedings, and every precedent is recorded; and
if any church is disposed in any way to abuse other churches, that abuse
is recorded, and operates as a principle to be applied to them in return.
The effect of our action is under our own eyes; we see it, and are
responsible to the community for it. We have worked that system for
thirty-four years in my locality. I have attended more than two
hundred meetings of the organization, and I have never seen oppression
or abuse. There have been many mistakes, doubtless, as there wiU be;
but I can confidently point to that portion of the state as comparing
favorably with any other community in the purity of its ministers, the
intelligence, piety, and UberaUty (according to their means and opportuni
ties), of its churches, and their freedom from spiritual and doctrinal errors.
Eev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. I claim the privilege of reply
ing. Bev. Mr. Bliss, of Tennessee. I move that the rules be suspended
for five minutes, to hear Mr. Gulliver. Carried.
Eev. Mr. Gulliver. I don't propose to make any reply to the
remarks of the preceding speaker, for I don't think the matter of im
portance enough, although I entertain the very highest possible respect
for Dr. Eldridge, as he very well knows. I take the floor to thank you
for giving me the opportunity to reply, and yield it to Prof. Park, that
he may submit an amendment to the amendment which I have proposed,
which will greatly facilitate the business before us. [Applause.]
Bev. Prof. Park, of Massachusetts. I wish to propose, as an amend
ment to the amendment, the following resolution: —
Resolved, That this Council recognizes as distinctive of the Congrega
tional polity —
First, The principle that the local or Congregational church derives
its power and authority directly from Christ, and is not subjected to any
ecclesiastical government exterior or superior to itself.
Second, That every local or Congregational church is bound to observe
the duties of mutual respect and charity which are included in the com
munion of churches one with another; and that every church which
refuses to give an account of its proceedings, when kindly and orderly
desired to do so by neighboring churches, violates the law of Christ,

464 raising the funds.
Third, That the ministry of the gospel by members of the churches
who have been duly called and set apart to that work implies in itself no
power of government, and that ministers of the gospel not elected to
office in any church are not a hierarchy, nor are they invested with any
official power in or over the churches.
I would simply remark, that this is an enlargement of the first reso
lution which was proposed in the report.
The question was put, and the amendment carried unani
mously. The report was then adopted, as amended.
Eev. Mr. Langworthy, in behalf of the Nominating Commit
tee, submitted the following names to constitute the
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AT THE WEST.
Rev. Edwards A. Park, D. D., of Massachusetts, Rev. John P. GuUi-
ver, of Connecticut, Rev. William De Loss Love, of Wisconsin.
RAISING THE FUNDS.
Deacon Samuel Holmes, of New Tork, asked and obtained
leave to offer at this time, from the Committee on Ways and
Means, the following report and resolutions : —
The committee to whom was referred the question, " By what means
to raise $750,000 for the Evangelization of the West and South ? " beg
leave to suggest, that the sum named, as it can not be reckoned large,
when compared with the grandeur of the object and of the opportunity
which God in his providence has set.before us, so neither is to be regarded
as extravagant in comparison with the ability which divine munificence
has bestowed upon us, the Congregational churches of America.
Were we standing higher upon the mount of vision and of consecration,
we should be startled not at the greatness but at the littleness of our
plans for answering the appeal made to us at this signal moment in the
history of our nation.
The one thing necessary in order that the amount named, and even
more, may be realized the ensuing year, and from year to year here
after, is that the benevolent spirit of our Master be more fully present
in the churches, and that we be prompted to exercise broader and clearer
views of the work to be done.
It will be understood that the present is* not a proposition to raise for
the three societies a special fund of $750,000 over and above their ordi
nary receipts. It does propose to double the annual revenue of the
American Home Missionary Society and that of the American Mis
sionary Association, while for church building it aims to do, through the

RAISING THE FUNDS. 465
American Congregational Union, a special service, plainly demanded
now, and to a greater or less degree likely to be demanded for years to
come. We esteem it a fortunate circumstance, tha t the new campaign for
Christ's cause finds our denomination provided with the three distinct
and harmonious agencies that correspond to the three departments of
labor into which the direct work of evangelization divides itself — an
agency to assist in planting and sustaining churches; an agency to secure
the building of houses of worship; and an agency to care for the comfort,
education, and religious well-being of the lately enslaved blacks.
We desire to take no labor off from these societies, but rather to lay
more upon them, and encourage them to put more upon the churches in
Christ's name.
In accordance with these views, the committee recommend to the
CouncU the passage of the following resolutions : —
. 1. Resolved, That each of the several benevolent societies named in the
report of the committee on the EvangeUzation of the West and South
be desired and enjoined to adopt the most efficient means in its power to
secure the sum proposed, as its quota of the $750,000.
2. Resolved, That, regarding this as the most significant of all the
practical measures that have occupied the attention of the Council, we
do hereby pledge ourselves to our Father, our Saviour, and to each other,
to co-operate with the secretaries and agents of the societies referred to
in any effort they may wisely and zealously adopt.
3. Resolved, That the Council recommend to the American Congrega
tional Union, without arresting or delaying the special efforts now in
progress or ready to be put forth in behalf of the churches needing aid
for the erection of houses of worship, to call for a simultaneous collection
on the Sabbath preceding Forefathers' Day, December 17th, when every
Congregational church, large or small, from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
shaU contribute what it can towards the $200,000 for church-building.
Let the good work be finished in a day, and give the proper punctuation
to this memorable meeting.
4. Resolved, That an appeal be issued from the Council, and placed, so
far as may be, in the hands of every member of every Congregational
church in the country — urging the duty and privUege of self-denying
benevolence, with immediate reference to the object contemplated in this
paper. 5. Resolved, That we undertake this work, not in our own strength
nor for our own glory, but with humble dependence upon Him whose
are the silver and the gold and the hearts of men; and in humble imita
tion of Him who said, " It is more blessed to give than to receive,"— to
Him be glory by the church throughout all ages.
In behalf of the committee, Samuel Holmes, Chairman.
30

466 CONSOCIATIONISM.
Rev. Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts. We are prepared to adopt those
resolutions without debate.
Bev. Dr. Holbrooe:, of New York. I ask that the question be taken
by a rising vote.
Dea. Samuel Holmes, of New York. I move that the question be
taken by a rising vote, to be followed by a prayer consecrating our vote,
and that we then at once proceed to our usual prayer-meeting.
Bev. Mr. Webb, of Massachusetts. ShaU we not incorporate this
idea, — that we not only pledge ourselves to our Father, and our Saviour
who has redeemed us, but to each other, that we will carry out to the
letter this recommendation in all the churches throughout the land ? I
make that motion.
The motion was agreed to.
The question being taken upon the resolutions, they were
adopted nem. con. by a rising vote ; and prayer was offered by
Rev. Flavel Bascom, of Illinois. - .
DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES.
The Council then proceeded to the usual devotional exercises,
a hymn being sung, prayer being offered by Rev. Dr. Beecher,
of Illinois, Rev. George Allen, of Massachusetts, and others, and
remarks being made by Rev. J. C. Holbrook, and others.
CONSO CIATIONISM.
The Council having resumed the consideration of the report
upon Church Polity,
Rev. Dr. Field, of Connecticut, moved that at least one of
the members of the committee recommended should be a pastor
of a consociated church.
Rev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. I object very much to that
recognition of schools among us. We have already recognized our six
theological seminaries in the resolutions ; and a distinguished lawyer
upon this floor has said that that fact would convince any qourt of law
in the country that every possible interest was represented. If we begin
by recognizing Consociationists, we must go on and recognize Hopkins-
ians, and Old School and New School theologians. I should deprecate
it very much, as distinguishing me from the rest of my brethren. There
is no disposition to crush down members who belong to the consociated
churches. There wiU be every disposition to have them represented. I
hope there wiU be no intimation that there is a disposition to crush them,
for it does not exist.

REPORT ON WORSHIP. 467

REPORT ON WORSHIP.
On motion of Rev. A. P. Marvin, of Massachusetts, the order
of business was suspended to enable him to offer a report.
Rev. A. P. Marvin, from the committee on Worship, read
tlie following report, which was accepted and adopted :
The committee to whom the order on the subject of Worship was re
ferred, having given it what attention was possible in the short time
since the matter was referred to them, respectfully submit the following
report : —
To avoid all misapprehension, the committee would begin by saying,
that the subject before us is worship; not forms of worship, nor the
order of service in the house of the Lord, but simply worship. It is quite
true that the dividing Une between our denomination and some other
bodies of Christians is not Uturgical. Congregationalists might have a
prescribed order of service, with written forms of prayer, without in
fringing any of their pecuUar principles ; but that subject is not now be
fore us ; and we desire to say, so distinctly as not to be misunderstood,
that we do not wish to raise any agitation in regard to it within this body.
Our mode of worship is well established, and is satisfactory to the great
mass of our fellow- worshipers.
The point to which we call especial attention, and would impress with
emphatic earnestness, is this, that in our devotions, both public and pri
vate, we should bring in much more of the element of worship. Prayer,
as generally deflned, consists of several parts, as invocation, confession of
sin, petition, thanksgiving, and praise. Any one, however, who gives at
tention to the custom in our public and. private devotions, will be struck
with the fact that the larger part of our prayers is taken up with peti
tions ; confession of sin comes next in frequency and prominence ; thanks
giving is not entirely forgotten ; but praise, worship, adoration, are often
entirely omitted. In saying this, we do not mean to intimate that we, as
a denomination, in comparison with other Christians, are deficient in
reverence ; but that there is a general want of the element of worship
Which we share in common with others. A skeptical philosopher and
statesman in a former generation ridiculed the practice of worship as if it
consisted in flattering the Almighty ; and we have heard Christian min
isters inquire, in the same strain, why we should tell God in our prayers
how old he is, and how great. This error comes from apparent unfamil-
iarity with the practice of ancient saints, as seen in the Psalms ; and also
from profound ignorance of the design and effect of worship. The Psalms
of David, of Asaph, and the other sacred poets, are replete with the spirit
of worship. - \
In commencing their service, they were accustomed to say, " O come
let us worship ; let us bow down before the Lord our Maker !"..." Let
us enter his courts with thanksgiving, and his gates with praise I " They
thought of the eternity, the self-existence, the power, the truthfulness, the

468 CONSOCIATIONISM.
justice, the mercy, and the holiness of God, until their hearts were full,
and then their feeUngs burst forth in the highest strains of adoration and
praise. Let it always be borne in mind that no one can worship God unless
his soul is in love with inflnite excellence ; and that in proportion as his love
for perfection increases, will be his desire to render unto God the worship
which is due. And in the act of worship the soul is enlarged and puri
fied. No exercise of the human heart is so elevating and improving as
that of meditating, with adoring feelings, upon the character of the
ever-blessed God. As we study him in his works, and especially in his
words, as revealed in his perfect laws, we are " changed into the same
image from glory to glory."
We do therefore earnestly call upon aU with whom the proceedings of
this Council will have weight, to make the element of worship more
prominent in their devotions, both in public and private reUgious services.
TO the objection that the endeavor to effect this end would prolong devo
tional exercises to an undue length, we would reply, that prayers are
sometimes tedious because they have not the variety which meets all the
wants of the devout soul, and are made up of " vain repetitions " in the
form of petition for blessings. It is believed that our devotional ser
vices, both in the house of God, in social meetings, and in the family,
would be made far more interesting by being more complete, whUe by
the same means they would be rendered more acceptable to the Hearer of
prayer. Those who render earnest and sincere thanks for divine favors,
will thus enforce their prayers for new mercies in the presence of the
prayer-answering God; and those who, by high and holy expressions of
adoration, draw near to the great white throne, will be thereby fitted to
make a good use of all the blessings which God may be pleased to
bestow upon them. Our petitions wftl be more pleasing to our heavenly
Father when we worship him in the " beauty of holiness."
A. P. Marvin,
N. H. Eggleston,
J. L. Jenktns.

consociationism.
The consideration of the report on ¦ Church Polity was re
sumed. Bev. Dr. Eldridge, of Connecticut. I hope that the amendment
proposed by Dr. Field will not be accepted. I have no disposition at all
to intrude consociationism upon this CouncU. I wish to leave the com
mittee entirely untrammeled. The question seemed rather to be drawn
before the Council by the reference to that ' document by Mr. Quint.
We are entirely satisfied with the system. We are not afraid of its
being overturned, and have no disposition to propagate it against any
body's wishes.

CONSOCIATIONISM. 469
Eev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. I would suggest that the Pro
fessor from East Windsor will necessarily be from a consociated church.
The motion of Dr. Field was laid upon the table.
Bev. Mr. Allen, of Massachusetts. No one perhaps more respects
the gentlemen spoken of to be classified in the committee, as professors,
than myself. I have not only a very respectful but a very affectionate
regard for them, so far as I personally know them. But I object to a
class of men being taken and placed upon this committee as a class;
and particularly upon the ground that has been verified by the opinion
of an unknown but distinguished lawyer, who may well understand the
business of his own profession, but certainly does not so well understand
ours. And, sir, I will here say, that the greatest difficulty that has arisen
since any of us were born, in regard to the subject of Congregationalism,
has been made by perhaps the most distinguished and influential pro
fessor of theology in New England, if not in the country; and that that
individual did more, in the course of thirty years, to uncongregationalise
and Presbyterianise CongregationaUsm, than any other man, or all other
men in New England; and that from his position as professor of the
ology in an. institution of high character, and from his own celebrity,
because of his influence, there are now a multitude of churches in this
country that are Presbyterian, notwithstanding he was a professor
of theology in the earliest and most distinguished theological institution *
of this land. I would add that there are men in this body, and they are
numerous, that understand that subject better than theological professors,
a great deal, and who have studied it with great care and know its bear
ings, better far.
The amendment by Mr. Gulliver was then adopted.
Rev. Dr. Eddy, of Massachusetts, desired that the mode of
appointing the committee should be amended.
On motion of Mr. Gulliver, the adoption of the amendment
was reconsidered in order to meet Dr. Eddy's views.
Rev. Dr. Eddy, of Massachusetts, moved that the committee
be appointed by the Moderators of the Council (the Moderator
and First Assistant Moderator, the Second Assistant Moderator
being absent.)
y The motion was agreed to.
The amendment of Rev. Mr. Gulliver was adopted, and the
report as amended was adopted.
COLLEGIATE AND MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
Rev. Seth Sweetser, d. d., of Massachusetts, chairman of the

470 COLLEGIATE AND MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
committee to whom was referred the paper presented by the
preliminary Committee on Collegiate and Ministerial Education,
read the following report : —
The Committee on Collegiate and Ministerial Education respectfully
recommend that the resolution submitted to them in reference to Col
legiate and Theological Institutions at the West be referred to a special
committee. They also recommend the adoption of the comprehensive, clear, and
well-arranged report on the education of young men for the ministry
presented to this Council by the committee appointed at the preUmi
nary meeting to consider that subject.
And in order that some of its more weighty suggestions may be dis
tinctly impressed, and be carried out in the practical appUcation they
deserve, the committee beg leave to submit to the Council for theft-
adoption the following statements :
1. As it is an admitted fact that in the providence of God the high
reUgious character, the Christian energy, the sound and inteUigent
patriotism, and the wide and salutary influence of New England in the
past have depended to a large extent upon the existence and continuous
work of an educated and devoted ministry, so it must be admitted, that
in the future within New England the perpetuation and enlargement of
such character and influence, and beyond New England the training of
;' communities to a similar character and influence, depend, and wiU ever
depend, upon the existence and continuous work of a ministry in Uke
manner devotedly pious, and generously educated.
2. Inasmuch as the present emergency is pressing, and the condition
of the West and South imperatively demands immediate attention, it is
eminently desirable that our theological seminaries should provide for
the education of earnest-minded and vigorous" young men, whose hearts
are in the Lord's work, by arranging a course of instruction not requiring
a previous collegiate training, in order that, with as Uttle delay as prac
ticable, they may engage in preaching the gospel to the many thousands
who wait for it in our land.
3. As the duty of consecration to the spreading of Christ's kingdom
is not laid exclusively upon those who minister the word, and as it is not
salutary nor right that those who go into the warfare equip themselves
at their own charges, the obligation should be recognized by all members
of the Church of our Redeemer, to help young men in their education
for the ministry, by assistance rendered directly to individuals, by sup
plying ample funds to education societies, and by generously endowing
scholarships in colleges and theological seminaries.
4. Notwithstanding the often presented discouraging aspect of the
Christian ministry, arising from an alleged insecurity and insufficiency of
pecuniary support, young men of the requisite abiUty and good disposition
should be encouraged to devote themselves to preaching the gospel, in
the cheerful exercise of a simple faith in the promise of our Lord Jesus

COLLEGIATE AND MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 471
Christ to his messengers, "Lo, I am with you always' 1" trusting with
all good assurance and hope in the Word of the Lord, that aU necessary
things shall be added unto them.

June 23, 1865.

By vote of the committee, S. Sweetser, Chairman.

Eev. Dr. Sweetser proceeded to say : I was instructed by the com
mittee to explain why so brief a report upon so great a topic, is pre
sented. It is done, flrst,' because some of the special points brought to
view in the report submitted to the committee have already been pre
sented in other reports, and acted upon ; and, secondly, that by con
centrating attention upon a few special points of vast importance,
those points may be impressed more vividly upon the minds of this
Council. In the opinion of the committee, this is one of the fundamental matters
for the consideration of the councU. We have passed, with great una
nimity, and with expressions of gratitude to God, votes recommending the
raising of large sums of money to meet the exigencies of our nation at the
present time. We have voted to advise the churches to pay $300,000 into
the treasury of the Home Missionary Society, and $250,000 to aid those
who shall go to preach to and instruct the freedmen, and $200,000 more to
buUd churches. But where are the men who are to receive this sum in
doing the service of the church. We were told yesterday that we needed
a thousand men to-day, trained, and disciplined, and drilled, for what
God is caUing upon this church to do. The report of your commit
tee says that there are 800 more churches than there are men. Where
are these men to come from, and how are they to be furnished?
Are we to expect our young men to prepare themselves for the work of
the Lord at their own charges ? I believe the whole history of our church
shows that those who have entered into the sacred office have come in a
very small degree from families well suppUed with wealth. Experience
seems to demonstrate that it has never been the wiU of God that young
men nursed in luxury and abundance, should be the pioneer men in doing
God's work. We have now, and we always have had as pioneers, men in
moderate circumstances and even in hard necessity, who have been kept
from self-indulgence, and have grown up under the teachings of necessity
to a manhood that was equal to the demand when they came into the ser
vice. If we were to-day to exclude from our ministry the men that have
been helped to come in, and if we were to exclude from our missionary
labors the men that have had help from the churches, we should erase
from our record the best, the ablest, the most devoted and most energetic
men that have been in the service of the Lord for the last century.
The allotted time having expired, on motion Dr. Sweetser
was invited to proceed.

472 collegiate and ministerial education.
I do not ask this for myself ; but it seems to me that it is a subject that
ought to be more fully considered. Unless there is something done
to meet the necessity of bringing men forward, what we have already
done, in advising the raising of funds to carry on the work, will be in
vain. The beginning of the struggle is in the preparatory course. I submit
to this Council whether it is good economy, to say nothing more, to leave
our young men to struggle against poverty, and against debt, while they
are preparing themselves to preach the gospel ; to waste their strength
and their time in furnishing themselves with the means of Uving, when
they ought to be devoting all their energy of mind and body to the great
work of preparation.
When Napoleon wanted to reinforce the armies of France, and make
them superior to any other force that could be brought against them, he
laid the whole kingdom under a system of education, holding out induce
ments to young men of energy and abUity to go into the army, by the
payment of all their expenses of education; and he was a wise man in aU
his proceedings in that direction.
Our churches need to see to it that their own young men who are fit to
go to this work, shall not be left to hesitate because they can not see their
way clear through this process of education. I take it, that it is the
opinion of this body that the ministry, as a general thing, must be edu
cated according to the old standard; that that is to be the rule, and that
the partial course is the exception. If that is so, we must make a strong
effort to provide the means to keep our young men in our own schools
and in our own seminaries, and send them into the work under Congrega
tional influence. Let us do it in a manly, Christian spirit, coming up to
the demand, under the full conviction of the greatness of the necessity.
Let every pastor undertake it in his own church, that means shaU be set in
operation, at once, to bring this great question before our young men in
the coUeges and seminaries, that they may not withhold themselves when
God is calling for such multitudes to go and enter the field which in his
providence he has opened.
I want to say a word more — I am aware your time is precious — in re
gard to the principle of going into the ministry, which is embraced in that
last statement. We have heard over and over again, that there are great
discouragements to young men, because their salaries are so stinted, and
their means of support are so uncertain. I wish it were in the heart of this
Council to put that obstacle for ever out of sight, and that we might ask
our young men to go into the ministry from a higher motive; that they
should understand that the question is not whether they shaU have a
large salary, and a conspicuous position, and an honorable place. I
submit, sir, if every place where a man can serve Christ is not an honor
able place. And I submit whether the promise of Christ to be with us
always even unto the end of the world, is not sufficient security for any
young man, if he is called of God to go into his service. As I have heard
again and again these appeals made, I have almost wished that I could

COLLEGIATE AND MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 473
he a young man, — that I could again to-day, as a young man, buckle on
the armor and go into this warfare. I would not ask any man to insure
me a support. I do not believe there is the slightest danger of any faith
ful servant of Jesus Christ suffering want, so long as he is faithful to the
word which he is called to proclaim. [Applause.] I do not believe the
history of our churches shows an instance in which a man, who, in
the simpUcity of his heart, with an earnest faith, and with fidelity, did
the work that God gave him to do, has been left to suffer.; and all coming
time will not show an instance. Our young men ought to be delivered
from this slavery to the money question.
I do not mean to exonerate the churches. It has been settled, by high
authority, that the servant is worthy of his hire. We do not want to un
settle that principle ; but that is another question to be pressed in another
quarter. What I desire to say here to our young men is, if Christ calls,
do not you hesitate. The note of some of our merchant princes is re
liable ; but I submit that the promise of Christ, " I am with you al
ways," is a better pledge. I would go into the work with no other
promise, if, in the promise of God that was the only promise I could get.
I want our young men to feel that that is the way to settle the question,
and to come to the work of the Lord with the feeling that we are not to
be paid for it. We are not paid. I never thought that I was paid for my
services. I should be ashamed of myself if I should hesitate for one
moment to do the work God calls upon me to do, because in a commercial
point of view, and according to the standard by which men of the world
are paid, I am not paid. I do not ask my people to pay me. I want
them to give me a support. There is a promise for us all, " Trust in the
Lord and do good ; so shalt thou dwell in the land. Yerily thou shalt be
fed." Brethren, bread and water are sure. " The earth is the Lord's
and the fuUness thereof." God has messengers, and God has servants,
and he will take out of his own abundance, and will feed any man that in
his work is in necessity. I hope that a voice will go out from this Coun
cil to aU our colleges, and all our seminaries, to set aside the question of
place and salaries and honor, and to act upon the question, " Does the
Lord call me ? " And let him who hears the voice of the Lord caU
ing him, in aU joyfulness and hope say, " Here, Lord, am I, — send
me." SYSTEMATIZING BENEVOLENCE.
On motion of Rev. Mr. Cushing, the orders of the day were
suspended to enable him, at the request of Dr. Stearns, to
report certain verbal alterations to be made in the report of
the committee on Systematizing Benevolence. Rev. Mr. Cush
ing then read the proposed changes.
Bev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut. It is not in the power of this body
to alter a report which has been submitted to it and subscribed by a

474 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
committee, any more than to alter a note of hand, unless they adopt it
as their own.
Rev. Dr. Palmer, of New York. I think that view is correct ; but I
have no doubt the committee wftl assent to its modification. I move
that it be recommitted.
The motion was agreed to.
After consideration by the committee, Rev. Dr. Palmer, in
their behalf, reported that the committee preferred the state
ment as it stood, but consented to the alteration.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio,
The name of the " American Congregational Association,"
which had been inadvertently omitted, was added.
The report as amended was then adopted.1
APPEAL TO THE CHURCHES.
Rev. Dr. Beecher, of Illinois, moved that an appeal be issued
by this Council, and placed, so far as possible, in the hands of
every church member in the country ; and that a special com
mittee be appointed to prepare and issue this appeal.
This motion was agreed to.
MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
The Council resumed the consideration of Rev. Dr. Sweetser's
report on Collegiate and Ministerial Education.
Rev. Dr. Leavitt, of New York. I think that this report touches
the marrow of the case in regard to the future progress of Congrega
tionalism. We are told that we want eight hundred ministers now, with
our present extension; and we are told that we must exhort young men
to disregard the question of support, and trust to Providence. That is
very good doctrine. I remember seeing a picture in the window of a
shoemaker's shop, of a customer trying on a boot ; and while he is groan
ing with pain the shoemaker very politely and earnestly assures him that
it is not possible for that boot to hurt his feet. But the man who had
the boot on knew where it pinched; and I think there are a good many
ministers who know where the shoe pinches.
I do not think the report of the committee has touched the core of
the difficulty after all, that ministers suffer for the want of sufficient sup
port. There is a keener suffering which educated and generous men are
1 As on pp. 410-412.

MINISTERIAL EDUCATION. 475
capable of feeling, and which drives men away from the ministry. If
you want to increase the number of ministers, you must call off your
dogs from them. John Newton, after he had graduated in a slave-ship,
felt the necessity laid upon him of going into' the ministry, and took
orders in the Established Church of England, although his sympathies
were all with the Congregationalists; and he says in a letter which is in
print, that he did it for the sake of enjoying freedom. I have known valu
able and earnest ministers to go into other denominations, — Methodists,
Baptists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians, — for the sake of enjoying
freedom; — freedom to worship God, and freedom to preach his gospel
and administer his ordinances in the way they thought conformable to
the will of Christ. We must enlarge our charity and treat ministers as
they deserve. We must respect them as ministers ; and not, when any
one steps over his Une, hunt him down as with hounds.

REGARDING FINAL ADJOURNMENT.
Eev. Mr. Quint, in behalf of the Business Committee, desired the Con
vention to decide whether they would adjourn to-day, or on some day
next week. If the Convention considered it necessary to adjourn to-day,
the remaining papers might be read, and the business concluded, by
extending the session to half-past two o'clock, unless the time should be
occupied by debate.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio, moved that the business be fin
ished by half-past two o'clock, the session being extended until
that, time, and that then the Council adjourn without day.
The motion was agreed to.
MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
The Council resumed the consideration of Dr. Sweetser's
report. Eev. Prof. FiSK, of Illinois. I dislike to take a moment of the time
of^the Council at this late day; but it is the first time I have .opened my
mouth here. I am delighted with the report, as able as it is brief; and I am
also greatly pleased with the remarks of the chairman of the committee.
I wish now to comment upon one or two points which have been brought
up in that admirable report.
First, let me say in regard to the short course, I am a convert to the
opinion expressed in the report. When I was appointed Professor of
Ehetoric in the Theological Seminary at Chicago, eight years ago, I
hesitated for nearly a year; and one great reason was because of the
special course which was marked out for certain young men who had

476 MINISTERIAL EDUCATION.
not had a collegiate education. I beg to say that my views have under
gone an entire change in this respect; and that some of our ablest and
best young men, — yes, some young men on this floor to-day that you
only know to honor and to love — are men who have been through the
three years' special course in the Theological Seminary at Chicago. I
shall not trespass upon the proprieties of the occasion if I mention a
young man upon this floor now, who came, a carpenter, from Iowa, sent
to us by brother Guernsey, and went through our course. When offered
$1500 to stay in Chicago, he said, " I came from Iowa, and I go back to
Iowa to labor there among those brethren;" and he went back with a
salary of $400, and was sent by the churches there to represent them
before you. Such cases are not rare with us.
If you take the railroad at Chicago and pass through those magnificent
empires opened to Christian civilization, and see what a moral waste Ues
around us, and what need there is of Christian missionaries to go on the
front tide of emigration, swelling on over rock and mountain; if you
look South and get some apprehension of the great needs there; you will
see how much we need men. No tongue can tell, no pen can describe
it properly. We have sent out forty men from our seminary in five
years. If we had had five hundred, we could have sent them out. One
missionary agent said to me, " I will take aU you have got for one State."
And we have seven States centering upon us and turning to us.
Much as we need men, we need, more than all, the men who have the
spirit of Christ, and are wiUing to go where they are sent. I have
received sixty letters within the last two months from people at the
East. One man says, " I have married into a very intelligent family, and
I have a very delicate wife, and I must have a refined circle into which
to introduce her." Another says, " I have a poor constitution, and I
fear the fever and ague." Another wants to be upon a railroad. I always
send back to these men, kindly, " We have room enough, but we have
not room for you. Much as we want men, what we want is men
who will go anywhere, do anything, sleep in an upper chamber, or on
the ground like our brave men who went South to defend the country;
and we want no man west of the Hudson River, who is not willing to go
anywhere that he can, and to Uve as his Master did, who did not seek for
places where there was no fever and ague. We take all the men you
can send us of that kind." We want to raise up such men. We want
such men as the brother who came out there, and who said to me, " I
have sold my homestead to pay the funeral expenses of my wife; but»I
bless God for putting me into the ministry." If we can get such men,
we shaU have men enough to do the work. [At this point the aUotted
time expired.]
Rev. Mr. Gaylord, of New Hampshire. I find nowhere in the report
beyond a brief passing aUusion to the consecration by parents of tiieir
children to the ministry. I move to add, on the fifteenth page of the
preliminary report, near the end of the thirteenth line, the words, " and
a deeper and more general consecration, on the part of Christian
parents, of their children to the work of the gospel ministry." I beUeve

AMERICAN PROTESTANT ASSEMBLY. 477
this is one of the most important things in connection with this whole
subject. When Christian parents realize the duty of consecrating their
children specially to the ministry, we shall have attained one of the
conditions of this important work.
A member inquired whether the report could be amended.
Eev. Mr. Gaylord, of Nebraska. The report of Dr. Sweetser, as
I understand, recommends the adoption of this preliminary report, con
sequently I understand it to be competent for the Councft now to amend
the report of the preliminary committee.
The amendment was agreed to.
The report was then adopted.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, on behalf of the Business Committee,
reported the following resolution, submitted by Rev. J. A.
Thome, of Cleveland, Ohio : —
Resolved, That for the supply and proper training of a ministry ade
quate to the wants of the West and the South, and for the spiritual prep
aration of the Lord's people East and North to respond suitably in
money, measures, and men, to the calls of Providence to enter and occupy
the land which late events have opened to our faith and polity and evan
geUcal enterprise, and to plant churches among, and furnish all requisite
means of grace to, the freed people and the inhabitants generally of the
South, Revivals of Religion in our colleges and theological seminaries,
and throughout our churches, Sabbath schools and famiUes, leading to
the renewed consecration of the wealth and the youth of our Zion to the
Eedeemer, are now the pre-eminent necessity :
And that this Council does conjure the pastors and churches of our or
der, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, to employ promptly, and in faith,
the measures they may deem most efficient, under God, in promoting a
general and genuine refreshing from on high.
And would God this work of grace might begin at this Jerusalem.
The resolution was adopted.

AMERICAN PROTESTANT ASSEMBLY.
Rev. Dr. Taylor, of Connecticut, on behalf of the Commit
tee on the American Protestant Assembly, read the following
report :
The papers brought before this body in reference to a Protestant As
sembly, and referred to a special committee, emanated from two sources
having the same general object in view. The Young Men's Christian
Association which recently held a convention in the city of Philadel-

478 AMERICAN PROTESTANT ASSEMBLY.
phia, regarding the signs of the times as indicating greater harmony
among brethren, recommended that measures be taken for securing a
concert of action on the part of all Protestant denominations, to resist
the encroachments of infidelity, in its varied phases of bold opposition to
the gospel ; as well as to promote harmony and love among those who
belong to the household of faith. The General Assembly of the Presby
terian Church, which held its late session in the city of Pittsburg, Penn
sylvania, had a more definite form given to the subject in the foUowing
resolutions, which were presented for its consideration : —
Resolved, That the wide-spread4influence of infldeUty, in its varied
phases of bold atheism and rationalistic philosophy, which is now putting
forth redoubled energies for its dissemination throughout every section of
our land, calls for the prompt and united action of evangeUcal Chris
tians, in a clear, honest, and uncompromising enunciation of the great
cardinal doctrines of grace, and a bold defense of the truth as it is in
Jesus. Resolved, That in the providence of God we beUeve that a solemn re
sponsibiUty is now laid upon the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in
this country to manifest her loyalty to the Great Bang, by maintaining
inviolate and steadfast, both by the enunciation of the pulpit and the
issues of the press, the great principles of the gospel, which are designed
to elevate the cross, establish the kingdom of Christ, and ultimately over
throw the whole system of error.
Resolved, That the fearful growth of the Papacy, both as an ecclesiasti
cal and civil power in this land, is well calculated to awaken the fears and
arouse the mightiest energies of the entire Protestant community, and
calls imperiously for the adoption of measures at once timely and ade
quate to the emergency, so that we may, under the divine blessing, be
enabled to counteract the secret and malign influence of the man of sin,
and present an unbroken front of the army of truth against this system
of corruption which is hourly girding itself for the approaching conflict.
Resolved, That it is our candid judgment that the present is an auspi
cious moment to inaugurate such a measure, and that, while we would not
presume to dictate, we would most respectfully request the General As
sembly of the Presbyterian Church, now in session in this city (Pitts
burg), to put forth a suitable deliverance upon these important subjects,
and to take steps to have such action concurred in by other branches of
our American Protestant Church, so as to bring about the formation of a
great national Protestant league, which, by its constitution, shaU be fully
up to the urgent demands and necessities of the times.
Resolved, That a committee of four ministers and three laymen be ap
pointed by this meeting to present this subject to the General Assembly,
and to be associated with a similar committee to be appointed by that
body in devising plans by which a general and concerted movement of all
the Protestant force in the land may be brought about, and bold, contin
uous, and vigorous protest, by word and act, shaU be enunciated against

TEMPERANCE AND TOBACCO. 479
both infideUty and Roman CathoUcism, the arch-enemies of truth hi the
midst of the professing Church of God, and arch-traitors to civil and re
Ugious freedom throughout the world.
These resolutions eftcited the warm approval of the Assembly to that
degree that they appointed a large committee to carry out the spirit of
them in co-operation with committees which may be, or have been, ap
pointed by other denominations for a Uke purpose. The subject has
been urged also on the attention of this body, by private letters enti
tling it to serious consideration. Your committee, therefore, recom
mend the passage of the following resolution by this Congregational
CouncU : —
Resolved, That a committee, consisting of five clergymen and an equal
number of laymen, be appointed, to act in concert with other committees
similarly appointed by other evangelical denominations, for the purpose
of giving expression to our desire for more outward fellowship, and
more vigorous co-operation for the defense of Protestant Christianity
against the encroachments of Roman CathoUcism and infideUty in our
land. For the Committee, Jeremiah Taylor, Chairman.
The report was adopted.

TEMPERANCE AND TOBACCO.
Rev. Dr. Blodgett, on behalf of the committee on Temper
ance, read the following report : —
The special committee to whom was referred the subject of temper
ance, under the form of an inquiry, " whether any, and, if so, what de
liverance should be made on the subject by the National Council," make
the following report : —
It is eminently fitting that the CouncU send forth to the nation a dis
tinct and solemn testimony in favor of the principles of temperance.
The subject is too tenderly associated with the labors and " blessed mem
ory " of many of the fathers in our ministry who gave to it their labors
and theft prayers i ; and it too deeply concerns the interests of morality
and reUgion for the present and for the future of our blood-bought coun
try to aUow us to refrain from giving it an open and hearty indorsement.
Intemperance is a sin against God, a curse to society, a foe to the
purity of the Church and its ministry, a corruption of the young, a hin
drance to the profitable hearing of the word of God, and so to the conver
sion and salvation of men. Under various pretenses of health and hos
pitality, and by various influences of appetite and gain, and those growing
out of the late war with rebeUion, drinking usages are widely prevaiUng,

480 temperance and tobacco.
to the danger of all, and to the destruction of many of our young men, the
late defenders, and the future hope, of our country.
That the alarming progress of the evil may be arrested, and our coun
try saved from a more disastrous doom than that in which the late rebel
lion threatened to involve it, in the name of humanity, patriotism, moral
ity, and religion, yea, in the name of God, we earnestly invite the co-op
eration of ministers and Christians, of teachers in our schools, of officers
in our coUeges, of our legislators and our ministers of justice, of our physi
cians and lawyers, and of our rulers in all departments of government, that
our nation may be saved from the dangers which impend from the in
creasing prevalence of intemperance.
We would give the trumpet that certain sound which such men as Ly
man Beecher and Justin Edwards gave, when the nation was aroused
from its guilty slumber, and marshaled under God for that great moral
battle, in which the friends of temperance so signally triumphed.
The committee submit for the adoption of the Council the following
resolutions, namely :
1. Resolved, That this Council hails with satisfaction and gratitude to
God the renewal of temperance efforts, in a Christian spirit, and on the
scriptural principle of self-denial for personal safety and the good of others,
efforts long successfully urged by wise and good men in our own minis
try and churches, and in the ministry and churches of other denomina
tions ; and that we regard the family, the Sunday school, the Church and
the congregation, and above aU the ministry, as the fitting channels of
influence, on this as on all other great moral questions.
2. Resolved, That while we accept with thankfulness the aid of legis
lation, in the conflict with intemperance, we must still rely mainly upon
moral and spiritual appliances for progress and final triumph ; and that
we hold the temperance enterprise thus prosecuted to be just ore method
of that home evangelization in which this Council is so deep/y and so
properly engaged, and that, too, a method indispensable to the complete
success of that divine work of evangelization.
3. Resolved, That, while we acknowledge with great satisfaction the emi
nent services of many of the medical profession in the cause of temper
ance, we hold it to be matter of regret that such numbers prescribe in
toxicating beverages for convalescent and other patients : and we would
earnestly inquire if the superior science and wisdom of the profession
can not find substitutes for such inebriating tonics, the use of which will
be attended with less peril to those who are under the power of an incipi
ent or confirmed appetite for intoxicating drinks.
4. Resolved, That we receive with satisfaction the invitation to send a
delegation to the National Temperance Convention to be holden at Sara
toga, New York, August 1st, 1865 ; and that we respond to that invita
tion by appointing six delegates, headed by our respected Moderator, to
that convention, with the desire to add the testimony of this national

\ \

TEMPERANCE and tobacco. 481
body to that of the many State and local bodies to be represented' in that
convention, (Signed) C. Blodgett,
Z. S. Barstow,
William Thurston,
Lorenzo D. Dana,
C. A. Stackpole,
J. Collie.
Eev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut, moved to amend the resolutions by
striking out the words, " in the form and to the extent of prohibition,"
and said : I think it will be unfortunate, and to an extent disastrous,
to commit this Council to that particular style of legislation ; for it is my
' most solemn conviction, which I utter here knowing that it will cost me
something, that the temperance cause was wrecked on the rock of the
Maine law ; that the quackery of such legislation has been the ruin of the
cause, from which it can not be rescued until we cut ourselves clear
of the whole scheme of legislating alcohol out of the creation of God.
Bev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. I hope we shall retain that
word. We have aU made up our minds upon it, and I hope we shall
have a deUberate vote upon it.
Eev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio. I am ready to vote for it, not because I
am opposed to prohibition, but because the omission will strengthen the
sentence. The amendment was agreed to.
Mr. Williams of Flushing, New York,' said: I have been a very
interested spectator of these proceedings for the last ten days, but have
not let my voice be heard before. I do it now with diffidence; but I feel
constrained to move to add the following resolution:
Resolved, That this Council while it bears its solemn testimony against
the evU of intemperance, would also bear its testimony against its twin
vice, the improper use of tobacco, particularly by ministers and church-
members. Eev. Mr. Dexter, of Massachusetts, raised the question of order, that
the resolution should come through the Business Committee.
Eev. Dr. Blodgett, of Bhode Island. Certain resolutions upon the
subject of the use of tobacco were referred to the committee. The com
mittee agreed that these papers belonged to a different category, and did
not think it within their province to ask for any action respecting them..
We had already prepared our report upon the subject of temperance.
Eev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio. I should probably vote for the amend
ment; but I know it would lead to a long discussion, for there are mem
bers here who would speak at length against it. And therefore, with no
unfriendUness to the object of the mover, I move to lay the amendment
upon the table. i
The motion to lay upon the table was rejected.
31

482 temperance and tobacco.
Rev. Mr. Webb, of Massachusetts. It will MU the whole thing if we
load it down in this way. If one member objects to tobacco, another
will object to tea and coffee, and another to. something else, and the
whole will be defeated. That is my reason for voting against the
amendment. Rev. Dr. Blodgett, of Bhode Island. I think the committee were
unanimous in. the judgment that we should not indulge in the use of nar
cotics ; but we were of one mind that it would be unwise to marry this
special reform to the great temperance question ; and it was certain
that I would not be the instrument of marrying the two in this Coun
cil; and I ask the Council not to compel me to stand in that attitude.
Rev. Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts. So far as the resolution goes, it
meets my views precisely, and I should be, under proper circumstances,
ready to vote for it. But I do not think it is a proper question to be
brought before the National CouncU of Congregational Churches.
Furthermore, this Council has four times summarily put out of the
way such resolutions, when they were fuUy represented. It would
hardly be proper to have it now passed upon in a very thin house, sud
denly sprung in this way at the close of our session. These are my rea
sons for voting against this particular resolution. The other three I
should have voted against upon principle, because they were wrong.
This one is not; it" is right, so far as it goes ; but I do not think it is
right to adopt it in this way.
The amendment was rejected.
Rev. Mr. Webb, of Massachusetts. There is an expression in the res
olution that I should be glad to see stricken out, that we hold temper
ance to be one of the methods of home evangelization. We gain nothing
by identifying temperance with religion, and making one seem the other.
I hope the question whether it is home evangeUzation or not, will be
left for us to decide individually. I move that that clause be stricken
out. Rev. Dr. Eddy, of Massachusetts. I hope that will not pass, because
moral reform is a part of home evangelization. I do not want to divorce
temperance from religion. I think they have been married by God
himself, and ought not to be put asunder.
Rev. Mr. Webb, of Massachusetts. Temperance is the fruit of evan
gelization, but it is not itself evangelization. You may make a man
temperate, and yet he may go to hell if you can not make him pious, too.
The amendment was rejected.
Mr. Thurston, of Massachusetts, moved to amend by striking
out everything relating to legislation ; for if we can not have
prohibitory legislation it is better not to have any, and not to
have legislation for licenses.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio, suggested that the amendment was

temperance and tobacco. 483
unnecessary; that the resolution referred to the "aid" of legislation
which could not mean legislation against temperance, and which did not
exclude prohibition.
Eev. Dr. Blodgett, of Bhode Island, said that the cause had received
great aid from legislation in times past, and that it was proper to ac
knowledge, under God, although we might not rely upon it for the
future. Gov. Buckingham (Mr. Hammond in the chair), said: " I beg leave
to say one thing on the question of legislation on the subject of temper
ance. I believe we want aU the aid we can secure from any and every
proper source to aid in the cause of temperance. There are men to be
restrained by persuasion; there are other men to be held in check by
positive legislation. [Applause.] We want both. I do not ask and I
would not have an amendment in that report requiring prohibition ; but I
do ask that there shall be nothing stricken out to show that this Council
are ready to reject all the co-operating influences of legislation. The
best comment that I have known upon the prohibitory law has been
before this nation within the past few days. I had the pleasure of being
in Washington during the great review, and having been there forty-
eight hours, and seen those streets thronged with tens of thousands of
men, women, and children, and more than one hundred and fifty thou
sand soldiers, I saw not one intoxicated — not one. [Applause.] That
was under the power of the military law, for every grogshop and every
bar was closed by miUtary authority. But no sooner was that military
authority removed, no sooner were those grogshops and those bars
opened again, than there was a scene of confusion and rioting which
required military force for" its suppression; and in order to prevent
disorder in the city of Washington, orders were again issued by military
authority that those places should be closed from seven o'clock at night
until seven in the morning. Then again peace and order were restored.
In view of these facts, I ask that this Council shall not utter a word that
shall prevent proper legislation upon this subject. I do not ask for a
prohibitory law. Let men judge as circumstances may determine.
[Applause.] Eev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. I am persuaded that this
Council did not properly measure the consequences of the vote passed
just now, striking out the clause relating to " prohibition." I think if
that clause had never been put in, it would have been a very different
matter. But we have deliberately excluded that clause, upon the ground
stated by the Bev. Dr. Bacon, that he believed that prohibition had
killed the cause. We have, in a degree, indorsed that opinion.
Several Members. No, no.
Bev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. I think we have ; and I think
a great many will so understand it. I appeal to some gentleman in the
majority to move a reconsideration of that vote, that we may not even
appear upon the record as opposed to a prohibitory law.
Bev. Mr. Webb, of Massachusetts. For the gratification of the gen
tleman, I move a reconsideration, although I shall certainly vote against

484 LINCOLN COLLEGE.
it. Whatever reason Dr. Bacon may have assigned for his motion, we
adopted it upon our own deUberate judgment.
The motion to reconsider was rejected.
Bev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut. I am afraid we are doing some
thing rash in adopting that part of the report pertaining to medicines.
Does not that imply that, in our judgment, intoxicating drinks are not to
be given to convalescent persons ? '
Several Members. No, no.
The report of the committee was adopted.
LINCOLN COLLEGE.
Rev. Prof. Park, from the committee on Collegiate and Theo
logical Education, reported the following resolutions : —
Resolved, That in order to the raising up of an educated ministry
for the supply of the churches of the new States, now becoming filled by
the advancing tide of population, and to meet the large demands of those
States which recent events have opened to Christian influence, it is a
fundamental necessity that well-endowed and well-manned coUegiate
and theological institutions should be established, and that, too, in the
best positions.
Resolved, That the society for the Promotion of Collegiate and The
ological Education at the West- — in rendering efficient aid to fourteen
Collegiate and Theological Institutions, scattered from Eastern Ohio to
the Pacific coast, so placing them on sure foundations, and in so man
aging this whole subject, as at once to have saved the churches from
annoyance, and to have given a wise direction to their charities — has
accomplished a work of great and enduring benefit, which this CouncU
recognize with gratitude to God, by whose help it has been wrought.
Resolved, That in view of the great work remaining to be done,
both at the West, and in the South, and the admirable adaptation of this
society to the accompUshment of it with the least possible friction and
expense — this Council do heartily commend it to the increased confidence
and larger liberality of the churches represented here.
RESOLUTION ON LINCOLN COLLEGE.
Whereas our brethren in Kansas are laying the foundations of a
Congregational College, which shall, on the field of its early victory, be
a monument of the triumph of freedom over slavery ; a memorial of that
Christian emancipator, whose name it bears ; a source of ministerial
supply for the Missouri valley and the regions beyond: Therefore,
Resolved, That we commend the enterprise to the confidence, sym
pathy and Uberal support of all friends of New England principles and
poUty, of civil and religious liberty, and of home evangelization ; and yet

COMMITTEES. 485
that their appeal to the public be only through and in accordance with
the rules of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theo
logical Education at the West.
Rev. Dr. Sturtevant, of Illinois, moved to strike out the last
resolution, upon the ground that the Council should not make
discriminations among the various institutions in the West that
are claiming aid.
Eev. Prof. Park explained that the friends of Lincoln College desired
the passage of the resolution because another college had been organ
ized, bearing the same name, and founded upon no religious principles.
Eev. Mr. Bodwell, of Kansas. Our object is not to place ourselves
in an invidious position with reference to other colleges ; but there is a
movement to estabUsh another college upon an unchristian basis, to
bear the name of Mr. Lincoln. We think that Kansas is as good a
place to build that monument as anywhere else. It is there that the
first blood was shed ; it is there that the conflict commenced. You talk
of your Massachusetts martyrs who fell in the streets of Baltimore. The
grass was growing upon the graves of our martyrs before they fell. We
. have sent, too, the most men into the army of the Union in proportion
to our numbers. We think we are entitled above all other places to
buUd a monument to Mr. Lincoln. We took this name before it became
a power, before the death of Mr. Lincoln, and we think Providence has
indicated that we are to build that monument. We want this indorse
ment, not to aid us in going before the churches, but to avoid being
forestalled by another monument that from its greater nearness to the
centers of wealth might overshadow ours. We are small, weak, and
unknown. We wish, therefore, to place the name of our institution upon
the records of this body, so that any attempt to forestaft our movement
may be suppressed.
The amendment was withdrawn, and the report was adopted.
Rev. Mr. Langworthy, from the committee on Nominations,
reported the following committees ; and the report was adopted.
Belegates to Temperance Convention. —Hon. William A. Buckingham,
of Connecticut; Hon. Edward D. Holton, of Wisconsin; Dea. Charles
A. Stackpole, of Maine; Rev. Henry M. Dexter, of Massachusetts.
On the Special Fund.-B.ev. Edwin B. Webb, of Massachusetts;
Eev. Thomas P. Field, D. D., of Connecticut; Eev. John C. Holbrook,
of New York; Bev.' George S. F. Savage, of HUnois; Eev. Bichard
HaU, of Minnesota.
On the American Protestant Assembly. — Rev. Jeremiah Taylor, D. D.,
of Connecticut; David S. WilUams, of New York; Rev. WiUiam Car
ter of IlUnois; Hon. Edward D. Holton, of Wisconsin; Rev. John

I ( (

PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
Patchin, of Michigan ; Richard J. Patterson, M. D., of Iowa ; Rev.
Charles Shedd, of Minnesota; Rev. Ezra Byington, of Vermont; Dea.
Sampson W. Buffum, of New Hampshire; Dea. Jacob Blanchard, of
Maine. COMMITTEE ON STATEMENT OF CHURCH POLITY.
Hon. Mr. Hammond, of the special committee appointed to
nominate a committee on Church Polity, reported the follow
ing :
Bev. Leonard Bacon, d. d., of Connecticut; Bev. Alonzo H. Quint, of
Massachusetts; Bev. Henry M. Storrs, d. d., of Ohio; Rev. Edwards
A. Park, d. d., of Massachusetts; Rev. Samuel Harris, d. d., of Maine;
Rev. Samuel C. Bartlett, d. d., of Illinois; Bev. George P. Fisher, of
Connecticut; Rev. James H. Fairchild, of Ohio; Rev. John P.Gulliver,
of Connecticut; Rev. Benjamin Labaree, d. d., of Vermont; Bev. Mark
Hopkins, d. d., of Massachusetts ; Bev. William Barrows, of Mas
sachusetts; Rev. Julian M. Sturtevant, D. D., of Illinois; Rev. Truman
M. Post, D. D., of Missouri; Rev. Edward Beecher, d. d., of IlUnois;
Rev. William Salter, d. d., of Iowa; Bev. James S. Hoyt. of Michigan;
Bev. David Burt, of Minnesota; Eev. Joseph P. Thompson, D. D., of
New York; Hon. Woodbury Davis, of Maine; Hon. Henry Stockbridge,
of Maryland; Hon. John H. Brockway, 6f Connecticut; Bev. Nathaniel
A. Hyde, of Indiana; Bev. Leonard Swain, D. d., of Rhode Island; Bev.
Richard Cordley, of Kansas; Asahel Finch, of Wisconsin; Warren
Currier, Esq., of Missouri; and,
On motion, Rev. Rufus Anderson, d. d., of Massachusetts,
was added to represent the missionary cause.
The report was adopted.
PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
Rev. Mr. Robinson, of Massachusetts, on behalf of the com
mittee on Parochial Evangelization, presented the following re
port :
The committee, to whom was submitted the paper on Parochial Evan
gelization, presented to the Council, would respectfully report.
The relation* which the work of Parochial Evangelization bears to
other objects of Christian enterprise will be obvious at a glance. It is
preliminary, and, as a condition of ultimate success, indispensable.
How, for instance, can the great work of evangelization at the West and
South, which has occupied so large a portion of the time of this Council,
be carried on, unless our home communities are pervaded and permeated
by the spirit of the gospel ? How are foreign missions to be sustained,
if heathenism is intrenched on our own shores ? Whence are to cowe

PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION. 487
the future ministers and missionaries of the cross, if there are no Chris
tian homes, and young men consecrated from their infancy to Christ and the '
ehurch ? How are collegiate and theological institutions to be estab
Ushed and endowed, unless the wealth of the land is in the hands of men,
who, having first given themselves to God, acknowledge his claim upon
aU that they possess ? How are the treasuries of our various benevolent
¦societies to be supplied, if there are no springs of piety and Christian
sympathy to feed the channels of benevolence, and swell the streams that
make glad the city of our God ? We do not say that no foreign work is
to be done until the whole home field is cultivated, and made as the gar
den of the Lord,— that, until our own parishes are thoroughly evangelized,
the heathen must be left to perish; but what hope can we have of final
success in converting the world to Christ, unless his kingdom be estab
Ushed in the hearts and homes of our own people ? The stream will not
rise above the fountain. The fruits of the Spirit must somewhere be
grown before they can be transplanted and propagated. What advan
tage wUl it be to build new churches at the West and South if the churches
•of New England are to die out and disappear ? Why plant a Christian
empire in the heart of Asia or Africa with a heathen population at our
very doors ? Let not the church, " who is the mother of us all," ever be
obliged to say, " They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine
<own vineyard have I not kept."
Your committee are more and more impressed with the importance of
this work. They have carefully examined and considered the report
submitted to their inspection. They indorse substantially the recom
mendations appended at the close, and commend the report as a whole to
the earnest and prayerful consideration of the churches represented in
CouncU. The committee do not feel called upon to discuss anew the general
subject; this is not necessary. But there are certain fundamental truths
or principles brought to view in the report, to which they would call
special attention, that it may be understood what is the precise work,
and what substantially are the measures, to which the Council virtually
pledge themselves, should the report in question be adopted.
1. The Church in its Besign.
The church is a brotherhood of believers, united in the bonds of Chris
tian fellowship, for the upbuilding of Christ's kingdom among them
selves and throughout the world. In its very nature and design, the
church is aggressive; nor will it have done its work until every man, •
woman, and child is brought under the power of the gospel.
2. The Parochial Relations of the Church.
Every local church is the center of a parish, more or less extended, as
the case may be. Geographical limits can not always be assigned, nor is
it necessary that they should be. Two or more parishes may come within
the same bounds, and cover much the same ground. The parish of
each church consists of aU the families not belonging to other congre
gations within its reach. For the evangelization of these, it is held of
God responsible. There ^ may be outlying districts, neglected neigh-

488 PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
borhoods, on the borders of towns and villages. These also are to be
cared for. In some way, by systematic visitation, by neighborhood
prayer-meetings and occasional preaching services, by mission Sabbath
schools and the distribution of reUgious books and tracts, by the cir
culation of the Scriptures and the employment perhaps of Bible-readers,
the people of such outlying neighborhoods are to be made acquainted
with the truths of the gospel. And these movements are to be under
the supervision of the church; not spasmodic, but steady; not philan
thropic simply, but Christian; the forth-putting, on the part of the
church, of its activity and power. All effort in the work of parochial
evangelization that is not connected with the local church, and does not
bring the evangeUzed masses within the fold, and under the. watch and
care of the church, will prove futile.
3. Church Accommodations and Worship.
Ample accommodations are to be provided for aU who are disposed,
or who can be persuaded, to attend upon the services of the sanctuary.
The style of church architecture should be such as to bring the pew
sittings within the reach of the poorer classes. The sanctuary should be
made attractive also, not by costly embellishment, but by a clear and
winning exhibition of the truth as it is in Jesus. There is no such power
to sway the hearts of men as is found in the simple preaching of the
doctrines of the cross. In "the service of song in the house of the
Lord," it is the duty and privilege of all, so far as they may, to partici
pate. There is devotion in such singing more than in the performances
of a few hired singers. The Scriptures, whether read or chanted, should
have prominent place in any church service; whUe the offering of prayer
should be, not a prescribed form, but the free out-breathing of a soul in
habitual communion with God. With such a service, however humble
the structure in which it was held, the people would be drawn to the
house of God, and they who came to scoff, perhaps, remain to pray.
4. The Buty of Ministers.
It is the duty of every minister of Christ to explain to his people the
nature and methods of this work of parochial evangelization, and to direct
them in it. He is himself, so far as health and other circumstances may
aUow, to take the initiative. Like his divine Lord, he is to seek, as weU
as to attempt to save, the lost. In going forth to the remoter sections
of his parish, and preaching the gospel from house to house, in the
patieut endurance of toil and hardship and self-denial in this blessed
work, he is to be an ensample to the flock. More especiaUy is he to lay
upon the hearts and consciences of the people to whom he ministers the
responsibility that properly devolves upon them. He is to make them
see and feel that they have something to do; that they were caUed into
i the kingdom of Christ to labor, and not to rest. He is to guide them,
i teach them, show them how they may be useful. He is to inspire them,
to animate them, with his own spirit of self-denial, and devotion to the
Master's cause. If he is not equal to this, he is not fit for his place.
" Behold," says the prophet, " I have given him for a witness to the
people, a leader and commander to the people,," And such should every

PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION. 489
minister of Christ be among the people of his charge, — a leader as well
as a witness.
5. Lay Preaching.
The duty of laymen, in their own way and sphere, to preach the gos
pel of Christ, is now acknowledged. All are to spread the glad tidings.
A personal responsibiUty rests upon every member of the church to
engage in this work. Ministers are no more called of God to win
souls to Christ than laymen. " Let him that heareth say, Come." One
may. preach in the pulpit, and the other just as really, and perhaps
more persuasively, in his warehouse or workshop. " Lord, what wilt
thou have me to do ? " is the question which every professed disciple of
Christ should raise from day to day. " Where can I be most useful ? "
" How can I most honor him who loved me, and gave himself for me ? "
The church is supposed to be a body of workers, not of drones. " We,
then, as workers together with him," says Paul. If any man will not
work, neither shall he eat of that spiritual bread which came down from
heaven. The question has been raised, whether the time has not come
for setting apart an order of lay evangelists. And this matter is cer
tainly worthy of consideration. Let no man run before he is sent; but
when he is sent of God, then let him not stay.
6. Special Efforts for the Young.
Efforts are to be made for the conversion of all, but more especially
for the children and youth. They are the hope of the flock. Let them
he gathered, one and all, into the Sabbath school, under competent
teachers, " wise to win souls to Christ." Let the old system of cate
chetical instruction be revived, or some substitute be found, which shall
be equally crowned and blessed of God. Let more prominence be given
to the rite and doctrine Of infant baptism. Let Christian parents be
instructed as to their duty and privilege in this particular, until they
shaU come to see the preciousness of covenant blessings, proffered to
them and their seed after them. Let the hearts of the fathers be turned
unto the chUdren, and the hearts of the children unto the fathers, that
the curse may be averted, and the pains and penalties of the Old Testa
ment be converted into the promises of the New. Children should be
brought to the house of God also. The Sabbath school is no proper
substitute for the regular church service any more than for household
religious instruction. Sermons to children should be preached occasion
ally, and other means devised to instruct them in the truth and the
gospel. He who said, " Feed my sheep," said also, " Feed my lambs."
7. The Home Prayer-Meeting.
The committee attach great importance to this. The object of the
meeting should be to devise ways and means for reaching the neglected
classes of the community; those who live under the very eaves of the
sanctuary, and yet have never been persuaded to enter. Prayer should
be offered with special reference to this object. Reports should be
received from visiting committees, tract distributers, Bible readers,
when such have been appointed. The pastor should give some account
of his labors, of the encouragements he has met, and the discourage-

490 PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
ments and obstacles with which he has to contend. The main point
should be, not so much to make the meeting interesting as useful. Then
it will prove both interesting and useful; a meeting which the churches
will not be willing to forego.
8. The Social Element in the Church. <
How can we make the most of the social influence and power of the
church ? is a most important inquiry. There is felt to be a want in all
our churches, — a want of sympathy and mutual love. We are not one as
Christ prayed that we might become. There are lines of division in the
church which ought to be obliterated. How to obviate this difficulty is
the problem to be solved. It is related of one whose name and memory
are indissolubly associated with this church edifice,1 whose hands helped
to build these walls, and whose spirit still lingers about the sanctuary in
which he so long worshiped (the late Deacon Safford), that he " regarded
the family of Christ as his. own family." It was his custom to keep a
Ust of the members of the church, and to cultivate a personal acquaint
ance with each, — loving1 those united with him in these sacred bonds
" with a pure heart fervently." This sheds Ught upon the subject so far
as the officers of the church are concerned. Something can be done also
in the way of social gatherings, meetings of sewing societies, etc.
What is wanted is simply to bring those who are members of the mysti
cal body of Christ heart to heart. Then also will they see " eye to eye."
There ought to be no tie so tender and strong as that which binds one
church-member to another; no feeUng of love like that which wells up
in the heart of every believer from that common fountain whence we
draw our spiritual life. Over the portals of our churches, that all who
enter there may read, should be inscribed, " Love the Brotherhood."
9. Higher Standard of Piety in the Church.
We might almost say that the whole work of parochial evangeli
zation resolves itself into this. Let the standard of piety be elevated;
let every church-member feel that he is called of God and consecrated
to the work of serving Christ in saving lost men; that this is his
mission, and not to get money or achieve a high social position, — the
work which is given to him as a Christian man to do, and by which he
is to prove that he is a Christian man, — and there would be no further
need of discussion as to the methods of parochial evangelization. A way
would be opened, a broad highway, in which every consecrated beUever
in Jesus would delight to walk. What we want on the part of the mem
bership of the churches is more humility, more brokenness of spirit, a
deeper and truer penitence for sin. We want a stronger love for Christ,
a more abiding sense of obligation to him. We want, as ministers and
laymen, more of the spirit of self-denial and self-sacrifice, the spirit of
the cross, — a willingness to be anything or do anything if only God may
be glorified, and we glorified in him. The evangelization, not of our
parishes simply, but of the world, is an easy problem when contemplated
from this point of view. 1Mt. Vernon Church.

PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION. 491
10. The Abiding Presence and Power of the Holy Ghost.
We live under "the dispensation of the Spirit. This fact is never to be
lost sight of in all our plans and efforts. The doctrine of the Holy
Ghost, of his personality and power, should be made very prominent in
the preaching of ministers at the present day. There have been three
grand epochs in ihe history of the world. In the flrst, God the Father
was the principal actor. In the second, God the Son. Now appears
God the Holy Ghost, to whom it is given 'to complete the glorious work.
He is the source of all spiritual Ufe and strength. Without him we are
nothing. And just here is our danger in. this work of home evangeliza
tion. We mature our plans, we organize our forces, we enter upon the
work. The machinery is perfect, and we expect great results. But the
spirit of power does not rest upon us, and we can accomplish nothing.
How different is it when the Spirit is poured out from on high 1
But we need the continued presence of the Spirit in our churches, and
this was the promise of Christ: "And I will pray the Father, and He
shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever."
We have our seasons of refreshing followed by seasons of spiritual
declension. How can we constrain the blessed Spirit to abide with us ?
The question stiU remains to be answered. One thing, however, is cer
tain: .when that time shall come, the problem which now seems so diffi
cult wUl have been solved. " Then will the Lord create upon every
dwelling-place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud of
smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for upon all
the glory shaU be a defense." Then every house will have its altar, and
from every hearthstone will ascend incense and a pure offering. " Then
judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the
-fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the
effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever." May the
Lord hasten it in his time I
R. T. Robinson,
A. S. Chesebrough,
J. M. Holmes,
H. M. Goodwin,
D. Burt,
R. Cordley,
J. T. Ford.
The report was accepted.
Eev. Dr. Adams, of Maine. I would make a request, rather than a
motion, that the phrase, " and not by artistic singing from hired choirs,"
be stricken out; not but that I am heart and soul, from top to toe, in
sympathy with the sentiment, but that many of our churches do employ
hired singers, and I would not reflect upon them.
Hon. Mr. Hammond, of Illinois. I would ask if we are for ever to be
striking out things which we beUeve from the bottom of our hearts to
be true.

492 PAST-DAY.
At the suggestion of Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut, —
Rev. Dr. Adams modified his request, and formally moved to
amend so as to read, " There is devotion in such singing more
than in the performance of a few hired singers," etc.
The amendment was agreed to.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Leavitt, of New York, the word
" supervision " was substituted for " control," in speaking of
the efforts in evangelizing parishes, &c, so as to read that they
" should be under the supervision of the church."
The report was then adopted.
CHURCH IN WASHINGTON, D. C.
Rev. Mr. Buckingham, from the committee on the Church in
Washington, D. C, read the following report : —
The Committee preferred that no specific sum should be recom
mended, but that the whole matter should be referred to the Congrega
tional Union, and therefore recommend the adoption of the foUowing
resolution :
Resolved, That the trustees of the American Congregational Union,
be advised and requested to take into consideration the importance of a
well-sustained Congregational Church in the city of Washington ; and,
having ascertained what facilities there are for the. establishment of such
a church, and what aid will be necessary to institute the arrangement,
according to their best judgment and discretion, to build or purchase a
suitable edifice in the National Capital in which a Congregational Church
may maintain the preaching of the gospel and pubUc worship of God.
The resolutiqn was adopted.
fast-Day.
Rev. Dr. Swain, of Rhode Island, read the following report
of the committee upon a Day of Fasting and Prayer : —
The committee would recommend that Thursday, the 14th day of Sep
tember next, be observed by the churches represented in this CouncU
as a day of fasting and prayer to Almighty God for the outpouring upon
them of his Holy Spirit, so that this great convocation may be speedily
followed by those good effects which were aimed at in the beginning, by
a close union and a warmer mutual sympathy both among ourselves and
with all who love our common Lord ; by a deeper and more intelligent
grasp of the principles of our own faith and polity ; by a more earnest
personal consecration to Christ and his kingdom ; by a new spirit of
missionary zeal both in behalf of the work to be done abroad, and the

THE ROLL. 493
new and important fields to be occupied at home ; so that, having, Uke
the primitive disciples, tarried at Jerusalem for " The promise of the
Father," the ministry and the churches may go forth beneath a new and
mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost to preach that gospel which brought
our fathers to these shores, which is sent for the healing of the nations
and which is destined to lead the whole world unto Christ. The com
mittee would also recommend that a committee of three be appointed to
prepare, and issue to the churches as soon as possible, a circular to this
effect, embracing also an appeal to the churches in behalf of the 750,000
doUar fund.
A member stated that, the Massachusetts Conference holds its
Convention upon Sept. 14th, the day recommended by the com
mittee. After consultation, Friday, the 15th of September, was ap
pointed as the day of fasting and prayer.
The report as amended was adopted.
It was now half past two o'clock, and on motion of Rev. Mr.
Quint, of Massachusetts, the hour of adjournment was postponed
for half an hour.
Eev. Dr. Anderson, of Massachusetts. There were a few mistakes
as to matters of fact in the answer to the foreign delegations, which it
was Dr. Bacon's intention to ask permission to correct. He is not here,
and, as the hour of adjournment is at hand, I would move that the chair
man be authorized to make such corrections in that report as shaU make
it correspond with matters of fact since ascertained.
The motion was carried.
Rev. Mr. Langworthy, from the committee on Nominations,
reported the following names as the
COMMITTEE TO PREPARE A PASTORAL LETTER.
Committee to prepare a Pastoral Letter. — Rev. Edward N. Kirk, d. d.,
of Massachusetts ; Rev. Oliver E. Daggett, d. d., New York ; Rev. Asa
Turner, of Iowa. THE ROLL.
Rev. Dr. Beecher, of Illinois, from the committee on the
Roll, presented their report, embracing the list of delegates, and
in submitting it, said : —
"In addition to this report, I wish to state certain things that should be
understood in connection with the result of our labors, and which, unless
there shall be an indication to the contrary, we shall consider as sanc
tioned by the assent of this body.

494 THE ROLL.
" The names in the Ust are arranged in alphabetical order, beginning
with California and ending with Wisconsin. The mode of arrangement
will be this : — At the National Council of the Congregational Churches
of the United States of America, convened by letters missive issued by
committees of the General Association, Conference or Convention of
Maine New Hampshire, etc. — specifying the States that in fact issued
the letters, — were present from Maine, etc., delegates from the follow
ing churches : — then specify the churches that acted in the conference,
and opposite put the names and residences of the delegates, by whom
they were represented, and pursue that order through.
" There was passed, subsequently to the appointment of this commit
tee, an order, ' That the committee on the roll be instructed to report the
names of those members only who furnish a Ust of the churches that
actually participated in the vote, by which they were chosen.' To this
vote the committee were obUged to give a liberal construction in some
cases, to wit, in the cases of Maryland, Delaware, and Tennessee, in
which ' churches ' did not participate in the action, inasmuch as there
was but one church in each of those States to act. In these cases, the
church and delegate are reported, and the committee, in making out
the roll, assumed that the proceedings in these cases were satisfactory,
and to be considered as coming within the spirit of the invitation.
" I would also state, that in some cases we accepted parole testimony
as to the action of certain churches. For example: Here are certificates
from three churches in Oregon that they elected G. H. Atkinson as a
delegate to this body. The document which he brought was simply an
appointment by the General Association of Oregon, which, according to
the principles adopted, would not be satisfactory credentials. But there
are, from three churches in Oregon, testimonials that they met as.
churches and elected him ; and he gave parole testimony that three
other churches did the same. We have accepted that statement, -and
reported six churches from Oregon, instead of the three from which we
had formal credentials. In other cases, where that principle applied, we
have not reported the names of the churches, unless there were creden
tials that covered the case, or that which was considered satisfactory
evidence that the churches had acted in the case, and were truly repre
sented. " I would also state that one church, which was not present by dele
gate deserves notice, for the sake of the moral impression, and that is
the church in Utah. The facts in regard to this church are these : An
invitation was sent by Dr. Bacon to the church, and a reply from the
pastor located there received, stating that the letter had come to hand,
and at the same time stating some very interesting facts with regard to
that church — the only church in the territory of Mormonism, in the
Salt Lake City ; and we felt that in some way this church, which does
not properly come upon the roll, should be presented and commended
to the sympathy of the Congregational Churches of the United States;
and in connection with the proceedings of this Council, and with the
consent of the body, the committee will in some way bring this to pass."

MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS. 495
The report of the committee was accepted.
APPLICATION FOR THE OPENING SERMON.
Rev. Dr. Leavitt, of New York, stated that the publishers of
the " Independent " desired to print the sermon of Dr. Sturte
vant in next week's paper, and moved that the manuscript be
returned to the preacher for that purpose.
After some explanatory statements in regard to the matter by
the scribe, Rev. H. M. Dexter, the motion was laid on the table
upon the motion of Rev. P. R. Hurd, of Michigan.
MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS.
Rev. Mr. Quint, of Massachusetts, from the committee on
Business, stated that there were a few papers still remaining in
the hands of that committee, and submitted them to the Council,
as follows : —
Resolved, That this Council recognize with thankfulness the blessing
of God upon the instruction and influence of Sabbath schools, and com
mend this instrumentality to the deeper interest and more earnest
prayers of the churches.
Adopted.
Besolved, That the following minute be entered upon the records of
this Council : That the Council declares that no action that has been
taken by this body is' to be taken as adverse to any prohibitory action
on the subject of temperance.
Adopted.
Resolved, That the official proceedings of this Council be published
in the " Congregational Quarterly," and that the sum of two hundred dol
lars be appropriated toward the expense of printing, and that the pub
lishers be requested to issue as many copies of the same proceedings,
in a separate form as shaU be called for, at cost price.
Adopted.
Resolved, That the original records and papers of this Council, with
the phonographic report, be, after the final adjournment, placed on per
petual deposit with the directors of the American Congregational Asso
ciation, never to be removed from its library room; and that the
directors be authorized to publish a volume of proceedings and debates.
Adopted'.
Resolved, That when the work of the committee on a Platform of Polity

496 FINANCES.
is concluded, it be pubUshed under the care of a committee, by the
directors of the American Congregational Association, who shaft retain
the copyright.
Adopted.
Resolved, That the Declaration of Faith adopted by this Council, and
the Confession of Faith adopted by our Synod at Boston, in 1680, be
printed with the report that the committee on Polity may make, that
our doctrine and polity may go out together, and be easily obtained by
every one of the churches.
Adopted.The committee on Business recommended that the duty of
compiling these documents be entrusted to the committee on
Polity, and this recommendation was adopted.
On motion of Bev. Mr. Davis, of New Hampshire, it was ordered, That
the committee on Church PoUty be authorized, if they think best,, to
issue an epitome or digest of their large work for use and circulation
among the churches, the copyright to be held in trust by the Directors
of the American Congregational Association.
Adopted. FINANCES.
Dea. Stoddard, of Massachusetts. I do not understand how the
matter of finance is left. Mr. Henry Hill is Treasurer, but he has never
been appointed by this body. There is but Uttle money in the treasury,
probably not more than enough to pay expenses ; but, suppose money
should come in after this body adjourns, who is to be the custodian of
it ? I don't see that there is any provision made for that.
Bev. Mr. Gulliver, of Connecticut. I move that Mr. Henry HiU
be the Treasurer of this body, and dispose of the money in his possession
under the rules.
Dea. Stoddard. Do I understand that the functions of the com
mittee on Finance cease when this body adjourns?
The Moderator. Like all other appointees of this body, I think
their duties are then at an end.
Hon. Mr. Hammond, of EUnois. There is a resolution upon the
subject, which was brought in by Mr. Barstow, which fixes the status of
that committee. [The resolution was read by the scribe.]
Dea. Stoddard. Then the committee lives after this body dissolves?
Hon. Mr. Hammond. Yes, sir.
Bev. Dr. Anderson, of Massachusetts. I think it would be well to
appoint the treasurer upon that committee.
Hon. Mr. Hammond. I would move that Mr. Henry HiU be added
to the committee on Finance, with Dea. Stoddard.
Adopted.

CLOSING PROCEEDINGS. 497

MEMORIAL TO JOHN ROBINSON.

Eev. Mr. Dexter, of Massachusetts. I desire to state that the house
in which John Eobinson lived, in Leyden, has been identified in the
square opposite the cathedral of St. Peter's, and our American Min
ister at one time intended to insert a stone in the wall, calling the
attention of the traveler to the fact that he once lived upon that spot.
I thought it would be a pleasant thing if this Council would author
ize the placing of a slab in the wall of that house, with a suitable
inscription, testifying to the traveler, and to the students of the Univer
sity, which is very near the house, that the representatives of three
thousand churches — fruits of the seed that was in the ground there for
a Uttle whUe — gratefully remember that John Eobinson once dwelt and
taught on that spot. It can be done without any expense to the Coun
cil. I move that a committee be appointed, and authorized to prepare
a proper" inscription for a slab to be placed in that wall.
The motion was carried, and Rev. Messrs. Dexter and Well-
man, of Massachusetts, were appointed that committee.
CLOSING PROCEEDINGS.
Bev. Mr. Quint. The business of the Council, so far as the committee
know, is closed, with this exception, that two brethren desire to offer
resolutions. Over forty committees have reported, and a great number
of papers have been acted upon. We move now that aU business be
closed, except to hear motions from the Hon. Mr. Hammond, and Rev.
Dr. Wolcott.
Carried.
Hon. Mr. Hammond. The resolutions which I hold in my hand were
placed there by Mr. Eustis : —
Resolved, That this Council declare their high appreciation of the time
and labor which have been expended by the committees appointed by
the preUminary meeting at New York, to prepare business for this
Council, and especially to the committee of Arrangements at Boston, to
whom they are indebted for innumerable attentions, and for that excur
sion to the spot where our forefathers first brought that Gatholic Church
whose order we maintain. They would also gratefully notice the invita
tions from individuals and corporations, most of which we regret to have
been obUged to decUne.
Resolved, secondly, That this National Council of the Congregational
Churches of the United States do hereby return their thanks to the
citizens of Boston and its vicinity for the generous hospitality which has
been so munificently provided for the members during this session, and
to the churches whose sanctuaries have been freely opened for their
accommodation ; and pray the Lord who does not forget even a cup
32

498 CLOSING PROCEEDINGS.
of cold water given a disciple, to reward with the richest spiritual
blessings this community, for their abounding kindnesses and entertain
ments. The resolutions were adopted unanimously.
Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio, offered the following resolution,
which was unanimously adopted : —
Resolved, That the Council tenders its thanks to His ExceUency, Gov.
Buckingham, our honored Moderator, for the dignity, urbanity, and
courtesy with which he has presided over its deliberations, to which, in
part, we ascribe the pleasant cordiality of feeling, unmarred by bitter
ness or harshness, which has prevailed throughout its earnest discussions ;
and as a National Council we express the satisfaction with which we are
reminded by this assembly of the early days of our Puritan history,
when the chief magistrates of the colonies were the servants of the
churches, and the honors of the State were humbly laid at the foot of
the cross.
The Moderator replied as follows : —
Mr. Moderator : I am not prepared — not able — properly to reply to
that resolution. I remember, by history, that one hundred and fifty-
seven years ago, my paternal ancestor presided as the Assistant Mod
erator at that synod which adopted the Saybrook Platform. [Applause.]
For me to occupy such a position as I do to-day, through your partiaUty,
is a high privilege. I believe I occupy it, in part, in consequence of the
partiality which has been manifested by the citizens of Connecticut
toward me, in placing me in a position which has linked my name, for
the few years past, with the government of that little State so intimately
connected with the cause of liberty and civU government. [Applause.]
This, also, has been an unspeakable privilege, occurring, as it has, during
a period when all the interests of civil government have been, as it were,
concentrated upon the events of the passing hour or year. No events
have ever transpired, in the history of this world, of such importance to
civilization, to civU government, to moraUty, and to religion, as the
events which have transpired before us. It is a privilege to live at such
a time; and it is a privilege to be the chief magistrate of a State whose
patriotism goes down to the very depths of love, and offers her sons and
her fathers as sacrifices on the altar of liberty. [Applause.]
But there are still higher interests than those of merely civil govern
ment ; there are higher interests than those which are merely temporal ;
for they wiU pass away. This Council binds us to those higher interests,
reaching from this, on to another, life ; and to be connected with a body
like this, which takes action for the promotion of those interests, is a
higher privilege than is enjoyed by any man whose duties relate merely
to earthly things. I rejoice in it. I am grateful to you ; I thank you

CLOSING PROCEEDINGS. 499
for your forbearance toward me. I am grateful to God who grants me
this privilege. [Applause.]
Rev. Dr. Wolcott alsa. presented the following resolution,
which was adopted, unanimously : —
Resolved, That the ability with which the occasional and special ser
vices which have devolved upon our respected Assistant Moderators have
been performed, and the promptness and thoroughness with which our
Scribes have discharged their various duties, are entitled to special rec
ognition. And to all these officers, .also, the Council tenders its thanks for
their faithfulness and efficiency.
Hon. Mr. Hammond. In the absence of Dr. Thompson, I can only
say we sincerely thank you for the kindness with which you have
received all we have attempted to do to carry forward the business of
this Council. I would say one other word, and that is, that to the latest
day of my Ufe, I shall with gratitude and with joy look back to the do
ings of this Council, hoping, as I do, that all future generations will with
us rejoice that this Council has met, — that it has met in Boston, and that
it has done what it has. And may the Lord bless us all 1 [Applause.]
The minutes of the day's proceedings were, at this point, read
and approved.
The Moderator. I understand that the Synod which was sum
moned in 1648 closed by singing the " Song of Moses and the Lamb."
What version it was, I know not ; but I propose that we now sing three
verses of that song, as it is found in the 159th hymn. Sing the flrst and
the last two verses.
The verses referred to are the following, and they were sung
by the entire Council, the congregation also uniting : —
" Awake, and sing the song
Of Moses and the Lamb ;
Wake, every heart, and every tongue,
To praise the Saviour's name !
" Soon shall we hear him say,
' Ye blessed children, oome ; '
Soon will he call us hence away
To our eternal home.
" Soon shall our raptured tongue
His endless praise proclaim,
And sweeter voices tune the song
, Of Moses and the Lamb."

500 CLOSING PROCEEDINGS.
Rev. Rufus Anderson, d. d., of Massachusetts, then offered a
fervent and solemn prayer, after which the Doxology was sung, —
" To God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Spirit, Three in One,
Be honor, praise, and glory given,
By all on earth, and all in heaven ! "
The Moderator then declared the Council adjourned, without
day. (Signed) WILLIAM A. BUCKINGHAM, Modebatob.
JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, Pibst Assistant.
C. G. HAMMOND, Second Assistant.
HENRY M. DEXTER,
PHBLO R. HURD,
M. K. WHITTLESEY, [¦ Scbibes.
SAMUEL HOLMES,
E. P. MARVIN,

THE NAMES OE THE MEMBERS OE THE NATIONAL CONGREGATIONAL COUNCIL WHICH
CONYENED IN BOSTON, JUNE 14th, 1865, WITH THEIR PLACES OP RESIDENCE AND
. THEIR BIRTHPLACES, AS ALSO THOSE OP THEIR FATHERS AND MOTHERS.

PREPARED BY REV. INCREASE N. TARBOX, BOSTON, MASS.

NAME.

PLACE OF RESIDENCE.

BIRTHPLACE.

BIRTHPLACE OP FATHER.

BIRTHPLACE OF MOTHER.

Dea. Charles Adams, ....

Litchfield, Ct., ' .

Litchfield, Ct.,

Roxbury, Mass., .

Litchfield, Ct.

Rev. George Eliashib Adams, d. d.,

Brunswick, Me.,

Worthington, Mass., .

Canterbury, Ct.,

Sherborn, Mass.

" George Moulton Adams,

Portsmouth, N. H.,

Castine, Me.,

Pembroke, N. H., .

Bucksport, Me.

" Harvey Adams,

Farmington, Iowa,
Alstead, N. H., .
Franklin, Mass.,
Franklin, Mass.
Ebenezer Alden, M. d.,
Randolph, Mass., .
Randolph, Mass., .
•Stafford, Ct., ' .
Randolph, Mass.
Rev. Ebenezer Alden, jr.,
Mavshfield, Mass.,
Randolph, Mass.,
Randolph, Mass.,
Newburyport, Mass.
" Walter Scott Alexander,
Pomfret, Ct.,
Killingly, Ct.,
Killingly, Ct., . .
Killingly, Ct.
" Asa Smith Allen,
Black-Earth, Wis., .
Medfield, Mass.,
Medfield, Mass.,
Walpole, Mass.
" George Allen,
.
"Worcester, Mass., .
Worcester, Mass., .
Boston, Mass.,
East Hartford, Ct.
" Joshua Wing Allen,
Franklin, Mich.,
Jeiferson, N. Y.,
State of N. Y., .
State of Vt.
" Rufus Anderson, d. d., .
Roxbury, Mass., .
North Yarmouth, Me., .
Londonderry, N. H.,
New Gloucester, Me.
" Israel Ward Andrews, D.
D.,
Marietta, Ohio, ..
Danbury, Ct., .
Ellington, Ct., .
North Adams, Mass.
John Swain Andrews, m. d., .
Ashby, Mass.,
Fitchburg, Mass., .
Ipswich, Mass.,
Ashby, Mass.
Rev. George N. Anthony,
Marlborough, Mass., .
South Kingston, R. I.,
South Kingston, R. I.,
South Kingston, R. I.
" Hiram P. Arms, d. d.,
Norwich, Ct.,
Windsor, Ct.,
Deerfield, Mass., .
Goshen, Mass.
Dea. Horace Armsby, .
Millbury, Mass.,
Paris, Me.,
Foxborough, Mass., .
Northbridge, Mass.
Caleb Brooks Atkins,
Glenwood, Iowa, .
Chelsea, Mass.,
Wellfleet, Mass., .
Chelsea, Mass.
Rev. George Henry Atkinson,
Portland, Oregon,
Newburyport, Mass., .
Suffield, Ct., .
Newbury, Mass.,
Newbury, Mass.
Albert Austin,
Suffield, Ct., .
Suffield, Ct.,
Suffield, Ct.
Rev. Frederick D. Avery, .
Columbia, Ct., .
Groton, Ct.,
Groton, Ct.,
Groton, Ct.
Marshall Ayres,
Griggsville, III.,
Truro, Mass.,
North Brookfield, Mass.,
Templeton, Mass.
Rev. Rowland Ayres, .
Hadley, Mass., .
Granby, Mass., .
Granby, Mass., .
Granby, Mass.
Jacob Bacon, .
San Francisco, Cal.,
Bath, Me., .
North Yarmouth, Me., .
North Yarmouth, Me.
Rev. James Monroe Bacon,
Essex, Mass., .
Newton, Mass.,
Wayland, Mass.,
Charleston, N. H.
" Leonard Bacon, d. d.,
New Haven, Ct., .
Detroit, Mich.,
Woodstock, Ct., .
Bethlem, Ct.
" Milton Badger, D. D., .
New York City, N. Y.,
Coventry, Ct., .
Coventry, Ct., .
Coventry, Ct.
>sw
COoHwNBw
Sw
OxO
Rev. Smith Baker, jr.,
" Uriah Balkam, .
" William Macleod Barbour,
" Davis Robert Barker, .
Dea. Sherman Sergents Barnard,
Rev. Stephen Alfred Barnard,
" William Barrows, .
Hon. Amos Chafee Barstow,
Rev. Zedekiah Smith Barstow, d. d
" Alexander Bartlett,
" Joseph Bartlett,
Rev. ProfT Samuel Colcord Bartlett,
Rev. Flavel Bascom,
" Henry Bates,
" Edward Beecher, D. d., .
" Frederick W. Beecher,
" Henry Ward Beecher,
Hon. James Dean Bell,
Rev. Henry S. Bennett, .
" George Bent,
" Thomas Curtis Biscoe, .
" Nelson Bishop, .
" George Washington Blagden,
" Amos Blanchard, d. d., .
Dea. Jacob Blanchard,
Rev. Thomas Eliakim Bliss, .
" Constantine Blodgett, D. d.,
" Lewis Bodwell,
Hon. Walter Booth, .
Rev. Nathaniel Bouton,
Henry C. Bowen, Esq.,
Edson Boyd, m. d.,
Hon. John Boyd,
Rev. Charles Boynton,, .
Dea. William T. Bradbury,
Joseph Bussell Bradford, Esq.,f

, D. D.,

D.,

Veazie, Me., .
Lewiston, Me., .
South Danvers, Mass
Guy's Mills, Pa.,
Willsborough, N. Y.,
Detroit, Mich., .
Reading, Mass.,
Providence, R. I.,
Keene, N. H.,
Austinburg, Ohio,
Buxton, Me.,
Chicago, III.,
Princeton, 111.,
Grass Lake, Mich.,
Galesburg, 111.,
Kankakee, 111., .
Brooklyn, N. Y.,
Walden, Vt., .
Wakeman, Ohio,
Burr Oak, Iowa,
Grafton, Mass.,
Windsor, Vt., .
Boston, Mass.,
Lowell, Mass., .
Blanchard, Me.,
Memphis, Tenn.,
Pawtucket, R. I.,
Wyandotte, Kansas,
Meriden; Ct.,
Concord, N. H.,
Brooklyn, N. Y.,
Ashville, N. Y., .
Winsted, Ct.,
Watertown, Wis.,.
Westminster,-. Mass
Roxbury, Mass., -

Bowdoin, Me.,
Robbinston, Me.,
Scotland,Hope, Me.,
Marlborough, Mass.,
New Hartford, N. Y.,
New Braintree, Mass.
Providence, R. I.,
Canterbury, Ct., .
Salisbury, Ct., .
Salisbury, N. H, .
Salisbury, N. H,
Lebanon, Ct.,
Charlton, Mass.,
E. Hampton, L. I., NY.,
Jacksonville, 111.,
Litchfield, Ct.,
Walden, Vt., .
Brownsville, Pa., .
Middlebury, Vt.,
Cambridge, Mass.,
Manchester, Ct.,
Washington, D. C,
Andover, Mass.,
Cumberland, Me.,
Brimfield, Mass.,
Randolph, Vt.,
New Haven, Ct.,
Woodbridge, Ct., .
Norwalk, Ct.,
Woodstock, Ct. .
Carroll, N. Y., .
Winsted, Ct.,
Watertown, N. Y.,
Hollis, N. H.,
Watertown, Mass.,

Litchfield, Me.
Attleborough, Mass
England,Kennebunk, Me.,
Amherst, Mass.,
Marlborough, Mass
Thompson, Ct.,
Scituate, R. I., .
Canterbury, Ct.,
Plympton, Mass.,
Salisbury, N. H,
Salisbury, N. H.,
Lebanon, Ct.,
Bellingham, Mass.,
New Haven, Ct.,
E. Hampton, L. I.,
New Haven, Ct.,
Lyme, N. H.,
Chester Co., Pa.,
Rutland, Mass.,
Watertown, Mass.,
Bolton, Ct.,
England, Wilton, N. H, .
Cumberland, Me.,
Brimfield, Mass.,
Stafford, Ct.,
Simsbury, Ct., .
Woodbridge, Ct., .
Norwalk, Ct., .
Woodstock, Ct., .
Wilmington, Vt.,
Little Britain, N. Y.,
Concord, N. H.,
Haverhill, Mass., .
Billedca, Mass.,

N.Y.,

Litchfield, Me.
Norton, Mass.
Scotland.Concord, Mass.
Glastenbury, Ct.
Boston, Mass.
Sudbury, Mass.
Providence, R. I.
Canterbury, Ct.
Salisbury, Ct.
Salisbury, N. H.
Salisbury, N. H.
Colchester, Ct.
Mendon, Mass.
Guilford, Ct.
Biddeford, Me.
Guilford, Ct.
Hardwick, Mass.
Brownsville, Pa.
Holden, Mass.
Framingham, Mass.
Columbia, Ct.
England.Andover, Mass.
Cumberland, Me.
Belchertown, Mass.
Monson, Mass.
Durham, N. Y.
Woodbridge, Ct.
Norwalk, Ct.
Dudley, Mass.
Halifax, Vt.
Boston, Mass.
Deerfield, N. Y.
Hollis, N. H.
Boston, Mass;

Ofc3

3>¦BwCO o wW B
wB WHSI

Rev. John Bradshaw, .
" Davis Smith Brainerd,
" Lewis Oramond Brastow,
" Loren W. Brintnall,
Dea. Albert G. Bristol, m. d.,
Rev. Edward Brown,
Josiah Brown,
Stephen Brown,
Dea. Abner H. Bryant,
Rev. Samuel Giles Buckingham,
His Exc'y, Gov. Wm. A. Buckingh
Rev. William Ives Budington, d. d.,
Dea. Sampson Wilder Buffum, .
" Orrin Bugbee,
Rev. Henry Lewis Bullen, .
" Enoch Fitch Burr, .
" David Burt, . .
" Jeremiah Butler,
Dea. Philander Button,
Rev. Ezra Hoyt Byington,
Dea. Asa Cady,
Rev. Calvin Brainard Cady, .
" Cornelius Sydney Cady,
Charles Carpenter, . .
Rev. Elbridge G. Carpenter;
Dea. Philo Carpenter,
Timothy Walker Carter,
Rev. William Carter,
" Joshua Metcalf Chamberlain,
Hon. Samuel A. Chapin,
William C. Chapin,
Rev. Edward Daniel Chapman,
" Louis Emile Charpiot,
" Benjamin Chapman Chase,
Dea. Russell Cheney, .
Rev. Amos Sheffield Chesebrough,

Crown Point, N. Y.,
Old Lyme, Ct., .
St. Jofmsbury, Vt.,
York, Ohio,
Rochester, Nl Y., ..
Zumbrota, Min.,
Bethel, Me., .
Kensington, N. H.,
Canterbury, Del., .
Springfield, Mass.,
Norwich, Ct.,
Brooklyn, N. Y.,
Winchester, N. H.,
Lake Village, N. H.,
Durant, Iowa,
Lyme, Ct.,
Winona, Min., .
Fairport, N. Y.,
Greenwich, Ct.,
Windsor, Vt., .
East Cleveland, Ohio,
Alburgh, Vt.,
Maquoketa, Iowa,
West Chai-leston, Vt.,
Houlton, Me.,
Chicago, 111.,
Chicopee. Falls, Mass.
Pittsfield, 111., .
Des Moines, Iowa,
Virginia City, Nev.,
Lawrence, Mass., .
Sinclearville, N. Y.,
Stratford, Ct.,
Foxcroft, Me., .
Emerald Grove, Wis.,
Glastenbury, Ct., .

Potsdam, N. Y.
Haddam, Ct., .
Brewer, Me., •
Windham, Vt., .
New Haven, Ct., .
Colebrook, Ct., .
Bethel, Me., .
Kensington, N. H.,
Buffalo, N. Y., .
Lebanon, Ct.,
Lebanon, Ct.,
New Haven, Ct.,
Lancaster, Mass., .
Hartford, Vt., .
East Medway, Mass.,
Westport, Ct., .
Monson, Mass.,
Onondaga HiU, N. Y.,
North Haven, Ct.,
Hinesburgh, Vt.,
Stafford, Ct.,
Fairhaven, Vt., .
Orwell, Vt., .
Derby, Vt.,
"Foxcroft, Me.,-
Savoy, Mass.,
Brimfield, Mass., .
New Canaan, Ct.,
West Brookfield, Mass.,

Providence, R. I., .
East Haddam, Ct.,
France, .
Cornish, N. H.,
Thetford, Vt.,
Stonington, Ct.,

Haddam, Ct;
Brewer, Me.,
Windham, Vt.,
Hamden, Ct.,
Canton, Ct., .
Waterford, Me.,
Kensington, N. H.
Chesterfield, Mass
Saybrook, Ct,
Saybrook, Ct., .
Fairfield, Ct.,
Richmond, N. H.,
Enfield, Ct., .
East Medway, Mass.,
Westport, Ct.,
Norton, Mass., .
Durham, Ct.,
Groton, Ct.,
Waterbury, Ct.,
Killingly, Ct., .
Windsor, Vt.,
Windsor, Vt., .
Randolph, Vt.,
Sutton, Mass., .
Rehoboth, Mass.,
Ware, Mass.,
New Canaan, Ct.,
Westborough, Mass.,

Uxbridge, Mass,
East Haddam, Ct.,
France, Cornish, N. H., .
Hartford, Ct.,
Stonington, Ct.,

I Haddam, Ct.
Brewer, Me.
Francestown, N. H.
State of Ct.
Norfolk, Ct.
Norway, Me.
Salisbury, Mass.
Northampton, Mass.
Old Lyme, Ct.
Old Lyme, Ct.
New Haven, Ct.
Lancaster, Mass.
Enfield, Ct.
Framingham, Mass.
Norwalk, Ct.
Sutton, Mass.
Shaftsbury, Vt.
North Haven, Ct.
New Haven, Vt.
Somers, Ct.
Fairhaven, Vt.
Fairhaven, Vt.
Windsor, Vt.
Merrimac, N. H.
Savoy, Mass.
Holland, Mass.
New Canaan, Ct.
Westborough, Mass.

Uxbridge, Mass.
Portland, Ct.
France. Claremont, N. H.
Springfield, Mass.
Stonington, Ct.

3 t>Bw
CDO*1H*X
MBHB
wH
wCD

OOS

Hon. Linns Child,
" Henry H. Childs, .
Dea. Horace Childs,
Hon. James Webster Childs,
Dea. William H. Childs, .
Rev. Erastus B. Claggett,
Dea. Charles Clark,
Rev. Edward Warren Clark,
Rev. Nathaniel Catlin Clark,
Rev. Dexter Clary,
Dea. John Clary,
Rev. Samuel Davies Cochran,
Dea. Orris Kirtland Coe,
Rev. George H. Coffey,
" Albert Cole,
" William Lewis Coleman,
" Joseph Collie,
Edward Conant,
Rev. Richard Cordley,
Hon. William I. CornwelL^,
George Horatio Crane,
Rev. Robert Crawford, d. d.,
" William Crawford,
Dea. Walter Crocker,
William Crosby, .
Rev. Isaac Newton Cundall,
Warren Currier, Esq., .
Rev. Christopher Cushing,
Samuel Cushman,
Rev. Temple Cutler,
" Edward Francis Cutter,
" Oliver Ellsworth Daggett, d
" John Jay Dana, ,
Dea. Lorenzo D. Dana, .
Rev. Malcolm McGregor Dana,
" Henry Metcalf Daniels,

D.,

Boston, Mass., .
Pittsfield, Mass., .
Henniker, N. H.,
Augusta, Mich.,
Niagara Falls, N. Y.,
Lyndeborough, N. H.,
Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio,
Claremont, N. H.,
Elgin, III., .
Beloit, Wis.,
Conway, Mass.,
Grinnell, Iowa,
Watertown, Wis.,
Jackson, Mich.,
Cornish, Me., .
Mitchell, Iowa,
Delavan, Wis., .
Randolph, Vt.,
Lawrence, Kansas,
Weedsport, N. Y.,
Northfield, Vt., .
Deerfield, Mass., .
Central City, Colorado,
West Barnstable, Mass.,
Grasshopper Falls, Kan.
Rosendale, Wis.,
St. Louis, Mo.,
North Brookfield, Mass.,
Black Hawk, Colorado,
Skowhegan, Me.,
Rockland, Me.,
Canandaigua, N. Y., .
Cummington, Mass.,
Morrisville, N. Y.,
Norwich, Ct.,
Winnebago, 111.,

Woodstock, Ct., .

Woodstock, Ct.,

Woodstock Ct.

Pittsfield, Mass., ' .

Deerfield, Mass , .

Wethersfield, Ct.

K^

Henniker, N. H., .

Henniker, N. H.,

Hopkinton, N. H.

Henniker, N. H,

Henniker, N. H., .

Henniker, N. H.

Lovonia, N. Y.,

Henniker, N. Hi,

Henniker, N. H.

Newport, N. H,
Portsmouth, N. H.,
Litchfield, N. H.
Waterbury, Ct.,
Waterbury, Ct.,
Middlebury, Ct.
Tewksbury, Mass., .
Tewksbury, Mass.,
Woburn, Mass.
Benson, Vt.,
Northampton, Mass.,
Hebron, Ct.
Conway, Mass.,
Leverett, Mass.,
Greenfield, Mass.
Conway, Mass., . ' .
Sunderland, Mass.,
Deerfield, Mass.
%
Congruitv, Pa., .
Frederick, Md., .
Ireland.
>B
Trenton/N. Y., .
Durham, Ct.,
Torringford, Ct.
Ireland,
Ireland,
Ireland.
w
Cornish. Me.,
Sanford, Me.,
Sanford, Me.
O
Mount Hope, N. Y., .
Bloomingrove, N. Y.,
Mount Hope, N. Y.
*l
Scotland,
Scotland,
Scotland.
h3
Pomfret, Vt., .
Pomfret, Vt., .
Bridgewater, Vt.
w
England,
England,
England.
fed
Stamford, N. Y.,,
New Haven, Ct.,
Brantford, Ct.
B fed
Williamstown, Vt.,
Williamstown, Vt.,
Brookfield, Vt.
Scotland, .
Scotland, .
Scotland.
B
Barre, Mass.,
Oakham, Mass.,
Barre, Mass.
Barnstable, Mass.,
Barnstable, Mass.,
Barnstable, Mass.
w
Hampden, Me.,
Hampden, Me.,
Castine, Me.
xa
West Killingly, Ct., .
West Killingly, Ct., .
Attleborough, Mass.
Walpole.N. H., .
Billerica, Mass.,
Washington, N. H.
South Scituate, Mass.,
South Scituate, Mass.,
South Scituate, Mass.
Attleborough, Mass., .
Attleborough, Mass.,
Attleborough, Mass.
Lynn, Mass.,
Hamilton, Mass.,
Ipswich, Mass.
Portland, Me., .
Yarmouth, Me.,
Yarmouth, Me.
New Haven, Ct., .
Attleborough, Mass., .
New Haven, Ct.
Poultney, Vti( .
Newton, Mass.,
Roxbury, Ct.
Fenner, N. Y.,
Holland, Mass., .
Swansey; Mass.
Brooklyn, N. Y.,
Owego, N. Y.,
Rhinebeck, N. Y.
Franklin, Mass., .
Franklin, Mass.,
Franklin, Mass.
Kev. George Darling-,
" Edward Davies, .
" Thomas W. Davies,
" Emerson Davis, d. r>., .
" Josiah Gardner Davis,
" Oliver Stone Dean,
George B. Delamater, Esq.,
Rev. Andrew Clark Denison,
Joseph Addison Denny, .
Rev. Henry Martyn Dexter, D
_" John Dinsmore,
Hon. Allen W. Dodge,
Rev. John Dodge, .
" Franklin Bradley Doe,
Hon. Benjamin Douglas,
Rev. Edmund Dowse, .
" Andrew Jones Drake,
Dea. Samuel Fletcher Drury,
" Archibald Harris Dunlap
Rev. Richard Chapman Dunn.
Elnathan Freeman Duven,
Rev. Samuel W. Southmayd Dutton
" Theodore M. Dwight,
Timothy Dwight, Esq.,
Rev. Solomon Ashley Dwinnell,
" Morgan Lewis Eastman,
Dea. Nathaniel Eddy,
Rev. Zachary Eddy, d. d., .
" John Edgar, .
" Nathaniel Hillyer Eggleston.
" Joseph Eldridge, D. D., .
" Hiram Elmer,
" Alfred Emerson,
" Joshua Emery,
" Samuel Hopkins Emery,
" George R. Entler,

D.,

Hudson, Ohio,
Waterville, N". Y.,
Yourigstown, Ohio:
Wesifield, Mass.,
Amherst, N. H.,
Roxbury, Ct., .
Meadville, Pa.,
Portland, Ct., .
Leicester, Mass.,
Boston, Mass., .
Winslow, Me.,
Hamilton, Mass.,
Harvard, Mass.,
Appleton, Wis.,
Middletown, Ct.,
Sherborn, Mass.,
Atlanta, III., .
Olivet, Mich., .
Nashua, N. H.,
Toulon, 111.,
Bangor, Me.,
New Haven, Ct.,
Putney, Vt.,
Beloit, Wis.,
Reedsburg, Wis.,
Lisbon, N. Y., .
E. Middleborough,Mass.,
Northampton, Mass.,
Falls Village, Ct.,
Stockbridge, Mass.,
Norfolk, Ct., .
Clinton, Mich.,
Fitchburg, Mass.,
No. Weymouth, Mass
Quincy, III.,
Meredith, N. Y.,

Sterling, Mass.,
New York City, N
South Wales,
Ware, Mass.,
Concord, Mass.,
Patterson, N. Y.,
Whitehall, N. Y.,
Hampton, Ct., .
Leicester, Mass.,
Plympton, Mass.,
Anson, Me.,
Newburyport, Mass,
Brooksville, Me.,
Highgate, Vt.,
Nortbford, Ct.,
Sherborn, Mass.,
Morristown, N. J.,
Spencer, Mass.,
Antrim, N. H., .
Augusta, Geo.,
Boston, Mass., .
Guilford, Ct.,
Westfield, Mass.,
New Haven, Ct.,
Lee, Mass.,
Fairfield, N. Y.,
E. Middleborough,
Stockbridge, Vt.,

Y.,

Mass.

Hartford, Ct.,
Yarmouth, Mass.,
West Hartford, Ct.,
Beverly, Mass., .
Newburyport, Mass.,
Boxford, Mass.,
Shepherdstown, Va.,

Marlborough, Mass.,
¦Wales, .
South Wales,
Ware, Mass.,
New Ipswich, N. H.,
Patterson, N. Y., .
Whitehall, N. Y.,
Hampton, Ct.,
Leicester, Mass.,
Rochester, Mass., .
Auburn, N. H., .
Hamilton, Mass., .
Haverhill, Mass.,
Newbury, Vt.,
New Haven, Ct.,
Sherborn, Mass., .
Morristown, N. J.,
Spencer, Mass.,
Bedford, N. H,
England,Billerica, Mass.,
Watertown, Ct., .
Northampton, Mass.,
Stratford, Ct.,
Millbury, Mass.,
Arlington, Vt.,
Middleborough, Mass
Middleborough, Mass

Windsor, Ct.,
Yarmouth, Mass.,
East Windsor, Ct.,
Hollis, N. H, .
Atkinson, N. H, .
Atkinson, N. H.,
Shepherdstown, Va.,

Sterling, Mass.
Wales. South Wales.
Ware, Mass.
Goffstown, N. H.
Roxbury, Ct.
Granville, N. Y.
Pomfret, Ct.
Leicester, Mass.
Freetown, Mass.
Stark, Me.
Newburyport, Mass.
Brooksville, Me.
Corinth, Vt.
Wallingford, Ct.
Fitchburg, Mass.
Sussex Co., N. J.
Townsend, Vt.
Antrim, N. H.
Savannah, Geo.
Portland, Me.
Watertown, Ct.
Wethersfield, Ct.
Northampton, Mass.
Springfield, Mass.
Northampton, Mass.
Middleborough, Mass.
Lyme, Ct.

Granby, Ct.
Yarmouth, Mass.
East Windsor, Ct.
Bradford, Mass.
Platstow, N. H.
Plaistow, N. H.
Martinsburg, Va.

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Constantine C. Esty, Esq.,
Rev. William Tappan Eustis, jr.,
Benjamin Fairchild, M. D.,
Rev. Prof. James Harris Pairehild, r>. D.,
Rev. Minor Wenn Fairfield, .
Dea. Andrew Atherton Farnsworth,
Rev. Franklin Ebenezer Fellows,
Clark Ela Ferrin,
Dea. Phinehas Field,
Rev. Thomas Power Field, d. d.,
Asahel Finch, Esq.,
Dea. Allen Fish, jr.,
Rev. Prof. George Park Fisher,
Luther P. Fisher,
Rev. Prof. Franklin Woodbury Fisk,
Rev. John Orr Fiske, .
Dea. John A. Fitch, ,
Allen Folger,
Dea. John Graham Foote,
Rev. James Thomas Ford, .
Hon. Asa Freeman,
George Foster French,
Jonathan French,
Rev. Nahum Gale, D. r>.,
" Charles Henry Gates,
" Reuben Gaylord,
" William Luther Gaylord",
" Heman Geer,
" Edwin R. Gilbert, .
" James Boardman Gilbert,
Hon. Robert Goodenow, .
Hon. Ira Goodhue,
Rev. Henry Martyn Goodwin,
Timothy Gordon,, m. d.,
Dea. Jabez 11. Gott,
Rev. Griffith Griffiths, .

Framingham, Mass.,
New Haven, Ct., .
Milton, Vt.,
Oberlin, .Ohio,
Lyons, Iowa,
Peterborough, N H,
Kennebunk, Me.,
Hinesburgh, Vt., .
E. Charlemont, Mass
New London, Ct.,
Milwaukee, Wis., .
Port Huron, Mich.,
New Haven, Ct., .
Oakland, Cal., .
Chicago, 111.,
Bath, Me.,
Hopkinton, Mass.,
Gardner, Mass.,
Burlington, Iowa,
Stowe, Vt.,
Dover, N. H.,
Luneuburgh, Vt.,
Braintree, Mass., .
Lee, Mass.,
Oskaloosa, Iowa, .
Omaha City, Neb.,
Fitzwilliam, N. H.,
Wayne; Ohio, .
Wallingford, Ct., .
Lansing, Iowa, .
Farmington, Me., .
Westminster;, Vt.,
Rockford, III.,
Plymouth, Mass.,
Rockport, Mass., .
Utiea, N. Y., .

Framingham, Mass.
Boston, Mass.,
Georgia, Vt.,
Stockbridge, Mass.,
Parkersbnrg, Va.,
Bakersfield, Vt.,
Weathersfield, Vt
Holland, Vt.,
East Charlemont, Mass.,
Northfield, Mass.,
Genoa, N. Y.,
Montreal, C. E.,
Wrentham, Mass.,
Scotland, Ct.,
Hopkinton, N. H.,
Bangor, Me.,
Hopkinton, Mass.,
Nantucket, Mass.,
Middlebury, Vt.,
Abington, Mass.,
Hanover, N. H.,
Lunenburgh, Vt.,
Braintree, Mass.,
Auburn, Mass.,
Palmer, Mass., .
Norfolk, Ct., .
Woodstock, Ct.,
Richmond, Vt.,
Hebron, Ct.,
Pittsford, Vt.,
(Henniker, N. H.,
[Westminster,, Vt.,
Hartford, Ct., .
;Newbury, Mass.,
Rockport, Mass.,
North Wales,

Newton, Mass.,
Rutland, Mass.,
State of Ct., .
Sheffield, Mass.,
Pittsford, Vt.,
Sterling, Mass.,
Weathersfield, Vt.,
Londonderry, N. H.,
Northfield, Mass.,. .
Northfield, Mass., - *
Walden, N. Y., .
Sandwich, Mass.,
Franklin, Mass., .
Princeton, Mass.,
Wilmot, N. H., .
Northborough, Mass.,
Hopkiirton, Mass.,
Nantucket, Mass.,
Simsbury, Ct.,
Abington, Mass.,
Mansfield, Ct.,
Tamworth, N. H.,
Braintree, Mass., .
Westborough, Mass.,
Monson, Mass.,
Norfolk, Ct.,
Ashford, Ct., " .
Kent, Ct.,
Hebron, Ct.,
Pittsford, Vt.,
Marlborough, Mass.,
Dunstable, Mass., .
East Hartford, Ct.,
Brentwood, N. H.,
Rockport, Mass.,
North Wales,

.

Framingham, Mass.

o

Charlestown, Mass.

os

State of Ct.

Richmond, Mass.
Winchester, Va.
New Ipswich, N. H.
Windsor, Vt.
Litchfield, N. Y.
,
Northfield, Mass.
Boston, Mass.
Durham, N. Y.
Hartford, Vt.
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Wrentham, Mass.
Canterbury, Ct.
Manchester, Mass.
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Merrimack, N. H.
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Hopkinton, Mass.
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Nantucket, Mass.
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Braintree, Mass.
Westborough, Mass.
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Wales, Mass.
S3
Norfolk, Ct.
Pomfret, Ct.
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Richmond, Vt.
Hebron, Ct.
.
Dorset, Vt.
Gloucester, Mass.
Westminster, Vt.
Wethersfield, Ct.
Newbury, Mass.
'Rockport, Mass.
.
North Wales.
Rev. Leverett Griggs,
Dea. Abram Griswold,
Rev. Henry Martyn Grout,
" Jesse Guernsey, .
" John Putnam Gulliver, D,
" Richard Hall,
Hon. Charles G. Hammond,
Rev. John Wheeler Harding,
Ivory Hovey Harlow,
Hon. Milan.Harris,
Rev. Prof. Samuel Harris, D. D
Rev. John Clark Hart,
Jacob Haskell,
Hon. Henry P. Haven,
Rev. Prof. Joseph Haven,'D. D.
" Edward Hawes, .
" Josiah Taylor Hawes,
Dea. Henry Haynes, .
Rowland Hazard,
Rev. Henry Martyn Hazeltine,
" Henry AUen Hazen,.
" Joseph Warren Healy,
Dea. Willis Hemingway, jr.,
Levi Tomlinson Hewins, m. d
Henry Hill, Esq., .
Dea. William E. Hinsdale, .
Homer Owen Hitchcock, m. d
Rev. Loammi Ives Hoadley,
" L. Smith Hobart, .
" John Calvin Holbrook, d
" John Milton Holmes,
Dea. Samuel Holmes, .
Hon. Edward D. Holton,
Charles Hopkins,
Rev. James Seymour Hovt,
Rev. Geo. B. Hubbard,

Bristol, Ct., .
Gustavus, Ohio,
West Rutland, Vt.,
Dubuque, Iowa,
Norwich, Ct.,
St. Paul, Min., .
Chicago, HIT,
Longmeadow, Mass.,
Middleborough, Mass
Harrisville, N. H.,
Bangor, Me.,
Kent, Ohio,
Fitchburg, Mass., .
New London, Ct.,
Chicago, 111.,
Philadelphia, Pa.,
Bridgton, Me.,
Sturbridge, Mass.,
Peace Dale, R. I.,
Sherman, N. Y.,
Plymouth, N. H., .
Milwaukee, Wis.,
Fair Haven, Ct., .
Loda, 111., .
Roxbury, Mass., .
Blandford, Mass.,
Kalamazoo, Mich.,
Craftsbury, Vt.,
Syracuse, N. Y., ,
Homer, N. Y., .
Jersey City, N. J.,
New York City, N. Y.
Milwaukee, Wis., .
Norwich, N. Y.,
Port Huron, Mich.,
Aurora, 111.,

Tolland, Ct.,
Windsor, Ct.,
Newfane, Vt., .
Watertown, Ct.,
Boston, Mass., .
New Ipswich, N. H.,
Bolton, Ct.,
Waltham, Mass., .
Middleborough, Mass
Nelson, N, II.,
East Machias, Me.,
Cornwall, Ct.,
Harvard, Mass.,
Norwich, Ct.,
Dennis, Mass., .
Topsbam, Me.,
Yarmouth, Mass.,
Millbury, Mass., .
Newport, R. I.,
Jamestown, N. Y.,
Hartford, Vt., .
South Hero, Vt., .
East Haven, Ct.,
Burton, Ohio,
Newburgh, N. Y.,
Meriden, Ct.,
West Westminster, Vt
Branford, Ct.,
Potter, N. Y., .
Brattleboro, Vt., .
England, .
Waterbury, Ct.,
Lancaster, N. H.,
Rutland, N. Y., .
New Canaan, Ct.,
New Haven, Ct., .

Tolland, Ct.,
Windsor, Ct.,
Westminster, Vt.,
Watertown, Ct.,
Taunton, Mass.,
Mansfield, Ct., .
Bolton, Ct., .
West Medway, Mass.,
Halifax, Mass.,
Medway, Mass.,
Boston, Mass.,
Cornwall, Ct., .
Harvard, Mass.,
Wrentham, Mass.,
Holden, Mass.,
Yarmouth, Mass.,
Yarmouth, Mass.,
Somers," Ct.,
South Kingston, R. I.,
Wardsboro', Vt.,
Hartford, Vt., .
Washington, N. H,
East Haven, Ct,,
West Stockbridge, Mass,
Saybrook, Ct., .
New York City, N. Y.,
West Westminster, Vt.,
Branford, Ct.,
Townsend, Mass.,
Weymouth, Mass.,
England, .
Waterbury, Ct., .
Ellington, Ct., .
Stratford, Ct.,
Stamford, Ct., .
Meriden, Ct.,

Pittsfield, Mass.
Granby, Ct.
Brattleboro, Vt.
Watertown, Ct.
Reading, Mass.
New Ipswich, N. H.
New Haven, Ct.
East Medway, Mass.
Middleborough, Mass.
Dublin, N. H.
East Machias, Me.
Cornwall, Ct.
Pepperell, Mass.
New London, Ct.
Orleans, Mass.
Vassalboro, Me.
Yarmouth, Mass.
Millbury, Mass.
Bristol, Pa.
Wardsboro', Vt.
Danville, Vt.
Washington, N. H.
East Haven, Ct.
Derby, Ct.
Marlborongh, N. Y.
Newark, N. J.
Ashfield, Ct.
New Haven, Ct.
South Kingston, R. I,
Shrewsbury, Mass.
England. Cheshire, Ct.
Haddam, Ct.
Rutland, N. Y.
New Canaan, Ct.
New Haven, Ct.

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Dea. George W. Hubbard,
" Hiram Hulburd,
Rev. Philo Ruggles Hurd,
" Azariah Hyde,
" Nathaniel A. Hyde,
" Jacob Ide, d. d.,
" Alfred Eaton Ives,
Dea. Galen James, .
" Samuel James, jr.,
Rev. John Lord Jenkins,
" Jonathan Leavitt Jenkins
" Elisha Jenney,
" Isaac Jennings, .
Charles A. Jessup, Esq.,
Rev. Edwin Johnson, .
" Samuel Johnson,
" David M. Jones, .
" Lemuel Jones,
" Thomas Jones, .
William Wallace Jones, .
Dea. Guerdon Judson,
Rev. Adam Stewart Kedzie,
" Seneca McNeil Keeler,
" Seth Harrison Keeler, d
" Lysander Kelsey,
Dea. Freeman Keyes,
Rev. James Parker Kimball,
John M. Kinsman', .
Rev. Edward Norris Kirk, d. d
Hon. William C. Kittredge,
Andrew Jackson Knapp,
Henry Martyn Knight, M. d.,
Rev. Benjamin Labaree, d. d
" Daniel Lane, .
Dea. Samuel M. Lane,
Rev. Isaac P. Langworthy,

Hatfield, Mass.,
Stockholm„N. Y.,
Romeo, Mich.,
Pawlet, Vt.,
Indianapolis, Ind.,
Medway, Mass.,
Castine, Me.,
Medford, Mass.,
Weybridge, Vt.,
Kokomo, Ind., .
Hartford, Ct.,
Galesburg, 111., .
Bennington, Vt.,
Westfield, Mass.,
Baltimore, Md.,
Chenango Forks, N. Y.,
Arena, Iowa,
Bellevue, Iowa,
Olivet, Mich.,
La Crosse, Wis.,
Raymond, Wis.,
Somerset, Mich.,
Guilford, N. Y.,
Calais, Me.,
Columbus, Ohio,
Newbury, Vt., .
Falmouth, Mass.,
North Potsdam, N
Boston, Mass.,
Fairhaven, Vt., .
Wauseon, Ohio,
Salisbury, Ct., .
Middlebury, Vt.,
Eddyville, Iowa,
Southbridge, Mass.,
Chelsea, Mass., .

Philadelphia, Pa.,
Stockholm, N. Y.,
Rhinebeck, N. Y.,
Randolph, Vt.,
Stafford, Ct., .
Attleborough, Mass.,
New Haven, Ct., .
Scituate, Mass.,
Weybridge, Vt.,
Kirby, Vt., .
Portland, Me., .
Fairhaven, Mass.,
Trumbull, Ct., .
Richmond, Mass.,
Plymouth, Ct.; .
England, South Wales,
England, Wales,
Marlborough, Ct.,
Simsbury, Ct., .
Stamford, N. Y.,
Ridgefield, Ct., .
Brandon, Vt.,
Sudbury, Vt., .
Vershire, Vt.,
Townshend, Vt.,
Shrewsbury, Vt.,
New York City, N.
Dalton, Mass., .
Homer, N. Y.,
Stafford, Ct.,
Charlestown, N. H.
Leeds, Me.,
Sturbridge, Mass.,
Stonington, Ct.,

Hatfield, Mass.,
Rupert, Vt., .
Monroe, Ct.,
Norwich, Ct.,
Stafford, Ct., .
Attleborough, Mass
Branford, Ct.,
Scituate, Mass.,
Weybridge, Vt.,
Hinsdale, N. H.,
Barre, Mass.,
Fairhaven, Mass.,
Fairfield, Ct.,
E. Hampton, L. I., N. Y.,
Cheshire, Ct.,
England, .
South Wales,
Wales,Wales, .
Hebron, Ct.,
State of Ct., .
Scotland, .
Ridgefield, Ct.,
Pittsfield, Mass.,
State of Ct., .
Wan-en, Mass., .
Bradford, Mass.,
Hubbardston, Mass.,
Scotland,Tewksbury, Mass.
Goshen, N. Y.,
Monson, Mass., .
Charlestown, N. H.,
New Gloucester, Me.,
Wrentham, Mass.,
Stonington, Ct.,

Hatfield, Mass.
Richmond, Mass.
Brookfield, Ct.
Oakham, Mass.
Stafford, Ct.
Rehoboth, Mass.
New Haven, Ct.
Scituate, Mass.
Amherst, Mass.
Ware, Mass.
Greenfield, Mass.
Fairhaven, Mass.
Trumbull, Ct.
North Guilford, Ct.
Plymouth, Ct.
England. South Wales.
Wales. Wales.East Haddam, Ct.
State of Ct.
Cambridge, N. Y.
South Salem, N. Y.
Deerfield, Mass.
Athol, Mass.
Thornton, N. H.
Groveland, Mass.
Templeton, Mass.
Princeton, N. J.
Dalton, Mass.
Mopson, Mass.'
Monson, Mass.
Charlestown, N. H.
Bridgewater, Mass.
Sturbridge, Mass.
Westerly, R. I.,

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Rev. Orpheus Thomas Lanphear,
" Edward Alexander Lawrence, D
" Robert Coit Learned, .
" Joshua Leavitt, d. d.,
" Edwin N. Lewis,
" Elisha M. Lewis, .
" James Donaldson Liggett,
" Joel Harvey Linsley, D. D.,
Charles Austin Lord,
Rev. Charles Lord,
" William DeLoss Love,
" Erastus Maltby,
" Abijah Perkins Marvin,
" Elihu Parrish Marvin, .
Dea. Thomas Marvin,
Lowell Mason, jr., .
Dea. Nelson Mason,
Hon. Seth May, . . ' .
Rev. James Tomb McCollom,
" James Adolphus McKay,
" Silas McKeen, d. d., .
" Charles T. Melvin, .
Hon. Thomas J. Melvin,
Rev. William Edward Merriman,
Dea. Abel Kimball Merrill, .
Rev. Orville Willard Merrill,
" James Browning Miles,
" Milo N. Miles,
Hon. Samuel Miller, .
Rev. Samuel Miller,
" Charles E. Milliken, .
" Henry Mills, .
" Edward Goddard Miner,
" Henry Austin Miner,
" Thomas Edwin Monroe,
Hon. Henry Morris,

New Haven, Ct.,' .
East Windsor HiU, Ct.,
Plymouth, Ct.,
Brooklyn, N. Y„
Ottawa, 111., .
Nebraska City, Neb.,
Leavenworth, Kansas,
Greenwich, Ct.,
Portland, Me., .
Buckland, Mass., .
Milwaukee, Wis.,
Taunton, Mass.,
Winchendon, Mass.,
Medford, Mass., .
Walton, N. Y., .
Orange, N. J.,
Sterling, 111.,
Auburn, Me., .
Bradford, Mass.,
Lamont, Mich.,
Bradford, "Vt., .
Elk-Grove, Wis.,
Chester, N. H., .
Ripon, Wis., -
Haverhill, N. H.,
Anamosa, Iowa, .
Charlestown, Mass.,
Geneseo, 111.,
New Haven, Ct.,
Eaton, N. Y.,
Littleton, N. H.,
Kalamazoo, Mich.,
Whitewater, Wis.,
Menasha, Wis.,
Mount Vernon, Ohio,
Springfield, Mass.,

West JTairlee, Vt.,
St. Johnsbury, Vt.,
New London, Ct.,
Heath, Mass,, .
Enlield, N. Y.,
Warren Co., Ohio,
Cornwall, Vt.,
Kennebunkport, Me.,
Williamsburg, Mass.,
Barre, N. Y.,
Northford, Ct.,
Lyme, Ct,,
Romulus, N. Y.,
Cambridge, N. Y.,
Westborough, Mass.,
Paislee, Scotland,
Winthrop, Me., .
Salem, N. Y., .
Skaneateles, N. Y.;
Corinth, Vt., ,
Chester, N. H., .
Chester, N. H.,
Hinsdale, Mass.,
Warren, N. H,
Orford, N. H., .
Rutland, Mass.,
Sharon, Ct.,
Williston, Vt.,
Augusta, N. Y.,
Fitzwilliam, N. H.
Kingsville, Ohio,
Roxbury, Mass.,
Halifax, Vt.,
Plainfield, Ct.,
Springfield, Mass.,

Columbia, Ct.,
Winchester, N. -H., .
New London, Ct., .
Charlemont, Mass., .
Lenox, N. Y.,
Rockbridge, Co. Va.,
Woodbury, Ct.,
Kennebunk, Me.,
North Killingworth, Ct.,
Bridgewater, N. Y.,
Northford, Ct., .
Lyme, Ct., .
Lyme, Ct.,
Simsbury, Ct.,
Medfield, Mass.,
Scotland,
Attleborough, Mass.,
Derry, N. H.,
Dover, N. Y., .
Londonderry, N. H.,
Chester, N. H., .
Chester, N. H,
Hindale, Mass., .
Plaistow, N. H., .
Salem, N. H, .
Rutland, Mass.,
Watertown, Ct.,
West Springfield, Mass.,
Marshall, N. Y.,
State of N. H., .
Livermore, Me.,
Northfield, Mass., .
Stonington, Ct.,
Rehoboth, Mass., .
Wilbraham, Mass., .

Bradford, Vt.
Winchester, N. H.
New London, Ct.
Charlemont, Mass.
Philipstown, N. Y.
Rockbridge Co. Va.
Woodbury, Ct.
Kennebunkport, Me.
Williamsburg, Mass.
Bridgewater, N. Y.
Northford, Ct.
Lyme, Ct.
Hackensack, N. J.
New Canaan Ct.
Westborough, Mass.
Scotland.Sandwich, Mass.
Ireland.Northampton, Mass.
Chester N. H.
Chester, N. H.
Chester, N. H.
Peru, Mass.
Rumney, N. H.
Windham, Vt.
Rutland,' Mass.
Sheffield, Mass.
Wallingford, Vt.
Rutland, Mass.
Keene, N. H.
Norfolk, Ct.
Roxbury, Mass.
Halifax, Vt.
Stonington, Ct.
Springfield, Mass.

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Rev. David Mm-doch, .
" John Conrad Myers,
" Osborne Myrick,
Dea. Lorenzo Smith Nash,
Rev. John Hesler Nason,
" George Benton Newcomb,
George K. Newcomb, Esq.,
Rev. Wellington Newell,
" Prof. Daniel James Noyes, d. d.,
Rev. Daniel Parker Noyes,
Nathaniel Noyes,
Rev. John Keep Nutting,
" Richard Osborn, .
" George Alexander Oviatt,
" Abel Kingman Packard,
" Theophilus Packard,
Deacon Simon Page, .
Levi Leonard Paine,
Rev. William Pomeroy Paine, D.
Dea. Thomas Wilcher Painter,
Charles Winslow Palmer, Esq.,
Hon. Julius Aboyneau Palmer,
Rev. Ray Palmer, j>. d.,
" William Stratton Palmer,
Hon. Francis Drake Parish,
Rev. Prof. Edwards A. Park, d. d.,
" Charles Carroll Parker,
Dea. Daniel H. Parker, .
Rev. Henry Elijah Parker, .
" Lucius Parker,
" Lucius Hubbard Parker,
" Wooster Parker,
" Ebenezer Greenleaf Parsons,
" George C. Partridge,
" John Patchin,
Richard J. Patterson, m. d.,

New Milford, Ct.,
Saugatuck, Mich., .
Provincetown, Mass., .
Granby, Mass.,
Smvrna, N. Y., .
Blo'omfield, Ct., .
East Saginaw, Mich.,
Brewer Village, Me.,
Hanover, N. H.,
Boston, Mass.,
Baltimore, Md.,
Bradford, Iowa,
Champion, N. Y.,
Somers, Ct., .
Anoka, Min., .
Sunderland, Mass.,
Hallowell, Me.,
Farmington, Ct., .
Holden, Mass., .
Weymouth, Ohio, .
Cleveland, Ohio,
Boxford, Mass.,
Albany, N. Y., .
Wells River, Vt., .
Sandusky, Ohio,
Andover, Mass., .
Waterbury, Vt.,
Dunbarton, N. H.,
Concord, N. H.,
Palmyra, Wis.,
Galesburg, 111.,
Belfast, Me.,
Deny, N. H., .
Batavia, 111.,
Owosso, Mich., .
Mount Pleasant, Iowa,

Glasgow, Scotland,
Weisslenreuth, Germany,
Orleans, Mass.,
Hadley, Mass., .
Homer, N. Y.,
Allegany, Pa., .
Westfield, N. Y., .
Pembroke^ N. H.,
Springfield, N. H.,
Byfield, Mass., .
Abington, Mass., .
Groton, Mass., .
Greenwich, N. Y.,
Bridgeport, Ct.,
No. Bridgewater, Mass.,
Shelburne, Mass., .
Readfield,.Me.,East Randolph, Mass.
Ashfield, Mass.,
Weymouth, Ohio,
Norwich, Ct., ,
Little Compton, R. I.
Little Compton, R.
Orford, N. H,
Naples, N. Y., .
Providence, R. I., .
Underhill, Vt., .
Dunbarton, N. H.,
Keene, N. H., .
Southborough, Mass.,
Woodstock, Vt.,
Underhill, Vt.,
Westport, Me.,
Hatfield, Mass.,
Newbury, Ohio,
Mt. Washington, Mass.,

Scotland,
Germany, .
Orleans, Mass.,
Hadley, Mass., .
State of Me.,
Thetford, Vt.,
Thetford, Vt., .
Brookfield, Mass., .
West Newbury, Mass.,
Byfield, Mass.,
Abington, Mass.,
Groton, Mass.,
Milford, Ct., .
No. Bridgewater, Mass.,
No. Bridgewater, Mass.,
Kingston, N. H.,
East Randolph, Mass., .
Hatfield, Mass.,
Plymouth, Ct.,
Jewett City, Ct.,
Little Compton, R. I., ,
Little Compton, R. I.,
Warren, Ct.,
Canterbury, Ct.,
Newton, Mass.,
Richmond, N. H.,
Bradford, Mass., .
New Ipswich, N. H.,
Southborough, Mass.,
Groton, Mass., .
Saybrook, Ct.,
Westport, Me.,
Hatfield, Mass.,
Fairfield, Ct., .
State .nfVt, .

Scotland.
Germany.
Brewster, Mass.
Hadley, Mass.
State of N. Y.
Thetford, Vt.
State of Ct.
Pembroke, N. H.
Andover, N. H.
Byfield, Mass.
Abington, Mass.
Groton, Mass.
Bridgeport, Ct.
No. Bridgewater, Mass.
Abington, Mass.
Readfield, Me.
Bridgewater, Mass.
Northfield, Mass.
Bristol, Ct.
New London, Ct.
Little Compton, R. I.
Little Compton, R. I.
Faivlee, Vt.
nartland, Ct.
Wrentham, Mass.
Dudley, Mass.
Bradford, Mass.
Keene, N. H.
Hopkinton, Mass.
Tolland, Ct.
State of Ct.
Westport, Me.
Hatfield, Moss,
Derby, Ct.
Rensselaer Co., N. Y.

Ol

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Rev. William Weston Patton, d. d.,
Dea. Oliver Pendleton, .
Rev. Philip Peregrine, ..
" Ariel Ebenezer Parish Perkins,
" Sydney Keith Bond Perkins,
" Ralph Perry, .
Dea. Moses Pettingill, .
Rev. Philo Columbus Pettibone,
" John Pike, ...
Joseph Greeley Pollard, .
Rev. Lemuel Pomeroy,
Hon. Samuel C. Pomeroy,
Rev. Giles Meigs Porter,
Dea. John Porter, .
Rev. Prof. Noah Porter, Jr., D,
" Samuel Fuller Porter,
" Truman M. Post, d. d^
George Washington Pratt,
Dea. Selden Mather Pratt,
Zebulon Pratt,
Elliot Beecher Preston,
Hon. Douglas Putnam, .
Rev. Alonzo Hall Quint,
William Ramsdell, .
Rev. Herbert A. Read,
Dea. Edgar Hodges Reed,
" Josiah Reed,
Rev. Julius Alexander Reed,
" Samuel T. Richards,
Seth Richards,
Rev. Alden Burrill Robbins,
Nathaniel Crafts Robbins,
Daniel C. Robinson, Esq., ' .
Dea. Henry Wright Robinson,
Rev. Reuben Totman Robinson,
" Edward Warren Root, .

Chicago, EL, .
Wabasha, Min.,
Blossburg, Pa.,
Ware, Mass.,
Glover, Vt.,
Agawam, Mass.,
Peoria, 111., .
Beloit, Wis.,
Rowley, Mass.,
Woburn, Mass.,
Wethersfield, 111.,
Atchison, Kansas,
Garnavillo, Iowa,
Cedar Falls, Iowa,
New Haven, Ct.,
Wheaton, 111., .
St Louis, Mo.,
River Falls, Wis.,
Center Brook, Ct.,
N. Middleborough, Mass.
Rockvilie, Ct.,
Harmar, Ohio, .
New Bedford, Mass.,
Milford, N. U, .
Marshall, Mich.,
Taunton, Mass., .
South Weymouth, Mass.,
Davenport, Iowa.,
Spencerport, N. Y.,
Bentonsport, Iowa,
Muscatine, Iowa, .
Salem, ,Mass.,
Brooklyn, Ct.,
Johnson, Vt.,
Winchester, Mass., .
Springfield, Ohio,.

New York; City, N. T.,
Westerly, R. -L, ;
Brecon, South Wales,
Royalston, Mass., .
Braintree, Mass.,
Manchester, Ct., .
Salisbury, N. H.,
Stockholm, N. Y., .
Newburyport, Mass., .
Wilton, N. H.,
Southampton, Mass.,
Southampton, Mass.,
Farmington, Ct., .
Ashfield, Mass.,
Farmington, Ct., .
Whitestown, N. Y.,
Shoreham, Vt., .
Braintree, Mass., .
Essex, Ct., >
N. Middleborough, Mass.
Eastford, Ct., .
Harmar, Ohio,
Barnstead, N. H.,
Salem, Mass.,
Attleborough, Mass.,
Taunton, Mass., .
So. Weymouth, Mass.,
South Windsor, Ct.,
Haverford, Pa., .
Enfield, Mass.,
Salem, Mass., .
Salem, Mass.,
Brooklyn, Ct.,
Greenville, N. Y., .
Exeter, N. Y., .
Conway, Mass.,

Philadelphia, Pa.,
Westerly, R. I.,
South Wales, .
Topsfield, Mass. ..
No. Bridgewater, Mass.,
Vernon, Ct., . . • .
Salisbury, N. H., .
Norfolk, Ct., . . .
Newburyport, Mass.,
Hudson, N. H.,
Southampton, Mass.,
Southampton, Mass.,
Farmington, Ct., .
Ashfield, Mass., .
Farmington, Ct.,
Abington, Mass., .
Rutland, Vt., .
Braintree, Mass., .
Saybrook, Ct., .
N. Middleborough, Mass.
Ashford, Ct., .
Pomfret, Ct.,
Parsonsfield, Me., .
Lynn, Mass.,
Attleborough, Mass.,
Taunton, Mass., .
Boston, Mass., .
South Windsor, Ct.,
Springfield, Pa.,
Bridgewater, Mass.,
West Cambridge, Mass.,
Roxbury, Mass.,
Windham, Ct.,
Poultney, Vt., .
Barre, Mass.,
Conway, Mass.,

Waltham, Mass.
Stonington, Ct.
South Wales.
Byfield, Mass.
W. Bridgewater, Mass.
Colchester, Ct.
Salsbury, N. H.
Norfolk, Ct.
Newburyport, Mass.
Bedford, N. H.
Southampton, Mass.
Southampton, Mass.
Middletown, Ct.
Ashfield, Mass.
Middletown, Ct.
Plainfield, N. H.
Rupert, Vt.
Braintree, Mass.
Saybrook, Ct.
Bridgewater, Mass.
Hempstead, L. I., N. Y,
Plainfield, Ct.
Barnstead, N. H.
Salem, Mass.
Atlleborough, Mass.
Norton, Mass.
S. Weymouth, Mass.
Vernon, Ct.
W. Nothingham, Md.
Tfuro, Mass.
Salem, Mass.
Salem, Mass.
Tolland, Ct.
Benson, Vt.
Barre, Mass.
Taunton, Mass.

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Rev. Thomas Henderson Rouse, .
" Joseph Edwin Roy,
" Moses Thurston Runnells, .
" Ezekiel Russell, D. d.,
" Isaac Russell,
" Lewis Sabin, r>. d.,
" John Safford,
" Charles Cotton Salter,
" William Salter, d. d., .
" George Slocum Folger Savage,
" William Thomas Savage, .
Dea. Charles C. Sawyer,
Rev. Rufus M. Sawyer,
Joel K. Scarboro, ....
Marshall Sears Scudder, Esq.,
Rev. Charles Seccombe, .
" Seth Willard Segur, .
Dea. Edward David Selden, .
Rev. John Smith Sewall,
" Charles Shedd, . . '¦-.
Dea. George Wellington Shelton,
Rev. Prof. George Shepard, d. d., .
" David Shepley, .
Rev. John Collins Sherwin,
" William True Sleeper,
" Samuel P. Sloan, .
" George W. Smiley, d, d., .
Dea. Brainerd Smith,
His Exe'y Gov. James Gregory Smith,
Dea. John Smith, ....
Ralph Dunning Smith, Esq.,
Rev. Aaron Snow, ....
" George Soule,
" George Spaulding, .
" Charles Spooner;
Charles Augustus Stackpole, .

Jamestown, N. Y., .
Chicago, 111.,
Orford, N. H.,
East Randolph, Mass.,
Bowen's Prairie, Iowa,
Templeton, Mass.,
Bellevue, Ohio, .
Minneapolis, Min., .
Bnrlington, Iowa,
Chicago, 111., .
Franklin, N, H.,
Saco, Me.,
York, Me.,
Payson, 111., .
Grantville, Mass.,
St. Anthony, Min.,
Tallmadge, Ohio,
Brandon, Vt.,
Wenham, Mass.,
Wasioja, Min.,
Birmingham, Ct.,
Bangor, Me.,
Yarmouth, Me.,
Barre, Wis., .
Patten, Me.,
McGregor, Iowa,
Philadelphia, Pa.,
Normal, 111.,
St. Albans, Vt., .
Andover, Mass.,
Guildford, Ct.,
Miller's Place, N. Y.,
Hampton, Ct.,
West Eau Claire, Wis.,
Greenville, Mich.,
Gorham, Me., .

Pittstown, N. Y.,
Martinsburg, Ohio,
Cambridge, Vt.,
Wilbraham, Mass.,
Perth, Scotland,
Wilbraham, Mass.,
Perry Lake, Ohio,
New Haven, Ct., .
Brooklyn, N. Y.,
Middletown, Ct., .
Bangor, Me.,
Saco, Me.,
Otisfield, Me., .
Brooklyn, Ct.,
Boston, Mass., .
Salem, Mass.,
Chittenden, Vt.,
City of N. York, N.
Damariscotta, Me.,
Riudge, N. H., .
Huntington, Ct., .
Plainfield, Ct., .
Solon, Me., .
Penfield, N. Y.,
Danbury, N. H., .
Whiteoak, Ohio,
Carlisle, Pa.,
Sunderland, Mass.,
St. Albans, Vt., .
Brechin, Scotland,
Southbury, Ct.,
Saybrook, Ct., .
Willington, Ct.,
Frankfort, Me.,
Keene, N. Y.,
Portland, Me., .

Y.,

Pittstown, N. Y.,
Baskinridge, N. J.,
Vershire, Vt.,
Wilbraham, Mass.,
Scotland,Stafford, Ct., .
Pawlet, Vt.,
New Haven, Ct.,
Portsmouth, N. H.,
Middletown, Ct.,
York, Me., .
Saco, Me.,
Westbrook, Me.,
Brooklyn, Ct., .
Hyannis, Mass.,
Danvers, Mass.,
Chittenden, Vt.,
Haddam, Ct., .
Chesterville, Me./
Eindge. N. H., .
Huntington, Ct.,
Plainfield, Ct.,
Pepperell, Mass.,
State of Maine,
Andover, N. H.,
State of Md., .
Carlisle, Pa.,
Sunderland, Mass.,
Barre, Mass.,
Scotland,
Brookfield, Ct.,
Saybrook, Ct., .
Middleborough, Mass.,
Lowell, Mass.,
Petersham, Mass.,
Harpswell, Me.,

,

Bennington, Vt.

to

Conn. Farms, N. J.

Waltham, Mass.

Stoughton, Mass.
Scotland.
Ellington, Ct.
Braintree, Vt.
New York City, N. Y.
••,
Portsmouth, N. H.
Middletown, Ct.
Plymouth, Mass.
Biddeford, Me.
!>Bfed
Westbrook, Me.
Brooklyn, Ct.
Chatham, Mass.
09
Danvers, Mass.
O
Williamstown, Vt.
*J
City of N. York, N. Y.
H
.
Chesterville, Me.
afed
New Ipswich, N. H.
.
Huntington, Ct.
B
Plainfield, Ct.
fedBtd
Pepperell, Mass.
State of Pennsylvania.
fed
.
Salisbury, N. H.
Sd CD
Cane Ridge, Ky.
Harrisburg, Pa.
Sunderland, Mass.
.
Troy, N. Y.
Scotland.
Eastbn, Pa.
Saybrook, Ct.
lass
•» *
Quincy, Mass.
Dracut, Mass.
.
Hardwick, Mass.
•
Hingham, Mass.
Fitch B. Stacy,
Rev. Alanson St. Clair,
" Josiah H. Stearns, .
" William A. Stearns, d. d.,
Dea. John Stevens, i
Stephen B. Stinson, . '.
Dea. Charles Stoddard, .
Rev. Andrew Leete Stone, d. d.,
" Benjaihin Perkins Stone, d.
" James Woodward Strong,
g " Julian Monson Sturtevant, d
" Julian Monson Sturtevant, jr.
" Leonard Swain, d. d.,
" Francis Keyes Swan,. .
" Seth Sweetser, d. d.,
Dea. Gilbert Mortier Sykes,
Henry Walbridge Taft, .
Hon. Henry G. Taintor,
Nathaniel Tohey Talbot,
Dea. Chester Talcott, .
Daniel Smith Tarr,
Rev. Chauncey Taylor,
" Lathrop Taylor,
judge Lester Taylor, .
Rev. James Franklin Taylor, .
" Jeremiah Taylor, D. t>.,
Joseph J. Taylor,
Rev. Sewall Tenney, d. d., .
" Thomas Tenney,
Hon. William W. Thomas, .
Rev. James Armstrong Thome,
" Joseph Parrish Thompson, D. D.,
" Eli Thurston,
Dea. Wm. Thurston, .
Rev. Joseph Titcomb,
*' Alvan Tobey,

Stacyville, Iowa,
Croton, Mich.,
Epping, N. H., .
Amherst, Mass.,
Cromwell, Ct., .
Sandwich, 111.,
Boston, Mass., .
Boston, Mass.,
Concord, N. H., .
Faribault, Min.,
Jacksonville, 111.,
Hannibal, Mo.,
Providence, R. I.,
Calais, Me., .
Worcester, Mass.,
Dorset, Vt., .
Lenox, Mass., .
Hampton, Ct.,
Rockport, Me., .
North Coventry, Ct.,
Gloversville, N. Y.,
Algona, Iowa, .
Farmington, 111.,
Claridon, Ohio,
Chelsea, Mich.,
Middletown, Ct.,
Newcastle, Me.,
Ellsworth, Me.,
Plymouth, Iowa,
Portland, Me.,
Cleveland, Ohio,
New York City, N. Y.,
Fall River, Mass.,
Newburyport, Mass.,
Kennebunk; Me.,
Durham, N. H.,

Dekalb, N. Y.,
Greene, Me.,
Epping, N. H., .
Bedford, Mass.,
Haddam, Ct.,
Boston, Mass., .
Northampton, Mass.,
Oxford, Ct.,
Reading, Vt.,
Brownington, Vt.,
Warren, Ct.,
Jacksonville, 111., .
Concord, N. H.,
Winslow, Me.,
Newburyport, Mass.,
Dorset, Vt.,
Sunderland, Mass.,
Hampton, Ct., .
Turner, Me.,
North Coventry Ct.,
Rockport, Mass.,
Williamstown, Vt.,
Buckland, Mass.,
Hartland, Ct., .
Benton, N. Y., .
Hawley, Mass.,
Jefferson, Me.,
Bradford, Mass.,
Bradford, Mass.,
Portland, Me.,
Augusta, Ky., .
Philadelphia, Pa.,
Brighton, Mass.,
Sedgwick, Me.,
Kennebunk, Me.j
Wilmington, Vt.,

CooTjerstowh, N. Y.,
Gorham, Me., .
Epping, N. H., .
Epping, N. H.,
Killingworth, Ct., .
Dunbarton, N. H.,
Northampton, Mass.,
Madison, Ct.,
Groton, Mass., .
Brownington, Vt.,
Warren, Ct.,
Warren, Ct.,
Pittsfield, N. H.,
Groton, Mass.,
Charlestown, Mass.,
Dorset, Vt., .
Montague, Mass.,
Colchester, Ct.,
Dighton, Mass.,
Vernon, Ct.,
Rockport, Mass.,
Bolton, Ct., .
Ashfield, Mass.,
Chatham, Ct.,
New Windsor, N. Y.
Yarmouth, Mass., .
Newcastle, Me.,
Bradford, Mass., .
Bradford, Mass.,
Portland, Me., .
Lancaster, Pa.,
Stratford, Ct., .
Westboro', Mass., .
Rowley, Mass.,
Kennebunk, Me.,
Berkley, Mass.,

Marshall, N. Y.
North Yarmouth, Me.
Milton, Mass.
Andover, Mass.
Haddam, Ct.
Dunbarton, N. H.
Northampton, Mass. '
Lyme, Ct.
Leominster, Mass.
Norwich, Vt.
Warren, Ct.
Canaan, Ct.
Amherst, N. H.
Augusta, Me.
Charlestown, Mass.
Cavendish, Vt.
Sunderland, Mass.
Colchester, Ct.
Berkley, Mass.
North Coventry, Ct.
Rockport, Mass.
State of Ct.
Middleborough, Mass.
Durham, Ct.
Lycoming, Pa.
Yarmouth, Mass.
Whitefield, Me.
Bradford, Mass.
Bradford, Mass.
New Gloucester, Me.
North Ireland.
Coleraine, Ireland.
Roxbury, Mass.
Boxford, Mass.
I Kennebunkport, Me.
I Brimfield, Mass.

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Edward S. Tobey, Esq.,
Rev. John Todd, .
" Horace Toothaker, .
" Charles Cutler Torrey,
" Charles William Torrey,
" Henry Martyn Tupper,
" Asa Turner, .
" Kinsley Twining,
" George Palmer Tyler, D. D.,
" George Leon Walker, .
Hon. James Barr Walker, r>. d.,
Joseph Pierce Walker, m. d.,"
Rev. Cyrus Washington Wallace,
Evander Smith Warner,
Rev. Warren William Warner,
" Leroy Warren,
" William H. Watson, .
" William Watkins, .
" Edwin Bonaparte Webb, D. D.
" John Calvin Webster,
Albert E. Wellman, .
Rev. Joshua Wyman Wellman,
Dudley R. Wheeler, .
Josiah Burley Wheelock,
Rev. John Wesley White, .
Dea. Albert D. Whitmore,
Rev. Elisha Whittlesey,
" Martyn Kellogg Whittlesey,
" Thomas Wickes, d. d.,
" Moses Hale Wilder,
Dea. Albert G. Willard,
Rev. John Willard, .
" Samuel G. Willard, .
" William Henry Willcox,
" Benjamin Glazier Willey,
David S. Williams,

Boston, Mass.,
Tabor, Iowa,
New Sharon, Me.,
Chester, Vt., .
Madison, Ohio,
Waverly, 111., .
Denmark, Iowa,
Hinsdale, Mass.,
Brattleboro', Vt., .
Portland, Me.,
Benzonia, Mich.,
Cincinnati, Ohio, .
Manchester, N. H,
Kellogsville, Ohio,
Lawrenceville, N. Y.,
Elk Rapids, Mich.,
Leavenworth, Kan.,
Newburg, Ohio,
Boston, Mass.,
Wheaton, 111., .
Cornish, N. H., .
Newton, Mass.,
North Stonington, Ct.,
Coventry, Vt., .
Morrison, UL,
Housatonic, Mass.,
Waterbury, Ct., .
Ottawa, 111.,
Marietta, Ohio,
Gaines, N. Y.„ .
Indianapolis, Ind.
Fairhaven, Mass.,
Willimantic, Ct., .
Reading, Mass.,
East Sumner, Me.,
Flushing, L. I., N. Y.,

Kingston, Mass., .
West Hanover, Pa.,
Old Town, Me., .
Salem, Mass., .
Canandaigua, N. Y.,
Hardwick, Mass.,
Templeton, Mass.,
West Point, N. Y.,
Brattleboro', Vt., .
Rutland, Vt.,
Philadelphia, Pa.,
Wilton, Me.,
Bedford, N. H.,
LeRoy, N. Y.,
Vernon, N. Y.,
Pittsfield, Ohio, .

Cardiff, South Wales,
Newcastle, Me.,
Hampton, N. H.,
Cornish, N. H., .
Cornish, N. H.,
Stonington, Ct.,
Sanbornton, N. H.,
Weathersfield, Vt.,
Binghampton, N. Y.,
Salisbury, Ct.,
Stockbridge, Mass., .
Jamaica, L. I., N. Y.,
Winchendon, Mass.,
Charlton, Mass.,
Hartford, Ct.,
Wilton, Ct.,
New York City, N. Y.,
North Conway, N. H.,
Mexico, N. X.,

Berkley, Mass., .
West Hanover, Pa.,
Deer Isle, Me.,
Salem, Mass.,
Kingston, Mass.,
West Stafford, Ct.,
Templeton, Mass.,
New Haven, Ct., .
Boston, Mass.,
Woodstock, Ct., .
North Ireland, ¦
Rindge, N. H., .
Bedford, N. H.,
Roxbury, Ct.,
Cambridge, N. Y.,
Tyringham, Mass.,

South Wales, .
Newcastle, Me.,
Chester, N. H,
Cornish, N. H., .
Cornish, N. H.,
Stonington, Ct.,
Sanbornton, N. H.,
Ireland,Killingly, Ct., .
Washington, Ct., ,
Stockbridge, Mass.,
Fishkill, N. Y., .
Wichendon, Mass.,
Dudley, Mass.,
Newington, Ct,,
Chester, Ct.,
Newport, N. H.,
Lee, N. H., .
Florida, N. Y.,

Kingston, Mass.
East Hanover, Pa.
Belfast, Me.
Salem, Mass.
Scituate, Mass.
West Stafford, Ct.
Templeton, Mass.
West Point, N. Y.
Watertown, Mass.
Concord, N. H.
North Ireland.
Acton, Mass.
Dracut, Mass.
Otego, N. Y.
Bath, N. H.
Sheridan, N. Y.

01

South Wales.
Augusta, Me.
Pelham, N. H.
Cornish, N. H.
Cornish, N. H.
Stonington, Ct.
Sanbornton, N. H.
Charlestown, N. H.
Castleton, Vt.
Coventry, Ct.
Newington, Ct.
Jamaica, L. I., N. Y.
Winchendon, Mass.
Dudley, Mass.
Newington, Ct.
Wilton, Ct.
Clinton, Ct.
Durham, N. H.
Salisbury, Ct.

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Rev. Edwin Erastus Williams,
" Edwin S. Williams,
" Francis Williams,
" Roderick R. Williams, .
Hon. Samuel Williston,
Rev. Thomas Wilson,
" Horace Winslow,
Samuel Dutton Winslow, 2d,
Rev. Samuel Wolcott, d. d.,
Bartholomew Wood, Esq.,
Rev. Horace Wood,
Dea. John Beach Woodford, .
Hon. Arden Woodruff,
Alfred Woods,
Luther Wright, .
Martin Wright, . .
Rev. Samuel Guild Wright, .
Dea. William Wheeler Wright,
Rev. John Kimball Young, d. d.

Warsaw, N. Y.,
Northfield; Min.,
Chaplin, Ct.,
Pittsburg, Pa., .
Easthampton, Mass.,
Stoughton, Mass.,
Binghamptoa, N. Y.,
Townshend, Vt.,
Cleveland, Ohio, .
Newton, Mass.,
Ossipee, N. H.,
Windsor, Ct., .
Strykersville, N. Y.,
Iowa Falls, Iowa,
Easthampton, Mass.,
Lee Center, HI.,
Dover, IU., .
Oberlin, Ohio, .
Laconia, N. fl.,

Clinton,- N. T.,
Elizabeth, N. J., .
Ashfield, Mass., .
Glynn, South Wales,
Easthampton, Mass.,
Paisley, Scotland,
Enfield, Mass.,
Dummerston, Vt.,
South Windsor, Ct.,
Newburyport, Mass.,
Orange, N. H.,
Avon, jCt,
Farmington, Ct., .
Charlton, Mass.,
Easthampton, Mass.,
Northampton, Mass.,
Hanover, N. H., .
Tallmadge, Ohio,
Dover, N. H.,

Lebanon,- Ct.,
Huntington, L. I., N. Y.,
Ashfield, Mass., .
South Wales,
West Haven, Ct., .
Scotland, .
Berkley, Mass.,
Putney, Vt.,
South Windsor, Ct.,
Italy, Alstead, N. H.,
Avon, Ct.,
Farmington, Ct., .
Roxbury, Mass.,
Easthampton, Mass.,
Westhampton, Mass.,
Hanover, N. fl., .
Winsted, Ct., .
Madbury, N. H., .

Littleton, Mass.
Hatfield, Mass.
Cummington, Mass.
South Wales.
Stratford, Ct.
Scotland.
Belchertown, Mass.
Rockingham, Vt.
South Windsor, Ct.
Newburyport, Mass.
Canterbury, Ct.
Hartland, Ct.
Farmington, Ct.
Dedham, Mass.
Northampton, Mass.
Westhampton, Mass.
Lebanon, N. fl.
Hanover, N. H.
Dover, N. H.

Names omitted in theie pbopeb places : — Moses Howe, Haverhill, Mass. ; Rev. Thomas F. Hicks, Alpena, Mich.;
Rev. John Todd, d. d., Pittsfield, Mass.

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SUMMARY.
The CouncU consisted of 516 members, including the 14 honorary members, and not including
The following shows the

delegates from other bodies.

¦si05

MEMBERSHIP FROM DIFFERENT STATES.

•Maine, • New Hampshire,
•Vermont,
•Massachusetts, .
•Connecticut,

39
33
3498
55

?Rhode Island,
•New York, .
¦Pennsylvania,
'New Jersey,
'Delaware,

•Maryland,
^Michigan,
.Ohio, .
ilndiana, .
,Rlinois,

26 30 3
39

>Iowa,
?Wisconsin,?Minnesota,"Tennessee, •Missouri, .

3226 10 1
3

iKa'Nebraska,"Oregon,¦Colorado,
^California,

Maine,New Hampshire,
Vermont,
Massachusetts,

42 Connecticut,
43 Rhode Island,
59 New York, .
142 I Pennsylvania, ,

BIRTHPLACE OF MEMBERS.

100 8
6010

Ohio, .
Michigan,Illinois,
District of Columbia,

New Jersey>
Georgia, .
Virginia,
Kentucky,

Foreign lands,
Unknown,

23 3

aBB>
K|

Maine,
New Hampshire,
Vermont,

27
58
29

Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Rhode Island, .

BIETHPLACE OF THE FATHERS OF THE MEMBEES.

383 | New York, .
140 Pennsylvania,
6 I

22 1 New Jersey,
6 Virginia, .

Foreign lands,
Unknown,

30 5

BIETHPLACE OF MOTHERS.

Maine,New Hampshire,
Vermont,

29 53
35

Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Rhode Islarid, .

189125 6

New York, .
Pennsylvania, New Jersey,

24 7
4

Georgia, .
Virginia,-
Kentucky,

Foreign lands,
Unknown,

29 5

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

PAGE
Address of Welcome,  "~ . . , .26
Moderator, opening  30
closing  4gg
American and Foreign Christian. Union, .... 228, 229, 411, 413
American Bible Society,  228,341,411
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign- Missions, . . . 228, 411
American Congregational Association, see " Committees " ; also, 220, 249, 253, 391,
406,407,411,495
American Congregational Union,  3, 239, 263, 409, 413
American Education Society,  229, 4H
American Home Missionary Society,  228,260,411
American Missionary Association,  229,260,411
American Protestant Assembly, see "Committees"; also . . 181, 208, 485
American Seaman's Friend Society,  228, 229
American Sunday School Union, v  341
American Tract Societies,  341, 412, 415
Andrew, Governor, visit of  208, 234
address to  234
response- by  235
Baltimore, church in  359, 409
Benevolent Contributions, on systematizing, see " Committees " ; also . 222
Bible and Science,  237
in Schools,  237
Books and Tracts, see " Committees,"
Boston, welcomed to ...  17
Boston, England, letter from  388,447
Bunker Hill Monument, invitation to visit  54
visit to  193
California, commnnioation from  181
Canada,- delegation from  64
Charlestown, First Church, invitation from  53
session in  81,182,196
Navy Yard, invitation- to  195
Church Building, see " Committees " ; also 79, 197, 208, 262, 264, 266, 279, 302, 319
Church Polity, see "Committees"; also 101, 117, 129, 152, 238, 274, 319, 360,
427, 430, 447, 463, 486, 496
Collegiate and Theological Education at the "West, Society, 229, 258, 263, 411, 484
Collegiate Education, see " Committees "; also ..... 181,258
(517)

518 INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

PAGE
Committees appointed, and reference of subjects to, and reports from, —
American Congregational Association  253
report by 391
Protestant Assembly,  181, 208, 485
report by .... 447
Benevolent Contributions, systematizing .... 231, 239
reports by  410
Books and Tracts,  238, 245, 253
report by  341
Business,  54, 71, 337, 360, 406
reports by 78, 79, 81, 117, 148, 181, 196, 233, 234, 237, 245,
249, 253, 258, 302, 358, 361, 384, 385, 397, 405, 407, 408, 447, 497
Church Building,  208, 249, 250
report by  262
Church Polity, .... 133, 134, 182, 238, 360, 486, 496
reports by  153( 427
Collegiate Education,  181, 208, 258, 447
report by  470,484
Country, condition of . . . .82, 133, 147, 181, 240, 250, 252
report by .... 240, 250, 259
Credentials of Members,  29, 52, 151
reports by . . . .52, 79, 81, 151
Declaration of Faith, . . 100, 101, 134, 161, 181, 237, 359, 365
reports by  344, 400
Devotional Exercises,  71, 81, 151
reports by  101, 181
Evangelization in the West and South, . . 161, 181, 196, 360
reports by . . 259, 409
Finance,  "71, 253, 496, 497
reports by  253, 279, 360
Foreign Bodies, their course in the War, ... 95, 134, 493
report by . . . 321
Foreign Missions,  151, 162, 233
report by  231
Italy, communication from  245
report by  338
Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Ministers, communi
cation from  116,117,134
Massachusetts Convention, report by  246
Ministerial Education,  181, 196, 208, 239, 258
report by  447
Ministerial Support,  161; 239
report by  385
Nominations,  28, 54, 55, 64, 82, 83
reports by 29, 71, 133, 161, 181, 182, 196, 208, 222, 239,
245, 253, 408, 426, 427, 464, 485, 493
Parochial Evangelization,  222, 234
report by  486
Pastoral Letter,  492
Prayer and Fasting, day of  359, 409
report by  492

INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 5,19 PAGB
Committees appointed, &c, continued :
Printing,  ... 71
report by  495
¦ Robinson, memorial to  497
Roll of Members,  152, 162, 196, 208, 233
report by  493
Rules of Order,  -. . 29
report by  55
Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, raising of . . 360, 408
report by . 464, 485
Temperance,  181, 182, 208, 258, 359
report by  479
Washington City, church in  181, 405
report by  239, 492
Worship, public  405, 427
report by . .  467
Committees of the Preliminary Conference, appointment, and papers from, —
Arrangements  10
Benevolent Contributions, systematizing, appointed, 10 ; paper from, 222
Church Building,  197
Church Polity, appointed, 9 ; paper from . . .101,117,129
Declaration of Faith, appointed, 10 ; paper from . . . .95
Evangelization in the West and South, appointed, 9 ; paper from 135
Ministerial Education, appointed, 9 ; paper from . . 162, 196
Ministerial Support, appointed, 9 ; paper from . . . 154
Parochial Evangelization, appointed, 9 ; paper from . . . 209
Conference of Preliminary Committees, proceedings of . . . .4-11
Congregational Board of Publication,  341, 411, 415
Congregational House in Boston,  249, 391, 397
Connecticut, General Association, action of  3
Consociationism,  461, 466, 468
Convention of the Congregational churches of the North-west, action of . 1
Council, National, of 1865; formally prepared, 1 ; preliminary committees in
conference, 4 ; Council decided upon, 6 ; terms of representation, and time
and place of meeting, 8; letters missive, 11 ; opens at Boston, 19 ; closes, 500
Councils, previous, of the American Congregational churches, ... v
Country, condition of, see " Committees " ; also 1, 82, 133, 147, 181, 240, 250, 254,
259, 302
• Credentials, see "Committees " ; also  148
Declaration of Faith, first draft, 95 ; second draft, 344 ; third draft, 361 ; as re
vised, 401 ; see "Committees"; also 10, 95, 99, 152, 196, 274, 281, 344, 359,
384, 385, 397, 400, 496
Devotional Exercises, see " Committees " ; also 28,30,78,99, 161, 208, 266, 320,
365, 397, 404, 407, 466, 499, 500
Devotional Service, special  9, 81, 101, 182
England, letters from  58, 62, 388, 447
Evangelization in the West and South, see " Committees " ; also, 135, 196, 259, 264,
266, 279, 298, 302, 319, 320, 360

520 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. PADS
Finance, see " Committees "; also  9,11,360,496
Forefathers' Rock, visit to  365
Foreign Delegates, credentials and papers of  58, 64, 238
presentation of  58, 64
Welcome to  65
replies from, —
• Dr. Massie,  75
Mr. Monod,  76, 83
Dr. Raleigh,  71
Dr. Thomas,  94
Dr. Vaughan,  66
Dr. Wilkes,  '. . . 76
response to  321
Religious Bodies, their course in the late war, see " Committees " ; also
95, 321, 493
Foreign Missions, see " Committees " ; also 151, 162, 231 ; also " American
Board," &c.
France, letter from  59
General Theological Library, invitation from  30
Goodrich, Collector, invitation from  298, 384
Hook, Messrs., invitation from  239
Hubbard, Mr. G. G., invitation from  293
Illinois, General Association, action of  2, 79
Indiana, General Association, action of  2
Invitation, preliminary letters of .  11-17
Iowa, General Association, action of  2
Italy, churches of, see "Committees"; also . . . 147,238,338-341
Lincoln College,  181, 484
Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Ministers, communication from 116
reply to . . .246
Massachusetts General Association, action of  3
Massachusetts Sabbath School Society,  229, 341
Members of Council, list of, 19 ; list of, with nativities, 501 ; honorary, 25, 65,
79, 410. See " Committees " ; also 148, 149, 152, 162, 180, 196, 493
Methodists, non-Episcopal, telegram and reply,  387
Michigan, General Association, action of  2
Ministerial Education, see " Committees " ; also .... 162,196,447
Ministerial Support, see " Committees "; also  154,385
Minnesota, General Conference, action of  3
Moderator, address of, on taking the chair, 30 ; thanks to, 497 ; closing address, 498
New Brunswick, letter from  58
New Hampshire, General Association, action of  3
New York, General Association, action of  3
Ohio, General Conference, action of  ,2

INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 521

PAOB

temporary  27> 28
permanent,  29, 64, 71
Parochial Evangelization, see- "Committees"; also . . . 209,234,486
Pastoral Letter,  493
Phonographic report,  79
Pilgrim Hall, invitation to  245

visit

365

Plymouth, invitations to  82 245
excursion to  153^ 258
session at  _ 3gl
collation,  • • . . 365
addresses at —
Rev. Dr. A. L. Stone,  366
Dr. Timothy Gordon,  368
Edward S. Tobey,  368
Charles G. Hammond,  369
Rev. Dr. Joseph P. Thompson,  370
Rev. Dr. Vaughan,  373
Rev. Dr. Raleigh,  375
Rev. Dr. Massie,  377
Rev. Mr. Monod,  379
Rev. Dr. Post,  380
Rev. Dr. Bacon,  382
Rev. Dr. Budington,  383
Prayer and Fasting, day of, see " Committees,"
President Johnson, address to  55
reply from  : 266
resolutions to be sent to  254, 302
Proposal for convening the Council,  1
Publication of Proceedings,  495
Pulpits, Boston, supplies to  151, 181
Rebels, civil rights of  250, 254, 259
Records, disposal of  495
Religious Books and Tracts,  238
Reports of Committees, see " Committees."
Rhode Island Conference, action of  2
Revivals of religion,  237
Robinson, memorial to  , . . . . 497
Rules of order,  55, 153, 253, 254
Sabbath, the  359
Sabbath Schools,  495
Schools, the Bible in  237
Secret Associations,  405
Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, see " Committees " ; also 260, 263, 268
275, 293, 302
method of raising, 360, 406, 408, 409, 464, 485
Sermon by President Sturtevant,  10, 30, 31
thanks to  196

522 INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Sermon, application for  495
Sessions, hours of . . :  28, 30
evening, proposed  300, 301
Suffrage, universal  254
Synods, previous, in America,  v.
Temperance, see " Committees " ; also . . . 181, 182, 208, 258, 358, 495
Festival, invitation to  53, 54
Thanks, votes of . ........ 11,384,497,498,499
Tobacco,  258, 358, 479
Utah, church in  181
Vermont, General Conference, action of  3
Waldensian church, letter from  238
Wales, letter from  60
Washington, church in, see " Committees "; also 181, 239, 249, 277, 405, 492
Welcome, address of, by Rev. Dr. A. L. Stone,  26
Worship, order of . . . ,  237, 405, 407, 427, 467
public, by the Council,  30

INDEX OE NAMES OE PERSONS.

Adams, 4, 6, 15, 19, 20,21, 23, 27, 28, 71,
82, 182, 183, 189, 234, 266, 302, 380,
397, 403, 413, 491, 501
Aiken,  15
Alden, . . '. . .21,501
Alexander, . . . . 19, 501
Allen, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 21, 22, 24, 149,
243, 252, 274, 318, 332, 357, 363,
385, 426, 455, 466, 501
Ambrose,  62
Anderson, iii., iv., 5, 6, 10, 18, 21, 134,
240, 249, 275, 326, 393, 407, 454,
486, 493, 496, 500, 501
Andrew, .... 208, 234
Andrews, 5, 10, 15, 21, 25, 191, 222, 231, 501
Anthony, . . . .21, 501
Argyle, . . ... . 323
Arms, . . . . 19, 408, 501
Armsby,  21, 501
Asbury, . . . -25,58,321
Atkins, . . 20, 29, 64, 71, 501
Atkinson, 24, 28, 134, 162, 243, 262,
300, 303, 408, 494, 501
Attucks  27
Augustine,  352
Austin,  19, 501
Avery,  19, 501
Ayres, ... 20, 21, 148, 501
Bacon, xi., 5, 7, 9, 11, 15, 19, 21, 28, 64,
65, 80, 81, 100, 101, 102, 104, 115,
117, 134, 148, 162, 181, 193, 208,
245, 254, 256, 262, 264, 321, 326,
336, 341, 343, 350, 363, 371, 382,
384, 406, 408, 409, 419, 430, 445,
447, 459, 473, 481, 484, 486, 494, 501
Badger, 5, 19, 55, 189, 275, 313, 410, 501
Baker,  21, 502

PAOE
Baldwin,  5, 275
Balkam, 21, 347, 350, 354, 358, 408, 502
Bancroft,  143
Barbour,  21, 502
Barker, .... 24, 28, 502
Barnard, . . 22, 23, 134, 253, 502
Barnes, . !. . . 10, 205
Barrows, . . .21, 162, 486, 502
Barstow, 23, 24, 28, 133, 208, 243, 253,
319, 356, 400, 403, 406, 408, 426,
481, 496, 502
Bartlett, 20, 21, 23, 134, 151, 273, 430,
442, 448, 486, 502
Bascom, 5, 6, 9, 10, 15, 20, 55, 147, 466,. 502
Bate's,  22, 502
Beecher, 20, 24, 28, 29, 62, 85, 95, 99,
134, 151, 152, 162, 183, 205, 239,
243, 245, 253, 254, 278, 291, 297,
301, 312, 321, 326, 332, 343, 354,
383, 422, 455, 466, 474, 486, 493, 502
24, 133, 243, 502
354
 61
. 24, 502
20, 502 67
. 86, 87, 90
. 21, 502
24, 134, 153, 430, 502
10, 18, 25, 57, 390, 447, 502
. 21, 312, 486, 502
Bliss, 9, 24, 28, 147, 252, 259, 264, 279,
307, 404, 408, 418, 463, 502
Blodgett, 5, 7, 15, 24, 208, 420, 479, 481,
482, 483, 502
21, 162, 419, 485, 502
 134
19, 253, 393, 502
(523)

Bell, .
Bellamy,
Benan, ,
Bennett,
Bent, Bersier,
Bigelow,
Biscoe, Bishop, .
Blagden,
Blanchard,

Bodwell,
Bonar,Booth, .

524

INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS.

Bouton, . 4, 15, 23, 319,' 385, 502
Bowen, 23, 29, 55, 71, 181, 239, 293, 502
Boyd, . . . . 19, 23, 502
Boyntpn, .... 24, 502
Bradbury, . • • -21, 502
Bradford, . . 10, 18, 25, 381, 502
Bradshaw, . . . .23, 421, 503
Brainerd, ... 19, 408, 503
Brastow, . . . .24, 408, 503
Brewster, .... 381, 387
Bridge,  371
Bright,  323
Brintnall, .... 24, 503
Bristol, .... 23, 134, 503
Brockway,  486
Brown, . . 5, 15, 21, 22, 23, 450, 503
Bryant, 20, 28, 133, 243, 315, 408, 503
Buchanan,  328
Buckingham, xi., 9, 21, 29, 30, 161, 182,
208, 235, 253, 262, 264, 266, 369,
387, 483, 485, 492, 498, 503
Budington, 5, 7, 15, 19, 23, 65, 116, 162,
190, 231, 233, 249, 295, 298, 329,
337, 383, 415, 503
Mum, ... 23, 486, 503
Bugbee,  23, 503
Bullen, .... 20, 503
Bulkley,  vii
Bulwer,  344
Burr, 19, 100, 182, 302, 430, 448, 503
Burt, . . 22, 222, 234, 486, 491, 503
Butler, 5, 15, 23, 49, 239, 329, 412, 423, 503
Button,  19, 503
Byington, . 24, 82, 162, 358, 486, 503
Cady, . . 20, 24, 239, 412, 503,
Cassar,  450
Calvin, . . . 45, 352, 355, 379
Carpenter, 20, 21, 24, 71, 208, 253, 264, 503
Carter, 20, 21, 162, 233, 266, 408, 423,
485, 503
Caryl,  371
Cavour, ..... 69
Chalmers,  306
Chamberlain, . 9, 20, 208, 264, 503
Chapin, . . .21, 25, 410, 503
Chapman, . . . .23, 503
Charpiot, . . . . 19, 503
Chase,  21, 503
Cheney, .... 24, 503

Chesebrough, . . 19, 222, 491, 503
Child, 21, 28, 29, 30, 254, 302, 319, 337, 504
Childs, . . . .21, 22, 23, 504
Claggett  23, 504
Clapp,  5, 15
Clark, xi., 20, 23, 24, 181, 208, 298, 338,
396, 504
Clary, . . 21, 24, 162, 262, 504
Cleaveland,  85
Clement,  18
Clift,  5,6
Cobden,  323
Cochin,  92
Cochran, . . 20, 253, 364, 393, 504
Coe,  5, 24, 504
Coffey,  22, 504
Coffin,  317
Cole,  21, 504
Coleman,  20, 504
CoUie, ... 25, 208, 481, 504
Columbus, .... 451
Conant, .... 24, 504
Copernicus, .... 291
Cordley, . 21, 222, 486, 491, 504
Cornelius, . . . . 174
CornweU  32, 28, 504
Cotton, . . . vii., 246, 388, 458
Crane,  24, 504
Crawford, 19, 21, 147, 162, 243, 262, 311,
408, 504
Crocker,  21, 504
Cromwell, . . .67, 70, 325, 354
Crosby,  21, 504
Crowell,  458
Cundall, . . . .25, 408, 504
Currier, 9, 23, 28, 135, 147, 486, 504
Cushing, . 21, 253, 391, 473, 504
Cushman, . . 19, 28, 380, 504
Cutler, .... 21,504
Cutter,  21, 504
Cuyler,  85
Daggett, . 23, 133, 243, 365, 493, 504
Dana, . . 19, 21, 23, 208, 481, 504
Danforth,  5, 15
Daniel,  61
Daniels, . . 20, 25, 58, 321, 504
Darling, . . . 24,186,505
Davenport, . . . 178, 446
Davey,  389

INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS.

525

PAGE
Davies, . . . . $8, .61, 505
Davis, 4, 15, 21, 23, 134, 152, 327, 377,
393, 421, 430, 458, 486, 505
Dean,  19, 505
De Broglie, .... 89
De Gasparin, ... 83, 85, 322
Delamater, ... 24, 505
Delille,  60, 83
Denison, .... 19, 505
Denny, .... 21, 505
Deacomtayi .... 86
De Tocqueville, ... 32
Dexter, iii., iv., 9, 10, 18, 21, 28, 29, 53,
54, 64, 79, .116, 151, 2.22, 245, 358,
365, 371, 390, 400, 447, 457, 481,
485, 495, 497, 505
21,505
. 21, 408, 505
25, 208, 264, 505
19, 100, 152, 162, 233, 252,
399, 505
22, 505
. 20, 505
. 22, 71, 505
 87
25, 321
.. 23, 505
. 20, 80, 408, 505
21, 71, 162, 505
Dfltton, 19,28, 29, 30, 81, 116, 161, 252,
259, 262, 264, 26.6, 269, 274, 277,
296, 298, 303, 318, .319, 355, 364,
384, 397, 405, 40.6, 409, 418, 484,
482, 504
Dwight, xi., 24, 25, 28, 253, 352, 505
Dwinnell, . . . .25, 505
Eastman, . . . .23, 505
Ebbs,  25, 321
Eddy, 22, 162, 23.3, 252, 284, 344, 358,
364, 384, 439, 462, 466, 452, 505
Edgar, .... 19, 505
.Edwards, . • . 61,. 352, 354, 480
Eggleston, 5, .6, 11, 15, 22, 427, 468, 505
Eldridge, . 15, 19, 134, 461, 468, 505
Eliot, ..... 454
Elizabeth (Queen), . . 67, 325, 450
lElmer, . . 22,. 239, .387, 408,505
Emerson, .... 22, 505
Emery, ... 20, 22, 162, 505
Entler, .... .23, 505

Dinsmore, Dodge,
Doe, Douglas,
Dowse,
Drake, .
Drury,
Duchemin,Duff,Dunlap, .
Dunn,Duren, .

_ PAGE
¦ksty,  22, 506
Eustis, 5, 15, 19, 64, 101, 134, 148, 248,
497, 506
Evans,  61, 62
Evarts, .... 184, 189

Fairchild,Fairfield, .
Fargo, .
Farnsworth,Farragut, ,
Fellows, .
Felt, .
Ferrin,
Field,Finch, .
Fisch,Fish, . i .
Fisher, 10, 19,
Fisk, Fiske, 9,
Fitch, .
Folger,
Foote, .
Ford,Freeman, French,
Frink,
Frothingham,

24,161,486,506 20, 506
. 305
. 23, 506
. 228
. 21, 506 viii
. 24, 82, 357, 506
19, 22,208,466,485,506
. 25, 55, 253, 486, 506
. 60, 89
. 22, 29, 133, 243, 506
25, 98, 134, 243, 486, 506
21, 25, 134, 180, 344, 347,
354, 475, 506
22, 506
. 22, 596
20, 506
. 24, 222, 491, 506
23, 134, 248, 506
15, 22, 24, 321, 506
 25
189

Gale, . . . .22, 134, 506
Gates, . ... 20, 397, 506
Gaylord, 9, 23, 28, 147, 162, 192, 314,
408,:476, 477, 506
Geer,  24, 506
Gilbert,  19, 20, 506
Goodenow, . . . .21,506
Goodhue, . . . .24, 408, 506
Goodrich, .... 298, 385
Goodwin, 20, 222, 353, 371, 491, 506
Gordon, . . 22, 545, 367, 506
Gott, . . . ... 22, 506
Grant, . . . 274, 311, 328
Greenhill,  371
Griffin,  174
Griffith, Griffiths, 23", 25, 61, 62, 321, 506
Griggs, . . . . 19, 507
Griswold, . . . .24, 208, 507
Grout,  24,507
Guernsey, 15, 20, 99, 134, 162, 262, 309,
, .408,430 476,507

526

INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS.

PAGE
Guizot,  89
Gulliver, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, 20, 29, 55, 116,
134, 152, 153, 180, 238, 284, 336,
337, 384, 427, 430, 437, 441, 447,462,
464, 466, 481, 483, 486, 496, 507
Hall, . . 23, 162, 338, 485, 507
Hammond, 5, 9, 11, 15, 20, 28, 29, 57, 101,
135, 147, 148, 153, 161, 182, 196,
244, 251, 253, 254, 279, 301, 320,
337, 344, 361, 369, 384, 385, 387,
397, 405, 416, 483, 486, 491, 496,
499, 507
Hampden,  323
Hanbury, . . . .96, 97, 433
Hankinson, . . ... .58
Hannibal,  370
Harding, . . . 22,162,507
Harlow,  22, 507
Harris, 15, 21, 23, 79, 81, 133, 134, 161,
243, 430, 486, 507
Hart, ... 5, 15, 24, 408, 507
Harvard,  191
Haskell, .... 22, 29, 507
Haven, . 20, 161, 208, 253, 264, 507
Hawes, 5, 15, 21, 24, 133, 162, 243, 408,
446, 507
Haynes,  22, 507
Hazard, ... 24, 162, 507
Hazeltine, . . . .23, 507
Hazen,  23, 507
Healey, . . . .25, 162, 507
Hemingway, .... 20, 507
Hetherington,  40
Hewins, .... 20, 507
Hicks,  22, 515
Higginson,  viii
Hill, . 10, 11, 14, 18, 25, 496, 507
Hinsdale, .... 22, 507
Hitchcock, . . . .22, 507
Hoadley, .... 24,507
Hobart, . . 5,15,23,162,408,507
Holbrook, 23, 71, 292, 320, 384, 406, 408,
409, 414, 466, 485, 507
Holmes, 9, 10, 23, 25, 28, 29, 133, 161,
162, 222, 243, 253, 408, 464, 466,
491, 507
Holton, 25, 134, 239, 243, 277, 385, 485, 507
Hook, •  239
Hooker, . . . vii., 178, 446

PAGE
Hopkins, 23, 161, 196, 208, 239, 343,
352, 354, 486, 507
Howe, .... 22, 380, 515
Howell,  61, 279
Hoyt, 5, 15, 22, 53, 134, 430, 486, 507
Hubbard, . . 20, 22, 293, 507, 508
Hughes,  61
Hulburd,  23, 508
Hunt,  5, 6
Hurd, 5, 11, 15, 22, 29, 420, 495, 508
Hutchinson, .... vii., 26
Hyde, . . 20, 24, 28, 486, 508

Ide,Ives,

. 22, 253, 508
4, 7, 15, 21, 508

James, ... 22, 24, 61, 508
James (King), . . . .440
Jenkins, . . 20, 208, 427, 468, 508
Jenney, . . . .20, 208, 508
Jennings, . . .24, 208, 264, 508
Jessup,  22, 508
Johnson, 21, 23, 55, 86, 89, 133, 162,
208, 241, 243, 254, 264, 266, 282, 508

Jones, . 20, 22

, 25, 58, 61, 62, 321, 508

Judson, .

. 25, 508

Kedzie,

22, 162, 208, 306, 508

Keeler,

. 21, 23, 408, 508

Kelsey, .

. 24, 162, 508
Kendall,
.
. 312
Keyes,
. 24, 508
Kimball,
22, 508
Kinsman,
. 23, 508
Kirk, 10, 18
22, 30, 71, 101, 134, 181, 193,
234,
244,
245, 264, 293, 336, 338,
358,
390,
397, 405, 419, 447, 493, 508
Kittredge,
. 24, 508
Knapp,
.
24, 508
Knight,
.
. 20, 387, 508
Knox, .
.
45
Kost,
. 387
Labaree,
. 24, 28, 71, 486, 508
Laboulaye
.
. 89, 90, 92, 93
Lafayette,
.
188, 322, 379
Lambert,
. 4, 5, 6, 10, 11
Lane,
Langel, .
. 20,22,508 . 91
INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS.

527

langworthy, iii., iv, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 15, 18,
22, 28, 54, 55, 71, 82, 133, 161,
, 181, 182, 196, 208, 222, 239, 245,
253, 313, 408, 409, 413, 426, 464,
485, 493, 508
Lanphear, . . . 20, 427, 509
Lawrence, 10, 20, 98, 161, 347, 353, 357,
461, 509
Learned, . . .20, 29, 162, 509
Leavitt, 23, 134, 354, 358, 427, 430, 437,
439, 442, 454, 474, 492, 495, 496, 509
Lee,  317,377
Lewis, 20, 23, 134, 239, 243, 387, 509
Liggett, . . . 21, 134, 430, 509
Lincoln, 63, 85, 86, 88, 91, 92, 187, 238,
241, 243, 266, 317, 329, 380, 383,
388, 485
Lindsey, . . . . . 377
Linsley, . . 20, 239, 244, 412, 509
Llewelyn,  61
Lord, . . . . 21, 22, 408, 509
Love, . 5, 15, 25, 71, 208, 464, 509
Loyola, . . . 169
Ludlow,  5, 6
Lyman,  25, 321
Madoc,  323
Maltby, . . . .22, 409, 509
Marryat,  344
Marvin, 10, 18, 22, 23, 71, 149, 196, 244,
274, 395, 405, 425, .427, 467, 509
Mary (Queen), . . . .67
Mason, . 20, 23, 245, 343, 408, 509
Massie, 25, 65, 75, 85, 87, 161, 244, 316,
321, 376
Mather, . . ix., x., 96, 427, 458
Matthews, . . . . .61
Maximilian, . . . • . 90
May, . . .21, 133, 243, 509
McAll,  58
McCollom, .... 22, 509
McKay, .... 22, 509
McKeen, . . .24, 208, 509
McLeod, ...... 312
Means,  116
Melvin, . . . .23, 408, 509
Merrill,  20, 23, 509
Merriman, ... 25, 509
Metcalf,  389
20, 22, 54, 71, 185, 193, 509

Mill,  323
Miller, . . .20, 184, 189, 509
Milliken, .... 23, 509
Mills, .... 22, 425, 509
Milton, . . . .67, 70, 325
Miner, . . 25, 239, 408, 412, 509
Mitchell,  ix.
Monod, 25, 60, 67, 76, 78, 83, 89, 184,
379, 321
Monroe, . . .24, 184, 509
Montandon,  89
Morgan, Morgans,  61
Morris, . . 22, 133, 243, 509
Morse, .... 184, 354
Murdock, . . . . 20, 510
Myers,  22, 510
Myrick,  22, 510
Napoleon, 324, 327, 336, 377, 469, 472
Nash,  22, 510
Nason,  23, 510
Nelson,  271
Newcomb, . . . 20, 22, 510
Newell,  21, 510
Newton,  475
Noyes, xi. 5, 9, 10, 21, 23, 25, 28, 134,
222, 408, 510
Nutting, . . . . 20, 510
Nye,  371
Oakes,  x.
Oliver,  61
Osborn, .... 23, 510
Otis,  27
Oviatt, .... 20, 409, 510
Owen,  353, 371
Packard, . . .22, 23. 208, 510
Page, . . .4, 15, 21, 253, 510
Paine,  20, 22, 510
Painter,  24, 510
Palfrey,  458
Palmer, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 15, 18, 23, 24,
25, 28, 162, 180, 196, 231, 285,
404, 474, 510
Parish, . . 24, 28, 162, 262, 510
Park, 22, 134, 161, 357, 371, 430, 444,
463, 464, 484, 485, 486, 510
Parker, 4, 10, 15, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 71,
162, 208, 231, 233, 239, 262,
408, 412, 510

528

INDEX OF NAMES OF TEESONS.

PAGE
Parsons,  23,510
Partridge,  20,510
Patchin, . . . 22,486,510
Patterson, .... 20, 486, 510
Patton, 20, 29, 52, 57, 64, 65, 79, 80,
81, 100, 149, 151, 153, 248,
257, 275, 296, 300, 319, 355,
385, 439, 444, 456, 460, 511
Pendleton, . . . . 23, 511
Peregrine, . . . . 24, 511
Perkins, . 22,. 24, 148, 408, 446, 511
Perry,  22, 511
Peters,  5, 6
Pettengill, . . .20, 71, 511
Pettibone, ... 25, 208, 511
Pidduck,  58
Pike, . . . • , 22, 268, 511
Pilatte,  239
Pius the Ninth, . . . .189
Pollard,  22, 51 1
Pomeroy, 20, 21, 28, 134, 181, 243, 244,
269, 511
Porter, xiv., 20, 21, 28, 161, 174, 352,
363,403, 511
Post, 10, 23, 99, 133, 181, 240, 243, 244,
250, 259, 289,305, 380, 486, 511
Pratt, . 20, 22, 25, 239, 277, 387, 511
Pressense", . . . . 67, 93
Preston,  20, 71,511
Price,  61,305
Pritchard, ..... 61
Punchard, .... 457, 458
Putnam, 5, 9, 15, 24, 29, 71, 161, 181,*
253, 511
Quint, iii., iv., 7, 10, 15, 22, 29, 71, 78,
80, 81, 104, 116, 117, 129, 134,
148, 149, 150, 151, 181, 237, 245,
246, 248, 251, 253, 258, 302, 326,
358, 361, 375, 384, 385, 397, 400,
405, 408, 430, 439, 447, 448, 457,
461, 466, 475, 482, 486, 493, 495,
497, 511
Raleigh, 25, 57, 59, 66, 71, 75, 76, 244,
321, 335, 374, 375, 377
Ramsdell, . . . . 23, 511
Read, Reed, 21,22,162,385,408,511
Rees,  61, 64
Richards, . . 21,23,61,408,511
Robbins, . . 21, 22, 134, 243, 511

PAGE
Roberts,  61
Robinson, 20, 22, 24, 35, 45, 178, 222,
374,383,486,497,511
Root, . . . '&%¦ 24, 511
Rouse, . . . -4* . 23, 512
Rowlands,  61
Roy, . . .25, 79, 80, 197, 512
Runnells, .... 23, 512
Russell, . 21, 22, 91, 253, 393, 512
Ruston, ...... 389
Sabin, .... 22, 512
Safford, ... 24, 490, 512
Salter, 21, 23, 28, 134, 239, 277, 387, 430,
486, 512
Savage, vii., .4, 15, 20, 23, 134, 243, 337,
397, 417, 485, 511
Sawyer, ... 21, 440, 512

Scarboro, .

20,
512
387
Scudder, .
22
239
387,
408,
512
Seccombe,
23,
134
.243,
408,
512
Segur,
.
24,
512
Selden, .
.
.
24,
512
Sewall,
. 22, 27,
512
Shaftesbury,
.
.
.
323
Shaw,
389
Shedd, .
. .
23,
486,
512
Shelton,
20
278,
408,
512
Shepard, 9,
25,
154
161
178,
386,
512
Shepley,
.
.
21,
512
Sherman, .
• i-.
311,
328
Sherrill,
.
25,
321
Sherwin,
,
25,
512
Sleeper,
21,
512
Sloan, .
.
.
21,
512
Smiley,
.
.24,
512
Smith, 20, 22,
24,
55,59,82,253,323,512
Snow, .
.
23,
512
Soule,
.20,
512
Spaulding,
.
.
25,
512
Spooner, .
.
. 22
512
Spurgeon,
303
Stackpole,
21
208,
481,
485,
512
Stacy,
21,
513
Standish, .
.
381
St. Clair,
.
22,
513
Stearns, 22,
23,
239,
385,
400,
410, 473,
414, 513
Stephens, Stevens
.
5,
15, 20, 62,
513
INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS.

529

PAGE
Stimson, Stinson, . 4, 15, 20, 513
Stockbridge,  486
Stoddard, 10, 18, 22, 27, 71, 153, 181,
1JM|53, 363, 397, 496, 513
Stone, iii., 10flw, 25, 28, 82, 153, 162,
^^ 262, 366, 404, 513
Storrs, . 10, 15, 102, 430, 448, 486
Streeter,  5, 15
Strieby, . . . . 5
Stringham, . . . . 54, 195
Strong, . . . .23, 446, 513
Stuart,  354
Sturtevant, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, 20, 23,
29, 31, 55, 65, 134, 147, 162, 196,
238, 245, 249, 250, 255, 264, 267,
271, 292, 326, 354, 397, 408, 485,
486, 513
Sumner,  234
Sunderland, . . . . 85, 87
Swain, . 24, 134, 409, 486, 492, 513
Swan,  21, 513
Sweetser, 22, 239, 447, 467, 471, 474,
475, 513
Sykes, .... 24, 513

Taft, .
Taintor,Talbot, .
Talcott,Tarbox, .
Tarr,

22, 513
. 20, 513
21, 515
. 20, 313 5
. 23, 513

Taylor, 20, 21, 22, 24, 134, 151, 208,
477, 479, 485, 513
Tenney,  21, 513
Thatcher,  27
Thomas, 21, 25, 61, 62, 94, 208, 321, 513
Thome, 5, 15, 24, 133, 243, 244, 287,
292, 477, 513
Thompson, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 15, 23, 28,
29, 54, 60, 82, 94, 95, 98, 151, 161,
182, 183, 194, 196, 231, 251, 253,
257, 328, 347, 370, 387, 388, 409,
415, 447, 486, 499, 513
Thurston, . 22, 208, 481, 482, 513
Titcomb  21, 513
Tobey, iii., iv., 10, 18, 23, 25, 365, 368,
408, 513
Todd, 21, 22, 82, 116, 150, 184, 189, 190,
196, 252, 275, 296, 298, 514
Toombs,  193
Toothaker  21, 514
34

_, PAGE
Torrey,  24, 514
Tipper,  20, 514
Turner, xii., 5, 15, 21, 71, 208, 272, 280,
292, 493, 514
Twining, . . 19, 162, 299, 514
Tyler, . . . .24, 408, 514

Upham,

457, 458

Vallette, .... .89
Vaughan, 25, 30, 31, 57, 59, 66, 71, 73,
93, 94, 321, 329, 335, 372, 378, 422
Vaurigaud,  89
Victoria (Queen), ... 63
Vinet,  67, 93
Walker, 21, 22, 24, 117, 134, 147, 296,
326, 338, 514
Wallace, . . . . 23, 514
Warner, . . . .23, 24, 514
Warren, . 22, 27, 54, 193, 195, 514
Washington, . . . 322, 379
Watkins, ... 24, 61, 514
Watson, . . 21, 208, 408, 514
Webb, 22, 208, 300, 466, 482, 483, 485, 514
Webster, . 20, 133, 188, 243, 514
Weld,  viii.
Wellman, 5, 10, 15, 18, 22, 23, 115, 417,
497, 514
Wells,  305
Wesley,  37, 40
Wheeler, . . 20, 133, 243, 514
Wheelock,  24, 514
Wheelwright, .... vii.
Whipple,  5
White,  20, 514
Whitefield, . . . .27, 303
Whitmore, . . . . 22, 514
Whittington, .... 61
Whittlesey, . . .20, 29, 150, 514
Wickes, . . .24, 208, 408, 514
Wilder .... 23, 208, 514
Wilkes,  76, 321
Willard, . . 20, 22, 27, 408, 514
Willcox,  22, 514
Willey, .... 21, 514
WilUams, 20, 23, 24, 61, 239, 2,53, 258,
387, 481, 485, 514, 515
Williston, . 22, 161, 253, 262, 515
Wilson, . . .22, 59, 381, 515

530

INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS.

PAGE
Winslow, ... 23, 24, 515
Winthrop, vii., viii., 54, 186, 193, 381
Wolcott, 24, 29, 71, 99, 100, 101, 181,
196, 208, 233, 238, 249, 250, 258,
298, 347, 358, 384, 387, 394, 420,
474, 475, 477, 481, 482, 515
Wood, .... 22, 23, 321, 515
Woodford, . . . . 20, 515
Woodruff, ... 23, 85, 515

PAGE
Woods, . . .21, 354, 445, 515
Woolsey  343
Worcester,  354
Wright, 20, 22, 24^), 253, 393, 515

Xavier,Young,

24^^,

. 169
162, 312, 515

The following official record is published in this form, in compliance with a vote
of the Council. It was supposed that some would prefer the official record alone, and
would Send orders accordingly. The full phonographic report of proceedings and de
bates will be soon issued in >¦ volume of four hundred to five hundred pages.

July 14, 1865.

PROPRLETORS OF THE CONGREGATIONAL QUARTERLY,
23 Chauncy Street, Boston, Mass.

OFFICIAL RECOED
OF THE
NATIONAL COUNCIL
At Boston, June, A. D. 1865.

First Day; Wednesday, June 14, 3, P. M.
The National Congregational Council, convoked by delegation from the
Congregational churches of the United States, in response to letters-missive agreed
upon in a consultation of committees at the chapel of the Broadway Tabernacle, in
the city of New York, on the seventeenth day of November, A. D. 1864, assembled
in the Old South Meeting-house, in the city of Boston, Mass., on Wednesday, 14th
June, 1865, at 3 o'clock, p. m., and was called to order by Rev. Andrew L. Stone,
D. D., chairman of the local committee of arrangements, in a brief welcoming
It was composed of delegates from the churches as follows ; viz.,

CALIFORNIA.
Jacob Bacon, Sau Francisco.
Rev. Milton Badger, D. D., [of New York, repre-
Luther P. Fisher, Oakland, [sen t'g Cal.]
Rev. Kinsley Twining, San Francisco.
COLORADO TERRITORY.
Rev. Wm. Crawford, Central City.
Samuel Cushman, Jr., " "
CONNECTICUT.
Dea. Charles Adams, Litchfield.
Rev. Walter 3. Alexander, Pomfret.
Rev. Hiram P. Arms, D. D., Norwich Town.
Rev. Frederick D. Avery, Columbia.
Albert Austin, Suffield.
Rev. Enoch F. Burr, Lyme.
Rev. Leonard Bacon, D. D., New Haven.
Hon. Walter Booth, Meriden.
ReY. Davis S. Brainerd, Old Lyme.
Dea. Philander Button, Greenwich.
Hon. John Boyd, Winsted.
His Ex'y, Gov. Wm. A. Buckingham, Norwich.
Rev. Amos S. Chesebrough, Glastenbury,
Rev. Louis E. Charpiot, Stratford.
Eev. Malcolm M. G. Dana, Norwich.
Rev. Sam'l W. S. Dutton, D. D., New Haven.

Rev. Andrew C. Denison,
Hon. Benjamin Douglass,
Rev. Oliver S. Dean,
Rev.Wm.T. Eustis, Jr.,
Rev. Joseph Eldridge, D. D.,
Rev. John Edgar,
Rev. Thomas P. Field, D. D.,
Rev. Edwin R. Gilbert,
Rev. John P. Gulliver,
Rev. Leverett Griggs,

Portland.
Middletown.
Boxbury. New Haven.
Norfolk.
Falls Village.
New London.
Wallingford. Norwich.
Bristol.

Dea. Willis Hemingway, Jr.,
Hon. Henry P. Haven,
Rev. Jonathan L. Jenkins,
Henry M. Knight, M. D.,
Bev. Robert C. Learned,
Rev. Joel H. Linsley, D. D.,
Rev. Orpheus T. Lanphear,
Prof. Edw'd A. Lawrence, D. D.
Hon. Samuel Miller,
Rev. David Murdock,
Rev. George B. Newcomb,
Rev. George A. Oviatt,
Rev. Levi L. Paine,
E. Beecher Preston,
Prof. Noah Porter, Jr., D. D.,
Dea. Selden M. Pratt,
Daniel C. Robinson, Esq.,
Dea. George W. Shelton,
Dea. John Stevens,
R. D. Smith,
Rev. George Soule.
Hon. H. G. Taintor,
Dea. Chester Talcott,
Rev. Jeremiah .Taylor, D. D.,
Dudley R. Wheeler,
Rev. Francis Williams,
Rev. Samuel G. Willard,
Rev. Elisha Whittlesey,
Dea. J. B. Woodford,

Fair Haven.
New London.
Hartford.Lakeville. Plymouth. Greenwich.
New Haven.
, East Windsor Hill.
New Haven.
New Milford.
Bloomfield. Somers.
Farmington. Rockville.
New Haven.
Center Brook.
Brooklyn.
Birmingham.Cromwell. Guilford.Hampton. North Coventry.
Middletown.North Stonington.
Chaplin. Willimantic.
Waterbury.Windsor.

DELAWARE.
Dea. Abner H. Bryant, Canterbury.
ILLINOIS.
Marshall Ayres, * . Griggsvllle.

Rev. Elavel Bascom,
Rev. Edward Beecher, D.

D.,

Princeton.Galesburg.

National Council.

Rev. Frederick W. Beecher,
Prof. Samuel C. Bartlett, D. D ,
Dea. Philo Carpenter,
Kev. William Carter,
Kev. N. Catlin Clark,
Rev. Andrew J. Drake,
" Richard C. Dunn,
" Henry M. Daniels,
" Samuel Hopkins Emery,
" Henry M. Goodwin,
Hon. Chas, G. Hammond,
Prof. Joseph Haven, D. D.,
L. T. Hewins, M. D.,
Rev. George B. Hubbard,
" EHsha .Tenney,
" Edwin N. Lewis,
Dea. Nelson Mason,
Rev. Milo N. Miles,
" Lucius H. Parker,
" William W. Patton, D.D.,
Rev. George C. Partridge,
Dea. Moses Pettengill,
Rev. Samuel F. Porter,
( ' Lemuel Pomeroy ,
" - George S. F. Savage,
Joel K. Scarboro,
Dea. Brainerd Smith,
Pres. Julian M. Sturtevant, D.
Rev. Lathrop Taylor,
" Samuel G. Wright,
Martin Wright,
Rev. Martin K. Whittlesey,
Prof. John C. Webster,
Rev. John W. White,
" Henry M. Tupper,

Kankakee. Chicago. it
Pittsfield. Ringwood.
Atlanta.Toulon.
Winnebago. Quincy.Rockford.Chicago.
Loda. J
Aurora.
Galesburg. Ottawa.
Sterling. Geneseo.Galesburg.Chicago.Batavia.Peoria.Malta. Wethersfleld.
Chicago.Pay son.
Normal.
D., Jacksonville.
Farmington.Dover. .
Lee Center.
Ottawa. Wheaton.Morrison.Waverly.

INDIANA.

Rev. Nathaniel A. Hyde,
" John Li Jenkins,
Dea. A. G. Willardj

Indianapolis. Kokomo.
Indianapolis.

IOWA.
Rev. Harvey Adams, .
Caleb B. Atkins,
Rev. George1 Bent,
" Henry L.Bullen,
Rev. Cornelius S. Cady,
Rev. Joshua M. Chamberlain,
" Samuel D. Cochran,
" Wm. L. Coleman,
Dea. John G. Foote,
Rev. Minot W. Fairfield,
" Charles H. Gates,
" James B. Gilbert,
" Jesse Guernsey,
" Lemuel Jones, ,
" Daniel Lane,
u Orville W. Merrill,
" John K. Nutting,
Dea. John Porter,
Richard J. Patterson, M. D.,..
Rev. Giles M Porter,
" Julius A. Reed,
" Aldin B. Robbins,
" Isaac Russell,

Farmington.
Glenwood. Burr Oak.
Durant. Maquoketa. Des Moines.
Grinn ell.
Mitchell.Burlington.
Lyons. Oscaloosa. Lansing.
Dubuqile. Bellevue. Eddyville.
Anamosa, Bradford.
¦Cedar Falls.
Mount Pleasant.
Garnavillo.
Davenport.Muscatine.Bowen's Prairie.

Seth Richards,
Fitch B. Stacy,
Rev. William Salter; D
" Samuel P. Sloan,
" Thomas Tenney,
" Ghauncy Taylor,
i( Asa Turner,
" John Todd,
Alfred Woods,

BentonspQrt. Stacy ville.
D-, Burlington.McGregor.Plymouth.
Algona.Denmark. Tabor. Iowa Falls.

KANSAS.

Rev. Lewis Bodwell,
, Rev. Richard Cordley,
Wm. Crosby,
Rev. James D. Liggett,

Wyandotte. Lawrence.
Grasshopper Falls.
Leavenworth.

Hon. Samuel C. Pomeroy (XT. S. S.), Atchison.
William H. Watson, Leavenworth.
MAINE.
Rev. Geo. E. Adams, D. D.,
" Uriah Balkam,
Josiah Brown,
Rev. Smith Baker, Jr.,
Dea. Jacob Blanchard,
Rev. Joseph Bartlett,
Rev. Elbridge G. Carpenter,
" Edward F. Cutter,
Rev. Beuj. C. Chase,
Rev. Temple Cutler,
" Albert Cole,
" Elnathan F. Daren,
" John Dinsmore,
" Franklin E. Fellows,
11 John 0. Fiske,
Hon. Robert Goodenow,
Prof. Sansl. Harris, D. D.,
Rev. Josiah T> Hawes,
Rev. Alfred E. Ives,
Rev. Seth H. Keeler, D. D. ,
Charles A. Lord,
Hon. Seth May,
Dea. Simon Page,
Rev. Wooster Parker,
" William T. Sleeper,
Charles A. Stackpole,
Francis K. Swan,
Rev. David Shepley,
" Rufus M. Sawyer,
Nathaniel T. Talbot,
Joseph J. Taylor,
Hon. William W. Thomas,
Rev. Horace Toothaker,
" Sewall Tenney, D. D ,-
Dea. Joseph Tit comb.
Rev. Geo. Leon Walker,
" Benj. G. Willey,

Brunswick. ,
Lewiston.Bethel.
Veazie. Blanchard. Buxton.
Houlton.Rockland.Foxcroft. Skowhegan. Cornish.
Bangor. Winslow.Kennebunk.
Bath. Farmington. Bangor.Bridgeton Center.,
Castine.
Calais.Portland.Auburn.Hallowell. Belfast.
Patten. Gorham.
Calais. Yarmouth.
York.Rockport.Damariscotta. Portland.
New Sharon.
Ellsworth. Kennebunk.Portland.East Sumner.

MARYLAND.
Rev. Edwin Johnson, Baltimore.
Nathaniel Noyes, "
MASSACHUSETTS.
Rev. Rufus Anderson, D. D., Boston.
Rev. George Allen, Worcester.
Rev. Ebenezer Alden, Jr., Marshfield.
J. S. Andrews, M. D., Ashby.
Dea. Horace Armsby, Millbury.

National Council.

Rev. Rowland Ayres,
Bev. George N-. Anthony,
Ebenezer Alden, M. D.,
Dea, George W. Bigelow,
Kev. Samuel G. Buckingham,
Kev. Amos Blanchard, D. D.,
Dea. Wm. S. Bradbury,
Rev. William .Barrows,
Rev. Thomas C. Biscoe,
Rev. William M.: Barber,
Rev. James M, Bacon,
Hon. Linus Child,
Bon. H. H. Childs,
Rev. Robert iCrawford, D. D.,
Rev. Christopher Gushing,
Dea. John Clary,
Timothy W.. Carter,
Dea. Walter Crocker,
Wm. C. Chapin,
Rev. Emerson Davis, D. D. ,
Rev. John Dodge,. ,
Rev. Edmund Dowse,
Rev. Henry M. Dexter,
Rev. J. Jay Dana,
Joseph A. Denny,
Hon. AUen W. Dodge,
Dea. Nathaniel Eddy,
Rev. Joshua Emery,
Rev. Zachary Eddy, D. D.,
Rev. Nathaniel H. Eggleston,
Constantine C. Esty,
Rev. Alfred Emerson,
Allen Folger,
Dea. J. A. Fitch,
Jonathan French,
Dea. Phinehas Field,
Dea. Jabez R. Gott,
Timothy Gordon, M. D.,
Rev. NahumGale, D. D.,
Dea. Henry Haynes,
Rev. John W. Harding,
Jacob Haskell,
Dea. Wm. J. Hinsdale,
Dea, Geo. W. Hubbard,
J. H. Harlow,
Moses Flow,
Rev. Jacob Ide, D. D.,
Charles A. Jessup,
Dea. Galen James,
Rev. James P. Kimball,
Rev. Edward N. Kirk, D. D.,
Dea. S. M. Lane,
Rev. Isaac- P. Langworthy,
Kev. Charles Lord,
Rev. Erasfeus Maltby,
Rev. Elihu P. Marvin,
Rev. James T. McOollom,
Rev. Abijah P. Marvin,
Rev. James B. Miles,
Hon. Henry Morris,
Rev. Osborne Myrick,
Dea. Lorenzo S. Nash,
Prof. Edwards A. Park, D. D
Rev. William P. Paine, D. D
Zebulon Pratt,

Hadley.Marlboro1.. -
Randolph. Framingham.
Springfield. Lowell.
.Westminster.

Graf tori.
South Danvers.
Essex.
Boston. Pittsfield.
Deerfield. North Brookfield.
Conway..Chicopee.
Barnstable. Lawrence.
Westfield. ¦¦
Harvard. . -
Sherborn. Boston. ,
Cnmmington. - .
Leicester. Hamilton.
East Middleboro1.
Weymouth*. Northampton.Stockbridge.
Framingham. Fitchburg. Gardner.
Hopkinton.Braintree.East Charlemont.
Rockport. Plymouth*
Lee. Sturbridge.
Longmeadow.
Fitchburg. Stanford. Hatfield.
Wareham.
Haverhill. West Medway.
Westfield.
Medford.
Falmouth. Boston. South bridge.
Chelsea.
Buckland.Taunton.
Medford. Bradford. Winchendon.Charlestown.
Springfield.
Provincetown. Granby.
,, Andover. Holden. North Middleboro1.

Rev. John Pike,
Rev. Theopbilus Packard,
Rev. Ariel E. P. Perkins,
Rev. Ralph Perry,
Rev. Alonzo H. Quint,
Dea. Edgar H. Reed,
Dea. Josiah Reed,
N. C. Robbins,
Rev. Ezekiel Russell, D. D.,
Rev. Reuben T. Robinson,.;
Marshall S. Scudder,
Dea. John Smith,
Pres. Wm. A. Stearns, D. D.,
Rev. Lewis Sabin, D. D.,
Dea. Charles Stoddard,
Rev. Seth Sweetser, D. D.,
Rev. John S. Sewall,
BJv. Eli Thurston,
Dea. Wm. Thurston,
Henry W. Tuft,
Dea. A. D. Whitmore,
Rev. >J#lliam H. WiUcox,
Rev. John Willard,
Rev. Joshua W. Wellman,
Rev. Thomas Wilson,
Rev. Edwin B. Webb,
Hon. Samuel Williston,
Dea. Luther Wright,
Bartholomew Wood,

Rowley.
Sunderland. Ware.Agawam .
New Bedford.
Taunton.
South Weymouth.
Salem.
East Randolph.
Winchester.Grantville. Andover.
Amherst.Templeton.Boston.Worcester. Wenham.
Fall River.
Newburyport. Lenox.

Reading. Fairhaven.Newton.
Stoughton. Boston.
Easthampton. Easthampton. Milford.

MICHIGAN.

Rev. Joshua W. Allen,
" Henry Bates,
Dea. Sherman S. Barnard,
Rev. Geo. H. Coffey,
Hon. Wm. I. Cornwell,
Hon. J. Webster Childs,
Dea. Samuel F. Drury,
Rev. Hiram Elmer,
Dea. Allen Fish,
Rev. Philo R. Hurd,
l\ James S. Hoyt,
Homer Hitchcock, M. D.,
Rev. Thomas Jones,
" Adam S. Kedzie,
" Henry Mills,
'" John C. Myers,
¦( James A. McKay,
George K. Newcombe, Esq.,
Rev. John Patchin,
Rev. Herbert A. Read,
" Charles Spooner,
Rev. Alauson St. Clair,
" James F. Taylor,
Hon. James B. Walker, D. D.,
Rev. Le Roy Warren,

Franklin.
Grass Lake.
Detroit.Jackson.
Newaygo. [P.O.)
Augusta {Paint Creek
Olivet. Clinton.
Port Huron
Romeo. Port Huron.
Kalamazoo.
Olivet. Somerset.
Kalamazoo. Saugatuck.
Lament. East Saginaw.
Owasso. Marshall. Greenville.
Croton. Chelsea.
Benzonia. Elk Rapids.,

MINNESOTA.
Rev. Edward Brown, Zumbrota.

¦' David Burt,
" Richard Hall, .
" Abel K. Packard,
Dea. Oliver Pendleton,
Rev. Charles Seccombe,
« Charles C. Salter,

Winona. .
St. Paul.
Anoka. Wabashaw. St. Anthony.
Minneapolis.

National Council.

Rev. Charles Shedd,
" James W. Strong,
" E. S. Williams,

Wasioja.
Fairibault. Northfield.

MISSOURI.
Warren Currier, Esq., St. Louis.
Rev. Truman M. Post, D. D., "
" Julian M. Sturtevant, Jr., Hannibal.

NEBRASKA.

Rev. Reuben Gaylord,
" Elisha M. Lewis,

Omaha City.
Nebraska City.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Rev. Geo. M. Adams,
Rev. Zedekiah S. Barstow, D.D,
Dea. Orin Bugbee,
Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, D.D.,
Dea. Sampson W. Buffum,
Stephen Brown,
Rev. Erastus B. Claggett,
" Edward W. Clark,
Dea. Horace Childs,
Rev. Josiah G Davis,
Dea. Archibald H. Dunlap,
" Andrew A. Farnsworth,
Hon. Asa Freeman,
Rev. Wm. L. Gaylord,
" Henry A. Hazen,
Hon. Milan Harris,
Hon. Thomas J. Melvin,
Rev. C. E. Milliken,
Dea. Abel K. Merrill,
Prof. Daniel J. Noyes, D. D.
Rev. Ebenezer G. Parsons,
" Henry E. Parker,
Dea. Daniel H. Parker,
William Ramsdell,
Rev. Moses T. Runnells,
Rev. Wm. T. Savage,
" Benj. P. Stone, D.D.,
" Josiah H. Stearns,
" Alvan Tobey,
t( Cyrus W. Wallace,
Albert E. Wellman,
Rev. Horace Wood,
" John K. Young, D.D,,

Portsmouth.
, Keene.Lake Village.
Concord.
Winchester. Kensington. Lyndeboro'. ^
Claremont.
Henniker. Amherst.
Nashua. Peterboro'.
Dover. Fitz william.
Plymouth.
Harris ville.
Chester.
Littleton. Haverhill.
Hanover.Derry.Concord.
Dunbarton. Milford.Orford.
Franklin. Concord.
Epping.
Durham. Manchester. Cornish.
Ossipee Corner.
Laconia.

NEW JERSEY.

Rev. John M. Holmes,
Lowell Mason, Jr.,

Jersey City.
Orange.

NEW YORK.

Rev. Wm. I. Budington, D.D.,
" Henry Ward Beecher,
Henry C. Bowen, Esq.,
Rev. John Bradshaw,
" Stephen A. Barnard,
u Jeremiah Butler,
Dea. Edson Boyd, M.D.,
" Albert G. Bristol, M.D.,
" E. D. Chapman,
Dea. Wm. H. Childs,
Rev. Edward Davies,

Brooklyn.

Crown Point.
Willaborough. Fairport.
Ashville.
Rochester. Sine] ear ville.
Niagara City.
Waterville.

Rev. Oliver E. Daggett, D.D.,
Dea. Lorenzo D. Dana,
Rev. Morgan L. Eastman,
" George R. Entler,
" Griffith Griffiths,
" Henry M. Hazeltine,
" L. Smith Hobart,
" John C. Holbrook, D.D.,
Charles Hopkins,
Dea. Hiram Hurlburd,
Rev. Samuel Johnson,
Rev. Seneca M. Keeler,
John M. Kinsman,
Rev- Joshua Leavitt, D.D.,
Dea. Thomas Marvin,
Bev. John H. Nason,
Rev. Richard Osborn,
Rev. Ray Palmer, D.D.,
Rev. Thomas H. Rouse,
" Samuel T. Richards,
Rev. Aaron Snow,

Canandaigua.
Morrisville. Lisbon. Meredith.
Utica. Sherman.Syracuse.Homer.Norwich.Stockholm.Chenango Falls.
Guilford Center.
North Potsdam
New York.
Walton.
Smyrna. Champion.
Albany.Jamestown. Spencerport.Mt. Sinai.

Rev. Joseph P. Thompson, D.D., New York.

Daniel S. Tarr,
Rev. Edwin E. Williams,
u Moses H. Wilder,
" Warren W. Warner,
David S. Williams,
Hon. Arden Woodruff,
Rev. Horace Winslow,

Gloversville.Warsaw. Gaines.
Lawrence ville.
Flushing.Strykersville. Binghampton.

OHIO.
Rev. Alex. Bartlett,
" Henry S. Bennett,
Rev. Loren W. Brintnall,
Dea. Asa Cady,
Dea. Charles Clark,
Rev. T. W. Davies,
" George Darling,
Prof. James H. Fairchild, D.D.
Rev. He man Geer,
Dea. A. Griswold,
Rev. John C. Hart,
Rev. Lysander Kelsey,
Andrew J. Knapp,
Rev. T. E. Monroe,
Hon. Francis D. Parrish,
Chas. W. Palmer, Esq.,
Dea. T. W. Painter,
Hon. Douglas Putnam,
Rev. Edward W. Root,
Rev. John Safford,
" S. Willard Segur,
" CharleB W. Torrey,
Rev. James A. Thome,
Hon. Lester Taylor,
Rev. Wm . Watkins,
" Samuel Wolcott, D D.,
¦ lv Thomas Wickes,
Dea. Wm. W.Wright,
J. P. Walker. M.D.,
E. S. Warner,

Conneaut.Wakeman.Mallet Creek,
Collamer. Cuyahoga Falls.
Youngs town.
Hudson.
, OberUn.
Linden ville. .

Kent.
Columbus.
Wauseon. Mt. Vernon.
Sandusky. Cleveland.
Weymouth. Harmar.
Springfield.
Bellevue. Tallmadge.Madison. Cleveland.
Claridon.
Newburgh. Cleveland. Marietta.
Oberlin. Cincinnati.

OREGON.

Rev. Geo. H. Atkinson,

Portland.

National Council.

PENNSYLVANIA.

Rev. Davis R. Barker,
Geo. B. Delamater, Esq.,
Rev. Edward Hawes,
" Philip Perigrine,
'" tfeo. W. Smiley, D.D.,

Gray's Mills.
Mead ville.
Philadelphia. Blossburg.
Philadelphia.

" Roderick R. WilUams, Pittsburg,
RHODE ISLAND.
Rev. Constantine Blodgett, D.D., Pawtucket.
Hon. Amos C. Barstow, Providence.
Rowland Hazard, Esq., Peace Dale.
Rev. Leonard Swain, D.D., Providence.
TENNESSEE.
Rev. Thomas E. Bliss, Memphis.
VERMONT,

Hon. James D. Bell,
Rev. Ezra H. Byington,
Rev Nelson Bishop,
Rev. Lewis 0. Brastow,
Rev. Calvin B. Cady,
Hon. Jacob Collamore,
Edward Conant,
George H. Crane,
Charles Carpenter,
Rev. Theodore M. Dwight,
Rev. James T. Ford,
Geo. F. French,
Rev. Clark E. Ferrin,
BeDJ. Fairchild, M. D.,
Rev. Henry M. Grout,
Hon. Ira Goodhue,
Rev. L. Ives Hoadley,
" Azariah Hyde,
Rev. Isaac Jennings,
Dea. Samuel James, Jr.,
Hon. Wm. C. Kittredge,
Dea. Freeman Keyes.
Rev. Benjamin Labaree, D.D.
Rev. Silas McKeen, D. D.,
Rev. Sidney K. B. Perkins,
" Charles C. Parker,
" Wm. Strattan Palmer,
Dea. Henry W. Robinson,
Dea. E. D. Selden,

Walden.Windsor. Windsor. t
St. Johnsbury.
Alburgh. Royalton.
.Randolph. Northfield.W. Charlestown.
Putney.Stowe.
Lunenburg. Hinesburgh.Milton.W. Rutland.
Westminster.
Craftsbury.
Pawlet. Bennington.
Weybridge.
Fairhaven. Newbury.
Middlebury. Bradford. Glover.Waterbury.
Wells River.
Johnson. Brandon.

His Ex'y Gov. James 0. Smith, St. Alban's.

Dea. Gilbert M. Sykes,
Rev. Geo. P. Tyler, D. D.,
" Charles C. Torrey,
Saml.D. Winslow,
Josiah B. Wheelock,

Dorset. Brattleboro1.
Chester.
Townshend. Coventry.
WISCONSIN.

Rev. Asa S. Allen,
" Charles Byington,
Dea. Orris K. Coe,
Rev. Isaac N. Cundall,
" Dexter Clary,
'¦ Joseph Collis,
Dea. Russell Cheney,

Black Earth.
Watertown.
Rosen dale.
Beloit. Delavan. Emerald Grove.

Rev. Solomon A. Dwlnnell, Reedsburg.
Timothy Dwight, Esq., Beloit.
Rev. Franklin B. Doe. Appleton.
Asahel Finch, Esq., Milwaukee.
Rev. Joseph W. Healey, "
Hon. Edward D. Holton, "
Dea. Guerdon Judson, Raymond.
W. Wallace Jones. "
Rev. David Jones, Arena.
" William De Loss Love, Milwaukee.
" William E. Merrimap, Ripon.
** Edward G. Miner, Whitewater.
" Henry A. Miner, Menasha.
" Philo C. Pettibone, Burlington.
*' Lucius Parker, Palmyra.
" John C. Sherwin, La Crosse.
HONORARY MEMBERS.
[The following is the list of honorary members, by
virtue of their connection with the PreUminary Com
mittee at New York, and the Business Committee at
Boston, with one or two exceptions. Many of the
members of these committees are not named here,
from the fact that they were delegates, and are on
the roll proper given above.]
Rev. Israel W. Andrews, D.D., Marietta, Ohio.
Rev. George W. Blagden, D.D., Boston.
J. Russell Bradford, Esq., Boston.
Hon. Samuel A. Chapin, Nevada.)
Prof. Geo. P. Fisher, New Haven. Ct.
Prof. Franklin W. Fisk, Chicago, 111.
Henry Hill, Esq., Boston.
Dea. Samuel Holmes, New York.
Rev. Daniel P. Noyes, Boston.
Dea. Julius A. Palmer, "
Rev. Joseph E. Roy, Chicago, 111.
Prof. George Shepard, D.D., Bangor, Me.
Rev. Andrew L. Stone, D.D., Boston.
Edward S. Tobey, Esq., "
DELEGATES FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
Cong. Union of England and Wales. — Rev. Rob*
ert Vaughan, D.D.; Rev. Alexander Raleigh, D.D. ;
Rev. James W. Massie, D.D., LL.D.
Glanmorganskire Assoc, Wales. — Rev. John
Thomas, C. R. Jones, Esq., J. Griffith, Esq.
North' Staffordshire Cong. Union. — Rev. S. R.
Asbury.
* Union of Evang. Church of France. — Rev. Theo.
Monod. Cong. Union of Canada, — Rev. Edward Ebbs,
Rev. Henry Wilkes, D.D. , Rev. John Wood, Rev. E.
J. Sherrill, Rev. A. Duff, Rev D. C. Frink, Theodore
Lyman, Esq.
Congregational Union of Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick. — W. H. Daniels, Esq.
Whole number of Delegates  .'493
Number of Honorary Members  14
Delegates from Foreign Countries  16
Total membership of Council  523

Charles Stoddard, Esq., of Massachusetts, was chosen temporary moderator.
' Prayer was offered by Rev. E. Beecher, D. D., of Illinois.
Rev. Henry M. Dexter, of Massachusetts, was chosen temporary scribe.

8 National Council.
On motion of Rev. I. P. Langworthy, of Massachusetts, it was
Voted, That the Moderator appoint a committee (to be composed of one member
from each State represented here) of nomination for permanent officers , of the
Council. The Moderator appointed that committee as follows : - ¦
Massachusetts — Hon. Linus Child ; Maine — Rev. George E. Adams, D. D. ; New
Hampshire — Rev. B. P. Stone, D. D. ; Vermont — Rev. B. Labaree, D. D. ; Rhode
Island — Hon. A. C. Barstow; Connecticut — Rev. S. W. S. Dutton, D. D. ; New
York — Rev. J. P. Thompson, D. D. ; New Jersey — Rev. J. M. Holmes ; Pennsylvania
— D. R. Barker, Esq.; Belaware — Abner H. Bryant, Esq.; Maryland' — Nathaniel
Noyes, Esq.;- Ohio — Judge F. D. Parish; Indiana — Rev. N. A. Hyde; Illinois —
Hon. C. G. Hammond; Michigan — Hon. ,W. I. Cornwell; Wisconsin — Timothy
Dwight, Esq. ; Iowa — Dea. John Porter ; Minnesota — Rev. C. C. Salter ; Missouri
— Warren Currier, Esq.; Nebraska — Rev. R. Gaylord; Kansas — Hon. S. C.
Pomeroy ; Colorado — Samuel Cushman, Jr., Esq. ; Oregon — Rev. G. H. Atkinson ;
Tennessee — Rev. T. E. Bliss ; California — Jacob Bacon, Esq.
On motion of Rev, J. M. Sturtevant, D. D., a committee of three was appointed
to report rules of order for the use of, the Council, and the following gentlemen
were chosen to constitute that committee ; viz., Rev. J. M.. Sturtevant, D. D.,of UL,
Rev. J. P. Gulliver of Conn., H. C. Bowen, Esq., of New York.
On motion of Rev. W. W. Patton, D. D., a committee of five was appointed to
receive the credentials of members, arid report who are entitled to membership in
this Council, consisting of Rev. W. W. Patton, D. D., of El., Jacob Haskell of Mass;,
Rev. E. Beecher, D. D., of 111., Dea. A. Fish of Mich., Dea. D. Putnam of Ohio.'
On request of this committee, it was subsequently enlarged by the addition of
Rev. R. C. Learned of Conn., and Rev. S. Wolcott, D. D., of Ohio.
The committee on a permanent organization reported as follows :
That the permanent officers of the Council consist of a moderator, two assistant
moderators, and five scribes ; and that those officers be the following ; viz.,
Moderator— His Excellency Gov. W. A. Buckingham of Conn.
Assistant Moderators — Hon. C. G. Hammond of El., Rev. Joseph P. Thompson
D. D., of New York.
Scribes — Rev. Henry M. Dexter of Mass., Dea. Samuel Holmes of New York,
Rev. Philo R. Hurd of Michigan, Rev. Alonzo H. Quint of Mass., Rev. E. P. Mar
vin of Mass.
Rev. Alonzo H. Quint of Mass. declined being a candidate for the position of
scribe, and Rev. M. K. Whittlesey of 111. .was nominated in his place.
It was Voted, To accept and adopt the report of the committee ; and the Council
was permanently organized by the choice of this moderator, assistants, and scribes.
Hon. Linus Child of Mass., and Rev. Dr. Dutton of Conn., conducted the
moderator to the chair, when he briefly addressed the Council.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Dutton of Conn., it was
Voted, That the opening sermon be delivered in the Mt. Vernon Church, in
Ashburton Place, to-morrow morning at 9 a. m.
On motion of the temporary scribe, it was
Voted, That, until otherwise ordered, the sessions of this Council be from 9 A, m.
to 1 p. m., and from 3 p. M. to 5 p. m.
On motion of Hon. Linus Child of Mass., it was
Voted, To adjourn to to-morrow morning, at 9 o'clock, to meet in the Mt. Vernon
Church, in Ashburton Place.
Adjourned.

National Council. 9
Second Day; Thursday, June 15, 9 A.M.
The Council assembled in the Mt. Vernon Church at 9 o'clock, a. m.
The sermon before the Council was preached by Rev. Julian M. Sturtevant,
D' D., of Illinois ; the preliminary exercises being conducted by Rev. Dr.
Vaughan of England, and the concluding prayer being made by Rev. Dr. Kirk of

SERMON.

Jeremiah vi. 16. Then saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where
is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.
It would perhaps not be difficult -to find circles of opinion; in which the selection of
such words as these for the theme of discourse would be thought to require an apology.
Indeed, judging from some of the givings-forth of the periodical press, I deem it not
improbable that there may be such a circle in this goodly city of Boston. There are, I
fear, not a few persons among us who, though by no means deficient in natural gifts or
generous culture, are-greatly wanting in reverence ; men who would regard the exhorta
tion of our text, when applied to our own times, with something of indignation and con
tempt, as though it were a suggestion that the enlightened present should disown her
wisdom, and go to school to the blind'and stupid past. Such men seem to have forgotten
that the past is ever the parent of the present ; that other men have labored, and we are
entered into their labors j that, whatever superiority we may have attained over those
who have gone before us, we owe to the principles which our fathers established, to the
institutions which they founded, and the lessons which they taught.
But I am fairiy entitled to assume, that no such apology is neoessary in addressing the
representatives of the Congregational churches of the United States, assembled here
around the old hearth-stone, and the cradle of our political and religious institutions j not
only from the hills and valleys where the New England fathers sleep, but from the
basin of the lakes, the banks of the Mississippi and its branches, the glens of the Rocky
mountains, and the shores of the Pacific. «
Nor this alone. From beyond the St. Lawrence, brethren beloved are here, and from
that beautiful island of the ocean which is the mother of us all, a revered and honored
mother, who, though in these late years she hath chided her eldest American daughter
with a little unmerited severity, will yet honor her ancestral bravery, and her fidelity to
her precious inheritance of liberty. -
This audience, assembled on this spot, surely needs not be told that there are principles
coeval -with the founding of these New England colonies, which sustain such a relation to
our whole social and religious life, that we can never have any sound and healthful growth
except by their free and natural development — principles which- sustain the same relation
to our entire nation, however great it may become in future ages, which the little germ-
enclosed in the acorn does to the sturdiest monarch of the forest.
I am sure of the hearty sympathy of this audience, in " standing in the ways, to ask for
the old paths." Our fathers were but men. We claim for them no exemption from the
errors and follies to which all this poor humanity is ever subject. But God was with them,
and did guide their feet into paths of wisdom, which led them to the attainment of a
condition of freedom and social order, which richly compensated them for all the danger

10 National Council.
and sufferings of the wilderness, and is destined to confer untold blessings on their descend
ants forever. And it is well worthy our most earnest endeavor to trace out those same
paths, through all the intricacies and sorrowful confusions of tne present) and perfectly
safe for us to walk in them. They conducted our fathers to prosperity and happiness in
circumstances seemingly the most unpropitious and forbidding, and they will not fail to
conduct us to the same.
We propose no servile imitation of the fathers. We will adhere to no principle and
no custom because it was theirs. " Prove all things, hold fast that which is good," shall
be our motto. We intend to look backwards, not because we think innovation a crime,
but because we know that all true national growth is the development of first principles;
and that the principles of any nation's life are to be learned, not from the agitations of the
passing moment, but from the study of its history. We think it wise to ask the fathers
what is the seminal principle of our national life, by the development of which we may
attain to the growth and strength and beauty and productiveness of which God hath
made us capable.
Nor am I wrong in looking to the early history of New England for the seeds of our
national life. The French De Tocqueville, hot a Puritan, not a Protestant, says :
"The two or three main ideas which constitute the basis of the social theory of the United
States were first combined in the Northern British colonies, more generally denominated
the States of New England. The principles of New England spread at first to the neigh
boring States ; they then passed successively to the more distant ones ; and at length they
imbued the whole confederation. They now extend their influence beyond its limits over
the whole American world. The civilization of New England has been like a beacon lit
upon a bill, which, after it has diffused its warmth around, tinges the distant horizon with its
glow." What, then, are the principles of social life which are indicated in the early history of
New England P In the fore ground of the picture meets us the fact, that our fathers
believed in their heart of hearts that God had revealed himself to the soul of man, and
that it is the privilege and the duty of every man to receive and obey for himself that
revelation. With clear and mighty conviction they rejected, as unsatisfactory and untrue,
that interpretation and social expression of the divine will which king3 and nobles and
bishops had imposed with tyrant power on every foot of English soil. That they might
find some spot of earth on which — some arch of sky beneath which — they might
individually and socially worship God according to their own understanding of his will,
not only brave and strong men, but timid old age, and delicate womanhood, and helpless
infancy, dared encounter the ocean, the wilderness, and the savage. This is certainly the
foremost fact in the history of New England, nay, of North America.
Next meets us the fact, that, when they reached their desolate home on these ice-bound
shores, they were as far removed from the government which should have protected their
persons and their rights, as from the step-mother Church that would impose on them her
ceremonies and her superstitions. If under those stern winter skies they were free to
worship God, they were also under a necessity of providing for their own protection from
cold and famine, and the violence of bad men.
It needs no argument to show that from such a history must necessarily have been
born a " Church without a bishop, and a State without a king." The family with all its
God-given authorities, sacred subordination, and delicate dependencies, had been trans
ported across the ocean, and stood unimpaired and unshaken on the shores of a new
world. And never has it been more revered, or more honored, than by the fathers and
mothers of New England. But all else of the religious and political authorities of the
Old World had been left on the other side of the ocean. The individual man, the family

National Council. \\
tie, and the golden chain that binds each individual man to " the throne and monarchy
of God," were all that remained Of the organic forces of society. These men are social
beings, and therefore they will reconstruct religious and political society. But they will
construct both only for the protection of individuals and families, in the enjoyment of
their God-given rights, and to aid them in performing their divinely appointed duties and
achieving their allotted destiny. The recognition of the rights, the duties of individual
human beings, as the direct subjects of the government of God, will, must be, the germi-
nant principle of all social arrangements. The principle will become recognized and
crowned and enthroned, that every individual has rights which God gave him when he
made him in his own image, and owes an allegiance to the Supreme Ruler which is
superior to all human enactments, and which rights and duties no earthly power can
over-ride in the smallest degree, without incurring the righteous displeasure of God. If
from these feeble beginnings a nation shall grow up which shall stretch from ocean to
ocean, and cover a continent with the emblems of its power, that nation must rest on
this simple principle, as its mountains rest on their foundations of everlasting granite ;
and if at any point in its future history, in the pride of its prosperity and power, it shall
violate this sacred principle, an earthquake will shake its strongest structures, and vol
canic fires will burst up from beneath its foundations, and like Sodom of old it will be
consumed with a storm of fire and brimstone, unless it repents in sackcloth and ashes, and
puts away the national iniquity.
That this principle must be seminal to our national life, no thoughtful man surely will
deny; and in searching for the true pathway of our progress, we are only to seek for the
just and rational development of it. Is it not, then, equally obvious, that, in constructing
society on this principle, the largest amount of liberty will be reserved to the individual
which is consistent with provision for his social wants ; and that, in all social arrange
ments, local provisions will be preferred to the provincial, the national, or the imperial,
except in cases where the latter are found to be essential to the general welfare ? The
individual will not commit to a society what he can better take care of as an individual ;
and local communities will not commit to general societies what they can better under
stand and better provide for than any more general society can do it for them.
Individuals will enjoy the largest liberty, local communities will surrender the small
est portion of their independence, consistent with the general goodj and imperial
power will only be permitted to meddle with those interests in which all the millions of a
great nation are alike concerned. I need not argue before this audience"to show, that as
this results directly and necessarily from our national history, so it is a true enunciation
of the characteristic principle of American institutions as they exist in fact ; and that the
more perfectly this principle is carried out, the more harmonious and beneficent is the
working of our social machinery.
What, then, is the development of this principle in the direction of religion ? I need
not prove that earnest faith' in the gospel must and always will have a social develop
ment. It follows inevitably from the nature of the religion, and the social affections to
which it is largely addressed. Persons living in each other's neighborhood, reading the
Bible in the same mother tongue, and believing with the heart its revelations of God and,
Christ, and redemption and forgiveness, and the life everlasting, will find themselves
drawn into social relations by irresistible attractions. They will organize themselves into
a religious society for mutual sympathy, edification, instruction, and cooperation, as natu
rally and necessarily as the loving pair unite in marriage bonds, or as beings possessed of
human nature unite in civil society.
And, consistently with the conditions which the Pilgrim Fathers brought with them to
the shores of New England, consistently with the fundamental principles of our social life,

12 National Council.
they will organize those societies, independent* of all dictation or control in discipline,
worship, and doctrine, except that of. the one divine Head of the Church of God. .Had
not our fathers accepted a home in this great and terrible wilderness, that theymight
enjoy the doctrine, the discipline, the worship, which they approved? And should- they
now construct any authority of bishop,, or council, or presbytery, empowered to interfere
with their enjoyment of this dear-bought privilege? And why should any , society of
.Christian men and womemassopiated for these religious purposes, subject, themselves cto
any such control of human power and invention ? They want, religious teaching : are
they not competent to select their own religious teachers, in the fear of the Lord? They
want to exclude from their society the irreligious, the unbelieving,, the scandalousi.tbe
profane : are they not better qualified to estimate the character of the men and women
among wnom they live than any distant church authority ? They want a doctrine- and a
worship conformed to the divine word : must they not themselves prove all things, and
hold fast that which is good? Can they delegate the judgment of. these matters to
other fallible men like themselves?! Does not their individual allegiance to God imply
their individual right to try the teaching they hear, and the worship in which they engage,
by the standard of God's revealed will, and themselves to judge what is right ? What
bishop, council, presbytery, synod,, can decide for them ?
While thus claiming that the doctrine of the independency of the local Church was a
most natural result of the circumstances and the religious convictions of the fathers of
New England, I.do not forget the fact, that the Pilgrims of Plymouth had been instructed
in the principles of Congregational independenoy by that truly great and good man, John
Robinson, before they left the mother country, and during their residence in= Holland,
and were therefore rooted and grounded in them before they embarked for America.- ¦ Nor
jdo I forget the still more weighty fact, that Robinson himself was but the humble pupil
of the Apostles themselves; that the churches which Paul and Peter and their fellow
Apostles founded from Jerusalem to Rome were, by the agreeing judgment of the ablest
writers on ecclesiastical history, independent local churches ; and that, whatever other
men may say of the fathers, independency is sustained by the uniform practiced the
Apostles. Such were the churches which our fathers planted amid the primeval forests of New
England ; such were the churches, of Plymouth and Salem and Boston; and as their
settlements encroached farther and farther upon the domain of the oak, the pine, and the
ifir, they covered the territory which they reclaimed from the wilderness with a complete
net-work of such churches. . It was the function of each of these churches to care for the
dntellectual and religious culture of the entire population within their respective bounda-
iries. Thus, at every step of their advance, the Christian teacher and the schoolmaster,
iaccompanied them, and every child was taught the rudiments both of secular and of
divine knowledge. This was a true development of the principle of our national lifef and
we may well challenge any intelligent denial, that in application to such a State as Massa
chusetts only, and as it actually exists in practice at the present moment, it is a grand
development ; and that applied in its entireness to a great nation, extending from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, it Would be as sublime and glorious as it- is free and simple. If it
would have been as quiet and tranquil as sunshine, it would also have been as potent and
¦ life-giving. Such was the conception of the fathers of New England ; and that conception they
* .-Thie author of this discourse is quite well aware that the Congregationalism of our fathers recog
nizes two principles as fundamental, — the self-government and the fellowship of the churches ; ,and
if, in advocating the former as against ecclesiastical centralisation, he has given it chief promi
nence in this discourse, it is not because he does not hold, or undervalues, the latter. ¦ -- '. ¦

National Council. 13
did make an actual reality in every settlement which they formed. And the network
Of- 'Congregational churches, with which they covered over much the larger portion of New
England, presented a completeness and symmetry of organization for the religious instruc
tion and spiritual nurture of a free people, never attained to elsewhere in this country, and
probably not even in the world. An unobstructed development of their principles would
have covered our whole territory with such a chain of organizations from ocean to ocean.
At least, on every six miles square of our inhabited territory, they would have planted such
tf society, not cared for and governed by some distant ecclesiastical authority, but by its
own living -forces, and efficiently caring for all the intellectual, moral, and spiritual neces
sities of the entire population within its limits ; nor for these alone, but supplying the
physical necessities of all the sick, the poor, and the afflicted.
And such a religious organization- is essential to our national life and health. It is one
of'the great vital forces of all free society. There can be no better future, no millennium,
either political or religious, without it. We do but grievously deceive ourselves if we
v imagine a sublime superstructure of freedom can be reared up, covering a continent, and
enduring for ages, if this element is wanting. Some men among us glory in the superi
ority of this generation over our simple-minded fathers. But we are sadly fallen from
the grace of such an organization for the religious culture of the people; and it is a
grievous fell. Many of the stars are fallen even from the sky of New England, and no
other Uminaries have taken their places, and many others are sadly dimmed in their
lustre^and are reeling from their orbits. In most of the country which lies west and
south of the Hudson, we have abandoned , the conception itself, as impracticable and
impossible. An eminent divine of one of the middle States, alike well known for his
fervid -eloquence and his burning zeal for the Christian cause, who thought I loved New
England better than I ought, once sent this message to me in my distant home in the
West, "Tell Mr. S, he cannot make New England in the West." Alas! thus far it is
true, and it is this very element of New -England which we have been unable to trans
plant. But I have not ceased and shall not cease to try, till I despair of my country and
of the Church of God.
It would be greatly to the purpose of the present occasion to exhibit an exhaustive
view of the causes which have prevented the realization of this simple but grand concep
tion west and south of the Hudson. The time, however, which can be allotted to this
discourse would be entirely insufficient for such a presentation. But there are four of
these causes which seem to me imperatively to demand the consideration of the National
Council. They are,
1; Want of homogeneity in our population.
2. Negro slavery.
3. Undue reliance on temporary, superficial, and inorganic efforts for home evangeliza
tion ; and,
4. Want of sufficient tenacity in adhering to our own polity.
'In naming the first of these, want of homogeneity in our population, I do not chiefly
refer to the fact that everywhere there is a portion, and in some communities a very large
portion, of the population, who are not believers in the-gospel, who are either indifferent
orihostileto that faith which is the basis of all living and permanent Church organizations.
However deeply we must deplore this fact, this unbelieving portion of the population is
not numerous enough to throw any insuperable obstacles in the Way of a ubiquitous organ
ization of the Church on Congregational principles. It rarely or never occurs in any
American community, that, if the gospel is preached in its purity, such multitudes will not
embrace it in the love of it, as to render the organization and sustentation of a Christian
Church easy. And this remains true, after we have made ample allowance for those forms

14 National Council.
of semi-Christian belief and worship which reject that gospel which we . have received.
That gospel which consists in repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,
will still find adherents, who will be both able and willing to sustain an organized Church
with all its ordinances. At least, within the circle of my observation, this has rarely, if
ever, failed to be true. Aid they might need, while struggling with the first difficulties
of a new settlement. But when these were a little over, I have seldom or never known
a community in which there was not enough of earnest and devout Christians to sustain
the institutions of social religion, if they were united in their endeavors ; or, at least, in
which, if the gospel were for a little time faithfully preached, it would not win converts,
and make the problem of the Church easy. There are few communities, East or West,
in which a Christian teacher may not preach as Paul did at Corinth, with the assurance
that the Lord " has much people " there.
But the heterogeneousness of which I speak is of another kind. Almost everywhere
west and south of the Hudson, the descendants of New England have met a religious
population, holding, in a greater or less degree of purity and simplicity, the same religious
faith as themselves, who yet are not willing to accept their conception of the Church.
Everywhere beyond the western boundary of New England, they meet not only the
divisions which have arisen among Independents on the mode and subjects of baptism,
but,- in its almost endlessly multiplied modifications, the Presbyterianism of Geneva, Hol
land, and Scotland, and the various offshoots of the modified Episcopacy of the Wesleys.
The inevitable consequence is, a conflict of rival conceptions of the Church, which renders
impossible the construction of any such system of religious organization as the Congrega
tional conception of the Church has produced in New England. It is not only true that
no one of these Christian denominations is able to construct a ubiquitous system for the
instruction of the people in the things of God, but that their mutual rivalries render it
impossible that such a system should exist, either by the efforts of any particular denomi
nation, or of all together. This is not a random assertion, but it is capable of demonstra
tion j and if true, it is surely worthy of the most serious consideration, not only of the
Congregational churches, but of all men of every denomination that love our country and
the kingdom of God.
In cities and large towns, all the different religious denominations that exist in our
country may be represented by religious organizations, embodying each its own conception
of the Church ; and in this way provision may be made, in some sort, for the religious
instruction of the population. But it is quite essential to the great social experiment
which we are trying on a scale so gigantic, that our rural civilization should attain to a
completeness never known in any other land. The means of intellectual, moral, and reli
gious culture must not be shut up in cities : they must be carried to every square mile
of our territory, and brought within easy reach of every human habitation. Every six
miles square of the entire habitable surface of our country must contain such permanent
and effective institutions for the instruction of the people, and the whole people, that the
man who has never travelled beyond the limits of his own native township may yet have
a noble education, and be a truly cultivated and civilized being, the product of all the
centuries that are past. In order to this, I need not prove to this audience that it is
indispensable that the Christian sanctuary shall be built there, and that on each successive
Lord's Day the assembled people shall feel the influence of social worship, and of the
clear, lucid, and earnest exhibition of evangelical truth.
What I affirm is, that the heterogeneousness of our population, in the sense in which
I have defined it, renders it impossible to effect any such religious organization; but that,
on the contrary, vast regions and multitudinous populations are by it doomed to religious
destitution and a moral desolation, like some great Sahara, with only here and there a
blooming oasis.

National Council. 15
Subtracting from the sum total of our population the population of our cities and large
towns where religious institutions can be maintained in some sort, in spite of the causes
of which I am speaking, the remainder of course will be our rural population ; and it
will not be found to exceed some twenty-eight to the square mile, or about one thousand
souls to each township of six miles square. Let us ,then bear in mind that in each of
these townships will be found the usual amount of indifference to religion, and misbelief
and unbelief; and that all this must be counted out, in estimating the capability of the
township to sustain social religion. After then subtracting from the one thousand souls
that inhabit the township all persons of this character, the remainder cannot be presumed
to exceed six or seven hundred of all ages from the cradle to the grave, and of both
sexes. If these were united, you could not expect of them more than that they would
be able to sustain one Church with energy and efficiency: What then can we hope for,
if they are to be divided between Presbyterians in all their diversities of Dutch, Scotch,
and American origin, Wesleyan Episcopacy in all its modifications and independency,
with the divisions which have arisen respecting the mode and subjects of baptism ? Wha't
but the impossibility of sustaining any religious organization whatever ?
And yet what I have supposed is but the stern and terrible fact over vast districts of
our territory ; and the result is religious destitution and religious anarchy, from which
we can not only discern no deliverance in the immediate future, but we do also clearly
see, that, in the present line of things, deliverance is impossible ; that the evil must wax
worse and worse with each successive generation forever. Sects will multiply and
unbelievers will multiply, and the house of David will wax weaker and weaker. We
might as well hope that the barrenness of the Arabian desert will be healed, while yet
the clouds refuse to pour their rain upon it. Religious men of New England birth and
education have impressed upon the very substance of their souls the conception of a
religious organization of society, which will bring the influence of a regular Christian
sanctuary within easy reach of every dweller on the soil. And they know well that by
such an arrangement only can the education of the people be provided for. And I
thank God, that in the hope of realizing this noble conception they will, if need be, pour
out-their money like water, in sustaining Home Missionary societies, in founding schools
and colleges, and in educating young men for the Christian ministry ; and they will give
their own sons and daughters to this work in a spirit of as true heroism as ever poured
out life in the defence of liberty, or endured martyrdom for the truth as it is in Jesus.
And I shall never cease to thank God that it is so.
But we are in duty bound to look the stern facts of the case full in the face ; and if we
do so, we shall acknowledge and feel to our heart's centre that obstacles at present exist
over the whole West and South, which render the realization of the noble conception
which inspires this glorious Christian heroism as impossible as to cover the ioe-fields of
the polar circle with the luxuriant vegetation of the tropics.
It is often asserted, and seldom or never contradicted, that this want of homogeneity of
which I speak is the inevitable result of religious freedom, acting through the permanent
laws of the human mind. If that is so, the prospects of our country for a high religious
civilization are gloomy enough. But I thank God the assertion, often as it is made, is
made gratuitously. Nobody has, so far as I know, ever proved it ; and to me it seems
not only unproved, but most clearly untrue. The whole history of this country, from the
landing of the Pilgrims till now; furnishes no proof, or ground of suspicion, that religious
men, in the full enjoyment of religious liberty, would ever have invented any other Church
polity than independency. I know not that any centralized system of Church govern
ment ever originated in this country, or any other country enjoying full religious liberty.
Our Presbyterianism all sprung from the State churches of Geneva, Holland, and Scot-

16 National Council.
land. It was originally constructed as an ecolesiastico-political system, through which
a State Church could exert its power of control over all the religious interests of a nation.
Organization, did not begin with the , people and grow up into the General Assembly, but
with the General Assembly, and extended its radii of administration downwards to the
Church sessions. If any one doubts this, I commend to his especial study the history of
the. Church of Scotland, and would especially recommend as a text-book the work of
that stanch Presbyterian, Mr. Hetherington. Presbyterianism has greatly multiplied ite
sects in this country. But it has been only by subdivisions of itself, of which it has an
unlimited capacity. They have all arisen from the attempt to carry out its principles in
an atmosphere of freedom. But the system itself freedom never generated in any coun
try, and there is no proof that it could. With no propriety can it be claimed as any ne
cessary product of a religious liberty, however numerous its off-shoots may be in a free
atmosphere. There is just as little reason to believe that the Wesleyan polity could have originated
from a condition of perfect religious liberty. Mr. Wesley's aim certainly was to organize
an army of brave soldiers for Christ, and so to command it in the name of the Lord as
to secure its efficiency. But the principles of organization by. which that command was
to be exercised were derived from the Episcopal hierarchy of the Church of England,
which he never ceased to love and cherish. The seminal principle of the system is not
that of the people propagating that gospel which they have received, but that of the rulers
converting and governing the people in the name of the Lord.
I am free to affirm, that to begin with a free, self-governing Christian people, and
develop from it either the Wesleyan or the Presbyterian polity, seems to me as impos
sible as to create an aristocracy by the free votes of democrats. Give us nothing but
liberty and Christianity to begin with, and if we ever have any ecelesiastical centralization,
it must be imported from some other clime.
As to the Papal and Episcopal systems of government, the case is still plainer. If we
can find them taught in the inspired Word, of course we can account for their existence.
But as most of us are unable to see that the Holy Scriptures lend them any support, we
can only recognize them as offshoots from the civil and military systems of imperial
Rome and the middle ages, transplanted to this land of freedom, and here endeavoring,
with what success time must determine, to maintain themselves in the midst of all the
forces of universal and absolute religious liberty.
The assertion, then, that the heterogeneous character of our population is the inevitable
result of our perfect religious liberty, is without any foundation at all. The conflicting sys
tems by which our population is divided and distracted are, for the most part, not the
products of religious liberty, but of the Church and State systems of Europe, transplanted
to American soil, and here trying the very interesting experiment, whether their existence
and their power can be propagated in the midst of the absolute religious liberty of the
United States. If in the all-wise providence of God they are destined to succeed in this
greatest ecclesiastical experiment of the nineteenth century, then must every system of
effort for establishing a symmetrical and efficient system for the religious instruction of
the whole people' necessarily be a failure. The whole history of the Church, from the
great schism of the Eastern and Western churches to the last disruption of American
Presbyterianism, shows, with, the certainty of demonstration, that centralized Church gov
ernments, whenever they are liberated from State control, and are free to act out their
own nature, will always indefinitely multiply rival Church governments and sects by their
own internal convulsions. . They all exhibit the phenomenon of a government claiming
and exercising the right to command, without the power to compel obedience. They
are all perpetually in the condition in which our Federal Government would have been,

National Council. 17
if the doctrine of the Democratic party at the outbreakof the Rebellion had prevailed,
that the Federal Government has no right to coerce a State. We should now have had
as many nations as States. Every centralized Church government acts under these im
possible conditions, and consequently is liable to be divided into two rival governments,
whenever the majority or the governing power commands what any portion of the mem
bership are unwilling to obey. It is therefore true, that, as things now are, we not only
have so great a multiplication of rival ecclesiastical powers as to render efficient religious
organization impossible, but also the certainty of an indefinite increase of their number
in the future.
Want of homogeneity in our population is, then, one potent cause which has hindered,
and is hindering, such a religious organization of our whole country as would have resulted
from the development of the ideas of our New-England fathers. And it is an obstacle
of giant magnitude with which we have still to contend.
2. Another fatal hinderance to the realization of the great conception of our New-
England fathers has ever been negro slavery. On this point I need not detain you long,
for the principles of the case are too familiar to require much illustration. Slavery de
grades one-half the population to the condition of beasts of burden, and denies them any
place in society as independent and personally responsible human beings. Our concep
tion of the Church, on the contrary, is founded on the equal brotherhood of the human
race. It cannot be supposed that the proud and lordly master can ever admit his slave
to equality in Church relations, and recognize his independent manhood as a Christian
brother. A higher power may admit both to the Church, and govern both ; but the
master will never admit the slave to an equal share with himself in the government of
the Church, on principles of democratic equality. If churches of our polity exist in such
circumstances, their membership must be confined either to the enslaving or to the en
slaved class. Among the latter, in the Baptist connection, they have existed in great
numbers. But driven out from all the fountains of knowledge, and deprived day by day
of the earnings of their own hands, what could these poor people do for the spiritual
enlightenment of the communities under whose oppressions they and their fathers before
them lived and groaned ?
Nor could the principles of our polity develop themselves with any better effect in the
enslaving class. The white population of the slaveholding States has always been divided
into two classes, which are separated by an immense distance from each other, — the
wealthy and aristocratic slaveholders, and the poor white men, reduced both in respect
to property and intelligence to a position scarcely less wretched than that of the slave
himself, and this latter much the more numerous class. A population thus degraded, and
deduced to ignorance and barbarism, would furnish but poor materials out of which to
construct such Congregational churches as those which the fathers planted in the wilder
ness of New England. Many of this class have been organized into Baptist churches,
and much has thus been achieved for their spiritual benefit. But little could be hoped
from them in the way of a religious organization to supply the moral wants of a great
people. Poverty and ignorance have been their leading characteristics, accompanied, of
course, by a degrading servility to the proud and selfish aristocracy that is above them.
The wealthy slave-holding class,, on the other hand, could not be expected to choose a
system of Church government founded on the idea of an equal Christian brotherhood.
It is impossible that such a polity as ours should be successfully developed, in a commu
nity thus divided by artificial and unjust legislation, into classes so widely removed from
each other. When English aristocrats learn to love and cherish English Independency,
you may expect our American slave-holding aristocrats to love and cherish the Congre
gationalism of New England. In both cases the Congregational polity is sure to be

18 National Council.
. rejected with scorn and contempt. We need, therefore, feel no surprise that our polity
has no existence among the' intelligent and wealthy classes of the South, and that the
Congregational churches which once existed in South Carolina and Georgia have long
since been swallowed up in those organizations in which the Christian brotherhood is less
distinctly recognized. It may therefore be assumed, that, while slavery continued in the
South, our polity was possible there only among the slaves and the most degraded and
ignorant of the white population ; and that there it would be quite powerless to provide
a system of religious instruction for a great, free, and enlightened people. .
And it should be remarked, that this obstacle to the progress of our polity has been
felt much beyond the limits of the slave-holding States. Slavery has attacked, with
terrible effect, that doctrine of fraternal equality which the gospel teaches, not only in
the slave-holding States, but in all parts of our country, and especially in those portions
of it to which emigrants from the South have gone in large numbers. It has fearfully
assailed the fundamental principle of our free institutions, both civil and ecclesiastical,
and, if God had not come to our aid in the destruction of slavery, would ere long have
subverted the Republic itself. And the weakening of this principle shows itself earlier
and more strikingly in the Church than in the State. Thousands, who would not acknowl
edge themselves aristocrats, would feel a decided aversion to joining a Church which was
governed by the vote of the majority, and in which the vote of a poor man would be
worth as much as their own. And that the growth of this aristocratic spirit has been
greatly fostered and extended by the influence of a slave-holding aristocracy on our
society, and that tastes have thus been generated which incline strongly to the less dem
ocratic forms of Church polity, I cannot for a moment doubt. He who has watched the
causes which, for the last thirty years, have resisted the progress of our polity in the
North- West, will not need proof of this proposition.
3. Another obstacle which has greatly hindered our organic work is undue reliance on
modes of effort which are inorganic, and necessarily temporary and superficial.
I must tell you frankly, fathers and brethren ; this has been a very painful subject to
many of your frontier laborers during the last thirty years. We have seen great, and
in their design truly Christian societies, having the ear of all our churches, and holding
the very highest place in their regard, founding their plea for large pecuniary contribu
tions upon the assumption, that the founding of the Church, the sustaining of an enlight
ened Christian ministry, the rearing-up of the permanent institutions of Christian learn
ing, is too slow a process ; that the results are too remote ; that these efforts cannot
reach the people, and that, therefore, other and speedier methods must be adopted. You
must send the colporter with his bibles, his tracts, and Christian books, and thus carry
the word of life to the people at their own homes. And this logic has been accepted, —
accepted against the solemn and clearly uttered protest of the very men whom you had
sent there to build up the institutions of a Christian civilization on the frontier; and not
only accepted, but most vigorously acted upon. While it has been a matter of the
greatest difficulty to get a few hundred dollars to aid a feeble new congregation in build
ing a house of worship, while heroic home missionaries and their still more heroic wives
have been called to endure the severest privations and the greatest and most distressing
hinderances in their work, while fields the most inviting of organic missionary enterprise
could not be entered for the want of means, and while those colleges which your far-
seeing liberality has founded were left so feeble and inadequately provided with the
needful resources as often to fill the hearts of those who labored in them with shame
and deep despondency, — while all these things and more were going on before our eyes,
on those very same fields, funds derived from the sacred treasury of Christian benevolence
were expended by tens of thousands, in the circulation of tracts and printed volumes,

National Council. 19
which few care to read, and multitudes could not read if they would. I should not be
surprised to learn, that for many successive years more money was annually expended in
Illinois, in peddling religious books, than the entire cost of sustaining all the colleges
which Christian liberality has founded there.
. I do not say that all this has done no good. But I do say, that, having been ^constantly
for more than thirty-five years, in the heart of the great North- West, I have never had but
one view of it. It has always seemed to me very bad economy. As I have looked at
these things, I have never doubted that the children of this world are in very deed,
in their generation, wiser than the children of light. To found institutions as the vital
organs of Christian spciety is our first business, and let us never be cheated into forget
ting it. And there is no substitute for them, any more than for eyes and ears and
lungs in the body. Let us build such institutions if we do nothing else. And let us
put our books and our tracts and our Sunday-school libraries into the hands of our
missionaries, as their munitions of moral warfare.
And I must ask any man, well informed and of sound judgment, what, beyond the
permanent institutions we have founded, we have to show for the evangelical labors of
the last thirty-five years in the North- West. I would ask him too, if we had, in the re
spects now indicated, used our money more wisely, these results might not have been far
more abundant than they are ; whether, if we had used the funds we have spent in for
cing the circulation of printed books, in founding and building up our churches and our
colleges, our churches might not have been far stronger and more numerous; and
whether our colleges might not have been far nearer than they are to the attainment of
the great destiny intended by their founders. For my part I have no doubt of it.
Let us learn by experience ; let us put these more superficial and temporary agencies
in their proper place, and address ourselves to our great organic work, and determine to
do that, whatever else we neglect, and to trust in God that the seed we thus sow shall
yield a glorious harvest for millions yet unborn. If we could learn this lesson, one of the .
greatest obstacles with which we contend would be overcome.
4. The only remaining obstacle of which I shall speak is the want of sufficient tenacity
in adhering to our principles.
I do not mean that Congregationalists are tired of their mode of government, and
desirous to change it for another. This is far from being true. As a general rule, and in
its ordinary and normal working, our system in a good degree satisfies the taste of an
intelligent, active-minded people, both for tranquillity and freedom. There is movement
enough to give consciousness of life ; freedom enough to give opportunity for individual
development ; and tranquillity enough to content even quiet and conservative spirits. In
all these important respects, the history of the system gives abundant indications of a
capability of enduring "forever.
: But it has been the glory of our churches, that under their influence men have always
learned to put the gospel immeasurably higher in regard and honor than any mere forms
and ceremonies and governments. And may they retain that glory for ever ! And yet
out of this very characteristic has grown one of. the chief obstacles in the way of our real
izing that grand organic conception with which our fathers subdued the wilderness. ,
As the men of New England emigrate westward, they would always, if left to their
own tastes and wishes, organize the Church after the pattern of the fathers. And the
sons of New England have pitched their tents toward the setting sun in sufficient num
bers, and with sufficient preponderance ofintellectual and moral weight, to have exerted,
if they had adhered to their own polity, an irresistible formative influence on the reli
gious institutions of our country, from the Hudson to the shores of the Pacific. And I do

20 National Council.
not see how an enlightened, thoughtful New-Englander, acquainted with what has hap
pened and is happening in our country, can help regretting that they did not do it. But
the past is unalterable, and regret is useless. The reason why they did not do it is obvious.
They held as a sacred article of their faith, that the gospel is primary, and government
secondary. They met other streams of emigration, not of New England, holding the
same precious faith with themselves, but tenacious of quite another system of polity. For
the sake of securing the cooperation of these good men in planting the Church in the
wilderness, they were induced, sometimes at a single step, sometimes by little and little,
to surrender the polity of their fathers, and accept that of Calvin and Knox in its stead.
They did not prefer the change, it cost them a struggle ; but for the sake of unity and
cooperation, they thought it best. And so the fathers of New England taught their
emigrant sons, and it came to be understood; that the difference between the Congrega
tionalism of John Robinson, and the Presbyterianism of John Knox, was a mere differ
ence of longitude'; that to cross the Hudson would make a good Presbyterian of any
Congregationalist. Worse than this; when, a little more than thirty years ago, young
men who went out from you to plant the gospel on the banks of the Mississippi began
to feel a decided longing for the polity of the Mayflower, and to organize churches on
that platform, they were met by their fathers and brethren here with a frown, and often
treated by the leading men of New England as men wanting in sober sense and sound
judgment. I am uttering the experience of more than one man in this audience. That
state of things has, thank God, passed away, never, we trust, to return.
But the evil is not yet cured ; or if I may not assume that it is an evil, this obstruction
to the progress of our Church principles, in the regions which lie towards the going-down
of the sun, is not yet removed. Need I say that to this hour Presbyterianism grows
more from Congregational roots than from its own ? that multitudes of the most gifted
men whom the New England churches rear for the Christian ministry treat this question
.of polity as one involving no principle at all ? do not hesitate a moment to accept the
highest positions in the Presbyterian Church,- and to become its standard-bearers "and
champions for the spread of its most distinctive and denominational peculiarities, in
advance of all others ? " I need not say that this same facility of abandoning our polity is
constantly exhibited by our emigrant laity, as well as by our ministry. New England
men making their homes in the West, will, without hesitation, turn their backs on Con
gregational churches that need their help, to unite themselves with Presbyterian churches,
for no higher motive than to secure customers to their business, or to attain to a higher
social position.
The progress of the Congregational polity in the North- West during the last twenty-five
years has been truly wonderful, unsurpassed certainly by that of any other religious denomi
nation. But it has all been accomplished in spite of the existence of this obstacle in greater
or less degree over all that field. It has achieved much, very much ; but for this obstacle it
would have accomplished vastly more. Many churches which are now weak would have
been strong, and many which have been absorbed by the centralization of the Presbyte
rian Church would have remained in the simpler and freer polity of the fathers.
I cannot doubt that bjf this process the organic power of the emigration from New
England has been greatly diminished ; its power to multiply churches where churches
are needed; its power to endow and sustain schools and colleges; its power to train up a
Christian ministry ; its power to multiply and strengthen all the institutions of a Christian
civilization; its power to transplant whatever 1s precious in New England to the West,
and the South, and the shores of the Pacific.
It is now quite time I draw this discourse to a conclusion by a brief consideration of

National Council. 21
one great practical inquiry : What is, to the churches represented in this Council, now the
line of practical wisdom and Christian duty ?
1. We must never abandon that grand conception of a symmetrical and ubiquitous
religious organization for the moral and spiritual care and culture of the whole people.
To abandon this is to abandon the experiment of American liberty as a miserable failure.
We cannot, we cannot succeed in this grandest social experiment of the age, except
through the high intellectual and religious culture of the whole people. Our mother-
country, England, is governed by her upper and middle classes : to these classes, there
fore, she applies the forces of a high and noble culture, that they may be fit to govern,
and leaves the lower classes in a great degree uncared for. This is at least consistent.
We are governed by the people, the whole people, and therefore to the whole people we
must apply all the forces of intellectual and moral culture, that all may be qualified to
wield that share in the government which the law accords to them. Nothing but ruin
can come of elevating the masses to the position of rulers, while we do not so teach and
train them as to qualify them to rule well. And in order to this end we must have a
ubiquitous rural civilization, purified and exalted by the influences of free Christian
worship and instruction.
And to conclude that a system of perfect religious freedom cannot give us such a re
ligious organization, that it will necessarily produce such a conflict of religious sects as
to render it impossible for rural districts ever to establish the permanent institutions of
religious instruction and worship, is to admit that the experiment of religious liberty is a
failure, and that we must go back to some Church and State system, which can, by the
compulsory power of law, divide the country into parishes, and maintain in every one of
them the means of religious as well as of secular instruction. We must solve this problem
% a free system, or acknowledge, in tfye face of exultant Europe, that our Protestantism
and our voluntaryism have signally failed. It is the trial question of American religious
freedom, whether by it we can provide for the religious culture of our whole people.
The Congregational churches must not be the first to pronounce this experiment a fail
ure. God forbid !
2. We have a far better prospect of success through our own polity than through any
other to which we might be induced to lend our cooperation. He who should adopt any
form of centralized Church government, with the hope of effecting through it a universal
' aeligious organization for our country, - would certainly choose an instrument very ill
.adapted to his ends. Rival governments, each claiming jurisdiction over the whole terri
tory, in face of every other, may in this way be multiplied indefinitely, and be brought
into more and more intense rivalship with each other ; and that is all we can expect from
that instrument, however vigorously used. This is about as hopeful for securing a
religious organization for our country, as to favor State rights and no coercion was of per
petuating our national unity. It can only aggravate the evil indefinitely, and drive us
farther from the end we wish to reach.
But, if we will, even now, be true to the polity of our fathers, there is hope of ulti
mately attaining to complete success. The independeney of the local Church is, as we
have shown, a true development of the seminal principle of our national life. All cen
tralized Church government is contradictory to it. The events of the last five years have
taught us, as with a voice from heaven, that that principle is to be developed in the whole
social life of this great nation ; and that any and all principles which are contradictory
to it, are, sooner or later, to be eradicated through the agitations and convulsions which
they .themselves occasion. I affirm that the principle of centralized Church government
does constantly demonstrate its opposition to the foundation principles of American soci
ety, by the agitation, confusion, and anarchy which it causes. In this conflict I think it

22 National Council.
reasonable; to believe that the principle itself will sooner or later be overturned and
destroyed. This state of things cannot exist always. Men will see at last that these evils must
be remedied, or the gospel itself must perish, and the light of the Sun of Righteousness
go out. Men will cease at length to make labored apologies for the ceaselessv conflict of
the sect system, and begin to look around them for some platform on which the whole
Church of God on earth can stand together, and make war on one another no more.
And when they do begin in earnest to inquire after such a platform, they will find it in
the independency of local churches, built on the everlasting foundations of the simple
truth as it is in Jesus ; each disciple as an equal brother receiving every other, and put
ting no yoke on his neck which the Master hath not imposed.
I have no wish to claim any especial glory for New England. The history of New
England is not above criticism, and the men of New England I hope are not yet too wise
to learn. But the principles which found their way to these shores in the cabin of the
Mayflower, are evidently destined to prevail over this continent from ocean to ocean, and
to give character to all our social systems both in Church and State. And I can see no
reason why men who hold that conception of the Church, which was one of the most
remarkable characteristics of that Pilgrim band, should despair of its power to overspread
the continent. The tendency of American society is to localize the government even of the
most centralized churches, is apparent to every well-informed man. Presbyterianism can
not be the same in America that it is in Scotland. Neither Presbyterianism nor Metho
dism can be the same in the presence of active and efficient Congregational churches, that
it is in the absence of any such influence. In such circumstances their central forces are
always weakened, and their local and individual forces strengthened. Why, then, should
we doubt that a force which is always active and potent, and springs up from the very
source of our national life, will ultimately prevail ? In such circumstances, can we doubt
for a moment that independency is the fittest instrument of religious organization in this
free country ?
One of the obstacles which has hitherto effectually resisted our progress over half our
territory has been destroyed by a mighty earthquake from God. Babylon the great is
fallen. Negro slavery shall no longer resist the organization of the Church on the basis
of the equality of the Christian brotherhood over half our country. Another of the
four obstacles which I have mentioned will be entirely removed when we, and all the
churches represented here, adhere to our principles of ecclesiastical freedom with a zeal
corresponding to their preciousness. The rivalship of opposing forms of Church govern
ments is the only serious one that remains. In respect to this we may reasonably assume
that there is deliverance in the not distant future.
"The day of freedom dawns at length,
The Lord's appointed day."
We have only to select that one of the conflicting systems in which all men are most
likely to find harmony and fraternity, under the full-orbed influence of American freedom,
evangelical truth, and the Spirit of the Lord, and to adhere to it. For my part, I am at
no loss to choose.
3. We must teach and defend the principles of our polity. Such has not been our
custom. Some may have done it; many have neglected it. We have not seldom trained
our sons and the people of our charges, from infancy to gray hairs, without their ever once
having heard one earnest and thorough statement of the reasons why they are, and
should continue to be, Congregationalists. We have even inculcated upon ourselves and
our brethren the notion, that a minister of the gospel can hardly be worse employed

g National Council. 23
than in defending the ecclesiastical polity to which, after all, he thinks it his duty to
adhere. And then we are surprised and shocked that our brethren treat the matter of
Church polity, not as a question of principle, but of mere convenience and worldly advantage.
And as things have been over three-fourths of our territory, there are far more motives
of convenience and worldly advantage inclining a man to be a Presbyterian, than a Con-
gregationalist. There are hundreds in this assembly who could testify to the truth of
this from their own experience. If there are reasons why we should adhere to our polity
at all, the same reasons would prove that our practice in respect to teaching and defending
our system should undergo a speedy and total change.
I imagine, however, I hear an objector inquiring, What ! would you abandon that glo
rious characteristic of all our past history, that the gospel alone is primary, and all ques
tions of mere polity, by a great remove from it, merely secondary ? Bishop Butler has
very truly said, " It is one of the peculiar weaknesses of human nature, when, upon the
comparison of two things, one is found to be of greater importance than the other, to
consider this other as of scarce any importance at all." I must add that it seems to me
that this is preeminently " the peculiar weakness " of us Congregationalists. We have a
polity, the glory of which is that it immeasurably exalts the spiritual truths and moral
precepts of the gospel above all questions of mere polity ; and therefore we never teach
our people the excellence of this polity at all, or even explain to them its principles, but
leave them without any instruction on the subject, to be swallowed up by other polities,
under the influence of which they will be very sure to acquire and transmit to their
children after them an intense spirit of proselytism, which is alike foreign to our history
and to Christianity. Would it not be well to draw a little of the attention of our people
to questions of polity, to guard them against such a danger ?
" There is at the present time a tacitly understood truce among the various denomina
tions in respect to the open advocacy of their peculiarities of faith and order, especially
the latter, entered into for the sake of peace and good feeling. We are told that the
minor questions which divide evangelical Christians are not important enough to justify
the agitation and the disturbance of good feeling and Christian charity, which might
result from the open discussion of our differences. These differences are assumed to be
important enough to justify our rending the body of Christ asunder for the sake of them ;
important enough to justify us in demanding for every little community in Christendom
at least six Church organizations, when one only can be supported, and thus entailing
on the whole Christian cause division and weakness before its enemies, and religious
anarchy ; they are important enough to justify Christian men, and, still more, Christian
women, in plying with unresting activity all the arts, all the social influences, all the
motives, both religious and secular, of the most intense proselytism, to build up each his
own denomination ; but not important enough to justify us in a little honest, outspoken
defence of what we really think to be important truth, and clear and fair refutation of
what we think to be erroneous and injurious.
Indeed, fathers and brethren, I have in some sense taken my life in my hand in deliv
ering such a discourse as this on the present occasion. I am in danger of being thought
to have violated established inter-denominational law, and thereby to have criminally dis
turbed the peace of those high contracting ecclesiastical powers which at present assume
to divide Protestant Christendom among them. Nor need I limit the statement to Pro
testant Christendom. The truce, when once fairly established, will necessarily embrace
Romanism itself. We have, in recognizing such a truce to the extent we have recognized
it, erected a false standard of judgment, by which any Christian minister would be sure
to be condemned as a bigot and a bitter sectarian who should truly represent to his con
gregation the falsehoods, the delusions, and the despotisms of Popery. That great red

24 National Council.
dragon is to-day greatly protected from the merited and healthful indignation and ab
horrence of a free Christian people by this truce among our Christian denominations.
We cannot agree not to rebuke one another, without imposing restraint on ourselves
in respect to rebuking other and perhaps more heinous sinners.
This truce proceeds upon the assumption that the present divided condition of Protest
ant Christians is an inevitable result of religious freedom, and destined to be perpetual,
and that therefore we must divide up every Protestant community among the existing
powers ecclesiastical as quietly as possible. The advocates of those centralized Church
governments which, like the Presbyterian and Methodist, are not exclusive, generally
not only accept this state of things as inevitable, but apologize for it as desirable and
beneficial to the interests of Christ's kingdom. I am glad to say that I have met very
few Congregationalists who take this view of it. -They generally deplore it as a great and
intolerable evil. If, however, we. would be truly prepared for our great work, we must
go one step farther, and believe that the Lord has deliverance for his people ; that they
are not perpetually to wander thus bewildered and confounded ; that the Lord will at
last appear, and lead his people over Jordan into the promised land of freedom and
blessed fellowship. And, amid all the confusion of the present, we must seek light from
God to guide us in the true path by which he will lead his people to this blessed consum
mation, and point out that path to all over whom we have any influence, and exhort them
to pursue it.
For myself, I must frankly declare, that, to me, the whole beauty and preciousness of
the Congregational system lies in this, — that it is a method by which the whole Church
of God under heaven may stand in blessed mitral unity, on the basis of the gospel, the
whole gospel, and nothing but the gospel, divided and distracted by no forms or ceremonies
or governments which man hath devised. And I think, in the midst of such a scene of
religious anarchy as that in which I have lived, such a polity is worthy of being explained,
defended, and adhered to, till God shall call me hence.
4. We must make this ecclesiastical question one of principle, otherwise we cannot be
efficient laborers for the evangelization of this continent and the world. If our gifted
and strong young men regard the present confused and anarchical condition of reUgious
society in the Valley of the Mississippi as necessary and inevitable ; if they are taught
that there is no question of principle at issue between the Protestant denominations, and
that all which a pastor can do is, in the general rivalship of churches, to build up his own
as well as he can, by the power of his eloquence, the attraction of his own social charac
ter, and the social influences which he can gather around him, and by the excellence of
his organ and his choir, without any appeal to the principles and convictions of the peo
ple : I say if strong and vigorous-minded young men see that churches are chiefly to be
built up by such influences as these, they will feel little attraction in the pastoral office,
and seek some other profession ; or if they enter the ministry, a sense of these difficul
ties will weaken their hands, and sicken their hearts and crush their spirits. And this,
my brethren, is one of the most potent causes which is thinning the ranks and impairing
the energies of the Christian ministry.
Let us have done with all this. 'Let us bring before our minds the grand conception
of a continent to be overspread with a net-work of Christian institutions. Let us with
devout earnestness inquire what ecclesiastical system is the fittest instrument for achiev
ing this great result ; and when we have chosen it with full conviction, we shall wield it
with hearty good will ; we shall see and feel the giant obstacles that oppose us j but we
shall believe that the truth and spirit of God are strong enough to overcome them. We
shall not be intolerant or exclusive. We shall meekly instruct those who oppose them
selves, but we shall instruct them, and not dodge them by any cunning artifices. We

National Council. 25
ghall have ,principles to defend, and we shall defend them, and we shall put our brethren
of other denominations on the defence of theirs ; and if the truth is with us, our cause
will go up, and theirs will go down ; if with them, theirs will go up, and ours go down.
In either case we shall have labored successfully, and the truth will have triumphed.
If we mean to be efficient, we must not purpose to hold our own in a conflict of sects,
admitted to be interminable and inevitable ; but in all thing we must be the advocates
of principles which are true, and therefore, through God, mighty, and destined to over
come and exclude all opposing error. And it is infinitely important that this spirit be
infused into the Independent churches all over the world. English Independency is
suffering the same paralysis, only in a far higher degree. It is but too content to be the
religion of the middle class. It is expected, if a family becomes rich and great, it will
desert " the Chapel " and go to " the Church." English Independency must have done with
this. It must recognize its principles as true for all men, and fitted to rule the world,
and wield them with the expectation of overturning the proud hierarchy which has so
long crushed them down, and establishing, in face of the aristocracy of England, the doc
trine of the equal brotherhood of the disciples of Christ. It must demand for its sons a
culture as large and as generous as Oxford and Cambridge give to the sons of nobility
and the State Church. It must claim to speak in the name of the Lord, alike to high and
low, rich and poor. When this spirit fully possesses English Independency, bishops will
hold their mitres and their revenues by a very frail and transient tenure. Fathers and
brethren, both in this country and in England, any polity is worthy of being advocated
and defended thus, or it is not worthy of being adhered to at all. If it . is true, let it
triumph and reign ; if false, let it go into oblivion as soon as possible.
Finally, we must be in earnest. God never gave to any other people such a problem
to be solved as that which he has given to the Christian people of our country, — to
plant the gospel under the full-orbed sunlight of civil and religious freedom, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the eternal snows of the Arctic to the eternal verdure
of the Tropic. In these last few months he has come with his own terrible earthquake,
and shaken down and utterly destroyed the only political barrier which obstructed our
progress. The land is now before us, and the sunshine of freedom is on it all. And
God is calling us as by a voice speaking to us from out of the. sky, Arise and build;
rear up the Church of Christ on the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ
being the chief corner-stone, over all those hills, amid all those valleys, that it may teach
to all the millions that shall soon dwell there, in your own dear mother-tongue, these
wonderful works of God ; that it may be so ubiquitous that no human being shall fail to
hear its melodious summons every Sabbath morning to the house of Christian prayer and
praise; that all those dark places of the land that have been cursed by the abominations
of slavery may be purified, and filled with light, and covered over with a population as
peaceful, as free, as enlightened, and as religious, as the inhabitants of the sweetest valley
that nestles among New-England hills; in one word, to found and nurture the institu
tions of learning, freedom, and religion, for a mighty nation very soon to surpass in pop
ulation the empire of China, and in wealth and ubiquitous influence the empire of Britain.
And shall we deal lukewarmly, coldly, and in a worldly spirit, with the elements of
such a problem ? Shall we not, in such a cause, pour out our wealth like water, and
give our sons and daughters to the work, as freely as patriots ever gave their sons to
their country, and offer our own selves as freely as our adorable Redeemer gave himself
for us ?
The Committee on Credentials made a partial report.
An invitation was received from the committee having in charge the proposed

26 National Council.
Temperance Celebration on the 17th inst., asking the Council to take part in the
same. On motion of Dr. Thompson, of New York, it was voted, that while this
body acknowledge the courtesy of this invitation, and deeply sympathize with the
object of the celebration, the pressure of the business of the Council is such as to
compel it to decline compliance with this invitation.
A committee on nominations was appointed as follows : Rev. I. P. Langworthy,
of Massachusetts ; His Excellency J. G. Smith, of Vermont ; Rev. M. Badger, D.D.,
of California ; Rev. Flavel Bascom, of Illinois ; Asahel Finch, Esq., of Wisconsin.
Adjourned to three P. M.
Thursday, June 15, 3 P. M.
On motion of H. C. Bowen, Esq., of New York, the following telegram was
ordered to be sent to the President of the United States, viz. :
To His Excellency Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, Washington,
B. C.
The National Council of the Congregational churches of the United States now
in session in this city, representing nearly three thousand churches in all sections
of the country, desire to present you their Christian salutations, to assure you of
their profound sympathy in your great and trying labors, to promise you their loyal
support and prayers, and express their solemn conviction that the hundreds of
thousands embraced as worshippers in their churches will most heartily cooperate
with you in extending the institutions of civil and religious liberty throughout the
land. (Signed) W. A. Buckingham, Moderator.
Mount Vernon Church, Boston, June 15, 1865.
The committee to report Rules of Order made their report, which was accepted
and adopted as follows : RULES OF ORDER.
I. Each morning, at the time to which the Council is adjourned, the Moderator
shall open the meeting with prayer, and the Scribe shall read the minutes of the
preceding day, that any needful correction may be made.
H. In case of an equal division of votes, the Moderator shall have a casting vote.
III. Whilst the Moderator is putting any question or addressing the body, no
one shall walk out of or across the house ; nor in such case, or when a member is
speaking, shall entertain private discourse or read any printed book or paper; nor
whilst a member is speaking shall pass between him and the chair.
IV. When any member, in debating or otherwise, shall transgress the rules of
the body, the Moderator shall, by his own authority, or at the request of any mem
ber, call him to order ; and if a question shall arise concerning his being in order,
it shall be decided by an appeal to the body.
V. Every member, when he wishes to speak, shall address the Moderator, who
shall announce his name. When two or more rise at once, the Moderator shall
name the member who is first to speak.
VI. No member shall speak more than twice to the merits of the question in
debate, except by special permission of the body ; nor more than once until every
member choosing to speak shall have spoken.

National Council. 27
VII. Every motion, except for adjournment, shall be reduced to writing, if the
Moderator or any two members desire it.
Vin. When a motion is regularly made and seconded, and has been stated by
the Moderator, it cannot be withdrawn or modified by the mover without the consent
of the body.
IX. No vote can be reconsidered except on the day of its passage or the next
succeeding, and on motion of one who voted with the majority.
X. When a question is under debate, no motion shall be received but to adjourn,
to lay on the table, for the previous question, to postpone to a day or hour certain,
¦ to commit, to amend, to postpone indefinitely; which several motions shall have pre
cedence in the order in which they are arranged. On a motion for adjournment,
for laying on the table, for indefinite postponement, or for the previous question,
there shall be no debate.
XI. The effect of a negative of the previous question is to allow further debate
and the issue of the subject in due order ; the effect of adopting the previous ques
tion is to put an end to debate, and to bring the Council to a direct vote upon
pending amendments, if any, and then upon the original question.
XH. If a question under debate contains several parts, any member may have it
divided, and the question taken on each part.
, XHI. Every committee shall consist of three members, unless expressly ordered
otherwise by the body, and shall be nominated by a committee appointed for the
purpose. XIV. If the report of a committee contains nothing more than matters of fact
for information, or matters of argument for the consideration of the Council, the
question is, Shall the report be accepted ? and that question, unless superseded by a
motion to reject, to recommit, to postpone, or to lay upon the table, shall be taken
without debate. Such a report, if accepted, is placed upon the files of the Council,
but, not being an act of the Council, is not entered on the minutes.
If the report is in the form of a vote or resolution, or of a declaration, express
ing the judgment or testimony of the Council, the additional question arises, Shall
the report be adopted? — and motions for amendment are in order. Such a report,
if adopted, with or without amendment, is the act of the Council, and is entered on
the minutes.
If a report gives the views of the committee on the matter referred to them, and
terminates with the form of a resolution or declaration in the name of the Council,
the adoption of the report is the adoption only of the resolution or declaration ;
and while the report at large is placed on file, that part of it which has become the
act of the Council is entered on the minutes.
XV. It shall be the duty of the Business Committee to prepare a docket for the
use of the Moderator, upon which shall be entered all items of business which
members of the Council may desire to bring before the body ; and except by special
vote of the Council, no business shall be introduced which has not in this manner
passed through the hands of the committee.
Credentials accrediting to the Council various delegates from foreign bodies and
churches were read and accepted ; and on motion of Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecti
cut, it was voted that these delegates be received as honorary members of the
Council. On motion of Rev. Mr. Eustis, of Connecticut, it was voted that a Committee on
Business, a Committee on Finance, a Committee on Printing, and a Committee on
Devotional Exercises, be appointed; the number of each to be fixed by the nominat
ing committee.

28 National Council.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Budington, of New York, it was voted that the Rev. Dr.
Massie, who formerly visited this country, and has been known as our stanch friend
in trial, be invited to sit in this Council as an honorary member, on the same footing
as the other brethren from England.
The Moderator welcomed the delegates from abroad; and addresses of response
were made by Rev. Dr. Vaughan, Rev. Dr. Raleigh, and Rev. Dr. Massie, of England,
and Rev. Dr. Wilkes, of Canada.
The Committee on Nomination reported nominations to membership in the com
mittees assigned to them, as follows, which report was adopted, and the committees
so appointed :
Business Committee — Rev. A. H. Quint, Massachusetts; Rev. S. Wolcott, D. D.,
Ohio; Rev. B. Labaree, D. D., Vermont; Dea. Philo Carpenter, Illinois; Dea.
S. F. Drury, Michigan.
Committee on Devotional Exercises — Rev. E. N. Kirk, D. D., of Massachusetts;
Rev. W. Deloss Love, of Wisconsin ; Rev. Asa Turner, of Iowa ; Rev. George E.
Adams, D. D., of Maine ; Dea. Daniel H. Parker, of New Hampshire.
Committee on Finance — Dea. Charles Stoddard, of Massachusetts; Henry C.
Bowen, Esq., of New York ; E B. Preston, Esq., of Connecticut ; Douglass Putnam,
Esq., of Ohio ; Dea. Moses Pettingill, of Illinois.
Committee on Printing — Rev. J. B. Miles, of Massachusetts ; Rev. J. C. Holbrook,
D. D., of New York; Dea. E. F. Duren, of Maine.
The Business Committee reported the following recommendations, viz. :
(1) That the time from eleven A. M. to half past eleven A. M. be daily devoted
to devotional exercises and singing.
(2) That the contracts made by the Committee of Arrangements with phono
graphic and other reporters be ratified by the Council.
(3) That the reports originating with committees outside of the Council be
referred to special committees immediately on their acceptance by the Council, and
without debate on their merits ; all debate to take place when these special com
mittees report to the Council.
This report was accepted, and its provisions adopted.
Adjourned at five P. M. to nine A. M. to-morrow morning.
Third Day; Friday, June 16, 9 A.M.
Council was opened with prayer by the Moderator.
The Committee on Credentials made report as follows :
1. That they have added to the roll the names of all delegates who have presented
credentials since their last report.
2. That they recommend that the chairmen of committees appointed to present
special reports to this Council preparatory to business, who are not members of the
body, be invited to sit as honorary members, including Rev. J. E. Roy, who brings
a document from the General Association of Blinois by its special order,
3. That application has been made to them to admit a delegate appointed by a
Church which was omitted in the letters-missive sent to its neighboring churches
(and thus had no opportunity to act with them in conference ) ; and that the com
mittee, while they perceive the injury caused by the omission, do not consider the
case as within their province to redress such injury, and therefore report the case
to the Council.
The report was accepted in its first section.

National Council. 29
The second was amended by enlarging it so as to admit members (as well as the
chairmen) of committees presenting special reports, and of the local committee of
arrangements, to honorary membership with the Council.
On motion of Prof. Harris, of Maine, action on the third section was indefinitely
postponed. Rev. Dr. Dutton moved a reconsideration of this motion of indefinite postponement,
and the motion was declared lost.
This decision was doubted, and a count was made; ninety-four voting for recon
sideration, and one hundred and twenty-six against the same. So the motion was
not reconsidered, and action was indefinitely postponed.
The Business Committee recommended that to-morrow, June 17, be set apart as
the time recommended by the preliminary committee as a special service of devo
tion for the acknowledgement of the marvellous and the merciful dealings of
Almighty God with the nation in connection with the war, and for supplicating a
gracious dispensation of the Spirit of God upon the land, that our restored national
unity may be consecrated in righteousness, and in the peace and joy of the Holy
Ghost ; and that the invitation from the First Church in Charlestown, to hold ser
vice in their meeting-house on Harvard Hill, be accepted, and that the Council meet
meet there at three o'clock, P. M.
This report was referred to the Committee on Devotional Exercises.
An invitation from the Committee of Arrangements to visit Forefather's Rock at
Plymouth, on such day as the Council may be pleased to designate, was accepted
by the Council.
His Excellency J. G. Smith, of Vermont, resigned his place on the Committee
of Nomination, being compelled to retire from the further sessions of the Council
on account of ill health; and Rev. C. E. Ferrin, of Vermont, was appointed to
fill the vacancy.
It was voted that a committee be appointed to prepare and report resolutions on
the state of the country.
It was voted, that hereafter the Nominating Committee have the power to appoint
such a number of members upon each committee as may seem to them expedient.
Rev. Theodore Monod, of Paris, France, addressed the Council, as a delegate from
the Union of the Evangelical Churches of France ; and was followed by Rev. John
Thomas, delegate of the Congregational churches in Wales.
On motion of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, of New York, the following resolution
was adopted, viz. :
Whereas, The attitude of various religious bodies in Europe toward the United
States, during the past five years, requires a careful discrimination and statement,
therefore Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed to prepare a suitable reply of
this Council to the delegates from foreign bodies who have been heard.
Rev. Joseph P. Thompson, D. D., chairman of the" committee appointed to report
a Declaration of Faith, then read the report of that committee.
REPORT ON DECLARATION OF FAITH.
The committee appointed by the preliminary conference to prepare a Declaration of
Faith to be submitted to the Council, respectfully report :
That, in the light of the discussions of that conference upon the expediency of such a
Declaration, and also of the general principles of our polity, they could not regard it as

30 National Council.
their function to prepare a Confession of Faith to Jje imposed by act of this, or of any other
body, upon the churches of the Congregational order. " It was the glory of our fathers,
that they heartily professed the only rule of their religion, from the very first, to be the
Holy Scriptures j"1 and particular churches have always exercised their liberty in " confes
sions drawn up in their own forms."2 And such has been the accord of these particular
confessions, one with another, and with the Scriptures, that we may to-day repeat, with
thankfulness, the words of the fathers of the Savoy Confession, two centuries ago :
while, " from the first, every, or at least the generality, of our churches have been, in a
manner, like so many ships — though holding forth the same general colors — launched
singly, and sailing apart and alone in the vast ocean of these tumultuous times, and have
been exposed to ' every wind of doctrine,' under no other conduct than the Word and
Spirit,"  yet " let all acknowledge that God hath ordered it for his high and
greater glory, in that his singular care and power should have so watched over each of
these, as that all should be found to have steered their course by the same Chart, and to
have been bound for one and the same Port; and that the same holy and blessed Truths
of all sorts, which are current and warrantable amongst all the other churches of Christ
in the world, are found to be our Lading."3
Whatever the diversities of metaphysical theology apparent in these various Confes
sions, they yet, with singular unanimity, identify the faith of the Congregational churches
with the body of Christian doctrine known as Calvinistic; and hence such Confessions
as that of the Westminster divines, and that of the Savoy Synod, have been accredited
among these churches as general symbols of faith.
It has not appeared to the committee expedient to recommend that this Council should
disturb this " variety in unity " — as Cotton Mather happily describes it — by an at
tempted uniformity of statement in a Confession formulating each doctrine in- more
recent terms of metaphysical theology. It seemed better to characterize in a compre
hensive way the doctrines held in common by our churches, than thus to individualize
each in a theological formula. The latter course might rather disturb the unity that
now exists amid variety. Moreover, little could be gained in this respect beyond what
we already possess in the ancient formulas referred to, which, being interpreted in the
spirit in which they were conceived, answer the end of a substantial unity in doctrine, and
have withal the savor of antiquity and the proof of use.
In the language of the Preface to the Savoy Declaration, a Confession is " to be looked
upon but as a meet or fit medium or means whereby to express a common faith and sal
vation, and no way to be made use of as an imposition upon any. Whatever is of force
or constraint in matters of this nature, causes them to degenerate from the name and
nature of Confessions, and turns them from being Confessions, of Faith into exactions
and impositions of Faith ! "4 Yet a common Confession serves the important purpose —
the "neglect" of which the Savoy fathers sought to remedy — of making manifest our
unity in doctrine, and of " holding out common lights to others whereby to know where
we are." s
With these views, as the result, of prolonged and careful deliberation, the committee
unanimously recommend that the Council should declare, by reference to historical and
venerable symbols, the faith as it has been maintained among the Congregational churches
from the beginning ; and also that it should set forth a testimony on behalf of these
1 Preface to the Confession adopted at Saybrook, Conn., 1708.
2 Cotton Mather, Preface to " Faith professed by the Churches of New England."
3 Preface to the Savoy Declaration, iu Hanbury's Historical Memorials, iii., 523.
4 Hanbury's Historical Memorials, iii., 517. .
6 Hanbury's Historical Memorials, iii., 623.

v National Council. 31
churches, for the Word of Truth now assailed by multiform and dangerous errors ; and
for this end, they respectfully submit the following
recital and declaration.
When the churches of New England assembled in a general Synod at Cambridge, in
1648, they declared their assent, " for the substance thereof," to the Westminster Con
fession ot Faith. When again these churches convened in a general Synod at Boston, in
1680, they declared their approval (with slight verbal alterations) of the doctrinal symbol
adopted by a Synod of the Congregational churches in England, at London, in 1658, and
known as the " Savoy Confession," which in doctrine is almost identical with that of the
Westminster Assembly. And yet again, when the churches in Connecticut met in coun
cil at Saybrook ft 1708, they " owned and consented to " the Savoy Confession as adopted
at Boston, and offered this as a public symbol of their faith.
Thus, frOm the beginning of their history, the Congregational churches in the United
States have been allied in doctrine with the Reformed churches of Europe, and especially
of Great Britain. The eighth article of the " Heads of Agreement," established by the
Congregational and Presbyterian ministers in England in 1692, and adopted at Saybrook
in 1708, defines this position in these words : " As to what appertains to soundness of
judgment in matters of faith, we esteem it sufiicient that a church acknowledge the
Scriptures to be the Word of God, the perfect and only rule of faith and practice, and
own either the doctrinal part of those commonly called the Articles of the Church of
England, or the Confession or Catechisms, shorter or larger, compiled by the Assembly
at Westminster, or the Confession agreed on at the Savoy, to be agreeable to the said
rule." And now, when, after the lapse of two centuries, these churches are again convened in
a General Council at their primitive and historical home, it is enough for the first of those
ends enumerated by the Synod at Cambridge — to wit, " the maintenance of the faith
entire within itself" — that this Council, referring to these ancient symbols as embodying,
for substance of doctrine, the constant faith of the churches here represented, declares
its adherence to the same, as being " well and fully grounded upon the Holy Scripture,"6
which is " the only sufficient and invariable rule of religion." 7
But having in view, also, the second end of a public confession enumerated by the
Cambridge Synod, to wit, " the holding forth of unity and harmony both amongst and
with other churches," we desire to promote a closer fellowship of all Christian denomina
tions in the faith and work of the gospel, especially against popular and destructive forms
of unbelief which assail the foundations of all religion, both natural and revealed ; which
know no God but nature; no Depravity but physical malformation, immaturity of powers,
or some incident of outward condition ; no Providence but the working of material
causes and of statistical laws ; no Revelation but that of consciousness ; no Redemption
but the elimination of evil by a natural sequence of suffering ; no Regeneration but the nat
ural evolution of a higher type of existence ; no Retribution but the necessary consequences
of physical and psychological laws.
As a Testimony, in common with all Christian believers, against these and kindred errors,
we deem it important to make a more specific declaration of the following truths :
There is one personal God, who created all things ; who controls the physical universe,
this laws whereof he has established ;- and who, holding all events within his knowledge,
rules over men by his wise and good providence and by his perfect moral law.
God, whose being, perfections, and government are partially made known to us through
« Preface to the Savoy Confession, as adopted at Saybrook in 1708.
'Ditto.

32 National Council.
the testimony of his works and of conscience, has made a further revelation of himself
in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments — a revelation attested at the first by
supernatural signs, and confirmed through all the ages since by its moral effects upon
the individual soul and upon human society ; a revelation authoritative and final. In
this revelation God has declared himself to be the Father, the Son,, and the Holy
Ghost ; and he has manifested his love for the world through the incarnation of the
Eternal Word for man's redemption, in the sinless life, the expiatory sufferings and
death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour; and also in the mission
of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, for the regeneration and sanctification of the souls of
men. The Scriptures, confirming the testimony of conscience and of history, declare that
mankind are universally sinners, and are under the righteous condemnation of the law of
God ; that from this state there is no deliverance, save through " repentance toward God,
and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ ; " and that there is a day appointed in which God will
raise the dead, and will judge the world, and in which the issues of his moral govern
ment over men shall be made manifest in the awards of eternal life and eternal death,
according to the deeds done in the body.
JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, )
EDWARD A. LAWRENCE, { Committee.
GEORGE P. FISHER, )
Boston, June 16, 1865.
A half-hour was spent in devotional exercises.
Business, being resumed, Rev. S. Wolcott, D. D., of Ohio, moved that the report
presented by Dr. Thompson be accepted, and referred to a committee, with instruc
tions to consider the propriety of submitting to the Council a declaration of the
common faith of our churches, and, if thought advisable, to report such a declaration.
And it was so voted.
The Committee on Devotional Exercises reported through Dr. Kirk, chairman ;
which report was accepted and adopted so far as to order that each day's exer
cises be closed by the singing of the doxology ; and that the special service of
devotion contemplated by the preliminary meeting at New York City be held in
the meeting-house of the First Church in Charlestown to-morrow afternoon, at
three o'clock, to continue one hour.
Rev. Dr. Bacon, of Connecticut, chairman of the committee requested to report
on Church Polity, reported as follows :
REPORT ON CHURCH POLITY.
To the National Council of Congregational Cliurches : ¦
Fathers and Brethren, — In the preliminary conference which made arrange
ments for this National Council, the undersigned and the Rev. Dr. Storrs of Cin
cinnati, now in England, were appointed to bring before the Council " the expediency
of issuing a statement of Congregational polity.'" We, therefore, ask leave to pre
sent for the consideration of this venerable assembly; first, the fitness and desira
bleness of such a measure ; secondly, the principles which ought to determine the
character and contents of the document to be issued ; thirdly, the kind and degree
of authority with which such a document, proceeding from this Council, would be
invested ; and fourthly, the form of a statement, to be adopted with or without
amendment, or to be rejected, as the Council shall see fit.

¦National Council. 33
I. The fitness and desirableness of a statement from this Council, describing the
polity of the Congregational churches, may appear from these considerations :
1. In issuing such a statement, we only follow the example of ancient Congrega
tional synods. The Cambridge Synod, as it is commonly called, which assembled
in 1636, and was continued by successive adjournments till 1638, and to which all
the churches of the New England colonies were invited, left, as a perpetual memo
rial of itself, that statement of Congregational polity which has ever since been
called the Cambridge Platform. The synod of Congregational churches which was
oonvened under the patronage of the English government in 1658, at the Savoy
in London, issued a "Declaration of the Faith and Order owned and practised in
the Congregational Churches of England." The synod of the churches in the col
ony of Connecticut, which was convened at Saybrook in 1708, gave out that scheme
of a modified Congregationalism, which, though never formally adopted elsewhere
than in that State, has had its influence on our churches in almost all parts of our
country. And more recently, the meeting in which the Congregational Union of
England and Wales was instituted, though it was not properly a synod or council
of churches, issued a declaration or statement describing the Faith and Order of
the Congregational churches in that country.
2. A document which shall exhibit, with more authority than can belong to any
individual or local testimony, the system of order actually held by the Congrega
tional churches in. the United States, is greatly needed. The churches need it for
their own information and guidance. Pastors and home missionaries, and indeed
all our ministers, need it. Young men in theological schools, who are preparing
themselves for the service of the churches, need it. Many whose ecclesiastical con
nection is with other po»tions of Christ's universal Church need it, that their minds
maybe disabused of misinformation or of prejudice. Especially is it needed in the
new States and Territories where ecclesiastical institutions are yet to be formed;
and in the recovered States so lately ravaged by rebellion, where ecclesiastical
reconstruction, disembarrassed of all connection with a Christianity apostate from
the first principles of righteousness, is hardly less important to the future welfare
of society than a new political and social order.
3. No anciont document can be wisely referred to as being in all respects suffi
cient for our present need. The Cambridge Platform was made more than two
hundred years ago, when American Congregationalism was in its infancy ; and it
is now more valuable as a means of showing how little our churches have departed
from the original principles and methods of their polity, than as a guide to the
manner in which those principles are applied and administered in the practice of
our churches at the present day. Indeed, there are portions of it which, to readers
not versed in our ecclesiastical history, nor familiar with the technical terms of a
logic now obsolete, are hardly intelligible without a commentary.
II. What sort of a statement will best supply the existing need, is a question
which seems to answer itself. There is no need of an argumentative or rhetorical
defence of Congregationalism to be issued by this assembly. Such expositions of
our polity may proceed more fitly from individuals than from any representative
body. On the other hand, a simple statement of the two or three first principles
which constitute the radical difference between Congregationalism and other theo
ries of Church government would not be sufficient. Those first principles are
only the points of divergence between differing systems ; and how wide the diver
gence is, cannot be shown but by tracing out the application of the principles. A
simple and perspicuous statement, not only of the principles on which our pobty is

34 Nationpl Council.
founded, but also of the usages and arrangements which those principles have
established among us, and in which, by common consent, they are applied and
made practical, will be, it is believed, of great use to our churches both in their
internal administration and in their fellowship with each other; ¦ ',
HI. The authority of any document issued by this assembly of elders and mes
sengers is wholly unlike the authority which is claimed for the canons enacted by
the various assemblies of clergy and delegates which assume to govern, the particu
lar churches under them. It is little more than a truism to say that- this Council
has no legislative power to ordain a new constitution for the Congregational
churches, or to make any new law, and no judicial power to establish precedents
which inferior judicatories must follow. All that a Council like this can do is to
inquire, to deliberate, and to testify. The testimony of this assembly concerning
what is and what is not the Congregational polity cannot but have whatever
authority belongs to the testimony of competent witnesses, assembled in a great
multitude,; well informed concerning the matter in question, and representing all
" those Congregational churches in the United States of America which are in
recognized fellowship and cooperation through the general associations, conferences;
and conventions in the several States." Whatever authority the Cambridge Plafc
form has as testifying what the Congregational polity of our fathers was in 1648,
just that authority a similar statement proceeding from this assembly, will have -as
testifying what American Congregationalism is in 1865.
IV. The undersigned therefore respectfully submit the accompanying form or
draught of a statement to be issued by this Council, together with a briefer docu
ment stating substantially the same points. We have not presumed to insert, any
noveltiesj not to express our individual preferences, but oaly to state the usages of
the churches., A comparison of our draught with the Cambridge Platform will
show how closely we have followed that time-honored instrument 'in the" general
plan, in the arrangement of .topics', and in language, and, at the same time, how
freely we have departed from it, whether for the sake of increased perspicuity;
or for the sake of exhibiting the Congregational polity as it is in fact to-day,
instead of exhibiting it as it was in theory when our fathers, more than two hundred
years ago, were beginning to build on this continent the living and ever-living
temple df our God.
LEONARD BACON.
ALONZO H. QUINT.
Boston, June 16, 1865.

CHURCH GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
PART I.— PRELIMINARY PRINCIPLES.
CHAPTER I. — DEFINITION AND RULE OF CHURCH POLITY.
1. The first principle from which the polity of the Congregational churches pro
ceeds is that the Holy Scriptures, and especially the Scriptures of the New Testa
ment, are the only authoritative rule for the constitution and"' administration of
Church government ; so that no other rules than those which are warranted by
Christ and his apostles can be imposed on Christians as conditions of membership
and communion in the Church. '
2. Ecclesiastical polity, therefore, or Church government and discipline, is that

National CouncU. 35
association of believers for united worship and spiritual communion, in order to the
visibility, the purity, the advancement, and the perpetuity of Christ's kingdom,
which God has prescribed by the teaching of the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures.
CHAPTER II. — THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AND A PARTICULAR CHURCH.
1. Christ's catholic or universal Church is the great company of God's elect,
rddeemed and effectually called from the state of sin and death into a state of
reconciliation to God.
2. The Church universal is either triumphant or militant. They who have come
out of the great tribulation, and have entered into the joy of their Lord, in heaven,
are the Church triumphant. They who are still serving Christ on the earth, and
contending with the powers that rule the darkness of this world, are the Church
militant. 3. The universal Church on earth is not invisible merely, as discerned by God,
who searches the hearts and knows the relation of every individual soul to Christ,
but is visible, also, as including all who profess to believe in Christ, and do not
wholly contradict that profession by ungodliness in their lives, or by denying the
essential truths of the gospel.
4. The visible Church catholic, as it includes all visible Christians, comprehends
not only such particular churches as are constituted and governed according to the
worcl given in the Holy Scriptures, but also all assemblies" of Christian believers
and worshippers, even though, in things not essential to the Christian faith, theylerr
through the force of tradition or the infirmity of human judgment; and it is gov
erned, not by the pretended vicar of Christ, nor by any human authority assuming
to have jurisdiction over all particular churches, but only by Christ himself through
his Word and Spirit.
- 5. As we renounce the notion of an organized and governed catholic Church,
which has no warrant from the Scriptures, so we renounce the equally unwarranted
ssotion of a national Church having jurisdiction over the particular churches in 'a
nation. Under the gospel, the organized and governed Church is not ecumenical,
nor national, nor provincial, nor diocesan, or classical, but only local or parochial
t- a congregation of faithful or believing men, dwelling together in one city, town,
or convenient neighborhood.
6. A local or Congregational Church is, by the' institution of Christ, a part of the
militant visible .Church, consisting of a company of saints by calling, united into one
body by a holy covenant, for the public worship of God, and their own mutual
edification in the fellowship of the Lord Jesus.
• 7. All particular churches, being the one body of Christ, and having one Lord,
one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, are bound to maintain and hold
forth the catholic communion of saints ; endeavoring, in their intercourse and
relations one with another, to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
S"PART H. — THE CHURCH: ITS FORM, ORGANIZATION, AND
f. s GOVERNMENT.
*-.:. , : ¦ ' "
CHAPTER I. — HOW A PARTICULAR CHURCH IS CONSTITUTED.
--1. The visible Church consists of those who belong to Christ, and are therefore,
in the phrase of our ancient platform, " saints by calling," and who, being holy by
their calling and profession, are gathered out of the ungodly world, and united in a
holy fellowship.

36 National Council.
2. Those who visibly belong to Christ are, first, such as have not only attained
a knowledge of the principles of religion, and are free from gross and open scandals,
but also do profess their personal faith and repentance, and walk in blameless obe
dience to the word ; and, secondly, their children, who, being children of the covenant,
are also holy.
3. The members of one Church ought ordinarily to dwell in such vicinity to each
other that they can meet in one place ; so that every city, town, or convenient neigh
borhood, shall have its own Church complete and distinct. And ordinarily the
members of one Church ought not to be more in number than can conveniently
meet for worship in one assembly and manage their affairs by one administration.
Yet if there be many congregations, distinct from each other, in one town or city
(whether their several parishes be distinguished by geographical lines or otherwise),
they ought to regard themselves and each other as so many branches of Christ's one
catholic Church in that place.
4. Those believers who dwell together in one place become a particular and dis
tinct Church by their recognition of each other, and their mutual agreement,
express or implied, wherein they give themselves unto the Lord to the observing of
the ordinances of Christ in the same society. Such a recognition and agreement is
usually called the Church covenant.
5. Different degrees of explicitness in such an agreement do not affect the being
of the Churcb or the duties and responsibilities of membership. The more explicit
and solemn the act of covenanting, the more are the members reminded of their
common and mutual duties, and the less room is there for uncertainty in distinguish
ing between those who are members and those who are not. Yet the whole essence
and meaning of the covenant are in fact retained, where the agreement of certain
believers to meet constantly in one congregation for worship and edification is
expressed only by their practice of thus meeting, and their actual use and observance
of Christ's ordinances in their assembly. However explicit the covenant may be,
it can reasonably and rightfully' express nothing more than a mutual agreement to
observe all Christ's laws and ordinances as one Church ; and however informal the
agreement may be, it can mean nothing less.
6. All believers, having the opportunity, should endeavor to become members,
every one, of some particular Church, that they may honor Christ by their professed
conformity to the order and ordinances of the gospel, and that they may have ike
benefits of visible union and fellowship with the Church, which is the communion of
the saints. These benefits axe, first, a participation in the promise of Christ's special
presence with his Church ; secondly, their increased activity and enjoyment in the
Christian life by the combination of their affections and their endeavors, and by
their inciting each other to love and good works ; thirdly, watchful and fraternal
help to keep each other in the way of God's commandments, and to recover by due
admonition and censure any that go astray ; and, fourthly, aid in the Christian nur
ture and training of their children, that their households may be holy, and their
posterity be not cut off from the privileges of the covenant. Should all believers
neglect this duty of voluntarily entering into organized Christian fellowship, to
which duty they are moved by all the impulses of a renewed and holy mind, Christ
would soon have no visibly associated and organized Church on earth. x
CHAPTER II. — GOD'S INSTITUTED WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH.
1. Believers joined to each other and to Christ, in a Church relation, are builded
together for a habitation of God through the Spirit, on the foundation of the

National Council. " 37
apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone ; in whom
all the building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple of the Lord.
2. The worship of God in his spiritual temple, the Church, includes prayer, the
singing of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, the ministry of the word, the
sacraments, and the contribution of gifts and offerings for the service of Christ.
3. Prayers offered in the Church should be grave and earnest, lifting up the
thoughts and desires of the assembly to. God; they should be offered not in any
prescribed and inflexible form, but freely, according to the vicissitudes of need and
trial, and of joy or sorrow, in the Church or in its households; they should be offered
for all men, for those who are in authority, for the welfare of the civil State, and
for the universal Church of Christ on earth ; and in the matter and manner they
should be conformed to such models as the Scriptures give, and, above all, to that
model which Christ himself gave to his disciples, that he might teach them how to
. pray. 4. Singing in the Church is not for the delight of the sense, as in places of amuse
ment, but for the union of voices and hearts in worship, and for spiritual edification.
The Psalms which God gave by the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament are sanc
tioned for us by Christ and his apostles, and remain in the Church forever, to be
used in praising God. There is warrant also in the New Testament for the use of
hymns and spiritual songs, but not to the exclusion or neglect of the Psalms.
5. The ministry of the word in the Church is by the reading of the Scriptures,
with such exposition as may aid the hearers in their personal and family searching
of the Scriptures; and also by preaching and teaching, that the truths and princi
ples which God has revealed in his law and in the gospel of his grace may be set
forth distinctly in their manifestation of the glory and government of God, in their
relations to each other, and in all their applications to the duties of men and to the
salvation of sinners.
6. The two sacramental institutions of the New Testament, representing signifi
cantly, and commemorating through all ages, the two-fold grace of God offered in
the gospel, as they are to be observed by all believers, are also to be adminis
tered in every Church. Baptism, wherein the purifying element of water signifies
and holds forth the inward washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy
Ghost, which God shed on men abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, is most
becomingly administered in the Church, whether on converts from without or on the
children of the covenant, and should be administered in simplicity, with no addition
of vain or superstitious ceremonies. In like, manner, the Lord's Supper, wherein
his disciples, partaking of the bread and the cup, partake of his body which was
broken for us, and of his blood which was shed for many for the remission of sins,
is to be celebrated in all simplicity, according to the recorded words of the institu
tion, without any mixture of human inventions.
7. In the place of the tithes and offerings, which were part of God's instituted
worship before the coming of Christ, are the free gifts of Christ's disciples to his
suffering brethren and to his cause and service. The contribution in the Church is
not a secular thing, intruded into the house of God for mere convenience* sake, and
adverse to spiritual edification, but is itself an act of grateful homage to Christ as
well as of communion with his brethren.
CHAPTER III.  CHURCH POWER.
1. Church power, under Christ, resides primarily, not in the officers of the Church,
nor in any priesthood or clergy, but in the Church, and it is derived through the
Church, to its officers, from Christ.

38 National ' Council,
2. Church power is not legislative, but only administrative. It extends no fur
ther thanto declare and apply the law of Christ. No Church has any lawful power
to make itself other than simply a Church of Christ, in which the mind of Christ,
as made, known in the Scriptures, shall be the only rule of faith and practice. As
no Church may lawfully add anything to the sum of Christian doctrine, or take
anything therefrom; so no Church may lawfully add anything to or take anything
from the rules of Christian living, and the conditions of Christian fellowship, which
the Scriptures prescribe. CHAPTER IV.  CHURCH OFFICERS.
1. Though Church officers are not necessary to the mere existence of a. Church,
yet to its well-being, and to the performance of its functions, officers are necessary.
.Therefore they are appointed by Christ's institution, and are counted among the
gifts of his triumphal ascension to glory.
2. The powers and functions of Church officers are not to be confounded with
the powers- and functions of the apostles and other extraordinary ministers of
Christ, who were sent forth at the beginning of the gospel. Nor are any Church
officers to be recognized as holding their official power in succession from the apos
tles, or as having any of that authority over all the churches-, with which the
apostles were invested.
3. Church officers, according to the arrangement which the apostles instituted in
every Church,..are of two sorts, — bishops or eldeTS, and deacons.
4. The office of elder or bishop in the Church is two-fold ; to labor in word and
doctrine, and to rule. , As laboring in word and doctrine, elders are pastors and
teachers, for, the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edify
ing of "the .body of Christ ; and in order to this, they are rightly to divide the
word of truth, and to administer those sacramental ordinances in which the grace
of the gospel is visibly set forth and sealed. Like all whom God has put into the
ministry of his gospel, they are to preach the word, and are to be instant in season
and out of season, reproving, rebuking,.exhorting with all long-suffering and patience,
holding forth the faithful word, that they may be able by sound doctrine both to
exhort and to convince the gainsayer. As ruling in the Church, they are to be not
lords over God's heritage; but being the servants of all, for, Jesus' sake, they are to
watch for souls as they that must give account. They are to open and shut the
doors .of God's house by the admission • of members approved by the Church, by
ordination of officers approved by the Church, by excommunication of obstinate
offenders denounced by the Church, and by restoring penitents forgiven by the
Church. They are to call the Church together when there is occasion, and season
ably to dismiss them again. They are to prepare matters for the hearing of the
Church, that in public they may be carried to an end with less trouble and more
speedy despatch. They are to preside in the meetings of the Church, whether for
public worship or for the transaction of Church business. They are to be guides
and leaders in all matters pertaining to Church administration and Church action ;
but they have no power to perform any Church act save with the concurrence and
by the vote of the brotherhood. They are to care for the spiritual health and
growth of individual members, and toysrevent and heal such offences in life or doc
trine as might corrupt the Church ; and they are to visit and pray over their
brethren in sickness when sent for, and at such other times as opportunity shall
serve. %
5. The number of elders or bishops in a particular Church is neither prescribed

¦National Council. 39
nor ninite"d,lbut is to be determined by the discretion'of the Church itself, in view"
of its ability and its need. In the primitive churches, a plural eldership seems to
have been the rule, and nOt> the exception. In the American Congregational
ohiirches, at the beginning, it was thought needful that every Church should have
at least three elders, of whom two were to labor in word and doctrine,1 and the
other was to be associated with them in all their work as bishops or overseers of
the-flock. While no Church is rightfully subjected to any presbytery exterior to
itself, every! Church should have its own presbytery. The modern usage, concen
trating all the powers and responsibilities of the eldership in one person, is founded
on convenience only, and is exceptional rather than normal. Whether, instead «f
one elder, who, under the title of pastor performs the whole work of the eldership
in a;Chi)reh,.there shall be two or three,.or more, among whom the work of public
preaching and the work of ruling and oversight shall be divided, is a question which
every Church may determine for itself, without infringing any principle of order.
,6. Inasmuch as the duty of contributing for the poor saints, for the support and
Advancement of the Church, and for the spread of the gospel, is incumbent on. all
disciples of Christ according to their ability, and is essential to the communion of
saints; and1 inasmuch as the Lord's Day is especially designated as a day for such
contributions ; the Church is provided with officers for that service. Deacons are
chosen in every Church to help the elders, not by taking part in the publib'ministry
oft the word, nor by ruling in the Church, but chiefly by serving tables. Their
office is to receive the contributions and whatever gifts are offered to the Church ;
to keep the treasury of the Church ; and to distribute from it for the relief of the
poor, especially of those in communion, for the supply of the Lord's table,- and, if
needful, for the support of the. ministry. As almoners of the Church, they are to
Bare for the poor, to know them personally, to inquire into their wants and
afflictions, and to be the organ of communication between them and the brotherhood.
t7. Other officers than bishops .and deacons are not provided for the Church by
any precept or example in the Scriptures. Yet it is in the power of the Church to
designate any member or members to the performance of a certain work, such as
that of a scribe or clerk, and. keeper of the records, or that of the superintendents
oriteachers in a Sabbath school, or that of a committee for some inquiry. In desig
nating fit persons to perform such duties, it institutes no new order of Church
officers, but only distributes among its members certain duties which are common
to the brotherhood.
CHAPTER V. — ELECTION AND ORDINATION OF CHURCH OFFICERS. '
-. l.jffhough.no man may assume an office in the Church but he that is called of
' God,<the call.of . bishops and deacons is not, like that of the apostles, immediately
from Christ,.but>mediately, through the Church.
i,2.. Those who are tobeaar. office in the; Church should first be proved by thorough-
acquaintance, and trial, and should be known and well reported of as having not
only the needful gifts, but also those graces and virtues which the Scriptures pre
scribe as qualifications of i bishops or. of deacons.
'. 3. A Church, being free, cannot .become subject to any but by a free election ;
yet when sueh a people do choose any to be over them in the Lord, then do they
beeome i subject,- and most .willingly, submit to the divinely authorized ministry of
those i whom- they have chosen.
4. Church officers are not only to be chosen by the Church, but are also to be
ordained by laying on of hands and prayer, with which, at the ordination of elders,

40 National Council.
fasting is also to be joined. This ordination is the solemn and public induction of
the chosen officer into his place and office, like the inauguration of a magistrate in
the commonwealth. Such ordination of a pastor or teacher is his induction into
the work of ministering in the word ; and if he be afterwards dismissed from his
eldership in that Church, and be called to a like office in another Church, it is
not deemed necessary that his installation in his new place be with the laying-on of
hands. Yet we protest against the superstitious notion, that consecration to the
ministry by imposition of hands introduces the person into a hierarchical or priestly
order, and so may not be repeated.
,5. In a Church which has elders, the laying-on of hands in ordination is to he
performed by those elders. But if the Church be destitute of elders, then other fit
persons, elders of other churches, or ministering brethren not in office, or (if need
be) brethren who have not been called and set apart to minister in the word of
God, may be deputed by the Church to perform this service ; and the laying-on of
their hands" with prayer and fasting is a fit and sufficient induction of the chosen
elders or bishops, not less than of deacons, into the office to which they have been
designated. 6. Neither a deacon nor an elder or bishop is an officer in any other Church than
that which has elected him to his office ; nor can he perform official acts in another
Church, otherwise than at the invitation of that Church, and by a power derived
through them from Christ ; for as no Church has authority over another Church, so
no Church can invest its officers with authority over other churches.
CHAPTER VI. — THE MAINTENANCE OF CHURCH OFFICERS.
1. The duty of every Church to provide a sufficient and honorable support,
according to its ability, for the officers who give their time and strength to its ser
vice, is evident in itself, and is expressly enjoined by the Scriptures. Every mem
ber of the Church, in his place, and in the measure of his ability to contribute, is
responsible for this duty.
2. Inasmuch as not only the covenanted members of the Church, but all who are
taught, may be reasonably expected, and should be encouraged, to bear their part
in the expense of building the house of God and sustaining the ministry of the
word, the civil incorporation of ecclesiastical societies or parishes, in connection with
churches, is a natural arrangement of Christian civilization in a free Commonwealth.
The form in which a society may be incorporated, for the legal ownership of eccle
siastical property and the support of public worship, is determined by the laws of
the State ; but the Church, as a spiritual fellowship, electing and ordaining its own
officers, and worshipping God according to the New Testament, holds its charter
only from Christ, and may not surrender its spiritual rights and powers to any
civil corporation. Therefore the independence of the Church in the choice of its
own officers, and in all its discipline, and in the conduct of its worship, must be
steadfastly guarded. At the same time, the right of the parish or ecclesiastical
society, as a legal corporation (including or representing all who ufany equitable
manner aid in the support of public worship), to control, within the limits of its
trust, the use and expenditure of its own property, must be recognized. While
the Church is at liberty to elect whom it will, and as many as it will, to be Church
officers, it cannot, by its own authority, require the parish to assume the burthen
of supporting them. Thus, in the election and settlement of a pastor or other
officer who is to be supported by the parish, the concurrent votes of the Church
and the parish are necessary.

National Council. 41
CHAPTER VII. — ADMISSION OF MEMBERS INTO THE CHURCH, AND DISMISSION
. OF MEMBERS FROM ONE CHURCH TO ANOTHER.
5*. 1. The things which are requisite in all Church members are repentance from sin,
and faith in Jesus Christ ; and therefore these are the things whereof men are to
be examined at their admission into the Church, and which then they must profesB
and hold forth in such sort as may satisfy rational charity that the things are there
indeed. 2. The weakest measure of faith is to be accepted in those that desire to be admitted
into the Church; because weak Christians, if sincere, have the substance of that
penitent faith and holiness which is required in Church members, and such have
most need of the ordinances for their confirmation and growth in grace. Such
charity and tenderness are to be used, that the weakest Christian, if sincere, may
;,' not be excHWed or discouraged.
, 3. It is not heedful that the profession of repentance and faith should be. always
in the same form of words ; but it must always be in such words as are satisfactory
to the Church, and must be accompanied by a professed engagement to walk with
the Church according to the gospel.
4. Such personal profession is required not only of those who have not been
before in any Church relation, but also of those who, having been born and bap
tized in the Church, may be considered as in some sort hereditary members ; for
they, too, must credibly show and profess their own repentance toward God, and
faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, before they come to the Lord's table or are
recognized as members in full communion.
5. A Church member, removing his residence to another place, does not thereby
throw off his responsibility to the Church with which he is in covenant. If his
removal is permanent, he ought to seek, and, unless he is liable to some just censure
(in which case he must be dealt with as an offender), he has a right to receive, a
letter of dismission and commendation to an evangelical Church in the plaee of his
new residence ; or if there be no such Church in that place, to any such Church with
which he can have communion statedly in Christian ordinances. But his dismission
cannot take effect till he shall be received as a member by the Church to which he
has been commended.
6. A Church is not' bound to receive a member merely because of his dismission
and commendation from another Church ; but if it find any just ground of objection
to him, it may remit the case to the consideration of the Church from which he
;; Came, and of which he is still a member.
CHAPTER VIII.  THE METHOD OF DEALING WITH OFFENDERS.
if f. The censures of the Church are appointed for the prevention and removal of
offences and the recovering of offenders ; for purging out the leaven which may
infect the whole lump ; for vindicating the honor of Christ and of his Church, and
the profession of the gospel; and for preventing the displeasure of God, that may
justly fall upon the Church if they suffer his covenant and the seals thereof to be
profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders.
2. Censures in the Church are of two sorts ; admonition and excommunication.
3. If an offence be private, one brother trespassing against another, the offender
is to go and acknowledge his repentance of it unto his offended brother, who is then
to forgive him. But if the offender neglect or refuse to do this, then (1) the brother
offended is to'go and admonish him privately, between themselves. If thereupon

42 National Council.
the offender be brought to repent of his offence, the admonisher hath won his,
brother. But if the offender hear not his brother, then (2) the offended is to take
with him one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word
may be established, whether the word of admonition if the offender receive it, *or
the word' of complaint if he refuse. (3) If the offender be 'not recovered by that
second admonition, the offended brother is then to tell the Church. If the Church
find that the complaint is wdll founded, it admonishes the offender ; and then if he
hear the Church, and penitently confess his fault, he is recovered and gained, and is
to be forgiven. But if, after being admonished by the Church, he be not yet con
vinced of his fault, and ready to profess, frankly, his repentance of it, he remains
under the censure of admonition, which' of itself excludes or suspends him from
the holy fellowship of the Lord's Supper,' till either the offence is removed by his
penitent confession, or the Church, after reasonable forbearance, proceeds to cast
him out by excommunication.
4. When the offence is already public and notorious, and is of suclra character as
to be infamous among men, a more summary ' proceeding is authorized by the
Scriptures. The Church, without waiting for an individual complaint or for the
effect of private admonition, may take notice of the notorious fact; and cast out the
offender without delay, for the mortifying of his sin and the saving of his soul in
the day of the Lord Jesus, as well as for the vindication of the gOspel which he has
dishonored. Yet no offender may be censured without trial and the opportunity
of being heard.
5. In dealing with an offender, great care is to be taken that we be neither too
rigorous nor too indulgent. Our proceeding ought to be with a spirit of meekness,
considering ourselves lest we also be tempted. Yet, the winning and healing 'of the
offender's soul being the end of these endeavors, we must be earnest and thorough,
not healing the wounds of our brethren slightly.
6. While the offender remains excommunicated, the Church is to refrain' from all
communion with him in spiritual things, and also from all familiar communion with
him in civil things, further than the necessity of natural, domestic, or civil relations
may require. Yet, while there may be ' any hope of his recovery, we are to be
kindly watchful for signs of repentance in him ; not counting him an enemy, but
admonishing him as a brother.
7. If the censure be made effectual by the grace of Christ, so that the excommu
nicated person repents of his sin, and with confession desires to be restored, the
Church is thereupon to forgive him; and, as the censure was public, he is to be
publicly absolved or loosed from the censure, and restored to full communion.
8. It is doubtless of great importance to the welfare of the Church, that profane
and scandalous persons be not permitted to continue in its fellowship and to partake'
at the Lord's table ; and the Church which neglects to deal with such members, and
to use the discipline of the Lord's house for their reformation or their exclusion, is
greatly to be blamed. Yet such a Church is not therefore to be immediately for
saken and renounced by those who would live godly in Christ Jesus. Nor is, it rea
sonable that any individual member of that Church should therefore withdraw
himself from the Lord's table. In so doing, he wrongs his own soul by denying to
himself the appointed means of grace, and wrongs the Church by adding another
scandaLto that which he would rebuke. Let him rather endeavor, modestly and
seasonably, according to his power and place, that the unworthy may be duly
proceeded against by the Church to whom that duty (belongs.

National Council. 43
CHAPTER IX. — RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT, AND THE
CONFLICT OF LAWS.
1. The right of the Church to assemble for worship, to observe Christ's ordi
nances, to hold forth the Word;of Life by public preaching and by private commu
nication, to receive into its communion those who give evidence of repentance and
faith, and to admonish offenders or exclude 'them, is not a mere concession from
the: civil power, but is part of that religious liberty which Christ, by commanding
his gospel to be preached to every creature, challenges for all men, and which no
human government can suppress or violate, without incurring the displeasure of
God. '
I 2'.: The law wbich the Church administers in its discipline is not merely the law
of the land, nor the law of common use and opinion, but the higher law of God as
revealed in the Scriptures ; for that which is highly esteemed among men conformed
to this world may be abominable to God and to men enlightened by his Word and
Spirit. Ii wickedness go unpunished in the civil State, or be even honored by
public opinion, it is not therefore to be tolerated in the Church. If the law of the
land require of any man, under whatever penalties, that which the law of God
forbids him to do, or if it forbid^ him- to do what the law of God requires, it is
better to obey God rather than men; and the Church is to require of all its mem
bers obedience to the higher law of God. Yet, inasmuch as the Scriptures require
of every Christian soul subjection to existing powers in the civil State, whether
Christian or anti-Christian, the duty of loyalty to government, of conscientious
ftfeedience to every law which does not positively require what God forbids, or for
bid what God requires, and of patient submission to pef secution or other injustice
when there ¦ is no lawful redress, is a duty of religion which the discipline of the
Church must honor and maintain. - ''"¦
3: With matters properly and exclusively political the Church has no concern;
for Christ's kingdom is not of this world. But with matters of morality and reli
gion, the Church, in the administration of its discipline, and in the testimony which
it is to give for God, has much to do. Especially in a free Commonwealth, where
the government proceeds continually from the people, the Church is bound to testify,
in its discipline and in its. teaching, against wicked laws and institutions, not fear
ing to assert and apply the law of God as revealed in the Scriptures, whatever may
be the contradiction of sinners, and whatever the conflict between that supreme
law vof Christ's kingdom and the laws ordained of men, or the institutions and
usages of society. Thus the moral sense of communities and nations must be cor
rected and enlightened, and must be inade to advance with the progress of the
Church, till Christ shall be honored in all lands as King of kings and Lord of lords,
the blessed and only Potentate.
PART HI. — THE COMMUNION OF CHURCHES.
CHAPTER I.  PRINCIPLES AND SPECIFICATIONS.
r 1. Although churches are distinct, and therefore may not be confounded one with
another, and equal, and therefore have not dominion one over another,; yet all the
churches ought to preserve Church communion one with another, because they are
all united to Christ as integral parts of his one catholic Church, militant against the
evil that is in the world, and visible in the profession of the Christian faith, in the
observance of the Christian sacrament, in the manifestation of the Christian life,

44 National Council.
and in the worship of the one God of our salvation, the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Ghost.
2. The communion of churches with each other is manifested in various acts of
fraternal courtesy, correspondence, and helpfulness :
(1.) In mutual recognition ; one organized congregation of Christian worshippers
acknowledging another to be a visible Church of Christ, and each professing a read
iness to interchange with the other all reasonable acts of Christian courtesy and
love. (2.) In admitting members of one Church to commune, as such, at the Lord's
table in another Church, and refusing to admit them if they are under censure.
(3.) In permitting and inviting a minister of the word, recognized and accredited
as such by one Church, to speak for Christ in another Church.
(4.) In the dismission and reception of members, when, for any sufficient reason,
they pass from one Church to another.
(5.) In giving and receiving advice when one Church desires counsel of another,
or of many others.
(6.) In giving and receiving help ; as when one Church gives of its members
that another may be supplied with officers ; or as when one Church receives outward
support from the contributions of another, or of many others.
(7.) In consultation and cooperation for each other's edification and prosperity,
or for the common interest of the gospel.
(8.) In giving and receiving admonition ; as when there is found in a Church
some public offence which it either does not discern, or neglects to remove ; for
though churches have no more authority one over another than one apostle had
over another, yet as one apostle might admonish another, so may one Church
admonish another, and yet without usurpation ; in which case, if the admonished
Church refuse to hear its neighbor churches and to remove the offence, it violates
the communion of churches.
3. The Congregational churches in the United- States of America, as integral
portions of Christ's catholic Church, maintain all practicable communion with all
other portions of the Church universal. While other churches differ from us in
their internal polity, in their relations and connections with each other, in their forms
of worship, or in the uninspired statements and definitions of doctrines disputed
among Christians, and while we disown. their schemes of hierarchical or synodical
government, we acknowledge as particular churches of Christ all "congregations of
Christian worshippers that acknowledge the Holy Scriptures as their supreme rule
of faith and practice, and Christ as the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of
the world. We pray for their peace and prosperity. We invite their members to
occasional communion with us in worship and in sacramental ordinances. We re
ceive their letters of dismissal and commendation, and, in return, dismiss our mem
bers, as occasion may require, with letters of commendation tq them. We are
ready to be edified by their ministers. And, in all reasonable and hopeful methods,
we are ready to consult and cooperate with them for the advancement of the
gospel. 4. As some acts of the communion of the churches are due, in one degree and
another, to all the integral parts of Christ's catholic Church, so other acts of com
munion are specially due from churches instituted,and governed according to the
Congregational polity to other churches instituted and governed according to the
same polity. Certain acts of communion are not practicable between churches
congregationally governed and churches that are under a hierarchical or synodical

National Council. ' 45
government ; and certain acts of communion are not practicable between churches
which seriously differ from each other in the systems of doctrine which they deduce,
respectively, from the Scriptures, even though they recognize each other as holding
that faith which is necessary to salvation. A Church desiring the approbation and
assistance of other churches in the ordination of its officers cannot wisely or cour
teously ask such approbation and assistance from churches in whose professed the
ory of government all ordinations must be by a prelate, or in whose theory the
power of ordination is given only to a presbytery ruling over many congregations.
In like manner, if it desire counsel in any case involving questions of doctrine, it
cannot, wisely or courteously, ask such counsel of churches not accepting that gen
eral system of doctrines which is the well-known basis of mutual confidence and
intimate communion among churches of the Congregational polity.
5. The more intimate communion existing among these churches is exercised
in asking and giving counsel, in giving and receiving admonition, in various acts
of helpfulness towards churches needing help from others, and in conferences and
consultations for the parochial revival and prosperity of religion, or the general
advancement of Christ's kingdom. CHAPTER II.  COUNCILS.
1. Councils of churches, orderly assembled, to declare the opinion of the churches
on any matter of common concern, are an ordinance of Christ, and are necessary to
the communion of the churches. That scriptural example, where the Church at
Antioch sent messengers to the Church at Jerusalem, for consultation and advice,
in a difficult question, is a sufficient warrant for such Councils.
2. The churches invited to assist in a Council are represented by messengers or
delegates chosen by them for the particular occasion. By ancient usage, the pas
tor of a Church, having been duly recognized as its presiding elder or bishop, is
always expected to be one of its messengers ; and the letters convening the Council
invite each Church to be represented by its pastor and delegate. Yet in the Coun
cil, when convened, there is no distinction of authority between the pastor and
other delegates.
3. It is manifest, from the reason of the case, that in ordinary cases a Council
ought to be made up chiefly of churches in.thdnear vicinity. But when a Council
is called to advise in some personal or parochial controversy which involves strong
sympathies and interests in the surrounding region, it may be expedient to ask
counsel from more distant churches, rather than exclusively from those near at
hand. 4. A Council is to be called only by a Church, or by an aggrieved member or
members in a Church which has unreasonably refused a Council, or by a competent
number of believers intending to be gathered into a Church. In a difficulty or con
troversy between the Church and its elder or elders, or between the Church and
, some other person or party in the Church, if a Council is desired, and the Church
consents, the churches to constitute the CouncU are selected by agreement between
the parties, and are invited by letters-missive from the Church ; and this is. called a
mutual Council. If a Church unreasonably refuses to call a mutual Council, then an
ex parte Council may be invited by letters-missive from the aggrieved member or
members. 5. An ex parte Council, properly called, has the same standing, and, is entitled to
the same respect, as a mutual council; for it were unreasonable that* in case of
grievance, either party should be deprived, by the obstinacy of the other, of such

46 National Council.
relief as the neighboring churches could give. But that it may be properly con^
vened, it is requisite, (1,) that there be proper ground for calling a Council ; (2,) that
one party, properly requested, has unreasonably refused to join in calling a mutual
Council; (3,) that the ex parte Council is called upon the statement of the 'original
grounds- for asking a Council, and of the unreasonable refusal of the other party
to join ; and; (4,) that the churches invited be impartially selected. When assent
bled, the ex parte Council should first offer itself to the refusing party as a muttial
Council. 6. Councils consist solely of such churches as are invited, with the occasional
addition of persons whose advice is especially desired. After being called, no
Church or person can>be added to< or taken from the proper members- in any man
ner. For the lettelrsTmissive having specified the churches and persons invited,
each Church appointed- its delegates' upon that knowledge of those with whom it
was asked to associate.
7. -Councils are not to be convened upon every ground of dissatisfaction with a
Church, nor in cases of light moment. They are proper only UpOn some matter of
common interest to the churches ; such as relations of fellowship between churches ;
or the relation of a member to the communion of other churches ; the relations of
pastors and churches; the reputation Of the brotherhood of churches, as affected
by the acts or condition of a Church ; or matters of general interest to the cause
of Christ. They are in' no such sense such courts of appeal that they may alter or
rescind any act of a Church. Yet in cases of censure, if the proceedings complained
of are found to have been in gross violation of the rules given in the Scriptures,
the Council may advise and declare that in its judgment the censure complained of
is wrong, and may commend the censured person to be received by some other
Church, as a member in full communion.
Particular occasions for Councils are such as these :
(1 ) When a competent number of Christian brethren propose to unite in a
Church covenant, and desire to be recognized as a Church in the more intimate
communion of the Congregational churches, the ordinary and most orderly method
of obtaining such recognition is by an ecclesiastical Council, invited for that purpose
by their letters, to a convenient number of churches, and especially of churches in
the near vicinity. Having given to that Council, when assembled, a satisfactory
statement of their faith and order, and of the reasons for their becoming a dis
tinct Church, together with sufficient evidence not only of their Christian character,
but also of their fitness in respect to gifts and numbers for performing the duties
of a Church, they receive as a Church the right hand of fellowship extended to
them by the Council in behalf of all the churches.
(2.) The induction of a pastor or teacher into his office, in any Churchy or, on the
other hand, the dismission of such an officer from his place, concerns the commu
nion of the, churches. Therefore an ecclesiastical Council is convened for the ordi
nation or installation of a pastor, and, in like manner, for his dismission at his
own request. A due respect to the communion of the churches requires that no
man assuming to be a pastor of a Church shall be acknowledged as such by other
churches, unless,:at or afterihis entrance on the duties of the office, he has been
publicly recognized by receiving the right hand of fellowship from neighboring
churches through a Council convened for that purpose. The welfare of the
churches, in their intimate communion with each other, requires this safeguard. In
like manner, the communion of churches requires that no minister dismissed from
his charge shall be regarded as having sufficient credentials of his good standing

National Council. 47
unless he is duly commended by a Council convened on the occasion of his dismis
sion.
1 (3.) When difficulties, whether internal or external, threaten the peace and spirits
ual prosperity Of any Church, and are not likely to be adjusted without aid, or
when any question arises on which the Church needs advice for the guidance,and
correction or confirmation of its own judgment, that Church has a right to ask the
advice of other churches with which it is in communion. To such an advisory Coun
cil the trial of a difficult case is sometimes referred. The Council examines the
questions referred to it, whether questions of fact or questions of principle and
duty ; it pronounces its conclusions ; but it has no power to inflict any Church cen
sure, or to absolve from censure. It can only advise the Church;' and the Church,
by accepting and adopting the result of the Council, carries' the advice into effect.
' (4.) When a member against whom charges have been preferred requests the
calling Of a Council for the trial of those charges, and the Church consents to' the
request, or when, in any manner, parties have arisen who desire a Council for the
hearing of the questions between them, the churches to constitute the Council are
mutually agreed upon between the parties. Yet a mutual Council is not convened
in the name of the parties, but in the name Of the Church. But, in such cases, a
refusal on the part of the Church to agree to call a Council before trial does not
give any occasion for an ex parte Council.
(5.) When a member, having been censured by the Church, conscientiously pro
tests that the censure is not according to the facts, or that it is not warranted by
the word of God, he may respectfully ask the Church to join with him in -calling a
mutual Council for a new heafing of his case ; and, that request being denied by
the Church without sufficient reason, he may appeal to other churches for advice1,
and for such relief as they may find reason to give him, and may invite them to meet
in an ex parte Council. Or when a portion of any ChurcbV"nas been seriously
aggrieved by such action of the Church as causes public scandal to the cause of
Christ, and their request for a Council has been denied by the Church, they may in
like manner appeal to other churches for a hearing of their cause and for advice
Concerning their duty.
- ' (6.) When a member liable to no just censure has requested letters of dismis
sion and recommendation to some other recognized Church, and the request is
refused, he may request the Church to invite a Council to hear the case ; and, if the
Church refuses, he may himself ask a Council to give him relief.
. (7.) When a pastor or other ordained minister .in any Church is charged with
offences which would render it proper that he be deposed from the ministry, then
the Church should invite a Council to examine the charges ; if they be proven, the
Council should advise that fellowship be withdrawn from him; and that he be no
longer recognized as a Christian minister.
8. The Council, when assembled, organizes itself by the choice of a moderator
and scribe, that its proceedings may be orderly and deliberate, and may be duly
written down for the use of those whom the result concerns. If half Of the churches
invited be not represented, those present ought not to proceed to act, unless the
party inviting consents. Being a representative 'body, its functions are limited to
the subjects spe-oified- in the letters-missive. In voting, it was an ancient and laud
able custom that each Church give its voice as a Church, and not that the messengers
vote as individuals ; but this custom is not universal. Having properly deliberated,
and made up its decision, the Council is forthwith to be dissolved ; and the scribe is
to convey a copy of its proceedings and advice to the parties concerned.
9. The decision of a CouncU is only advisory. Yet it is to be received with rev-

48 National Council.
erence and submission (unless inconsistent with the Scriptures) as the voice of
the churches, and as an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in his word. In
cases of difference, therefore, the party adopting the advice of Council is entitled to
the sympathy and commendation of the churches, rather than the one rejecting it.
10. When a Council, properly convened and orderly proceeding, whether mutual
or ex parte, has pronounced its advice, a second Council upon the substance of the
same questions, or upon the advice of the first, is manifestly improper. If both
parties desire further light, they may agree thereto. But, if one refuse, an ex parte
council is in that case not warranted, and is manifestly disorderly.
11. A Council orderly assembled to advise concerning the»acts and administra
tions of a Church, and finding that such Church denberately receives and maintains
doctrines which subvert the foundations of the Christian faith, or that it wilfully
tolerates and upholds notorious scandals, or that it persistently disregards and con
temns the communion of churches, may, after fit admonition, advise the churches
to withhold from that erring Church all acts of communion till it shall give evidence
of reformation. And any Church, after due admonition, may call a Council.
12. Some Congregational churches, neighboring to each other, are confederated,
more or less strictly, for mutual assistance in cases which require a CouncU. Such
confederations, whether under the name of consociation or convention, may he
useful if they duly recognize and guard the principle that the power of inflicting
Church censures and of absolving from censure, and the power of choosing and
ordaining officers and of removing them from office for good cause, reside, under
Christ, in the particular Church, and not in some ecclesiastical authority extrinsic
to the Church ; and the cognate principle, that Councils, however constituted, are
for the communion of churches with each other, and not for government over the
churches. .
CHAPTER III.  CONFERENCES OF CHURCHES.
1. It is fit and convenient for the churches of a neighborhood to meet sometimes,
by their pastors and delegates, for the purpose of reporting to each other their
spiritual prosperity and progress, and of consulting together how to advance the
cause and kingdom of Christ. Such meetings are commonly caUed Conferences of
Churches, and are distinguished from Councils in that they have nothing to do with
giving advice to any particular Church concerning the ordination or dismission of
any of its officers, or concerning the administration of its government. They
meet only for mutual information and inquiry, that through them the churches may
provoke each other to love and to good works.
2. Conferences of churches are either occasional or stated. Any Church may
invite the neighboring churches, more or fewer, at its own discretion, to meet with
it for mutual edification and inquiry. Or a number of churches may associate to
hold such conferences at fixed periods and under definite regulations. Stated con
ferences of the churches have been greatly useful in promoting zeal and Christian
activity, and in making the gifts of one Church subserve the edification of others.
3. In some States, the several conferences are associated in a General Conference
or Association of Churches, which institutes a careful inquiry every year, and
makes its report, concerning the general prosperity and progress of the churches
throughout the State. CHAPTER IV.  SYNODS OR NATIONAL COUNCILS.
1. Occasions may arise in the progress of Christ's kingdom, when a representa-

National Council. 49
tive assembly of churches, coming together for consultation and agreement and for
testimony, is required ; an assembly which shall be larger in its numbers than any
Council, such as a single Church can convene for its own need, and larger in its con
stituency than any stated conference of churches. Such synods were required, and
were held at sundry times, when the fathers of the American Congregational
Churches were laying the foundations on which many generations were to build.
2. A synod cannot be constituted by any number of unauthorized individuals
assuming to represent the churches. The express consent of the churches, acting
severaUy, in their self-government under Christ, recognizing the call, and sending
forth their elders and other messengers, is what constitutes the synod as a repre
sentative body. An assemblythusconstitutedbythe jointactionof manychurches,
and coming together, not for strife and contention, but for devout and earnest con
sultation concerning things that pertain to the kingdom of God, may be expected
to have much of those gracious influences, and of that guidance by the Holy Com
forter, in which Christ fulfils his promises : " Lo, I am with you always, even unto the
end of the world ; " and " Where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them."
3. The calling of such a synod ought not to proceed from the mere will or mo
tion of unauthorized individuals, -nor from the mere motion of- any one Church
acting without consultation. When the elders and other messengers of any con
siderable body of churches, coming together in a representative assembly, such as
the General Conference or General Association of a State, are convinced that an
occasion has arisen which requires a national synod or Council, they may reasonably
institute inquiries by correspondence with other similar bodies ; and if, after such
correspondence and conference as may conveniently be had, the conviction is
strengthened and extended, that, in the providence of God, there is a call upon the
churches to confer with each other in a national Council, the arrangements may be
made, and the invitation issued by such persons as shaU have been designated to
that service by common consent in the preliminary consultations. The invitation
should be addressed, not to associations or conferences purporting to represent the
churches, but distinctly to each several Church, so that the intimate determination
of the question shall proceed directly from the churches themselves ; and every
Church shaU have the opportunity of consenting or withholding its consent
according to the wisdom given to it from above.
4. The proper function of a synod is not to legislate for the churches, nor to
determine imperatively any question which is not already determined by the Scrip
tures, but by inquiry and brotherly conference, with prayer for divine illumination,
to obtain and hold forth light on such matters as the churches have referred to its
deliberations. A synod, as a great cloud of witnesses, may properly testify in
behalf of the constituent churches not only their common faith in Christ their
Saviour, but what is the system of Christian doctrine, and what the system and
theory of ecclesiastical administrations, which are the basis of their special com
munion one with another as churches walking in the order of the New Testament.
CHAPTER V.  CONFESSIONS OF FAITH.
1. Neither Christ nor his apostles prescribed any form of words to be imposed
on disciples, or on churches, for the confessing of their faith. Had such a form
been given, it would have become a part of the canonical Scriptures.
2. Every Church is to judge for itself whether the form of words offered or
adopted as a confession of faith, by any who desire admission to its holy com
munion, is a satisfactory profession of faith in Christ and his gospel.

50 National Council.
3. When a Council is assembled for the ordination or recognition of a pastor, or
for the ordination of a missionary or other minister at large, the candidate for
ordination or recognition may reasonably be required to make a more ample decla-.
ration of his religious belief, holding forth to the Church and the CouncU, not only
his personal faith in the Saviour of sinners, but also his doctrinal soundness as a
preacher of thp word, Such confession of faith should be in words deliberately
and accurately chosen, and the CouncU must judge for itself whether the confession
is sound and sufficient.
4. Every Church desiring to share in the feUowship of the churches should
make some adequate declaration of its fidelity to the doctrine which is according
to godliness. It is therefore fit that every Church set forth, in the form of a con
fession or catechism, the system of truth which it receives as the faith once deliv
ered to the. saints, which its, fathers and teachers maintain by their ministry, and
in which it trains its chUdren.
5. Any assembly of elders or messengers representing a body of .churches,
local or national, is competent to testify in the form of a confession what system of
doctrines is received and maintained in the churches which it represents. Or any
body of Christian men, being caUed thereto in the providence of God, may frame
and publish, as a confession of their faith, a declaration of the truths which they
receive as revealed from God by his word and spirit. Such confessions of faith
have often been useful for the refutation of injurious reproaches, or for the
confirmation of the truth. ?
6. The right use of confessions of faith is not for separation and mutual exclu- ,
sion among Christians, but rather for mutual information and confidence, and the
manifestation of unity. For this purpose, inasmuch as the Scriptures are often
perverted, and doctrines subversive of the faith once delivered to the saints are
' brought in among the churches, it sometimes becomes reasonable and fit for churches
or for representative assemblies not only to testify and confess, but also to bear wit
ness against doctrines contrary to the gospel of Christ, and dangerous to the souls
of men. For Christian unity is not to be maintained by compromises with doc
trines which corrupt the word of God, but only by adherence to the truth as it is
in Jesus. Yet no confession of faith or testimony against error is to be set up in
place of the Scriptures, which are the only standard and unerring rule of faith, and
with which all human formularies are to be constantly and diligently compared.
PART IV. — THE MINISTRY.
CHAPTER I.  THE PREACHING OF THE WORD.
1. While those whom the Church chooses and ordains to be its pastors and teach
ers, are, by virtue of their office, preachers of the gospel, laboring in word and
doctrine, the Congregational churches have always acknowledged that the- work of
preaching is not exclusively a function of Church officers. Fit men not bearing
office in any Church, but giving themselves to the work of preaching, have always
-been recognized among us as ministers of the word.
2. The necessity for a recognized class of ministers not holding office in any
Church is manifold. (1.) In preaching the gospel to every creature, there is much
to be done which cannot be done by elders or bishops of churches, whose proper
work is parochial, and not missionary. (2.) There is, and ever must be, need of
ministers, recognized as such, who can supply, by occasional and temporary minis
tration, the lack of service in churches that have no preaching elders. (3.) Those

National Council. 51
who are to teaeh and train men for the ministry must needs be ministers, recognized
as such among the churches, and esteemed for their zeal and power in holding forth
the word of life ; and yet they cannot ordinarily be at the same time officers in
churches. (4.) Under every theory of Church order, three must be, in fact, a class
of men accredited in some way, and recognized as qualified by natural endowments,
by learning and study, and by the work of the Holy Spirit on their souls, to preach
the word ; among whom the churches may find fit men to be their pastors and
teachers. (5.) Nor can the churches consent that when a pastor, for any good
reason, resigns his office, and is discharged with commendation as a good and
faithful servant of Christ in the gospel, he shall thenceforth cease to be reputed
and recognized as a minister of the word. (6.) It is abundantly evident from the
Scriptures, that, in the beginning, there were many ministers of the word, beside
the elders who were ordained in every Church ; and that while the distinctive work
of the apostles was essentially extraordinary, ceasing with their lives, and trans
mitted to no successors, the work of ministers not holding office in the churches
was a work which continues and must continue till Christ's catholic Church on
earth shall cease to be miUtant.
3. Such ministers of the gospel, not being apostles nor successors of the apostles,
are invested with no apostolic authority ; and, not being elders or bishops, they
have no official place or power in any Church (except when temporarily invited
by any Churdh) ; but each one, in the Church with which he is in covenant, is only
a member tiU the Church shall call him to office either as a deacon or as an elder ;
and if he be caUed to office as an elder, laboring in word and doctrine, then the
communion of the churches will require that his induction into office shall be
approved by a CouncU before he can be recognized as pastor by the neighbor
churches. 4. A minister who is not a member of some Congregational Church, is not in
fact, and ought not to be, counted a minister in connection with the churches and
ministry of the Congregational order, though he may be worthy of confidence and
fellowship by virtue of. his responsible connection with some other body of
evangeUcal churches.
CHAPTER II. — CALL AND ORDINATION TO THE MINISTRY.
1. As it was in the Church at Antioch that Barnabas and Saul received their
special call to the missionary work among the Gentiles, so, by parity of reason, the
caU of any brother to the work of a minister at large ought always to proceed from
some Church cognizant of his gifts and graces, and therefore competent to judge,
in the first instance, whether he is called of God ; nor ordinarily should the call
proceed from any other Church than that in which he is, or in which he is to be, a
member. 2. As Barnabas and Saul, when sent from the Church at Antioch on a mission
to the Gentiles, were separated to their work by ordination; so it is fit, that, after
reasonable trial, those who are caUed to minister in the word of God, without hold
ing the office of elders or bishops in any Church, be solemnly commended to the
grace of God, and, by the laying-on of hands and prayer, be separated to the work
whereunto he hath called them. No Church ought to ordain any without the
approval of neighbor churches assembled in a Council. Yet it should be remem
bered that the ordination or installation is the act of the Church, and that the duty
of such CouncU is not to exercise jurisdiction or authority over the Church, but
simply to advise and assist, and to express the fellowship of other churches in the

52 National Council.
transaction. We therefore commend the ancient custom, now too much disused,
of calling on the Church, before the prayer of consecration and the giving of the
charge^ to renew their choice and call, and on the candidate to renew his acceptance
of the call, in the presence of the approving Council and the witnessing assembly.
Thus the ordination or installation will proceed by the authority which Christ has
given to that Church ; and the Council, as representing neighbor churches, wUl give
in their behalf the right hand of fellowship.
3. When a minister without pastoral charge is accused of any scandal dishonor
able to the ministry with which he is intrusted, or with teaching that which is con
trary to the gospel, and dangerous to the souls of men, the Church of which he is a
member should seek the assistance of an ecclesiastical CouncU in the trial of the
case, and, if he be found guilty, should declare him to be deposed from the ministry,
and then deal with him by admonition and excommunication, as with any other
member. t
CHAPTER III.  ASSOCIATIONS OF MINISTERS.
1. The experience of our churches, from the beginning, has proved that the fre
quent consultation of ministers with each other, so that the watchmen may see eye
to eye, is of great importance to their efficiency in their work ; and the formal '
association of pastors, not excluding other ministers, for mutual counsel and help
fulness, is an arrangement which has been greatly blessed of God for the welfare
of the churches and the advancement of religion.
2. An association of ministers has no jurisdiction or authority over the churches.
It may give advice to its own members, or to any other persons asking its advice,
on questions of Church order or questions of doctrine ; but it can neither inflict
nor remove any Church censure. It forms its own rules concerning the quabfica-
tions and conditions of membership, and in accordance with those rules it can
admit members and exclude them ; but it can ordain no man to the ministry, nor
can it depose any man from the ministry. If one of its members, whether a pastor
or a minister without pastoral charge, is guilty of an offence for which he should
be deposed from the ministry, it may not only exclude him from its feUowship,
but may bring the matter to the notice of the Church to which he is responsible.
Or if any minister or professed minister of scandalous or heretical character is
presuming to officiate in the churches of the vicinity, the association may take
measures to bring the matter to the notice of the proper ecclesiastical authority,
or, if necessary to the protection of the churches and the vindication of the
ministry, may give public notice that he is not in their fellowship.
3. By the common consent and ancient usage of our churches, the recognized
associations of pastors and other ministers are intrusted with the duty of exam
ining those who are to preach as candidates for the ministry, and of commending
them to- the churches by letters of approbation, so that untaught or otherwise unfit
persons may not intrude themselves into the work of preaching.
4. The associations of Congregational ministers, throughout the United States,
have their own methods of correspondence with each other, and of mutual recog
nition, through General Associations in the several States, or otherwise.
CHAPTER IV.  CANDIDATES FOR THE MINISTRY; THEIR EDUCATION, AND THE
TRIAL OF THEIR. GIFTS.
1. Inasmuch as the work of ministering in the word of God, to the edification
of the churches and to the advancement of religion, requires not only natural gifts

National Council. 53
of inteUigence and discretion and of utterance, but also a personal experience of
the gospel as the power of God unto salvation, a hearty love to Christ and to the
souls of men, and a comprehensive knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and of the
system of truth which they reveal, our fathers, at the beginning, made great en
deavors and sacrifices to estabUsh colleges consecrated to Christ and the Church,
that a faithful and competently learned ministry might be provided for their pos
terity, and for the country which they were redeeming from the wilderness. Col
leges under Christian influence and control, and founded primarily for the educa-
cation of men whom the churches may call to the ministry, are among the foremost
of the voluntary institutions which accompany the prosperity of churches walking
in the faith and order of the gospel; and the work of presiding and teaching in
such institutions is a work in which consecrated ministers of the gospel may make
full proof of their ministry, and may obtain a place among those who have turned
many to righteousness.
2. In later times, the progress of society, and the increase and wide diffusion of
knowledge having changed, in some degree the course of education in the coUeges,
so that other and special studies are now necessary to a full preparation for the
ministry, theological seminaries have been founded, that those who offer themselves
to the service of Christ in the preaching and defence of bis gospel, and who have
been disciplined by Uberal studies and enriched with general knowledge, may be
instructed in all kinds of sacred learning, and, under the guidance of teachers who
are also able and faithful preachers of the word, and experienced in the care of
souls, may, by God's blessing on their endeavors, prepare themselves for the largest
usefulness in the churches that may caU them to office, and in the work of preaching
the gospel to every creature. 7
3. The credentials which a young man may receive from a college or a theologi
cal seminary are not sufficient for his introduction to the churches as a preacher.
Still less may his own desire to preach, or the desire of his friends, and the com
mendation he receives from them, authorize him to offer himself as a candidate for
the ministry, or make it safe for congregations to employ him for the trial of
his gifts. Even at the beginning, when the churches were few and not far distant
from each other, it was soon found needful to institute some weU-considered arrange
ment for the examination of candidates and their orderly introduction to the churches.
And inasmuch as it devolves on the pastors and teachers of churches to feed the
several flocks of which the Holy Ghost hath made them overseers, and to take heed
whom they severally introduce to preach the word, it was agreed that neighboring
pastors should jointly exercise their right of examination and inquiry before
recognizing or commending a candidate as qualified to preach in public. It is
therefore a long-estabUshed usage in the communion of our churches that no man
is to offer himself as a candidate for the ministry, or is to be received as such, with
out having been examined and approved by some recognized association of pastors.
4. In the examination of a candidate, the association, having received evidence of
his standing as a member in full communion of some evangelical Church, with other
testimonials to his blamelessness of life and his attainments in knowledge, inquires
of him concerning his experience of the power of godliness, the reasons of his desire
and choice to preach the gospel, the studies 'he has pursued, his knowledge espe
ciaUy of the system of doctrines contained in the Scriptures, and his readiness in
the exposition and application of the word of God; and, having obtained satisfactory
evidence of his fitness to preach in the churches for the trial of his gifts, the pastors
and other ministers in that association assembled certify their approbation in a
written testimonial.

54 National Council.
5. The person thus accredited is not yet recognized as a minister of the gospel,
but is only a candidate for the ministry temporarUy commended to the churches
that they may make trial of his fitness for that sacred work ; and, till he shall he
duly ordained to the ministry, the testimonial given to him may be withdrawn
whenever that association, for any good reason, is no longer willing to be responsible
for him.
EPITOME OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT AND FELLOWSHIP.
I. — GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
I. Ecclesiastical polity, or Church government, is that form and order which is
to be observed in the Church of Christ.
H. The Holy Scriptures are the sufficient, exclusive, and' obUgatory rule of eccle
siastical polity. Church powers, therefore, are only administrative, not legislative.
III. For government, there is no one visible, universal Church ; nor are there
national, provincial, diocesan, or classical churches, but only local churches or
congregations of believers, and responsible directly to the Lord Jesus Christ, the
one Head of the Church universal and of every particular Church.
IV. Each local Church is complete in itself, and has aU powers requisite for its
own government and discipUne. But aU churches, being in communion one with
another, have such mutual duties as grow out of the obUgations of feUowship.
II. — OF A CHURCH.
I. Of its matter and form.
•1. A Church is always to be composed of such as are judged to belong to Christ,
and of none others.
2. A Church is a society of professed believers, united by a covenant, express or
implied, whereby aU its members agree with the Lord and with each other to
observe all the ordinances of Christ, especiaUy in united worship and in mutual
watchfulness and helpfulness.
3. It is the duty of all believers in Christ to unite in Church feUowship.
4. BeUevers are added to the Church by entering into covenant, upon the vote
of the brotherhood, after due trial of their repentance from sin, and faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ.
5. Members cease to be such when they are recommended to and received by
some other recognized Church ; to which dismission and commendation they are
always entitled unless Uable to some just censure.
n. Of the officers of a Church.
1. Though officers are not necessary to the being of a Church, they are to its
weU-being. 2. The officers appointed by Christ's institution are bishops, (or pastors and
teachers) and deacons. Other persons, appointed for special duties, constitute no
order of Church officers.
3. Church officers are to be chosen exclusively by the Church to which they are
to minister; and they may be dismissed for cause, by the same authority. Yet, in
the choice or dismission of a pastor, neighboring churches should be consulted,
both for advice, and for the sake of feUowship among the churches.
4. No man may be a pastor but one that is called of God to the work of the
ministry. But the Church judges of his fitness by due trial of his faith, graces,
and abUities.

National Council. 55
5. Chufch officers are to be ordained or solemnly inducted into their several
offices ; and the ordination of a pastor involves his consecration to the ministry of
the gospel.
6. The work of a pastor is to labor in word and doctrine ; and to rule, not as a
lord over God's heritage, but with the consent of the brethren. The work of a
deacon is to assist the pastor, not by ruling or teaching, but chiefly by " serving
tables." 7. The Church should provide proper maintenance for the pastor. It is right
also that not only members of the Church, but all who are taught in the word, eon-
tribute to his support. When incorporated societies assume the maintenance of a
pastor and teacher, it is also right that they have concurrent voice with the Church
in his election.
HI. Of Church censures.
1. It is the right and duty of every Church to preserve its purity by the pre
vention and removal of offences, and the recovery of offenders. This duty it
cannot depute to others, neither can others rightly assume it.
2. In the treatment of offences, the object is both to reclaim offenders, and to
preserve the purity of the Church in faith and practice.
3. Church censures are of two sorts, — admonition and excommunication.
4. If one brother offend another, and does not acknowledge his fault, it is the
duty of the brother aggrieved to follow the course which Christ has prescribed in
the eighteenth chapter of Matthew, in the hope of winning his brother. If the griev
ance come before the Church, the Church should endeavor to recover the offender ;
and, failing that, it should admonish him, which of itself suspends him from Church
communion until the offence be removed.
5. IS an offence be pubUc and scandalous, the Church may proceed, without such
gradual steps, to try the offender, and, if it find cause, admonish or excommunicate
him. 6; When an offending brother makes penitent confession to the Church, to its
entire satisfaction, he is recovered and gained. If not fully satisfied, the Church
should admonish him. If, in any case of admonition, the offender prove obstinate,
he is, after reasonable delay, to be excommunicated by vote of the brotherhood.
7. While one lies under the censure of excommunication, he is not to be received
to spiritual communion in any Church. But, upon repentance, he may be absolved
of the censure, and restored.
8. Inasmuch as the first object is to reclaim the offender, aU things should be
done in a spirit of gentleness and meekness. In the trial of one who is accused, all
proceedings should be conducted with equity and patience ; and, in the decision,
unnecessary harshness is not less to be avoided than remissness.
9. If a brother claims to be aggrieved by any censure affecting his communion
with other churches, or if a letter of dismission and recommendation is unreason
ably refused, he may ask the Church to join with him in requesting advice of the
neighboring churches, and, if the Church refuse, may of himself request the churches
to assemble by their messengers to inquire into his case, and to give him advice.
III.  OF THE COMMUNION OF THE CHURCHES.
I. Although churches are distinct and equal, yet they ought to preserve fellowship
one with another, being aU united to Christ, their Head.
n. When a company of believers propose to unite in a distinct Church, it is requi
site that they ask the advice and help of neighboring churches ; particularly that

56 National Council.
those churches, being satisfied with their faith and order, may extend to them the
hand of feUowship.
III. Communion is to be exercised by recognizing each other's rights, by due
regard to each other's welfare, and by consultation before acts of common concern.
IV. Councils are the ordinary and orderly way of consultation among churches,
and are proper in all cases where the communion of the churches is involved.
1. In Councils the churches meet for consultation, usuaUy by messengers (pastor
and delegate) chosen for the special occasion.
2. CouncUs are properly called of churches in the near vicinity, except when
matters which excite strong local sympathies render the advice of distant churches
necessary. 3. CouncUs are caUed only by a Church, or an authorized party in case of dis
agreement, when the Church unreasonably refuses to join ; that is, by a Church
desiring light or help; by a Church and pastor (or other member or members) in
case of differences, when it is styled a mutual CouncU ; or by either of these parties
when the other unreasonably refuses to unite, when it is styled an ex parte CouncU ;
which ex parte CouncU, when properly convened, has the same standing as if it had
been mutual.
4. Councils consist solely of the churches invited by the letters-missive, to which
no member can be added, and from which none can be removed.
5. Councils are convened when a Church desires recognition ; when a Church
asks for advice or help ; when differences are to be composed ; when men whose
call of God is recognized by the Church are to be separated to the ministry ; when
pastors are to be inducted into office or removed ; when a brother claims to be
aggrieved by Church censure ; when letters of dismission are unreasonably refused;
when a Church or minister is liable to just censure ; and when matters of common
moment to the churches are to be considered.
6. The decision of a Council is only advisory. Yet, when orderly given, it is to
be received as the voice of the churches, and an ordinance of God appointed in his
word, with reverence and submission, unless inconsistent with the word of God.
But Councils cannot overrule the acts of churches so far as they are within the
Church, nor exercise government over them.
7. When, in any case of difference, a Council properly convened, whether mutual
or ex parte, has given its judgment, neither party can demand that another CouncU
be called, whether to reexamine the substance of the questions referred to the
first, or to judge of its advice. An ex parte Council in such case is manifestly
disorderly, and without warrant.
V. Fellowship should be withdrawn from any church which is untrue to sound
doctrine, either by renouncing the faith, or continuing to hear a teacher declared
by Council to be heretical ; or which gives public scandal to the cause of Christ ; or
which wilfully persists in acts which break fellowship. When one Church finds such
acts in another, it should admonish, and, if that fail, invite a CouncU to examine
the alleged offence.
VI. Conferences of churches are aUowable and profitable; but they hear no
appeals, give no advice, and decide no question of Church or ministerial standing.
IV. — OF THE MINISTRY.
I. The ministry includes aU men called of God to that work, and orderly set
apart by ordination.
. H. When ordination of a pastor is to be performed, the Church in which he is

National Council. 57
to bear office invites a CouncU to examine as to faith, grace, and abiUty, that, if he
be approved, they may extend the hand of fellowship. If the ordination be in
view of any other sphere of labor, the request for a Council ought to come from
the Church of which he is a member.
IH. A pastor dismissed does not cease to be a minister ; but he cannot exercise
any official act over a Church until orderly replaced in office, except when par
ticularly invited by a Church.
IV. In case a pastor offend in such way that he should no longer be recognized as
a minister, the Church should request a Council to examine the charges, and, if it
find cause, to withdraw aU fellowship from him, so that his ministerial standing shall
cease to be recognized. If a minister who is not a pastor be the offender, the
Church to which he belongs, or the Church nearest his residence, should take the
same course..
V. Associations of ministers are useful for mutual sympathy and improvement.
They can exercise no sort of authority over churches or persons, save to prescribe
the rights and duties of their own membership. But common consent has recog
nized that their examination of candidates for introduction to the churches is a
wise safeguard.
A communication from the Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Minis
ters was received through Rev. J H. Means, its secretary, as follows :
To the Moderator of the " National Council of Congregational Churches."
Dear Sir : — WiU you please lay before the Council the following resolution,
passed at a meeting of the " Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Minis
ters " held in Boston, May 31, 1865 ? —
"Resolved, That the ' National CouncU of Congregational Churches ' to be held in
this city on the 14th of June next, be respectfully requested to use such language in
their procedures as a Trinitarian Congregational Council as shall recognize the fact
that there are Unitarian and other Congregational churches in this Commonwealth.
Very respectfuUy, James H. Means, Scribe of the Convention.
Dorchester, June 12, 1865.
On motion of Rev. Mr. Quint!, of Massachusetts, it was referred to a special
committee. Council adjourned to meet at 3, P. M.
Friday, 3, P. M.
Dr. Bacon's report was accepted, and referred to a special committee.
The Committee of Nominations reported the following committees, and their
report was accepted and adopted, as follows :
Committee on the State of the Country — 'Rev. T. M. Post, D. D., Mo. ; Hon. Seth
May, Maine ; Hon. James D. Bell, Vermont ; Hon. Milan Harris, Hew Hampshire ;
Hon. A. C. Barstow, Rhode Island ; Hon. Dudley R. Wheeler, Connecticut; Judge
Henry Morris, Massachusetts; Rev. O. E. Daggett, D. D., New York ; Rev. J. M.
Holmes, New Jersey; Rev. Edward Hawes, Philadelphia; Dea. Abner H. Bryant,
Delaware ; Rev. Edwin Johnson, Maryland ; Rev. J. A. Thome, Ohio ; Rev. J. C.
Webster, Illinois; Dea. A. Fish, Michigan ; Hon. E. D. Holton, Wisconsin; Rev. A.
B. Robbins, Iowa; Rev. C. S. Seccomb, Minnesota; Hon. S. C. Pomeroy, Kansas;

58 National Council.
Rev. E. M. Lewis, Nebraska ; L. P. Fisher, Esq., California ; Rev. G. H. Atkinson,
Oregon ; Rev. W. Crawford, Colorado.
Committee on the Declaration of Faith — Rev. J. O. Fiske, Maine ; Prof. D. J.
Noyes, D. D., New Hampshire; Rev. N. Gale, D. D., Massachusetts; Rev. J.
Eldridge, D. D., Connecticut; Rev. L. Swain, D. D., Rhode Island; Dr. A. G.
Bristol, New York ; Rev. J. C. Hart, Ohio ; Dea. S. S. Barnard, Michigan ; Rev.
G. S. F. Savage, Illinois.
Committee on the Communication from the Massachusetts Convention of Congrega
tional Ministers — Rev. A. H. Quint, Massachusetts ; Rev. W. T. Eustis, Connecticut ;
Asa Freeman, Esq., New Hampshire.
Committee on the Platform of Church Government — Rev. J. P. GuUiver,
Connecticut ; Prof. S. Harris, D. D., Maine ; Rev. N. Bishop, Vermont ; Prof. E.
A. Park, D. D., Massachusetts ; Rev. J. G. Davis, New Hampshire ; Rev. E. F.
Burr, Connecticut; Rev. J. Leavitt, D. D., New York; Prof. S. C. Bartlett, D. D.,
IlUnois ; Rev. J. Guernsey, Iowa ; Rev. C. C. Salter, Minnesota ; Judge Lester
Taylor, Ohio ; Rev. J. S. Hoyt, Maryland ; Rev. J. D. Liggett, Kansas.
Committee on Response to Foreign Delegates — Rev. L. Bacon, D. D., Connecticut;
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, New York ; Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, D. D., Illinois ; Rev.
Rufus Anderson, D. D., Massachusetts ; Hon. J. B. Walker, D. D., Michigan.
The Committee on the Evangelization of the West and South reported by- Mr.
Currier, of Missouri, as follows :

EVANGELIZATION IN THE WEST AND SOUTH.
The subject on which this committee is required to report presents itself to their
minds under two distinct aspects, each of which will properly and almost neces
sarily, in a greater or less degree, engage the attention of the National CouncU.
Foremost meets us the great fact, which has been a sublime characteristic of our
whole history as a people, that our population is always spreading itself over vast
regions hitherto unoccupied by civilized man, and requiring the unceasing activity
of all Christian people to accompany the emigrant to the wUderness with Christian
instruction, and make the institutions and influences of the religion of Christ
coextensive with our physical civilization.
To this fact, at the moment when we are called together to consider the greatest
crisis in our nation's history, is added another of a still more solemn and momen
tous import, — that over one-halfof our hitherto peopled territory, Christian institu
tions, though once existing in a greater or less degree of purity and efficiency, have
been corrupted by slavery, and well-nigh obUterated by the ravages of war
connected with the slaveholders' rebeUion.
Regions of country larger than a great European empire are thus left in moral
desolation, imposing on the Christian people of our nation the imperative and most
urgent duty of building again in these waste places the institutions of a Christian
civilization. In this view of the home missionary work now devolved upon us, there is nothing
denominational. It appeals to the whole American Church, and to every American
Christian, simply as such.
But there is another aspect of the subject, which is not without its importance,
and which we beUeve the National Council cannot altogether disregard.
We are as sure that God chose and called the early fathers of New England to

National Council. 59
be the founders of this nation as we are that he chose Abraham to be the founder
of his ancient people. They were men whom he had trained and quaUfled for the
work to which they were appointed. And it ought not to be assumed without
proof, that the peculiar conception of the Church which they brought with them to
the shores of New England, and which was the seed from which have sprung all
the churches represented in this Council, had no value in the estimation of the
Divine Architect of our national edifice. This Council is bound by the most solemn
robligations rightly to estimate the value of that unique conception, and to recom
mend to the Ghurches such a system of home evangelization as shall fully recognize
its importance as a universal and permanent element of American society.
During a considerable portion of our history, our home missionary arrangements
have been such as apparently to concede that the Congregational idea of the Church
was of no especial value, — well enough in New England, where it was already
estabUshed, but, west of the Hudson for the most part inapplicable and impractica
ble. If that view was sound and just, then all effort to plant distinctively Con
gregational churches in the new regions of our country is worse than useless. If
CongregationaUsm has no mission except to add one to the number of religious sects
.which divide and distract the household of faith, then far better confine itself within
the limits of New England, and consign at once all its emigrant population to the
care of those centralized Church governments which always stand ready to receive
and assimUate them. But if the Congregational conception of the Church is true
and precious, — if it is as well fitted to all latitudes and longitudes as to New Eng
land and is reaUy'an important element of American civilization, and of the brighter
and., better ages of the promised future, — then these Congregational churches are
bound to be true to their fundamental principles. In this system of home evangel
ization they are bound to put forth their strength not only to accompany our emi
grant population with the gospel of Christ, but to plant the Church, after the
conception of the PUgrim Fathers, wherever they make their home on the borders
of the wilderness.
We trust the Council will have in view both these aspects of the case, in all the
advice it may give to the churches.
¦ In order to present a survey of our home missionary work with as much clearness
as possible, we shall divide it into four parts.
First. Those portions of the West and North-west in which numerous churches
lave been already planted by our missionary efforts, many of which are still
dependent, in part, on missionary funds for their support.
„ Second. Certain districts of the same States in which our missionary efforts have
hitherto been attended with Uttle success, and in which few churches are now
receiving our aid.
Third. The new States and Territories of the West and North-west, toward'
which the tide of emigration is now setting, and is likely to flow in the immediate
future. ,
'.. Fourth. The States of the South and South-west which have been the principal
theater of the great rebellion.
Of the first of these divisions the committee have Uttle to say ; not because the
work of evangelfcation in that section of our field is complete, nor because what
remains to be done is not vastly important, but only because the condition of other^
sections of the field is so critical and their claims so urgent. In respect to these
more favored parts of our home missionary field, it should not be forgotten that
there yet » remaineth much land to be possessed." The prominent centres of influ-

60 National Council.
ence are for the most part occupied. The towns and viUages along the thorough
fares of travel and traffic are generaUy suppUed with gospel ministrations. But
in the wide intervals between the railroads, and remote from the villages, a great
majority of the population is beyond the influence of the churches we have planted,
and is very inadequately supplied with religious privUeges. Unless this rural pop
ulation is brought more directly under gospel influences, and their children and
youth are furnished with better opportunities for Christian education, we have great
reason to fear the results which must follow. These wide fields, neglected, wiU
become moral wastes, whose population will have no sympathy with the sentiments
and institutions which have been the glory of our land.
To meet the wants of this part of our field, Sabbath schools, prayer meetings,
family visitation, and colportage, ought to be sustained by the voluntary efforts of
the self-denying men and women of adjacent churches. But, in addition to this
instrumentality, we need a class of missionaries who go forth, not to seek eligible
settlement in a community that is prepared to welcome and support them, but who,
in th* spirit of Paul, are willing to build where no man has yet laid a foundation.
There is scarce a county, even in the most favored portion of the North-west,
that does not contain waste places which would repay the best reUgious culture we
could bestow upon them.
The second division embraces large portions of Southern IlUnois and Indiana, and
probably, also, important districts in other States, with which the committee are
less acquainted.
In these districts, so far as the knowledge of the committee extends, our home
missionary efforts in the past have been crowned with Uttle success, and at present,
and for several years just past, we are scarcely attempting anything. They are |
passed by as fields for which, at present, little or nothing can be done. But they
are not passed by because there is no need of doing anything for them.
It may be said that other denominations have the ground, and therefore for us, as
CongregationaUsts, there is no room.
If other denominations do have the ground, they occupy it most inefficiently and
unsatisfactorily. The people are not taught. The Sabbath is not made a day of
religious rest and instruction. Ignorance, both of things secular and divine, widely
prevails. In all these respects a state of things exists which cannot extensively
prevail in our country, without disqualifying us to continue long a free people.
The truth of the case is, that the districts in question are not in such a sense pre
occupied by other denominations as to reUeve us from the obligation of further
effort, until, by a fair experiment, it is proved that there is nothing more which we
can do.
If our home missionary effort must be limited to the organization of churches
from materials found ready to our hands, and to the aiding of churches so formed
till they become self-sustaining, then it is difficult to see what more can be done for
these districts than we are now doing. But why must our efforts be circumscribed
to such Umits ? Why should we wait till some Church or community is ready to
invite a missionary to labor with them, and to assume a part of the responsibility of
his support? Why should we not rather send forth into such districts devoted
men, with their support fully guaranteed, to labor where they c*h find a field, and
to preach Christ where they can find hearers, — leaving it to their judgment to
" bestow their labors where the best results are to be expected, and to organize
churches where there is promise of permanence and usefulness? That in this way
sinners can be converted to Christ, and churches founded and multiplied which wiU

National Council. 61
prove blessings to generations yet unborn, no believer in the adaptation and power
of the gospel is at liberty to doubt.
In this section of which we are speaking, there are certain points of great and
growing importance, where the population is already large and is rapidly increasing ;
but religious people are few, and religious privileges scarce and meagre. At such
points, the committee believe, missionaries should at once be stationed and sustained,
till they can gather around them congregations able to support them. Houses of
worship should also be provided in such fields, either wholly by the Congregational
• : Union, or partly by them, and partly by such contributions as liberal men on the
spot are willing to make. /
Enterprises thus commenced should be adequately sustained tiU they can stand
alone. It would perhaps be invidious and unwise to name particular places which
should be thus occupied. But the committee are of the opinion that places may be
found in these districts where enterprises of this sort have already been delayed
years too long. UntU such efforts have been made and have failed, it is the judg
ment of the committee that the conclusion is premature, that nothing can be done
, , for these districts. Till such attempts are made, the few brethren now scattered
over these regions, and struggUng almost alone against prejudice and abounding
wickedness, will not cease to feel and to lament their lack of the earnest and effi
cient cooperation of the churches in more favored sections of the country.
Our third division of the field consists of those new States and Territories
toward which the tide of emigration is now setting in great force.
It will be no easy matter for the members of the National Council to bring their
minds up to a conception of the vastness and urgent importance of this field of
' S/Christian effort.
' North of the south Une of Kansas extended to the, Pacific, and west of the Mis
sissippi, excluding Missouri, there is an area of territory belonging to the United
States of one million three hundred thousand square miles. Embraced in this
area are the States of Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Oregon, Nevada, and a part of
California, and the Territories of Nebraska, Dacotah, Colorado, Utah, Washington,
Idaho, and Montana. Within these limits are four-tenths of the entire territory of
the United States, equal to twenty times the area of New England, twenty-six
times that of the State of New York, and one hundred and sixty times that of
Massachusetts. In 1860, the above States and Territories had a population of one million three
hundred and eighty-five thousand one hundred and fifty three, which now undoubt
edly exceeds two milUons. Until 1859, the population was confined mostly to the
States on the Mississippi and the Pacific, and those parts of Kansas and Nebraska
contiguous to the Missouri River. The whole mountain region, aside from the
Mormon settlements in Utah, was uninhabited, and to a great extent unexplored.
Since that time many thousands have made houses, either temporary or permanent,
in the mountains ; and four new Territories have been organized since 1861 along
the mountain ranges. The great Platte Valley, stretching eastwardly from the
mountains to theiMissouri River, a distance of five or six hundred miles, has become
an immense thoroughfare of travel and transportation to the mountain territories
and Pacific States. This results, in a great measure, from the discovery of the pre
cious metals, in various localities, over a large extent of country. This first caused
the settlement of California, and is now with equal rapidity peopling the fastnesses
of the Rockv Mountains. Wherever gold has been found, cities and villages are
springing up with marvellous rapidity. There is no longer any dbubt as to the

62 National Council'.
richness and inexhaustibleness of the gold deposits in these regions. And as gold
has always proved a mighty motive power, we may infer with certainty, that with
increasing facilities for reaching the mining localities, with improved machinery
for obtaining the precious metals, and with the aid of the surplus capital of the
Eastern States, the tide of emigration will increase in volume from year to year.
The vast agricultural regions of Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, will find a remunera
tive market for their productions in this mining region. Thus the one wUl help the
other, and both wUl develop together.
Such are the elements of , growth and progress which this wide region contains
within itself; and we cannot doubt it will soon be occupied with a multitudinous
population. The foundations of those future States are now being laid, and their
character and influence wUl, to a great extent, be determined by these early
beginnings. Another very material fact, in its bearings on the growth of these new States and
Territories, is the construction of the great Union Pacific Railroad. Chartered by
Congress, and liberally endowed by the General Government, this road is to connect
the Missouri River with the Pacific Ocean, carrying the facilities for travel and
commerce through aU the vast interior. This work is actually in process of con
struction at both ends of the line. And such is the influence of railroads in devel
oping the resources of a country, in stimulating enterprises, increasing the value of
property, and contributing to the growth of towns and cities, that we doubt not
the completion of this road t'o the mining region will, in a brief period, quadruple
its population, while at the same time it will add greatly to the population and
wealth of the Missouri and Mississippi Valleys.
Emigration to the mountains tends strongly to concentrate in cities, thus afford
ing greater facilities for preaching the gospel, and rendering delay in sending it
more perilous. This population is enterprising and energetic, and ready to aid
liberally in the support of the gospel and in building houses of worship. And yet
they are exposed to many and peculiar temptations, and without the influence of the
gospel they are exceedingly exposed to the worst vices which corrupt society.
Among the inhabitants of these new States and Territories are not a few mem
bers of Congregational churches, and many sons and daughters of New England,
who love her simple Church polity, and believe it better fitted to develop and ele
vate man than any other. From the " Congregational Quarterly " of January, 1865,
we learn that these numerous States and Territories, with their two milUons of peo
ple, had, one year ago, two hundred and seventy Congregational churches, with an
aggregate membership of a Uttle more than ten thousand. They had also one hun
dred and eighty-two ministers, either supplying these churches, or laboring in new
settlements where churches were not yet organized. In the four mountain Terri
tories and the State of Nevada we have, by report, but three churches and an equal
number of ministers. Yet the population to-day probably exceeds two hundred
thousand, with the certain prospect of a very large increase.
It seems to the committee that this portion of our home missionary "field ought
to be most seriously considered by all the churches represented in this Council.
Here is a call for new zeal and increased efficiency in the prosecution of the home
missionary work, in order to carry it forward upon a scale commensurate with the
vastness of the field to be cultivated.
The other portion of the homei missionary field, which demands our attention,
embraces the States that have just been redeemed from slavery, and are th«s opened
to a pure gospel, and to churches founded on the principles of Congregational
freedom.

National Council. 63
In the survey of this field, the first feature which arrests our attention is the
pecuhar condition of the four millions of people now emerging from slavery into
manhood, and the light and liberty of the sons of God. Deprived hitherto of aU
opportunities for education, they now hunger and thirst after learning. Never
before did any people manifest such eagerness to acquire the rudiments of educa
tion and the knowledge of God's Word. In Virginia, North and South CaroUna,
and along the banks of the Mississippi, they began early in the war to come within
our Unes, and were immediately provided with schools and teachers by the Ameri
can Missionary Association. In the progress of the war, this work has continuaUy
grown in magnitude and importance, until, by the overthrow of the rebellion, the
whole colored population of the South are soon to be brought within the reach of
Christian teachers and missionaries. Never was a missionary field more inviting.
The soil is rich and mellow, and all prepared: for the " good seed of the kingdom."
Blessed are they that shall so cultivate this field as to reap the rich harvest of
which it is capable.
. How far the way is open for home missionary labors among the white people of
the South, the committee is unable to speak with much definiteness, for the want of
accurate information. But we rejoice to know that hostile armies no longer over
run- those States. The rebelUon is crushed ; and the way is prepared for a thorough
and accurate survey of the moral desolation which slavery and war have left in
their track. Let such survey speedily be made, and the result laid before the
churches. In the meantime, the following facts, reported from certain portions of
the field which have been longer under Federal control, and therefore better known,
may be taken as specimens of the whole.
Missouri, in its general condition and history, may be taken as representing, in
the main, the region of country under consideration, and is, in position, territory,
and, population, no inconsiderable part of it. In 1860 it had the largest white pop
ulation of any of the slave States, and is in territory larger than the whole of New
England, and much richer in natural resources. But from its earliest settlement
slavery has been there, paralyzing its energies, depressing its industry, corrupting its
<; politics, perverting its theology, and poisoning the whole surrounding atmosphere.
From this blighting curse the State is now deUvered by a war undertaken in the
interest of slavery, and having for its object its perpetuation, and lasting domination
over a continent.
WhUe emancipation in Missouri is a consequence of the war, it is a consequence
wrought out through conviction, — a radical change in the opinions and feelings of
the people. It is not the result of military coercion operating upon the elections.
It rests on the deliberate choice of the people, ascertained through the ballot box,
and that, too, by a most decisive and significant majority. " An ocean of changed
thought and feeling " has rolled over the State in these last four years. And what
has happened in Missouri in this respect, we beUeve will be found, to a considerable
extent, to be true in the other slave States.
Missouri came into the Union in a convulsive struggle that shook the nation.
New England pro^tested ; but her protest was unavailing, and for the time slavery
triumphed. This was forty-five years ago. On the eleventh day of January last,
she was born again, amid the rejoicings and congratulations of millions of freemen
from the Atlantic to the. Pacific.
In January, 1852, there was not a Congregational Church in this State. Nine
years later, at the outbreak of the slaveholders' rebellion, there were two, and the
only two in the slave States,— one at St. Louis, and one at Hannibal, both situated

64 National Council.
on the eastern boundary line of the State, and together containing scarcely more
than three hundred members. At this date ten are reported, and the door is wide
open for the planting of as many more as Christian zeal and enterprise may elect-
Old temples and altars have been thrown down. The priests of slavery, with their
followers, are scattered and gone, or, are fast going. The society of Missouri is no
longer suited to their tastes. They prefer a hiding-place anywhere else to the
scene of their former pride, where all is now so changed, and where the friends of
the Union and the enemies of slavery are in the popular ascendant.
What has been said indicates, in general, the state of things in Missouri. To a
great extent, except in a few counties, it is, in respect to religious organizations, a
mighty waste. We give an example or two, by way of illustration : — Jefferson
City, the capital of the State, is situated on the south bank of the Missouri River, one
hundred and twenty-five miles west of St. Louis, with which it is connected by raU-
way. It has a population of about four thousand. In 1861 it had four churches,
representing as many different denominations, viz., Presbyterian (O. S.), Baptist,
Episcopal, and Methodist (South). AU these churches are now, or were as late as
March last, closed. No services have been held in the Presbyterian Church for four
years, and only occasionally, if at aU, in the three others during the same period. ,
A Methodist Church (North) has in the mean time been organized, and a smaU
house of worship erected, of dimensions to accommodate, perhaps, a hundred and
fifty persons. This is the only Protestant house of worship now in use in the capi
tal of the State of Missouri, although it has been constantly within the Federal
lines, and in daily connection with St. Louis.
If such a state of things exist in the protected capital, it is not to be imagined
that religious institutions are in a more satisfactory condition where bushwhackers
and guerillas have roamed at large.
In a growing town of some two thousand inhabitants, on the Pacific Railroad,
West of Jefferson City, no Church organization or house of worship exists. An
agent of the American Missionary Association visited it last summer, and was much
encouraged by the friendly temper of the people, and their readiness to hear. His
chief difficulty during his short stay was to find a room large enough to accommodate
those who wished to attend upon his services.
It is believed that these are only specimens tending to give a true idea of the
condition of a large part of the State. And, as far as the committee can judge
from the information in their possession, they beUeve a very similar state of things
exists in all the States, which, at the outbreak of the rebelUon, were under the
controlling influence of slavery. Religious organizations existing previous to the
rebellion are overturned. The Church, in its various denominations, was as thor
oughly pervaded and corrupted by slavery as the State, and as completely involved
in the rebellion, and consequently has been equally dissolved and destroyed by the
overthrow of slavery and the rebellion. And, if the work of political reconstruction
is to tax the mind and heart of the nation to the utmost, the reconstruction of
religious society in the South is a work no less difficult and momentous. If the
restoration of government in the South on the basis of universal freedom is the
trial question of our political institutions, the restoration of religious society on
the basis of the gospel of Christ is no less the trial question of our Protestant
Christianity. No graver question at present demands the attention of the churches which we
represent, than the inquiry, " What part in this mighty work belongs to those men
and those churches which adhere to that conception of the Church, which found its

National . Council. 65
way to this continent in the cabin of Jhe May-flower ? " The committee certainly is
not prepared fully to answer this question. But to say that in all this Congrega
tionalism is to have no share seems to us like saying that the principles of that
polity are not worthy of what our Pilgrim Fathers suffered for them, nor of the
tenacity with which we hold them. If we have a conception of the Church, which
must be laid aside before we can enter upon the greatest Christian enterprise of
the nineteenth century, the sooner we discard it everywhere the better, that' we
may take up some'other polity which is capable of universal appUcation.
In reconstructing religious society at the South, it seems to the committee as
most obviously important to adopt a policy analogous to that pursued in miUtary
affairs. There are many cities and large towns which are as truly strategic points
in our moral as in our carnal warfare. No time should be lost in taking possession
of them in the name of our Great Captain, and in erecting in them fortresses of
evangelical truth furnished with all the munitions of spiritual warfare. Persons
who, in connection with the army, have had opportunity to study the South, testify-
on this point with great unanimity and earnestness. '
Commencing at Cairo, Illinois, every considerable town on/the Mississippi and its
tributaries, quite down to the Gulf, should receive early and earnest attention.
At Memphis, an organization has already been effected under favorable auspices,
and a self-sustaining Church estabUshed.
In New Orleans, a handful of men, noble and true, are already soliciting our
cooperation. Congregational polity was once at home in Charleston, and in Savan
nah, and other parts of Georgia. Is it not our duty to make haste to rebuild what
slavery has corrupted and destroyed ?
In Wilmington, Norfolk, Richmond, Baltimore, and Washington, and doubtless
in many less prominent cities of the Atlantic States of the South, we may soon,
expect openings for the introduction of a pure gospel, and the establishment of
permanent reUgious institutions by our instrumentalities for home evangelisation.
In the v prosecution of this great work, why should we not imitate the example Of
the apostoUc age? The apostles' of Christ were appointed to plant the Christian
Church, not for the Roman Empire, but for the world ; not for one age, but for all
time. They began, indeed, at Jerusalem ; but, as soon as they began to go abroad
from that center, they hastened to the centers of that influence which controlled
the world, — the cities that lay around the Mediterranean Sea. In them they
preached the gospel and planted churches ; and from Ephesus and Philippi and Thes-
salonica and Corinth and Rome, the gospel spread into the surrounding populations.
The VaUey of the Mississippi is the Mediterranean region of this continent, and
in the great centers of influence in this valley our work must begin. These stra
tegic points must, be speedUy garrisoned for Christ ; and it must be done by hands
that are clear of aU participation in the great rebeUion.
To no portion of the Christian people of the United States does the caU to
engage in this great religious enterprise come more imperatively than to the
churches represented in this Council. In this connection, the committee deem it
proper to caU attention to the following passage from Bancroft's History of the
United States, volume i., pp. 467-8: "I have dwelt the longer on the character of
the early Puritans of New England," says the historian, "for they are the parents
of one-third of the white population of the United States. In the first ten or
twelve years, — and there was never afterwards any considerable increase from
England,— we have seen that there came over twenty-one thousand two hundred
persons, or four thousand famUies. Their descendants are now (1834) not far

66 National Council.
from four millions. Each family has multiplied, on the average, to one thousand
souls. To New York and Ohio, where they constitute one-half of the population,
they have carried the Puritan system of free schools ; and their example is spread
ing it through the civilized world."
If this calculation be brought down to the present time, it will be found that the
descendants of, the early Puritans of New England now number about ten millions,
and that they have not only carried the Puritan system of free schools to New York
and Ohio, but that they have carried these, and all the ideas and institutions of a
society founded on the doctrine of the equal rights of man, beyond the Great Lakes,
beyond the Mississippi and the Missouri, to the banks of the Columbia and the
shores of the Pacific. It is patent to every observant eye, that that great current
of opinion which made the lamented Lincoln President of the United States, and
overturned the iniquitous system of slavery, and with it the whole structure of
Southern society, followed everywhere along the ramifications of this stream of
New England emigration. It is no wonder that the rebels and their Northern alUes
proposed to leave New England out in the cold. New England ideas were found
utterly incompatible with the continued existence of slavery.
What then so fit as that, in reconstructing society at the South on the basis of free
dom and Christianity, large room should be given to the spirit, the principles, and
the modes of organization, of these Puritan Fathers ? It is not the business of the
committee to urge this matter. But we religiously believe and honestly affirm,
that, if our Puritan Fathers had brought to New England a centraUzed Church
government, they never could have exerted their mighty and benignant influence
on the destinies of their country and the world. And we can assign no reason why
their ideas are not just as precious and just as potent in restoring society at the South
as they were in constructing it in New England. Bible principles never grow old, '
and their value and their adaptation undergo no change.
Tha committee cannot refrain from expressing their full conviction, that, in this
work of religious reconstruction, an indispensable condition of success is our hearty
recognition of our equal brotherhood with the colored man, and our earnest endeavor
to raise him to the full enjoyment of all the privUeges of the gospel. God has
overturned society in the South for the crime of trampUng on the rights of the
negro ; and let no one think to restore it, without fully recognizing his equal rights
with the white man to citizenship, both under our government and in the kingdom
of God.
He who is no respecter of persons will surely frown on aU such attempts, how
ever cunningly conceived and zealously prosecuted.
Such, then, is the vast work to which the providence of God calls the churches
and people represented in this Council. ' And what shall we say of the machinery
needed to accomplish it ? On this point we have but Uttle to suggest. We see no
necessity for any new organization. The American Home Missionary Society and
the American Missionary Association, those noble , institutions through which we
\have been accustomed to act in the work of home evangelization, seem in the good
providence of God to be raised up especially for this very time. They have a pres
tige, an experience, and an adaptation, that commend them to universal confidence.
The American Home Missionary Society, formerly the organ of another denom
ination as well as of our own, without its own seeking or ours, has been released
from any obligation which would have restrained its action in promoting the Church
polity of our Puritan Fathers. In the progress of events, the way seems now pre
pared for the universal acceptance of the anti-slavery principles which the American

National Council. 67
Missionary Association has always maintained. Both societies have therefore an
open field, and both enjoy largely the confidence and sympathy of the churches.
Nor do we fincL/ny difficulty in recognizing the respective spheres of these two
societies. For while no separation is or can be made by a geographical Une, and
still less by any invidious distinction of color, we yet discover in the past labors of
the American Missionary Association, among the colored people of America, the
West India Islands, and Africa, and in the ready facUity with which it has adapted
itself to the peculiar condition of this people at the South, an instrumentaUty prov
identially prepared for their evangelization.- We therefore commend to the churches
this association for the work at the South, with special reference to the Freedmen.
The American Home Missionary Society, on the contrary, is limited by its Con
stitution to one specific work of aiding destitute communities and feeble churches
to sustain the preaching of the gospel. For this distinctive work it will find com
paratively little preparation among the Freedmen ; but its glorious history, endearing
it to the affections of all the churches, points it out stUl as the chosen instrumental
ity for its specific home missionary work in all parts of our country, — in the South,
as far as the door may be opened, as weU as in the North and Great West.
With these limitations of special adaptation and constitutional provision, each
organization has a distinct work ; and the field is so large, and the relation of the
two societies so friendly, that each can expend its utmost energies without rivalry
and collision.
In this connection we recognize the important mission of the Congregational
Union, but forbear discussion of it here, since its claims are to be submitted outside
of this report.
It is not, then, new machinery which we want, but to give greatly increased effi
ciency to the machinery which we have, by supplying a vastly greater moving power.
The great question before this body is, How can this be done ? It is perfectly obvi
ous that our missionary societies cannot carry out the policy recommended in this
report, without a large increase of their resources. They wUl need a yearly income
of not less than half a milUon of _ dollars. Our resources for Church buUding,
and all the other auxUiary instrumentalities, will need also to be proportionably
increased. - How can such an increase be obtained ? That is the question of this occasion.
One thing the committee wUl suggest in answer to this inquiry. We must deter
mine in good solemn earnest to do the work whereunto Gpd has called us. No
man who has borne a part in the work of evangeUzation in any of our new States
and Territories within the last ten or fifteen years can have faUed to see, and with sick
ness of heart to feel, that the American churches; after aU, are not half in earnest
in this work. In times of prevailing worldly prosperity, men of the noblest endow
ments of mind and heart, who have given themselves to this sacred cause in the
true spirit of self-sacrifice, have found themselves left, like soldiers in the field,
without arms, without ammunition, and without rations. If this state of things is
to continue, the hope of accomplishing the glorious work which now invites our
efforts will prove utterly fallacious and delusive. The spirit of Christian self-
sacrifice must not be confined to a few missionaries, teachers, and colporters, whUe
the thousands of our Israel dweU in their ceiled houses, and suffer the house of God
to Ue waste. Tf we enter on this enterprise with some such all-pervading earnest
ness as that with which we undertook the work of subduing the great rebeUion,
there will be no difficulty in obtaining the needful resources. It will be as it has
been in the war. When men are needed, they can be had ; and when money is
wantfed, it wUl be poured out like water!

.68 National Council.
In closing this Report, the committee present the following summary of the
results to which they have come.
1. In addition to the work to which our Home Missionary Societies have, for the
most part, confined their labors, — that of planting and fostering churches where
materials are found ready to their hand for forming them, — there is an imperative
necessity that able and devoted men should be sent to labor for Christ where no
churches exist and no materials are ready for their formation. At whatever cost
of men and money, the great centers of influence should at once be occupied by
men divinely endowed for such a work ; and their support should be drawn from
missionary funds, till their congregations are able to sustain them.
2. That the time for efficient action is emphatically the present. In the West
and North-west, our emigration is spreading itself over a field vaster than ever
before ; and immediate and most efficient action is necessary to overtake and keep
pace with this ever-swelling tide of population, in founding the institutions of Chris
tianity, learning, and freedom. In all the late domain of slavery, society is dissolved,
ecclesiastical organizations are broken up or paralyzed. By their sanction of human
chattelism, and their compUcity with the rebeUion, the churches have become utterly
demoraUzed, and are Uke saltjihat has lost its savor. Church edifices and school-
houses are abandoned, and in wide districts the institutions of education and reU
gion have no practical existence. In all these regions, now or never is the time to
arise, and build the temple of the Lord. If we neglect to occupy this inviting field
of labor to which God now calls us, he may, we trust he wUl, raise up others who
will cultivate and possess it for him. But for us it wiU be an opportunity forever
lost, a harvest season never to return.
3. We cannot perform our part in this work without a vast increase in earnest
ness, zeal, and self-denial in our churches. Without this,' it wUl be impossible to
command either the men or the money for the work. The resources and the strong
young men of any community will always be where its heart is. If the heart of
the Church is in the world, her sons and her wealth wUl be there also ; and she wUl
be as powerless in promoting the cause of Christ, at home or abroad, as Samson
was to meet the Philistines when his locks were shorn.
Three questions the committee must leave unanswered, pressing, we trust, on
the hearts of the National Council.
1. How can the requisite spirit of .earnestness and self-consecration be imparted
to the churches ? >
2. How can our young men be induced, by thousands, to consecrate their Uves
to this holy cause ?
3. How can we raise the requisite pecuniary resources for a religious enterprise
so vast, and so imperatively demanding immediate action ?
The American Church is in much the same relation to this great crisis that our
Government was to the rebeUion at its outbreak. From whence wUl the Lord send
deliverance ?
WARREN CURRIER,
JULIAN M. STURTEVANT,
REUBEN GAYLORD, Committee.
THOMAS E. BLISS,
FLAVEL BASCOM,
This report was accepted, and referred to a special committee. Council adjourned
with the Doxology. y

National ^Council. 69
Fourth Day; Saturday, June 17, 9 A. M.
The Council was opened with prayer by the first Assistant Moderator, Hon. C.
G. Hammond of IlUnois.
The minutes of yesterday's sessions were read and approved.
The Committee on Business reported the following resolutions; viz.,
Resolved, That, for the correction and certification of the list of delegates to this Council,
the roll shall be called by the scribe after the reading of the minutes on Monday morning,
and members who do not answer to their names, or whose presence during the session is
not attested by delegates, shall be stricken from the list.
Resolved, That, in making up the roll of members of this Council, the Committee on Cre
dentials be requested and instructed to record the churches which they severally represent,
and the residence of the delegates, both ministers and laymen ; and that the Committee on
Credentials be directed, when recording the names of members, to insert their Christian
name in full.
The first resolution was amended so as to require the roll to be called at 12
o'clock at noon to-day, and that all not answering, or answered for, to-day, have an
opportunity to answer the roU-caU on Monday at 12 m., before being stricken from
the Ust, and was so adopted.
The second resolution was laid upon the table.
' On motion of Dr. Beecher, of IlUnois, it was
Voted, That a committee be appointed from each State and Territory here represented to
report in full the names of the pastors and delegates of such States and Territories present
in the Council, and also the names of the associated churches from which they come.
The Business Committee reported the following resolution, whioh was adopted ;
viz., The Committee on " the work of EvangeUzation in the West and South, and
in Foreign Lands," having omitted, through inadvertance, to report on the last-
named topic,
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to report on the work of Evangelization in
Foreign Lands.
The duty of facUitating the supply of pulpits in this city and vicinity by the
services of members of this CouncU, to-morrow, was assigned to the Committee on
Devotional Exercises. •
The Committee on Credentials reported the following order ; viz.,
That when a delegate has appeared and taken his seat in this Council, but vacates
it before the close of its sessions, his alternate may occupy his place. This order
was laid on the table.
The Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements notified the Council that
Thursday next had been definitely fixed upon as the day on which the Council is
invited to visit Plymouth Rock ; and that the price of tickets to friends of the
Council desiring to accompany them had been fixed at $2.00, including a ticket to
the collation.
The Committee on the subject of Ministerial Support reported by their chairman,
Prof. Shepard, of Maine, as follows :
MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
The Committee appointed to present to the Council the topic of Ministerial Support
hereby report.
We find the most concise and comprehensive axiom on this subject,— uttered by

70 National Council.
the Lord in connection with the sending-forth of the seventy disciples, — " The laborer
is worthy of his hire." The laborer here pronounced upon is the servant of Christ, the
minister and messenger of his gospel, the bearer of spiritual blessings to the lost race of
man. We^have here a class of men set apart to a service deemed of vital importance to the
welfare of the world ; a class extending down the centuries ; their permanence affirming
their indispensableness." They are appointed and commissioned of God ; consecrated to a
single and peculiar service. That they may the most largely compass the benefits of this,
they are set apart from the ordinary and gainful pursuits of life; all their capabilities
held to and absorbed in a ministry of beneficence, — not to getgood, but confer good.
We find the order and the principle in the opening of the Mosaic dispensation. First,
The separation and consecration of the sons of Levi : " Behold, I have taken your brethren,
the Levites, from among the children of Israel ; to you they are given as a gift from the
Lord." Secondly, The obligation on the part of the people to them. " Wherefore for
sake not the Levite as long as thou livest upon the earth." Under the old and the new
dispensation, the principle of service and support is the same, — a principle of support
meant to conduce to the highest measure of service, and service the most effective in
quality. The principle of support to those who preach the gospel, the obligation to support those
who consent to be separated to this service, we find put by the Apostle Paul in a peculiarly
terse and satisfactory way, as is the manner of that apostle to put things — in a sort of
closing-up fashion, as though the brief word he used held within itself the finality of all
argument. He says, linking his conclusion with the arrangement divinely made ages
before, " Even so hath the Lord ordained, that they which preach the gospel should live
of the gospel." So far as authority can settle this principle, the arranging and com
manding of the Supreme Lord settle the principle, that preachers derive their living from
the people whom they serve.
There are good reasons, statements which come to the people with the authority of
reason, why what the Saviour so explicitly enjoins should be done ; viz., .{he laborer in this
field have his hire ; that the preacher of this gospel be furnished a living in it. •>
The flrst is, he is a laborer ; what he does is labor. An apostle pronounces it a good
work. Every undertaker of it, who with a soul of zeal aims at any tolerable fidelity in
it, is satisfied of one thing-, that it is work$ work various, multiform, ever-crowding, never
finished ;, reaching to the inmost sensibilities of life ; drawing off its most ethereal quality,
its finest capital. No man could bear the strain and intensity of this toil, only as he felt
and was allowed to say, It is a good work.
2. It is a work which, to get ready to do, fit, qualified to do, takes years of laborious •
preparation, and expenditure in the preliminary, exceeded in no other human function,
equalled by very few. It is a work which cannot be worthily done unless done by a
class prepared by the discipline of study and< grace ; to them committed ; themselves
consecrated to it, and made responsible for it ; their life's work, and all the work of life
they are allowed to do.
3. It is a work most vital in its bearing upon all human interests. Society could hard
ly subsist without it. It has an essentially modifying influence upon all branches of in
dustry ; makes even the fields more prolific, the houses more tasteful and comfortable.
It elevates and makes purer the whole course of morals ; holds in check the wasteful
propensities ; inclines toward harmony the conflicting passions ; advances the character
in all worthy attributes ; greatly quickens and strengthens the intellect ; lifts the heart
to the divine and heavenly ; nullifies, or turns into positive benefit, the most formidable
powers of evil.

more
can.

National Council. fj
It is admitted, because demonstrated, that the work of the minister adds largely to a
peoples worldly prosperity, to their literal enrichment; brings a gain in character, in
happiness, in possession, in items of benefit innumerable, beyond the count of gold
This is admitted, confessed to, by Christian people, that the support of these workers
is a just due, enjoined by the Lord, earned by hard, exhausting, and invaluable service •
yet their hire is kept back in part ; as a general thing, they are not at all adequatelv paid •
the average of pay is decidedly below a proper standard of compensation. This' I may
safely assume ; no Christian mind will question it. There is no time to array facts in
confirmation of this. They abound ; are everywhere : they are humiliating ; are positively
disgraceful to our Christianity. ,'
In some instances, this inadequate support arises from the inability of the people to do
¦™». These discharge themselves from blame by doing what they can ; all that they
In other instances, and these probably the more common, the inadequate compen
sation for service grows out of a prevalent low estimate of the value of the service. It is
service m the department of religion, which, as many conceive, if not wholly without cost
is proximately so. And men of this way of judging justify themselves in crowding all
estimates in the direction of a cipher. The very economical argument is — The Master
opened by giving himself. And then his salvation is put without price. And the men sent
to dispense it are supposed to be above all self-seeking ; bound to be mortified in all their
desires ; the whole living they aspire to is simply a partial deliverance from starvation.
There is here furnished to the people a promising field for cheapening ; and the minister's
work is sometimes cheapened with a vengeance. If it were some other branch of ser
vice; stood in some Ukely or prolific connection with increase ; had to do with
hoarding money, rather than garnering souls j the standard of compensation and expend
iture would he set higher at once ; a larger price proffered and paid, because greater
value is assigned to the service.
^ All the causes of depressed pay we cannot run over or even hint. This low apprecia
tion of the things of God may be clearly set down as prominent among them. That
there is ever downrightyfrrad, the hire of these laborers kept back ofjraud, we Uke not
to think ; we recoil from making so grave a charge : yet the eye that sees through all may
see even this. We choose the rather to assume that the people do not cqnsider; and
that they will do better when they perceive the obligation in its true light, — will be
disposed to do what is equable and just, when they see what that is.
And what is it ? What is the just measure of a minister's compensation or support ?
This is a quantity we can state in no fixed formula of figures. It is a variable quantity ;
changes with times, circumstances, places. It is not pay for his work, as men in other
callings are paid. It is not of course the highest pay his measure of talent is capable of
commanding, — not the most liberal pay he may win by consenting to be the tool of
competing churches, and swayed by their bids on his coveted gifts. He degrades the
office, shows himself not worthy of the office, if he consents to forsake a place where
God has put him ; where he is largely useful ; where generous hearts surround him, are
ready to give him, actually do give him, all he needs ; and attempts the perilous grade that
promises to take him higher in the scale of emolument or notability.
We can fix the just measure of a minister's support only by the statement of a principle.
It is that measure of support which conduces to the highest effectiveness in his work.
That is an average quantity, a medium quantity. The flush of gain, the excitement of
rolling up property, can only be damaging to him. The harassments of poverty will
necessarily cramp and deaden the life of all noble endeavor. What meets the case is an
easy competence ; that he have what he needs to make him comfortable ; to set him free
from corroding anxiety ; to give him a tone of assurance favorable to vigorous work ; a

72 National Council.
sense of manly independence ; a deliverance from a feeling of meanness ; from a subjected
and cringing spirit, as one afraid to affirm and press obligation. We strike a conception
of the quantity as that which puts him in the best condition for his work. On the one
hand, it is that which does not, by largeness of emolument or any item of worldly attrac
tion, draw by unworthy motives aspirants into this field ; and does not on the other hand,
by rigor of place or unjust severities of treatment, repel from the office those who ought
to enter it, and in this way deplete the ranks of competent Christian laborers.
This, then, the measure of support in the place or office ; that it is a position in which
those who enter it are assisted, enabled by the compensation rendered, to live on a scale
which shall be a full average, if not a little above the average, of the community they serve; • • «
a position, therefore, in which they can assuredly live and be largely useful.
The reasons, in addition to those already given, for furnishing this measure of support,
press on interest, conscience, sensibility. They so throng, that we can do little more than
make a naked statement of them. The minister, then, should be thus equably supported.
1. That he may be enabled to give himself wholly to his work. This work is. sufficient
to tax all his powers and absorb all his time. Few men, for any reason, even for the
necessities of a living, can go outside of it without detriment. Paul did ; but he is the
grand exception and anomaly of the ages. The man who truly desires this work, so
desires it that he will lay down all other work for this alone, will choose to make this his
sole work ; and the savor of his example and the measure of his usefulness will turn
almost entirely upon the singleness of his consecration to it.
2. That he may keep himself in the best condition for. Ms work; which means that he
be not tempted to over-work by a necessity laid upon him to do other things ; which
also means, that he be able to command the reasonable means of recuperation by diver
sion, travel, rest.
3. That he may furnish himself with the indispensable helps to his work ; that it be put
in his power to purchase the books and otherwise, the materials of thought, argument,
exposition ; whatever will feed and replenish his own mind, bring to it strength and
opulence, and make it a storehouse of varied and exhaustless supply to the minds of the
people. If the people but understood how solid and good books put into the hands of
their minister find their terminus in themselves, they would load his arms and shelves with
them, or give him the means to do it.
4. That he may be respectable, and appear respectable. In house, in furniture, in the
dress and culture of his children, he must come up to a certain standard, or he drops in
the public estimation and influence. If his bearing is mean, his words will be despised.
5. That he may be honest. To a just measure, he must be paid, that he may pay,; may
stand in that pecuniary supremacy Paul commends in the words, " Owe no man any
thing." The minister should have tUe power of standing on this high vantage-ground,
that there may be nothing between him and the hearts and the consciences of his people j
that he may enforce by word and deed all the claims of integrity, and lead the people to
" love one another."
6. That he may be liberal ; take the lead ; be an example in Christian giving. One
of his hardest functions everywhere will be to train his flock worthily to the grace of
giving. No argument or eloquence of speech alone will do it, so terribly and deeply
knotted and intrenched, even in Christian hearts often, is the lust of getting and laying
up. He must lead the way, like that old hero of a weaponless fight, Gideon ; he must he
in a condition to say to the people when they come together to deal blows against this
master lust, so loth to die, — with Gideon to say, "Look on me, and do likewise."
No one thing is so important to a minister's efficacy in this respect as that he be in a
condition that will enable him thus to be an example of giving to the people.

National Council. 73
7. That he may have some prudent forecast and providing for the loved ones he will
be called to leave. Some may think faith will dispense with this ; yet humanity demands
this, that hei leave something for the helpless behind.
8. That the favor of the Master may be conciliated toward his churches. Just and
liberal in their treatment of the servants he sends to them, the like the style and measure
of; his dispensation to them. If it is a course of withholding on the part of any of the
churches; a niggardly policy; depressing and grinding down the promulgers of this
frfje and most generous gospel, making them compulsory patterns of self-denial, and
fleshly mortification ; then probably receive they, in the like, from the Divine source. It
proves a ministry of leanness to them, on the principle that; their reaping is according to
their sowing. We have here doubtless the explanation of numberless parched and arid
fields. It is a grand law of God's treatment — With the merciful he will show himself
merciful, with the froward he will show ,himself froward. And, we may add, with the
stingy he wUl show himself stingy.
. 9> 5he?e.is another reason for yielding an equable support, acpording as we have defined
it; viz., if it be not done, ministers will not be to be supported. It is possible that there
be a treatment of them that shall not only diminish, but threaten to run the class out.
Christian men, appointed to do God's service, will stand forth ready to bear cheerfully
any severity of lot God may appoint for them. But the stint and the mean withholding
of men, they wiU not so degrade themselves as to put up with that; but with a self-
respecting independence will they be tempted to say to these men too niggardly to pay
in support of God's free gospel of saving, in the words of Paul, "Thy money perish with
thee.'' Any hardship God ordains in the fulfilment of his commission, let the servant
of this gospel rejoice and glory to bear. Let no servant shun the service because of the
hardship. Be this ever and supremely the motive which draws into this field the highest
and noblest talent, — the ¦privilege to serve Christ in the ministry of his gospel, though
in the want of all things. v
When the naked work or office ceases to have the power to draw the men, then it is a
function, an office, which can no longer find men ; the absence of them being proof that
the race of fit men no longer exists.
The above constitute what one rightly calls the economic reason why the Church should
worthily support its ministry.
There is another and higher we have previously touched, which is the moral reason —
that which shows it to be eternally right that the preacher of the gospel be compensated
for his service. It is. the reason the Lord gives, " The laborer is worthy of his hire ; " a
statement of principle which makes it infinitely just that he be paid for the value of ser
vices rendered — services which are literally invaluable, lying beyond the power of money
to measure.
We come to another department of tbe. topic ; viz.,
The mode of payment. This is of importance as well as the measure. It is a satis
faction to the minister, after he has wrought and deserved and yarned, to receive what
he needs in equity, as matter of just due. He knows, and the people also, that it is
matter of just debt. He feels a more manly sentiment when it comes regularly, punc
tually, cheerfully, as what is due him. If it is looked upon, in any sense, as charity ; if his
support is macle by contract, inadequate through avarice, when the people are abundantly
able to make it a sufficiency, and then they supplement, piece out the stipend, for this reason
deficient, by donations in visits and otherwise ; though in the end he may receive as much,
yetthe mode is somewhat degrading to him, — degrading that he has to take asa gift what
is so ascendantly his due. If the people choose to make gifts to their ministers, over and
above a just compensation for service, it is all amiable ; honorable to both parties. If

74 National Council.
they put to him as a present what they owe to him as a debt, it is not honorable to either
of the parties. These sunny-side chapters, found weekly in our religious papers, if
established as the people's mode in part of paying their minister, then brood they over
the future of our Zion in most ominous shape. They are admissible only as setting the
pastor by an emergency, which comes by a temporary rise of prices.
We lay down this as indispensable in the arrangement of the minister's support ; viz.,
that there be a legally constituted corporate body responsible for his support. Then, if
individuals fail, this body stands as good ; held according to the contract. We depre
cate the practice of bringing the minister at the beginning, and annually ever after, to the
test of a subscription-paper, the figures of which, in the putting-down, are the votes for
his call or his continuance. The failure to cancel any of these subscriptions, in some
cases, is set to the minister's account; made detractions from his stipulated pay.
We like the theory, and are clear in commending it where circumstances favor, — the
theory of no individual property in the house of God. All contributions to build it
are gifts to the Church for this purpose ; the house held by the Church for God and his
worship, and the minister's support provided for by the rentals of the place. This comes
as near to a free Church as is feasible or desirable. It is desirable, and important as a
means of spiritual benefit from the service, that all responsible members of the body
be instructed, encouraged, and expected to bear some part, help in some form, of payment
— the body to meet the expenses of sustaining the worship and ordinances of God.
It is a principle most will admit, that the primal obligation to support the minister lies
with the Church he serves, in such form as they may choose ; each Church, as a general
thing, held solely responsible for its own minister. While this is valid and true, it is also
true that the able churches are bound to help support the weak — the ministers of the
weak churches. Hei;e lies the argument and appeal for home missions.
' Another point, which may not be passed in this discussion, is the minister's function and
responsibility in the matter of his own support. It being a contract between him and
the people, of course there is a side for him to fulfil.
The main consideration here is that he do his work to the extent of his ability — all he
has consecrated to the service of God in promoting the highest interests of his people.
His right to a support as a minister depends upon the fact that he is a minister only.
As another item of duty resting upon him, let him keep young and fresh, that he may
do the work a long time ; keep young by continuing to grow intellectually as well as
spiritually, even up to length of years. For every man has a claim to be held as young
so long as he keeps growing. Fresh and full of fire, let him make the people forget
that he is an old man, even when he is beginning to be one. Let the people also bear
with the offence which their minister cannot wholly avoid taking on ; viz., some of the
outer signs of age. There is a wrong done to some of the best and most useful men of
the pulpit, by a judgment or demand which cuts short, many years, their term of service,
and takes away their breath — men in the acme of their strength and their usefulness
but for the inevitable signs just alluded to. Moses at eighty said, " I cannot speak, for
I am a child." The people now sometimes reverse his plea against speaking, and hurl it
into the face of the veteran — you cannot speak — not fit to speak because you are grow
ing old. " Milk for babes," says Paul in substance. The people say now, Babes to dis
pense the milk. There is coming to be almost an insane demand for young ministers ;
nearer to boys, the better. Still there is another and a conflicting taste abroad, which
demands that they pause a while at Jericho. For we have come to a time when a man's
hair is an essential part of him.
Another item in the minister's responsibility in his own support is that he be a man
and his wife a woman of stable and frugal ideas as to what constitutes a living. While

National Council. 7l>
they should not be subjected to live meanly, they should be willing to live moderately ;
in that medium condition which doubtless is the most conducive to comfort, respectability,
and usefulness. It is the case with some ministers, that they are not supported because
they are not supportable ; good ministers in most regards, only they have not the faculty to
come down to a minister's stipend of living. They are given to fancies and fashions
which overleap all the regular estimates of the people. It is important that the minister
regulate and adjust his expenditures to a tolerably fixed scale, in order that the people
may know right along the probable limit of their responsibility in this regard.
There is still another department of the minister's function in his own support. It is
incumbent on him to educate his people to integrity and benevolence ; make them honest
and benevolent. The first done, they will pay as they agree. The second done, they will
agree to furnish him a reasonable amount.
The minister, to do this part of his work thoroughly, must be on his guard against the
prevalent fallacy, that converting men, making them Christians, of course makes them
honest and benevolent. Frequent and painful facts shows that it does not of course.
Christians we must believe we have, and, notwithstanding the grace of God, not strictly,
purely, honest ; certainly not free to give and do for the cause of God and the saving of
men. Let the minister put in clearly and specifically truth, precept, instruction, for the grace
of God to vivify. And let him persist to do this, and be still more faithful and specific,
till the conscience is brought up to a point of enlightenment and measure of fidelity, where,
so far as his flock is concerned, not only himself, but all other men, will be paid what is
due to them, if to pay is possible.
Doctrine, duty also, line upon line, on the other cardinal virtue, benevolence ; the dis
position to disburse freely for all good objects. To the doctrine, the instruction, precept,
which here too must lead, let practice be made to follow closely and perpetually.
Nothing like giving to make people love giving.
There is a hurtful fallacy here to be guarded against ; that giving depletes the resources,
and so reduces the abiUty of a Christian man or body. The minister in a circle of small
means, in a parish of limited strength, is liable to reason directly wrong ; viz., thus : If I
am to be supported, I must be on the watch, and use my influence to keep the money
mainly at home. He does so, and he takes the high road to starvation. And he
deserves to.
Let him change his policy, and throw wide open his heart ; take into it the whole world,
and make it his glad rule to help, personally and 'through his peoples all good objects;
thus lead his people in acts of giving, till they attain to a hearty love of giving, that
minister's support has a basis equal to the strength of two Gibraltars ; one the integrity
of his people, the other the benevolence of the people.
GEORGE SHEPARD, )
CHARLES G. HAMMOND,
W. A. BUCKINGHAM, Cmmmlke.
SAMUEL HOLMES,
DOUGLAS PUTNAM,
This report was accepted, and reference ordered to a special committee.
On motion of the chairman of the Committee of Nominations, the following per
sons were added to the committee to whom had been referred the report of the
Committee on a Declaration of Faith : viz.,Frof. Harris, of Maine ; Prof. Park, of
Massachusetts; Prof. Lawrence, of Connecticut; Prof. Porter, of Connecticut;
Prof. Haven, of IlUnois ; Prof. Fairchild, of Ohio.

76 National Council.
A half-hour was spent in devotional exercises.
The Committee on Nomination presented the following Usts of committees, which
were approved by the Council ; viz.,
Committee to whom was referred the Report on Evangelization at the West and South —
Rev. S. W. S. Dutton, D. D., Connecticut ; Hon. Samuel WUliston, Massachusetts ;
Rev. B. P. Stone, D. D., New Hampshire ; Rev. L. H. Parker, Blinois ; Rev. D.
Cleary, Wisconsin ; Hon. F. O. Parish, Ohio ; Rev. J. Guernsey, Iowa ; Rev. W.
Crawford, Colorado; Jacob Bacon, Esq., CaUfornia; Rev. George H. Atkinson,
Oregon. Committee to make out the Roll of this Council — Rev. E. Beecher, D. D., Blinois;
Dea. E. F. Duren, Maine ; Rev. J. K. Young, D. D., New Hampshire ; Rev. E. H.
Byington, Vermont ; Rev. J. W. Harding, Massachusetts ; Rev. W. Barrows, Massa
chusetts ; Rev. R. C. Learned, Connecticut ; Rowland Hazard, Esq., Rhode Island ;
Rev. L. Smith Hobart, New York ; Rev. Edwin Hawes, Pennsylvania ; Rev. Edwin
Johnson, Maryland; Rev. S. Kelsey, Deleware; Rev. A. S. Kedzie, Michigan; Rev.
S. H. Emery, Illinois ; Rev. J. W. Healey, Wisconsin; Rev. J. A. Reed, Iowa; Rev.
Richard HaU, Minnesota; Rev. J. L. Jenkins, Indiana; Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, Jr.,
Missouri ; Rev. L. BodweU, Kansas ; Rev. Reuben Gaylord, Nebraska ; Rev. W.
Crawford, Colorado ; Rev. Kinsley Twining, California ; Rev. J. M. Holmes, New
Jersey ; Rev. George DarUng, Ohio.
<On the Relation of Congregationalism to Foreign Missions — Rev. W. I. Budington,
D. D., New York ; Rev. Z. Eddy, D. D., Massachusetts ; Rev. C. C. Parker, Ver
mont ; Rev. WilUam Carter, Blinois ; Hon. Benj. Douglass, Connecticut.
At 12 M. the roU was caUed, as by special order. ,
It was Voted, That a special committee of five be appointed by this CouncU to
consider the subject of securing for the permanent use of our denomination a house
of worship in the City of Washington, and, if they deem it expedient for the churches
of our order to engage in such a movement, to report to the CouncU a plan for its
accomplishment. The Committee of Nomination nominated the foUowing to be the Committee
thus ordered, and they were so appointed : viz., Henry C. Bowen, Esq., New York ;
Dea. Charles Stoddard, Massachusetts ; Rev. Leonard Bacon, D. D., Connecticut ;
Hon. Douglass Putnam, Ohio ; Hon. S. C. Pomeroy, Kansas.
Several communications were read and appropriately referred to various standing
committees. It was Voted, That a special committee be appointed who shall consider and
report to this CouncU what deUverance, if any, it ought to make on the subject of
temperance. It was Voted, That a special committee be appointed to consider and report upon
a paper presented proposing " An American Protestant Assembly."
On motion of the chairman of the Committee of Nominations, Rev. E. F. Burr,
of Connecticut, was added to the Committee on Church PoUty.
The Committee on Education for the Ministry made partial report by Rev. Ray
Palmer, D. D., chairman, as foUows :
EDUCATION OF YOUNG MEN FOR THE MINISTRY.
By the conference of committees from the principal ecclesiastical bodies repre
senting the Congregational churches, in the United States, which met at New York,
in the chapel of the Broadway Tabernacle Church, on the seventeenth of Novem-

National Council. 77
ber, 1864, the undersigned were appointed a committee to call the attention of the
National Council to be assembled at Boston on the fourteenth of June, 1865, to
the subject of the education of young men for the Christian ministry, and to make
such suggestions as might facUitate the thorough consideration and discussion of
the topic. The duty so imposed has seemed to them a difficult one. The magni
tude of the matter in itself; its relation to various questions pertaining to the
state and duty of the churches ; to the condition and prospects of our colleges,
and especially of our theological institutions ; to the work of home evangelization
and that of foreign missions ; and the new aspects under which it is *just now prov
identially presented ; render it no easy thing to exhibit it so concisely that it can be
comprehended at a single view, and yet so fully that it' shall make, in its details,
anything Uke the desired impression. The committee, accordingly, have not been
able to make their statement so brief as they desired'; but they have not been will
ing, for the sake of brevity, to omit anything that seemed necessary to be said in
order to a just view of the subject. If they have succeeded in bringing it fairly
before the Council for discussion, they suppose that this is all that was exipected of
them. They, therefore, respectfully submit the following paper :
SECTION I.
facts bearing on the subject of the education of young men for
the ministry.
1. From the day when the PUgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, it has been the
settled conviction of our, Congregational churches, that for the high and responsible
work of the Christian teacher a thorough intellectual discipUne and culture, a truly
Uberal education, is, as the rule, imperatively demanded. No other view could be
expected to prevaU in churches whose earUest pastors were many of them men of
eminent learning, and wore the honors of the highest scholarship in the English
universities. To provide the means of raising up for themselves an educated min
istry, was, it is weU known, one of the first things connected with their settlement
here on which they bestowed anxious care and thought. Our standard of ministe
rial education has, therefore, always been relatively high ; for the last fifty years it
has been rising steadUy ; and it is no longer a question with us whether it should
be carried to the highest practicable point.
2. The number of young men in a course of preparation for the ministry, as com
pared with the whole number of persons pursuing liberal studies, has for the last
twelve or fifteen years been on the whole materially diminishing. The inducements
offered to Christian young men to enter into secular pursuits, the growing respect-
abiUty of teaching as a profession, the increasing profitableness of Uterature, the
attractions of the political arena, the new enterprises opened on every hand and
promising rapid gains — aU the stimulants, in short, which are fitted to stir an hon
orable ambition in gifted minds, have exerted an effective influence in diverting
from the sacred office those who might naturaUy have been expected to desire to
'enter it. A mistaken impression has also prevailed that the ranks of the ministry .
were already over-fuU, and by this error many have doubtless been turned aside.
The demands of the war just closing have called great numbers of young men not
only to leave their studies, but to lay down their lives, for the sacred cause of
national unity and freedom. By these and other causes, it has come to pass that
the.number of students in our coUeges and seminaries who are looking forward to
the service of Christ in the pulpit is painfully smaU, just when the need of men in
this holy work is becoming every day more urgent.

78 National Council.
3. While in general scholarship and theological training the Congregational
clergy, as a body, are probably unsurpassed by any equally numerous clerical body
in the world, it is quite plain that they are but partially meeting the spiritual neces
sities of our advancing population. Even in New England, where our churches
originally had the ground, and where it would seem that they ought to have kept
pace with the social growth, there are now great numbers who are not reached in
any effectual manner by the , stated means of grace. Not only in the large cities
and manufacturing towns into which many of foreign birth have graduaUy intro
duced themselves, but also in the country towns and villages where the people are
still chiefly of native Puritan descent, it is undeniably true that a very considerable,
and, it is to be feared, an increasing portion of the whole population are not
reached by the ministry so as to feel the power of the gospel of Christ. Many such
are relapsing into religious ignorance and spiritual death in the very sight of Chris
tian sanctuaries.
4. There are to be found, in New England itself, not a few towns and viUagesin
which Congregational churches were once planted and had fuU possession of the
field, but in which such churches have become nearly or quite extinct, and the
ground has been occupied by others, sometimes by unevangeUcal churches or con
gregations, and sometimes by churches whose ministry 'has been far inferior in
educational culture to our own. While, in the largeness of our UberaUty, we have
supplied to one branch of the Presbyterian Church no inconsiderable portion of its
clergy, and even a greater portion, probably, of its laymen ; wlule we have sent forth
multitudes of Christian missionaries, and.of pioneers, who, in the newer parts of the
country, have planted churches, established colleges, and laid the foundations of a
Christian civUization, and have given our hearty support to aU forms of Christian
effort ; we have yet, with all our advantages, failed to hold and to strengthen, in
the interest of our Lord, positions that once were ours. We have lost them for
want of care to sustain the weak, and of fideUty and zeal in relation to the unin-
posing details of Christian duty.
5. In our statistical tables, a great number of feeble churches are reported, which
for the larger part of the time are without pastors, or any regular suppUes, and so
are becoming more and more feeble. Less than one-third of our churches have pastors
settled over them. Something more than another third have only stated supplies ;
leaving something a little less than a third- of the whole with no steady supply at
all. Most of these are unable to procure any, unless it be for brief and uncertain
periods ; and often, for years together, suffer a dearth of the Word of Life. They
are in the sad condition of sheep without a shepherd.
6. While such a state of things exists even in New England, the case is stiU
worse, much worse, beyond these Umits. The newer States, including the vast
regions of the West, now extending to the Pacific and opening to receive the flood-
tide of population, present almost innumerable points at which churches have been
planted and are yet in a feeble state, or must be planted to struggle up from feeble
ness amidst the embarrassments and hardships of a forming social condition. To
>these inimitable fields are now added the Border and Southern States, in which, as
the result of our great contest, society is to a great extent, to be reorganized. Over
these extensive regions are to be scattered, for a long time to come, a great number
of churches which will hot present inviting parishes, nor afford a Uberal ministerial
support. Yet it is of the utmost importance to the cause of evangeUcal religion,
and to the future well-being of our country, that these positions should be taken
and held by faithful Christian ministers, and that the Church should grow up side
by side with other institutions from the first.

National Council. 79
7. From various parts of the foreign missionary field, there are soon to be heard
the most earnest calls for efficient re-enforcements. For the last four years, no
enlargement of operations has been attempted. To avoid disastrous curtailment,
to weather the financial storm without a wreck, has been the grand anxiety. But
four years, in which little more has been done than just to hold our ground, will
render imperative a vigorous advance, so soon as circumstances will permit. The
day is now at hand. The missionary brethren, who have uncomplainingly borne
excessive burdens, and have patiently endured the troubles arising from straitened
means, must speedUysee others coming to their aid. Where the seed has-been
sown through tedious years, the harvest that at last has ripened must be reaped ;
and at, many a new post must the banner of our Lord be planted. The educational
institutions must be manned, the work of translation and of creating Christian
literatures must go forward, and the presses must be kept effectively at work.
For men to go forth and enter into aU these labors, in every quarter of the world,
we shaU very soon hear strong appeals. They come, indeed, already.
. Such are a few of the material facts that meet us at the threshold, in the
consideration of the subject now before us.
BEARING OF THESE FACTS AS REGARDS THE MINISTRY.
It is of the utmost importance that these acknowledged facts should be set dis
tinctly, before both ministers and churches, and should be carefully and seriously
considered. We, as a denomination, have sought to disencumber Christianity of
the machinery of a sensuous ecclesiasticism. We have had faith in its spiritual
power, and so have returned to the simple forms and usages of the primitive Church.
We have believed that the gospel, in the naked simplicity in which Christ and his
apostles originaUy proclaimed it, is the divinely appointed means for the renewing
of individual man, and for the elevating and purifying of the social and religious
condition of the world. We have understood that Christ has given his followers
solemn charge to apply it faithfuUy for the accomplishment of these great ends, and
that he has pledged himself, so far as this is done, to make it effectual by his coop
erative providence and grace. In the full enjoyment, as a people, of civil and reU
gious freedom, we have nothing externalto embarrass us in so applying it. Never,
on the face of the earth, has there been offered a fairer opportunity than here
exists for the direct and thorough preaching of the gospel to the masses of the
people, and the infusing of its pecuUar influences into all the relations and institu
tions of social life. It would seem, therefore, that here there should be furnished
to the whole world an instructive and stimulating example of what a pure, free
gospel, preached by a learned and godly ministry, can do to renovate and exalt a
' people, and to adorn society with the charm of general intelUgence, refinement, and
virtue. If evangelical Christianity fail here to fulfil its mission, where is it likely
to succeed ? What, then, is to be said in view of the facts to which we have referred ?
What, in particular, are the wants, as regards the Christian ministry, which they
forcibly suggest ? SECTION II.
PRESENT WANTS" A8 REGARDS THE MINISTRY.
1. First of all, there is wanted for the general needs of our Congregational churches
a ministry in the ranks of which shall be found the broadest and most thorough
scholarship; a scholarship nowhere to be surpassed. It is indeed not necessary
that every individual minister shall attain, or attempt to attain, the highest emi-

80 National Council.
nence of learning. But surely it would UI become iis, who, from our earUest denom
inational history, have set so high a value on clerical education, and whose form of
Church organization and government supposes inteUigence and free thought, to
lack in our pastors and educators the best learning, the most finished culture, which
the present age in any country can produce. At a time when the most momentous
questions in theology, in phUosophy and morals, in.phUology and criticism, in science
and in social and civil economy, are engaging constantly the popular as weU as the
educated mind, we must have men to fill the more important positions in our institu-
tions^and our churches, who can bring to the discussion of these questions, not only
the highest power of thought, but the most ample wealth of knowledge. We have
such men. We have always had them. Not only some of the ablest thinkers, but
some of the most accurate philologists and most comprehensive scholars, living, may
probably be found among our clergy. The higher periodical literature among us,
and other publications connected with sacred learning, the Tesult of the labors of such
men, compare well with the best of other countries. But it must be admitted that
such men are by far too few, Many more such are caUed for by the exigencies of the
time. We want them to repel the assaults so confidently made on critical, scientific, '
and speculative grounds, on the very foundations of the Christian faith. We want
them for many and rapidly multiplying positions, >vhich none but the best scholar
ship can creditably fiU. We want them at the head of aU our collegiate and theo
logical institutions. We want them in our pulpits, and on our platforms, to teach
pretentious error to be modest. We want them in the newer portions of our coun
try, where the foundations of learning for many generations must be laid, and the
forming thought of society be shaped. We want them abroad where translations of
the Scriptures must be made, and many difficult tasks be performed with the nicest
scholarly cafe. Without such men in our ministry, we can neither maintain our
ancient prestige, nor meet the necessities of the educated and thoughtful mind with
which we have to deal.
2. A much larger number of men are at the present moment wanted in the minis
try ; and this want is sure to become every day more pressing. The carefully
arranged statistical tables in the Congregational Quarterly for January, 1865, abun
dantly justify this statement. The total of Congregational churches is there given
at twenty-eight hundred and sixty-five ; the whole number of nominal ministers,
at twenty-eight hundred and sixty-two. Of these ministers, seven hundred and
fifty-six are known not to be in the pastoral work. Besides these, there are reported
one hundred and forty whose status is not ascertained. Probably the greater
part of these are not actually engaged in the work of the ministry. Adding say
one hundred of these to those known not to be so engaged, we have eight hundred
and fifty-six who really have no relation whatever to the supply of the churches,
to be deducted from the total of twenty-eight hundred and sixty-three given in the
tables ; leaving but two thousand and six persons who are in the pastoral work for
the supply of the twenty-eight hundred and sixty-five churches. If, therefore, every
minister, better or worse, who is at this time engaged in preaching, were to-day
placed over a Church, there would remain eight hundred and fifty-nine churches for
whom no minister could be supplied. The fact that many of these churches are feeble,
so far from weakening the force of this statement, only gives it greater force, by
showing that their need of pastors is most urgent. The duty of providing these
eight or nine hundred churches with pastors, and aiding them, if need be, to sustain
them, is clearly pressing now upon us. To this we must also add, that for the
exploring of the vast regions, in which churches ought to be formed at once, or

National Council. 81
must speedily be formed, and also for the various departments of the foreign mis
sionary service, many, very many, more ministers are urgently demanded.
3. But, further, the want which is becoming every day more pressing extends
beyond mere numbers. We want men, who, by their natural endowments and their
special trainingfare adapted to the work that now is not accomplished.
We are not now called upon, it is conceived, as churches, to make any special
efforts and sacrifices to raise up pastors for the well-paying and prosperous parishes.
These will of course need a steady succession of thoroughly educated, able, and
earnest ministers. But the supply of the pulpits of such parishes may safely be
left to take care of itself. With due care to supply the proper facilities for educa
tion, and in view of the number of Christian young men who are coming forward,
it is quite certain that those positions in the ministry, which are in themselves
pleasant and desirable, will be desired and sought. It may occasionally happen
that a particular Church, though every way attractive, will have some temporary
difficulty in finding the man it wants; but this may arise from unreasonable
expectations, or from the number of candidates proposed, or some such incidental
embarrassment. In general, however, it may safely be calculated on, that, as
regards the more eUgible places, the supply will keep pace with the demand. In
saying this, we are casting no reproach on either the churches or the ministry. The
prosperous churches are not to be blamed for desiring the best pastors they can
obtain. Ministers, when called by the churches to responsible charges, where,
though the labors are great, the circumstances are congenial, are not to be blamed
for undertaking those charges. The simple fact to be noticed is, that the law which
holds in all other departments of social Ufe is likely to hold here; viz, that what
_ is in itself worth seeking, somebody will certainly be found to seek. It is not in
this direction that the attention and the efforts, especially the charitable efforts, of
the churches should now be turned. It is not about the men required for these
positions that there is occasion speciaUy to concern ourselves. .
We are specially caUed on to bring forward into the ministry, as soon as possible,
from eight hundred to one thousand young ministers who are fitted to the particu
lar work of raising'up the feeble churches of New England, and the new churches in
other parts of our wide country, that must be feeble for a time. It is plain, that, for
this service, men of a certain type are needed. It is not disparaging the ministry,
as a class, to say, that, on all ordinary principles of calculation, jt must be expected
that out of a given number who enter the sacred office there will be a certain per
cent who cannot be successful. It is so in all other pursuits in which men are
accustomed to engage, and without a perpetual miracle it will always be so in this.
Some wUl lack in part, and some almost wholly, after all the processes of educa
tion, the peculiar powers and qualities which give influence over men.
It has'probably been one oft the practical errors of the past to imagine that this
class of ministers might meet the wants of the churches that are suffering from
chronic weakness, and of those that have been newly planted. On the contrary,
inasmuch as the work to be done for these is peculiarly difficult, the men to do it
must be men of special force and tact. Only men of physical energy, of gristle,
nerve, and pluck, men whom hard work, hard fare, and hard usage of all sorts, wiU
not kill, can be expected to meet the exigencies of such a service. There must be
also an intellectual adaptation not less positive and marked. We Uve in stirring
times. All the pulses of social life beat quick and strong. The minds of people
of remotest places are reached by aU sorts of stimulating influences, and thought
and feeling are intensified to a high degree. Whoever is to exert a moulding influ-

82 ' National Council.
ence on a people in such a state must be himself alive, flexible, vigorous, sympa
thetic, human, as well as scholarly, intellectual, and pious. He must have- quickness
to plan, and enthusiasm to execute ; must know how to find access to the hearts
even of the prejudiced and hostile ; and be sagacious in discerning, and prompt<ih
meeting, the exigencies that every day will bring. It is young men who have the,
capacity for all this that are demanded. What we here say in regard to the kind
of men demanded for the missionary work at home is not less true in respect to
those wanted for the missionary work abroad. They must be men whom God, by
their natural endowments, has fitted to face and grapple with the arduous and
peculiar difficulties which that work of necessity involves.
4. But we must go still farther. The men now wanted in the ministry must be
men who, along with force of natural character, possess also the higher force which
eminent faith and the deepest Christian earnestness supply. With the facts of the case
before us, it is plain that ministers are demanded who will be willing to enter, and
willing to stay in, the most trying and difficult fields, if so the Master in his provi
dence directs. To go into obscure and feeble parishes, or into destitute regions to
plant new churches, or into the isolation and trials of a home among Pagans, and
to be able and willing patiently to labor there, requires a vigorous hold on things
unseen, and a deep baptism into the spirit of self-sacrifice. To do these things,
men1 must be had to whom the pleasures of fiUing a conspicuous position, of
preaching to refined and appreciative hearers, of being surrounded by agreeable
society, and even of having a comfortable support, wiU hardly be taken into the
account in accepting a field of labor. They must be men who, not in some highly
figurative sense, but literally, count all things but loss in comparison with the priv
ilege of imparting the knowledge of Christ to those whose need of it is greatest; who
feel that a woe is on them if they preach not the gospel, and are determined to
preach it, paid or unpaid, with comforts or without comforts, and have even a holy
ambition to work in the darkest and most cheerless places where work is to be done.
Is it doubted whether it can be the duty of Christian young men to give themselves
to the preaching of the word at such a cost ? Paul and the first preachers of Chris
tianity did. There have been those in aU ages of the Christian Church who have
done it. If Francis Xavier, and Ignatius Loyola, and others like them in the
Romish Church, could rise to such a heroic self-devotion as they exhibited, is it too
much tp hope, that, under the clearer Ught and higher inspirations of spiritual •
Christianity, men may be- raised up to emulate, in doing the work of Christ, their
zeal, their self-denials, their patient endurance of suffering ? Without such men to
meet the present and prospective need, it is^ clear that our own country cannot be
brought fully under the power of Christ's religion, still less can the world ever be
won to God. It will be of little use to increase the number of young ministers, or
even to bring the most gifted and energetic of our sons into the sacred office, if,
after all, they have not the sublime self-devotion which will make them willing to
go anywhere, and to face any discouragements whatever for Christ's sake. With
out this in the ministry, the work that now lies undone will stUl lie undone ; moral
wastes wiU multiply; churches will become extinct; and we as a Christian denom
ination shall appear to have lost the spirit of our godly fathers, whose faith and
polity have come down to us as a goodly heritage. Apostolic faith and zeal, and
unflinching readiness to do or suffer, — nothing short of a ministry possessing these
high spiritual endowments will meet the present want.
5. We want likewise, it must be added, men for the ministry who understand
and heartily approve the system of faith and the ecclesiastical principles of the Fathers

National Council. 83
of New England. It is the just glory of our churches, that they are of all
churches the most truly catholic. This arises from the fact, that according to the
teaching of Christ and the apostles, and in opposition to corrupt ecclesiastical tra
ditions, we have placed vital Christianity, the renewing and saving power of the
gospel and the cross, first and highest in our reUgious system, and have made
modes of worship and form.3 of administration subordinate to Ufe. While others
have deemed organic unity, an outward consolidation of churches, a thing to be
desired, our fathers saw in it, and we see in it, only a peril to the Uberties and to
the purity 'of the Christian brotherhood. • It has appeared to us, that, of all men
on the earth, Christian men are most likely to be capable of Self-government ; and
it has seemed that the freedom and the responsibilities of self-government must
tend to develop individual Christian activity, and to make Church membership a
real commitment of each disciple to a practical and working piety. We cannot but
think that our principles, as sanctioned alike by reason and the Scriptures, are, for
our own sakes and our children's, worth maintaining; and also, that, faithfully
maintaining them, we shall exert a most salutary influence on the large bodies of
consoUdated churches with which we come in friendly contact, in the way of infus'-
ino1 into them a, more Uberal spirit than naturally belongs to their own systems,
and by in some sort constraining them to respect the rights of individual believers
and those of the. local churches. With these views of our polity, it appears to us
a sacred trust committed to the children of the Puritans for the good of the
churches of all names, hot less than for their own.
The men, therefore, whom the wants of our churches, in their present rapid mul
tiplication, urge us to bring into the ministry, must be men who are the sons of
the Pilgrim Fathers, not by birth or in name merely, but as grasping the same
great effective principles which made them the successful founders and vindicators
of civil and religious freedom, and breathing the same spirit of devotion to the
authority of the Scriptures, to earnest and progressive religious thought, and to a
piety of deep experience. Men who do not understand and love our principles,
and cannot teach our churches to understand and love them ; men who have in
them no sympathy with the great ideas that cluster historically about old Plymouth
Rock; who do not see that it is very much through the force of these ideas that
there is so much of Christian UberaUty, and so much genuine cathoUc feeUng
among the' evangelical churches of aU names throughout our country; are not the
men to do the work that presses on our hands. The hearts, of great numbers of
the people, in all parts of the land, are open all the more to receive our scriptural
theology, because they see it aUied to a church organization and government so
peculiarly in accord with the progressive and practical spirit of the time. In such
a state of things, we want ministers who have positive convictions as to the truth
and the value of our principles ; ministers, in a word, who are Congregationalists in
¦ heart, to take the oversight of our churches, and to conserve and make yet more
perfect the precious reUgious .heritage we have received from ancestors whose
names are among the most honored of mankind. It is such men that the churches,
land particularly the new churches, are more and more imperatively requiring.
Such seem to the committee to be the chief wants, as regards the supply of a fit
ministry, which, in view of the facts referred to in the beginning, are forcing them
selves, on the attention of the churches. We are brought, then, to the inquiry,
- ' What shall be done, to the end thafthese wants may be effectually met ?

84 National Council.
SECTION HI.
WHAT OUGHT NOW TO BE DONE?
1. In accordance with the well-known views of the Fathers of New England, and
our own convictions as to the value of thorough theological education, our theologi
cal seminaries should, as soon as possible, be placed in a position to offer all facilities
which the highest scholarship in this department may require.
At present, none of our theological seminaries are properly endowed. The num
ber of professorships is wholly inadequate to the work that should be done ; the
necessary consequence of which is, that the professors are often over-worked, and,
after all, the course of study is too narrow. The Ubraries are comparatively mea
gre, and fall far short of meeting the wants both of the professors and the students.
The provision for the pursuit of those branches of learning, which, whUe not strictly
included in the study of theology, are collateral and auxUiary to it, amounts to
almost nothing. As a large part of the presidents and professors of our coUeges
and seminaries at home, and of the men who must master foreign languages and
Uteratures, and be the translators and the educators at our foreign missionary sta
tions, must be trained in our theological institutions, the deficiencies which exist
are the more to be regretted. It has hitherto been a necessity, that those who have
wished to pursue their studies up to the highest range of scholarship should go to
Germany, or elsewhere abroad, in order to find the requisite facilities. To this
there are very grave objections ; and such a course would no longer be needful
were our own institutions such as they ought to be. It is far better that those who
are to be at the head of our Uterary institutions, who are to shape the thought,
and, to a great extent, to determine the spirit and character of our churches, should
be educated in the moral atmosphere of our own country, than where influences
prevail which are not in harmony with the principles and habits which we have
inherited from our noble ancestors, and which have been a chief source of our
national power and glory. We can have, we ought to have, we must have, theologi-
' cal- institutions unsurpassed by any in the world in the largeness and completeness
of the advantages they offer, and, at the same time, thoroughly imbued with the
spirit of the PUgrims. They must lack nothing in the way of men or endowments
or books, but must be thoroughly equipped. To this important matter, it is con
ceived, immediate attention should be given. It has been neglected already quite
too long.
2. It is also greatly to be desired, it is, indeed, an imperative necessity, that the
advantages of our theological seminaries, made thus ample, be placed within the reach
of all suitable candidates for the Christian ministry. '
It will avail but little to urge Christian parents to consecrate their sons, or
young men of piety and Jalents to devote themselves, to Christ's service in the
ministry, if the way is not fairly open for them to get the needed preparation.
The whole subject of charitable aid, in some form, to those preparing for the min
istry, must be taken up anew in the light of experience r and with due regard to the
change of circumstances which the past few years .have wrought. The expenses of
living at any of our seminaries are at least treble what they were thirty years ago.
The trifling assistance which could at that time be rendered to deserving young
men, and which then but barely enabled them to struggle through, is whoUy insuf
ficient now. While the standard of scholarship ha's materially risen, and the
student can less than ever afford to have his studies interrupted by efforts for his
own support, he is more than ever under the necessity of interrupting them if he

National Council. 85
wiU avoid the burden of hopeless debt. Our own institutions — a strange thing
to be true in view of our past history — are more deficient in the means of render
ing aid than those of other denominations with whom we affiliate. Because of
this, a very considerable number of our young men, within the lasi few years, have
naturaUy been induced, by the hope of more Uberal assistance, to turn away from
the seminaries in which our own doctrines and polity are taught ; and so, educated
in another atmosphere, and forming other associations, they have many of them
been lost to us. We rejoice in the thought that they carry somewhat of the free
and cathoUc spirit of New England, and of our communion as a whole, into
churches where it is Ukely to be useful ; but to us, as a fellowship of churches, the
suffering of this process to go on is suicidal. We want our own young men. We
ought to retain them for the service of our own churches and for the manning of
our own missions. But the only way to retain them is to enable our own institu
tions to give them the help they need. In order to this, the wealthy members of
our churches must be induced to endow scholarships, the avails of which may be
granted, by examinations held, to good attainments and general promise ; so that
every young man, who is qualified by his talents, dUigence, and piety to enter the
sacred office, may be enabled, without the interruptions and distresses of poverty,
to pursue a thorough course of study. The same provision, or something equiva
lent to this, should also be made in the colleges, that there, as well as in the theo
logical schools, young men of~the right character may be helped forward towards
the ministry, instead of sinking under discouragements, or turning to other courses
of Ufe. An adequate1 number of scholarships, supplemented by the American Edu
cation Society, and perhapsf also, by some associations for the supply of clothing,
and for the care of students who may be .sick, would place our institutions in an
entirely different position from that which they now occupy in respect to students.
They would, in this way, be able to offer their advantages freely to all suitable
persons who might be inclined to profit by them. Without such liberal provision
we must expect to continue to lose many of our best young men.
» 3. WhUe such provision is made for the assistance of those who wish to prepare
themselves thoroughly for the ministry, pious and promising young men, whose
circumstances absolutely forbid a futt course of study, must be brought forward by a
shorter process, and must be allowed to resort to the theological seminaries for such lim
ited periods and such partial studies as may seem expedient in each case.
In past years, it has been felt that there were strong objections to the admission
of students to the privileges of the theological schools unless they could proceed in
the regular order of study to the end- It was feared that to allow any to enter
the ministry with anything short of the established course of study might tend to
lower the general standard of ministerial education. But necessity is an efficient
teacher. In view of the great and urgent wants Of our country, as well as of the
world, it has become quite certain that it will not be possible to furnish a sufficient
number of highly educated ministers to supply the demand. At the same time,
there are found young men of good ordinary education, good sense, or even supe
rior natural abiUties, who, owing to something peculiar in their circumstances, can
not go through the regular course of study, and yet, with a more limited prepa
ration, might be exceedingly useful as preachers of the gospel. It is beUeved that
the time has now fully come when such young men should be permitted to enjoy!
the advantages of our theological institutions for the purpose of taking any such
partial course as the exigencies of each case may render proper, and should, with this,
be commissioned and sent forth. Men of this class, like the first disciples that

86 National Council.
went everywhere preaching the word, may do excellent service as faithful wit
nesses for Christ. Leaving to their more thoroughly educated brethren the higher
offices of the Christian teacher, they may, perhaps with some advantage from their less
Scholastic tastes and modes of thinking, come into close sympathy with common people;
and testify to them the truth as it is in Jesus. If it be true, as some have thought,
that — not necessarily it may be, but reaUy — the high culture of our ministers has
tended to place them sometimes too far above those whom they should reach and
save, a moderate number of earnest, judicious men, with less- of the spirit
of the schools admitted into it, might do a special service in the way of coun
teracting such a tendency, and maintaing a vital contact, a practical community of
feeling, between the clergy as a body and those who need the gospel. Certainly
they may help to make up the deficiency in numbers ; and a warm-hearted Chris
tian preacher and pastor, though lacking the best scholarship, may be owned of
God to the saving of many souls that must otherwise have been left to perish.
With due care, there seems to be no need to fear that the admission of some men
of special adaptation to the work of preaching Christ, with an abbreviated course
of preparatory study, will either lower the standard of general theological educa
tion, or deteriorate the general character of the ministry. We may safely, in this
case as in others, obey the call of the providence of God.
4. Yet further : a general and earnest effort should at once be made to awaken in
the churches a new enthusiasm for the work of the Christian ministry.
To the accomplishment of this, the reUgious press may effectively contribute ;
but the chief reliance must be on faithful presentations of the subject by the
pastors. Many of us can well remember when through the burning words
of Porter, Griffin, CorneUus, and others of like ardor, a fire was kindled in the
hearts of Christian parents and Christian young men that glowed with a notable
intensity. It led godly fathers and mothers with prayers and tears to consecrate
. their chUdren from their birth to Christ's service in the gospel, in the hope that he
would call them to it ; and to a conscientious and careful training of them with
reference to the sacred office. Possibly, at that time, too Uttle discrimination was*
used in advising young men to enter on a course of preparation for the ministry ;
an error to be carefully avoided : but this was certainly no reason why the whole
subject should have been dropped, as we fear it has been, to a great extent at least.
We must come back again — the pastors must carry the churches back — to the old
conviction, or even a deeper conviction, of the value of the Christian ministry, and
of the honor and blessedness of the work, in spite of aU its crosses, when under
taken and performed in a truly Christian spirit. Young men must be persuaded,
by cogent arguments and stirring appeals, that to be a good minister of Jesus is
to occupy a position than which there is none more worthy to be. aspired to, none
higher and nobler in the world. Such an ardor as we have seen move the young
men of the country to enUst in the loyal service for the attainment of the grandest
of earthly ends, must be awakened in the minds of the sons of Christian parents;
an eagerness to enlist in the army of the Son of God, as leaders of the host that
is going forth at his command to put down the great rebellion against Ms throne.'
Every pastor has a personal responsibiUty to see that this is done within his own
particular circle. Each must become an earnest recruiting agent, using of course
all due care to enrol those only who have the requisite gifts and capabilities for the
service. The presidents and professors in our coUeges have equally a duty to per
form. It will no longer do to leave this subject to take care of itself. The most
attractive objects of ambition, the most inviting prospects of wealth and worldly

National Council. 87
greatness and distinction, present themselves to our young men on every side, and
must be expected to engage them in secular pursuits, unless they can be made to
see that the claims of Christ on them are paramount, and that his,rewards surpass
infinitely all that earth can offer. Until the churches are thoroughly aroused to
this great matter, so that our pious young men, sharing in the common impulse, shall
be inspired with the spirit of a truly Christian chivalry, with the healthful enthusiasm of
a loyalty to Christ that shall make his service the best and highest to their thought,
the ranks of the ministry are not Ukely to be filled with the choicest sons of
beUeving parents.
5. It is not less important likewise that those whose attention is directed to
wards the ministry should be led from the outset, and by the whole drift and spirit
of their education, to regard it as eminently demanding a self-devoting and world-
renouncing spirit.
Where the Church is organicaUy connected-with the State, and so is directly re
lated to poUtical and civil life, the tendency necessarUy is to regard the ministry
simply as a profession ; as offering agreable employment, a respectable position, op
portunity for literary culture, a comfortable livelihood, and, with all these, a prospect
of advancement. It is but natural that to those who enter the ministry with such
a view of it as this, who choose it as others choose the profession of law or medicine,
for the sake of the worldly advantages it offers them, it should seem entirely proper
to desire, and habituaUy to seek to reach, the highest and the best positions. But
it wiU be a sad day for the interests of pure religion in our churches, when our ,
young men generaUy shaU think of the pastoral office as they think of the secular
professions, and seek in entering it chiefly the gratification of their own tastes, and
their own comfort and respectabUity in life. Any approach to such a state of
things may well excite alarm. Christ does not call men into the ministry as into
a mere profession in which to make agreeable provision for themselves. He calls
them into it as into a high and holy service, in which with disinterested devotion
to his person to toU, to contend, to suffer if need be, for the saving of men's souls
and for the honor of his name. To seek one's own pleasure in entering the minis
try; to indulge, when in it, an ambitious and worldly spirit ; to be dissatisfied with
the position in which Christ has placed one because it is obscure, or because the
people are not refined, or because one's sphere seems circumscribed; in' short, to be
intent on personal advantages, and disposed to get away from difficulties instead of
facing them with courage ; is to mistake sadly and totally the nature of the work
which has been given in charge to his ministers by the ascended Lord. All this is
in general terms admitted.
• But is there not need to make the necessity of self-sacrifice far more prominent, when
the claims of the ministry are pressed upon the young men of our churches, than
it has been hitherto ? If it is for the home missionary work, and for the foreign
missionary work, that we are now speciaUy concerned to raise up ministers, care
must be taken to educate them into such views and such a spirit as will fit them for these
forms of Christian labor. From the first, our pious sons must,be taught to dismiss
the romantic notion, that they may look forward to the ministry as affording a posi
tion in which to gratify their literary tastes and to enjoy intelligent and refined
society. They must be led to regard an entrance into the sacred office as commit
ting them to a service high indeed, and honorable, divinely appointed, and connected
with the sublimest satisfactions and rewards ; but yet attended, or liable to be
attended, with privations and trials, and even with personal sufferings, analogous
to those of which the life of Christ himself, and of Paul and his feUow-apostles,

88 National Council.
were so fuU. To this education of pious young men to higher and more spiritual
conceptions of the work of the ministry, and to purer and more disinterested aims,
Christian parents and the Christian pulpit must contribute. CoUege officers must
make conscience of lending all their influence to help it on. Above all, our theo
logical seminaries must give a very marked prominence to spiritual culture in its
course of training, and must be preeminently pervaded by a warm, vitaUzing, and
inspiring Christian atmosphere. Even the most ample learning and the most com
plete dogmatic knowledge will faU utterly to give us the ministry we need, if not
steeped in devout affection, and consecrated by the baptism and rich indwelUng of
the Holy Spirit of God. It is for the churches to look to this, and to insist that
the cultivation of a fervent personal piety shall not only be distinctly recognized as a
prominent part of the work to be accompUshed in the theological seminary, but
shall be made subordinate to nothing else. We beUeve it wrong to say, as has been
sometimes said, that there is less of a devotional spirit among theological students
than among the average of Christians elsewhere. We think it speciaUy wrong to
blame the few and over-tasked professors, whose attention must necessarUy be very
largely occupied with their several departments, for not doing all that is needed to
produce, with steadiness, an elevated tone of Christian feeUng. Particular provision
ought to be made in every theological institution for the spiritual training of aU
connected with it : to this should be added habitual and earnest prayer for the
young men themselves and their instructors. Then we may expect that the end
desired will be attained. So long as but Uttle is done, or thought necessary to be
done, to produce among those who are designing to enter the ministry an apostolic
spirit, — ¦ a holy self-consecration like that which made Brainerd, and the great
Edwards even, willing to preach the gospel to poor Indians in the wUderness, — so
long we shall lack the men whom the present wants of the Christian cause and of
our own denomination urgently demand. We cannot reasonably expect to bring
forward a ministry of eminent spiritual earnestness, of self-sacrificing and heroic
zeal and energy, unless we seriously propose this, and adapt our methods of training to
effect it.
6. While those who look forward to the ministry are taught to do it in the spirit
of self-sacrifice, the churches must be made to feel, far more deeply than they have
generally done hitherto, the necessity of a just and liberal support of those who are in
the work.
As the subject of ministerial support is referred to another committee which will
doubtless present it fully, we do not propose to speak of it here at length. Yet
standing, as it does, in very important relation to the difficulties connected with the
work of bringing young men into the ministry, we cannot properly omit to notice
it. When we insist that our young men must be ready to do and to suffer anything
for Christ, we do not mean to imply that ministers are under a different law of self-
consecration from tli at which binds the members of the churches generaUy. If it
is their duty cheerfully to meet all the trials, and even hardships, which are necessary,
it is the sacred duty of the churches to see to it that they suffer none that are
unnecessary — none that an honest readiness to render unto them a due reward of
their labors would prevent. It cannot be doubted that the want of justice in the
adequate support of those who serve at Christ's altars in word and doctrine — a
want of justice often so palpable that it is seen and known of all — is one of the most
powerful among the causes which operate to turn the most gifted young men from
the ministry to other pursuits. Is it strange if a young man sees, that after having
spent ten years in hard study, and expended three or four thousand doUars for his

National Council. 89
education and the beginning of a Ubrary, the churches will not, on the average, pay
him any more salary than is given to a respectable clerk in a mercantile establish
ment, he is not able to see it to be his duty to consent to such injustice ? Is it
strange that he concludes that he has the same liberty as other men to employ his
talents and his acquisitions in such a way that he may reap the fruits of his indus
try and toil ? Say that it would be wise in him to commit himself to Christ, and
leave the matter of recompense to him. But this does not relieve the wrong, on
the part of the churches, of wishing ministers to serve them without reasonable
compensation ; and, further, when young men are called to decide the question of
their future course, they are commonly young in Christian experience as well as
years. They cannot be expected to take such views of the subject as might be
taken by one who had attained to the highest life of Christian faith. It is clear
that the members of the churches must be willing to share the burdens and self-
sacrifices of the ministry, and must honestly and fairly do what they can to dimin
ish these, if they will have the service of the young men whom God has endowed
with the choicest gifts in the pastoral work. They cannot expect, and ought not to
expect, if they are not wilUng to do this, that the gifted sons of Christian parents
wiU be eager to give themselves to the sacred office.
7. Let us add, stUl further, more systematic and faithful effort should be made
to enkindle in the churches, and especially in the children of ,the churches, a heartier love
for the simple worship and the admirable polity from which we have derived such
precious spiritual benefits. *
That there has been great neglect among us in respect to transmitting the views
and spirit of the fathers to the chUdren, there is no need, we suppose, to prove.
For the last fifty years or more, pastors and churches, colleges and "theological
seminaries, appear to have bestowed very little direct attention on the matter.
No provision has been made in the theological curriculum for thorough instruction
as to the history, the principles, and the practical advantages, of our Church order.
WhUe our simple forms admit of being made — all the more from their simplicity —
pleasing to a healthful taste, attractive to the heart, and solemnly impressive, they
have been too often made to appear barren and uninviting by a careless, slovenly,
and perfunctory manner in the administrations of God's house. It has seemed to
be too much forgotten in the leading of the praise and worship of the public assem
bly, and in the administration of Christian ordinances, that with these things
should always be associated a sacred comeUness and grace, so that it should be felt
by aU, that, as in the days of old, strength and beauty conjoined were in the sanc
tuary. The result of these things has obviously been some degree, at least, of
decay of interest in our distinguishing peculiarities, of which others have been, and
are now, ready to take advantage ; and some, of Puritan descent have been led to
place themselves again under the same systems of ecclesiastical authority from
which it cost their liberty-loving ancestors long struggles, and, in many instances,
sufferings unto death, to break away.
Plainly, then, it is high time that a new interest in this subject were awakened.
Are our ecclesiastical principles, as a denomination, true, scriptural, and of great
practical importance ? Were they worth contending for, when for them so many of
our venerated forefathers wore out their best years in filthy prisons, or went to
barbarous deaths to vindicate them for the sake of their posterity ? Then are we
recreant and degenerate, indeed, if we faU to teach them to our children from then-
early years, and to hold them dear to our own hearts. While writing these pages, it
has been stated to us that it has become a common practice in a section of New

90 National Council.
England to send to the theological . institutions of another denomination for stu
dents to supply, during their vacations, destitute churches. We trust there may
be some mistake in this singular statement ; and yet such an occurrence might not
seem an altogether improbable illustration of the indifference which has sUently
stolen over us. Surely there is need to revive the spirit of John Robinson, of
Shepard, Hooker, and Davenport. We must reassert their principles. They
should be inculcated at the fireside. They should be taught in the pulpit. They
should be embodied in popular tracts, and sown aU over the land. Especially
should every theological institution have a professorship, or at least a lectureship,
which should thoroughly discuss them ; and every theological student should be
required, as one of the conditions of Ucensure, to show .himself able and willing to
defend them. When there shall be such a revival of the spirit, and such a return
to the principles, of the men to whom, under God, we owe our best religious bless
ings, we may expect to have a ministry adapted to our wants as lovers of the
largest healthful religious freedom.
8. Finally : the committee will only suggest further, that, in view of the exist
ing and the prospective necessities of the churches, as regards the ministry, it
becomes an urgent duty to labor and pray more earnestly for the conversion of young
men. " Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he wiU send forth laborers," said our
blessed Lord. Pastors and teachers were among the gifts which, at his ascension,
he received power to bestow on men ; and these, Uke other gifts, are dispensed
under the law of prayer. The hindrances to piety in the case of young men are,
at this time and in a country such as ours, so very great, that unless direct and
special effort is: made for their early conversion, and that with strength of faith and
persistency of prayer on their behalf, we cannot expect to see them devoting their
lives from the outset unto God. It is needful to caU attention very frequently to this
matter. Especially in connection with the observance of the annual day erf prayer
for colleges should the whole subject of the early conversion of young men, in all
its interesting relations, be set faithfully -before the churches. Such a solicitude in
respect to this should be kept aUve in the hearts of aU who are engaged in the
instruction of young men, as shall lead them to propose it distinctly to themselves,
as an essential part of the best education of the precious sons of the Church, to
win their hearts to Christ. Everything, in a word, that can be done, should he
done, diligently and on system, to bring those especiaUy who are pursuing courses
'of liberal study under the full influence of Christian 'truth. No coUege officer
should feel that he is doing his whole duty if he is not striving to accompUsh this.
Revivals of religion in our churches and Our colleges, so deep and powerful in their
effects that far greater numbers than have hitherto been reached may be gathered
unto God, should be desired and sought with an earnestness that wUl not be denied.
If the measure of God's bestowment, both in the light of reason and the Scriptures,
is seen to be, according to your faith be it unto you, there should be a new kin-
dling-up of holy confidence in Christ, the head of the Church and the dispenser of
all grace ; a new spirit of intercession for the sending-forth of the Holy Ghost to
renew unto repentance and Christian life the choicest of our sons. When fathers
and mothers plead, and the united churches plead, and a faithful ministry plead ;
when the hearts of all Christ's servants are set on the consecration of the brightest
jewels of their households unto God ; we need not doubt that divine power wiU
indeed work wonders, and that the ranks of the ministry wUl find a multitude pre
pared to enter them. It is not enough that we know this and say it ; in good

National Council. 91
earnest we must act as if our inmost hearts believed it. There is no heed
to. enlarge on this. concluding remarks.
.The committee have thus endeavored, so far as they were able, to bring the
more important aspects of the great subject referred to them to the notice of the
Council. They have not deemed it becoming in them to indicate the particular
action to be taken by this body. They have supposed that this, should be left to be
determined by the. Council itself, after full discussion had. They cannot doubt that
it will seem to the fathers and brethren here assembled, that such measures should
be adopted by those representing the .churches here, in regard to a matter so vitally
connected with our entire religious system, as wiU secure the inauguration of a
new era in our history, and lead speedily to the attainment of the desired practical
results. The urgency of our need and of the time forbids delay, and demands that
something effectual be done. Whatever difficulties attend the subject, it calls us
to face them without flinching, and promptly, as ministers and churches, to address
ourselves to the work which God is imposing on us. By some it has been suggest
ed that a plan be devised to induce each self-sustaining Church to pledge itself to
secure the education of a number of young men at least equal to the number of minis
ters required for its own supply; since any Church failing to do so much as this, in
fact, enjoys its ministry at the expense, in part or altogether, of other churches.
Some have suggested, also, the creation of a Bureau of Clerical Education, at the
head of which should be placed One of the wisest, ablest, and most practical men
to be found among our pastors, who should devote his best and undivided energies
to the work of stimulating, enlightening, and guiding the efforts of the churches,
and setting forward in aU practicable ways, and throughout the whole country, the
momentous work that is needful to be done. The Society for the Promotion of Col
legiate Education at the West, has contributed largely by its wise and efficient
action to the supply of an educated ministry, in that vast opening region where
the present and prospective need is greatest. To that society, vigorously sustained,
we must look for yet greater results in the era that now opens. It maybe possible
for the CouncU to give some new impulse to the action of this noble society. The
committee may perhaps offer a. brief supplementary report, with special reference
to this. Other methods wiU doubtless be suggested by the wisdom of this body.
Let, then, the CouncU determine that the things, which, it has been seen, we are
as churches called to do, shaU resolutely be done. Let them indicate the course to
be pursued, and take the initiative at once. Not a day is to be lost. We are like ,
men standing on the shore^when the flood-tide is sweeping in ; we must move for
ward, or be overwhelmed: The weU-being- of our churches is waiting, on us. 'The
cause of true reUgion in our land is waiting on us. The salvation of our country,
which the blessed gospel alone can save, is waiting on us. The providence of God
itself is waiting on us. Here, for a century to come, and much longer it may be,
must be waged, between the kingdom of Christ and that of the prince of darkness,
a mighty moral conflict which wUl be as the great battle of Armageddon, and wiU
involve results which our thought endeavors in vain to grasp. If in past years our
hearts have been stirred at the consideration' of the work which we saw, before us
and our children, much more should we now be aroused to comprehend the greats
ness, the sublimity, of the coming struggle, and to address ourselves to it with
manly earnestness and in the strength of God. Let our faith be firm, that He who
hath carried us successfully through the perils, blood, and tears of the stupendous

92 National Council.
war just closed, who has placed four mUUons of freedmen within the reach of
Christian influence, who has caused our glorious flag — more glorious now than
ever — to float peacefuUy over the whole land, so that every part is open to the
gospel, wiU crown with his abundant blessing the efforts of his servants to make
Christianity here triumphant, to the exaltation and happiness of this great people.
If now we show ourselves equal to the crisis, our country, powerful, regenerate, and
free, shall also stand for coming ages, Ulustrious among the nations, as the home
of intelligence, virtue, and religion.
RAY PALMER, , \
FRANKLIN W. FISK, \ Committee.
JOHN P. GULLIVER, )
Council adjourned to meet in the meeting house of the First Church in Charles
town at 3 P. M.
Saturday, 3, P. M.
Council reassembled in the meeting house of the First Church of Charlestown,
the second Assistant Moderator, Rev. J. P. Thompson, D. D., of New York, in the
chair. Rev. Dr. Thompson read select portions of Scripture.
The hymn (1115 Sab. H. B.),
" O God, beneath thy guiding hand," etc.
was sung.
Rev. E. Beecher, D. D., of Blinois, led the assembly in prayer.
Dr. Todd, of Massachusetts, made some appropriate remarks.
Rev. J. B. Miles, pastor of the Church, made a welcoming address.
Rev. M. Badger, D. D., delegate from CaUfornia, offered prayer.
Rev. W. I. Budington, D. D., Rev. I. W. Andrews, D. D., and Rev. R. Gaylord,
made farther addresses. The 1111 hymn (S. H. B.),
"God bless our native land," etc.,
was sung, and prayer was offered by Rev. L. Bacon, D. D., of Connecticut.
Hon. G. Washington Warren, President of the Bunker HiU Monument Associa
tion, addressed the Council, and accompanied them to the monument, where, after
an interesting explanation by him of the battle scene of ninety years ago, the
Council, after singing one verse of the hymn,
" My country, 'tis of thee," etc.,
and the doxology, under the shadows of Bunker HU1 Monument, adjourned to meet
in the Mount Vernon Church on Monday morning, at 9 o'clock.
Fifth Day; Monday, June 19, 9 A. M.
Council was opened with prayer by the second Assistant Moderator, Rev. J. P.
Thompson, D. D. ; the first Assistant Moderator, Hon. C. G. Hammond of IlUnois,
being in the chair.
The minutes of Saturday's sessions were read, corrected, and approved.
Rev. Dr. J. P. Thompson resigned his place on the Committee to consider the
Report on Evangelization at the South and West, and his resignation was accepted.

National Council. 93
The report on Ministerial Education was accepted, and reference ordered to a
special committee.
On motion of Rev. J. Todd, D. D., of Massachusetts, it was Voted, That the
thanks of this Council be presented to Rev. Dr. Sturtevant for his excellent sermon
preached before the Council on Thursday morning last, and that a copy be requested
for publication with the procedures of the Council.
Rev. J. E. Roy read the following report on Church BuUding at the West :
CHURCH BUILDING.
The first instance in this country of aid in building a meeting-house was that when
the Pilgrim Church made its first contribution for any object outside of its own wants to
assist the Second Congregational Church of America in erecting its house of worship.
The example thus set has been followed in many individual cases since. But the enter
prise, as a systematic policy, was inaugurated in 1852 by the Albany Convention. When,
in that assembly, the brethren of the East perceived the grace that was given unto the
churches of the West in the inheritance of the Faith and Order of the Apolstles' and
Puritans, they gave unto them the right hands of fellowship ; and, as a token of affection,
-animated by the magnificent proffer of the mover of the project, they resolved to put into
those right hands the sum of fifty thousand doUars to aid those churches in the erection
of sanctuaries. Upon the same sabbath day, urfder an impulse of love, as when of old
the .people brought more than enough for the service of the sanctuary, this offering of
sympathy produced an Overplus of eleven thousand eight hundred and ninety-one dollars.
That fund aided two hundred and thirty missionary churches in building houses of
worship. So blessed were the results of that ministration of charity, and so great was the pres
sure for additional aid of this kind, that a second offering- was called for on Forefathers'
Day in 1856. It was a pious effort to build a monument in memory of the Pilgrims,
not in a single pile of elaborate architecture, but in sanctuaries that should perpetuate
their spirit and their principles. This effort resulted in a collection of about ten thou
sand dollars, by which about forty feeble churches were helped to homes. Conviction
was now confirmed of the need of some organic method in this business. Whereupon
the Congregational Union, according to a provision in its constitution, — to wit, "To pro
mote plans of cooperation in building meeting-houses and parsonages," — assumed sup
erintendence of the work, under the care of its Board of Trustees and of its Secretary,
who has prosecuted this enterprise with such wisdom, tact, and zeal, as entitle him to the
grateful confidence of the supporters of that institution, and to the affectionate esteem of
its hundreds of beneficiary churches. Under these auspices, during the eight years past
 and those the years of our financial revulsion and of our all-engrossing war — the
"Union," while meeting the difficulties and the prejudices incident to its newness, has
raised the sum of sixty-five thousand four hundred and seven dollars, and has aided
therewith in building one hundred and fifty-seven churches, an average of twenty per
year, while the " Union " is now pledged to thirty-two more, for which the money is in
hand. Thus that which was originated in an impulse of fellowship has been transferred
into an institution ; the waters flowing from the smitten rock are still following our Chris-
tion Israel.
In the aggregate four hundred and twenty-seven meeting-houses have been built, an
average of thirty-five per year, at an expense of one hundred 'and forty-nine thousand
two hundred and ninety-eight dollars. But these sums total convey no adequate conception
of the extent of good accomplished. To arrive at this, even approximately, we must gain

94 National Council.
an estimate from each church so aided — its necessities met, its hopes inspired, its influ
ence and usefulness extended. Some of these results may be generalized, as follows:
' I. This enterprise has secured the erection of many houses of worship which would
not otherwise have been built. It is astonishing how much of stimulus is; furnished by
that sure 'amount of cash. It often starts the work. Frequently the hope of aid is the
first thing presented to inspire courage to rise up and build. It furnishes the money for
the necessary articles of purchase, while much of the material and labor are subscribed
in kind. It sustains during the tedious progress of the work ; it stimulates to the last
grmd effort of hope against hope to cover the final gap between present possibility,
already twice or thrice exhausted, and the condition of freedom from debt. It often
saves a church that would otherwise die out. At Lincoln, the county seat of Logan
county, 111., a town of three thousand five hundred population, and named for our late
beloved President, a Congregational Church had lived four years in a small and unpleas
ant hall. Making no progress, the brethren began to be discouraged, and to talk of
disbanding. "No," said the missionary, "we must buj}d." "Impossible," said they.
Meeting called ; disheartenment complete. The " Union " proffers five hundred dollars.
Hope is rallied. The house is built, at a cost of two thousand dollars. Since the dedi
cation, one year ago, the membership and the congregation have been doubled and the
Sabbath school trebled. A revival has brought in twenty hopeful converts. And the
pastor writes me : " We owe our continued existence and prosperity to-day to the
encouragement the Congregational Union gave us in our hour of need." This is but a
specimen, and no uncommon case. Of the twelve Congregational meeting-houses built
in Northern Illinois during the last fifteen months, all of which but one had aid from the
"Union," eight were incited to build by the proffered help; — the remainder could not
have built alone without incurring the incubus of debt. The agent of the American Home
-Missionary Society for Minnesota says : " I can think of thirteen churches, which now have
houses of worship, that in the first instance were undoubtedly stimulated to build by the
proffer of aid. Without it, building in each case would have been delayed longer" than it
was, and in several cases it would not have been accomplished at all." The agent for Kan
sas says : " But for such help, nine of these sixteen churches, built with aid from the Union,
would now be incomplete, probably not begun; four would have been put off for months,
perhaps for years ; and but three at the utmost would have been built without aid." And
these sixteen are all the Congregational meeting-house* there are in that martyr State.
The agent for North-western Wisconsin says : " I am sure the prosperity, if not the
continued existence, of several of our more ifseful churches is largely due to the fact that
houses of worship were secured soon after their organization; while several churches
within my field, in villages of considerable importance, are now threatened with extinc
tion because they are not provided with places of worship wholly their own." From
many years of observation, and after consultation with other persons well informed upon
these matters, I am confident that of the four hundred and twenty-seven churches aided,
one half would, now be without houses of worship, and one quarter would yet be burdened
with debt or with unfinished enterprises, had it not been for such assistance.
II. Church-building has been an efficient auxiliary of Home Missions. The Home
Missionary Societies and the Congregational Union .have to deal with the same churches,
the young and the feeble. One is the Commissary department; the other, the Quarter
master's. All that can be said of the influence of the sanctuary anywhere may be said
of the missionary church, while to it are thereby secured peculiar advantages. In the
East, churches could get along better without houses than at the West. Here the people
are assimilated,; there they are heterogeneous, and society lacks the attraction of cohe
sion. This want the church edifice largely helps to meet. In the rude community, it

National Council. gg
becomes a visible representative of the gospel. It is a garner of generated religious
influences. So important to the children of Israel during their, period of training was
.the.sanctuary, that, through divine wisdom, they were furnished with the travelling taber
nacle. Many persons going West make it, an excuse for absenting themselves from the
temporary places of worship because there is no Church edifice. When a house has been
secured, such in large numbers have been brought under the influence of the gospel. A
meeting-house ordinarily doubles the congregation, the pecuniary resources, and the
power of the missionary Church. It lessens the amount of aid needed ; it cuts short the
period of dependence ; and often, at once, lifts it into self-support. Three such churches
in Illinois, aided by the "Union " in building, have just dedicated their houses of worship,
the slips of which were at once rented for an amount to cover increased salaries and inci
dental expenses, thus relieving the treasury of Home Missions, while the excess over the
former income came mainly from those who had been non-supporters. We find that in
. Illinois thirteen missionary churches, thus helped to sanctuaries, soon after dedication became
self-supporting; in Wisconsin, twelve; in Michigan, five; in Minnesota, three ; in Northern
,Iowa, four ; in Kansas, three. The secretary of the " Union " reports that to five churches
the sum of one thousand five hundred and fifty -dollars was appropriated to pay "last
-bills" on houses of worship, and that each of the'se at once became an independent and
a giving Church ; thus saving to the treasury of Home Missions the annual appropriation
of one thousand seven hundred dollars for the support of preaching there. A pastor,
now in the East, formerly in the West, writes to the same secretary : " I consider your
cause as one of the most important, as it increases immensely the efficiency of the Home
Missionary enterprise." In the June number of the Home Missionary, a minister in
Jowa, reporting the dedication of a house of worship after three years of tugging and
lifting, and referring to the three hundred dollars secured from the " Union," calls it " the
truest helper to the Home Missionary that could possibly be invented." The actuaries
of the American Home Missionary Society, whose function it is, on their respective fields,
to explore destitutions, to organize and to nurse the young and feeble churches; who are
brought into pastoral sympathy with the weakest flocks, and under whose eye all applica
tions for aid in Church-building pass, are unanimous and enthusiastic in their appreciation
of this enterprise as the right-hand helper of Home Missions. Their last resort, some
times, in efforts to save a Church, is to propose to build, while the first incentive they use
is the prospect of aid. They understand that by thus securing Church edifices they are
doing the most efficient Home Missionary work, knowing that, in many such cases, not to
build is to die. The Secretary of the Old-School Presbyterian Board of Church Extension
writes: "We find that the completion of a sanctuary* free from debt, almost uniformly
adds largely to the congregation, at least; on an average, doubles it; that revivals of reli
gion are very frequent in such churches ; that ministerial support is largely increased, and
the period of self-sustentation greatly hastened, by securing an unincumbered church."
IH. The Church-building enterprise has proven itself one of true economy in benev
olence. Its economy in saving the funds of Home Missions we have already noticed.
Then by its appropriations usually ^even times as much is developed by the applicant
churches. It was found that the sixty-one thousand eight hundred and ninety-one dollars
of the first fund stimulated the raising of three hundred and thirty-seven thousand seven
-hundred and four dollars. At the same average, the aid granted to the four hundred and
twenty-seven churches in all must have called forth six hundred and twenty-six thousand
eight hundred and sixty-three dollars from the beneficiaries. Then, again, this method has
saved much over the old mode of self-appointed agencies.- for particular churches. It was
truly said in the Albany Convention, that such agents ordinarily received but little more
-than enough to pay their salaries and travelling expenses. The present plan obviates that

96 National Council.
waste. It saves the annoyance of such random calls. It saves pastors the trouble of
investigating each case. It secures, by the agents and committees on the ground, a more
rigid scrutiny into the merits of each application, and so saves unworthy appropriations.
And then; as managed by a Central Board of Trust, the almoner of a sacred charity,
confidence is inspired. The economy of this work appears also from the fact that the
churches thus helped to homes and so to self-support become givers. In their state
of dependence they are trained to systematic contributions by the American Home
Missionary Society and the " Union," a collection every year for these respective causes
being the condition on which aid is granted ; so that this habit of remembering other
feeble churches will be likely to abide, and so too will every good cause be made the
gainer by the increase of the number oi joining churches. One Church in Chicago,
that was aided by the Fifty Thousand Dollar Fund, gave, the last year, besides a
generous support of the gospel, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine dollars to
objects of benevolence, and paid five thousand six hundred and fifty-two dollars on a ¦
subscription of thirty thousand dollars for its permanent edifice. Of the thirty-two
churches that contributed to the Congregational Union in the quarter next to the last,
seven had been aided from the same treasury. The District Secretary of the Baptist
Home Mission Society for New Engfand, after a three months' reconnoissance at the
West, said, "It is my profound conviction, that, rather than sustain two missionaries in
two towns for five years, it were much better to sustain only one, and build for him a
good house of worship." One, who is acquainted with the Western churches, is greatly
surprised, in reading over the list of those aided in building, to find how many that are
now prosperous and generous were so recently recipients of this Christian charity. Only
to read in this place the roll call of the churches thus helped out of weakness into strength,
would be at once a testimony and an argument in favor of the economy of this policy^
IV. A precious result of aid in building sanctuaries is its influence in promoting in
them revivals of religion. The entrance upon such a house has often been a. signal for
the manifestation of the Spirit; and such seasons of revival following upon the dedication
services have not been few. At the consecration of the first church aided in Illinois by
the Albany Fund, the incense offered was that of the first love of several new-born souls^
and this was followed in a few months by a work of grace that added some ninety persons
to the company of believers. Of the six churches aided in Southern Ohio by that same
Fund, all received a baptism of the Spirit soon after dedication. Of those aided in Illinois
up to the present time, twelve have enjoyed revivals soon after entering their new houses
of worship; in Wisconsin, seven; in Minnesota, five ; in Iowa, fifteen. Complete returns
would show that very many of these new church edifices have become at once places of
spiritual nativity. It is also noticeable that meeting-houses have frequently been built
immediately after seasons of spiritual refreshing.
V. As a result of the Church-erection scheme, it has contributed to an increased preva
lence of the principles and polity of the Puritans. Since the Albany Convention, the
number of Congregational churches in the West, including Ohio, has increased from five
hundred and seventy-three to one thousand and eighty-four, and their membership from
twenty-eight thousand two hundred and ninety-nine to fifty-nine thousand nine hundred
and sixty-eight. If we make the increase of the last year, not yet reported, the same as
the year before, then these churches will have more than doubled in number and in mem
bership since the initiation of this enterprise. Various causes have contributed to this
growth. One was the natural force of this free and simple polity ; one was the anti-sla
very position of these churches ; another was the arousing, in some degree, of the people
of this faith to the duty of disseminating the wisdom of the New Testament in regard to
the Church constitution ; and not the least of these causes was the policy of Church-build-

National Council. 97
ing. It is more than a coincidence that this era of the increase of churches corresponds
with the era of systematic aid in erecting meeting-houses. Churches that would natural
ly take on the form of autonomy have, by this help in securing their houses, been saved
from yielding to solicitation to assume an uncongenial polity in order to gain the needed
aid in building. Not a few churches have been organized in places where a house seemed
to be a prime necessity, and where the Congregational Union by its help has secured the
organization of as many churches in important positions. Take an instance. At Kokomo,
Ind., a thrifty railroad town, a county seat, with a fine academy, with a population of two
thousand, where was only a Methodist church and a Campbellite, each with a feeble
administration, another church was seen to be needed, one that should embody the small
Calvinistic element of four different denominations. And though there was but one
Congregational family in the place, and though some who proposed to come into the organ
ization had never seen a Congregational minister before, yet it was found that this mixed
material could be most readily affiliated under the polity of the brotherhood. But a
house of worship was seen to be a sine qua non, inasmuch as two other efforts by other
denominations had miscarried, through a failure in Church-building. And so the proffer
of aid from the American Home Missionary Society was accompanied with an assurance
of help for a house. Upon that, a church of seventeen members was organized, a minister
secured, and now the sanctuary is drawing toward completion, while the membership has
been doubled, and a rare position of influence and usefulness attained. Without such aid,
that church, which has just now entertained tha General Association of the State, and
whose pastor is a member of this Council, would not have been brought into life.
VI. Our Church-building enterprise has imparted a stimulus in the same direction to
all the other denominations. Taking the idea from the Albany Convention, the New-School
Presbyterians, in 1853, raised a Church-Erection Fund, which now amounts to one hundred
and twenty-three thousand eight hundred and forty-six dollars, and has aided two hun
dred and twenty-eight churches. In 1854 the Baptist Home Mission Society undertook
to. raise a fund of one hundred thousand dollars, but has as yet secured only thirty-five
thousand dollars of it. In 1 855 the Old-School Presbyterians, instead of their committee of
the Board of Domestic Missions, set up a Church-Extension Board, which calls for annual
collections, and has thus far aided five hundred and sixty-six churches, besides the three
hundred and eighty-two assisted by the old committee ; while their receipts, the last year,
have been thirty-eight thousand seven hundred and ninety-six dollars and ninety-eight
cents, and the aggregate of collections for this object have been three hundred and twenty
thousand nine hundred and ten dollars and ninety-three cents. The Methodists have
just set up a Church-Extension Board for the same purpose. Thus the denomination,
nine-tenths of whose charities have been given for undenominational purposes, and not a
little of that to build up another sect, imparts to all the others a stimulus in the idea and
the plan of church-erection. Not a little of the good done by the building of these
eleven or twelve hundred Church edifices in other communions is due to the Albany
scheme. Such, then, not to speak of the binding of the East and the West together
by this enterprise, not to speak of its relation to patriotism illustrated by the passage,
" He loveth our nation, and hath built us a synagogue," — such are some of the precious
fruits of this undertaking. It has helped hundreds of churches to houses ; it has been
an auxiliary to Home Missions ; it has increased economy in benevolence ; it has promoted
revivals of religion ; it has disseminated Puritan ideas; it has led other branches of the
church into a like work. How vast the amount of good accomplished by the outlay of
so small an amount as one hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars ! Such results be
come in themselves a sufficient argument for the prosecution of this enterprise, if indeed
there be anything more to be done in that direction.

98 National Council.
What, then, are the present and prospective necessities in this matter ? " The thing
which has been is that which shall be." Read over the Secretary's successive Quarterly
Reports, and while you will be moved to grateful emotion in view of the good accomplished
by this agency, you will also be oppressed with a sense of the vastness of the work left
undone simply for want of means. The statement of so many applications, ten, fifteen,
twenty, rejected for the lack of funds, becomes a painful recurrence. Nor are these the
same ever-waiting supplicants. Baffled in their suit, they retire, some to struggle on
with adversity, some to die ; while others take their place at the suitors' stand, only to
be kindly but peremptorily dismissed. Says one report: "But there are twenty-six
churches now urgently pressing their claims for small appropriations, with many of which
the question is, ' to build or to disband ;' " and another : " Still back of these are scores of
others, whose only hope of success is to be found in our treasury ; " and one of the very
latest says : " For scores that are waiting and longing for aid we must hold back until the
givers shall afford us the means of aiding them." It certainly must be a painful experience
of the gentlemen who serve as the Trustees and the Secretary of this interest, to see
these successive bands of Christ's disciples, in which are the elements of so much
blessing, struggling for life upon the waves of adversity, while they are themselves power
less to respond to the cry for help.
Then we find that there are in Michigan, at the present time, fifty Congregational
churches that have no houses of worship ; in Illinois, forty-four ; in Wisconsin, thirty-
nine; in Minnesota, forty ; in Iowa, fifty-eight ; in Kansas, sixteen; and many .in other
States; so that, in all, as nearly as we can ascertain, there axe four hundred of these fam
ilies of the Puritan sisterhood without homes, all of which need to be brought into the
holy habitation.
Then there is no reason why we may not expect that in the next twelve years, as in
the last, the churches of this pattern will, at the West, double their number, raising it
from one thousand and eighty-four to two thousand one hundred and sixty-eight, many
of which, in embryo communities, will need aid in securing that first of all requisites in a
new country, a place to live in. There will always be, along our ever-receding frontier,
a cordon of such feeble churches, the outposts of our Christian civilization, which will
appeal to our sympathy. The opening of the Pacific Railway ; the operation of the
Homestead Law and of Soldiers' Warrants ; the tremendous stimulus to new settlement
afforded by the rich metals in all of the central mountain country ; the flood of foreign
emigration ; the manufacturing interest, the seat of which is working westward ; all these
influences will tend to hasten the filling up of our intercontinental empire, which must
be brought into allegiance to Christ. The extent of that country yet to be filled with
living souls we can but little realize. The half-way place on the parallel of New York
is yet two hundred miles beyond the Missouri, seven hundred beyond Chicago, the gate
way of the North-west, seventeen hundred west of Boston ! The Territories upon the
Rocky Mountains are already coming to their majority, and asking of the paternal author
ity their portion of goods. Unborn Commonwealths are yet to come from that region to
knock at the door of our national Capitol for recognition. The extent of territory in those
oncoming States staggers comprehension. And yet into that region of vast distances and
possibilities the enterprise of Home Missions is rapidly projecting itself, following in the
path of the pioneer, the miner, the soldier. The Path-Finder threw out our glorious
stars and stripes from the loftiest peak of those Rocky Mountains; and so the Home
Missionary has unfurled the banner of Jesus upon the same Alpine range ; even into the
region and shadow of death has he borne it, setting up the claim of his King upon the
adherents of that system of abomination which now occupies the heart of the continent.
All over that region, churches of the Pilgrim faith will be born, and they must have

National Council. 99
homes. Their Redeemer is already there, "waiting to find room." And "as the
mother of Jesus looked up wistfully to the guest-chamber that cold night, drawing her
Holy Thing to her bosom," so will these new-born churches of Christ look longingly to
our spacious and amply furnished sanctuaries for hospitality and blessing.
Then, in the older portions of the missionary field, away from the original centers of
population, away from the railway stations, in the isolated townships of well-to-do farm
ers, there is yet a vast work to be done. Many new churches are there to be organized ;
many new houses of worship to be built. If we are to profit by the experience of New
England, and by its awakened interest in home evangelization, we must forestall the
"waste places." Of this kind of work take an example: A banker in Michigan City,
Indiana, goes out seven miles to a neglected neighborhood, cursed with a distillery, and
starts a Sabbath school. A revival ensues. The distillery is turned into a flouring mill.
A Church is organized, and the superintendent becomes the lay-preacher. The old
school-house is enlarged ; a new one is built, and this is outgrown by the congregation
and the aspiration of the brotherhood. A Church must be built. People poor ; prospect
poorer. The " Union " proffers aid. A neat and commodious sanctuary is secured ; and",
through the " Union," a young man in the Central Church of New Haven, Merritt W.
Barnes, as a dying gift appropriates his little all to pay the last bills of three hundred
dollars, — a legacy of love commemorated by a tablet set into the wall of that house of
God. Last summer, during the vacation of the Chicago Seminary, one of the students,
under commission of the American Home Missionary Society, relieved the lay pastor, and
in the new house was permitted to welcome nine persons into that fellowship as the result
of a spiritual refreshing in harvest-time.
Then who can compute the demand for aid in Church-erection at the South ? The
angel of the Lord is now saying to the Philip of our Evangelism : " Go toward the
South .... which is desert." If we had come across this newly-discovered missionary
field in any other part of the globe, it would thrill the heart of Christians to occupy it at
once. Though their treason, in seeking the life of our nation, has slain our sons and
brothers, and now our beloved President, yet thither we are bidden to go with the gospel,
even as the disciples were directed by their Lord to begin at Jerusalem, the very city
which had rejected and crucified him, and even as Philip was to carry the Evangel of
Jesus to that same PhiUstia which had been the perpetual enemy of Israel. We are
likewise under special obUgation to propagate there that system of Church-order, which,
divinely appointed, like Christianity itself, is adapted to man as man in all parts of the
earth; which by its simple form and cathoUc spirit is well fitted to unite and assimilate
that disorganized material, which, by its affinity for freedom and its cleaner record, is suited
to that recoil going on at the South in intelligent and conscientious minds ; and which, in
its reproduced %tyle of Puritanism, though long rejected there, will be the most hopeful
means of rescuing that fair land from its moral desolation.
Now, then, the churches which, among both the whites and the blacks, are there to spring
up as by magic, must be housed. In that disrupted society, a chaste, comfortable Church-
edifice will be a powerful attraction. Said Dr. Lyman Beecher, in the Albany Conven
tion : " If you want martins about your house, you must put up a martin-box." In the
South there will be special need of using the economy of Church-erection in order to
take up this great work at its flood-tide. Not as heretofore in the gradualness of the
opening of the Home Missionary field, now whole States, to the number of one third of
our Federal Union, already populated and seething with the antagonistic influence of
irreligion, are thrown upon our hands ; and God says, Take these, reform them, Christianize
them. In order to meet this exigency, we shall need all the attracting, sustaining influ
ence of sanctuaries. When our soldiers went first into the service, in the abandon of

100 National Council.
heroism, they cared little for intrenchments ; but, wiser by experience, they will now
work cheerfully at every halt upon some simple breastwork. The soldiers of Christ
going South, in order to save all their gain and to make irresistible their advance, must
have their series of fortifications. Neglecting this, though they may gain important
strategetic points, their safety and success will be in jeopardy. At Hannibal, Mo., the
" Union " has fortified one such position, which has stood through the rebellion a rallying
center for loyalty, has sent a stream of influence along the line of railway that crosses the ¦
State, and now with its membership of one hundred, its home Sabbath school of three
hundred and thirty pupils, its Mission school of one hundred and fifty, and its school of
four hundred colored people, is accomplishing in that city a vast deal of work for Christ.
Already applications are coming in from the South for more of such defences.
Such being the demand for Church-building at the West and at the South, how grave
must be the consequences of neglecting it ! Imagine this work of the last twelve years
undone, a large proportion of these four hundred and twenty-seven missionary churches
left without sanctuaries, and some of them dead. What apology could satisfy the Head
of the Church for such dereliction ? Then imagine the four hundred families in our
Christian sisterhood, yet without homes, deprived of all prospect of aid from this source
in the future, many of them doomed to a protracted feebleness, which shall deaden hope
and finally life itself. Then consider the hundreds of churches yet to spring up, many of
which, if not planted in the house of the Lord, will droop, and bear but Uttle fruit. In
the failure to provide these garners, vast harvests will go into the earth.
Then, as a consequence of neglecting this work, many of these Puritan flocks will be
driven into folds not congenial. It would be a shame that the body of churches, which
led the way in this scheme of benevolence, should fall behind in the enterprise, and
actually turn its own people over to those of other faith and order for hospitality. It
would be' worse than a shame ; it would be a crime : for " if any provide not for his own,
and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an
infidel." These which, by lineal descent or by adoption, are the children of the Puritan
family, have a right, by all ^principles of equity and of grace, to look to the parent for
nurture and for protection. The two denominations which have learned to do this work
the most efficiently are those that would make the most of a draft upon the Congrega
tional material. We honor those branches of Christ's people ; we wish them all success
in bringing their feeble churches into the sanctuary. But we think that we have a more
excellent way; that the people of the Puritan faith can do the most good under the forms
of their own simple polity, and that the Congregational swarms will do the best in Con
gregational hives. We believe that, as a miracle was wrought to convince the apostles
that the gospel was to go beyond their own nationality, so now God, by the marvellous
revelations of war, is teaching us that the same gospel is to be carried in the same Church-
order to all parts of our land, and that the crossing of no parallels of latitude or of lon
gitude can justify an exchange of that system for any man-made establishment. And it
will be neither with self-satisfaction nor with approval, human or divine, that we come to
the confession, " They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard
have I not kept."
It is a favor of Providence that we have in the Congregational Union an organ of this
enterprise, well-manned, skilled by experience, settled in its policies, and so prepared for
the crisis. Though its work is germane to that of the Home Missionary Societies, yet a
wise division of the labor, which has an appalling magnitude, the certainty of raising more
funds by a double appeal, and the mutual helpfulness of the two departments, will make
it wise to continue the present arrangement. All the other denominations but one give
to this cause a separate organ, and one of these changed to a double-acting machinery

National Council. 101
after having tried the single. The established principle of annual collections has, over
an invested fund, the advantage of keeping the cause fresh in the thought and sympathy
of the churches, and of avoiding the risks of an accumulated capital ; while, under the
present demands upon benevolence, the raising of any competent endowment would seem
to be out of the question. As to the amount that will be needed for Church-building,
year by year, it will not do to put the estimate at anything less than fifty thousand dollars.
But how can the treasury be kept in a condition equal to this draft? We believe that
all that will be needed will be to afford every congregation in our fellowship the opportunity
of making an annual offering to this cause, and that, in order to this, every Church place
this object upon its calendar. During the last reported year, only one hundred and fifty-
five, or one in eighteen, of the Congregational churches contributed to this object. The
secret of the success of the Old-School Presbyterian Church Extension Board seems to
, have been in getting collections from a large number of churches. During the last
year, seven hundred and fifty-one Church-contributions were acknowledged ; and these, if
we leave out the gifts of two congregations in New York City, averaged only seventeen
dollars and sixty-seven cents, while four hundred and nine of the churches gave but ten
dollars and under. If but one half of the Congregational churches would simply " go
through with the motions " of a collection for this cause, the treasury would not labor.
But if, as one of the latest applicants, the Congregational Union can scarcely find room in
the calendar, then it may be well for this Council to advise the churches to make a place
for this feeder of all the other charities. In the plans recommended by the General Asso
ciations of Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, this cause has its specific month ; the
system is growing in favor, and this object meets with a peculiar appreciation. Indeed it
should be said for the encouragement of Eastern friends, who have given so freely to the
West, that the seed thus sown is now coming to the harvest. A generous spirit is growing
up in those Western churches, which will join the East in liberal giving for the new West
and the South. That stream of New England theology and of Puritan ideas, which has
been poured across the West, has given character to its institutions, and has thus magni
fied its power for good, as now the swelling current shall sweep down to the Gulf. And
if the parental household, by the exhausting of itself for the welfare of its emigrating
offspring, shall ever come to the need of succor, then with grateful, loving attention will
the children, natural and adopted, delight to reciprocate the blessing.
But still, in order to the filling of this treasury, in common with those of all other
benevolence, in order to our rising to the sublimity of this providential occasion, we need
a national dispensation of the Spirit that shall lead to a consecration of property and of
life wholly unto the Lord.
This report was accepted, and reference ordered to a special committee.
A half-hour was spent in devotional exercises,
The committee appointed to report on the subject of Home Evangelization
presented their report by Rev. Daniel P. Noyes, of Massachusetts, as follows :

PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
The Committee appointed to introduce to the National Council of Congregational
Churches the subject of Parochial Evangelization report the following
statement.
The work of our churches divides itself into several departments. Efforts in behalf
of other nations we call Foreign Missions; the founding of new churches and the

102 National Council.
assistance of such as are feeble, within the limits of our own country, we name Home
Missions ; while all churches exist for a particular work, styled, in the resolution appoint
ing this Committee, Parochial Evangelization — a work which looks towards the
reconciliation and sanctification of all the souls embraced within the communities that
severally constitute the proper parishes of the churches, and which aims at a general and
complete Popular Christianization.
The object of the present paper is to bring clearly to mind this glorious duty and
privilege of the churches, with some of the ways of its fulfilment. To this end, it is
necessary briefly to recall the true idea and office of the Chuich, and to consider some
what more at lengtn the modes in which its established services and its administration
may be most efficient. THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL.
It is the chief end of man to glorify God, and share His joy ; and of the world, to be
a place of nurture for souls thus fulfilling their end. The Church on earth embraces all
who have begun to glorify and enjoy God, and so is the essential realization of the end
of creation ; but being the " body of Christ," wherein he dwells and whereby he works,
it is also the means of its realization. The conquest of the world is its proper function j
and it is no more really the natural quality of salt to save from corruption, or of light to
annihilate darkness, of leaven to leaven the lump, or of a living seed to assimilate earth,
air, water, and light, into its own body, according to its own law, than for the Spirit of Christ,
working in and through the Church, to cleanse from moral corruption, disperse moral
darkness, fill society with a divine leaven, and incorporate with its own body, and build
up in heavenly beauty, the alienated and lost souls that surround it. God ordained the
churches for this end; and they must be esteemed equal to its accomplishment. In
entering upon the consideration of our subject, we properly start with this assumption.
ORGANIC CHURCHES.
But, obviously, in order that our organic churches — which are, at best, but an imper
fect realization of their idea — may justify such an expectation, they must be really
churches, and must be nothing else.
To this end it is necessaiw, first, that they should be composed of believers — of those
who have begun to love with Christ's love ; a love in which they are holy and a brother
hood. Furthermore, every Church must needs embody its essential idea in its organization,
and be a brotherhood in form as well as in spirit ; avoiding all semblance of such author
ity and subjection as are common in the world. No " greatest " and no " master " can be
recognized here. As believers, we have one Master, and he is above : all we are breth
ren. The apostle disclaimed dominion, and aspired only to be a helper of joy to his
fellow-disciples; and our blessed Lord specifically instructed his followers with regard to
the spirit and law of his Church, when he washed their feet.
The structure of a society embodies ideas and fixes relations ; and these ideas it is
always teaching, and these relations are always shaping character and action. The Church
needs to have the true Church-form — of a brotherhood — or its organization will be
subtly, or perhaps very openly, counterworking its work. Its very organization should
be the birth of a love which annihilates caste and sense of hierarchy.
When churches have thus been organized of the, right material, and in the right form,
they need to be careful, thirdly, to confine themselves to their true end.
The one end of the Church universal is the glory of God in human redemption; and
the local Church finds its one chief end in the same result throughout the community

National Council. 103
which makes up its proper parish ; in other words, " paroohial evangelization." It may
not allow itself to be turned to any other object ; nor can it safely unite with other
churches as a constituent in societies, either secular or semi-secular, whose operations
involve large material interests or weighty financial cares. One thing it has to do ; and
that is so immense and difficult, that it cannot give itself to anything else. In one pre
cious and eternal bond is it united with all other churches of the Lohrd Jesus Christ ; and
it may not imperil this most sacred of all conceivable relations, so peculiarly delicate and
sensitive, by grosser mixtures, so often fruitful of strife. It is essential that each
Church both hold fast to its exclusively spiritual end, and to its own separate identity and
responsibility, maintaining, indeed, the closest possible spiritual union with other churches,
in love, but refusing all corporate and business ties with them, all authority (in the
worldly sense), and all subjection. This we hold to be essential to the prosecution of a
thorough and universal parochial evangelization. ,
When churches have thus been organized of the right material, in the right form, and
for the right end, it remains, fourthly, that they adopt the right methods for the accom
plishment of this end. The end, as already stated, is the working-out, under God, of
human redemption from sin, into love, blessedness, and holy service ; and the work of the
Church may be viewed in three aspects, as related directly to God, to believers, and to
man still in a state of alienation ; thus having the three divisions of worship, edification,
and conversion ; and its efficiency in all these is necessary to its success in parochial
evangelization. THE CHURCH-WORK. WORSHIP.
The first great duty of the Church is worship. This is God's due ; and it is essential
that every Church render a pure and acceptable worship before the throne of the Divine
Majesty* But inasmuch as God is most glorified by that which is so ordered as to be
also the greatest blessing to his children, its method may appropriately be considered
when we come to treat of what is essential to Christian edification.
edification.
The second great object of the Church, prominent in its work of parochial evangeliza
tion, is the edification of its members in the divine love.
By Worship.
The first means by which it furthers this aim is a worship in which it becomes a chan
nel of divine grace to all participants, and offers itself, as such, to all witnesses of its act.
Worship is rendered (1) when the hearts and minds of a devout assembly are reverently
yielded to the guidance of Holy Writ — records of the divine dealings, breathings of
penitence, prayer, and thanksgiving, and the story of redemption -motions of minds
moved by the Holy Ghost. This is the river which makes glad the city of God. We
need to go back ever to these flowings of the primal springs.
There are two ways in which this benefit of Scripture may be enjoyed by a worshipping
congregation: viz., listening to an expressive reading, which re-clothes the sacred words
with their original life ; and chanting. It is to be regretted that the latter is no more m
use among us ; as, with singing"; it is almost the only way in which an assembly can pro
perly join in the outward expression of worship through the l.ps. Our congregations
will probably never satisfactorily realize and appropriate the meaning and preciousness of
the most ancient songs of the Church until they have learned to chant them, and this
in more reverent and less hurried style than prevails elsewhere. We should not be

104 National Council.
altogether wide from the truth, if we were to say, that it requires the strength of a great
multitude to bear into our hearts the weight and sense of these words of God. Our
children ought, from the beginning, to be made to feel the grandeur and the gladness,
the lowliness and the tenderness, of these inspired Psalms. Each Church needs them
in the evangelization of its parish.
The two methods that have been mentioned are the only seemly and proper methods
in which congregations can use the Scriptures in the public services of the sanctuary.
(2.) The " service of song " in the Lord's house, it is now generally conceded, needs to
be chiefly rendered by the whole congregation, led by a choir. But our churches have by
no means, as yet, entered upon the exceeding riches of the inheritance of the saints, con
tained in this elevating, comforting, and transporting service — so full of blessing to devout
hearts, in its nearness and sweetness of communion with our Lord, and so universally
attractive and impressive. There is a mighty power of edification and of persuasion in
rhythmic, melodious psalms and hymns and choral harmonies, which our churches and their
schools have only begun to realize. It can unquestionably be made a powerful instrument
in the evangelization of communities and of classes that now neglect the sanctuary ; and,
indeed, has already often been of great service in attracting children to the Sunday
School, and their parents to the place of public worship.
(3.) As the mere reading of Scripture — in seemly style — becomes a way of worship,
so the preaching of the divine word often leads the hearts of a congregation, in a contem
plation of God and a beholding of his glory, to thanksgiving, adoration, confession, and
yearnings of deepest aspiration and longing. If we dare look toward the Christianization
of whole communities — and what minister or Church dares aim at anything less — how
must we abjure all merely literary, logical, disputatious, denunciatory, or melodramatic
and sentimental preaching, and strive to bring our hearers in view of the eternal moun
tains of God, the mighty truths whose foundations and whose summits are equally out of
sight! In those mountains is peace and joy ; they are homes of power; and from them
flow the living waters. The deepest truth is most divine ; and is not merely pleasant,
beautiful, and moving, but awful, glorious, transforming, and transporting. It is our privi
lege to wield this truth ; and, for our work, we need it. The people must worship while
they hear. It were vain to think of the Christianization of communities if we were to
forget this.
(4.) In public prayer, the most perfect union of hearts is probably reached when one
man of fervent and devout spirit leads the multitude, in words, which, with his tones, are
the birth of the moment — the breathing of the Holy Ghost. But, that this may ordina
rily be secured, even in moderate measure, it is necessary that the person who leads
should be habitually in communion with God ; and, furthermore, should be accustomed to
turn his inward communings into words. The usage of our churches now lays this
demand upon their ministers. It is a wholesome burden, and ought by no means to be
removed. Having adopted the highest possible ideal, we ought to seek to rise to its
demand. The effort, in our work of parochial evangelization, is to bring all souls into
communion with God ; and the Church maintains these public acts of communion, in
part, from the hope that the spirit of devotion may spread, like leaven, from soul to
soul, till all be leavened. But, that the leaven may spread, it must be real, and real
at the time which is its opportunity. By Instruction.
The second method in which a Church promotes the edification of its members is by
supplying instruction.
The instruction furnished in the Church aims at the reconciliation and sanctification of

National Council. 105
souls by bringing them face to face with God in Christ, that, beholding his glory, they
may be changed into the same image. If it exhibit not that glory, it fails of its end. So
far as it deals with other than eternal realities, and with thoughts lower than the thoughts-
of God, or is satisfied with a beauty inferior to that of Christ, it stoops from its state, and
abases its sovereignty. It ought to unveil eternity ; to unfold the mind of God ; to take
divine things, and show them unto men ; to make plain the ways of a heavenly life here
on earth ; and to breathe something of the dignity native to souls regenerate and sancti
fied — the dignity of a love like Christ's. While considering the methods of parochial
evangelization, neither the ministry nor the churches may forget this.
In Organization.
But verbal instruction is not all. As has been already remarked, the very structure of
the Church, when what it should be, is mighty for the instruction of its members and of
the community at large. But while, in its constitution and the general spirit of its admin
istration, it needs to express and teach the Christian love, and while in its worship and the
ministrations of its pulpit it must not fail to edify, it ought to do this, thirdly, by furnish
ing special facilities and opportunities for the development among its members of an active
love. Arrangements should be made by every Church for bringing its members together, so
that they should become acquainted, and acquainted as Christians. For this purpose,
the weekly prayer meeting is of priceless value. So, too, are the smaller neighborhood
prayer meetings, and all social religious gatherings, and indeed all religious social
assemblies — in many places too much neglected. In every practicable way the Church
needs continually to strive to bring about among its members the fulfilment of the
Saviour's prayer — that "they all maybe one.'' Upon this largely depends the possi
bility of an extended Christian influence and of the development of a system of church-
work. The love is indispensable to union in labor ; and for the awakening and cherishing
of love, there must be acquaintance and intercourse. Oar church members have all
been welcomed with covenant vows of affection and help, which deserve to be better kept ;
and, to facilitate this, special arrangements are necessary.
But not alone in the delight and the impulse of love does the Church need to build
itself up ; it should edify itself also in, love's wisdom — in that spiritual wisdom which
only comes from living out Christ's precepts. These precepts involve the most funda
mental and comprehensive principles, which principles must be studied in their application,
and not simply heard of from a teacher, in order really to possess the soul. Accordingly,
the Church needs to throw upon its members the responsibility of decision, in the appli
cation of Christian principles, especially of those which are fundamental ; and any Church
leader who undertakes to decide for his Church, or, worse still, to force his judgment
upon them, or, worst of all, to carry a judgment by intrigue or intimidation, misconceives his
office. His office is to guide, not to dictate — least of all to manipulate. It is his privilege
to lead his brethren in the study of the mind of the Spirit, so that they, all together, shall
apprehend it —not to declare it by authority. He is guide, not governor. No man can
be a master in the Church. And whoso departs from Christian simplicity, and assumes
control, or uses "art," grieves the Spirit, sins against the brethren, and breaks the consti
tution of the Church. In like manner, also, any Church which submits to a dominion
that dulls its life transgresses its fundamental law.
It is only by familiarizing men with the practical application of principles that they
can be put in possession of them. This the Church does when organized and adminis
tered faithfully after the New-Testament model. When organized and governed after
any other plan, its efficiency is necessarily impaired.

106 National Council.
Again : not only must the responsibility of decision, especially in important questions
be thrown upon the members of the Church, but for their own spiritual good they all
.need also a share in the responsibilities and the manifold benefits of church-work. So
essential is this privilege, that we may even declare it indispensable. But of this we
shall speak more at large under another head.
In Fellowship.
Again : each Church needs to stand in suitable relations with other churches — recog
nizing and feeling its oneness, not only with those of its immediate neighborhood and its
own time, but with all true churches of every age. With its neighbors it should join in
counsel and labor; and it has no right to allow any bonds of authority to divide it from
such communion. All should be counted its neighbors with whom it can join, or whom
it can reach, to bless. Nor should it lack a sense of unity with the churches of other
lands, of other days, and other names. Great strength comes from a consciousness of
the oneness of the Lord's kingdom ; and this needs not at all a corporate unity, so sure
to work disaster, and to defer the accomplishment of our Saviour's prayer, but can best
exist without it. In the Sacraments.
Finally : each Church needs for its edification to cherish most solemnly ai.d tenderly
a sense of union with the Lord.
The unity of all true churches of Jesus Christ with one another, and of all believers
with their head, is commemorated, figured, ratified, and perpetuated in the sacraments —
those universal signs and seals, which, shared by all, are a manifestation of their oneness
from the beginning — of their oneness with Christ. We cannot hold in too dear affec
tion, or celebrate with too loving and careful solemnity, these seasons of grace, in which
all ages join and all disciples remember their only Lord. Churches which propose the
Christianization of their parishes need to take all possible pains to secure the full blessing
of these sacred opportunities. conversion.
The third great end of the Church remains ; viz., the bringing into a state of reconcil
iation the souls that are alienated from God.
We have, it is presupposed, a Church composed of believers — persons who have
begun to love with a love like Christ's ; organized a brotherhood ; worshipping God ;
instructing and edifying its members in the wisdom, the power, and joy of divine love;
entering into sacred bonds of communion in the sacraments.
But the chief labor of Christ's militant Church on earth has ever been the reconcilia
tion of alienated souls, the saving of the lost. Not only do our churches find their
principal work here, but they cannot even be faithful toward their own members unless
they engage them in efforts for the spiritual benefit of those who are still out of personal
covenant with God. Very properly, therefore, is the inquiry urged home upon us : How
can a Church be faithful and successful in this momentous work ?
Trust in God.
First of all, it needs to be keenly sensible of the fact, that the work of saving and
sanctifying souls is the work of God and that it is only as in union with him that men
are privileged or able to engage in it.
The Doctrine of the Church.
In the next place, it is in a high degree important that the Church should understand

National Council. 107
its own nature and office. Its members need to be so well instructed in the Doctrine of
the Church, that the thought of God's kingdom, and of his earthly kingdom and family,
should occupy and thrill their minds. There are no truths more full of light and power
than those which center here. Without them, churches will but imperfectly grasp the
idea of what they have to do, and will lack both the courage and the faith indispensable
to sustained activity and a comprehensive and permanent success.
Parishes.
In the third place, it is Important that every Church should definitely recognize and
accept its own particular work — its parish. The very form of the statement proposing
for this Council's consideration — the subject of " Parochial Evangelization" — seems to
assume that this has already been done ; and yet how seldom, in our day, is it really
done! But, if a Church is to do its work, it must know its work — know it as a Church. Nor
can we reflect at all upon this matter, without perpeiving that when once this work has
taken definite form in the mind of the Church, and has been solemnly acknowledged
before God as his commission, one important st;ep has been gained. The divine call
now sounds clear, has been understood, and the Church has answered, " Here am I."
Furthermore, so soon as a definite work has thus been recognized, its parts begin to be
distinguished — some, perhaps, very difficult, but others more immediately hopeful ; and
so an order begins to appear ; and now, no sooner has it been determined where to com
mence, than methods suggest themselves — a really intelligent beginning can be made, a
beginning of the whole ; and the motive drawn from the whole urges and helps the
prosecution of each part ; furnishing a great advantage to every working member, and
especially to the pastor, whose duty it is to superintend and incite.
In most rural districts, and in some villages, the natural "parish" of the Church is so
obvious that no question can arise concerning its boundaries ; and where two or more
churches stand side by side, and draw their congregations from the same communities,
the question is still one of no difficulty; for here the churches obviously have sl joint parish ;
and, having agreed upon such division of labor as the case demands, may each go for
ward with its own, recognizing, in reference to the whole, a joint responsibility, while
also owning a distinct care and duty. Nor, where churches of other denominations are
found, does this bring in any serious complication. For, acknowledging with joy their
work for the Lord, we shall find enough for our hearts and hands in caring for our own
and for neglected families.
But it may be said that this system of parishes is impossible at the West, where
missionaries sometimes have whole counties under their charge. On the contrary, it is
quite as easily arranged there as elsewhere, and is, perhaps, of greater importance than
in Eastern communities ; in every case, there is a community that forms the proper parish
of the Church which the missionary makes his principal center. This is that Church's
field ; the rest is the minister's outfield, over which he exercises inspection, and where
he temporarily bestows a certain amount of labor, in preparation for other laborers who
shall enter in and establish permanent centers and parishes. It is of the utmost impor
tance that the young churches of the West, now in their formative period, be educated
to the idea of Church responsibility for communities.
The plan suggested may possibly be thought to be impracticable in cities. By no
means; for it would supply what city churches so greatly need — a definite object and
mode of practical union; and, indeed, is absolutely necessary to the thorough occupation
of their field. A certain geographical allotment will, it is believed, be found expedient
in all our largest towns.

108 National Council.
The Home Prayer Meeting.
But a Church cannot be expected permanently to keep in mind a corporate duty, unless
in its corporate capacity it regularly recalls and considers it. Inevitably, interest will
flag, and efforts will wane, unless the Church holds regular meetings in behalf of its
work. Wherefore it is evident, fourthly, that " the home prayer meeting " — i. e., a meet
ing devoted to prayer and counsel specifically in behalf of the Church and its parish —
is valuable, and perhaps indispensable, as a means of reminding the Church of its duties,
besides affording occasion for that fervent supplication which avails much.
Moreover, since all beginnings are in God, and all human beginnings leading to real
success must be with God, it would seem impossible for any Church to make any wiser
commencement of new efforts for its parish than this, of regular prayer in its behalf.
No Church is so strong that it can afford to neglect prayer, nor is any so weak that it
cannot pray. If the difficulties that encompass it are so great that it sees no way what
soever in which it can make any beginning of new labor, then, surely, it is called to lay
the case before God, to study it in his presence, and with undoubting faith to await the
guidings of his Spirit and Providence. Systematic Labor.
Fifthly, It is important that a Church should prosecute its work upon system. It has
already been remarked, that, so soon as the Church ias defined its parish, the several dis
tinct parts of its work begin to appear. The community is at once resolved into four
principal classes, comprising (I) the members of the Church ; (2) members of the con
gregation, and regular attendants who are not members of the church ; (3) those in
some sense connected with the congregation, but not regular or frequent attendants at the
sanctuary ; (4) families and individuals having no real connection with any Christian
congregation, and who come under no stated religious influence.
Each of these classes, again, has a four-fold division, according to age ; into children,
youth, the mature, and the old. A watchful pastor undoubtedly carries the analysis
further, and classifies the members of these subordinate portions in accordance with
diversities of condition, character, and history, which indicate different ways in which
Christian influences may be expected to reach them with good effect.
Although we are not here called to enter in detail upon a discussion of methods of
church-labor, it may be proper to indicate certain points that invite special attention.
And, first, with regard to the religious education of children. We believe it possible,
through the Sunday school and otherwise, to secure a larger amount of valuable Christian
instruction at the children's homes ; and that this is necessary.
This end would be promoted by giving a greater fulness and impressiveness to the
mode of administering the baptism of children (which ought always to include a brief
but solemn covenant, and an appropriate chant or hymn), by a more frequent and urgent
preaching of this duty, and by a system of tender watchfulness, on the part of the Church,
over the baptized children of its charge, and over all the children of its congregation and
Sunday school.
Furthermore, there is need of a competent revision of Scripture question-books, of
Sunday-school library, and especially of Sunday-school music-books, and the relentless
exclusion of all that are not of really excellent quality. The amount of poor and bad
material in our children's singing-books is appalling.
Secondly, In respect to the religious training of our youth. It is a question for those
competent to decide, whether more pains may not wisely be taken to exhibit the gospel
in its glory, so that the young, who are easily kindled with enthusiasm, may be led to feel
that nothing else can possibly be so glorious as the truths and reaUties contained in this

National Council. 109
" gospel of the blessed God ;" also whether, in addition to general instruction, special
teachings for the purpose of guarding against prevalent errors might not be of use ;
whether succinct catechisms might not be formed for this purpose ; and whether lectures
upon portions of Church history, and the history of opinions, could not be turned to
advantage; whether the influences of "society" may not be made more uniformly
benignant and wholesome; whether pastors are really faithful in following up with
personal labors the effects of their preaching.
Thirdly, Are not persons of adult years often incorrectly presumed to be practically
out of reach ? and would not a more sedulous care — would not more system — in pas
toral labor and administration be fruitful of precious results ?
It is certainly true that our churches do not study, methodize, and watch their work
as they should ; and important portions' of it are often wholly neglected, while others
suffer from the inattention necessarily consequent upon lack of system. Business is
impossible without method ; and a similar attention to system is indispensable to any
complicated or long-continued work.
Fourthly, There are many families and individuals, and not a few distinct communi-
ties, unreached by any stated ministration of the Word.
Within the parish bounds of many churches, in all the States, there are neighbor
hoods or districts the inhabitants of which belong to no Christian congregation, and are
reached by no regular religious influence. These outlying communities require the
attention of the churches.
Within the bounds of parishes, and often in the immediate neighborhood of the sanc
tuary itself, there are numbers of families and individuals — some of foreign, others of
native birth — who are equally neglecters of the sanctuary. These outlying classes also
demand the attention of the churches.
The circumstances of these neighborhoods and districts, and the character of these
classes, are so various in the different parts of the country, that it would be unduly occu
pying the time of the Council to enter here upon their classification. The methods by
which they are to be reached by effective Christian influence are also various ; and the
consideration of them, in detail, belongs to the churches themselves, and to local and
State conferences, rather than to a National Council. The leading methods, however, are
familiar to all : Special Visitation ; Systematic Visitation, accompanied with a distribution
of Bibles, tracts, and religious books and papers ; Branch Sunday Schools ; Neighborhood
Prayer Meetings, in private dwellings or in school-houses; Neighborhood Preaching,
with regular services of worship; and to these may probably be added, what has been so
well tried beyond the water, the employment of " Bible Readers."
Unquestionably our " outlying communities " and our " outlying classes " can all be
reached, if the churches will enter upon systematic, prayerful endeavors in their behalf.
It was for such work that they were made. Let us not doubt that they can do it.
Experience proves that a Church that is in earnest, and tolerably well guided, will meet
with encouraging success, and that a well-adjusted system makes many things possible
that are otherwise hopeless. Lay Evangelists.
We have been wont to speak of the foolishness of preaching as the power of God ; and
rightly. But we seem to have forgotten that preaching needs not a pulpit or consecrated
temple for its efficacy, but may do its deepest work by any fireside or wayside, in any
work-shop or field. Wherever a heart, full of the divine love, brings this love, in the
truths of the gospel, to bear upon any other heart, there the gospel is~ preached, the
" power of God to salvation." All faithful Christian parents, teachers, and friends are
instruments of the Word and Spirit of God.

110 National Council.
It is a question, whether our churches may not safely set apart and " license " certain
of their members — gifted with a suitable measure of wisdom, knowledge, and power of
utterance — as lay evangelists, to superintend and carry on the Christian work, in om>
stations, under the particular counsel and oversight of the Church, through its committee
and pastor. We are inclined to believe that an important portion of our work now
waiting to be done can be done in no other way.
Local Conferences.
Fifthly, This whole matter is peculiarly the proper and the principal theme of Church
conferences. It would seem to require no argument to prove that the immediate work of the churches
is properly their main concern. Would it not, indeed; be a strange mistake, if, when
assembled in conference, they were to omit its consideration, or were to fail to give to it,
ordinarily, the greater part of the time which they spend together ? Our Sunday-school
teachers find enough to interest large conventions in the details of a comparatively limited
and simple task. How vastly more various, comprehensive, and difficult are the respon
sibilities which come upon the churches and their pastors ! There can be no question
that these demand a profounder and more general study ; and, for the purpose of bring
ing them statedly before the churches in judicious form and manner, and of securing an
intelligent comparison and summary of methods and results, it would probably be well
for local conferences to maintain standing Committees on Parochial Evangelization. These
conferences can also, by means of public discussions and addresses, affect the movements
of public opinion, and create currents of sentiment which will greatly assist each local
Church in its particular work. State Conferences.
Sixthly, The larger conferences, embracing entire States, can render a similar service,
appointing their Commissions on Popular Christianization — gathering thus the results of
the general experience for general benefit, and marking the general progress from year
to year, and decade to decade ; in this process inevitably bringing into prominence ques
tions of universal and permanent interest.
The American Congregational Association''
Now have under consideration a plan for securing reports, summaries, and discussions,
that shall cover the labor of all the churches of the country — our national work of Pop
ular Christianization. We trust that some arrangement to this end will be carried into
effect. general ministerial associations.
Another department of our subject merits more attention than can now be given it.
Error and sin intrench themselves behind defences of learning, while the truth itself is
deep and wide, — a sea that no sounding- lines fathom, a continent which no armies subdue.
Hence the importance, not only of a learned ministry, but also of Ministerial Associations,
for concentrating the best wisdom of the ablest minds upon the exposition, inculcation,
and defence of the truth. Whether the local Associations which are now universal in the
older parts of the country are all that we need, and whether larger " colleges," conver
ging the learning and experience of the ministry of entire States, may not have a place in
the best Church system, are questions not yet answered. When we consider how much
is implied in the thorough Christianization of any community, that the evangelization of
* Until recently, known as the " Congregational Library Association."

National Council. Ill
our parishes not only involves the defeat of iniquity in its high places and its palaces, but
also an increase in the average depth and an elevation of the average tone of popular think
ing, we cannot but be deeply impressed with the importance of securing, on the part of
our ministry, a patient, united study of great religious themes and issues. We need to
join our strength, in the endeavor to think the thoughts of God ; to comprehend, expound,
and defend the truth. Nor do we despair of this result, but are inclined to believe that
Ministerial Associations, general as well as local, have an important part to play in the
grand work of Popular Christianization. OUR NEED AND OUR DUTY.
And now, if any are inclined to feel that your Committee has dealt too much with
general views, arid has had too little to say of details, we reply : The details belong to
the churches and their more local conferences ; and furthermore, the general doctrine,
with the impulse which it breeds, is what the churches now most need. When they have
come to estimate aright the sacred dignity, responsibility, and privilege which clothe the
Church as God's kingdom and family, and the agency which he has ordained for the
conquest of the world, they will assuredly find out for themselves the best methods of
Christian labor.
Immense interests are dependent on the proper prosecution of this work of Parochial
Evangelization. Unless the churches rise to a higher efficiency, not only must multitudes
of souls from their own communities go down in* hopeless paths of sin, but the work that
calls to us from broad Territories and from newly opened States must fail in its very
beginning ; and our institutions, flooded with a foreign tide, and penetrated with a hidden
decay in then* very foundations, must yet come to their fall. The hope of our land is in
the success of its churches.
Our fathers expected to found a Christian people. This, their purpose, is our inherit
ance. Let us solemnly resume it in all its breadth ; lift up a standard to the people, and
cast up highways for their return, untU they shall all have come in, a " holy people, the
redeemed of the Lord."
In conclusion, your Committee respectfully suggest the adoption of the following
RECOMMENDATIONS TO CHURCHES AND MINISTERS.
1. That, when possible, every Church, taking counsel if necessary with neighboring
churches, define for itself the territory embraced in its parish, and recognize a special
responsibility to labor for the spiritual benefit of all Congregational and all neglected
families and individuals within those bounds.
When churches are so near together that this is impossible, it is recommended that
they accept the common territory as their joint parish, and, with a similar formal
acknowledgment of responsibility, secure a good mutual understanding for the best
prosecution of their work. But even in cities we counsel a geographical division in
reference to certain kinds of labor. la the newer portions of the country, when con
venient, an out-field may be designated in connection with the parish proper.
2. We recommend to all churches to devote one prayer-meeting, every month (or
perhaps, in the case of the feeblest country churches, one in each quarter), to the special
object of the Church and its work — giving to this meeting the name of The Home
Prayer Meeting. '
3. We would suggest that each Church set before itself, as its work, the complete
Christianization of its parish, and enter methodically upon the prosecution of this enter
prise — classifying the whole population intrusted of God to its care, and endeavoring to
shape its instrumentalities so as to reach the whole; keeping, also, careful records of all

112 National Council.
known labor, and all visible progress, and reporting the same, in proper form for record,
to their neighbor-churches in conference.
4. That the churches maintain — through local conferences — Standing Committees on
Parochial Evangelization.
5. That the churches meeting in State conferences create permanent Commissions on
Popular Christianization,
6. We shall be gratified to learn that the American Congregational Association has
perfected plans for the promotion of movements toward Popular Christianization through
out the country.
7. That all ministers of churches (1) take special pains to instruct their people in the
true Boctrine of the Church ; bringing into special prominence (a) the character of its
material — believers ; (b) the form of its organization — a brotherhood; (c) the dignity
of its three-fold end — God's glory in conversion, holiness, and worship; (d) the several
methods whereby it accomplishes its end ; making especially prominent the duty of each
Church to be, within itself, a veritable family of God, and, for those without, a band of
loving missionaries ; and sedulously inculcating the doctrine of Church responsibility for
communities. (2.) That the ministers systematize the work of their churches, appor
tioning it so that none of it shall be overlooked, and none unnecessarily neglected ; and
aiming to secure the effective employment of as many church-members as possible in
some form of Christian effort.
8. It is furthermore suggested that the churches, in their local conferences, take into
consideration the expediency of endeavoring to meet the wants of such outlying districts
as cannot be statedly supplied with the services of ministers of the gospel, by the employ
ment of lay evangelists, regularly appointed by the Church or its Committee.
9. We suggest, whether it may not be wise to test by trial, whether a State Ministerial
Association cannot be of service as a professional body for professional ends — a college
for the promotion of Christian fellowship, and of the knowledge, wisdom, and skill
requisite for the inculcation of the truth, the sagacious conduct of necessary controversies,
and the"suceessful administration of the pastorate ; thus rounding out, in full symmetry,
our Congregational organization.
DANIEL P. NOYES, ?Commto
HENRY M. DEXTER, S
Boston, June 14, 1865.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Wolcott, of Ohio, it was Voted, That this body having
learned that His Excellency Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, is in the city, and
would take pleasure in paying his respects to this Council, and cannot do so
conveniently after to-day, will be pleased to receive him at 3 P. M.
The Nominating Committee presented the names of the following to be members
of the special committee to whom was referred the report " On Education for the
Ministry " read by Dr. Palmer, and the communication in regard to Lincoln CoUege,
and the same were approved : viz., [Rev. S. Sweetser, D. D., substitute ;] Hon. W.
W. Thomas, Maine ; Rev. Henry E. Parker, New Hampshire ; Rev. Silas M'Keen,
D. D , Vermont; Rev. T. P. Field, D. D., Connecticut; Rev. Thomas Wickes, D.
D., Ohio ; Rev. A. S. Kedzie, Michigan ; Rev. W. DeLoss Love, Wisconsin ; Rev.
Elisha Jenney, IUinois ; [Rev. L. Bodwell, Kansas ;] Jacob Bacon, Esq., CaUfornia.
Also as the Committee to consider the paper presented to the Council in regard
to an " American Protestant Assembly," as follows : Rev. Jeremiah Taylor, D. D.,
Connecticut ; Rev. E. B. Webb, Massachusetts ; Rev. M. H. Wilder, New York ;
Rev. A. K. Packard, Minnesota ; Rev. P. C. Pettibone, Wisconsin.

National Council. 113
Also the foUowing gentlemen, to be the Committee on the Report on " Church
Building:" viz., Rev. S. G. Buckingham, Massachusetts ; Dea. Henry P. Haven,
Connecticut; Rev. F. B. Doe, Wisconsin; Dea. Philo Carpenter, Illinois; Rev.
Isaac Jennings, Vermont ; Rev. J. M. Chamberlain, Iowa ; Rev. Edwin Johnson,
Maryland ; who were made that committee.
Also the following to be a committee on the subject of Temperance : viz., Rev.
C. Blodgett, D. D., Rhode Island ; Rev. Z. S. Barstow, D. D., New Hampshire ;
Charles A. Stackpole, Esq., Maine; Dea. Wm. Thurston, Massachusetts; S. O.
Dana, Esq., New York ; Dea. D. A. Griswold, Ohio ; Rev. Joseph Collie, Wisconsin.
Also the following to be a Committee on " Parochial Evangelization," (the report
presented by Mr. Noyes,) who were chosen : Rev. R. T. Robinson, Massachusetts ;
Rev. A. S. Chesebrough, Connecticut ; Rev. J. M. Holmes, New Jersey ; Rev. H.
M. Goodwin, HUnois; Rev. D. Burt, Minnesota; Rev. R. Cordley, Kansas; Rev. J.
T. Ford, Vermont.
Rev. I. W. Andrews, D. D., presented the following Report on " Systematic
Benevolence : "

SYSTEMATIZING BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS.
The committee to whom was referred " The classification of benevolent organi
zations to be recommended to the patronage of the churches " have found them
selves embarrassed by the difficulty of attaching precise ideas to the subject on
which they were appointed to report. In the discussion of this topic at the
preliminary meeting, three different classes of views were presented.
The first contemplated an examination of the existing benevolent organizations,
with reference to re-arrangement and consolidation. The conviction was expressed
that two or more societies might profitably be united into one, as having the same
end in view ; and that some others, in consideration of the urgent wants of the
times upon which we are entering, should not be pressed upon the churches.
Another view gave prominence to the practical embarrassments to ministers and
churches arising from the multiplicity of objects, and the confusion and conflict that
sometimes result. The present workings of our benevolent system were declared
to be satisfactory neither to the churches nor societies ; and the belief was expressed
that measures ought to be devised for their mutual relief.
The third view deprecated any consideration of the topic by the National Coun
cU, deeming it an interference with the work of the individual churches, and not
Ukely to be productive of benefit. In accepting the duty assigned them, the com
mittee must, of course, put themselves in opposition to this last view, though the
responsibUity belongs to the preUminary conference rather than to them ; still, the
existence of such an opinion adds to their embarrassment. If, in addition to this
difference of opinion as developed at the preUminary meeting, and subsequently by
consultation and correspondence, the sensitiveness of the churches on the one
hand, and that of the benevolent societies on the other, be considered, it will be
manifest that a duty has been assigned to the committee alike difficult and delicate.
It would be vain, therefore, to expect that the views here presented would meet
with universal favor. Whatever value may be attached to them, they are given as
embodying the results to which the committee have been led by the best considera
tion they have been able to give to the subject.
The individual Christian, as well as the individual Church, has a two-fold duty to

114 National Council.
perform : he is to grow in grace himself, and to do good to others. And this latter
duty is to be performed partly by personal effort, and partly through the agency of
others. Here is the sphere of what is commonly called benevolence. The Christian
expends money to buy bibles for himself and family ; we do not term it benevo
lence. He pays for the support of his own minister ; it is not a benevolent contri
bution. But money given to procure bibles for distribution, to support a minister
preaching to a feeble congregation, to send the Uving teacher to the heathen, is said
to be for benevolent purposes. Possibly, Christians sometimes employ others to
do what it would be better that they should do themselves. It may be easier in
some cases to give money than personal effort. But the discussion of that topic
belongs not to this committee. Assume that there are no shortcomings in the per
sonal activity of the members of a Church — that no one of them performs by
proxy the duty which he should perform in person ; still, there is a boundless field
in the cultivation of which others must be employed, and for this benevolent contri
butions are indispensable. It may be said, indeed, that the more of personal
efficiency the Christian manifests, the more wiU he give for objects beyond' his
immediate reach ; that the more perfectly he cultivates his local field, the more
vividly will he see and feel the wants of the great field, the world.
The question, then, of benevolent contributions is one of great scope. It com
prehends a large part of the work of the Christian — of the churches. The giving
of money is not enough ; it should be given intelligently. To what causes shall our
churches contribute ? To what organizations shall they intrust the expenditure of
their money ? These are questions always important, always pertinent. Is there
anything in the peculiar circumstances of our country, or the world, that makes
them specially important and appropriate at the present time ? Has there been any
change in the relative importance of different organizations ? Even if nothing be
said of the honesty, fidelity, and abUity with which these organizations have been
conducted, has not the progress of events, or rather the providence of God, ren
dered the claims of some more imperative, of others less so, than formerly ? Has
not this Council been convened to consider anew the fields of Christian labor, and
to inquire how the work of Christian benevolence can be most successfully carried
forward ?
The subject of benevolent contributions is thus broad and comprehensive; and a
discussion of it, while embracing, should by no means be Umited to, the practical
difficulties of which our ministers and churches complain.
These difficulties are, an undue multipUcation of organizations ; too many occa
sional contributions, which interfere with the regular causes ; a want of discrimina
tion, so that more important objects sometimes receive the smaller contributions ;
and, in general, an excess of friction in the working of the machinery. Perhaps
the difficulties may be reduced to these two — a lack of system in the organization
of the benevolent societies, considered as a whole, and a lack of system in the
arrangements for contributions in the individual churches. Has not too much been
left to accident, as well in the formation of the societies as in providing the means
for their operations ?
Our benevolent machinery should be as simple as possible consistent with the
highest efficiency. Two.or more organizations ought not to be estabUshed or con
tinued to perform a work for which one is sufficient. The churches have no surplus,
either of men or money, for organizations which are not strictly necessary. It has
been said that appeals have been made to our churches, for contributions in behalf
of the Freedmen, by twelve different organizations. Besides the useless expenditure

National Council. 115
in keeping up so many : associations, what confusion must be caused by such a mul
tiplicity of appeals for the same object ! Nothing is plainer than that no new soci
ety should be established without the most careful examination of the field to be
cultivated, and of the agencies already engaged in the work. There should also be
a wide consultation of intelUgent, Christian men, both clerical and lay, before enter
ing upon so important an undertaking as laying the foundations of a benevolent
association, which is to be supported, if supported at all, by appeals to Christian
churches. Akin to this difficulty arising from the multipUcity of organizations is that from
the numerous occasional calls for contributions. This evil is felt more in the cities
and larger towns. Aid is needed for some object not coming within the province
of 'any regular association, and to secure it, application is made to one or more
churches where it is thought a hearing can be obtained. The appUcant deems his
cause to be meritorious in a high degree ; and it is one, moreover, whose claims to
immediate attention are imperative. It is often difficult thus to withstand the vari
ous influences brought to bear upon the pastors or officers of the Church, and the
number of calls of this charadter may become, in the aggregate, very great.
But shaU a Church absolutely close its doors to all appeals except from certain
societies ? By no means. With all our system, we cannot so look into the future
as to see all that a year will disclose. There are good Objects to which aid must be
rendered outside of the regular organizations. But the number will be small. '
As it is, the churches complain, and with reason. Even if all these occasional
calls were for worthy objects, their number is an evU. In some cases private liber
ality should be appealed' to. In others, the aid should be given through one of the
regular societies. Almost every large Church takes collections each year for objects
whieh come legitimately within the sphere of some one of the regular benevolent
organizations. In the eyes' of some men, independence is the cardinal virtue. They
wish to do things in their own way. They care not to be hampered. If they raise
the money which they think they need, directly from the churches, instead of receiv
ing it from the treasury of a society, they are sure of a wide discretion in its expen
diture. This feeling of independence, this impatience of restraint, wUl account for
many of these occasional caUs on the churches. Perhaps to the same source may
be traced the formation of some of our numerous organizations.
As illustrating the great advantage to the churches of rendering aid through the
channel of a regular society, rather than in response to individual appeals, reference
may be had to the society estabUshed more than twenty years ago for aiding col
leges and theological seminaries in the West. The' churches were saved from a
multitude of conflicting applications. What they had to contribute they could give
with perfect confidence that it would be wisely appropriated. Substantial aid was
thus furnished to institutions reaUy worthy, whUe it was withheld from those that
were not needed.
Some, at'least, of these occasional appeals will be for unworthy Objects. Yet it
is often exceedingly difficult for the pastor, or the officers of the Church, to distin
guish at the time between the good and the bad. Even recommendations from men
of the highest respectability are not always proof that the object recommended >
deserving Names are sometimes given without any expectation that they are to
be used for such a purpbse. Thousands of dollars may be coUected at a distance,
on the strength of recommendations from men who, living in the vicinity, and hav
ing personal knowledge, would neither give a dollar themselves, nor take a coUec
tion in their churches. ' But men should have more firmness, it is said. Of course

116 National Council.
they should; but the, fact that all have not this desirable trait makes it the more
difficult for the churches to know to which of these occasional calls they should
respond: This class of appeals should be subjected to the severest scrutiny. The churches
have no funds to expend on unworthy objects ; and when men discover that they
have given to such, their confidence is shaken, and their general contributions are
diminished. ,
In connection with these occasional calls outside of the regular benevolent organ
izations, allusion may be made to the taking-up of a second collection for a given
cause in a single year. The exigency of the case is the reason assigned; But as
there are many societies which need all the funds they can obtain, it is a question
whether justice to others will allow any one to ask for a double opportunity. The
precedent would be sure to be pleaded, and thus the difficulties from which the
churches now seek reUef would be increased. The year is the great unit of time
for our benevolent societies, and there is eminent propriety in adhering to it.
These are some of the embarrassments under which the churches labor. The
multiplicity of appeals for carrying forward the work of the regular societies, as
well as for the objects lying beyond their sphere, tends to confuse the minds of the
people, and subjects the pastors to a sore trial. But these are not the only parties
from whom complaints are heard. The managers of our great charitable organiza
tions are no better satisfied with the practical workings of the benevolent machinery.
The conflict of application prevents a full development of Christian benevolence,
and thus these organizations are often subjected to serious embarrassment in their
work. Those upon whom devolves the duty of presenting these causes to the
churches, find their work, which at best is never pleasant, to be doubly disagreeable.
It should never be forgotten that the churches and the societies are laboring for
a common end ; that the latter are but the agents of the former. There should
ever be the highest Christian courtesy between our ministers and churches on the
one hand, and the officers and agents of our benevolent societies on the other. The
many appeals, sometimes conflicting, that are made, coupled with the lack of system
which prevails in too many of the churches, furnish ground for' complaint, it may
be, but not for the tone and manner in which that complaint sometimes finds expres
sion. It is easy to find fault with agents, but the time for wholly dispensing with
their services has not yet come. The number of pastors who are both able and
willing to do in their own churches all that is usually done by agents is increasing
every year ; and just as far as the work can thus be done should other agencies be
dispensed with. Nothing will tend more to hasten the day when extraneous help
wiU no longer be needed, than a wise classification of benevolent organizations, and
the devising and executing in every Church a thorough system of contributions.
The pastors of the phurches and the officers and agents of the societies are labor
ing in the same great field. All desire that the benevolence of the churches should
be so developed and directed as to accomplish the highest good. If this requires
the consolidation of two or more societies into one, no personal or official consider
ations should be allowed to stand in the way of doing it. An organization may
have been, hitherto absolutely necessary, whose work can henceforth be done as
efficiently and more ecocomically by another. Great changes are taking place, new
and wide fields of Christian enterprise have been thrown open ; our benevolent
operations must be adapted to the exigencies of the times, and to the demands
which God is making upon us.
As already stated, one of the great ends for which this CouncU has been con-

Ill
us.

National Council. 117
vened is to inquire what is the special duty of the churches' which we represent
relation to the great fields of labor which the providence of God has opened to „
Having given this inquiry their most earnest and prayerful consideration, shall the
Council then recommend to the churches the benevolent organizations through
which these fields are to be cultivated? Your committee have no hesitation in
giving an affirmative answer to this question. Not to make such a recommenda
tion would be to leave their work but half accomplished. Nor is there any reason
to fear that the churches will deem it an interference. If the members of an indi
vidual Church are guided in great measure, as to the direction which their contri
butions shall take, by the suggestions of their pastor, who can doubt that the
deUberate recommendation of this large body of ministers and delegates will carry
with it great, weight ?
The CouncU should not be deterred from such a recommendation, either by a
groundless fear of encroaching on the rights of the churches, or because of any
apprehended insinuations of inconsistency from those who prefer some other polity.
The Congregational churches have been so thoroughly pervaded with the spirit of
catholicity, and so ready to do good wherever an opportunity offered itself, and to
contribute money to sustain enterprises, no matter by whom controlled, that the
absence of denominational feeling has come to be regarded as their denominational
characteristic. And when action is proposed that has any look toward providing
for our own, and especially for those of our own house, it is hinted within, and
asserted without, that we are abandoning the old ways, and becoming like the
nations around us.
The churches have sent up their delegates to deliberate on great questions. Shall
the results of their deUberations be hermetically sealed, lest the churches shall
know what has been done, and be influenced thereby ? On the same principle, and
with equal wisdom, suppress our Congregational Quarterly, and give up all our
reUgious newspapers and periodicals.
The ministry is the chief instrumentality by which the world is to be converted
to God. The gospel is to be preached at home and abroad. This is the great work.
Others are important as they aid and supplement this. This is the principal ; others
are auxiliary. We caU it the Missionary work, Home and Foreign. But the mis
sionary is a minister, and the importance of his work may be estimated by that of
the pastors of our churches. Close the places of worship in these towns of New
v England, and remove the ministers from their people, and then expect the ways of
Zion to rejoice, and the kingdom of Christ to be built up ! When those whose fleld
of labor is on our Western frontiers have looked over the wastes, and heard the
importunate appeals for ministers, they may be pardoned if sometimes they have
asked themselves whether the Christians of a county in Massachusetts or Connec
ticut would be quite satisfied to have, as their sole spiritual guide and teacher, a
colporter. If nothing could be a substitute for the ministry here in New England,
neither could it be in the West. Were the members of our churches to make an
estimate of the amount invested in Church edifices in the older States, as well as
the sums annually expended in payment of salaries, and in defraying the other
expenses incidental to sustaining public worship, they would have more sympathy
with the feeble churches of the newer portions of our country, and their contribu
tions to aid them would be greatly increased.
The Christian ministry is the great agency to be employed. Those churches
which cannot, unaided, support their pastor, must receive assistance. Young men
must be brought into the ministry, and the churches must aid in defraying the

118 National Council.
expenses of their education. Houses of worship are necessary, and a helping hand
must be given in erecting them. If permanent educational , institutions have been
found indispensable to the highest and truest religious progress in New England,
and especially as training-places for the ministry, they should for the same reason
be established elsewhere. So far as ministers and Christian laymen can make more
available their efforts to do good, by the circulation of the word of God, or by the
distribution of tracts and other printed matter, or by furnishing libraries to Sab
bath Schools, they should certainly avail themselves of these auxiliary means. But
it is of no little importance that these associations which are engaged in thus pro
viding religious reading should be regarded as merely supplementing the work of
the ministry. The special wants of our seamen should not be overlooked, though
the duty of making provision for their spiritual improvement seems to devolve chiefly
upon the members of our churches on the seaboard. So, too, a class in our own
country that cannot be reached directly by our domestic missionaries may require
special" provision for a time ; and through the same channel efforts may be made
for bringing the gospel to those who dwell in papal countries. The people from
whom the shackles of slavery have just fallen have a claim upon us for the gospel
and the institutions of reUgion and civilization, which we have neither the right nor
the desire to shake, off. As yet but a small portion of that work can be done by
our Home Missionary Society ; but another organization is already doing most effi
cient service, whose antecedents give it the highest confidence of that people.
So far, then, as it belongs to this committee to classify organizations to be recom
mended to the churches, we place first and foremost the two great missionary soci
eties—the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and the
American Home Missionary Society. If the important work of Church-building
could be performed by the latter of these two societies, the churches doubUng con
tributions, it would simplify to that extent our benevolent work. Whatever other
causes are overlooked by any Church, these two should always be remembered.
The cause of education for the ministry has a relation to the missionary work
more intimate than that sustained by any other, and its importance should give it
place in all our churches. In some of the States an educational committee attends
to the work of collecting funds, and in others the American Education Society has
the matter in charge. Surplus funds might well be used, as in some other denom
inations, in establishing permanent scholarships.
As also directly connected with the missionary work, the Society for promoting
Collegiate and Theological Education at the West should be named. Its work in
the past has been most salutary, and through no other channel can Uberal men do
so much to advance in the West the interests of thorough inteUectual culture
under the auspices of religion.
The American Missionary Association is understood to devote its chief — perhaps
its entire — attention to the Freedmen, and the committee take pleasure in referring
to it as the fittest organization for that work.
The American Bible Society is too well known to need any special mention.
Iu regard to contributions for furnishing libraries to destitute Sabbath Schools,
the committee , venture a single suggestion. It is, that a portion, at least, of the
contributions made by the children of our Sabbath Schools should take this direc
tion, or that our churches, when raising funds for replenishing their own libraries,
should at the same time contribute for feeble schools. Suitable books can be pro
cured in many places, though none more suitable nor on better terms than from the
Massachusetts Sabbath School Society.

National Council. 119
Allusion has already been made to the American and Foreign Christian Union,
and to the American Seamen's Friend Society.
Most of the organizations called into existence by the exigencies of the war will
cease with the occasion which called them forth. The work for the Freedmen, how-
ever, must continue ; and, as already suggested, the American Missionary Associa
tion seems to be the most desirable channel through which our churches should
contribute. There are many points to which the attention of the Council might be called, for
the discussion of which the committee have not time. The importance of conduct
ing the benevolent operations of the individual churches in a systematic and busi
ness manner, to which allusion has already been made, cannot be urged too strongly.
The nature of our polity makes this indispensable. While our churches abound
with business-men, it is to be feared that in cases not a few the contributions ar,e
managed with very little reference to business principles. Let it not be forgotten
that benevolent contributions are a means of grace. The individual Christian who
gives is benefited no less than he who receives. All proper means should then be
employed to develop the benevolence of our churches. Among these means none
is more important than the adoption of a well-digested plan, such as is already in
operation in many churches. Suppose each Church should at the beginning of the
year determine to what- causes they will contribute, specifying the months. The
Church, we say, not the pastor, or the pastor and deacons, for the members must be
interested that they may act intelligently. The number of occasional contributions
should be limited, for it is those which are responsible for most of the confusion.
Let as Uttle as possible be left to discretion, and nothing to accident. At the end
of the year let a full report of the contributions be made to the Church, and entered
upon the Church records. Let the appropriate committees, or the deacons, present
the receipts of the treasurers of the societies as the proper evidence that the con
tributions have reached their destination. All other associations make their annual
reports ; why should not our churches ? The members need to know what their
Church has done. In some churches this knowledge is in possession, but not in all.
It is probable that our members know less of the operations of their individual
churches, and less of what is done by the churches of their order throughout the
land, than those of any sister denomination. To whatever cause this may be attrib
uted, it is to be remedied only by systematic effort in the individual Church.
The committee think that those churches which contribute to a regular cause
each month will have no difficulty in completing the cycle each year. But no occa
sional cause should be aUowed to crowd out one of those decided upon by the
Church. Where coUections are taken less frequently, two plans may be adopted.
One is to make contributions singly for the more important objects, and to group
the others, that the list shaU be completed each year. The other contemplates
annual collections for the great causes, and biennial for the others. Each has its
advantages. Where two or more causes are presented at once, and the collection
divided, the impression must be less distinct and definite. The members should
give intelligently, and clear statements should be made by agents or pastors of the
nature and object and workings of every association for which funds are solicited.
The pastors assume too much knowledge of our societies and their operations on
the part of their congregations. They forget that young people are all the while
coming forward, and that men are brought into the Church from the world, with
whointhe American Board even is not a household word. It is our conviction that
a clear, business-like statement of the condition and operations of a society, occu-

120 National Council.
pying ten or fifteen minutes, would be more potent with the men who give the
money than an impassioned appeal of an hour.
In conclusion, the evils of which so much complaint has been made can be reme
died by the pastor and the churches, and by them alone. The adoption of rigid
system as to contributions is indispensable to thetprosperity of every Church. Irre
sponsible agents must be excluded, and churches must decide for themselves to
what they will contribute. Their plans and the manner in which they are executed
should be put on record. The history of the benevolence of a Church is worthy of
preservation. Because money is given for benevolent purposes, it does not follow
that it should be given at random. Perhaps, by virtue of their office, the deacons
should look after these matters ; but if they do not, the minister must. Let him
not fear a little contact with business details. Other things being equal, the more
practical talent he possesses, the greater wUl be his success.
The fleld of benevolence is large and open. A great work is before us. God has
given wealth to our churches, and, to some extent, they acknowledge their steward
ship. What is specially needed is system, both in the individual churches, and in
the benevolent organizations considered as parts of one whole, and as doing a com
mon work : it is needed in the former, that the treasury of the Lord may be kept
always full ; in the latter, that from every expenditure the best results may flow.
ISRAEL W. ANDREWS, )
RAY PALMER, [ Committee.
HENRY E. PARKER, )
Boston, June 14, 1865.
It was accepted, and reference ordered to a special committee.
Adjourned to 3 P. M.
Monday, 3, P. M.
Second Assistant Moderator, Rev. J. P. Thompson, D. D., in the chair.
The foUowing Report of the Committee appointed by the CouncU to consider the
Relation of CongregationaUsm to Foreign Missions was read by Rev. W. I.
Budington, D. D., chairman : —

EVANGELIZATION IN FOREIGN LANDS.
The Committee appointed by the Council upon the work of EvangeUzation in
Foreign Lands submit the following report : —
As Congregationalists we are not only committed to the prosecution of Foreign
Missions, but our place is that of pioneers in the enterprise. We have taken the
lead of all the denominations in our land in the origination of agencies, and the
contribution of men and means. The American Board of Commissioners for For
eign Missions is the child of the CongregationaUsts of NewEngland ; and although
instituted in the comprehensive spirit of catholic Christianity, and common to us
with the Presbyterians, and formerly with the Reformed Dutch Church, it has aU
along been the favorite of our people ; and there is no distinction which we cherish
more fondly than this of having originated and been foremost in sustaining Amer
ican missions to the heathen. New England was at the outset a mission. Our
fathers came here on this distinct errand, as professedly and as really to preach the
gospel to the Indians, and to extend the Redeemer's kingdom, as to make new homes

National Council. 121
for themselves, train up their children for God, and lay the foundations of a Chris
tian State. CongregationaUsts, therefore, come legitimately by their zeal for for
eign missions. We should be unworthy of, our ancestry, and recreant to the trust
we have received from them, if we should make the commandment of Christ to
preach the gospel to every creature secondary to any other duty or interest. Es
peciaUy incumbent is this declaration upon this First National Congregational Coun
cil; and not the less because we are assembled at a solemn juncture of our coun
try's history to enter afresh upon the work of Home Missions, and adjust ourselves
to the new openings the war has made for the establishment of free churches and
a free gospel in the South. We are planning and praying for the enfranchisement
and regeneration of our country : but we do not stop with this ; we wish to give
our country to Christ, that through it the world may be the more speedily redeemed.
A patriotism that ends in coldness or antagonism towards the rest of mankind is
selfishness and crime. Our country, its reconstruction and evangelization, is just
now our first soUcitude ; but so far from separating the home field from the foreign,
we beUeve them to be one and indissoluble, and it is only as we are loyal to Christ
that we can hope that he wUl be propitious to us.
Your committee therefore recommend that the Council, as representatives of the
churches, do testify their deep sense of the importance of Foreign Missions, and
their unabated devotion to the prosecution of the enterprise. We need it for our
selves. The work will die at home, if it languish abroad. It is the sign of our fel
lowship with Christ. It is the condition of his blessing. We need it in every sense,
and for every reason. Our piety needs it. It is the purest form of benevolence on
earth ; and it sustains and intones every other form of benevolence in Church or
State. If we withhold from the heathen, God wiU withhold from us. If we keep
back our sons and daughters from the remotest people for whom Christ died, the
spirit wUl be wanting in them for the service of God in this our dearest country.
For every true missionary of the cross who has died on the foreign field, God has
poured the spirit of consecration into the hearts of our youth at home ; and we
have been the richer in spirit and material for every such loss. We cannot afford
to shut off this source of supply, now that we are entering a wider and more desti
tute field of missionary effort than was ever open to a Christian people before, and
we need resources of men and money which' nothing short of the Spirit of Christ in
the best ages of missionary zeal can impart. For ourselves, then, and the work of
home evangelization, we must cultivate the missionary spirit, and bound our sym
pathies only where Christ bounded his.
Besides this, God has so greatly blessed us, given us 3uch success in regions so
wide and inviting, so many populations are looking to us for the gospel, and by
the tacit consent of Protestant Christians are left to us, and made dependent upon
us, that we are beholden of God to prosecute the work. No branch of the Church
has missions relatively more important to the evangeUzation of the world than ours.
Some of the most interesting peoples, and when converted the most influential, are
ours to labor for, and by the blessing of God redeem. No missionaries from any
land, in any part of the world, have won a more enviable name than the Congrega
tional and Presbyterian missionaries connected with the American Board; nor has
reater success been vouchsafed to any laborers than to them. The Turkish Empire
is open to us as to no other nation, and the decayed Oriental churches are receiving
almost entirely the gospel at our hands. And it is a pure gospel. The churches
gathered among the Armenians are as worthy of confidence as those gathered
by the Apostles, and by the blessing of God may be made as efficient in spreading

122 National Council.
the truth. In India we have a wide and most important field among the Mah-
ratta, and Tamil races. In Northern China the openings are more numerous than
we can enter. In South Africa we have a limited but interesting field ; and Western
Africa affords to us one well fitted to call forth the energies and educate the Chris
tian zeal of the Freedmen of our country, and it seems to have been held in reserve
for us by God to meet the wants of our colored people, and assist in their develop
ment. Africa and America, whose destinies have been so strangely blended in the
past, are to react upon each other in blessings that shall efface the memory of the
wrongs and cruelties of the age of slavery. As to the islands in the ocean world,
it is enough for us to point to the Hawaiian peoples whom our missions have given
to the community of nations ; and though they are in a transition state from depend
ence upon missionaries to a condition of self-support, we must defend them from
invasion and injury by others tUl they shall be able to preserve, by their own intel
ligence, the free institutions we have given them. And there is also the Micronesian
mission, a most hopeful enterprise, an off-shoot of Hawauan zeal, and doubly
precious to us, as a seal of the true Christianity of those recently regenerated
islands. How intimately, therefore, are we related by past labors and present com
mitments to the whole world of mankind, and how much is the speed and thorough
ness of the world's evangelization dependent upon the continued activities of
Congregational Christians ! We cannot, if we would, disengage ourselves from
the work ; we would not, if we could. WM. IVES BUDINGTON,")
ZACHARY EDDY,
C. C. PARKER, J- Committee.
BENJAMIN DOUGLAS,
WILLIAM CARTER,
This report was accepted and adopted.
It was ordered, That the Committee on the RoU be instructed to report the names
of those members only who furnish a list of the churches that actuaUy participated
in the vote by which they were chosen.
The following resolution was presented; viz.,
Resolved, That the committee to whom the report on Home Evangelization was referred
consider the expediency of organizing some system of benevolent effort, by which, in those
regions of the country where the education of the whole population is not provided for by
law, teachers may be sent forth in company with the missionaries, and schools be established
wherever churches are gathered.
It was voted, That this be accepted and referred, as desired.
The foUowing resolution was accepted, and referred to the Committee on Home
Evangelization; viz.,
Whereas, AU true principles of civil and religious freedom have originated from the Bible,
and can be established and maintained only by the general circulation of the Word of God
through all the channels of popular education, whether in the school or in the sanctuary :
therefore Resolved, That we honor the wisdom as well as piety of our Puritan Fathers in ordering
the daily use of the Bible in the schools established for the education of the people.
That we regret any departure from this time-hallowed usage, as destroying the
life-giving power of popular education, which has no true basis but in those great principles
of human brotherhood and equality taught alone in the Holy Scriptures.
That in our efforts to promote the education of the people, and to train up our
intelligent, patriotic, and Christian community, understanding their rights and duties, and

National Council. 123
prepared to carry out the great mission of freedom and religion opening before this, nation,
we pledge ourselves, to maintain the right of the "Word of God to a place in the schools as in
the sanctuary, and to resist steadfastly any and every encroachment on that wise provision
of our fathers which carried the Bible into the daily education of the people.
A further, resolution was presented, as follows :
Resolved, That, in the gathering of new churches in the "West and South, the National
Council recommend that only those essential doctrines of the gospel, in which evangelical
Christians generally are agreed should be made a condition of Church fellowship.
The resolution was accepted, and referred to the Committee on the Declaration
of Faith.
The foUowing question was proposed for the action of the Council, viz. :
Is it according to Congregational principles for a minister, who is not a pastor, to
represent a Church in an ecclesiastical CouncU ?
Accepted, and referred to the Committee on " Church PoUty."
His ExceUency Governor Andrew came in, and was welcomed by Rev. Dr.
Thompson in the name of the Council, and made fitting reply.
The foUowing resolution was introduced, viz. :
Resolved, That a committee be appointed to consider, and if they deem expedient to
report, upon the relations and duties of our denomination in reference to religious tracts and
books. Accepted, and referred to a special committee of three.
' Rev. Dr. Thompson read a letter of address to the Council from the Free Evan
geUcal Churches of Italy. Rev. Dr. Wolcott also read a letter bearing upon the
Waldenses, as foUows :
The Synod of the Waldensian Church of Italy to the Christians of the United States.
Brethren in Christ : — The Synod of the Waldensian Church, lately assem
bled for its annual session atfSan Giovanni, Piedmont, has felt it behooved it, as a
Christian body, to record in their acts their sympathy for you in the loss you have
sustained by the death of your late President, and has directed me to convey to
you, in writing, an expression of their feelings.
Need we say, brethren, with what horror we received the news of the atrocious
murder which deprived your nation of its chief magistrate ?
We had watched the course of that great and good man ; we had seen him, raised,
in the providence of God, to be the Uberator of an oppressed race, and, after years
of war, preparing to be the pacificator of his country, as fuU of clemency in the
hour of the triumph of his cause as he had been steady in carrying on the deadly
struggle. We were rejoicing with him and with you that at last peace was dawn
ing again on your country, when suddenly we were called to mourn and weep with
you. May God sustain you in this national bereavement, and make aU your afflictions
fruitful of good for your people !
As to Abrahan Lincoln, he neither lived nor died in vain. A Christian Ufe like
his, humbly devoted to the right and to humanity, made great by great and good
deeds, and crowned with a martyr's crown, adds to the moral wealth of mankind, is
an immortal honor to your nation, and an evidence of the truth and power of our
common faith, such as no words could ever give.
By order and in the name of the Waldensian Synod. LEON PILATTY, the President.
May, 1865.

124 National Council.
The letter was ordered to be referred to a special committee.
The Nominating Committee presented the following for the Committee on the
subject of Ministerial Support, who were appointed :
Hon. E. D. Holton, Wisconsin ; Rev. H. Elmer, Michigan ; Rev. E. N. Lewis,
IlUnois; M. S. Scudder, Esq., Massachusetts; Dea. Selden M. Pratt, Connecticut;
Rev. W. Salter, D. D., Iowa ; D. S. Williams, Esq., New York.
Also for the Committee on systematizing Benevolent Contributions, the following,
who were appointed, viz. :
Rev. W. A. Stearns, D. D., Massachusetts ; Rev. J. H. Linsley, D. D., Connecticut ;
Rev. Wooster Parker, Maine ; Rev. J. Butler, New York ; Rev. C. B. Cady, Ver
mont ; Martin Wright, Esq., Illinois ; Rev. H. A. Miner, Wisconsin.
Rev. A. H. Quint reported from the committee to whom was referred the com
munication from the Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Ministers, as
foUows : \
REPORT.
The committee to whom was referred a communication from the Massachusetts
Convention of Congregational Ministers respectfully report as foUows :
" The Massachusetts Convention of Congregational Ministers " requests this
Council " to use such language in their proceedings as a Trinitarian Congregational
Council as shall recognize the fact that there are Unitarian and other Congrega
tional churches in this Commonwealth." In addition to this communication there
has appeared in the public prints, though not laid before this body, a protest
against the terms of the call for the assembling of this CouncU, as imperUling inter
ests valuable to the members of a body styled a " Ministerial Conference " in whose
behalf it is signed. The eminent standing and character of the persons who sin
cerely feel that a real grievance would be occasioned by. the course against which
they protest, as well as the respect due to the denomination which this Council rep
resents, requires a just and deliberate avowal of the grounds upon which we use
the title of " Congregational Churches of the United States."
Our denomination is the same with that of the flrst churches of New England.
We trace back our lineage in an uninterrupted Une to that period. The same
fellowship has been perpetuated, based upon a particular system of doctrines and
poUty, to which we now hold. The denomination which we represent has thus
had a distinct and recognized existence, as clear as history can make any historical
fact, by all requisite limitations and declarations.
This denomination has always had the distinctive name of " Congregational
churches." It is needless to quote authorities ; for, from the days of John Cotton, the name
Congregational was used to designate a particular denomination, of a faith well
defined and now unchanged, as well as a peculiar poUty. Nor did any others, so
far as we can learn, though holding the same poUty, assume that name whUe not
belonging to this denomination. This distinctive denominational name is stiU our
heritage from the Fathers.
It is true that some other churches now hold the same polity, in a greater or less
degree of strictness, while differing from us in points of doctrine. In addition to
some Unitarian churches, Baptists, Free- WUl Baptists, and UniversaUsts, hold sim
ilar views of Church polity. But it is an historical fact, that in America these denom
inations came into existence after the denomination which" we represent had acquired
an undisputed right to the title which we stiU hold.

National Council. 125
Some of the churches formerly in our denomination became separated from it
early in the present century, by reasons of convictions which led them to renounce
the doctrinal principles which were and are essential to the fellowship of this
denomination, as declared by our platforms, and established by uninterrupted prac
tice from the days of our fathers. But the separation of a section in Massachu
setts, where its chief strength lay, which, in 1820, numbered, so far as can be
learned, but, a small portion of the churches of the denomination, does not, it seems
to us, deprive the old and recognized denomination of its ancestral name. That
some separating churches may retain the same kind of government does not affect
the fact that they do not belong to the denomination which has always kept its
distinctive title. Nor does such a secession or separation render it at all necessary
that the denomination should either give up its old name, or add any distinctive
prefix. When the Wesleyans left the Church of England, the latter was not called
upon to modify its title. When the Protestant Methodists separated from the
Methodist Episcopal Church, that Church took no new name. When several bodies
of Presbyterians were separated from the Presbyterian Church in the United
States, that body retained unquestioned its old designation, although the seceding
bodies held the same views of Church poUty. The separating portion might weU
adopt a new title ; but the denomination remaining needed no change, nor could
any be rightfully demanded.
We find it also to be a fact, that the churches in whose behalf complaint is made,
have, as a denomination, deliberately adopted a new title. In their official capacity,
a recent convention, representing the Unitarian churches, wholly ignored the term
Congregational, and, as " Christian churches of the Unitarian faith," organized a per
manent body styled " The National Conference of Unitarian Churches." It is thus
evident that there can be no conflict whatever to cause confusion or misunderstanding
between the two denominations.
We are also unable to find that the Unitarian churches require adherence to the
Congregational platform as"a condition of denominational fellowship. Many of
their churches are said to be Independent, not Congregational, in some places
Church organizations have been utterly abandoned, as seems to have been recog
nized in the call for their recent convention, which asked delegates from societies
as well as churches.
While stating that as a denomination we hold a denominational name to which
no other lays claim, and which the parties complaining do* not assert belongs to
any other denomination, we are far from denying that there are other particular
churches which maintain the same polity with ourselves. This fact was distinctly
recognized in the call under which this Council is assembled. That call was
addressed to " those Congregational . churches in the United States which are in
recognized fellowship and cooperation through the general associations, conferences,
or conve ntions, in the several States." How far this may extend, it is clear that
it recognizes that there are Congregational churches other than these. We do not
see how any doubt could exist as to what churches were intended. It would be
idle to say that any churches are in recognized feUowship through the Massachu
setts Convention of Congregational Ministers. Indeed, the fact that only those of
our denomination have appeared shows that the call was sufficiently understood.
We see no reason, therefore, why we should prefix the term Trinitarian to the
name of our denomination. We are no more Trinitarian than we are Unitarian.
If we prefix Trinitarian to distinguish us from Unitarians and Universalists, we
must take some other prefixes to distinguish .us , from Baptists and Free- Will
Baptists. We see no need of either.

126 National Council.
But inasmuch as it appears that spme of those who protest, have particularly in
view a fear lest, if they adhere to the name of their denomination as recently offi
cially promulgated, and we adhere to the name of ours, some rights of theirs to
property, held under the name of Congregational, may be jeopardized, we do now
declare that we should deem it dishonorable and unchristian to interfere with any
of their present rights to funds or other property under whatever name their hold
ers act, or to attempt to pervert funds given for one kind of religious doctrine to
the use of another, whether in colleges, churches, or other bodies. And we dis
tinctly put on record, that, from our retaining our old name of " Congregational,"
without any modification or prefix — as we intend to do — there should be no infer
ence whatever drawn to the legal prejudice of anybodies not in our feUowship, as
to any funds or other property to which those bodies lay claim.
We are happy to know that so many of these churches still retain the old poUty.
And whenever their convictions of duty will aUow them to stand on the old plat
form of faith, of their and our fathers, gladly will we feel that we are one again.
Respectfully submitted. ALONZO H. QUINT, )
W. T. EUSTIS, JR., C Committee.
ASA FREEMAN, )
The report was accepted and adopted as the deUverance of this CouncU, and a
copy ordered to be sent to the Massachusetts Convention.
The foUowing resolution was presented by the committee to whom the subject
had been referred, and laid on the table until to-morrow, viz. : '
Resolved, That the Trustees of the American Congregational Union be advised and
requested to take into consideration the importance of a well-sustained Congregational
Church in the city of "Washington, D. C, and having ascertained what facilities there are
for the establishment of such a Church, and what aid will be necessary, to institute arrange
ments, according to their best judgment and discretion, forfcuilding or purchasing a suitable
edifice in the national capital, in which a Congregational Church may maintain the preach
ing of the gospel and the public worship of God.
Rev. Dr. Post, of Missouri, from the Committee on the State of the Country,
made report as foUows :
Whereas, In the beginnings of our national history, the God of our fathers brought them
the confessors of civil a*d religious liberty to these shores, and gave to them to plant the
germs of a free, Christian civilization for a new world ; and
Whereas, After the lapse of more than two centuries, during which that civilization has
extended over vast regions, and to the shores of the Western ocean ; and at the close of a
terrible civil war, we, the representatives of churches adhering to the religious faith and
order of those fathers, and witnesses in our times of the marvellous judgments and deliver
ances of God, have been gathered by his hand, from the breadth of a continent, to this cradle
of our national life, as a national ecclesiastical council, in a crisis of sqlemn moment for the
future of our country and the kingom of God : we, therefore, feel it befitting the capacity in
¦ which we are assembled, and the hour in which we stand, to make the following utterances
in regard to our country in this juncture of its history.
First of all, humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God in contrite acknowledg
ment of the righteousness of his awful judgments afflicting our entire people, we yet record
our grateful trust in his infinite mercy and everlasting truth, and we do in his presence this
day, thus
Resolve, First, That for the deliverance of our nation from the insurgent and anarchical
power that treacherously and remorselessly sought its life ; for the preservation of our Union
and of the integrity of our territory ; for the triumph of right over wrong, of liberty over
slavery, and of lawful government over usurpation ; for the redemption — though at a terri-

National Council. 127
hie cost — of our country from the curse of slavery, and for the emancipation of four millions
of our fellow-men from bondage ; for the faith' and hope, the intrepidity and endurance,
given to our people in the days of calamity ; for their patient and unstinted sacrifice of blood
and treasure for the right, and their unwearied labor and liberality in works of Christian
sympathy and beneficence ; and for the final, crowning victory granted to our arms ; we do
this day ascribe praise and glory to the Lord of hosts. "We also render thanks to the Lord
that he has given to the members of our government— administrative and legislative — a
faith that has never despaired of the Republic, and a patience, Courage, and sagacity that
have not only triumphantly upborne us in the agonism of this rebellion, but guided us safely
through complications threatening us with foreign war.
We offer thanks to our brave defenders, by land and sea, whose heroism has, through the
hand of the Lord, achieved for us the victory ; and we invoke for them, living or lying with
the glorious dead, the love and honor, and, for the widows and orphans of those who have
fallen, the generous protection and fostering care, of a grateful people, and we regard the
rendering of this in the light of a most sacred1 debt of the Republic.
Resolved, That we profoundly sympathize with the grief and horror of the nation at the
assassination of its late beloved Chief Magistrate; Abraham Lincoln, and with that senti
ment of our countrymen and of the civilized world which now places him among the fore
most in the ranks of the martyrs for liberty and humanity in the history of mankind.
Resolved, That we extend to his honored successor, President Andrew Johnson, assur
ances of our earnest sympathy and hearty co-operation in the momentous and arduous Work
devolved on him, by God, of the restoration of order and tranquillity to the country after the
shock and ruin of this war, and of reconstruction, where needed, on the eternal principles
of truth, liberty, and justice ; and of so closing up the bloody gulf of this rebellion that
neither treason nor ambition shall ever re-open it.
Resolved, That we regard rebellion against a government so just, benign, and beneficent
as ours ; so incorporate with the essential rights of man and the hopes of human liberty ; so
created and administered by the people for themselves, and sheltering a prosperity so vast
and so brilliant ; as a crime transcending the enormity of treason recorded in the history of
other countries, or of conspiracy against other forms of political order ; as a crime against
freedom, civilization, and human nature itself; and we feel that it is due from our govern
ment in its final adjudication upon this highest of crimes, that, while blending mercy with
justice, it shall so deal with treason that the sense of its guiltiness be not impaired, and that
of the majesty of law and the divine sanction of legitimate government be sustained in the
mind of the nation.
Resolved, That wrongs committed against our people and our soldiers, beyond the measure
of the laws of waar, — such as assassination, arson, introduction of pestilence, the massacre
of captives, and the deliberate and systematic slow murder of tens of thousands of prisoners
by exposure and starvation, — are crimes that can find no shelter under the pretext of being
"political offences," and are beyond the pale of amnesties, challenging upon their authors,
whenever and wherever lawfully convicted, justice from our own government as well as the
wrath of Heaven.
Resolved, That we regard the late civil war as the judgment of Heaven upon slavery, and
upon a nation in complicity with its mighty wrongs ; a judgment punishing our practical
infraction of our social and political life-principles, and demonstrating that such infraction
is national suicide.
Resolved That justice, honor, the maintenance of loyal control in the lately revolted States,
and the safety of the nation, and gratitude for their eminent military and other services
rendered during the war, imperatively require that we deal in a spirit of Christian sympa
thy and charityrand'of a generous humanity, with a race held by this, people two hundred
years in bondage, and now thrust upon the perils and trials of new liberty ; and that we see
to it that they be protected and fortified in their new status by intellectual and religious
culture and the rights of the elective franchise, and all the privilege of freemen.
Resolved That while we hail with gratitude the fact, that, by the removal of slavery, and
the social and ecclesiastical conditions allied with it, vast regions are newly opened to a pure
and free gospel we, moreover, believe that by this war the mind of the nation at large,
having been stirred to its depths by passion and'suffering and the manifest tokens of a pres
ent God and a divine government in human affairs, has been thereby prepared for profounder
convictions of Christian truth, and larger effusions of the Holy Spirit, and for a vaster reli
gious movement than in the past.

128

National Council

Resolved, That we also at the same time recognize with solicitude the hazard, that from
the disturbance or dissolution of old order, and from the shock given to former habitudes
and ideas, and from new practices and modes of thought and feeling generated by the war,
conditions of the popular mind may arise, that, unless illumined and restrained and guided
by education and Christian truth, may project us upon courses wild, revolutionary, and
ruinous. Resolved, therefore, That, in view of the above facts, we regard the present as a crisis in
this nation's life, demanding the immediate appliance of the most effective means of educa
tion and evangelization in our power, and that amid the agencies, creative and organic of
social and political reconstruction on the eternal foundations of Eight, and Liberty, and
Truth, we regard as most effective and beneficent the religious Faith and Order of our Fore
fathers — agencies primordial to our national life, and approved in history as the most pow=
erful of vitalizing and conservative forces ; and we therefore deem it as due to the perpetuity
of our national well-being, that the churches which inherit that Faith and Order should
endeavor to diffuse them throughout the extent of our country, and especially to those
sections now in social and political ruin.
Resolved, That we who are now placed on this height of history, and who have been per
mitted to behold great and terrible things which our fathers have not seen, having emerged
from the stormy deeps of a civil war, and standing on the verge of a vast and mysterious
continent of the future, do this day lift the psalm of thanksgiving where our fathers lifted it,
mingling, as did theirs, with the roar of the Atlantic surge, to Him that sitteth King and
Lord forevermore ; and we commit our beloved country to him in humble prayer, that as
he has been the God of our fathers, so he will be our God and the God of our children and
our children's children — even till above our national starry emblem shall be seen in heaven
the sign of the second coming of the Son of man.
Signed, T. M. POST,
SETH MAY,
JAMES D. BELL,
A. C. BARSTOW,
DUDLEY R. WHEELER,
HENRY MORRIS,
O. E. DAGGETT,
J. M. HOLMES,
EDWARD HAWES,
ABNER H. BRYANT,
EDWIN JOHNSON,
J. A. THOME, \ Committee.
J. C. "WEBSTER,
A. FISH,
E. D. HOLTON,
A. B. ROBBINS,
CHARLES SECCOMB,
S. C. POMEROY,
E. M. LEWIS,
L. P. FISHER,
GEO. H. ATKINSON,
W". W. CRAWFORD,
MILAN HARRIS,
This report was accepted, and enthusiasticaUy adopted by a rising vote, and was
followed by prayer by the Rev. Dr. Kirk, of Massachusetts.
The Business Committee reported a recommendation that speakers be not aUowed
to exceed twelve minutes each, which was adopted.
An invitation was received from Doctor Timothy Gordon, a trustee of the PUgrim
Society, which was accepted by the Council, to visit Pilgrim Hall, on the contemplated
excursion to Plymouth.
The Committee on Nomination reported the following to be the Committee on

National Council. 129
" Books and Tracts," etc. : viz., Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, New York ; Rev. L. Bacon,
D. D., Connecticut; Lowell Mason, Jr., Esq., New York; Rev. Jacob Ide, D. D.,
Massachusetts; Timothy Dwight, Esq., Wisconsin; and they were made that
committee. Also for the committee to consider and report on the Letter from Italy : Rev. E.
N. Kirk, D. D., Massachusetts; Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, D. D., Illinois; Rev. E.
Beecher, D. D., Illinois.
The following resolution, presented by Rev. R. Anderson, D. D., was accepted;
and ordered to be referred to a special committee ; viz.,
Resolved, That the National Congregational Council are pleased to learn that the American
Congregational Association has undertaken to erect a Congregational House in the city of
Boston, as a suitable memorial of the present meeting, which shall serve as a secure reposi
tory for our Congregational literature in » national library ; as a place of resort for our
brethren coming to this ancient home of the denomination, and of the fathers ; and also as a
convenient center for operations designed to promote a knowledge of our principles and
polity, and the unity and fellowship of our churches throughout the land. And while this
object, involving an outlay of one hundred thousand dollars, is commended first of all to the
enterprising citizens of Boston and vicinity, with whom it originated, it is also cordially
commended to the liberal co-operation of our churches throughout the land.
. The resolution in regard to a Congregational Church in Washington was taken
from the table, and referred to the Committee on Church-building.
After singing the doxology, the CouncU adjourned to to-morrow morning at 9
o'clock. Sixth Day ; Tuesday, June 20, 9 A. M.
CouncU was opened with prayer by the Moderator, Governor W. A^Buckingham.
The minutes of yesterday's sessions were read, amended, and approved.
Rev. Dr. Post, of Missouri, from the Committee on the State of the Country,
presented some additional resolutions ; which were recommitted to the same com
mittee, with the addition of Rev. Mr. Bliss, of Tennessee, to the' committee.
Deacon Charles Stoddard, of Massachusetts, from the Committee on Finance,
made a partial report, which was referred to a special committee, constituted as
foUows :
Hon. C. G. Hammond, of Illinois; Hon. A. C. Barstow, of Rhode Island ; Asahel
Finch, Esq., of Wisconsin; D. S. Williams, Esq., of New York; Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher, of New York ; H. P. Haven, Esq., of Connecticut ; Samuel Williston, Esq.,
of Massachusetts ; Samuel Holmes, Esq., of New York ; DOuglas Putnam, Esq., of
Ohio; Dea. S. S. Barnard, of Michigan; Simon Page, Esq., of Maine; Rev. S. G.
Buckingham, of Massachusetts; Philo Carpenter, Esq., of Illinois.
The Committee of Nomination nominated the following to be the special com
mittee appointed to consider the resolution on the proposed " Congregational
House " in the city of Boston, who were so appointed, viz. :
Rev C Cashing, of Massachusetts; Rev. E. Davis, D. D., of Massachusetts ;
Rev. Ezekiel Russell, D. D., of Massachusetts ; Dea. John Smith, of Massachusetts ;
Rev. S. D. Cochran, of Iowa ; Rev. S. G. Wright, of Illinois; Hon. Walter Booth,
of Connecticut.
The following resolution was introduced, viz. :
Resolved That a committee of three be appointed to present to President Johnson the reso-
luttns yesterday adopted on the state of the country, espedally those portrons relating to
the punishment of traitors and to universal suffrage.

130 National Council.
The resolution was amended by striking out all after the word " country," and
adopted. The following resolution was presented also by the committee, viz. :
Resolved, That the committee appointed by this Council to consider the evil of intemper
ance be also requested to consider its twin vice, the improper use of tobacco, particularly by
ministers and Church members. And in case the said committee shall decide to bring in a
report, or testimony against the former evil, they are hereby instructed to bring in, at the
same time, some suitable report or testimony against the latter.
Referred to the Committee on Temperance without instructions.
The Committee on the State of the Country reported, by Rev. Mr. BUss, some
additional resolutions, as follows :
Resolved, That we extend to the inhabitants of the late revolted. States who have been
snared into this rebellion through ignorance, surprise, or overbearing violence of public sen
timent, or forced by the power of a merciless conscription, our sympathy and commiseration,
and our readiness, after a suitable time has elapsed, to welcome them, on satisfactory evi
dence of loyalty, to civil fellowship and fraternity under the old flag.
Resolved, That those who have maintained steadfast loyalty amid general treason and
revolt, undaunted by popular rage or despotic violence, braving, in the cause of the country,
the terrors of imprisonment, torture, robbery, and starvation, and of death itself, rank amid
the noblest heroes and martyrs of this war, and deserve lasting honor and gratitude.
Resolved, That the heroic devotion and self-sacrifice of the loyal women of the country
during this war will ever be gratefully remembered as having been of vital efficacy to the
triumph of our cause, and will excite the admiration of history as examples of moral beauty
and sublimity unsurpassed in human story.
These resolutions were adopted.
The committee to whom was referred the paper on the " Evangelization of the
West and South," reported, by Rev. Dr. Dutton, of Connecticut, as foUows : —
REPORT.
The committee, to whom was referred the Report on EvangeUzation in the West
and South would state to the Council that we have carefully examined that Report,
and have heard many communications from persons specially acquainted with the
West and South which confirm and illustrate its positions and reasonings. We
commend that Report as comprehensive, thorough, and able, and move that it be
adopted by the Council.
We see no necessity of using the precious time of the CouncU by adding to the
facts and arguments presented in the Report. We would only bring them to a
practical issue, by deriving from them, and presenting for adoption by the Council,
certain definite recommendations to the churches. We propose, therefore, the fol
lowing result, viz. :
This National Council, in view of the vast and promising fields of evangelical
labor opened by the rapid growth of our country toward the West, the North-west,
and on the borders of the Pacific Ocean, especially in the mining regions, and
opened also by the sublime and awful yet blessed providence of God in subduing
rebellion, and giving their rightful liberty to four milUons of bondmen, fields of
labor, requiring for their proper culture, and requiring immediately, a large increase
of laborers, and of funds for their support, do recommend to the churches of
Christ whom they represent —
First of all, that they seek a large measure of the Holy Spirit, to inspire them
with the zeal and faith, the courage and self-denial, necessary to make them wilUng
and happy to give all the men and all the money needed to meet this extraordinary
and critical exigency of the kingdom of Christ in our land.

National Council. 131
Then to the organizations which, in the grace and providence of God, these
churches have ready and well fitted to this work, the Council recommend that they
devise liberal things : To the American Home Missionary Society, which, accord
ing to its constitution, aids feeble churches in sustaining the administration of the
gospel, and sends the gospel to the destitute in whatever circumstances found,
and by itinerant as weU as local preachers, and which, from its beginning many
years since, has performed its work with wisdom and fidelity that deserve universal
gratitude and honor, $300,000 during the year. To the American Missionary
Association, which, by its past fideUty to the rights and spiritual interests of the
negro race, and by its evangelical character and comprehensive plans and labors
for the education and reUgious instruction of the Freedmen, is providentially pre
pared for the great work of their evangelization so suddenly thrown upon the
Christian people of the h%nd, $250,000 the present year.
And since there are some places in the country, and especially in that part of
the country which has just been delivered from the curse of bondage, and has
been impoverished by the war unsuccessfuUy waged in behalf of bondage, where
churches of central influence and of the Congregational polity, that has no guilty
impUcation with slavery to be remembered against it, might at once be prosperously
established if suitable houses of religious worship and instruction were built, we
recommend that a special fund of $200,000 be raised by the American Congrega
tional Union, and expended under its direction for the building of sanctuaries in
such places.
And because of the great importance of occupying such places at once with
preachers and pastors of experience as well as ability, we recommend that churches
at the North should exercise in some instances the self-denial of relinquishing for
that purpose their chosen and beloved ministers, if not permanently, at least for a
time. In view, also, of the ignorance of the great body of the poor whites of the South,
who at present form the chief constituency there, according to the precedents of
Virginia, North Carolina, and Mississippi, we recommend the, plans of the Ameri
can Union Commission for a universal common-school education, and for a wholesome
emigration from the Northern States, with a view to the industrial improvement of
society, as worthy the encouragement and support of all Christians and patriots.
But the pecuniary want of the present exigency is not the greatest, nor the most
difficult to be supplied. To meet the extraordinary call which is now made from
these various fields for preachers of the gospel, and which must be met at once or
much will be lost for the country and for Christ, are required (it is not, extravagant
to say) ten times as many as are now offered by the ordinary process of education
for the Christian ministry. The Council therefore recommend that while the.
churches and ministry do not abate anything from their zeal and effort for thor
ough and accomplished theological education, but rather add thereto, and while
they use aU proper urgency with Christian young men to prepare for the ministry
by a thorough or partial course in our theological seminaries, they also commend
to the proper ecclesiastical bodies the consideration of the expediency of approving,
and if necessary of ordaining with such conditions as they may deem best, laymen
residing within their limits whom God has endowed with gifts and grace. And the
Council do earnestly invite such Christian laymen to hear the voice of the Lord,
and enter into this work.
And because of the woful need of inteUigent preachers among the Freedmen, the
Council recommend to the Churches the speedy establishment at the South of an
institution for the training, by a short course, of colored ministers.

132 National Council.
Moreover, this Council, while they exhort to the culture and practice of that
enlarged catholicity which is according to the nature and habit of Congregational
ism, they do also exhort to watchful and thorough fidelity to the Church-polity and
faith of the New-England Fathers, preeminent, as they believe them to be, in their
accordance with Scriptural principles and primitive practice, and in their harmony
with republicanism in the State ; and they would urge that that polity and faith be
promoted and extended by all honorable and Christian means, and by no other
means. These recommendations, this Council, under a solemn sense of their responsibility
to God, send to the Churches whom they represent, beseeching them, and not only
them, but all patriotic, philanthropic people in the congregations connected with
them, by, the love they bear to their country. ;¦ by their gratitude to God for its
recent great and signal deliverance, by their sense of justice to four mUlions of
their fellow-men divinely restored to their natural rights, and by their love to
Christ, who has called them into his kingdom, that they might cooperate with him
in seeking and saving the lost, that they enlarge their minds and hearts and labors
to a thorough and glorious obedience to the commands of his word and his
providence. In behalf of the Committtee,
S. W. S. DUTTON,
SAMUEL WILLISTON,
BENJ. P. STONE,
L. H. PARKER,
D. CLARY,
F. O. PARRISH,
J. GUERNSEY,
W. CRAWFORD,
J. BACON,
GEO. H. ATKINSON.
The report was accepted.
The report of the committee to whom was referred the paper on Church Building
was read by Rev. S. G. Buckingham, chairman, as foUows : — ¦
REPORT.
The plan adopted by the Albany Convention in 1852 to aid feeble churches in
building houses of worship, was regarded, at the time, as not the least important
result of their deliberations. But the Wisdom of this plan could never have been
comprehended as it now is, after it has been in operation for thirteen years, and
the results are gathered up as they are in the report before us. It has furnished so
many churches with sanctuaries ; it has been such an efficient aid to home missions ;
it has proved itself such an economical form of benevolence 5 it has done so much
to promote revivals of religion ; it has so spread the faith and Church poUty of
the Puritans ; and so stimulated other denominations to take up and prosecute the
same Christian work; that we shall never cease to bless God for the wisdom that
conceived of such a plan, and the faith and enterprise and UberaUty that undertook
to put it into operation.
But the demand which existed for such Christian work then has greatly increased
since that time. Emigration is flowing westward as fast as ever, while that waU
of exclusion which shut it out from the South and the South-west is broken down,

National Council. 133
and it is likely to overflow and fertilize all that region also. And every considera
tion that ever urged us to engage in this work does so now, and with increased
force. For if it was ever worth while to build sanctuaries for feeble churches, it
still is ; and there never were half so many that needed to be built as are likely to
be called for hereafter. We must therefore assume the duty that is laid upon us,
and prosecute the work with becoming vigor. The altered condition of the country
may require some modification of our plan and mode of working, but the work is
essentiaUy the same, and the duty more imperative than ever.
Your Committee on " Evangelization in the South and West " call attention to such
cities and larger towns as Baltimore, and Washington, and Richmond, and Norfolk,
and Wilmington, and Cairo, and Memphis, and New Orleans, and regard them as
coming within the scope of this enterprise. As centers of population and influence,
they very properly represent them as "strategic points "in our moral warfare,
and recommend that no time be lost in taking possession of them in the name of
our Great Captain. The wisdom of this recommendation must commend itself to
aU. But it is equally apparent, that appropriations to churches at such points, to
be of any value, must be very much larger than any that have hitherto been made.
Instead of three or five or seven hundred dollars, it wiU require some thousands to
secure the erection of a house of worship in such a position, and this will be doing
no more for them than the former sum has accomplished for a Church in some
Uttle village. In the mining region, also, where the expense of building is so great,
appropriations must be made on an increased scale of liberality to accomplish the
desired object. This, however, will require vastly more of funds than we have
hitherto raised for any such purpose, and also require some modification of our
mode of raising funds, as weU as of our scale of expenditure.
We do not regard any new agency as needed to take charge of this work. The Con
gregational Union, to which it has hitherto been assigned, has labored most assidu
ously, with the scanty force at its command, to collect funds, and distributed them
with wisdom and impartiaUty. And with our confidence in those who have the
.charge of this society, and with their experience already acquired in the manage
ment of such a charity, we may safely intrust this enterprise with them.
The Committee recommend that all applications for aid in church-building be
made to the Congregational Union ; and that, having received their indorsement,
special agents shall be assigned to particular fields for their collections, after the
manner so successfully followed by the " Society for the Promotion of Collegiate
and Theological Education at the West."
We also recommend that we embrace within our plan of church-building the afford
ing of aid in the erection of church edifices to feeble churches in the cities and
large towns of the South and West, and that our appropriations to them be upon a
scale commensurate with the importance of their position and the increased cost of
affording such aid.
We further recommend, that in order to meet the increased expenditure which
such an enlargement of our plan implies, and also in view of the present demand
for church-edifices at the West, and the prospective demand for them in the South,
the sum of two hundred thousand dollars be raised at once, and that a much larger
sum than has hitherto been,raised for the purpose be secured annually to carry out
the above plan.
In conclusion we would merely add, that if we cannot rear any fit monument to
the piety of our fathers, and to God's good providence Over them, on Plymouth Rock,
let us scatter these sacred and enduring memorials of such faith and grace over the

Committee.

134 National Council.
length and breadth of the land, and thus show our appreciation of such faith, and
gratitude for such grace.
(Signed) S. G. BUCKINGHAM,
F. B. DOE,
PHILO CARPENTER,
ISAAC JENNINGS,
J. M. CHAMBERLAIN,
EDWIN JOHNSON,
H. P. HAVEN,
This report was accepted.
It was then voted, That the two reports just read be considered together — their
subjects being closely related.
The following telegram from the President of the United States, in answer to
the message of the Council, was received and read, viz. : Washington, June 19.
Gov. Wm. A. Buckingham, Moderator National Council Congregational Churches,
Boston.I receive with profound thanks the despatch of your CouncU. In the arduous
and embarrassing duties devolved upon me, I feel the need of the cooperation and
sympathy of the people, and Of the assistance of the Great Ruler of the universe.
These duties I shall endeavor to discharge honestly, and to the best of my judg
ment, with the conviction that the best interests of civil and reUgious Uberty
throughout the world will be preserved and promoted by the success and perma
nency of our country. Let us aU labor to that end, and the mission upon which
the people have been sent among the nations of the world wUl be accompUshed.
ANDREW JOHNSON.
The half-hour from 11 to 11 1-2, A. M., was spent in devotional exercises.
The reports were discussed.
The committee appointed to report further instructions to the Finance Commit
tee reported as foUows, viz. :
Resolved, That the Finance Committee be requested to pay to ministers who have presented
statements of the amount of their expenses in attending upon this Council fifty per cent, of
the amounts so presented ; provided that no person shall receive a sum exceeding $200, and
provided also that no one shall be paid any amount toward his expenses who receives an
annual salary of $1500.
Resolved, That as soon as the Finance Committee can report to this Council its total
expenses, this Committee have permission to make further Report as to the manner of se
curing the needed sum.
These resolutions were accepted and adopted.
CouncU adjourned to meet at 3, P. M.
Tuesday, 3, P.M.
The discussion of the reports on Evangelization at the West and South, and on
Church-building, was resumed, and continued by various members of the CouncU.
It was moved to adjourn untU to-morrow morning at 9 o'clock. The motion was
lost. Rev. Dr. Wolcott moved that the order of business be so far modified as to allow
the discussion on the question before the Council to be resumed to-morrow, and to
omit an evening session, which was carried.
Adjourned.

National Council. 135
Seventh Day; Wednesday, June 21, 9 A. M.
. ^Council was opened with prayer by the first Assistant Moderator, Hon. C. G.
Hammond. The minutes of yesterday's session were read and approved.
_ On motion of Hon. Linus Child, of Massachusetts, the resolution yesterday
adopted appointing a committee of three to proceed to Washington with the reso
lutions of this Council was reconsidered for the purpose of amendment, and was
modified to read as foUows :
" That those resolutions be attested by the signatures of the officers of this Coun
cil, and transmitted to the President of the United States by his Excellency the
Moderator." The Business Committee recommended that speakers, as yesterday, be limited to
twelve minutes.
The recommendation was accepted ; amended by fixing eight minutes as the
Umit of speakers ; and adopted.
The discussion of the reports on " Evangelization at the West and South" and
on " Church-building " was resumed.
The report of the Committee on Church-buUding was adopted.
The report of the Committee on " Evangelization in the West and South " was
divided, read in three sections, and adopted.
Rev. Mr. Seccombe, of Minnesota, moved a reconsideration of the Vote requiring
final action on the report without further debate. His motion was lost, and the
whole report, as amended, was adopted.
A recess of five minutes was voted before devotional exercises.
The half-hour from 11 1-2 to 12 m. was given to devotional exercises.
The report of the committee appointed to respond to Foreign Delegates was
read by Rev. Dr. Bacon, as foUows : REPORT.
This Council has been honored with the presence of brethren who have brought
us friendly and fraternal greetings from various Christian bodies in foreign
countries. Our neighbors beyond the St. Lawrence have sent to us the Rev.
Edward Ebbs, the Rev. Henry Wilkes, D. D., the Rev. John Wood, the Rev.
E, J. SherrUl, the Rev. A. Duff, the Rev. D. C. French, and Theodore Lyman, Esq.,
who appear as delegates from the Congregational Union of Canada. Brother W.
H. Daniels comes to us from the Congregational Union of Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick. From the Evangelical Churches of France, a youthful brother, bear
ing a beloved and honored name, the Rev. Theodore Monod, delegated by the
Union of those Churches, has stood among us, and from his eloquent lips we have
received a new assurance that the Evangelical Protestantism which in that great
country was so long persecuted and oppressed, is yet to be a power in the conquest
of the world for Christ. The Congregational Churches of Wales, worshipping
God in their own ancient language, and inheriting that primitive British Chris
tianity which is older than the name of England, have been represented by the
Rev. John Thomas, C. R. Jones, Esq., and J. Griffith, Esq., deputed for that service
by the Glanmorganshire Association. From the Fatherland of our own Pilgrim
Fathers, two distinguished ministers, the Rev. Robert Vaughn, D. D., and the Rev.
Alexander Raleigh, D. D., commissioned by the Congregational Union of England
and Wales, the Rev. S. R. Asbury, commissioned by the North Staffordshire Con-

136 National Council.
gregational Union, and another, who needs no letters of recommendation to us,
the Rev. Dr. James W. Massey, have come to renew and confirm the alliance
which ought ever to be firm and intimate between the Congregationalism of Eng
land and the Congregationalism of America. The presence of these brethren in
our National Council gives us the opportunity of testifying the Christian fellowship
of our Churches with all in every land who are sincerely seeking to advance the
kingdom of Christ.
To our brethren in the neighboring British Provinces, we need only respond
with grateful recognition of their interest in us and in the work committed to us.
Their peculiar work is in some degree coordinate with ours. It is for them, though
under many discouragements, to maintain and propagate in their country those
reUgious ideas and organizing forces which our fathers brought with them to New
England, and which, whenever they have had free course upon this continent, have
made the wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose. May God give them enlarge
ment and prosperity !
The salutations of the French Evangelical churches remind us of the many
points of contact between the history of their country and the history of our own.
Here in Boston there was once a congregation of French Protestants, exiled for
their religion. The Huguenot migration to New England, and to aU the English
colonies was one of the streams that made up by their confluence the American
race and nationality. Names that were once French, and that were brought hither
by fugitives from persecution almost two hundred years ago, are borne by thou
sands of our people, and some of them are illustrious in our history. The relation
of France to the achievement of our national independence can never be forgotten
by the American people while the memory of Lafayette is blended with the mem
ory of Washington. From the earliest stages of the French Revolution to the
present hour, our people, more intently perhaps than any other, Uave watched the
vicissitudes of liberty, and especially of religious liberty, in that country. Our
churches have watched with prayer and with praise to God the rekindled Ufe in
the dying remnants of French Protestantism, and gladly have they contributed
something of substantial aid to a movement so full of hope for Europe and for the
world. Yet when the terrible storm of adversity burst upon our country four
years ago, and we looked to all parts of the world for sympathy from the wise and
the good, we little expected that from a Protestant Frenchman there would come,
to invigorate our confidence in God, and to reassure the consciousness of our rela
tion to his work who is making all things new, such a tribute to the grandeur of
our cause, and such an appeal to the Christian world in our behalf, as came from
the illustrious Count Ajenor de Gasparin. We were in a position which made us
know with lively sensibiUty what was said of us, and what was thought of us, in
every country of the civilized world. It gave us no discouragement to find, that
everywhere the enemies of liberty, and the upholders of military and priestly des
potisms, were in full sympathy with our enemies. But to know, as we knew from
the beginning, that the friends of liberty and progress throughout Europe, and
especially in France, were our friends, and that they recognized the identity of our
cause with theirs, gave added courage to all our loyal people. To know, as we
know, that the religious aspects of the conflict, and its relations to the work and
kingdom of Christ, were understood and appreciated by the revived Protestant
churches of France, and that their prayers were unceasingly offered for us, was to
all our churches a fresh inspiration of faith and hope. From our experience of
what their words of cheer have been to us in our darkest hours, we would learn,

National Council. 137
for our own guidance in all future time, how much good the Christian people of one
nation may do to the Christian people of another nation, in times of peril and of
trial, by speaking to them, and speaking for them, words of Christian sympathy
and confidence, in the free, clear tone of Christian manliness.
Our brethren in the principaUty of Wales assure us by their delegates, that, in
the great struggle of our nation for civil and religious Uberty, their sympathy with
us has been constant and outspoken, and that their prayers have been offered to
God for us in the time of our calamity. It would hardly have been strange, if, in
the seclusion of their ancestral mountains, they had felt that a conflict on the other
side of the globe, though all the world beside should be shaken with the Titanic
struggle, was no concern of theirs, and that the miUtary neutraUty proclaimed by
the government of their country required them to suppress their moral and religious
sympathies. But the mountains are ever the home of free and brave hearts ; and
the ocean over which adventurous Madoc is reputed to have sailed seven hundred
years ago, has been crossed in more modern times by thousands of Welshmen who
have retained in their homes among us their own language and their communica
tions with their kindred in the land of their fathers. The Welsh settlements in
our country are settlements of Congregational Calvinists, and everywhere they have
been thoroughly loyal to their country and to liberty. To them in part we owe it
that the Congregational churches in Wales have so well understood the merits of
our cause, and have so frankly given to us, in our conflict with oppression and with
treason, the Cambrian steadfastness of their sympathy, and the Cambrian fervor
of their prayers.
In England, too, our country and our churches have had, from the beginning of
the great agony, firm and enlightened friends. Perhaps it was a fondness on our
part, but, in that love for old England which so many ages of separation had not
extinguished, we have cherished the belief that the sovereign lady, whose womanly
and queenly virtues have so adorned the throne of her ancestors, has not forgotten
with what enthusiasm of hospitality her royal son was received by the American
people, and has freely given the homage of her personal sympathy and regard to
the grandeur of the sacrifices which God has required of us for our country and
for the welfare of mankind. In the highest rank of the British aristocracy, one at
least was found (alas that we cannot join the name of Shaftesbury with the name
of Argyle !) who at the first perceived and openly declared the necessity that was
upon us, as patriots and as men, to defend in arms and at all hazards, not our
national inheritance only, but our national life. Among the foremost statesmen in
the British House of Commons, such men as Bright and the lamented Cobden,
whose names, Uke that of Hampden in his day, are greater than titles of nobUity,
among philosophic thinkers in the sphere of poUtical science, such men as Stuart
MiU and Goldwin Smith, have been the champions of our cause before their coun
trymen. But notwithstanding, all this, the prevalent opinion of England and of
Scotland has been notoriously adverse to our cause. Though we had able defenders
among those who control the journaUsm of Great Britain, the most powerful of the
organs that sway and express the pubUc opinion of Great Britain, the most pon
derous reviews, the most popular magazines, the most widely circulating and
authoritative newspapers, whig and tory, conservative and radical, high Church
and infidel, if they could agree in nothing else, were weU agreed in their hostility
to us and in their sympathy with the rebellion.
This was not what we expected. It struck the hearts of thousands of our coun
trymen with a pang like that which any man might feel when some friend whom

138 National Council.
he loved and trusted has suddenly become his enemy. Yet this is what we might
have expected if we had adequately considered the infirmities of human nature
and the forces by which national antipathies are generated and determined. Our
kindred in Great Britain had seen with mingled pride and apprehension the por
tentous growth of the United States, and had been sometimes disgusted with that
boastful and vain-glorious habit which has hitherto entered so largely into our
national character. We cannot wonder that the British nation had some feeling of
relief and satisfaction at the apparent downfall of a power that had seemed likely
to rival " the mistress of the seas," and that might have attempted some day to
wrest the trident from her grasp. The poUtical institution of the United States,
though in some sense an outgrowth of ancient English law and Uberty, had no
place for the theoretical monarchy and the actual and powerful aristocracy of the
British constitution. We cannot wonder that thousands of loyal subjects in Great
Britain accepted with a cheerful feeling the apparent ruin of our federal democracy,
and made haste to infer with joy the impossibUity of any poUtical welfare without
a powerful aristocracy. In the United States there was no estabUshed Church ;
but all forms of worship were alike protected by the law, and' alike dependent on
the voluntary offerings of the people. We cannot wonder that in England, where
the Established Church is ubiquitous in its presence and its power, and where aU
Church parties, High Church, Low Church, and Broad Church, and aU theologies in
the Church from ultra Calvinism to ultra Rationalism, agree in venerating the sanc
tity of tithes and in abhorring the impiety of a nation without a Church by law
established, there was a religious feeling, widely diffused, which devotedly inter
preted our national calamity as a revelation from heaven of God's wrath against
our national impiety. Nor was this aU. The island of Great Britian is one great
hive of manufacturing industry ; and British commerce has been for many ages the
cynosure of British statemanship. But on the other hand the people of the United
States had shown a determination to enrich their own country by a large develop
ment of manufacturing industry ; and the commerce of the United States had
seemed likely to rival the world-wide sweep, and to surpass the daring enterprise,
of British commerce. We cannot wonder that the nation which the first Napoleon,
in the insolence of a robber, thought to stigmatize by calling it " a nation of shop
keepers,'- and in which the great manufacturers and traders already share with the
ancient aristocracy of land-owners the actual sovereignty of the empire, was moved
with something like a national joy at what seemed to be the final paralysis and ruin
of a great commercial rival. Yet there was one class in the population of Great
Britain which surprised the world by standing firmly and bravely for us.
The operatives in the manufacturing districts were the first to suffer from the
effects of the American conflict. But, as if by some instinct divinely given, they
felt and knew that the conflict was a conflict for the rights of labor and the liberty
of aU mankind ; and from first to last they steadfastly resisted all attempts to bring
them through their sufferings into any sort of fellowship with the impious power
that was struggling to found an empire on the principle that the proprietors of
land and capital ought also to be the proprietors of their less fortunate fellow-men.
Let us give due honor to the humble operatives in the mUls and forges and count
less workshops of Great Britain, whom God enabled to stand firm, in the day of
their calamity and of ours.
From our brethren of the Congregational churches in England, we expected at
the first an unequivocal and constant declaration of sympathy with the American
people. Were they not our brethren, inheritors with us of the faith and order for

National Council. 139
which the martyrs of Congregationalism suffered under Queen Elizabeth ? Did
they not glory in our Pilgrim Fathers ? Was not our history their boast ? Was
not our religious prosperity, our civil liberty, our marvellous progress among the
nations, the most powerful of arguments for their principles ? Were they ashamed
of Milton and of CromweU, or of the position which Britain held among the nations
when a Congregatipnalist Lord Protector reigned in the place of the perjured and
persecuting Stuarts ? Was not our cause " the good old cause " of the Puritan
against the Cavalier, acknowledged and proclaimed as such by our enemies ? Had
they not, in the freedom and fidelity of Congregational fellowship, rebuked us at
sundry times and in divers manners, publicly and privately, through the press and
by official communications, for the luke-warmness of our zeal and the imperfection
of our testimony agajnst the wickedness of slavery ? And when at last the Amer
ican people, roused in part by such remonstrances as theirs, and moved by the
pressure of a purely religious feeling throughout the free States — a feeling to
which the Congregationalism of New England and the North contributed more
than its fuU share of glow and impulse — rendered, in the unequivocal form of a
national election, its purpose to arrest the extension of slavery and to resist the
insolent demands of the slave-holding and slave-trading interest, though at the
hazard of war and national dissolution — was it not to be expected that the Con
gregational churches and ministers of England, with one voice of no uncertain
sound, would testify for the righteousness of our cause, not only as the cause of
order against anarchy, and of constitutional government by votes against govern
ment by violence and arbitrary power — not only as the cause of reUgious liberty
and the universal diffusion of knowledge against a system which made the Bible an
incendiary book and the teaching of the alphabet a crime — but also as th§ cause
of personal freedom, and of every man's right to his own limbs and faculties, against
the hideous atrocity of subjecting a race to perpetual servitude, hopeless and unre
warded, and the impiety of perverting the Christian reUgion into a divine warrant
for that atrocity.
Our brethren who bring to us in this assembly the congratulations of the Eng
Ush Congregational Union must not be permitted to return under any impression
that we have not felt deeply and sorrowfully, through these four years of national
agony, the actual position of EngUsh Congregationalists. We know that among
them there have been some, whom it might be invidious to name, because we could
not name them all, who have been, from first to last, our most constant, devoted,
and faithful defenders. We frankly and gratefully acknowledge, on the testimony
of the honored delegates here present, that the majority of the Congregational
ministers and Churches in England have sympathized with us, and have prayed
for our deliverance from our enemies, and our victory over the Antichrist that rose
up to destroy us. But faithfulness to them and to Christ forbids us to forget that
the dominant influences in the Congregational Union, and the ostensible organs of
•Congregational opinion in England, were against us, or that honored brethren who
went from us to them, for the purpose of explaining our position, and asking for
their sympathy and their prayers, were refused a hearing. Yet while we remember
this, we remember it not as retaining any unkind remembrance of an injury to
us. We accept the presence of the beloved and honored delegates who have stood
in our assembly as a proof that they now understand us, and that the ancient fra
ternity and unity between them and us shaU be perpetual, and as a hopeful omen
that between these kindred nations there shaU be peace, ever growing more intimate

140 National Council
and indissoluble by cooperation in all works of beneficence to mankind and of glory
to God.
LEONARD BACON,
HENRY WARD BEECHER,
J. M. STURTEVANT, \- Committee.
RUFUS ANDERSON,
J. B. WALKER.
The report was accepted, and its adoption moved by Rev. Mr. Quint of Mass.,
and seconded by Rev. Dr. Thompson of New York.
The Report was adopted, and the CouncU adjourned to 3, P. M.
Wednesday, 3, P.M.
Council reassembled.
Dr. Budington moved that the Business Committee be instructed to arrange the
remaining business of the Council so that the body may adjourn on Friday night.
The motion was lost.
The Committee on the Letter from Italy reported by Dr. Kirk, as foUows : —
Whereas, The Spirit of the Lord has breathed on the people of Italy, and rekindled the
fires of godliness extinguished by the Roman hierarchy ; and
Whereas, The providence of God is leading this people out from the bondage of supersti
tion and of a tyrannic priesthood ; therefore,
Resolved, 1. That this Council recognize with fraternal sympathy, and with thankfulness
to God, their attainment to the blessings of civil and religious liberty.
2. That this Council entertains a lively sympathy with every soul, however obscure, there
and elsewhere, earnestly searching God's word to learn the character and will of God.
3. That this Council congratulates the various little bands of believers who are striving to
organize themselves into churches of Christ under any of the several forms adopted in our
Protestant countries.
i. That this Council regards with peculiar interest those who are founding free Italian
Churches, independent of foreign control or dictation ; seeking to rebuild on the foundation
of Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone.
5. That the Council request the Rev. Messrs. Clark of Milan, and Hall of Florence, to
convey to our Italian brethren the expression of our sympathy, and the assurance that, by
prayers and pecuniary contributions, we will do what in us lies to promote the advancement
of Christ's kingdom in their beautiful and classic land.
The report was accepted and adopted.
The Committee on "Books and Tracts " reported through Dr. Bacon, as foUows :
REPORT.
The committee to whom was referred the subject of the relation of our denomination
to Books and Tracts respectfully report :
They have considered the subject in the following order : I. What are the exist
ing relations of the denomination to literature ? II. What are the disadvantages of
the present order of things ? III. What measures, if any, may wisely be introduced
to obviate these disadvantages ?
I. The Congregational churches, in aU systematic operations by means of books,
stand practically related to literature mainly through six different book-manufac
turing and book-selling corporations : viz., 1. The American Bible Society. 2. The
American Tract Society, Boston. 3. The American Tract Society, New York.
4. The American Sunday School Union. 5. The Massachusetts Sabbath School
Society. 6. The Congregational Board of Publication.
Our method of operation through these corporations is simply this : to pay our

National ' Council. 141
¦ oharitable contributions (amounting to a very large sum annually) to the treasuries
of these corporations, by which they are expended, partly in the preparation of
stereotype plates, and the manufacture of books ; partly in the donation- of books
to missionary societies, churches, Sunday Schopls, and other distributing agencies
independent of the publishing societies ; and partly in the maintenance of a system
of book-selling or distribution, through depositories or colporters, by the publish
ing societies themselves. But our contributions for doing good by the circulation
of good literature all pass through the hands, and are subjected to the discretion,
of those concerned in the manufacture and sale of books, and are necessarily more
or less compUcated with their business arrangements.
II. Bisadvantages of our present method. 1. Literary and Moral. 2. Economical.
, 1. The, literary and moral disadvantages of our present method, of benevolent
operation by means of books may be stated briefly thus : that it shuts us up almost
whoUy to the use of the books issued by the societies which are the recipients of
our contributions. The narrow classes of literature to which we have been thus
disastrously restricted, may be thus defined : (1.) A negative reUgious literature,
from which all characteristics of any individual or party have been scrupulously
eUminated. (2.) A merely sectarian literature. And even within these very nar
row limits we have had no access in our benevolent operations to the general field
of such Uterature, but. have been debarred from the publications of aU private
firms, and of societies other than those through which we have operated.
Some of the sorts of Uterature from the public use of which we have thus suffered
ourselves to be excluded are these : (1.) Christian secular literature. For certain
reUgious and philanthropic uses, — as for instance; for ship, and garrison, and hos
pital Ubraries, — an exclusively religious literature is inadequate. (2.) Generally
the works of men characterized by the highest force and originality, whose writings
cannot, without an excess of mutilation, be brought within the prescribed limits of
the pubUshing societies, whether on the denominational, or on the " Catholic," basis.
(3.) The works of good men of other denominations which are marked by any
of their denominational peculiarities. (4.) The books from the publication of
which our own societies have been forestalled by the activity of other societies or
private firms, or from which they are debarred by copyright ; and this class includes
a large proportion of the best productions of our own time and country.
It cannot be doubted that one of the most serious disabilities with which Puritan
principles have been crippled in their progress has been the bondage under which
they have been placed to publishing societies, and especially to those which have
been constructed on that fallacious " catholic basis," which presumes that the
condition of Christian union is the repression of individual convictions.
. At the same time, it must be considered that in some cases, being debarred from
the use of the best literature, we have been paying lavishly for the circulation of
much that is second-rate or third-rate. It is especially true in the case of the old
publication societies, the New York American Tract Society, and the American
Sunday .School Union, that their catalogues are cumbered with many works, proved
to be unsalable, or grown obsolete and superseded by better works on the same
subject, which, nevertheless, (the stereotype plates being on hand,) continue to be
manufactured, because, although they cannot be sold, they can be given away at the
expense of the churches.
It is by no means the least of our present moral disadvantages in this matter,
that the essential and recognized inadequacy of the system of publishing societies
to supply the books needed, especially for Sunday School libraries, has brought in
upon us a mixed multitude of books that have passed no responsible revision, and

142 National Council.
from which the majority of purchasers have no means of making wise selection.
The mixture of pernicious books in Sunday School libraries is a grievous evU, to
which our present arrangements afford no remedy.
2. Economical Disadvantages of our present system.
It is theoretcially bad economy to intrust large sums of money for the purchase
and distribution of goods to the discretion of the same concern which manufactures
the goods and keeps them for sale. Theoretically, it would be better that if various
concerns, pubUc or private, have undertaken to produce good books and tracts,
and offer them for sale, the charitable gifts of the pubUc should go into the hands,
not of these interested parties, but of other and disinterested parties, who shaU
expend them wherever they can get the best books for the least money.
We should not press this theoretical point against a system which, on the whole,
was found to work well. But, in fact, the very evils which might have been pre
dicted from this system are widely beUeved to exist. This evil, certainly, has
occurred, — that in consequence of their double position, as being at once the buy
ers and the sellers, the publishing societies have been subjected to constantly
renewed suspicions, which, however undeserved, have been to them an annoyance
and' a hinderanee. If they had been either buyers only, to give away, or manufac
turers only, to sell, they would have escaped these imputations. IS our donations
had been intrusted to disinterested parties, with liberty to go into open market
for the goods, they would have brought to bear on these various manufacturing
corporations the healthful influence of competition, both with each other and with
private enterprise. Private bookseUers have constantly declared, that, if they were
allowed equitably to compete with charitable corporations, they could undersell
them. There could be no imaginable loss or disadvantage to the Christian pubUc
in giving them the chance.
3. What measures, if any, may be wisely introduced to obviate existing disadvantages ?
We will not undertake, in this place, to lay out the details of a better system
than the present. What we want is some arrangement by which the Church may
reach forth her hand into every department of Uterature, and take the best books
for her use, and place them wherever they are needed, distributing mainly by the
hands of her servants, as an incident in the main work of spreading the gospel. Such
an arrangement we do not believe to be beyond the wit of man. It would require
a board of Christian scholars and critics, who should thoroughly winnow the vast
mass of books and tracts that are offered to the public by societies of every sort
and sect, and by private firms, and present the pubUc with a new catalogue, made
up only from the best among them aU ; and a board of capable business-men, who
should see that the alms of the churches were not spent to disadvantage, and who
should undertake to apply donations according to the intent of the donors. It
would be a simple and inexpensive institution.
The committee take pleasure in announcing the fact, that these considerations
have been for some time before the minds of some of the best and wisest men in
the country, and that preliminary steps have already been taken, under the aus
pices of President Woolsey of Yale CoUege, President Hopkins of WilUams Col
lege, and others, which, it is hoped, wUl result in supplying this desideratum.
(Signed) H. W. BEECHER,
LEONARD BACON,
LOWELL MASON, Jk.
The report was adopted.

National Council. 143
The committee to whom was referred the report of the preUminary Committee
on the Declaration of Faith made report as foUows :
The committee, in presenting the following report to the Council, regret that
tune and circumstances would not allow them to prepare a condensed statement of
the doctrines held by our denomination. We desire it to be distinctly understood
that the brief confession of the faith which we held in concert with the great body
of beUevers is in no sense designed to be regarded as a creed for our churches.
REPORT ON A DECLARATION OF FAITH.
When the churches of New England assembled in a general synod at Cambridge,
in 1648, they declared their assent, " for the substance thereof," to the Westminster
Confession of Faith. When, again, these churches convened in a general synod at
Boston, in 1680, they declared their approval (with slight verbal alterations) of the
doctrinal symbol adopted by a synod of the Congregational Churches in England,
at London, in 1658, and known as the " Savoy Confession," which in doctrine is
almost identical with that of the Westminster Assembly. And yet again : when
the churches in Connecticut met in CouncU at Saybrook, in 1708, they " owned and
consented to " the Savoy Confession as adopted at Boston, and offered this as a
pubUc symbol of their faith.
Thus, from the beginning of their history, the Congregational churches in the
United States have been aUied in doctrine with the Reformed churches of Europe,
and especiaUy of Great Britain. The eighth article of the " Heads of Agreement,"
established by the Congregational and Presbyterian ministers in England in 1692,
and adopted at Saybrook in 1708, defines this position in these words : " As to
what appertains to soundness of judgment in matters of faith, we esteem it suffi
cient that a Church acknowledge the Scripture's to be the word of God, the perfect
and only rule of faith and practice, and own either the doctrinal part of those com
monly caUed the Articles of the Church of England, or the Confessions or Cate
chisms, shorter or larger, compiled by the Assembly at Westminster, or the
Confession agreed on at the Savoy, to be agreeable to the said rule."
In conformity, therefore, with the usage of previous Councils, we, the elders and
messengers of the Congregational churches in the United States, do now profess
our adherence to the above-named Westminster and Savoy Confessions for " sub
stance of doctrine." We thus declare our acceptance of the system of truths
[which is commonly known among us as Calvinism, and] which is distinguished from
other systems by so exalting the sovereignty of God as to " establish " rather than
take away the " Uberty " or free-agency of man, and by so exhibiting the entire
character of God as to show most clearly " the exceeding sinfulness of sin."
At'the same time we re-affirm the fundamental principle of Congregationalism,
that the Bible is "the only sufficient and invariable rule of religion;"1 that, in
order to attain a faith which is " right and divine, the word of God must be the
foundation of it, and the authority of the word the reason of it." x We " ought to
account nothing ancient that wUl not stand by this rule, and nothing new that
will." l " It was the glory of our fathers, that they heartily professed the only rule
of their religion, from the very first, to be the Holy Scripture."1
Besides thus expressing the faith which we hold as a denomination, we deem the
present a fit occasion to express the earnestness of our sympathy with all those
1 Preface to the Savoy Confession, as adopted at Saybrook in 1708.

144 National Council.
Christian churches who are agreed with us in the essential truths of the gospel ;
especially as our common faith is now assailed by popular and destructive forms of
unbelief, which deny the living and personal God, which reject the possibility of a
supernatural revelation by Jesus Christ, which exclude the fact of sin and the hope
of redemption.
Against these dangerous errors, we, in common with all Christian believers, con
fess our faith in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the only Uving and
true God ; in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, who is exalted to be our Redeemer
and King ; and in the Holy Comforter, who is present in the Church to regenerate
and sanctify the soul.
With the whole Church, we confess the common sinfulness and ruin of our race,
and acknowledge that it is only through the work accomplished by the life and
expiatory death of Christ that we are justified before God, and receive the remission
of sins ; and that it is through the presence and grace of the Holy Comforter alone
that we hope to be delivered from the power of sin and to be perfected in holiness.
We believe also in the organized and. visible Church, in the ministry of the word,
in the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, in- the resurrection of the
body, and in the final judgment, the issues of which are eternal life and everlasting
punishment. We receive these truths on the testimony of God, given originally through
prophets and apostles, and in the life, the miracles, the death, the resurrection, of
his Son, our divine Redeemer. This testimony is preserved for the Church in the
Scriptures of the Old- and New Testament, which were composed by holy men as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
We affirm our belief that those who thus hold "one faith, one Lord, one bap
tism," together constitute the one cathoUc Church, the several households of which,
though called by different names, are the one body of Christ ; and that these mem
bers of his body are sacredly bound to keep " the unity of the spirit in the bond of
peace," and to dwell together in the same community in harmony and mutual
fellowship. We hold it to be a distinctive excellence of our Congregational system that it
exalts that which is more above that which is less important, and by the simpUcity
of its organization facilitates, in communities where the population is Umited, the
union of all true believers in one Christian Church ; and that the division of such
communities into several weak and jealous societies, holding the same common
faith, is a sin against the unity of the body of Christ, and at once the shame and
scandal of Christendom.
We bless the God of our fathers for the inheritance of these doctrines which
have been transmitted to us their children. We invoke the help of the divine
Redeemer, that, through the presence of the promised Comforter, he wiU enable us
to transmit them in purity to our children. We rejoice, that, through the influ
ence of our free, system of apostolic order, we can hold fellowship with all who
acknowledge Christ, and act efficiently in the work of restoring unity to the divided
Church, and of bringing back harmony and peace among aU " who love our Lord
Jesus Christ in sincerity."
We believe that these truths and this free spirit have blessed our country in the
past, that they have made New England what she is in the present, and have carried
her principles, by other denominations as well as our own, throughout the Union,
while in our recent struggte they have largely contributed to redeem and save the
nation.

National Council. I45
In the critical times that are before us as a nation, times at once of duty and of
danger, we rest all our hopes in the gospel of the Son of God. It was the grand
™dof7h PuritrFathe^that the^held this **&** merely £ the
ground of their personal salvation, but as declaring the worth of man by the incar
nation and sacrifice of the Son of God; and therefore applied its principle" To
ekvate society to regulate education, to civilize humanity, to purify law, to refonn
the Church and the State, to assert, to defend, and to die for liberty ; in short T
mould and redeem by its all-transforming energy everything that belongs to man
in his individual and social relations. e ™
_ It was the faith of our fathers that gave us this free land in which we dweU It
is by this faith only that we can transmit it to our children, a free and hapnv
because a Christian, commonwealth.
We acknowledge the duty that is laid upon us by the Redeemer to carry this
gospel into every part of this land and to all nations, and to teach all men the
things which he has commanded us to observe and to do. May He to whom » aU
power is given in heaven and earth " fulfil the promise which is aU our hope : « Lo
I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." To him be praise in the
Church forever, Amen. For the committee. JOHN O. FISK, Chairman.
It was moved to accept and adopt the report.
Rev. Mr. Balkam, of Maine, moved to amend by substituting the original paper
presented by the committee of which Dr. Thompson was chairman ; but the motion
on request, was withdrawn.
Rev. Dr. Leavitt, of New York, moved to amend by striking out the words,
" which is commonly known among us as Calvinism, and."
It was moved that the orders of the day be suspended (the hour designated for
adjournment having arrived), so as to allow Rev. Mr. Allen to speak for two min
utes ; and the motion was carried.
Dr. Leavitt's amendment was lost.
The motion to lay the Report of the Committee on the table was lost.
Rev. Mr. Quint, of the Business Committee, moved that the Council suspend the
rule to adjourn at 5 o'clock, so as to remain in session after that hour ; which was
carried. •Dr. Leavitt, of New York, moved' further to amend, by inserting in the third par
agraph, between the words " above-named " and " Westminster," the words " doc
trinal articles of the Church of England, and."
Pending the discussion of this amendment, on motion of Mr. Dexter, of Mass.
the Council voted, that, when it adjourn, it adjourn (should to-morrow not be a
rainy day), to meet at 11, A. M., on Burial Hill, in Plymouth, Mass.
The discussion of Dr. Leavitt's proposition was further arrested, to aUow of the
reception and appropriate reference of several resolutions from the Business
Committee, as foUows, viz. :
(1.) Whereas, The use of tobacco is a great and growing evil in our land, and large
treasures are wasted in forming and cherishing a habit that is not only expensive but highly
injurious; therefore
Resolved, That this Council do, in the most solemn and decided manner, raise a voice of
warning against this evil, and exhort our churches and our people everywhere to set then-
faces like a flint against it, that our precious youth may be saved from its baneful influence,
and the fairest portion of our earthly heritage from foul desecration.
Accepted, and referred to the Committee on Temperance.

10

146 National ' Council.
(2.) Resolved, That we recommend to all the churches represented in this Council the
observance of the  day of  as a day of special fasting and prayer for the outpouring
of the Holy Spirit upon the land, to crown with success the results reached by this body ; and
that we send a brief address to those churches, to be laid before them on that occasion.
Accepted, and reference ordered to a special committee to be appointed. .
(3.) Whereas, Our Pilgrim Fathers regarded the strict observance of the Sabbath as a duty
they owed to God, and also as indispensable to the formation of a free Christian republic ;
and Whereas, The desecration of the Sabbath is proverbial, both by the nation and by individ
uals, and thereby one of the fundamental principles on which our fathers reared this mighty
nation is greatly imperilled, and the God who ordained the Sabbath dishonored : therefore
, Resolved, That we as a Council greatly deplore the general desecration of the Sabbath in
our beloved land, and feel called upon to use all proper efforts, in the pulpit and by the pew,
by prayer, and if necessary by our petitions to Congress, to restore to the nation the sanctity
of the Christian Sabbath, once so dear to our. fathers. .
Reference ordered to the Committee on " the Declaration of Faith."
(i.) Whereas, This Council is informed that a band of Christians in Baltimore, many of
whom are known to have been first among the foremost in the great movements in Maryland
during the last four years for liberty and the Union, have recently been organized into a
Congregational Church ; and
Whereas, These representative s of the New England polity and spirit have with great
self-sacrifice devoted themselves and their property to the enterprise of building, upon a
commanding height in that city, a Church edifice worthy of their cause, and of gathering
from the large number of intelligent and liberty-loving citizens of that emancipated metrop
olis a vigorous and influential Church ; and
Whereas, We have reason to believe that the success of one such enterprise would lead to
the early establishment of other strong churches in Baltimore, and that such a Church, stand
ing in the gateway of the South, would insure the organization of many more in the regions
beyond, and would itself become a light and a power over the whole land : therefore
Resolved, That this National Council commend this initial enterprise at the South to the
sympathy and most liberal aid of our whole denomination, as one of the highest importance
to our country, to the interests of liberty, and to the cause of Christ.
Accepted, and referred to the Committee on the Evangelization of West and
South. (5.) Resolved, That it is inexpedient and improper that pastors of Congregational churches
should assume, or retain, membership in another denomination.
Accepted, and referred to the Committee on Church PoUty.
(6.) Resolved, That a committee be raised to devise ways and means to raise the $750,000
voted as expedient for national evangelization.
Reference ordered to a special committee to be appointed.
(7.) Resolved* That this Council will adjourn sine die on Saturday next, at 12, M.
Reference ordered to Business Committee.
(8.) Whereas, The expeditious securing of the $750,000 which our churches have been
recommended to raise is of the first importance to our land and the Church ; and
Whereas, An equitable apportionment of this sum among the churches of our several
States, according to their several ability, would greatly. facilitate the obtaining of the entire
sum: Besolved, That a committee be appointed to make as equitable an apportionment as possi
ble, of the sum to be raised, among the different States, and in due time to inform the
ehrarches of each State what portion- of the fund it properly belongs to them to furnish.
Accepted, and reference ordered to the special Committee on Ways and Means of
gaining the $750,000 fund, previously ordered.

National Council. 147
The special committee to whom was referred the report of the Finance Committee
reported by resolutions, as follows :
Whereas, The failure of a large number of churches to respond to the call made by the
preliminary meeting, for contributions to meet the expenses of this CouncU, has resulted in
a lack of means to meet the just demands upon our treasury : therefore .
Resolved, That the Finance Committee be authorized to call upon the more wealthy of
those churches which failed to make contribution, for a sum not less than one thousand dol
lars to meet such deficit ; and that said committee be directed to pay over any balance which
shall remain in their hands, after discharging all just claims against this Council, into the
hands of the Congregational Union.
Resolved, That the delegates to this Council, representing the churches to which this call'
shall be addressed, be requested to aid the committee in their collections.
' Accepted and adopted.
Adjourned with the Doxology, to meet at the Mt. Vernon Church to-morrow
morning, at 9 o'clock, should the day be rainy ; otherwise to meet on Burial Hill
in. Plymouth, at 11, A. M.
Eighth Day; Thursday, June 22, 1865.
Council assembled between eleven and twelve o'clock, A. M., on Burial HiU,
in Plymouth, Mass., and were called to order by Hon. C. G. Hammond^ first
Assistant Moderator. Prayer was offered by the Rev. David Bremner, pastor of
the Third Church of the Pilgrimage in Plymouth.
The reading of the records was postponed until to-morrow.
Rev. Mr. Quint, from the Business Committee, presented a paper as a substi
tute for that yesterday reported by the committee to whom was referred the
report of the preUminary Committee on a Declaration of Faith, as foUows : —
REPORT.
Standing by the rock where the PUgrims set, foot upon these shores, upon
the spot where they worshiped God, and among the graves of the. early genera
tions, we, Elders and Messengers of the .Congregational Churches of the United
States in. National CouncU assembled, Uke them acknowledging no rule of faith
but the word of God, do now [reiterate] our adherence to the faith and order of
the Apostolic and Primitive Churches [as] held by our Fathers, and [as substan
tiaUy embodied] in the Confessions and Platforms which our Synods of 1648 and
1680 set forth or reaffirmed. We declare that the experience of the nearly two and
a half centuries which have elapsed since the memorable day when our sires founded
here a Christian Commonwealth, with all the development of new forms of error
since their times, have only deepened our confidence in the faith and poUty of these
Fathers. We bless [the] God [of our Fathers] for the inheritance of these doc
trines, [which have been transmitted to us their, chUdren.] We invoke the help of
t£e Divine Redeemer, that, through the, presence of the promised Comforter,
he wUl enable us to transmit them, in purity, to our children.
In the times that are before us as a nation, times, at once of duty and of danger,
we rest aU our hope in the gospelof the Son of God. It was the, grand pecuUarity
of our Puritan Fathers that they held. this gospel, not merely as the ground qf.their
personal salvation, but as declaring the worth of man by the incarnation and sacri
fice of the Son. of God; and therefore appUed its principles to. elevate society, to
regulate education, to civilize humanity, to purify law, to reform the Church, and

148 National Council:
the State, and to assert and to defend liberty ; in short, to mould and redeem, by
its all-transforming energy, everything that belongs to man, in his individual and
social relations.
. It was the faith of our fathers that gave us this free land in which we dwell.
It is by this faith only that we can transmit it to our chUdren, a free and happy,
because a Christian, commonwealth.
We hold it to be a distinctive excellence of our Congregational system that it
exalts that which is more above that which is less, important, and* by the simplicity
of its organization, faciUtates, in communities where the population is limited, the
union of all true beUevers in one Christian Church ; and that the division of such
communities into several weak and jealous societies, holding the same common
faith, is a sin against the unity of the body of Christ, and at once the shame and
scandal of : Christendom.
We rejoice that, through the influence of our free system of apostolic order, we
can hold fellowship with all who acknowledge Christ, and act efficiently in the work
of restoring unity to the divided Church, and of bringing back harmony and peace
among all " who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."
[But] recognizing the unity of the Church of Christ in aU the world, and know
ing that we' are but one branch of Christ's people — whUe adhering to our own
peculiar faith and order — we extend to all believers the hand of Christian feUow
ship upon the basis of those fundamental truths in which aU Christians [may] agree.
With them we confess our faith in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
the only Uving and true God; in Jesus Christ the incarnate Word, who is exalted
to be our Redeemer and King ; and in the Holy Comforter, who is present in the
Church to regenerate and sanctify the soul.
With the whole Church, we confess the common sinfulness and ruin of our race,
and acknowledge that it is only through the work accompUshed by the life and
expiatory death of Christ that [we] are justified before God, [and] receive the
remission of sins ; and [that it is] through the presence and grace of the Holy
Comforter [alone that we] [hope to be] delivered from the power of sin, and [to
be] perfected in holiness.
We believe also in [an] organized and visible Church, in the ministry of the
word, in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, in the resurrection of
the body, and in the final judgment, the issues of which are eternal life and everlasting
punishment. We receive these truths on the testimony of God, given [originaUy] through
prophets and apostles, and in the life, the miracles, the death, the resurrection, of
his Son, our divine Redeemer — a testimony preserved for the Church in the Scrip
tures of the Old and New Testaments, which were composed by holy men as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Affirming now our belief that those who thus hold " one faith, one Lord, one
baptism," together constitute the one cathoUc Church, the several households of
which, though called by different names, are the one body of Christ, and that these
members of his body are sacredly bound to keep " the unity of the spirit in the
bond of peace," we declare that we wUl cooperate with aU who hold these truths.
With them we wiU carry the gospel into every part of this land ; and with them
we wUl go " into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
May He to whom "aU power is given in heaven and earth "fulfil the promise
which is all our hope : " Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world."
Amen.

National Council. 149
Dea. Charles Stoddard, of Massachusetts, moved that this substitute be accepted
and adopted ; and also that it be placed in the hands of a committee whose duty
it shall be to suggest any verbal alterations that may seem to be desirable not
affecting the sense, to report before the dissolution of the CouncU. - The motion
was carried.
It was further moved that this committee be composed of one member from each
State and Territory represented' in the Council, and that they be chosen by ballot
immediately after the preUminary exercises of the session of to-morrow morning.
This motion was carried.
After prayer by Rev. Dr. Daggett, of New York, closing with the Lord's prayer,
in which the CouncU joined, the CouncU adjourned with the singing of the Doxology,
to meet in the Mount Vernon Church, in Boston, to-morrow at 9, A. M.
Ninth Day; Friday Morning, June 23, 9 A. M.
The CouncU was caUed to order by the First Assistant Moderator, Hon. C. G.
Hammond, who offered prayer.
The minutes of the Council for Wednesday and Thursday were read, amended,
and approved. Gov. Buckingham appeared and took the chair.
It was moved to reconsider the vote of yesterday, by which the appointment of
a special committee of one from each State and Territory, to be chosen by baUot,
to make needed verbal changes in the Declaration of Faith, was ordered ; and the
motion prevaUed.
It was further moyed to amend the motion thus brought back to the considera
tion of the Council by fixing the number of the committee at three, and changing
the mode of their appointment to nomination by the Moderator and his two
assistants. Rev. Mr. AUen, ofMass., asked leave to present the following protest, and that it
be ordered to be entered on the minutes. And leave was granted, and the record
ordered :
Mr. Moderator,
Standing over the ashes of the Pilgrim Fathers, and on the summit of
this HUl consecrated to their memory, I solemly protest against the adoption of
the paper here and now presented, as being too sectarian for their catholic spirit, and
too narrow to comprehend the breadth of their principles of Religious Freedom.
r GEO. ALLEN.
Plymouth, Mass., June 22, 1865.
The foUowing — nominated by the Moderator and his two assistants — were
appointed to be the committee to make such verbal alterations as may be -needful
in the declaration of faith yesterday adopted upon Burial HUl: viz., Rev. Dr.
Stearns, of Massachusetts ; Rev. Dr. Budington, of New York; Rev. Dr. Patten, of
TbTcommittee to whom was referred the paper on Ministerial Support presented
the foUowing
REPORT.
The Committee to whom was referred the paper submitted to this Council by the
preliminary committee, through its chairman, Rev. George Shepard, D. D on the
subject of » Ministerial Support," have had the same under careful consideration, and

150 National Council'.
beg leave to report it back to this body with their cordial approval, and with the
recommendation that it be adopted by the Council, and that at least ten thousand
copies be printed, (if -within the province of the Council so to do,) and circulated
among our churches, as an approved compendium' Of the relative' duties existing
• between pastor and people.
EDWARD D. HOLTON,
WILLIAM SALTER,
HIRAM ELMER,
EDWIN N. LEWIS, \ Committee.
SELDEN F. PRATT,
MARSHALL S. SCUDDER,
DAVID S. WILLIAMS,
June 21, 1865.
This report was accepted and adopted.
The following telegram was received and read ; viz. :
Cleveland, Ohio, June 22, 1865.
To the Moderator of the Congregational Council:
The Convention of Non-Episcopal Methodists, in session at Cleveland, send their
fraternal greetings to the Congregational Council at Boston.
(Signed) W. H. BREWSTER,
J. KOST,
JOHN SCOTT.
It was ordered that the Moderator and his assistants reply to this message.
The following reply was sent by them ; viz. ;
To the Moderator of the Convention of Non-Episcopal Methodists, at Cleveland, Ohio,
care of Rev. A. B. Knight :
The National Council of Congregational Churches, standing upon the basis of
Christian union and of cathoUcity in faith, cordially responds to the fraternal
greeting of the Convention at Cleveland.
W. A. BUCKINGHAM,
CHARLES G. HAMMOND,
JOSEPH P. THOMPSON.
Boston, June 23, 1865.
The committee to whom was referred the resolution on a Congregational House
reported as foUows : REPORT.
First' The Besirableness of a Congregational House. Without attempting to
present an exhaustive statement on this point, we would caU attention to a few
considerations. (1.) A Congregational House is rendered desirable by the necessities of the
Congregational Library.
(a.) The American Congregational Association have already in their possession
a library of over five thousand bound volumes, and over fifty thousand unbound
pamphlets, many of them exceedingly rare, and most of them of great value as Ulus-
trative of Puritan history, and of the faith and polity of the Puritan churches.
This library, as it is now situated, is liable any day to be consumed by Are ;
and it is an imperative necessity, which as Congregationalists we eannot faU to
appreciate, that this treasury of knowledge should have a safe place of deposit.

National Council; 151
(b.) There are many individuals who have carefully selected private libraries, or
at least a few books, of special historic interest, and pamphlets rescued from the
paper-mill, that great foe to antiquarian researches, who would gladly contribute
them to the American Congregational Association, if a fire-proof building were
furnished to guarantee their permanent preservation.
Thus, in a few years, this Ubrary could be made richer in ecclesiastical literature
than any other in our land.
We owe it to our own denomination to provide a place where those who love our
order, and possess relics of the Fathers, may come and present their gifts.
: (2.) Again, a Congregational House is rendered desirable as the means of
increasing our devotion to our own denomination.
We aU know, our Western brethren feel, that we have not properly discriminated
between sectarian zeal and denominational interest. In avoiding the former, we
have neglected the latter. The American Congregational Association desires, by
procuring essays and lectures on questions of a denominational character, to pro
mote our appreciation, as a branch of the Church of Christ, of our distinctive pecu
Uarities ; and they would be greatly aided in this work by a house in which such
essays may be read and lectures deUvered.
(-3.) We need a place where those societies which are doing the work of our de
nomination may have their centers of operations, whether they make provision for
the feeble Churches, pubUsh theological works for ministers, Sabbath-school books
for children, or tracts for the congregations.
(4.) We need a home to which, as Congregationalists, we may resort.
This city, as the home of our Fathers, is endeared to us by the most sacred asso
ciations — the most hallowed memories. It is on this account that we are convened
here on the present momentous occasion.
We need a home here to which we can repair; not as a Council once in a century,
but as individual members of the Congregational family, as often as God in his
providence shaU favor us with the opportunity.
Such a home wUl give " a local habitation" to what might otherwise have only
" a name." It will serve to promote union among the churches of our order in this
city, and thus strengthen the denomination where it was first established. It wUl
give fresh interest to our anniversaries. It wUl also promote union between the
East and West. It wUl enable the sons of the Pilgrims, the adopted sons, and the
sons-in-law, when they come from their distant homes, to rekindle the torch at the
old fireside, and bear forth its Ught to any Egyptian provinces where they may be
caUed to sojourn.
It may, in this connection, be well to caU to mind that the erection of such an
edifice by us will be nothing peculiar.
The Presbyterians, of both assembUes, have such houses in Philadelphia ; the
Methodists in New York ; and our Congregational brethren in England have just
raised by subscription two hundred thousand pounds sterlmg, as their bi-centennial
fund, out of which, among other objects important to their denomination, they pro
pose to erect such a building, for purposes similar to those which we contemplate,
with the title of the " Memorial Hall." It wiU be a happy circumstance if we can
have such a memorial,, not only of the Fathers, but of the meeting of our present
National Council.
Second. The Agency for the erection of a Congregational House. _
We have no occasion for any new organization. The American Congregational
Association, incorporated in 1854, under the title of the Congregational Library

152 National Councik
Association, which name was changed in 1864, is authorized to hold property to the
amount of $300,000* and " to do such acts as may promote the interest of Con
gregational churches, by pubUshing works, by furnishing libraries and pecuniary
aid to parishes, churches, and Sabbath Schools, by promoting friendly intercourse
and cooperation among Congregational ministers and churches, and with other
denominations, and by coUecting and disbursing funds for the above objects."
This society, already in the field, is everything, so far as respects an agency to
secure a Congregational House, which could be desired.
Third. What has already been accomplished.
The American Congregational Association have at the present time property in
real estate to the amount of about $10,000, and have recently secured a subscrip
tion of $20,000 in Boston and vicinity towards the erection of a Congregational
House ; and such is the facility with which this has been accompUshed, that the
conviction is expressed that it wiU, not be difficult to secure an increase of this
subscription, in this city and vicinity, to $50,000.
Fourth. The plan proposed.
It is thought that $100,000 will be needed for this object, and it is suggested
that, should the subscription in this city and vicinity be increased to $50,000, the
remaining $50,000, should be secured chiefly from Massachusetts, or at least New
England. Fifth. Objections.
(1) It may be objected to this proposition that the raising of this amount of
money for this object wUl interfere with the raising of the $750,000 already pro
posed for other objects. To which we reply, that the raising of the $750,000 pro
posed is not so formidable as at first appears, for we have been accustomed to raise
large sums for the American Home Missionary Society and the American Missionary
Association, and something also for the American Congregational Union. And the
past year we have raised a very large amount for the Freedmen ; and as the $750,000
includes the objects of all these societies, the portion of the $750,000 which is over
and above what we have been accustomed to raise is not appaUing.
Again, as the Congregational House is designed to conserve and foster an inter
est in our own denomination, its erection will be the means of rendering it easier
in the end to raise money for. other denominational purposes.
(2) It may be objected that the existence of such a house will involve continued
annual expenses ; but this it is estimated wiU be met in part, or entirely, by the
rents which such a building will yield. With the understanding that the money
shall be raised chiefly from persons in New England, and particularly in Massachu
setts, who are able to contribute large sums, and that the Congregational House
shall not be a " House of Bishops," nor the source of a centraUzed power for the
control of Congregational bishops or churches, but a home for aU the brethren,
to form or renew acquaintance, promote Christian feUowship, and the interests of
the great denominational family to which we belong, we commend the American
Congregational Association and its enterprises to the confidence and cooperation of
our churches. (Signed) CHRISTOPHER CUSHING, 1
EMERSON DAVIS,
E. RUSSELL,
S. D. COCHRAN,
S. G. WRIGHT,
WALTER BOOTH,
Boston, June 21, 1865.

Committee.

National Council. 153
It was ordered that the report of the committee, to whom was this morning
referred the paper yesterday adopted for such verbal alterations as may be needful,
be made the order of the day at 12 M. .
A half-hour was spent in devotional exercises.
The report of the committee on the proposed Congregational House was
accepted and adopted.
Rev. Dr. Thompson read a communication received by maU from "the Pastors
and Delegates of the Independent churches of the county of Lincoln, assembled at
their half-yearly meeting in the town of Boston," to this CouncU, signed by Joseph
Shaw and others.
It was accepted, and referred to the Moderator and Assistant Moderators for
appropriate response.
The committee to whom was referred the Declaration of Faith reported the fol
lowing amendments, viz. : —
In Paragraph 1, substitute " declare " for " reiterate " ; " substantially as embod
ied," instead of " as substantially embodied " ; strike out " as " after " primitive
churches." In the sentence commencing " We bless the God of our Fathers,"
make it read " We bless God for," etc., and strike out aU after " doctrines."
In Paragraph 2, after " the state," insert " and."
In Paragraph 6, change " But " to " thus " for the first word; and read " should
agree," instead of " may agree."
In Paragraph 7, before " are justified," substitute " beUevers in him " for " we ; "
after " before God," strike out " and ; " after " remission of sins, and," strike out
"that it is ; " after " Comforter," strike out " alone that we," then substitute " are "
for " hope to be ; " and strike out " to be " before " perfected."
In Paragraph 8, substitute " the " for " an," before " organized."
In Paragraph 9, strike out " originaUy."
These amendments were adopted, and the declaration thus made to stand as
foUows :
Standing by the rock where the PUgrims set foot upon these shores, upon the
spot where they worshipped God, and among the graves of the early generations,
we, Elders and Messengers of the Congregational churches of the United States in
National Council assembled— Uke them acknowledging no rule of faith but the word
of God — do now declare our adherence to the faith and order of the apostolic and
primitive churches held by our fathers, and substantially as embodied in the confes
sions and platforms which our Synods of 1648 and 1680 set forth or reaffirmed.
We declare that the experience of the nearly two and a half centuries which have
elapsed since the memorable day when our sires founded here a Christian Common
wealth, with aU the development of new forms of error since their times, has only
deepened our confidence in the faith and poUty of those fathers. We bless God
for the inheritance of these doctrines. We invoke the help of the Divine Redeemer,
that, through the presence of the promised Comforter, he will enable us to
transmit them in purity to our children.
In the tunes that are before us as a nation, times at once of duty and of danger, we
rest all our hope in the -gospel of the Son of God. It was the grand peculiarity of
our Puritan Fathers, that they held this gospel, not merely as the ground of their
personal salvation, but as declaring the worth of man by the incarnataon and sacri
fice of the Son of God; and therefore applied its principles to elevate society, to reg
ulate education, to civUize humanity, to purify law, to reform the Church and the
State, and to assert and defend liberty; in short, to mould and redeem, by its aU-

154 National Council '»
transforming energy, everything that belongs to man in his individual and sdcial
relations. .•¦¦¦-
It was the faith of our fathers that gave us this free land in which we dweU.
It is by this faith only that we can transmit to our chUdren a free and happy,
beeause a Christian, commonwealth.
We hold it to be a distinctive excellence of our Congregational system; that it
exalts that which is more above that which is less, important, and, by the simpUraty
of its organization, facilitates, in communities where the population is Umited, the
union of all true beUevers in one Christian church ; and that the division of such
communities into several weak and jealous societies, holding the same common faith,
is a sin against the unity of the body of Christ, and at once the shame and scandal
of Christendom.
We rejoice that, through the influence of our free system of apostoUc order, we
can hold fellowship with aU who acknowledge Christ, and act efficiently in the
work of restoring unity to the divided Church, and of bringing back harmony and
peace among all " who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."
Thus recognizing the unity of the Church of Christ in aU the wOrld, and knowing
that we are but one branch of Christ's people, whUe adhering to our pecuUar faith
and order, we extend to all believers the hand of Christian feUowship upon the
basis of those great fundamental truths in which all Christians should agree. With
!them we confess our faith in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; in
Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, who is exalted to be our Redeemer and King ;
and in the Holy Comforter, who is present in the Church to regenerate and sanctify
' the soul.
) With the whole Church, we^ confess the common sinfulness and ruin of our. race,
-'and acknowledge that it is only through the work accomplished by the Ufe and ex
piatory death of Christ that beUevers in him are justified before God, reeeive the
'remission of sins,- and through the presence and grace of the Holy Comforter are
delivered from the power of sin, and perfected in holiness.
We believe also in the organized and visible Church, in the ministry of the Word,
iuthe sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, in the resurrection of the
body, and in the final judgment, the issues of which are eternal life and everlasting
punishment. We Teceive these truths on the testimony of God, given through prophets .and
apostles, and in the life, the miracles, the death, the resurrection, of bis Son, our
Divine Redeemer — a testimony preserved for the Church in the Scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments, which were composed by holy men as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost.
Affirming now our belief that those who thus hold " one faith, one Lord, one
baptism," together constitute the one cathoUc Church, the several households of
which, though called by different names, are the one body of Christ, and that these
members of his body are sacredly bound to keep " the unity of the spirit in the
bond of peace," we declare that we wUl cooperate with aU who hold these truths.
With them we will carry the gospel into every part of this land, and with them
we wUl go into all the world, and " preach the gospel to every creature." May He
to whom " all power is given in heaven and earth " fulfil the promise which is aU our
hope : " Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world." Amen.
It was then solemly reaffirmed and finally adopted by a rising vote, in connec
tion with prayer, by Rev. Dr. Palmer, of New York, and the singing of " My faith
looks up to thee," and the Doxology.
Adjourned to 3 P. M.

National Council-. 155
Friday Afternoon, 3 p. m.
The Business Committee reported sundry resolutions, which were referred back
to their wisdom for ultimate disposition.
Also the following, viz. :
^ Resolved, That this CouncU recommend that from the amount raised for church building,
in central localities at the South,, a sum not exceeding $50,000 be appropriated by the Amer
ican Congregational Union for the establishment of ai Congregational Church in the city of
Washington, D. C, provided that an amount equal to the sum appropriated by the American
Congregational Union aforesaid be raised from other sources.
Accepted, and referred to the Committee on Church BuUding.
Also the foUowing order :
Ordered, That a committee be appointed to report to this Council a brief paper on the sub
ject of worship, — not the order of worship, but worship, both public and private.
Accepted, and referred to a special committee.
Dr. Bacon moved that the Business Committee be instructed to report no further
new business. Dr. Dutton moved to amend by instructing the Business Committee
to report only such business as in their judgment is proper to be presented.
Amendment carried, and the motion as amended was adopted.
The Business Committee reported the foUowing resolutions :
Whereas, We the members of the National CouncU recognize in our deliberations a degree
of unanimity and cordiality which was hardly to be expected in view of the wide separation
of our churches in space and the diversity of experiences and influences under which they
have been trained in the providence of God : therefore
Resolved, (1) That we do hereby cordially and unanimously assert our assent to the general
course of action in this Council.
(2) That we devoutly thank God for the evidence developed in this assembly that we are
harmonious in our views of the teachings of God's word, and the leadings of his providence
in our time.
(3) That before the close of this ' Council we will unite in the observance of the Lord's
Supper ( at such time and in such manner as the Committee on Devotional Exercises may
deem best), whereby we trust all our minds may be turned to Him who is the source of all
our hopes and convictions as Christians, and all our hearts united in the love of our Saviour,
the great Head of the Church.
Accepted, and referred to the Committee on Devotional Exercises.
The foUowing resolution was introduced by Hon. A. C. Barstow :
Whereas, This Council has recommended that the sum of one hundred thousand dollars
be raised for the purpose of erecting in the city of Boston a suitable building for an Ameri
can Congregational House : therefore
Resolved, That said Association be requested to seek such change in its charter, or make
such change in the third article of its constitution, as shall better secure the property held
thereby to those who represent our faith in coming generations.
•
It was adopted.
The following Resolution was introduced, viz. :
Resolved, That this Council desires to record its sense of the importance of the worship of
God's house, independently of the sermon, usually and justly holding with us so conspic
uous a place, while there is reason to apprehend sufficient attention ,is not always given to
reading, prayer, and praise, with a view to make them in the highest practical measure
attractive, awakening, and edifying.
That our mode of public worship,, especially of prayer, so plain and simple, but happily
affording scope for the utmost variety of thought and beautiful adaptation to the ever-chan
ging experience of life, should be conducted, not with reference to instruction, or assertion of

156 National Council.
doctrine, or notification to men of passing events,. which is a degradation, but with a view
pre-eminently to the producing of devout emotion, and a commingling of all hearts in one
spirit of confession, supplication, and praise.
That we recommend to ministers to give much more attention to this part of divine ser
vice, and to teachers in our theological seminaries to endeavor to impart a better preparation
for this part of a minister's service.
Accepted, and reference ordered to a special Committee.
It was Voted, That the session of this afternoon be continued until 6 1-2, P. M.
The following were appointed as the special committee on raising the sum of
$750,000 recommended to be raised by the CouncU, viz. : —
New York — Dea. Samuel Holmes, Rev. J. C. Holbrook, D. D., Rev. L. Smith
Hobart. Maine — C. A. Lord, Rev. U. Balkam, Rev. S. H. Keeler, D. D. New
Hampshire — Rev. Alvan Tobey, Rev. Henry E. Parker, Thomas Melvin. Vermont
— Rev. S. O. Brastow, Rev. Geo. P. Tyler, Hon. Ira Goodhue. Massachusetts —
Rev. A. E. P.- Perkins, Allen W. Dodge, MarshaU S. Scudder. Connecticut — Rev.
Davis S. Brainard, Rev. H. P. Armes, D. D., G. W. Sheltoh. Rhode Island — Hon.
A. C. Barstow. New Jersey — Lowell Mason, jr. Pennsylvania — Rev. Edward
Hawes: Delaware — Dea. A. H. Bryant. Maryland— Nathaniel Noyes. Ohio
— Rev. Thomas Wickes, D. D., Rev. J. C. Hart. Tennessee — Rev. Thomas E. Bliss.
Indiana — Dea. A. G. Willard. Illinois — Rev. R. C. Dunn, Rev. W. Carter.
Michigan — Rev. H.. A. Read, Rev. Hiram Elmer. Wisconsin — Rev. E. G. Miner,
Rev. I. N. CundaU. Iowa — Rev. J. Guernsey, Seth Kinnard. Minnesota — Rev.
Charles Seccombe. Missouri — Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, Jr. Kansas — W. H. Wat
son, Esq. Nebraska Territory — Rev. R. Gaylord. Colorado — Rev. W. Crawford.
California — Jacob Bacon. Oregon — Rev. Geo. H. Atkinson.
The foUowing were appointed the special committee on a day of fasting and
prayer : viz., Rev. L. Swain, D. D., Rhode Island ; Rev. George A. Oviatt, Connec
ticut ; Rev. E. Maltby, Massachusetts.
The following were appointed the Committee on Worship : Rev. A. P. Marvin,
Massachusetts ; Rev. J. L. Jenkins, Connecticut ; Rev. O. T. Lanphear, Connecticut ;
Rev. J. Leavitt, D. D., New York ; Rev. N. H. Eggleston, Massachusetts.
The committee to whom was referred the preliminary paper on Systematizing
Benevolent Contributions reported by their chairman, Rev. Dr. Stearns, of Mass.
The report was recommitted.
The Council took a recess for five minutes.
The committee to consider the preUminary papers on Church Polity made report
as follows : REPORT ON CHURCH POLITY.
The committee to whom was referred " the statement of Congregational polity'
respectfully report.
Your committee found it necessary, in the opening of their consideration of the
subject referred to them, to fix definitely in their own minds the precise limits of
the functions of a CouncU like this in issuing a statement of Church poUty. These
limits are defined, —
1. By what we have a right to do.
2. By what we have time to do.
3. By what it is expedient for us to do.
In respect to the first question the answer is plain. We have a right to issue as
complete and comprehensive a statement as we are able to secure, for the considera-

National Council. 157
tion of the churches whose representatives we are, so long as, in the language of
Richard Mather, we claim no more authority for such statement " than there is
force in the reason of it."
In respect to the question how far it is possible for a body of five hundred men,
in the time at our command, to issue a perfected statement concerning a subject so
extensive, and embracing such variety and number of details, your committee were
soon convinced that only an approximation could possibly be made to that precision
and comprehensiveness and conciseness which must characterize such a document,
if it shall be worthy of this National Council or generally acceptable to the churches
we represent. Your committee, therefore, became convinced early in their delib
erations, that all that this CouncU could possibly do, under the most favorable cir
cumstances, would be to give a general approval to the documents reported to it,
and that it would be compelled at last to commit them with such emendations and
additions as it might direct, and such as might be brought out by open discussions,
or private suggestions by members of the Council to a committee, for final revision
and pubUcation.
And in these necessities of our position we found an answer to our third question,
as to how much it would be expedient fok us to do even if we should have at com
mand aU the time we could desire. On this point your committee have been led to
the conclusion, that inasmuch as the action of this Council is to go forth over large
portions of our country, in which the idea of Church authority and ecclesiastical
legislation prevaUs, to the nearly entire exclusion of the conception of our free Con
gregational forms, it would prevent much misconception and misrepresentation, if
such a document, after receiving the general approval of this CouncU, should go
forth to the world with the full indorsement only of the gentlemen whose names
shall be appended thereto.
In this manner we might hope to find a middle course between the two extremes
of too great authority on the one hand, and of the entire absence of authority on
the other. We might hope, in other words, to avoid all appearance of legislation
for the churches, whUe at the same time we might commend to the churches a
statement of polity which, should carry with it prima facie evidence of its correct
ness ; first, from having received the general approval of this National CouncU ; and
secondly, from the minute and absolute approval of a large committee carefully
selected by this body, who shaU have received the benefit of an extended discussion
of the papers now under examination, for months to come, by the whole body of
our ministers and churches.
Having, settled in their own minds these general principles, your committee
appUed themselves to the close and careful study of the two papers presented to
them. They found the longer of these papers to be an able, comprehensive, and, in their
view, a generally correct statement of the principles of the Congregational polity,
and well worthy to be the basis of the platform which we now desire to take the
place of the ancient Cambridge Platform. They found a close similarity to that
long-revered work of our fathers, large portions being little else than a substantial
reproduction of that document.
They found the shorter of these papers to be concise and yet comprehensive,
and in these respects weU calculated for ordinary use in our churches, and for
insertion in our Church manuals.
A careful examination on the part of the committee of the detaUed statements
contained in these documents, and of written suggestions sent in to us by mem-

158 National , Council.
bers of this body, reveals the fact that special attention were necessary in. the final
revision to the following points :
1. The insertion of proof texts after the manner of the Cambridge Platform, and
also of references to standard works on CongregationaUsm.
2. The definition of Church Polity.
3. The definition of the Church Visible, and the whole arrangement of the defini
tions of the Church, local and universal, visible and invisible, miUtant and triumphant,
with reference to the question of genus and species, and of logical consistency.
4. The statement concerning councils, as to their action in certain cases as boards
of referees, as to the propriety of admitting persons as corresponding members not
invited in the letters-missive, as to the propriety of sending stated supplies to act as
pastors on councUs, as to the propriety of using the word " Synod."
5. The relation of ecclesiastical, societies to the churches, and the degree and kind of
control which such societies should have over Church property, and also as to the
recognition and commendation of the practice of dispensing with the " ecclesiasti
cal society " altogether, when the civU law allows.
6. The relation of baptized chUdren to .the Church.
' 7. The designation of the Church members who may properly vote in Church
meetings. 8. The more distinct recognition of the aggressive and missionary functions of
the Church, and the question of a more direct control by the Church of the various
benevolent enterprises which they maintain.
9. Sundry question concerning ministers and the pastoral office, such as these : —
Should a minister be a member of the Church'of which he is pastor ? Are the
statements of the platform under consideration, concerning the eldership and the
presbyters, on page nine, correct ? What should be the office of the pastor in inau
gurating and administering discipline in the Church ? Is a pastor, ex officio, the
moderator of aU the meetings of the Church ? Are the rights and powers of a pastor
correctly stated ? Should the pastor have entire control of the service of teaching
or preaching in his own pulpit ? Should a Church ordain and depose from the min
istry, or only a Council?
10. The grouping of aU the churches of a city or town into one Church, page six.
11. The scriptural requirement that the Psalms be used in pubUc worship.
12. A more precise specification of the only mode of separation from the Church.
13. The importance of introducing more fuUy the doctrines of the Cambridge
Platform, concerning the withdrawal of feUowship from a disorderly Church by its
sister churches.
14. The importance of sharply defining, in a separate chapter, the distinction
between the Church polity of Congregationalists and the poUty of other denomi
nations. 15. The principle and law of feUowship through CouncUs and the proper functions
of ex-parte Councils.
16. The statement made on page thirteen, article six, concerning the treatment
of excommunicated Church members.
17. The statement made on page eighteen, section twelve, respecting the confed
eration , of churches, and the question whether there should be a recognition of
standing Councils. •
18. The expediency of securing the preparation of a catechism upon the cardinal
principles of our faith and poUty, for the use of the churches.
Such your committee have found to be the general character of the two docu-

National Council. 159
ments submitted to them> and such are the points which seem to require special
attention and revision.
, In conclusion, your committee recommend the foUowing action on the part of the
Council :
Resotved, That this Council, having received and duly examined the two statements of
Church polity presented to them, hereby express their approval of the general principles
and scope of the same.
Resolved, That these documents be referred to the committee reporting them, consisting
of Kev. Leonard Bacon, D. D., Eev. Alonzo H. Quint, and Eev. Henry M. Storrs, D. D.,
which committee shall be enlarged by the addition of twenty-four members, of whom six
shall be professors selected, one from each of our six theological seminaries ; viz., Bangor,
Andover, New Haven, East "Windsor, Oberlin, and Chicago, to be nominated by the Com
mittee on Nominations and appointed by this body, who shall revise and publish the same
under the following instructions :
L All members and ministers of Congregational churches, either in an individual
or associated capacity, and especiaUy the committee who framed these docu
ments, shaU be invited by the committee of twenty-five to indicate such additions,
emendations, and omissions as they may judge proper.
2. The committee shaU take into special and careful consideration the points to
which attention is now caUed in this report, and in general shall be empowered to
make such changes and additions to the documents in their charge as they may
deem advisable, and as may not be inconsistent with the general principles now
approved. ' 3. In cases where, without a violation of the cardinal principles of Congregation
aUsm, the usages of Congregationists differ, the mode preferred by the committee
shaU be inserted in the text, and the varying usages shall be indicated in a foot-note.
4. The origin and history of the document shaU be set forth in a preface, to
which shall be appended the signatures of the committee.
5. An appendix shaU be added, containing such ecclesiastical formulas as the
committee may deem expedient.
JOHN P. GULLIVER,
EDWARDS A. PARK,
SAMUEL HARRIS,
S. C. BARTLETT,
N. BISHOP,
CHAS. C. SALTER,
J. GUERNSEY,
J. S. HOYT,
J. G. DAVIS,
J. D. LIGGETT,
E. S. BURR
Rev. Dr. Leavitt, of New York, made the following minority report :
MINORITY REPORT ON THE STATEMENT OF CHURCH POLITY.
The undersigned, a minority of the committee of the National Congregational
Council, to whom was referred the statement of Congregational Polity presented
by the Committee of the Provisional Conference at New York, respectfuUy report:
. . That the Council, and the churches they represent, are under obUgations of grat-

160 National Council.
itude to the Provisional Committee for the pains and study they have bestowed in
the preparation of this document, which is both instructive and valuable as a pre
sentation of the ancient principles of CongregationaUsm in their application ' to
modern circumstances. Should it be published, as it ought to be, either among the
doings of this Council or in a separate work, or in both these ways, it'wUl add one
more to the many attempts of wise and good men to reduce these principles and
their applications to the form of a consistent and harmonious code. As the latest
in ordinary time, it will be found among the most complete and useful of similar
compilations in our language. But valuable as all must admit it to be in its gen
eral character, and worthy of high respect as a comprehensive statement, it is quite
beyond both the province and the capacity of this Council to determine, with the
needful deliberation, the innumerable points of detaU of so extensive a work. And
it would be neither right nor wise for the Council to seem to attach the authority
of its sanction to statements which it has neither formed nor qonsidered in their
minute expression and multifarious application. What is rather appropriate for
this Council, would be such a statement of the general principles of Congregational
ism, and such an exposition of the bearing of those principles upon the civtt and
religious Uberties of the country, upon our free institutions, and upon the growth
and character of our American civilization, as would be fitted to commend their
principles to the respectful consideration of those that are not Congregationalists,
and Ulustrate the benefits which would accrue to churches and Christians of every
name from the general adoption of the simple methods of Church government
exhibited in the New Testament. H Congregational principles are destined to
meet with general prevalence throughout our country, I apprehend that it wUl not
be done by the present slow process of training up Congregational ministers in
Congregational seminaries, who shall gather Congregational churches, forcing their
way in antagonism to all the other churches, so much as by ministers and churches
of other denominations coming by convincement of fact and conscience to the
belief of the soundness of our principles and the safety and good effects of main
taining Church life and efficiency with such simple machinery.
The Congregationalists of England and Wales, some of whose churches are
older than our own, and whose numbers and efficiency, the learning and orthodoxy
of their clergy, and the general intelligence and piety of their members, entitle
their views and practices to great weight, and with whom we hold equal fellowship,
have pubUshed a general statement of their principles of faith and order, which
may afford a useful hint in regard to the business before us. It was prepared at
the annual meeting of the Congregational Union of England and Wales in 1832,
submitted to the ministers and churches of the respective county and district asso
ciations, and, having met with general approbation, was unanimously adopted in
1833, " with the distinct understanding that it was not intended as a text, or creed,
for subscription." Of this document, the " Principles of Church Order and Disci
pUne " occupy about one page, and this has been found, for more than thirty years,
to be a sufficient exposition of the nature of their Church order and discipline. The
most important parts of this declaration may be given with still greater brevity,
omitting such portions as relate to their particular circumstances, and with such
changes of phraseology as may give to the principles a greater distinctness of
expression. 1. They hold it to be the will of Christ that beUevers should assemble together
to observe religious ordinances, to promote constant edification, to perpetuate
and propagate the Christian religion, and to advance the worship and glory of God ;

National Council. 161
and that such society of beUevers, having.these objects in view, is properly a Christian
Churph. • ' r r j
2. That the New Testament contains, either in the form of express statute or in
the example and practice of apostles and apostolical churches, all the principles of
order and discipline requisite for constituting and governing the churches ; so that
human traditions, fathers, and councils, canons and creeds, possess no authority
over the faith and practice of Christians, and all questions are to be settled by
appeal to the Scriptures.
3. That the New Testament authorizes every Christian Church to elect its own
officers, to manage all its own affairs, and to stand independent of all authority,
saving that only of the Lord Jesus Christ.
^ 4. That the only officers placed by the apostles over individual churches are the
bishops or pastors, and the deacons, in numbers according to the necessities of the
Church ; and to these, as the officers of the Church, is committed respectively the
administration of its spiritual and temporal concerns, subject to the approbation of
the Church.
5. The power of admission into any Christian Church, and rejection from it, is
vested in the Church itself, and to be exercised only through its officers.
6. That no persons should be received as members of Christian churches but
such as make a creditable profession of Christianity, are living according to its pre
cepts, and attest a wiUingness to be subject to its discipUne ; and that none should
be excluded from the fellowship of the Church but such as deny the faith of Christ,
violate his laws, or refuse to submit themselves to the discipUne which the word
of God imposes. * * *
10. That it is the duty of Christian churches to hold communion with each other,
to entertain an enlarged affection for each other as members of the same body,
and to cooperate for the promotion of the Christian cause ; but that no Church nor
union of churches has any right or power to interfere with the faith or discipUne
of any other Church, further than to separate from such as in faith or practice
depart from, the gospel of Christ.
11. That it is the privilege and duty of every Church to call forth such of its
members as may appear to be qualified by the Holy Spirit, to sustain the office of
the ministry ; and that Christian churches unitedly ought to consider the mainte
nance of the Christian ministry in an adequate degree of learning, as one of its
(sic) especial cares ; that the cause of the gospel may be both honorably sustained
and constantly promoted.
12. That Church officers, whether bishops or deacons, should be chosen by the
free voice of the Church ; but that their dedication to the duties of their office
should take place with special prayers, and by solemn designation ; to which most
of the churches add the imposition of hands by those already in office.
13. That the fellowship of every Christian Church should be so Uberal as to
admit to communion in the Lord's Supper all whose faith and godliness are on the
whole undoubted, though conscientiously differing in points of minor importance ;
and that this outward sign of fraternity in Christ should be co-extensive with the
fraternity itself, though without involving any compUances which conscience would
deem sinful.1
In comparing these passages with the document referred to this committee, or
any other accredited publication on American CongregationaUsm, several congider-
1 See Banbury, Historical JHemorials, vol. 3, pp. 599, 600.

162 National Council.
able differences are apparent, both in the presentation and the application of the
practical rules drawn from the one fundamental principle which is common to both
countries, the perfect autonomy of the local Church. For instance, they do not
require the strictness of an actual covenant to the being of a Church, but take
practical union in worship as a sufficient basis of Church power and Church respon-
sibUity, which is aU that can be clearly proved from Scripture. They give the
binding force of law to no custom or inference not clearly found in Scripture.
They give more distinct and express prominency to the tenet that the Church is
" independent of all authority " but Christ's. On the other hand, their require
ment, that aU Church action should be " through its officers," would not be weU
received among us, where all our people are accustomed and trained to take an
active part in the management of affairs.
A still more important difference appears in their broader presentation of the
rights and relations of churches, so as to include, not Congregational, but aU
" Christian churches," alike in their claims and responsibiUties. Has not the time
come, and is not this Council the appropriate agent, for American CongregationaUsts
to take this elevated ground, and, looking away beyond the narrow bounds of a de
nomination, proclaim to all Christian churches our recognition of their right to all
the liberties which we enjoy, and our readiness to embrace in our feUowship of the
churches aU who give evidence that Christ acknowledges them for his ?
This view of the possible duty of the Council suggests another reason why the
document referred to us is not quite appropriate to the occasion. It is based upon
the Cambridge Platform of 1648, and is a transcript of much of that famous and
valuable record, including as weU its antiquated phraseology as its uncouth and
lumbering logic. But that Platform was an outgrowth of the circumstances in which
our PUgrim Fathers then found themselves, only twenty-six years after the first
settlement at Plymouth ; and it is submitted that the circumstances in which this
Council convenes call for an utterance as different in tone and aim as our present
situation, duties, and responsibilities differ from theirs. If we throw ourselves
back into their case, we shall find a Synod summoned and authorized by the civil
power, embracing the representatives of thirty or forty feeble churches, the only
Christian lights of about as many thousand civiUzed inhabitants, sprinkled through
the dense wUderness from Salem to Hartford. They were pressed down with two
great anxieties which they looked to the Synod to allay. First, their hearts longed,
even to bursting, in their solitude and weakness, to feel the feUowship and confi
dence of the churches of the Old World, so large and so strong. And secondly,
they felt that the future welfare and even life of their whole enterprise depended
upon the preservation of entire unity among themselves. And their utterances
naturally took the forms calculated to meet these their greatest necessities. As
the churches of the Old World with whom they were in correspondence were aU
Calvinistic, and mostly Presbyterian, the Synod gave full and emphatic assurance
of their own adherence to the Calvinistic formularies, but only " for substance of
doctrine ;" and were also careful to put such a face on their own Congregational
usages as was best fitted to make them appear as good as Presbytery. And on
the other point, they made the cords of their unity fully as stringent as could pos
sibly appear consistent with the cardinal principle of the autonomy of the individual
Church. And from that time to the present, Congregationalism has suffered itself
to be shut up in a corner of the country, and has presented itself as on the de
fensive, in the presence of the more organized and governed bodies of Christian
^churches in this country ; and all its utterances have been more or less apologetic

National Council. 163
m their tone. And in like manner, it has been the great care of our leading minds
to cherish the spirit of unity among ourselves ; to consolidate our ranks as a sect
among sects; to tone, down diversities, and repress every thing out of the ordinary
course ; often sacrificing efficiency to uniformity ; trying to elevate usage into the
rank of law; and to lower the sacred sympathies of fellowship into the character of
a code with despotic power. This first meeting in a National Council, of the Con
gregational Churches, naturally calls us to take an account of the results of this
whole restrictive poUcy. And what do we find ? Why, just this, that we have
kept our churches in unity and order, but have lost our hold upon the people.
Whereas, at the beginning of our national existence, Congregationalism embraced
the whole population of New England, except in Rhode Island, and a few congrega
tions of EpiscopaUans and of Baptists elsewhere, at the present time we are in a
minority in every county and almost every township of New England. Why should
we take measures to spread ourselves over the whole country by pursuing a policy
which has not enabled us to keep what we once had firmly in hand ?
The very circumstances under which this Council assembles, by their strong con
trast with those of the Cambridge Synod, might well suggest to us that the time has
come for a trial of a different polity. The population of the country has increased
weU-nigh a thousand-fold, and even our Congregational Churches have, multiplied
ab%ut a hundred-fold. The glorious issue of a glorious war for the defence of our
national existence has placed our nation in the fore-front among nations, and laid
upon us a proportionate responsibiUty in reference to the establishment of Christ's
kingdom. The same social convulsion which has thrown down the hitherto impen
etrable barrier to the extension of our principles in one half of the country has
deprived the great organized and governed bodies of churches of no small share of
their strength, both of members and of vivifying energy. Let us now realize our
opportunity, raise ourselves up to the height of our privUege, look beyond the nar
row field of denominational aggrandizement, and see what we can do in giving to
the great fundamental principles of CongregationaUsm the influence they deserve,
and which the interests both of reUgion and of the country so perilously need. We
do not now need to seek the guidance of Europe, or court its favor; for Europe now
comes to us with its explanations and professions, and asks of us the good-will
which we are ready to give, and the example which they, will be glad to follow.
We no longer stand on the defensive in the presence of presbytery, or prelacy, or
itinerancy ; but are able and bound to stand upon our pure scriptural basis, and let
them apologize as weU as they can for their unscriptural usurpations, and their im
position of unlawful burdens which the churches are unable and ought not to bear.
With our order and unity as fully recognized and firmly estabUshed as the Union
and government of the nation itself; with our doctrinal soundness and harmony in
the great principles of Christianity, and freedom and divinity in the modes of pres
entation ; with our learned ministry and numerous colleges and seminaries ; with our
educated population and the vast wealth diffused among the people ; with our be
nevolent Boards and Societies which have been and are the exemplars of all others ;
and with the kind favor of God in giving so great prosperity, as weU as in pouring
out his Spirit upon our congregations, — surely it is not becoming for us to offer
any other explanation or apology for our faith or order than to point at their
points, " known and read of aU men." In what remote country or in what be
nighted corner is it necessary to raise an argument or adduce vouchers to prove
that the Congregationalists of the United States of America are a body of evangel
ical Christians, enlightened and benevolent, and worthy of as much respect and

164 National Council.
confidence as any other body, of any other name, or in any other country? With
abundant reason to be humble before God that our good fruits are so far below
our obligations, we stand up before all Christian men, and offer and demand a per
fect and equal reciprocity of respect and confidence and cooperation. Neither is it
becoming for us, after the scenes we have passed through, and the experience we
have had in two hundred and fifty years, to cherish or allow the continuance of
distrust and harassing and .captious anxiety, lest our freedom of thought, controUed
only by the government of opinion, should be unable to preserve the soundness of
the faith, or lest our aUowed diversity of gifts and methods of action should at
length prove incompatible with the Christian unity which is practically necessary
for our highest usefulness and honor. It is our duty now to assume the sufficien
cy, of our ecclesiastical system by boldly commending it to others as tried and
trust-worthy ; to commend our way to the confidence of others by writing as if we
believed it ourselves ; to spend as Uttle time or strength as possible in the indul
gence of cavils and fears ; and, in the assurance that we are right, to go forward in
the most unreserved manner to give the widest influence to our principles, and aim
to secure at the earliest period the universal adoption of our ecclesiastical order
by all churches of every name and diversity that have a right to be caUed
Christiansv With this view, and without asking of the CouncU their pubUcation of this ^re
port, or any sanction of its statements and reasonings, the undersigned recommend
that, besides ordering the pubUshing of the provisional report, the foUowing reso
lutions be adopted as embracing the declarations and indicating the poUcy which
this body might appropriately put forth in place of the lengthy document referred
to the committee :
Resolved, 1. That the laws of Christ, which give to the individual or local societies of
believers alone the right of self-government, including the election and continuance of their
own officers, and the admission of members and retention, and the power of discipline for
delinquency, necessarily make such churches alone responsible for the exercise of these
important functions, and the discharge of these solemn trusts ; and from this responsibility
they can neither discharge themselves, nor is any human authority competent to absolve
them, with or without their own consent.
2. That the existence of these rights and responsibilities, and all the consequent duties
and privileges, does not depend upon any compact, usage, or human recognition, but solely
upon the fact that any society is in reality a Church of Christ.
3. That the duty of individuals or other churches to recognize such society as a Church of
Christ arises from the reasonable evidence they have that Christ himself so regards and
treats it.
4. That the relations of fellowship between churches are established by the laws of Christ,
and do not depend at all upon any agreement among themselves, any modes or forms in
their organization, any name they may assume, as Congregational or any other, or the pres
ence .or absence of any peculiarities Whatever, hut arise and attach inseparably to every
Church of Christ in respect to every other Church of Christ, and can neither be remitted by
a Church, nor dissolved hy any human authority, usurped or otherwise.
5. That this Council, representing the body of churches in the United States commonly
called Congregational, bound together by strong sympathies and hallowed memories, desire
to lay aside ail claims, all usages, and all sentiments, inconsistent with these principles,
solely because they are not in accordance with Christ's laws ; and we hope to shape our
future course of action as nearly by this standard as human infirmity will allow.
6. That we cordially invite all other Christian ohurches in this country, by their love to
Christ and regard for the interests of religion among us, to adopt a similar course ; to
renounce, all human authority over them, whether presbyterial, prelatical, or itinerant, which
would hinder them from the exercise of these rights, or the maintenance of these principles ;

National Council. 165
so that we may all stand together and aot together as one united brotherhood and host of
the Lord.
7. That it is the natural right of the churches, as it is of individuals, to form special inti
macies, either transitory or permanent, with those to whom they are drawn by similarity of
views, objects, and habits ; but this should never be allowed to interfere with the duties of
justice, kindness, and friendly aid, which they owe alike to all who are entitled to the name
of Christian churches, irrespective of any peculiarities or differences whatever. As surely
as they belong to Christ, the things in which they agree are immeasurably greater than the
things in which they differ. And we are all one in Christ Jesus, churches as well as per
sons, and our unity of relation and consequent duties of fellowship with all depend not upon
human volition. JOSHUA LEAVITT.
Both reports were accepted.
It was moved that the majority report be adopted.
Mr. Quint moved to amend by omitting the word " twenty," making the Com
mittee to be five instead of " twenty-five."
The time of adjournment arrived, and the discussion was arrested, Dr. Bacon
having the floor.
Adjourned with singing the. Doxology.
Tenth Day ; Saturday, June 24, 1865 ; 9, A. M.
The Council was opened with prayer by His ExceUency Gov. Buckingham.
The minutes of yesterday's session were read, amended, and approved.
The Business Committee recommended that five minutes be the limit of speaking,
unless specially ordered ; which was ordered.
On motion of Rev. Dr. Thompson, the order appointing the Moderator and the
two Assistant Moderators to respond to the communication from Boston, England,
read yesterday, was reconsidered, and the duty was referred to three pastors of
Boston, Mass. ; viz., Rev. Dr. G. W; Blagden, Rev. Dr. E. N. Kirk, Rev. H. M.
Dexter. The committee to whom was referred the subject of Education at the West
made report, and their report was referred to a special committee.
That committee was ordered to be composed as follows: viz., Rev. Dr. E. A.
Park, of Mass. ; Rev. J. P. GulUver, of Conn. ; Rev. Wm. De Loss Love, of Wis.
It was moved to amend by taking from the table the subject of a Catechism, pre
sented to the Council at an earlier session, and referring it to the same committee.
The amendment was accepted.
Dr. Bacon was allowed, to speak on the question before the Council without
limit of time.
Dr. Edward Beecher was allowed fifteen minutes additional to his time.
Dr. Eldredge was also allowed an extension of time.
The order of the day requiring the service of devotion at 11, A. M., was sus
pended, to allow Rev. Mr. Gulliver to make a personal explanation. By permission
of Mr. Gulliver, Rev. Dr. Park, of Mass., introduced the foUowing resolutions,
which he moved as an amendment to the Report of the Committee before the
Council :
Resolved, That this Council recognizes as distinctive of the Congregational polity, —
First, The principle that the local or Congregational Church derives its power and au
thority directly from Christ,- and is not subjected to any ecclesiastical government exterior
or superior to itself.

166 National Council.
Secondly, That every local or Congregational Church is bound to observe the duties of mu
tual respect and charity, which are included in the communion of churches one with an
other ; and that every Church which refuses to give an account of its proceedings, when
kindly and orderly desired by neighbor churches, violates the law of.Christ.
Thirdly, That the ministry of the gospel, by members of the churches who have been duly
called and set apart to that work, implies in itself no power of government ; and that min
isters of the gospel, not elected to office in any Church, are not a hierarchy, nor are they
invested with any official power in or over the churches.
The committee to whom was referred the subject of raising $750,000 for the
purposes of the denomination, reported, by Dea. Samuel Holmes, its chairman, as
follows, viz. : — REPORT.
The committee to whom was referred the question, " By what means to raise
$750,000 for the Evangelization of the West and South ? " beg leave to suggest, that
the sum named, as it cannot be reckoned large, when compared with the grandeur
of the object and of the opportunity which God in his providence has set before us,
so neither is it to be regarded as extravagant in comparison with the ability which
divine munificence has bestowed upon us, the Congregational churches of
America. Were we standing higher upon the mount of vision and of consecration, we
should be startled not at the greatness but at the littleness of our plans for answer
ing the appeal made to us at this signal moment in the history of our nation.
The one thing necessary in order that the amount named, and even more, may
be realized the ensuing year, and from year to year hereafter, is that the benevo
lent spirit of our Master be more fuUy present in the churches, and be prompted to
exercise the broader and clearer views of the work to be done.
It will be understood that the present is not a proposition to raise for the
three societies a special fund of $750,000 over and above their ordinary receipts.
It does propose to double the annual revenue of the American.Home Missionary So
ciety and that of the American Missionary Association, while for church building it
aims to do, through the American Congregational Union, a special service, plain
ly demanded now, and to a greater or less degree likely to be demanded for years
to come.
We esteem it a fortunate circumstance, that the new campaign for Christ's
cause finds our denomination provided with the three distinct and harmonious
agencies that correspond to the three departments of labor into which the di
rect work of evangelization divides itself — an agency to assist in planting and
sustaining churches ; an agency to secure the building of houses of worship ; and an
agency to care for the comfort, education, and religious weU-being of the lately
enslaved blacks.
We desire to take no labor off from these societies, but rather to lay more upon
them, and encourage them to put more upon the churches in Christ's name.
In accordance with these views, the committee recommend to the CouncU the
passage of the following resolutions :
1. Resolved, That each of the several benevolent societies named in the report of the Com
mittee on the Evangelization of the West and South be desired and enjoined to adopt the
most efficient means in its power to secure the sum proposed, as its quota of the $750,000.
2. Resolved, That, regarding this as the most significant of all the practical measures that
have occupied the attention of the Council, we do hereby pledge ourselves to our Father, our

National Council. 167
Saviour, and to each other, to cooperate with the Secretaries and Agents of the Societies
referred to, in any effort they may wisely and zealously adopt.
3. Resolved, That the Council recommend to the American Congregational Union, without
arresting or delaying the special efforts now in progress or ready to be put forth in behalf of
the churches needing aid for the erection of houses of worship, to call for a simultaneous col
lection on the Sabbath preceding Forefathers' Day, December 17th, when every Congrega
tional Church, large or small, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, shall contribute what it can
towards the $200,000 for church-building. Let the good work be finished in a day, and give
the proper punctuation to this memorable meeting.
4. Resolved, That an appeal be issued from the Council, and placed, so far as may be, in the
hands of every member of every Congregational Church in the country — urging the duty
and privilege of self-denying benevolence, with immediate reference to the object contem
plated in this paper.
5. Resolved, That we undertake this work, not in our own strength nor for our own glory,
but with humble dependence upon Him whose are the silver and the gold and -the hearts of
men ; and in humble imitation of Him who said, ".It is more blessed to give than to receive, '
— to Him be glory by the Church throughout all ages.
In behalf of the committee, SAMUEL HOLMES, Chairman.
The report was adopted by a rising vote.
A half-hour was spent in devotional exercises.
Rev. Mr. Marvin of Mass., from the special committee to whom was referred the
Resolution on Worship, reported as follows : —
REPORT.
The committee to whom the order on the subject of Worship was referred, hav
ing given it what attention was possible in the short time since the matter was
referred to them, respectfully submit the following report : —
To avoid all misapprehension, the committee would begin by saying, that the
subject before us is worship ; not forms of worship, nor the order of service in the
house of the Lord ; but simply worship. It is quite true that the dividing line
betweeen our denomination and some other bodies of Christians is not liturgical.
CongregationaUsts might have a prescribed order of service, with written forms of
prayer, without infringing any of their peculiar principles : but that subject is not
now before us ; and we desire to say, so distinctly as not to be misunderstood, that
we do not wish to raise any agitation in regard to it within this body. Our mode
of worship is weU estabUshed, and is satisfactory to the great mass of our feUow-
worshippers. The point to which we call especial attention, and would impress with emphatic
earnestness, is this, that in our devotions, both public and private, we should
bring in much more of the element of worship. Prayer, as generally defined, con
sists of several parts, as invocation, confession of sin, petition, thanksgiving, and
praise. Any one, however, who gives attention to the custom in our public and
private devotions, will be struck with the fact that the larger part of our prayers
are taken up with petitions ; confession of -sin, comes next in frequency and promi
nence ; thanksgiving is not entirely forgotten ; but praise, worship, adoration, are
often entirely omitted. In saying this, we do not mean to intimate that we, as a
denomination, in comparison with other Christians, are deficient in reverence ; but
that there is a general want of the element of worship, which we share in common
with others. A sceptical philosopher, and statesman in a former generation ridi-

168 National Council:
culed the practice of worship as if.it consisted in flattering the Almighty ; and We
have heard Christian ministers inquire, in the same strain, why we should teU
God in our prayers how old he is, and how great. This error comes from appa
rent unfamiliarity with the practice of ancient saints, as seen in the Psalms ; and
also from profound ignorance of the design and effect of worship. The Psalms of
David, of Asaph, and the other sacred poets, are replete with the spirit of worship.
In commencing their service they were accustomed to say, " O come, let us wor
ship ; let us bow down before the Lord our Maker !"..." Let us enter bis courts
with thanksgiving, and his gates with praise ! " They thought of the eternity, the
self-existence, the power, the truthfulness, the justice, the mercy, and the holiness
of God, until their hearts were full, and then their feelings burst forth in the high
est strains of adoration and praise.
Let it always be borne in mind that no one can worship God unless his soul is
in love with infinite excellence ; and that in proportion as his love for perfection
increases will be his desire to render unto God the worship which is due. And in
the act of worship the soul is enlarged and purified. No exercise of the human
heart is so elevating and improving as that of meditating, with adoring feel
ings, upon the character of the ever-blessed God. As we study him in his works,
and especially in his words, as revealed in his perfect laws, we are " changed into
the same image from glory to glory."
We do therefore earnestly call upon all with whom the proceedings of this Coun
cil will have weight to make the element of worship more prominent in their devo
tions, both in public and private religious services. To the objection that the en
deavor to effect this end would prolong devotional exercises to an undue length,
we would reply, that prayers are sometimes tedious because they have not the
variety which meets all the wants of the devout soul, and are made up of " vain
repetitions " in the form of petition for blessings. It is believed that our devotional
services, both in the house of God, in social meetings, and in the famUy, would be .
made far more interesting by being more complete, while by the same means they
would be rendered more acceptible to the hearer of prayer. Those who render
earnest and sincere thanks for divine favors, will thus enforce their prayers for
new mercies in the presence of the prayer-answering God ; and those who, by high
and holy expressions of adoration, draw near to the great white throne, wUl be
thereby fitted to make a good use of all the blessings which God may be pleased
to bestow upon them. Our petitions will be more pleasing to our heavenly Father
when we worship him in the " beauty of hoUness." A. P. MARVIN,
N. H. EGGLESTON,
J. L. JENKINS.
The amendment to the Report on Church Polity was adopted, and the amended
report was then adopted.
It was voted, that the vote be reconsidered so far as respects the mode of
appointing the committee ; and it was ordered that the Moderator and First Assist
ant Moderator nominate that committee to this Council for its appointment.
The Committee on Ministerial Education reported by Dr. Sweetser, their chair
man, as follows, viz. : — REPORT.
The Committee on Collegiate and Ministerial Education respectfuUy recommend

National Council. 169
that the resolutions submitted to them in reference to CoUegiate and Theological
Institutions at the West be referred to a special committee.
They also recommend the adoption* of the comprehensive, clear, and well-arranged
report on the education of young men for the ministry presented to this Council by
the committee appointed at the preUminary meeting to consider that subject.
And in order that some of its more weighty suggestions may be distinctly
impressed, and be carried out in the practical application they deserve, the com
mittee beg leave to submit to the Council for their adoption the foUowing state
ments :
1. As it is an admitted fact that in the providence of God the high religious char
acter, the Christian energy, the sound and inteUigent patriotism, and the wide and
salutary influence, of New England in the past have depended to a large extent
upon the existence and continuous work of an educated and devoted ministry, so
it must be admitted, that in the future within New England the perpetuation and
enlargement of such character and influence, and beyond New England the training
of communities to a similar character and influence, depends, and will ever depend,
upon the existence and continuous work of a ministry in like manner devotedly-
pious, and generously educated.
2. Inasmuch as the present emergency is pressing, and the condition of the West
and South imperatively demands' immediate attention, it is eminently desirable
that our theological seminaries should provide for the education of earnest-minded
and vigorous young men, Whose hearts are in the Lord's work, by arranging a
course of instruction not requiring a previous collegiate training, in order that, with
as Uttle delay as practicable, they may engage in preaching the gospel to the many
thousands who wait for it in our land.
3. As the duty of consecration to the spreading of Christ's kingdom is not laid
exclusively upon those who minister the word, and as it is not salutary nor right
that those who go into the warfare equip themselves at their own charges, the
obUgation should be recognized by all members of the Church of our Redeemer,
to help young men in their education for the ministry, by. assistance rendered
directly to individuals, by supplying ample funds to education-societies, and by
generously endowing scholarships in coUeges and theological seminaries.
4. Notwithstanding the often presented discouraging aspect of the Christian1
ministry, arising from an aUeged insecurity and insufficiency of pecuniary support,
young men of the requisite abUity and good disposition should be encouraged to
devote themselves to preaching the gospel, in the cheerful exercise of a simple faith
in the promise of our Lord Jesus Christ to his messengers, " Lo, I am with you:
always ! " trusting With all good assurance and hope in the word of the Lord, that
aU necessary things shall be added unto them.
By vote of the committee, S. SWEETSER, Chairman.
June 23, 1865.
The report was accepted and adopted, with the foUowing addition to the original
paper, as foUows :
" And a deeper and more general consecration on the part of Christian parents
of their children to the work of the gospel ministry."
Accepted and adopted ; to be entered after " choicest of our sons," page 90,
line forty-five.

170 National Council.
Dr. E. Beecher offered the foUowing resolutions, viz. :
Resolved, That an appeal be issued from this Council, and placed, so far as may be, in the
hands of every member of every Congregational Church in the country, urging the duty of
self-denying benevolence, with immediate reference to the object contemplated in this paper.
Resolved, That a special committee of five be appointed to prepare and issue this appeal.
It was voted that this Council sit untU two and a half P. M., and then adjourn
sine die.
Dr. Stearns's report on Systematizing Benevolent Contributions, amended, was
accepted and adopted as foUows :
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES.
The committee to whom was submitted the paper entitled " Systematizing
Benevolent Contributions " ask leave to report, that they have given as much tune
to the consideration of the subject of the paper as your intervals of business and
their other engagements would aUow, and see no reason to dissent from the general
views and statements presented by the original committee.
They were evidently embarrassed, as aU who give attention to the facts and cir
cumstances of the case must be, by the number of existing organizations engaged
in important enterprises, and by the difficulty of connecting those organizations
by any wise and practicable plans of concentration. Ii the authors of the paper
had any such end in view when they commenced the work assigned them, they
were evidently brought to despair of its accompUshment. Your committee fully
agree with them in the opinion that much less can be safely attempted towards
reducing the number of benevolent associations, and giving greater breadth and
power to a few which might be specially recommended to pubUc confidence, than
the inexperienced in such an effort would naturally imagine. Most of these soci
eties have long since attained to the dignity and stabUity of years and experience,
and have acquired confidence by valuable services. Most of them have their own
charters, their own endowments, their own special patrons and friends, and their
own specific works. They have also a history and a life, and would be destroyed
only by undesirable pressure and violence. The work of evangelizing the heathen
and nominally Christian nations abroad, and of converting the population of our
own country wholly to Christ, is the one work, generaUy speaking, which as Chris
tians and CongregationaUsts we are all interested, in connection with the upbuUd-
ing of our own churches, to achieve ; and we suppose it to be an established fact
that this work must be carried on among us through the agency of the great mis
sionary and other benevolent associations which have been estabUshed for the
purpose. It must not, however, be forgotten that new and great opportunities for Chris
tian effort have been opened to us by the results of the war. The colored Freed
men, the long neglected whites of the South, the in-rushing, enterprising, diversified
populations *of the West, even more than before, all demand Christian sympathy
and assistance, which can be best afforded, sometimes by the old organizations, and
sometimes perhaps by temporary associations formed expressly for their benefit.
We cannot restrict the Uberty of the churches in selecting the fields of their labor,
the objects of their benevolence, and the channels through which they would bestow
their contributions.
Your committee, therefore, in view of the whole subject, would limit themselves

National Council. 171
to a few simple suggestions, and those chiefly in accordance with the sentiments of
the paper before them.
_ 1. They suggest that it is exceedingly desirable that the disposition to Christian
giving should be greatly intensified and extended — that all the members of our
larger churches should be educated and accustomed to it, and that pains should be
taken to interest not only the smaller, but the smallest churches in it. Of this
last character, it is believed that there are large numbers which are rarely visited
by the agents of benevolent societies, for the reason that such agents do not find
this work pecuniarily remunerative to the associations which employ them. In
consequence of this neglect, while the pecuniary loss to the kingdom of Christ is
great, the loss of Christian growth, through the disuse of giving, is far greater and
deplorable. We would call the attention of ministerial associations, Church con
ferences, agents of benevolent societies, pastors and churches, to this subject, that
they may inquire, in their respective localities and relations, what can be ¦ done to
develop the benevolence of aU churches and Christians within the reach of their
influence. 2. Your committee suggest, that it may be safe and wise to presume that inteUi-
gent Christians, in selecting societies, wiU naturaUy give their preference to those
whose work, as defined, comes nearest to that "fooUshness of preaching" by which
Christ saves those who beUeve.
3. Your committee suggest, that without infringing upon the Uberty of the
churches and of private Christians, in their selection of societies, and because we
are afraid that many churches, especially at the West, would esteem it a great
favor to be informed of the facts, it may be well for this body to say that the Amer
ican Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the American Home Missionary
Society, and the American Missionary Association, have the confidence of our
churches, and have been accustomed to receive and disburse most of the charities
intended to subserve the ends for which these societies were formed ; that the
American Education Society, for the increase of the number of Christian ministers ;
the Society for Promoting CoUegiate and Theological Education at the West, having
the same general object in view ; the American Bible Society for the translation
and distribution of the Word of God ; the American and Foreign Christian Union
for diffusing the simple gospel among nations and communities whose Christianity
has been sadly corrupted, and in some instances almost destroyed by human addi
tions and superstitions ; the old and weU-established societies for the benefit of
seamen, and for the gathering and improving of Sabbath Schools, and the Christian
education of chUdren in them ; the Congregational Board of PubUcation, [and the
American Congregational Association,] — have all been sanctioned by the customs
of the churches, and by the recommendations, often repeated, of numerous reUgious
bodies among us ; also that the objects for which the American Tract Societies were
instituted, viz. the distribution of reUgious books and tracts, especiaUy in settle
ments supposed to be destitute of them, are considered by this Council as of great
importance, and are cordiaUy recommended to the churches ; also that, whereas there
are many associations for the benefit of the Freedmen, — the paper under consider
ation says at least twelve, others say as many as eighteen within their knowledge,
— it would seem desirable to concentrate such agencies, so far as our contribu
tions are concerned, into some one responsible body sufficiently known and approved
to be worthy of our confidence ; and as the American Missionary Association has
undertaken this work, we are happy to say that in our judgment there is no exist
ing organization which has better adaptations to the successful performance of it ;

172 National Council
also, and as a matter of special importance, that an effort to encourage and aid
Church-building, especially at the West and South, should be earnestly carried
forward by the Congregational Union, which has undertaken this enterprise.
4. Your committee suggest, that while it is not expedient for this CouncU to
attempt constrained conjunctions of societies, nor in their power to furnish perfect
systems of Christian giving which may be applicable to aU cases, it is a legitimate
business of each Church, and would conduce greatly to its order and comfort, to
decide, after full consideration for themselves, what objects they wiU patronize,
what societies tiiey will employ as their organs, and at what times they wiU make
their contributions. They can adopt either of the plans suggested in the paper
before us, or construct a plan each for itself, always regarding the abiUty of the
Church, and adopting such courses as may be most conducive to good order and
most fruitful in good works. Your committee cannot think that impulsive giving
to irresponsible solicitors, when the circumstances cannot be well understood, is
either required by our Lord, or is conducive to the edification of his Church. New
objects of high importance will often demand consideration ; but if entertained at
all, they should be regarded only as occasional and extraordinary. .
Finally, your committee suggest that it would be a great saving of expense and
confusion, and for the edification of the churches, if the pastors would undertake,
as far as may be practicable, to act themselves as agents in behalf of the several
objects for which the churches under their care may choose to contribute ; and that
whUe agents may be invited when necessary to communicate information, the sys
tematic efforts of pastors and churches should be our main reUance for securing
those stated contributions which our churches may choose to bestow.
W. A. STEARNS,
J. H. LINSLEY,
WOOSTER PARKER,
CALVIN B. CADY,
H. A. MINER,
JEREMIAH BUTLER.
And it was ordered that the name of the American Congregational Association
be added to the Ust of societies therein contained.
Rev. Mr. Thome, of Ohio, presented the following resolution, which was accepted
and adopted, as foUows :
Resolved, That for the supply and proper training of a ministry adequate to the wants of the
West and the South, and for the spiritual preparation of the Lord's people East and North
to respond suitably, in money, measures, and men, to the calls of Providence to enter and
occupy the land which late events have opened to our faith and polity and evangelical enter
prise, and to plant churches among, and furnish all requisite means of grace to, the Freed
people, and the inhabitants generally of the South,—
Revivals ofReligioh in our colleges and theological seminaries, and throughout our church
es, Sabbath schools, and families, leading to the renewed consecration of the wealth and the
youth of our Zion to the Eedeemer, are now the preeminent necessity ; and that this Coun
cil does conjure the pastors and churches of our order from the Atlantic to the Pacific to
employ, promptly and in faith, the measures they may deem most efficient, under God, in
promoting a general and genuine refreshing from on high.
Arid would God this work of grace might begin at this Jerusalem !
Rev. Dr. Taylor, of Conn., made the following report, which was accepted, and
the resolutions adopted: — ¦

National Council. 173
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE " ON A PROTESTANT ASSEMBLY."
The papers brought before tiiis body in reference to a Protestant Assembly, and
referred to a special committee, emanated from two sources having the same
general object in view. The "Young Men's Christian Association which recently
held a convention in the city of Philadelphia, regarding the signs of the times as
indicating greater harmony among brethren, recommended that measures be taken
for securing a concert of action on the part of all Protestant denominations, to resist
the encroachments of infideUty, in its varied phases of bold opposition to the gospel ;
as well as to promote harmony and love among those who belong to the household
of faith. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which held its late
session in the city of Pittsburg, Pa., had a more definite form given to this subject
in the foUowing resolutions, which were presented for its consideration : —
Resolved, That the wide-spread influence of infidelity, in its varied phases of bold atheism
and rationalistic philosophy, which is now putting forth redoubled energies for its dissemi
nation throughout every section of our land, calls for the prompt and united action of evan
gelical Christians, in a clear, honest, and uncompromising enunciation of the great cardinal
doctrines of grace, and a bold defence of the truth as it is in Jesus.
Resolved, That in the providence of God we believe that a solemn responsibility is now
laid upon the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in this country to manifest her loyalty to the
Great King, by maintaining inviolate and steadfast, both by the enunciations of the pulpit
and the issues of the press, the great principles of the gospel, which are designed to elevate
the cross, establish the kingdom of Christ, and ultimately overthrow the whole system of
error. Resolved, That the fearful gSowth of the Papacy, both as an ecclesiastical and civil power
in this land, is well calculated to awaken the fears and arouse the mightiest energies of
the entire Protestant community, and call imperiously for the adoption of measures at once
timely and adequate to the emergency, so that we may, under the divine blessing, be enabled
to counteract the secret and malign influence of the man of sin, and present an unbroken
front of the army of truth against this system of corruption Which is hourly girding itself
for the approaching conflict.
Resolved, That it is our candid judgment that the present is an auspicious moment to
inaugurate such a measure, and that, while ,we would not presume to dictate, we would most
respectfully request the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, now in session in this
city (Pittsburg), to put forth a suitable deliverance upon these important subjects, and to take
steps to have such action concurred in by other branches of our American Protestant Church,
so as to bring about the formation of a great national Protestant league, Which, by its consti-
tion, shall be fully up to the urgent demands and, necessities of the times.
Resolved, That a committee of four ministers and three laymen be appointed by this meet
ing to present this subject to the General Assembly, and to be associated with a similar com
mittee to be appointed by that body in devising plans by which a general and concerted
movement of all the Protestant force in the land may be brought about, and bold, continu
ous, and vigorous protest, by word and act, shall be enunciated against both infidelity and
Eoman Catholicism, the arch enemies of truth in the midst of the professing Church of God,
and arch traitors to civil and religious freedom throughout the world.
These resolutions eUcited the warm approval of the Assembly to that degree
that they appointed a large committee to carry out the spirit of them in coopera
tion with committees which may be, or have been, appointed by other denomina
tions for a like purpose. The subject has been urged also on the attention of this
body by private letters entitling it to serious consideration. Your committee
therefore recommend the passage of the following resolution by this Congrega-
tional Council : —
Resolved, That a committee, consisting of five clergymen and an equal number of
laymen, be appointed, to act in concert with other committees similarly appointed by other

174 National Council.
evangelical denominations, for the purpose of giving expression to our desire for more out
ward fellowship, and more vigorous co-operation for the defence of Protestant Christianity
against the encroachments of Eoman Catholicism and infidelity in our land.
For the Committee, JEREMIAH TAYLOR, Chairman.
Rev. Dr. Blodgett, of Rhode Island, made a report on Temperance, as foUows : —
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON TEMPERANCE.
The special committee to whom was referred the subject of temperance, under
the form of an inquiry, " whether any, and, if so, what deUverance should be made
on the subject by the National CouncU," make the foUowing report.
It is eminently fitting that the Council send forth to the nation a distinct and
solemn testimony in favor of the principles of temperance. The subject is too ten
derly associated with the labors and "blessed memory" of many of the fathers in
our ministry who gave to it their labors and their prayers ; and it too deeply con
cerns the interests of morality and religion for the present and for the future of
our blood-bought country to allow us to refrain from giving it an open and hearty
indorsement. Intemperance is a sin against God, a curse to society, a foe to the purity of the
Church and its ministry, a corruption of the young, a hinderance to the profitable
hearing of the word of God, and so to the conversion and salvation of men. Under
various pretences of health and hospitaUty, and by vaHous influences of appetite
and gain, and those growing out of the late war with rebeUion, drinking usages are
widely prevailing, to the danger of all and to the destruction of many of our young
men, the late defenders, and the future hope, of our country.
That the alarming progress of the evU may be arrested, and our country saved
from a more disastrous doom than that in which the late rebeUion threatened to
involve it, in the name of humanity, patriotism, moraUty, and reUgion, yea, in the
name of God, we earnestly invite the cooperation of ministers and Christians, of
teachers in our schools, of officers in our colleges, of our legislators and our minis
ters of justice, of our physicians and lawyers, and of our rulers in aU departments
of government, that our nation may be saved from the dangers which impend from
the increasing prevalence of intemperance.
We would give the trumpet that certain sound which such men as Lyman Beecher
and Justin Edwards gave, when the nation was aroused from its guilty slumber,
and marshaUed under God for that great moral battle, in which the friends of
temperance so signally triumphed.
The committee submit for the adoption of the Council the following resolutions ;
viz. :
1. Resolved, That this Council hails with satisfaction and gratitude to God the renewal of
temperance efforts, in a Christian spirit, and on the scriptural principle of self-denial for
personal safety and the good of others, efforts long successfully urged by wise and good men
in our own ministry and churches, and in the ministry and churches of other denominations ;
and that we regard the family, the Sunday School, the Church and the congregation, and
above all the ministry, as the fitting channels of influence, on this as on all other great moral
questions. 2. Resolved, That while we accept with thankfulness the aid of legislation, in the conflict
with intemperance, we must still rely mainly upon moral and spiritual appliances for pro
gress and final triumph ; and that we hold the temperance enterprise thus prosecuted to be
just one method of that home evangelization in which this Council is so deeply and so

National Council. 175
properly engaged, and that, too, a method indispensable to the complete success of that
divine work of evangelization.
3. Resolved, That, while we acknowledge with great satisfaction the eminent services of
many of the medical profession in the cause of temperance, we hold it to be matter of regret
that such numbers prescribe intoxicating beverages for convalescent and other patients ; and
we would earnestly inquire if the superior science and wisdom of the profession cannot
find substitutes for such inebriating tonics, the use of which will be attended with less peril
to those who are under the power of an incipient or confirmed appetite for intoxicating
drinks. i. Resolved, That we receive with satisfaction the invitation to send a delegation to the
National Temperance Convention to be hplden at Saratoga, New York, August 1st, 1865 ;
and that we respond to that invitation by appointing six delegates, headed by our respected
Moderator, to that convention, with the desire to add the testimony of this national body to
that of the many State and local bodies to be represented in that convention.
(Signed) C. BLODGETT,
. Z. S. BAESTOW,
"WILLIAM THURSTON,
LOEENZO D. DANA,
C. A. STACEPOLE,
J. COLLD3.
The report was accepted, and it was moved to strike out the word " prohibition "
in the 2d resolution. The amendment was adopted.
Mr. Williams, of New York, moved to amend by appending his resolutions con
demning the improper use of tobacco. The motion was lost.
It was moved to reconsider the motion striking out the word " prohibition."
The motion was lost.
The report as amended, was adopted.
Rev. Prof. Park made a report from the committee to whom was referred the
report on education at the West, as follows :
The special Committee on Education at the West respectfully report the follow
ing resolutions :
Resolved, That in order to the raising-up of an educated ministry for the supply of the
churches of the new States now becoming filled by the advancing tide of population, and to
meet the large demands of those States which recent events have opened to Christian influ
ence, it is a fundamental necessity that well-indorsed and well-manned collegiate and the
ological institutions should be established, and that, too, in the best positions.
Resolved, That the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at
the "West, in rendering effectual aid to fourteen collegiate and theological institutions,
scattered from Eastern Ohio to the Pacific coast, so placing them on sure foundations, and
in so managing this whole subject as at once to have saved the churches from annoyance
and to have given a wise direction to their charities, has accomplished a work of great and
enduring benefit, which this Council recognize with gratitude to God, by whose help it has
been wrought.
Resolved That in view of the great work yet remaining to be done both at the West and
in the South, and of the admirable adaptation of this society to the accomplishment of
it with the least possible friction and expense, this Council heartily commend it to the in
creased confidence and larger liberality of the churches represented here.
LINCOLN COLLEGE.
Report of Special Committee on Theological and CoUegiate Education.
Whereas, Our brethren in Kansas are laying the foundation of a Congregational College,
which shall, on the field of its early victory, be a monument of the triumph of freedom over
slavery; a memorial of that Christian emancipator whose name it bears; a center of Con-

176 National Council.
gregational and Christian influence, and a source of ministerial supply for the Missouri Val
ley and the regions beyond :
Resolved, That we commend the enterprise to the confidence, sympathy, and liberal sup
port of all friends of New England principles and polity, civil and religious liberty, and
home evangelization; and yet that their appeal to the public be only through and in accor
dance with the rules of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Educa
tion at the ^West.
The Report was accepted and adopted.
The Nominating Committee reported the following nominations for Committees,
who were appointed : viz.,
Committee to make special appeal for the $750,000 — Rev. E. B. Webb, Mass.;
Rev. T. P. Field, D.D., Conn.; Rev. J. C. Holbrook, D.D., N. Y.; Rev. G. S. F.
Savage, 111. ; Rev. R. Hall, Min.
Committee on American Protestant Assembly — Rev. Jeremiah Taylor, D.D.,
Conn. ; D. S. Williams, N. Y. ; W. Carter, 111. ; Hon. E. D. Holton, Wis. ; Rev.
John Patchin, Mich. ; Rev. J. Patterson, Iowa ; Rev. Charles Shedd, Min. ; Rev.
E. H. Byington, Vt. ; Dea. S. W. Buffum, N. H. ; Dea. Jacob Blanchard, Me.
Delegates to the National Temperance Convention — His Excellency Gov.
W. A. Buckingham, Conn.-; Hon. C. G. Hammond, IU.; Rev. J. P. Thompson,
D. D., N. Y. ; Hon. E. D. Holton, Wis. ; Charles Staekpole, Esq., Me. ; Rev. H. M.
Dexter, Mass.
The Moderator and Assistant Moderator reported the foUowing to be the Com
mittee on Church PoUty : —
Rev. Dr. Bacon, Conn. ; Rev. A. H. Quint, Mass. ; Rev. Henry M. Storrs, Ohio ;
Rev. Edward A. Parks, D. D., Mass. ; Rev. Samuel Harris, D. D., Me. ; Rev. Sam'l
C. Bartlett, D. D., 111. ; Rev. Prof. G. P. Fisher, Conn. ; Rev. Prof. FairchUd, Ohio ;
Rev. Ed. A Lawrence, D. D-, Conn. ; Rev. J. P. Gulliver, Conn. ; Rev. Benj. Labaree,
D. D., Vt. ; Rev. Mark Hopkins, D.-D., Mass. ; Rev. Wm. Barrows, Mass. ; Rev. J.
M. Sturtevant, D.D., IU. ; Rev. T. M. Post, D.D., Mo. ; Rev. Ed. Beecher, D.D.,
iii.; Rev.Wm. Salter, Iowa; Rev. M. Hoyt, Mich. ; Rev. D. Burt, Minn. ; Rev. J. P.
Thompson, D. D., N. Y. ; Hon. Woodbury Davis, Me. ; Hon. Henry Stockbridge,
Md. ; Hon. John H. Brookway, Conn.; Rev. N. A. Hyde, Ind.; Rev. Leonard
Swain, D. D., R. I. ; Rev. Richard Cordley, Kan. ; A. Finch, Esq., Wis. ; Warren
Currier, Esq., Mo. ; Rev. R. Anderson, D. D., Mass.
The Committee on Parochial Evangelization reported as foUows : —

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PAROCHIAL EVANGELIZATION.
The Committee, to whom was submitted the paper on Parochial EvangeUzation,
presented to the Councjl, would respectfully report.
The relation which the work :«f Parochial EvangeUzation bears to other objects
of Christian enterprise wUl be obvious at a glance. It is preliminary, and, as a
condition of ultimate success, indispensable. How, for instance, can the great
work of evangeUzation at the West and South, which has occupied so large a por
tion of the time of this Council, be carried on, unless our home communities are
pervaded and permeated by the spirit of the gospel ? How are foreign missions
to be sustained jf heatheaoism is intrenched on our own shores ? Whence are to
come the future ministers and missionaries of the cross if there are no Christian

National Council. 177
homes, and young men consecrated from their infancf to Christ and the Church ?
How are collegiate and theological institutions to be established and endowed, un
less the wealth of the land is in the hands of men, who, having first given them
selves to God, acknowledge his claim upon all that they possess ? How are the
treasuries of our various benevolent societies to be suppUed if there are no springs
of piety and Christian sympathy to feed the channels of benevolence, and send the
streams that make glad the city of our God? We do not say that no foreign
work is to be done until the whole home field is cultivated, and made as the gar
den of the Lord ; that, until our own parishes are thoroughly evangelized, the
heathen must be left to perish ; but what hope can we have of final success in con
vincing the world for Christ, unless his kingdom be established in the hearts and
homes of our own people ? The stream wUl not rise above our fountain. The fruits
of the Spirit must somewhere be grown before they can be transplanted and prop
agated. "What advantage wUl it be to build new churches at the West and South
if the churches of New England are to die out and disappear ? Why plant a
Christian empire in the heart of Asia or Africa with a heatHen population at our
very doors ? Let not the Church, " who is the mother of us all," ever be obUged to
say, " They made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyards have
I not kept.' '
Your Committee are more and more impressed with the importance of this work.
They have carefully examined and considered the Report submitted to their in
spection. They indorse substantially the recommendations appended at the close,
and commend the Report as a whole to the earnest and prayerful consideration of
the churches represented in Council.
The Committee do not feel called upon to discuss anew the general subject ; this is
not necessary. But there are certain fundamental truths or principles brought to
view in the Report, to which they would call special attention, that it may be un
derstood what is the precise work, and what substantiaUy are the measures, to
which the CouncU virtuaUy pledge themselves, should the Report in question be
adopted. 1. The Church in its Design.
The Church is a brotherhood of believers, united in the bonds of Christian fel
lowship, for the upbuUding of Christ's kingdom among themselves and throughout
the world. In its very nature and design, the Church is aggressive ; nor wUl it have
done its work until every man, woman, and child is brought under the power of
the gospel.
2. The Parochial Relations of the Church.
Every local Church is the centre of a parish, more or less extended. as the case
may be. Geographical limits cannot always be assigned, nor is it necessary that
they should be. Two or more famiUes may come within the same bounds, and
cover much the same ground. The parish of each Church consists of all the fami
Ues not belonging to other congregations within its reach. For the evangelization
of these, it is held of God responsible. There may be outlying districts, neglected
neighborhoods, on the borders of towns and vUlages. These also are to be cared
for. In some way, by systematic visitation, by neighborhood prayer-meetings and
occasional preaching services, by mission Sabbath Schools and the distribution of
religious books and tracts, by the circulation of the Scriptures and the employment
perhaps of Bible-readers, the people of such outlying neighborhoods are to be made
acquainted with the truths of the gospel. And these movements are to be under
the supervision of the Church ; not spasmodic, but steady ; not phUanthropic sim
ply, but Christian ;' the forth-putting, on the part of the Church, of its activity and
12

178 National Council.
power. AU effort in the work of parochial evangeUzation that is not connected
with the local Church, and does not bring the evangeUzed masses within the fold,
and under the watch and care of the Church, wiU prove futUe.
3. Church Accommodations and Worship.
Ample accommodations are to be provided for aU who are disposed, or who can
be persuaded, to attend upon the services of the sanctuary. The style of Church
architecture should be such as to bring the pew sittings within the reach of the
poorer classes. The sanctuary should be made attractive also, not by costly em-
belUshment, but by the clear and winning exhibition of the truth as it is in Jesus.
There is no such power to sway the hearts of men as is found in the simple preach
ing of the doctrines of the cross. In " the service of song in the house of the
Lord," it is the duty and privilege of all, so far as they may, to participate. There
is devotion in such singing more than in the performances of a few hired singers.
The Scriptures, whether read or chanted, should have prominent place in any
Church service ; while the offering of prayer should be, not a prescribed form, but
the free out-breathing of a soul in habitual communion with God. With such a
service, however humble the structure in which it was held, the people would be
drawn to the house of God, and they who came to scoff, perhaps, remain to pray.
4. The Duty of Ministers.
It is the duty of every minister of Christ to explain to his people the nature and
methods of this work of parochial evangelization, and to direct them in it. He is
himself, so far as health and other circumstances may aUow, to take the initiative.
"Like his divine Lord, he is to seek, as well as to attempt to save, the lost. In going
forth to the remoter sections of his parish, and preaching the gospel from house
to house, in the patient endurance of toU and hardships and self-denial in this
blessed work, he is to be an ensample to the flock. More especially is he to lay
upon the hearts and consciences of the people to whom he ministers the responsi
bility that properly devolves upon them. He is to make them see and feel that they
have something to do ; that they were called into the kingdom of Christ to labor, and
not to. rest. He is to guide them, teach them, show them how they may be useful.
He is to inspire them, to animate them, with his own spirit of self-denial, and devo
tion to the Master's cause. If he is not equal to this, he is not fit for his place.
" Behold," says the prophet, " I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader
and commander to the people." And such should every minister of Christ be
among the people of his charge, a leader as weU as a witness.
5. Lay Preaching.
The duty of laymen, in their own way and sphere, to preach the gospel of Christ,
is now acknowledged. All are to spread the glad tidings. A personal responsibU-
ity rests upon any member of the Church to engage in this work. Ministers are no
more called of God to win souls to Christ than laymen: " Let him that heareth
say, Come." One may preach in the pulpit, and the other just as really, and perhaps
more persuasively, in his warehouse or workshop. " Lord, what wilt thou have me
to do ? " is the question which every professed disciple of Christ should raise from
day to day. " Where can I be most useful ? " " How can I most honor Him who
loved me, and gave himself for me ? " The Church is supposed to be a body of
workers, not of drones. " We, then, as workers together with him," says Paul. If
any man will not work, neither shall he eat of that spiritual bread which came down
from heaven. The question has been raised, whether the time has not come for set
ting apart an order of lay evangelists. And this- matter is certainly worthy of con
sideration. Let no man run before he is sent ; but when he is sent of God, then let
him not stay.

National Council. 179
6. Special Efforts for the Young.
Efforts are to be made for the conversion of all, but more especially for the chil
dren and youth. They are the hope of the flock. Let them be gathered, one
and all, into the Sabbath School, under competent teachers, — "wise to win
souls to Christ." Let the old system of catechetical instruction be revived,
or some substitute be found, which shall be equaUy crowned and blessed of God.
Let more prominence be given to the rule and doctrine of infant baptism. Let chil
dren's parents be instructed as to their duty and privilege in this particular, until
they shall come to see the preciousness of covenant blessings, proffered to them and
their seed after them. Let the hearts of the fathers be turned unto the children,
and the hearts of the children unto the fathers, that the curse may be arrested, and
the pains and penalties of the Old Testament be converted into the promises of the
New. Children should be brought to the house of God also. The Sabbath School
is no proper substitute for the regular Church service any more than for household
religious instruction. Sermons to children should be preached occasionally, and
other means devised to instruct them in the truth and the gospel. He who said,
" Feed my sheep," said also, " Feed my lambs."
7. The Home Prayer Meeting.
The Committee attach great importance to this. The object of the meeting
should be to devise ways and means for reaching the neglected classes of the com
munity ; those who live under the very eaves of the sanctuary, and yet have never
been persuaded to enter. Prayers should be offered with special reference to this
object. Reports should be received from visiting committees, tract distributers,
Bible readers, when such have been appointed. The pastor should give some
account of his labors ; of the encouragements he has met, and the discouragements
and obstacles with which he has to contend. The main point should be, not so
much to make the meeting interesting as useful. Then it will prove both interesting
and useful ; a meeting which the churches will not be wilUng to forego.
8. The Social Element in the Church.
How can we make the most of the social influence and power of the Church ? is
a most important inquiry. , There is felt to be a want in all our churches ; a want
of sympathy and mutual love. We are not one as Christ prayed that we might
become. There are lines of division in the Church which ought to be obliterated.
How to obviate this difficulty is the problem to be solved. It is related of one
whose name and memory are indissolubly associated with this Church edifice, 1
whose hands helped to build these walls, and whose spirit still Ungers about the
sanctuary in which he so long worshiped (the late Deacon Safford), that he
" regarded the family of Christ as his own family." It was his custom to keep a
list of the members of the Church, and to cultivate a personal acquaintance with
each ; loving those united with him in these sacred bonds " with a pure heart fer
vently." This sheds light upon the subject so far as the officers of the Church are
concerned. Something can be done also in the way of social gatherings, meetings
of sewing societies, etc. What is wanted is simply to bring those who are members
of the mystical body of Christ heart to heart. Then also will they see " eye to
eye." There ought to be no tie so tender and strong as that which binds one
Church member to another ; no feeling of love like that which wells up in the
heart of every believer from that common fountain whence we draw our spiritual
life. Over the portals of our churches, that all who enter there may read, should
be inscribed, " Love the Brotherhood."
1 Mt. Vernon Church.

180 National Council.
9. Higher Standard of Piety in the Church.
We might almost say that the whole work of parochial evangelization resolves
itself into this. Let the standard of piety be elevated ; let every Church member
feel that he is called of God and consecrated to the work of serving Christ in sav
ing lost men ; that this is his mission, and not to get money or achieve a high social
position ; the work which it was given him as a Christian man to do, and by which
he is to prove that he is a Christian man, — and there would be no further need of
discussion as to the methods of parochial evangelization. A way would be opened,
a broad highway, in which every consecrated believer in Jesus would delight to
walk. What we want on the part of the membership of the Church is more humU-
ity, more brokenness of spirit, a deeper and truer penitence for sin. We want a
stronger love for Christ, a more abiding sense of obUgation to him. We want, as
ministers and laymen, more of the spirit of self-denial and self-sacrifice, the 'spirit
of the cross ; a willingness to be anything or do anything if only God may be glo
rified, and we glorified in him. The evangelization, not of our parishes simply,
but of the world, is an easy problem when contemplated from this point of view.
10. The Abiding Presence and Power of the Holy Ghost.
We live under the dispensation of the Spirit. This fact is never to be lost sight
of in all our plans and efforts. The doctrine of the Holy Ghost, of his personaUty
and power, should be made very prominent in the preaching of ministers at the
present day. There have been three grand epochs in the history of the world. In
the first, God the Father was the principal actor. In the second, God the Son.
Now appears God the Holy Ghost, to whom it is given to complete the glorious
work. He is the source of all spiritual life and strength. Without him we are
nothing. And just here is our danger in this work of home evangelization. We
mature our plans, we organize our forces, we enter upon the work. The machinery
is perfect, and we expect great results. But the spirit of power does not rest upon
us, and we can accomplish nothing. How different is it when the spirit is poured
out from on high !
But we need the continued presence of the Spirit in our churches ; and this was
the promise of Christ : " And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another
Comforter, that He may abide with you forever." We have our seasons of refresh
ing followed by seasons of spiritual declension. How can we constrain the blessed
Spirit to abide with us ? The question stiU remains to be answered. One thing,
however, is certain : when that time shall come, the problem which now seems so
difficult will have been solved. " Then will the Lord create upon every dweUing-
place of Mount Zion, and upon her assembUes, a cloud of smoke by day, and the
shining of a flaming fire by night ; for upon all the glory shall be a defence." Then
every house will have altars, and from every hearthstone will ascend incense and a
pure offering. " Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness
remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace ; and
the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever." May the Lord hasten
it in his time !
R. T. ROBINSON,
A. S. CHESEBROUGH,
J. M. HOLMES,
H. M. GOODWIN,
D. BURT,
R. CORDLEY,
J. T. FORD.

National Council. 181
The report was accepted, knd so amended as to strike out the word " control,"
and insert the word " superviiion." Adopted. Also, instead of " artistic singing,"
so as to read, " there is devotibn in such singing more than in," etc.
Amendments accepted, andlhe report adopted.
Committee on Church in "Yrashington reported the following resolution, which
was adopted :
Resolved, That the Trustees of tie American Congregational Union be advised and re
quested to take into consideration tiro importance of a well-sustained Congregational Church
in the city of "Washington ; and having ascertained what facilities there are for the establish
ment of such a Church, and \vhi& aid will be necessary, to institute arrangements,
according to their best judgment anaidiscretion, for building or purchasing a suitable edifice
in the National Capital, in which a Congregational Church may maintain the preaching of
the gospel, and the public worship of Sod.
The committee to whom was (referred the question of the appointment of a
special day of fasting and praye^with reference to the results of this Council,
reported by its chairman, Rev. L. Swain, D. D., of Rhode Island, as follows :
The committee would recommenl that Friday, the 15th day of September next,
be observed by the churches represented in this Council as a day of fasting and
prayer to Almighty God for the outjjjuring upon them of his Holy Spirit, so that this
great convocation maybe speedily followed by Ihose good effects which were aimed
at in the beginning, by a close unioi^and a warmer mutual sympathy both among
ourselves and with aU who love our c$nmon Lord; by a deeper and more intelligent
grasp of the principles of our own faith and polity; by amore earnest personal con
secration to Christ and his kingdomMby a new spirit of missionary zeal both in
behalf of the work to be done abroad and the new and important fields to be occu
pied at home ; so that, having, like the (primitive disciples, tarried at Jerusalem for
" the promise of the Father," the ministry and the churches may go forth beneath a
new and mighty baptism of the Holy tthost to preach that gospel which brought
our fathers to these shores, which is setjfpr the healing of the nations, and which is
destined to lead the whole world unto Christ. The committee would also recom
mend that a committee of three be appointed to prepare, and issue to the churches
as soon as possible, a circular to this effeitj embracing also an appeal to the churches
in behalf of the 750,000 dollar fund. %
The report was accepted and adopte<|and referred to the committee already
appointed to make a special appeal in reference to the $750,000.
The adjournment was postponed to allovfjpf the completion of the business of the
Council. The Committee on the Roll reported by'Dr. E. Beecher, chairman, a complete
roll of the Council, which was accepted.
A resolution was presented by Rev. Mr. QfiiUiver, and was adopted, as follows :
Voted, That the following minute be entered onithe record of this Council. This Council
declares that no action which has been taken byithis body is to be construed as expressing
an opinion adverse to prohibitory legislation on t^e subject of temperance.
The following resolutions were also adopted | viz. :
Resolved, That the official proceedings of this Council be published in the Congregational
Quarterly, and that the sum of $200 be appropriateMtawards the expense of printing. And
that the publishers be requested to issue as many Mies of the proceedings, in a separate
publication, as shall be called for, at cost price. w
Resolved, That the original records and papers of thps Council, with the phonographer's
report, be, after final adjournment, placed on perpgtiijl deposit with thejDirectors of the

182 National Council.
American Congregational Association, never to be removed from its library room ; and that
the Directors be authorized to publish a volume of proceedings and debates.
Resolved, That, when the work of the Committee on the Platform of Polity is concluded,
it be published, under the care of the committee, by the Directors of the American Congre
gational Association, who should retain the copyright.
Rev. Prof. Lawrence moved the following :
Resolved, That the report on a Declaration of Faith adopted by this Council, and the Con
fession of Faith adopted by our Synod, be printed with the report which the Committee on
Polity may make, that our doctrines and our polity may go forth together, and be easily
obtained by all in our own churches and among other denominations.
Which was referred to the committee to whom was referred the;, Platform of
Church Polity.
On motion of Rev. Mr. Davis, of New Hampshire, it was ordered, That the
Committee on Church Polity be authorized, if they think best, to issue an epitome
or digest of their large work for use and circulation among the churches, the
copyright to be held in trust by the Directors of the American Congregational
' Association. It was ordered, That Henry Hill, Esq., be added as Treasurer of the CouncU to
the Committee on Finance, and authorized to dispose of all funds that may come
in under the rule of the CouncU.
On motion of Rev. H. M. Dexter, it was voted, that Messrs. H. M. Dexter, and
J. W. Wellman, of Massachusetts, be authorized to place a slab of marble, with a
suitable inscription, in. the wall of the house in Leyden where John Robinson
taught his Church, marking the spot.
Ou motion of Rev. Mr. Eustis, of Connecticut, the foUowing resolutions were
accepted and adopted ; viz. :
Resolved, That this National Council of the Congregational Churches of the United
States do hereby return thanks to the citizens of Boston and its vicinity for the gener
ous hospitality which has so munificently provided for the members during this session,
and to the churches, whose sanctuaries have been freely opened for their accommodation ;
and pray the Lord, who does not forget even the cup of cold water given a disciple, to reward
with the richest spiritual blessings this community for their abounding Christian kindnesses
and entertainments.
Resolved, That this Council declare their high appreciation of the time and labor which
has been expended by the committees appointed at the preliminary meeting in New Tork to
prepare for this Council, and especially to the Committee of Arrangements at Boston, to
whom they are indebted for innumerable attentions,*and for the excursion to the spot where
our Forefathers first brought that catholic Church whose order we maintain. They would
also gratefully notice the invitations from individuals and corporations, most of which they
regret to have been obliged to decline.
Rev. S. Wolcott, D. D., of Ohio, offered the foUowing, which were adopted ; viz. :
Resolved, That the Council tenders its thanks to His Excellency Governor Buckingham,
our honored Moderator, for the dignity, urbanity, and courtesy with which he has presided
over its deliberations — to which, in part, we ascribe the pleasant cordiality of feeling, un-
marred by bitterness or harshness, which has prevailed throughout its earnest discussions ;
and as a National Council we express the satisfaction with which we are reminded, by this
assembly, of the early days of our Puritan history, when the chief magistrates of the Colonies
were the servants of the churches, and the honors of the State were humbly laid at the feet
of Christ.
Resolved, That the ability with which the occasional and special services which have de
volved upon our respected Assistant Moderators have been performed, and the promptness
and thoroaghnes3»with which our Scribes have discharged their onerous duties, are entitled

National Council. 183
to special recognition ; and to these officers, also, the Council tenders its thanks for their
faithfulness and efficiency.
These resolutions were responded to in an appropriate and touching manner by
the Moderator and first Assistant Moderator.
The minutes of to-day's session were then read and approved.
It was ordered that a committee of three be appointed to prepare and sign a Cir
cular Letter to the churches, calling their attention to the principal points of action
of the CouncU.
Rev. Dr. Kirk, of Mass., Rev. Dr. Daggett, of New York, Rev. J. Guernsey, of
Iowa, were appointed that committee.
The first and last two verses of the 33d hymn, Sabbath Hymn Book, were then
read and sung, as follows :
Awake, and sing the song
Of Moses and the Lamb !
Wake every heart and every tongue
To praise the Saviour's name.
Soon shall we hear him say,
Te blessed children, come;
Soon will he call us hence away
To our eternal home.
Soon shall our raptured tongue
His endless praise proclaim,
And sweeter voices tune the song
Of Moses and the Lamb.
Rev. R. Anderson, D. D., led in prayer by request of the Moderator ; when
the Doxology was sung, as follows :
" To God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Spirit, Three in One,
Be honor, praise, and glory given
By all on earth and all in heaven."
After which the Moderator declared the Council adjourned without day.
(Signed) WILLIAM A. BUCKINGHAM, [Moderator.]
C. G. HAMMOND, [Assistant Moderator.']
HENRY M. DEXTER, [Scribe.]
PHILO R. HURD, "
M. K. WHITTLESEY,
E. P. MARVIN.