112 CHRISTIAN CONNECTION. 



CHURCH OF GOD. 



the General Baptists. A committee of three was 

 appointed to raise funds for the establishment 

 of a biblical school which will be located in the 

 State of New York. The organs of the de- 

 nomination, being three in number (the Herald 

 of Gospel Liberty, Newburyport, Mass. ; the 

 Gospel Herald, and the Sunday-School Herald, 

 Dayton, Ohio), were recommended to the at- 

 tention of the members, and it was also resolved 

 to establish a Quarterly and an Annual Regis- 

 ter. The use of tobacco, in any form, and the 

 use of intoxicating liquors, as a beverage or 

 for sacramental purposes, was censured. The 

 new hymn-book in use in the New England 

 churches was recommended for general intro- 

 duction. The committee on the state of the 

 country made the following report, which was 

 adopted : 



Four years of war, in which more than half a mil- 

 lion of human lives were sacrificed ; more than a mil- 

 lion persons maimed ; uncounted multitudes wasted 

 by disease or brutal imprisonment, or cruel starva- 

 tion, in which thousands of homes, once prosperous 

 and happy, were made the abodes of widows and or- 

 phans; in which large portions of our fairest lands 

 were laid waste_, and our commercial, social, and re- 

 ligious enterprises embarrassed ; in which capital 

 enough was wasted to have purchased, at Richmond 

 prices, every slave in the land, and to have endowed 

 all the schools and colleges in the world ; thus four 

 years of terrible war were dealt put to us as the wages 

 of our injustice. We recognized the hand of the 

 righteous God in these chastisements brought upon 

 us for our complicity with the crime of human 

 slavery. We rejoice in the favor of Him who has 

 given Victory to our arms and liberty to .the enslaved. 

 The military tribunal before which our case was 

 forced by the enemies of our Government and their 

 allies, having decided the physical issue of the great 

 contest, now passes the whole question of moral right 

 with all its responsibilities over to the proper author- 

 ities of the loyal people for final adjudication. 



This convention believes that Congress and not 

 the Executive should lay down its basis of peace, to 

 be enforced in the reconstruction of the late rebel 

 States. We believe that the control of the Govern- 

 ment should be forever secured to the loyal people 

 who came to its support and relief in its hour of peril, 

 and that those who, in perjury and treason, inaugura- 

 ted the rebellion, murdered and starved our soldiers, 

 plundered and burned our cities, robbed our treasury 

 and threatened our national existence, should be un- 

 conditionally excluded from the right of franchise, 

 and required to give suitable pledges for future good 

 behavior. We therefore declare : 



1. That we- favor the adoption of the Constitutional 

 Amendment proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, 

 and do hereby pledge our united influence in behalf 

 of the loyal Congress, as against the corruption and 

 usurpation of the Executive. 



2. That we are in favor of impartial suffrage as the 

 inalienable right of all good citizens. 



The committo^'P? colleges and schools made 

 favorable reports^^h the condition of the "Wolf- 

 borough Seminary in New Hampshire, Le 

 Grand Institute in Iowa, Antioch College in 

 Ohio, Union Christian College in Indiana, and 

 Starkey Seminary in New York. The original 

 platform of the denomination, namely : " That 

 the name Christian is the only naniB of distinc- 

 tion which we take, and by which we, as a de- 

 nomination, desire to be known, and the Bible 

 as our only rule of faith and practice," was uni- 



versally reaffirmed. The Executive Board of 

 the General Conference was instructed to pur- 

 chase the Western Christian Publishing Asso- 

 ciation, and strike from its name the word 

 " Western." The same board was authorized 

 to negotiate for the purchase of. the Herald of 

 Gospel Liberty, published at Newburyport, Mas- 

 sachusetts.* 



A convention of members of this denomina- 

 tion in the Southern States (" Southern Christ- 

 ian Convention ") was held at Mount Auburn, 

 N. C., on May 2, 1866. This meeting passed a 

 resolution requesting every family and church 

 to make a contribution, averaging fifty cents to 

 each member, for the establishment of a pub- 

 lishing concern. A publishing committee was 

 appointed to recommence the publication of the 

 Christian Sun, the organ of the Southern 

 churches, at Suffolk, Va., and to put to press al 

 an early day the declaration of principles and 

 history of the church, and a new hymn-book, 

 now being compiled. The Christian Sun ceased 

 to exist soon after the commencement of hostili- 

 ties. The printing establishment at Suffolk was 

 entirely destroyed during the war, and all the 

 funds collected for a book-concern, and deposit- 

 ed in the banks, were lost. 



CHURCH OF GOD (also called WINEBREN- 

 NEEIANS), a religious denomination organized 

 in 1830 by the Rev. John Winebrenner. Ac- 

 cording to the belief of this denomination, there 

 are three positive ordinances of perpetual stand- 

 ing in the church, viz., baptism, feet washing, 

 and the Lord's supper ; two things are essential 

 to the validity of baptism, viz., faith and im- 

 mersion ; the ordinance of feet washing is ob- 

 ligatory upon all Christians ; the Lord's supper 

 should be often administered, to Christians only, 

 in a sitting posture, and always in the evening. 

 The church is divided into elderships, which 

 meet annually. A general eldership, consisting 

 of delegates from the annual elderships, is held 

 every three years. The eighth triennial gen- 

 eral eldership was held at Decatur, Illinois, on 

 May 31, 1866, and the following days. The 

 following elderships were represented: East 

 Pennsylvania, West Pennsylvania, East Ohio, 

 West Ohio, Indiana, Southern Indiana and Il- 

 linois, Iowa, German, Michigan. A. F. Shoe- 

 maker was elected speaker. A letter was read 

 from Texas, giving a statement of the rise and 

 progress of the Church of God in that State, the 

 annual eldership of which State, in 1861, seceded 

 from the general eldership on account of the 

 anti-slavery position taken by the latter body. 

 A motion made to recognize the Texas elder- 

 ship was lost,, and the letter was referred to 

 the board of missions. The general eldership 

 recognized Centralia College in Kansas as an 

 institution of the church, and resolved to estab- 

 lish another college in Ohio, West Pennsylvania, 

 Indiana, or Illinois. The subscription list of the 

 weekly denominational organ, the Church, Ad- 

 vocate (published at Lancaster, Pa.), was re- 



* See "Minutes of the U. S. Quadrennial Christian Con- 

 ference." Dayton, I860. 



