136 



CONGREGATIONALISTS. 



The twelfth annual meeting of the Hawaian 

 Evangelical Association was held at Honolulu, 

 Sandwich Islands, June 8th. Fifty-two minis- 

 ters and delegates were present. There were 

 reported as connected with the Association, 

 five local associations and one presbytery, six- 

 ty churches, and thirty-five pastors. The num- 

 ber of church-members was 8,593. The receipts 

 for the various funds of the Association, includ- 

 ing the balance from the previous year, were 

 reported to have been as follows : For for- 

 eign missions, $7,174.11 ; for home missions, 

 $916.40; for the incidental fund, $3,086.41; 

 for the publication fund, $1,927.18; for the 

 Theological Seminary, $49 ; for the Microne- 

 sian mission, $4,308.10 ; for the Morning Star 

 (mission-ship) $13,752.07; for the Bible fund, 

 $703.03 ; for the Medical Fund, Micronesia 

 (balance only), $187.99 ; for the General Meet- 

 ing fund (balance only), $68.25. Total, $31,- 

 973.34. Also, contributions of $4,534.26 were 

 reported to the new Female Boarding-School 

 at Kolala, Hawaii, mostly from the island of 

 Hawaii. The expenditures of the board had 

 been $26,647.57. The Association sustained a 

 theological seminary and eight girls' board- 

 ing seminaries ; helped support a colporteur 

 among the Chinese population of the islands ; 

 had entire control of a mission in the Mar- 

 quesas Islands, with six missionaries, three 

 flourishing churches, and sixty-five church- 

 members; arid cooperated with the missions 

 of the American Board in the Gilbert, Mar- 

 shall, Caroline, and Mortlock Islands. The 

 Association began on the 1st of January, 1875, 

 the publication of a paper called the Lahui 

 Hawaii. It was reported to be prosperous, 

 to be doing a useful work, and to have a cir- 

 culation of two thousand copies weekly. 



The Congregational Union of Ontario and 

 Quebec met at Hamilton, Qnt., June 9th, and 

 continued in session seven days. Large acces- 

 sions to the churches were reported from va- 

 rious parts of the Dominion. Churches had 

 been established in new places, and many new 

 churches were being built. Twelve students 

 were reported as attending the Congregational 

 College of British North America. Much of 

 the time of the meeting was devoted to the 

 reading of papers on subjects relating to the 

 interests of the Church and to religious doc- 

 trine. 



The forty-fifth annual meeting of the Con- 

 gregational Union of England and Wales was 

 held in London, May 10th. The Rev. Alexan- 

 der Thomson, of Manchester, presided. The 

 Union met for the first time in a new hall 

 which had been built for the use of the Con- 

 gregational societies at a cost of 70,000, and 

 which was also designed as a memorial of the 

 courage and faithfulness of the Puritan con- 

 fessors of 1662. The following resolution was 

 adopted : " The Assembly renews its emphatic 

 protest against the sacerdotal claims which are 

 being asserted by a large party in the Estab- 

 lished Church of England, as well as in the 



Church of Rome ; that it regards those claims 

 as unscriptural, and as injurious to religion; 

 and, in view of the boldness and pertinacity with 

 which they are insisted upon, the Assembly 

 earnestly urges the necessity of the clear and 

 frequent teaching of Protestant Congregational 

 principles in the families, the Sunday-schools, 

 and the pulpits connected with the Congrega- 

 tional churches." 



A resolution was also adopted in opposition 

 to the bill for the increase of the episcopate, 

 and the bill providing for the bishopric of St. 

 Alban's, both of which were before Parliament 

 at the time of the meeting. There were given 

 as the grounds of the objections of the Union 

 to the bills in question, that they proposed to 

 give a new legislative sanction to the state 

 Church principle, whereas the higher interests 

 of the state as well as of the Church required 

 that that principle be discarded ; that they in- 

 volved the extension, in the name of the nation, 

 of the organization of one out of several re- 

 ligious communions existing in England, and 

 that a communion from whose faith and wor- 

 ship a very large proportion of the people dis- 

 sent ; and that their enactment would aggra- 

 vate the evils which have accrued to religion 

 from the influence of political motives in the 

 appointment of bishops, and would increase the 

 hinderances to beneficent legislation which 

 have arisen from the presence of bishops in 

 the House of Lords. 



The autumnal meeting of the Congregational 

 Union of England and Wales was held in Lon- 

 don, beginning October llth. The Rev. Alex- 

 ander Thomson presided, and delivered the 

 opening address, on the subject of " Culture and 

 Nonconformity." The committee appointed 

 at the autumnal meeting of the Union of the 

 preceding year to consider a scheme for the 

 formation of a general Board of Finance pre- 

 sented a report. They recommended that a 

 conference composed of ministerial and non- 

 ministerial delegates appointed by the county 

 associations, with a certain number of persons 

 to be appointed by the committee, should be 

 summoned to take up the matter anew, and 

 deal with the whole question in the light of 

 past discussions. The recommendation was 

 adopted. A resolution was adopted advising 

 that in new churches the free offerings of the 

 people, made from week to week, should be 

 exclusively relied upon for the maintenance of 

 the ministry and of public worship; and that 

 in existing churches, where a system of pew 

 rents is established, the plan of weekly offerings 

 should be carried as far as would be practicable. 

 A resolution was adopted condemning the sys- 

 tem of placing the national graveyards under 

 the exclusive control of one ecclesiastical de- 

 nomination, and protesting against either the 

 enforcement of silence or the prescription of a 

 form of service at the burial of Nonconform- 

 ists by their own ministers in these places. 

 The Union expressed strong disapprobation of 

 the instructions which had been issued by the 



