134 



CONGKEGATIONALISTS. 



Association showed that of the 2,492 Congre- 

 gational ministers in England and Wales, 750 

 were total abstainers. The chairman of the 

 Union, the Rev. J. Baldwin Brown, opened the 

 regular sessions with an address reviewing the 

 resolutions respecting the faith of the body 

 which had been adopted at the meeting in the 

 spring. While he felt obliged to express his 

 dissent from the resolutions, and doubted the 

 expediency of adopting what seemed so nearly 

 like the enunciation of a creed, he had decided 

 that he would not place himself in the posi- 

 tion of the leader of a party and an encourager 

 of schism, and had therefore concluded that 

 he would not resign the chairmanship of the 

 Union, as he had once been tempted to do, 

 saying : 



I am of the same mind as in May, and, had I known 

 the Union's intention to formulate a creed, nothing 

 would have induced me to occupy the chair. I am 

 afraid I have little patie'nce toward, or sympathy 

 with, those who would set up sign-posts amid the 

 mists of human doubt. I dread them when they are 

 set up as reliable guides to faith, tor just in the pro- 

 portion to which they are trusted do they beguile 

 the soul from the Divine Guide. Convinced, then, 

 that the Union has lost some of its freedom which 

 made it so dear to me as an ecclesiastical organiza- 

 tion, and had taken some retrograde step in presum- 

 ing to formulate the theology of the Church, I had 

 some temptation to ask you to relieve me from the 

 duties of the chair, but I saw by so doing I should 

 lead a party and create a schism; and these things 

 I hate. More than this, the idea has been borne in 

 upon me that we are really more of one mind about 

 the policy of creed-making than was at first sup- 

 posed. These resolutions were only a relief to our 

 burdened feeling, and an outcry of hearts longing to 

 express their faith and love, rather than an expres- 

 sion of doctrinal formulae. I would resist most 

 strenuously any effort to frame new forms of doc- 

 trine, or to impose them on the brethren. A very 

 substantial unity reigns among us as regards creeds 

 and excommunications. Therefore, for the year of 

 my office, I regard my true place as occupying this 

 chair. 



There are many who think that since you have 

 begun to defend doctrines, you should go much fur- 

 ther, for, since you have commenced to set up guide- 

 posts to direct men who wander amid the mists, you 

 should certainly raise one more in reference to man's 

 immortality. My advice, however, is to " let the 

 dead past bury its dead." 



The following resolution was unanimously 

 adopted : 



That the assembly, wbile heartily recognizing all 

 churches which are faithful to evangelical truth and 

 ready to cooperate with them in all Christian service, 

 is impressed with the importance of the increase of 

 a healthy denominational sentiment in the Congre- 

 gational body, in order to the due administration of 

 Congregationalism as a church polity, and tbe ade- 

 auate development of the resources of the churches 

 for the extension of Christ's kingdom ; that it ear- 

 nestly commends the adoption in all the churches ot 

 some method of systematic teaching in the Scriptu- 

 ral principles of church organization and order; and 

 that it instructs the Committee, in prospect of a 

 jubilee of the Union in 1881, to make timely arrange- 

 ments for the use of special means during that year, 

 by publications and otherwise, for the popular ex- 

 position of the principles and adaptations of Congre- 

 gationalism, and for the promotion of knowledge in 

 regard to its history. 



Another resolution, also unanimously adopt- 

 ed, instructed the Committee " to enter into 

 immediate correspondence with the repre- 

 sentatives of the non-established evangelical 

 churches, with a view to a conference at an 

 early .date on matters connected with the reli- 

 gious condition of England and the cooperation 

 of those churches for the promotion of faith 

 and godliness among the people." Another res- 

 olution sanctioned the claims of the Church 

 Aid and Home Missionary Society, advised the 

 formation of an auxiliary of the Society in 

 every Congregational church in England, and 

 expressed the hope that the county associa- 

 tions would labor "to diffuse throughout the 

 churches a spirit of bold and generous enterprise 

 in promoting the objects which the Society 

 contemplates." 



The sixty-sixth annual meetings of the Con- 

 gregational Union of Scotland 'were held at 

 Edinburgh, beginning April 29th. The income 

 of the Union for the year had been 1,591, and 

 its expenditures 1,780, of which 1,530 were 

 in the shape of grants to churches. 



The Welsh Congregational Union, at its sev- 

 enth annual meeting, held August 6th to 8th, 

 adopted resolutions expressing adherence to 

 the Scriptural views of truth as taught by the 

 fathers in the Welsh pulpit for more than two 

 centuries, and approving the declaration which 

 had been made by the Congregational Union 

 of England and Wales concerning the main 

 facts of Christianity, " to allay the anxiety that 

 had possessed the minds of many in the church- 

 es, lest the denomination should lose its hold of 

 the faith once delivered to the saints." 



Congregational Missions in Turkey. The 

 report of the American Board for 1878 gives 

 the following summary of its missionary work 

 in the Turkish Empire : " The moral forces 

 now immediately connected with this Board 

 are represented by 132 devoted men and 

 women from our churches and our best in- 

 stitutions of learning ; by over 500 native 

 preachers and teachers in active service ; by 

 92 churches, with a membership of over 

 5,000 ; by 20 higher institutions of learning 

 colleges, seminaries, and boarding-schools 

 with an attendance of over 800 youth of both 

 sexes ; by 300 common schools, with an at- 

 tendance of over 11,000; by 285 places of 

 worship, scattered from the Balkans to the 

 Bosporus, and from the Bosporus to the Ti- 

 gris, where Sabbath after Sabbath over 25,- 

 000 men and women are gathered to listen 

 to the gospel message ; by the Scriptures in 

 the various languages of the people, now dis- 

 tributed by tens of thousands of copies, and a 

 Christian literature, from Sabbath -school les- 

 son papers up to elaborate volumes on the 

 evidences of religion and the history of the 

 church." This Society, which is the principal 

 Protestant Society laboring in Turkey, has 

 taken advantage of the extension of the Britich 

 protectorate over Asia Minor to call upon the 

 British churches to help support it in its work. 



