122 



CONGREGATIONALISTS. 



lish a station at Hong-Kong, for the benefit of 

 Chinese Christians returning from the United 

 States and Australia. The efforts of the native 

 Christians to help themselves were represented 

 by contributions of more than $80,000 for their 

 own schools, churches, and religious literature. 

 A transfer of the Dakota mission to the Ameri- 

 can Missionary Association was recommended 

 by the committee having the subject of that 

 work in charge. 



DOCTRINAL QUALIFICATIONS FOR THEOLOG- 

 ICAL PROFESSORSHIPS. A discussion respecting 

 the doctrinal qualifications required for a pro- 

 fessorship in the Theological Seminary at An- 

 dover has attracted much attention. The Rev. 

 Newman Smyth, D. D., of Quincy, 111., was in 

 March designated by the Faculty and Board of 

 Trustees of the Andover Seminary as Profess- 

 or of Christian Theology. The election, to be 

 valid, required the assent also of the Board of 

 Visitors. Dr. Smyth was the author of works on 

 " The Religious Feeling," " Old Faiths or New 

 Light," and "The Orthodox Theology of To- 

 day," in which, while the Orthodox doctrines 

 on that subject were not directly contradicted, 

 expressions were used which seemed to leave 

 his position in reference to the dogma of a 

 future eternal punishment of the wicked in 

 doubt ; and to indicate that he held the atti- 

 tude of an " agnostic " toward it ; that he 

 foreshadowed a period of probation in the 

 future life ; that he neither affirmed nor denied 

 the eternal punishment of those who did not 

 avail themselves of a second chance and re- 

 pent ; and that he did not wholly reject the 

 propriety of praying for the dead. Expres- 

 sions which might be construed as supporting 

 such views, it was held, disqualified him for 

 the position to which he had been partly in- 

 vited, for among the conditions of the founda- 

 tion of the professorship in question was that 

 the person filling the chair must subscribe to 

 the belief that, " being morally incapable of re- 

 covering the image of his Creator, which was 

 lost in Adam, every man is justly exposed to 

 eternal damnation; . . . that the wicked will 

 awake to shame and everlasting contempt." It 

 was urged, on the other hand, that Dr. Smyth 

 was a minister in good standing in the Presbyte- 

 rian Church, and that the conditions of the foun- 

 dation of the professors' chairs in the seminary 

 had usually been given a liberality of construc- 

 tion with which the expressions objected to 

 were not in conflict. The Board of Visitors 

 refused to concur in the appointment of Dr. 

 Smyth. They based their rejection, however, 

 not on the character of his theological views, 

 which, after hearing his statement of them, 

 they said were "in general harmony with 

 those which have been identified with the his- 

 tory of the Andover Seminary from the begin- 

 ning," but upon the want of precision and defi- 

 niteness of statement and of thoroughness of 

 thought in his writings, which indicate " a way 

 of looking at theological questions not hopeful 

 for the success of a theological teacher." 



BRITISH CONGREGATIONALISTS. The English 

 " Congregational Year-Book " for 1882 gives 

 lists of 4,397 churches and 899 mission-stations 

 in Great Britain and Ireland, and 589 churches 

 in the colonies, not including the churches sus- 

 tained by the London Missionary Society in hea- 

 then lands. 



The receipts of the London Missionary So- 

 ciety, for the year ending with the anniversary 

 of 1882, were 1 16,012. The society employed 

 156 missionaries, of whom 14 were women, in 

 its missions in South and Central Africa, Mad- 

 agascar, India, China, the South-Sea Islands, 

 New Guinea, and the West Indies. The mis- 

 sionary force in Central Africa (at Lake Tan- 

 ganyika) had been enlarged, and the forces in 

 India and China were to be enlarged. Mis- 

 sions had been planted at two points in New 

 Guinea, and a substantial beginning had been 

 made at Port Moresby. 



The annual meeting of the Congregational 

 Union of England and Wales was held May 

 1st, under the presidency of the Rev. Dr. Mac- 

 fadyen. The Rev. Dr. Fairbairn was chosen 

 president for the ensuing year. The income of 

 the Union for the year had been 10,410, and 

 it had a balance from the publication account 

 of 1,436. The report of the transactions of 

 the year, presented by the Jubilee Committee, 

 stated that instead of the usual Congregational 

 lecture there had been substituted a series of 

 special Jubilee lectures (in view of the move- 

 ment for the collection of a Jubilee fund), the 

 purpose of which was to promote a knowledge 

 of Congregational principles and history. Con- 

 ferences on the amendment of the laws relating 

 to marriages in non-conformist places of wor- 

 ship had been held, and had resulted in. action 

 of the Autumnal Assembly of the previous year 

 demanding certain amendments of the law ; a 

 special committee had been appointed to deal 

 with the subject of middle-class education, and 

 was at work investigating it. A scheme had 

 been prepared, in accordance with a memorial 

 from members of the Universities of Oxford 

 and Cambridge, for the delivery of an experi- 

 mental course of six lectures in each of those 

 towns, in which the Baptist Union was ex- 

 pected to co-operate. Two boards of educa- 

 tion one for the northern and one for the 

 southern colleges had been appointed to con- 

 sider respecting modifications of the college 

 system. A special committee had been ap- 

 pointed in response to communications received 

 from the native churches of Jamaica, to give 

 to them, for a limited period, the aid which 

 they had heretofore received from the London 

 Missionary Society; but which could not be 

 continued to them in that shape, because those 

 churches could not any longer be regarded as 

 heathen. A special report was made concern- 

 ing the " Jubilee fund " of 250,000 which the 

 Union had undertaken to raise for purposes 

 commemorative of the completion of the fiftieth 

 year of its organized existence. The fund now 

 amounted, in money and promises, to 152,000. 





