CONGER 106 CONGREGATIONALISM long. Its upper parts are brownish- white, and the lower dirty-white; the lateral line spotted with white, the dorsal and anal fins white margined with black. A smaller species, C. myrus, is found in the Mediterranean. CONGER, EDWIN HURD, an Amer- ican diplomatist; born in Knox co., Ill,, March 7, 1843. He was graduated at Lombard University in 1862 and imme- diately enlisted in the Union army, at- taining the brevet rank of major. At the close of the Civil War he studied law, graduating at the Albany Law School in 1866; practiced at Galesburg, 111., remov- ing to Iowa in 1868. He was elected to Congress in 1884 and twice re-elected as a Republican. In 1890 he was appointed Minister to Brazil, serving four years. In 1897 he was again appointed and in the following year was transferred to China. He was at his post throughout the Chinese crisis of 1900, in Peking, be- ing imprisoned with his family, and the entire diplomatic corps in the British le- gation compound from June 20 to Aug. 15. He narrowly escaped slaughter at the hands of the Boxers. The allied forces rescued him and his colleagues on August 20. See China. He died May 17, 1907. CONGLOMERATE, in geology, peb- bles, gravel, or any similar collection of rounded water-worn fragments of rocks, the whole bound together by a silicious, calcareous, or argillaceous cement. It is sometimes called also pudding-stone. The pebbles, or gravel, have a history before becoming fixed in the conglom- erate. By reading that history the geol- ogist is able to trace the direction of currents of water, etc., and recompose lost chapters, or parts of chapters, in the history of the earth. In anatomy, the conglomerate glands are compound glands, chiefly of the race- mose class. Examples — the pancreas, the salivary, lachrymal, and mammary glands, Brunner's glands, and most of the small glands that open into the mouth, the fauces, and the windpipe. CONGO. See Kongo. CONGREGATION, an assembly, gen- erally a religious assembly; in its most ordinary use, an assembly of Christians met in one place for worship. In the Roman Catholic Church it often desig- nates a sort of board of cardinals, prel- ates, and divines, to which is intrusted the management of some important branch of the affairs of the Church. Thus the Congregation of the Index examines books and decides on their fit- ness for general perusal. The word is also used in the Church of Rome to de- scribe communities of ecclesiastics who live together under rule, but without be- ing bound by vow, or at least by solemn vow. Such are the Congregation of the Oratory, the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, usually called Re- demptorists, etc. CONGREGATIONALISM, or INDE- PENDENCY, a form of evangelical Christianity which vests all ecclesiasti- cal authority in the individual believers associated in a local church, complete in itself, but holding advisory cooperative relations with similar bodies. Congre- gationalism holds in common with other evangelical Christians the great facts of sin and of redemption through the in- carnation and atonement of Christ as taught in the Bible. Congregationalism denies that there is any authority in Scripture for uniting the churches of a nation or province into one Church or corporation, to be ruled by a bishop or bishops, superior to the bishop or pastor of particular congregations or by a pres- bytery or synod consisting of the pastors or elders of the several congregations of the nation or province. This principle of Church polity is the specialty which plainly distinguishes Congregationalism from Episcopacy, Presbyterianism, Meth- odism, and all denominations whose churches are organized into a body hav- ing over its members any authority other than advisory. Congregational polity is based upon three ideas: the right of each individual to take part in the government of the community; the autonomy of the local church; and its independence of all ex- ternal ecclesiastical authority. While complete in itself, the local church may voluntarily unite with other churches for consultation and common action; but no resolution of any such union binds the individual church without its own con- sent. Usually each church has one min- ister or pastor, who is chosen by the free suffrages of the membership, but there may be more than one. In addition to the pastor or pastors, home missionaries and evangelists are sometimes appointed. Home missionaries and evangelists, _ if employed by a church for local service, are under the supervision of the church and not of the pastor, save as he is an agent of the church. Those commonly known as home missionaries and many evangelists, while members of some local church, are usually clergymen who haye been formally inducted into the minis- terial office according to the usages of the denomination. Standing in the ministry is given (1) by the action of the church authorizing one of its members or any other person
