Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/335

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CONGREGATIONALISM. 283 CONGREGATIONALISM. ind its second at Boston in 1899. Provision hag tieen made for it-s continuance. llissioiiarij Afjciidrs. — The benevolences of Congregationalism have called into being a large number of denominational agencies. In the Unit- ed States organized home missions began with the formation of the ilissionary Society of Connecticut, in 1798, and the llassachusetts Missionary Society in 1799. Simihir local so- cieties have been formed in the States where Congregationalism is strongly represented, and they serve as auxiliaries to the national Con- gregational Home Missionary Society, founded in 1820, to which a large share, not merely of the westward extension of Congregationalism, but of the maintenance of the feebler churches in the older States, is due. A second society by which Congregational effort is carried for- ward within the territory of the United States, from Porto Rico to Alaska, is the American Missionary Association, organized in 1841! by anti-slavci-y sympatliizers, which now maintains an extensive educational and evangelistic work, chiefly among the negroes of the South, but also among the mountain whites, the Indians of the West, the Eskimos of Alaska, and the Cliinese of the Pacific Coast. The Congregational Edu- cation Society, founded in 1815, has for its Avork the strengthening of schools and colleges in the newer portions of the land, and the assist- ance of worthy and needy candidates for the ministry. The work of the Congregational Church Building Society and of the Congrega- tional Sunday-School and Publishing Society is sufficiently indicated by their titles. Congrega- tional foreign missionary effort reaching forth from the United States is imder the direction of the American Board of Commissioners for For- eign Missions, founded in 1810. and now carry- ing on work in India. Turkey. China, .Japan, !Mieronesia. Africa. Austria, Spain, and Mexico. In Great Britain the work of home missions is under the charge of the Congregational Church Aid and Home Missionary Society, and that of foreign evangelization of the London Mission- ary Society, founded in 1795. Canadian Con- gregationalism has its own Foreign ^Missionary Society. Thcolofjical Semhiaries. — Congregationalism has always believed in an educated ministry. In order to secure a proper training for their min- isters, the early New England Congregational- ists established Harvard and Yale, and the course of instruction in both of tho.se institu- tions of learning was long regulated by the de- sign of equipping men for the ministry. But by the first quarter of the eigliteenth century the ordinary course of collegiate instruction was increasingly felt to be inadequate for the needs of ministerial training, and the result was the foundation at Harvard, in 1721, of the Hollis professorship of divinity, and the beginnings of SI similar professorship of divinity at Yale in 1746 — a professorship that was not fully estab- lished there until 1755. Even more influential in the ministerial training of the eighteenth cen- tury than the instruction of these professors, was the custom, which grew into increasing prominence as the century Avent on, of taking a few months of training supplemental to the col- lege course, under the guidance of some eminent pastor, before applying for ministerial licensure. Such household theological seminaries were pre- VOL. v.— 19. sided over by many of the prominent pastors of New England; and among such instructors .Jona- than Edwards, of Northamjiton, Mass.; .Josepli J'.eUamy, of Bctlileliem, Conn.; Charles Backus, of Somers, Conn. ; and Nathaniel Eniniou.s, of h^ranklin, Mass., were conspicuous. The innucdiate cause of the establishment of theological seminaries, in the mo<U'rn 'sense of the term, in America, was the jiassage of Har- vard College to the contrid of the party soon to be known as Unitarian, in 1805. Deprived thus of control of their chief seat of ministerial train- ing, the conservative Congregationa lists of east- ern Massachusetts began at once to plan for separate schools of theological instruction. Two inile|iendeiit designs for the establishment of a theological seminary — the one begun by repre- sentatives of the older type of New England Calvinism, and the other by men of the Ed- wardcan sympathies — were happily combined, after much eft'ort, in 1808, and resulted, in Sep- tember of that year, in the establishment of Andover Theological Seminary, at Andover, Mass. Conspicuous in the teaching force of this institution, from its foundation to his resigna- tion in 1846, was Leonard Woods, its first pro- fessor of theology; while Moses Stuart, from 1810 to 1848, was eminent for his services in the study of the Old Testament and in introducing the theology of Germany to the knowledge of American students. Even more conspicuous as a theological leader at Andover was Edwards A. Park, who taught in the institution from 1836 to I88I, and, from 1847 to the year last men- tioned, occupied its chair of theology. Andover Seminary under its first instructors occupied a theological position which represented a union on broad and generous lines of the various shades of conservative New England (qiinion, in opposi- tion to the Unitarian movement of its day. Under Professor Park the Edwardeau theology was even more emphasized and developed. For twenty years past Andover has been distin- guished by a cordial welcome to the newer phases of theological discussion, especially as developed in Germany. A second theological seminary was that estab- lished at Hampden, Maine, in October, 1811), but which was removed to Bangor, Maine, in 1819, where it has since continued, and from which place it takes its name. Its most eminent theo- logical instructor in the past was perhaps Enoch Pond, whose connection with it extended from 1832 to 1870. In 1822 the corporation of Y.ale College — now Yale University — carried into execution a plan which had been entertained by them for a con- siderable time, by establishing a department of theology in the college, which has since been known as Yale Divinity School, and is a co- ordinate department of Y'ale University. Its first professor of theology, from its foundation to his death in 1858, was Nathaniel W. Taylor, whose type of doctrine, though belonging essen- tially to the historic Edwardean school, yet modified the characteristic teachings of that school in some particulars to such an extent as to receive the name 'New Haven theologj',' and subjected its author to nuicli criticism from the strit'tcr representatives of the Edwardean party. Other conspicuous teachers of the Yale Divinity School have been Eleazar T. Fitch, from its foundation to 1852; Samuel Harris, professor of