CHAPTER XX.

THE NEW ERA.

THE

'HE last half century is a distinct period in the history of Congregationalism. During that time it has awakened to a new self-consciousness, has come into formal unity, has become national and has undertaken world-wide aims. In Christian education and in missionary enterprise it was first in the field in this country. During the last fifty years it has come to recognize the duty of maintaining independently of other denominations its missionary efforts in all lands; and it has justified the title which has been given to it, "the denomination which educates."

The evidence that Congregationalists are doing these things worthily has been given in the two previous chapters. They were the first to enter on the work of educating the freedmen after the Civil War. From that time to the present they have expended in the South more for this purpose than all the other denominations together. Congregationalists were the first to introduce Christian education into Utah, making it the most potent instrument in destroying the power of Mormonism. They have been pioneers in carrying. the gospel into heathen nations, where they maintain. 14 theological schools, 66 colleges and high schools for boys, 56 similar institutions for girls and nearly 1000 common schools. In missionary work and in

education Congregationalists have made a record second to none at home and abroad.

Evidences of the new awakening of the denomination abound, especially in the literature of the years immediately before and following 1850. Many addresses of that period before State meetings and other annual gatherings on the character and working of the Congregational polity were printed and widely distributed. The pastoral letter of the General Association of New York in 1853 says: "Until a recent date our existence beyond the bounds of New England was not always readily acknowledged;" "but it is so no longer;" "for the last eight or ten years this apathy has been gradually disappearing." In 1854 Dr. Truman M. Post of St. Louis delivered the address at the annual meeting of the American Congregational Union in Brooklyn, on the topic "The Mission of Congregationalism in the West." The next year the subject of the address of Dr. Julian M. Sturtevant of Illinois before the same body was "Congregationalism Anti-Sectarian.” The denomination was thus being roused to consider with new hope its mission and its opportunities, and this fact furnished the prevailing themes of its representative assemblies.

During the first twenty years of the last half century, from 1845 to 1865, certain subjects of vital and general interest commanded the attention of the churches, the discussion of which had important results in unifying the denomination and enlarging its influ ence. These subjects concerned the doctrine of the churches, their attitude toward the national government, especially on the question of slavery, and their polity.