Congregational administration : the Carew lectures before the Hartford theological seminary 1908-1909

BX 7231 .N37 1909

Nash, Charles Sumner, 1856-

1926.
Congregational

CONGREGATIONAL
ADMINISTRATION

The Carew Lectures before the Hartford

Theological Seminary -''<\5\V^^ ^^ ^^^^JCtf

1908-1909

BY CHARLES SUMNER NASH

[* JUL 11 1910

t^C^

Professor of Homiletlcs and Pastoral Theology in the
Pacific Theological Seminary

^/CAL StViV^

BOSTON
THE PILGRIM PRESS

NEW YORK CHICAGO

1909

Copyright, igog.
By Charles Sumner Nash

PREFACE

The following lectures, published substantially
as they were delivered, attempt to state sym-
pathetically and constructively the principles of
the Congregational polity with reference to pres-
ent phases and problems. Attention is not turned
upon the past. The Scriptural deduction of
our principles and the story of our historic de-
velopment have been given repeatedly. These
lectures, while consistent with the past, desire to
serve immediate conditions and emergencies in our
church life. We are in no little confusion, such
as always attends progress. There are earnest
inquiries and disagreements among us respecting
methods of procedure. Reorganizations in the
interest of closer ranks and united action are pro-
ceeding in many parts of the land, and as well in
oversea Congregationalism. We are feeling our
way toward the better thing. That there is a
better thing and that we can and must achieve it
large numbers of us are convinced. The Con-
gregational churches in large majority seem in-
tent upon becoming the Congregational Church.

Our problem is that of an efficient democracy,
how to organize an effective union without over-
riding or fettering personal and local liberty ; or,
in the words of Mr. John Fiske, "the task of
combining indestructible union of the whole with
indestructible life in the parts.'" It is, moreover,
' Beginnings of New England, p. 48.

how tO' dO' this in our Congregational way, how
to make our own peculiar contribution to modern
development in both Church and State. With
local independence we are perfectly familiar; of
union of the whole we are still not a little igno-
rant and afraid. Upon that union, however, in
some wise form, we are resolved, answering the
charge of inefficiency and defeat, and responding
to the call of modern organized life to unflagging
zeal and grander enterprise. The mission of
Congregationalism — whether in other hands or
ours — to human progress is still great and long.
The service of our own body of churches is be-
lieved to be far from complete. Our augmented
resources, personal and material, have overtaxed
the old methods of service, and are waiting half
inactive to be marshaled afresh. The new ways,
so far from being less than denominational, are
taking interdenominational, national and inter-
national proportions. Many-voiced and sharp is
the challenge to enlarged administration for
mightier movements afield.

Charles Sumner Nash.
Berkeley, California, August i, 1909.

CONTENTS

Lecture Page

I. EsSENTlAIv CONGREGATIONAUSM I

II. MiNisTERiAi. Leadership 35

III. Forms oe Local Feli^owship 71

IV. State Unification ioi
V. National Unity 129

VI. CONGREGATIONAEISM AND ChURCH

Union 155

TO MY WIFE

LECTURE I
ESSENTIAL CONGREGATIONALISM

CONGREGATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

I

ESSENTIAL CONGREGATIONALISM

The Congregational polity ranks with the
Presbyterian, the Episcopalian and the Papal
polities as one of the historic forms of church
organization. It is found in principle and illus-
tration in the New Testament. Framed and
developed in the last three hundred years, it has
already made great history. Brought to these
shores by the Pilgrims, it gave creative spirit and
form to this nation ; a form remaining essen-
tially unaltered, a spirit unsubdued by corruption.

From early years this polity has been carried
beyond the circle of churches which originated
it. Since Roger Williams the other congregational
Congregational Baptists have ^denominations
become a multitude. Using essentially this order
there are also Unitarians, Disciples, Christians,
Plymouth Brethren and others, until the Con-
gregational polity now covers more than forty
per cent, of the American Protestant churches.
The several regiments show minor differences ;
the main principles everywhere distinguish the
polity. Doubtless we Congregationalists have
special proprietary rights therein. We should
show best its characteristic spirit. Dr. Williston
Walker has well said, "The body known as the
[3]

Congregation al A dm in istration

Congregational churches has a distinct unity and
history. It represents something more than a
form of church government. . . . The Con-
gregational churches constitute a distinct reli-
gious whole — as marked in its characteristics
as any religious denomination in America." ^
Yet we cannot, nor would we, hinder others from
developing the polity into efficiency superior to
our own. And we must be quick to learn from
any competent instructors.

These lectures will discuss the Congregational
polity with reference to our own body. They
The Congregational will not return to the field of
Polity To-Day ^s^^^^ Testament study. From

that source have been drawn often enough the
form and warrant of our order. Nor shall we
tarry in our three centuries of Congregational
history. Glorious indeed it is, and worthy of
all attention and labor. But these lectures are
engaged upon the present day v/ith a forward
look. The taking of such modern limits should
require no justification. Mr. Heermance is right,
in his book on "Democracy in the Church," the
most significant recent presentation of our polity,
when he says, "The Christian Church must be
free at any period to adapt the fundamental prin-
ciples which it derives from Christ to the exigen-
cies of its life. . . . We shall insist in the
name of the churches on absolute freedom to ap-
ply fundamental principles directly to present
' Congregationalists, pp. 427, 428.
[4]

Essential Congregationalism

conditions, whatever may have been the usage
of the fathers." '

There is abundant reason for attention to the
present with reference to the future. The "Chris-
tian World" of London compared a congregational
unfavorably our International consciousness
Congregational Council in Edinburgh with the
Pan-Anglican Congress held about the same time
in London. It criticized the Edinburgh program
as engaged too little with the present and future,
adding, "Far too much time is taken up with in-
quiries into the title deeds of Congregationalism
and what Congregationalism has done in the past.
The burning questions are: What is Congrega-
tionalism doing to-day, and, What is it going to
do in the futui-e?" If that were the only voice
of the kind, it might be ignored. But the same
cry comes up from all quarters of the Congrega-
tional world. There is much inquiry, much sug-
gestion, much perplexity, much strong purpose.
The National Council in its Cleveland meeting
made a list of recommendations to the churches
which have engaged earnest attention throughout
the land. Maine, Nev/ Hampshire, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Michi-
gan, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, Washing-
ton, Northern and Southern California and other
states have taken action in line therewith. The
New England Congress is well forward in the
advance. The South has joined the march.
* Democracy in the Church, pp. 2, 3.
[5]

Congregational Administration

The Pacific Coast has attained an active self-
consciousness. The present is a most promising
hour by reason of our general concern and
endeavor.

There is also much to make the present hour
one of unusual opportunity for our polity in gen-
congregationai eral, for any body of churches or-
opportunity ganizcd under it, and in particular

for ourselves. We properly rejoice in our sim-
plicity and adaptability, our breadth of sympathy,
our freedom of thought, creed, speech and action.
These qualities supply individual strength, but
sometimes at a cost of corporate weakness. They
have won many to our ranks, but have likewise
spoiled us of multitudes who have easily slipped
away into other connections. These qualities are
now at a premium in our modern life. The new
day has come forward to meet our fitness.

Furthermore, our polity furnishes one of the
greatest principles for social and ecclesiastical or-
Dcmocratic Tendency ganization, viz., personal and
in other Polities Jq^^^j autonomy, freedom and

self-direction for the individual and the local
group. This must be one of the corner-stones
of the ultimate polity, as of perfected human life
in all departments. It is interesting to observe
how the other great polities have developed mod-
trnly in this direction of freedom. Under the
Presbyterian order both Presbyterian and Meth-
odist churches have secured an unprecedented
measure of self-control. The Methodist bishop
[6]

Bsscntial Congregationalism

is a superintendent of work, not a lord of life,
while the presiding elder has just been given the
more suitable title of district superintendent.
The Episcopalian churches are supervised with-
out coercion, and enjoy much latitude of thought
and creed as well as much free variety in active
service. And even Rome has upon her hands
some hardly manageable affairs, such as the
French government, the Modernist movement,
the American nation. This mere mention must
suffice for the fact that the more highly organ-
ized polities have been tending our way in this
central matter of human liberty. We who were
free-born can watch with equanimity their pur-
chases of freedom.

Important for us are also current developments
toward direct democracy beyond the domain of

religion. The new state of Okla- Direct Democracy

homa has adopted a most demo- ^" *^® ^*^*®
cratic constitution. In Oregon great issues have
been passed upon at the polls in state election,
and the choice of United States Senator deter-
mined by popular vote. Direct primaries have
come or are at hand in most states. New York's
experience in the late campaign was characterized
as the awakening of a great state. In that cam-
paign the appeal all over the land was more than
ever to the thinking man, presenting solid mate-
rials for reflection and decision. In politics, in-
dustry, education, and indeed in all social depart-
ments, the same movement toward enlightened
[7]

Congregational Administration

participation is pronounced. In so far as this
is the day of resurgent democracy, when the peo-
ple reassert ultimate authority to delegate power
and to withdraw it, when they insist upon re-
turning to direct initiative in many things large
and small, the churches that are constituted upon
these very principles of individual intelligence,
popular initiative and inalienable authority must
realize a fresh opportunity.

Along with this movement back toward direct
democracy has gone another tendency, viz., to-
Organized ward Stronger union. It is perhaps
Democracy i^uev to Say that the democratic move-
ment has gone beyond individualism and direct
democracy, and is driving hard into organized
democracy. And by as much as our modern day
has achieved stronger combination and more
united action than ever before, our free
churches must learn the ways of organized
democracy. This is no time for the free-
churchman to swing off alone and strike for
Christ and humanity when and where he
pleases. In state, in labor, in religion, we
have reached glorious manhood and splendid
group consciousness; so far we have restored the
conditions and personal power of the New-
England town meeting or the New Testament
churches; but we have also learned to marshal
these "bayonets that think" into regiments and
brigades and national armies and even interna-
tional armaments. The men are free, the groups
[8]

Bssential Congregationalism

are independent in their local life, but they form
of their own will a closer and mightier force than
was ever driven together and wielded by coercive
authority. It is this last step into administrative
union that we Congregationalists need to take.
We have the elements and resources in ample
measure — strong personality, churches, associa-
tions, councils, conferences, national societies,
educational institutions. National Council — all
these afire with high spirit and possessing a con-
stituency which holds great material resources.
Wherever our machinery is not at any moment
productive, it can readily be made so. The equip-
ment is magnificent. It only needs to be set to-
gether into an effective array, wherein the total
power can be driven upon one inclusive purpose.
The future belongs, not to unordered individual-
ism, not to authoritative compulsion, but to the
voluntary administrative union of self-realized
manhood, every man a king.

The administrative question of every hour for
any polity, whether in Church or in State, and
for any organized body under any pol- ProMem of
ity, is the question of efficiency and re- Efficiency ^
suits. We must answer for deeds. The Church
is means, not end. We must ever ask. How may
we do our full part in the world's work? This
is the inquiry of these lectures. The question
whether we Congregationalists are doing our full
part is not up; we lament that w^e are not, and
the lamentation is no less than national. The
[9]

Congregational Administration

question is, Hoav tO' do our part? Says one
writer, "It is only by covering the meanness of
our performances with the magnificence of our
principles that we can hide from ourselves the ex-
traordinary inefiiciency of our present methods,
judged as a method of conserving, continuing and
extending the life of Christian communities."*
Difference of opinion must be admitted upon
what constitutes our Congregational part, how
great it is, v.-hat results to aim at and count satis-
factory. But most of us are not content to be a
loose aggregation of churches, pleased to exem-
plify individualism, to diffuse an atmosphere of
freedom, to show the organized modern world
how little can nov\- be done separately or how
much can still be done separately, and to enjoy a
quiet brotherhood of spiritual communion. We'
believe in more definite duty, more concrete and
ponderable results. We hear the cry of souls lost
through the interstices of unorganized search.
We confess the obligation of united labor. We
know that six thousand churches properly arrayed
are able to produce enormous results, and we
know that our six thousand churches are far
short of that great measure. In that faith and
these confessions is reason enough for our rest-
lessness and discontent, our words of mutual re-
assurance, our splendid hope and courage, and
our unflagging industry.

Efficiency, then, is the duty of the hour. But
* Macfadyen, Constructive Congregational Ideals, p. 47.
[10]

Essential Congregationalism

efificiency has a fuller meaning in this social age.
We cannot remain content to go on turning our
church wheels, putting out individual spiritual
product in moderate measure. The vast, tangled
social problems have challenged us. Opportunity
in these and inspiration for them must be given
to men on a commensurate scale. Churches that
are not living a national life cannot be fountains
of national inspiration. Churches that are not feel-
ing the pulse-beat of a close-knit body stretching
far through the straining social fabric cannot
speak to men's hearts with impulses that carry
out into the heat and burden of the day.

The problem of efficiency is to be solved
through adaptation. This principle may be
denied a place in a jure divino system Adaptation for
like that of Rome, but in democratic E^^iency
life it plays a constant and leading part. All our
x\merican churches claim to recognize and use
it, none more properly than ourselves. The swift
currents of modern advance cannot be shut out of
the Church. It is the same men working in the
Church who work in education and politics and
business. They know that the forces of persua-
sion, construction and achievement are the same
throughout. They are watching the shifting
scenes of human action, the birth of new desires,
the altered preferences, the sweep of new knowl-
edge, the demand of new faith. Efficiency, for
service and returns, is all for which they care.
Without pain, with only a financial shrug, thev
[II]

Congregational Administration

throw out upon the scrap-heap machinery that
scarcely shows wear, but has ceased to meet the
more exacting requirement. In affairs ecclesi-
astical and spiritual these men are equally ready
to discard old for new machinery, and hardly
keep patient with men too attached to wheels and
cogs and bands — or the absence of these — to
discover that life's calendar has swept beyond
them.

The Church is under fire for its tardiness in
adaptation. Parts of its apparatus and methods
Tardy are charged with being at least obsoles-

Adaptation cent; it is obvious that the product is
meager and old-fashioned. And yet we love them
so, and cannot give them up, these true and tried
servants of ours — not living men, but mere
ways and means of doing things. Says a recent
writer on our polity, "There is no limit to the
power of adaptation which our system possesses.
We are not faithful to our ideal, if we do not
avail ourselves of it. . . . So far as methods
are concerned, the Church has power to put on
institutions when it wants them, and to put them
off when it is done with them." ' These words
are a shout of administrative liberty, such as
many a Congregationalist needs to hear. How
often we act, and how many of us always act, as
if we could not put off institutions and methods
when we are done with them, and therefore dare

* Macfadyen, Constructive Congregational Ideals, pp. ii6,
119.

[12]

Bssential Congregationalism

not put them on when we want them. Could we
once get our seven hundred thousand American
CongregationaHsts to rejoice unanimously in
this power to assume and discard, the work of
reorganization would go gloriously on. It is
Professor Ladd of New Haven who wrote in his
volume ^ that we Congregationalists ought to be
willing to change as current conditions may de-
mand, and must expect the alteration of all save
our fundamental principles.

If, willing to adapt our polity to modern life,
we ask what is required of us, the answer is
already on many lips. The phrase, An Adequate
"some form of connectionalism," has Administrative
lately become current among us, — ''^
notorious, some stalwart independents might say.
I like a phrase which I noted in Mr. Heermance's
book, "An adequate administrative system." We
need, for adaptation to the hour, an adequate ad-
ministrative system. This we certainly lack at
present. We have parts of such a system, work-
ing admirably in localities and departments. It
will, for instance, be difficult to increase the
enterprise, economy and productivity of the
American Board, as indeed of not a few other
Congregational agencies. But these parts have
not been built together into a system. When we
call for an adequate system, we mean equal to
duty and its tasks. We have already noted how
these have grown. They cannot be kept divided
*The Principles of Church Polity, p. 62.
[13]

Congregational Adniimstration

and subdivided into unrelated parts. We are
oppressed with the separate administration of our
national societies, whose work is organically one.
Our place among the American Churches has
become far less creditable than formerly. We
have not retained the leadership which created
this nation. And when this is said, it is not that
petty thing, denominational rivalry, that is in
mind, but duty to God and service to the abysmal
needs of men. We are not so useful compara-
tively in the day's work as we used to be; our
polity sometimes seems less so than other
polities; and it is being employed to greater ef-
fect in other than Congregational hands. Others
are showing us how much more a body of
churches can do than we are doing. We appear
to lack practical wisdom in administrative meth-
ods. This charge is brought against us from
without and within, and judgment must be con-
fessed when the case is stated in such compara-
tive terms. In such terms, I say, for the case
must be carefully put in order to be true. I can-
not see that we Congregationalists have declined
in either amount or quality of service. I believe
our moral and spiritual living as a whole to be
higher than ever, less morbid, more wholesome
and out-of-doors, more winsome and productive.
Our ministry never was so well equipped, de-
voted and faithful. Our methods never showed
so much of wise adaptation and enterprise. Our
resources are more generously expended than
[14]

Hssential Congregationalism

ever. But the comparison with the past has less
of rebuke and impulse than some other compari-
sons. Measured by the immense strides of mod-
ern life, the bewildering growth of resources, the
astounding disclosures of human need, the ex-
tent of new opportunity, the clearer vision of
Christ our King, the sharpened conscience of de-
votion to Him — measured by these tests which
rise out of the conditions of the hour and hang
in the sky before us, our service has lagged and
fallen. Though we are greater and better than
ever, we are seriously inadequate for to-day and
to-morrow. Our administrative system — have
we anything which can be called such ? — was
devised for a smaller and simpler day. Hence-
forth details of work done locally are to be set
in vast plans, constructed into a whole, directed
and distributed from gathering-points and from
the center of all.

Considering the erection of an adequate ad-
ministrative system upon our Congregational
principles and with the use of the upward Trend of
good and fruitful forms already crsanization
possessed, the first thing to notice and safeguard
is the fact that our organific direction is from be-
low upward. We do not begin with overlords,
whether called bishops or superintendents or
ministers. We begin with common men, free
individuals, uncoerced, associating themselves in
voluntary local churches, each church as free in
its own domain as the souls that compose it. We
[15]

Congregational Administration

form local churches, not by permission or order
from without, but by divine grace in the heart.
The primary obHgation to organize ourselves into
churches is duty directly to God and human need.
From this principle of organization under divine
constraint free of all human authority we swing
our total administrative system. This sunders
us radically from all systems that work from
above downward, from the Papal polity surely,
from the Episcopal polity almost as completely;
not however from the Presbyterian polity, which
begins as we do from the free individual and the
local church, but further on adds elements of
authority which we decline. Our distinguishing
mark, therefore, from all other polities together
lies beyond the formation of voluntary churches ;
it lies in the direct democracy and inalienable
authority of the local churches. Into their pri-
vate domain no hand from without can be thrust.
They exercise a certain rightful pov/er, often
called authority, over their own members, based
on the individual duty of uniting in churches, of
staying there, and of behaving Christianly. This
authority is no more than the semblance of co-
ercion, inasmuch as a member cannot be held in
membership if determined to withdraw. Au-
thority, then, even in local churches, is only the
standing affirmation of universal duty and rea-
sonable service; it is right reason; it is personal
and corporate influence uttered and exerted from
one to another and by all unto each. Church
[i6]

Essential Congregationalism

officers are but appointed ag-ents and channels of
such quasi authority, deriving their vocation and
enduement from Ciod, their fitness from culture
methods, their specific local enlistment from the
churches themselves. Discipline and organized
service are thus possible only as drawing all their
vitality from personal loyalty to Christ translated
voluntarily into terms of church-membership and
work. Thus tenuous and weak appears ecclesi-
astical leadership when referred to its funda-
mentals. But so deep running and inwardly con-
straining is this loyalty to Christ and the Church
that leadership becomes, even in our voluntary
system, a noble and influential vocation, discipline
a saving grace, and united action a dependable,
mighty, and world-wide power.

The local church, thus principled, becomes
the vitaUunit for all the larger forms in the polity.
Out of it, not from individual Chris- Local church
tians, arise those larger forms. Asso-the vital umi
ciations, conferences, councils, societies, National
Council, all are organizations of local churches,
not of individual Christians, not of independent
and authoritative officials. The churches unite
of their own will into all these social forms, giv-
ing to them their leadership, their standing war-
rant, their life itself. General order, consistency,
sympathy, effective union are secured by free
agreement in adopting the same forms. Similar
forms and uniform terminology thus become im-
portant. The higher groups, always composed
[17]

Congregational Administration

of churches, though acting through representa-
tives, depend on the lower groups, as these im-
mediately upon the churches. Thus organization
proceeds from below upward, while leadership
and influence are trusts and ministration, not au-
thority and commandment. We have, more-
over, a way, especially by means of local asso-
ciations and councils, of keeping all the groups
in intimate relations with the churches them-
selves, as will further appear in later lectures.
This local church derivation and dependence, with
the consequent procedure upward, are of prime
importance to the conception and operation of
our polity, and must be safeguarded in all its de-
velopments.

A second feature of our polity structure is its
direct democracy, or its combination of direct
Direct and indirect democracy. Each local
Democracy churcli is a direct or pure democracy.
We, the people en masse, handle affairs with im-
mediate touch. Our theory is that each member
be an intelligent voter and capable co-worker,
able to propose, discuss and pass upon proposi-
tions, able also to carry his part of the church
work as either private laborer, officer, or com-
mitteeman. Our polity calls for and promotes
universal intelligence and participation. We suf-
fer no class or order of men to monopolize capa-
bility or opportunity. We would have no man
evade his share of c^ligation or deprive himself
of privilege or reward. Nor do we surrender
[i8]

Bsscntial Congregationalism

opportunity and privilege to any small body
within the church. At this point we decline the
company of our neare^t__friends. the Presby-
terians, refusing to charge an annually elected
session wnth the authoritative conduct of the
church's life. Reception or dismissal of mem-
bers, election of delegates to fraternal meetings,
current phases and problems of local work and
welfare, cases of discipline — in short, all local
matters whatsoever we hold in the common hand.
This is pure democracy, direct popular action
upon all afifairs within reach.

But not all duty is within reach of the single
church and individual member. Duty stretches
away in great circles to the world's Representative
end. Afifairs ecclesiastical and spir- i*emocracy
itual shape up into magnificent proportions, com-
mensurate with affairs educational, industrial
and political. Mighty forces, equipped, arrayed
and directed, are required against entrenched
evils and vast human needs. On that wide field
direct democracy is as good as helpless.
Churches serving in large bands must act by rep-
resentatives. Mr. John Fiske says, "Representa-
tive government in counties is necessitated by the
extent of territory covered ; in cities it is neces-
sitated by the multitude of people." ' The Con-
gregational churches, having their county, city,
national and world-wide life, have been forced
to develop forms of representative or indirect
' Civil Government in the United States, p. loi.
[19]

Congregational Administration

democracy. This is not subversive of our orig-
inal character or destructive of Congregational
principles. Our safety lies in preserving in local
affairs the direct action of the primary assembly.
We do not substitute representative democracy;
we add it and assign it its own secondary realm.
We constitute and direct it from below. The
local church maintains pure democracy on a bet-
ter status than does the town meeting. The vital
and immediate influence of the churches in all
the larger interests is far greater. For us, as
for all free churches and states, the problem of
democracy is the mutual adjustment of pure and
representative democracy. We must cease to fear
the latter. We must hold it in firm control, but
give it worthy and fruitful development.

This brings us to a third consideration regard-
ing our proposed adequate administrative sys-
Administration tcm. Our representative bodies,
the Sole from the local associations and

councils up to the National Council,
are administrative only. Mr. Heermance has
given us the freshest discussion of this matter,
comparing the Congregational polity with others
in respect to the three possible functions — legis-
lative, judicial and administrative — of repre-
sentative bodies. Congregationalism began right,
and has continued so, in excluding all provision
for legislative and judicial procedure. None of
our representative bodies are permitted to so
much as enter those domains, lest we suffer in-

[20]

Bssential Congregationalism

sensible encroachments of authority. But in our
terror of that, we have deprived ourselves of
the administrative function to a point far below
efficiency. Herein, says Mr. Heermance, we are
two-thirds right and one-third wrong. It is evi-
dent now in the growing light that we need not
remain even one-third wrong. We may safely
correct our administrative mistake. "If we bear
in mind," adds Mr. Heermance, "that legislation
and judicature have no place in the Church, in
general bodies or anywhere else, the liberties of
the churches are entirely safe." '

In the administrative function there is no in-
evitable impairment of personal liberty and local
independence. These latter the Con- independence
gregational polity is prepared to pre- "^o* impaired
serve and guarantee under whatever development
of an administrative system. For the native pos-
sessors of authority — individual Christians and
local churches — do not surrender it. Our repre-
sentative bodies are granted, not power over the
churches, but leadership of the churches. In the
first place, they are given specific tasks, definite
and circumscribed kinds of work to do, like the
organization of the church or the ordination of a
minister. Some would hold these bodies quite
strictly to prescribed tasks. Dr. Mackennal
seems to do so. when he says, "It must be borne
in mind that the representatives of the churches
. . . are constituted simply to fulfil the spe-
* Democracy in the Church, pp. 102, 103.
[21]

Congregation al Administration

cific charges committed to them." ' Such limits,
however, are too strait for efficiency and even for
Hberty. Members of Congregational churches
do not surrender the native right of individual
and collective initiative when they sit as repre-
sentatives in administrative bodies. We expect
initiative of such bodies. They are to lead off
in the larger fields for which they were created.
The further they can see and lead forward the
better. But here is the safeguard : these bodies
are not, as already remarked, allowed authority
over the churches. We constitute no body with
power to coerce us, or to go forward or back
without us. Apart from us they can do nothing,
as certain of our higher Congregational bodies
are in tedious process of discovering. Moreover,
the creative hand of the churches keeps a dis-
ciplinary and even a destructive hold upon its
own agencies. Their personnel is in constant
flux, their constitutions are exposed to precipitate
alteration, their very life is not immortal and
may be snuffed out. And furthermore — and this
is the most practical thing of all — the churches
preserve the right of initiative and the power
to work their will through their representatives.
Constraint and coercion and authority work, not
back upon the churches, but from the churches;
and they work. The representative bodies must
and will do the bidding of the churches. The
latter, when convinced and ready, are able to ef-

*The Witness of Congregationalism, pp. 25, 26.
[22]

Bssential Congregationalism

feet their purpose. This is the point of safety
and power.

A striking article appeared in the columns of
the New York Independent, October 22, 1908,

from the pen of DeloS F. Wilcox, Popular initiative

Ph.D., Mdierein the author deline- ^°* Progress
ated the undemocratic development of our repre-
sentative political forms, and the enslaving pass
to which we have come. His conclusion is this :
"The next step forward in the program of polit-
ical development is the democratization of the
forms of government. All other issues pale into
insignificance before this. Shall the people be
able to exercise political initiative and crystallize
their intelligence into progress?"' In this most
gracious and potent liberty we of the Congrega-
tional polity live and labor in religion. We are
entirely able to exercise initiative and crystallize
our intelligence into progress. We have no pro-
visions, nor will we consent to any, whereby our
representative bodies can ever despoil us of this
free power of popular initiative and control
Secure in this possession, we need not hesitate
to develop an adequate administrative system and
keep it adequate to the advancing day.

A fourth characteristic of our polity is found
in the fact that our administrative force is public
opinion or right reason. There are PubUc opinion
other phrases for it, such as public °"'" ^""""^
sentiment, general consent. It is more than
* Independent, p. 924.
[23]

Congregational Administration

truth; it is a certain employment of truth. It
is common acknowledgment of truth in general
and a specific truth in hand, with the active adop-
tion of the latter as a measure ; it is general agree-
ment that that is the right thing to do and this
the proper time to do it. To the authoritative
polities this seems no power at all, the absence
of power rather, a helpless and tedious way of
leaving things to work themselves out. To' us
the method seems of the very essence of freedom,
and as sure as the mills of God. They who can-
not abide it must foregather elsewhere. For this
is really our method and our power. We are
forever repeating that we have no authority
which can outrun our public opinion. Our sole
method is general education, approximately uni-
versal, on any measure before us, and the re-
sultant crystallization of conviction and purpose
regarding it. It is a slow process. We die piti-
fully often with the desire of our hearts unful-
filled. But the method is heaven's own, and
counts one day as a thousand years and a thou-
sand years as one day. When you get the rea-
soned conviction and consequent deliberate action
of a large body of intelligent and conscientious
men, you have the finest fruit of personality, the
closest human approach to truth and righteous-
ness, and the mightiest force under the skies.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table rises to
remark that the essence of real democracy "is not
in forms of government, but in the omnipotence
[24]

Essential Congregationalism

of public opinion that grows out of it." * Our
leaders should always catch the potent enthusi-
asms of this method, for our people never will
yield an inch in the direction of any other method.
You can do what you will with Congregational-
ists whom you can convince and persuade, but
you have no other hope.

Let us notice how much is involved in this
method. The point to be reached in every
practical issue is twofold: (a) Ac- Majority and
tive agreement of a majority, and ^1"°"*^
(b) acquiescence and cooperation of the minor-
ity. This is the lowest point of public opinion;
until you have reached this, you have no force
for starting the issue before you. And this ma-
jority agreement and minority acquiescence may
be a very low point indeed and equally weak
force. On the other hand, the crystallization may
take place at high temperature, generating irre-
sistible energy, whether with large or small
majority.

Our theory, however, is unanimity, not major-
ity and minority. We seek the instruction, con-
viction and unanimous action of the Unanimity our
total constituency involved. We Theory and
labor and wait for this, believing in ° °
it, knowing it to be the highest reservoir of
power. Our system stands for the utmost ab-
sence of unwelcome coercion, though it should
be but the carrying away of a small minority by
' The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, p. 35.
[25]

Congregational Administration

a great majority on a trivial issue. And we be-
lieve that what is true and wise ought to be, and
at length will be, unanimously accepted. We are,
on the other hand, quite accustomed to the power
of minorities to hinder or to mar, even to hold
the real truth and carry it finally to victory.
They can delay, prevent, or render futile the tru-
est or wisest measures, and have been known to
do so. They can enforce their will on the princi-
ple of noblesse oblige; the majority will wait for
time and reason, or will even give up the whole
issue. The minoritv will often split the body or
withdraw rather than acquiesce in a decision how-
ever fairly and patiently reached; and the ma-
jority is sometimes right in counting the loss of
the issue in dispute less grievous than a breach
in the body. We are so accustomed to these ad-
ministrative phases that illustrations are needless.
It often seems as if Congregational procedure
were by minorities, not by majorities; it_js almost
true that minorities rule. The pursuit of unan-
imity, with constant fraternal regard for the
slow, the unwilling, the blind, the unheeding, the
self-conscious, is an ideal pursuit, producing high
and generous character ; but its threat to block all
progress must not be endured.

A chapter on the virtues and duties of Con-
gregational minorities is due in our polity man-
uals. The rule is not too rigid that minorities,
whether of one or of hundreds, should yield and
cooperate except in extreme cases of principle.
[26]

Mssential Congregationalism

And it should be added that extreme cases of
principle are rarer in administrative affairs than
heated litigants are apt to imagine. Many a
question of practical procedure is erected into a
moral test of immortality. The conscience is a
different faculty from the will; a moral judgment
other than an obstinate preference. Great relief
is possible in our polity at this point of the duty
of minorities upon administrative measures which
contain no hint of legislative or judicial authority.
A fifth and final point to consider respecting
an adequate administrative system is the import-
ance of achieving national unity. I National unity
am aware that some brethren who *° *® Achieved
would agree with most that has been said thus
far might take fright at so ambitious a phrase.
Yet should we not despair of securing unanimity
for this higher and stronger thing. The foregoing
discussion has been in vain if the cry of danger to
our liberties is raised here. And the appeal for
efficiency is vain if a denominational halt be called
this side of an all-inclusive and enduring unity.
Mr. John Fiske has put our case in a brilliant
sentence in his volume, "The Beginnings of New
England." He says, "Our experience has now
so far widened that we can see . . . that the
only perdurable government must be that which
succeeds in achieving national unity on a grand
scale, without weakening the sense of personal
and local independence." ' Our Congregational
* The Beginnings of New England, p. 23.
[27]

Congregational Administration

problem could not be better stated, only substi-
tuting the word organization for the word gov-
ernment — "the only perdurable organization
must be that which succeeds in achieving national
unity on a grand scale without weakening the
sense of personal and local independence." Mr.
Fiske was an old-line Congregationalist in thus
insisting on local independence and a new-line
Congregationalist in affirming national unity.
We have the independence, safe and stable; we
must achieve the unity if we would endure. No
voice is clearer or stronger than Mr. Fiske's, but
the chorus is already large and inspiriting. The
Rev. D. Macfadyen in his "Constructive Con-
gregational Ideals" gives us excellent statements
by himself and other writers. "Those," he says,
"who understand the Congregational ideal best
in England and the United States have main-
tained .... that for the expression of the
common spirit and sacrificial life of our churches
our existing organizations are inadequate. Large
investments are required for large tasks. As the
churches fir i themselves now confronted by
duties on the scale of a nation and an empire,
-: . .it has become necessary to find suitable
administrative and executive instruments for the
tasks which have fallen to them." * Again he
speaks of certain addresses printed in his volume
as "alike in adopting what for want of a better
phrase is commonly called the statesman's point

'Constructive Congregational Ideals, pp. 9-1 1.
[28]

Bssential Congregationalism

of view — that is, they grasp the life of the de-
nomination as a whole and try to shape it in the
hght of the higher politics of the kingdom of
God. , . . They assume that it is possible to
prepare ourselves both in spirit and method for
a more united, disciplined and organized service
of Christ in the nation and the kingdom of God
than we have yet accomplished." ' "Who," ex-
claims another, "shall demonstrate the important
theorem — how without abandoning a single
principle we shall gain firm cohesion and
multiplied strength; how we may learn to exist,
no longer as comminuted particles which the
wind of events may drive away, but as a whole
mass, separate in its organization, but confeder-
ate in its united action; free from tyranny and
free from slavery, a great, united, cooperating
Christian body." ' "If Congregationalism," con-
tinues the same writer, "be incapable of a large
and generous union, it lacks an important element
of spiritual power; whilst, if it be capable of it, it
must needs put forth means and agencies which
have hitherto been unfamiliar." '

These quotations might be buttressed by many
more. We are aware how frequently the sub-
ject finds expression in our religious Toward unity
papers and programs. We are far *"^ ^^^^^
from unanimity, but we are discussing and ex-
perimenting from Maine to California, and all

* Constructive Congregational Ideals, pp. 17, 18.
^ Ibid, pp. 60, 61.
3 Ibid, pp. 57, 58.

[29]

Congregation al A dministration

movement is toward unity and order ; no instance
of the opposite procedure has come to my at-
tention. By an overwhehning majority we in-
tend to achieve national unity. We Hke to feel
already the strengthening cords and bands, the
touch of shoulders, the eye to eye, the impulse
of vast affairs, the thrill of being one and mighty.
Throughout the land we are responsive to the
stroke of such words as Mr. Fiske's upon the
Congregational conscience. And it is good for
us just now to iterate and reiterate from ocean
to ocean and from lakes to gulf this call of the
hour, till "the subliminal self" catches the sug-
gestion. "The only perdurable organization
must be that which succeeds in achieving national
unity on a grand scale without weakening the
, sense of personal and local independence." This
is the complete significance of an adequate ad-
ministrative system, one that adjusts us to this
national and international age, this interdenom-
inational and missionary age, this age which reads
undismayed the duty of world evangelization
and the transformation of total humanity into the
Kingdom of God. Though we did not mean to
be, we have been weak and backward, we lovers
of our separate ways ; we must achieve unity, and
coin our corporate power into reconstructed man-
hood and social order.

Does it not follow from the course of our dis-
cussion that Congregationalism has a real admin-
istrative problem to solve, the task of constructing
[30]

Essential Congregationalism

new and enlarged denominational machinery?
There are times in religion — and the present is
one of them for us Congregation- a Real Problem

alistS when outward matters of in Administration

organization and method are the necessity of
the hour. The criticism is neither false nor su-
perficial that we have confined ourselves too ex-
clusively to the individual and spiritual side of
our church life. It is always and everywhere
true that the spiritual is the paramount issue; it
is not true always and everywhere that it can
successfully be given exclusive pursuit. Spiritual
forces have regard to the fitness of human agen-
cies. We may not expect God to do mighty spir-
itual works in our deliberate neglect of resources
and strategy. And we properly charge with
error those who find nothing to do in the King-
dom of Christ but to convert sinners by evan-
gelistic methods and edify saints by spiritual
instruction and moral suasion. There are magnifi-
cent and awful things to do which require more
exterior ministration, such as cleansing filthy
homes, running a juvenile court, electing clean
and capable civic officials, succoring earth-
quake-stricken Italy, distributing world-wide
streams of religion charged full with edu-
cation and civilized ways. Unorganized men
or churches, taking hold as each will, cannot
do this greater work and do it all and
do it all the time. Nothing can effect it save
the studied array and strategic deployment of
[31]

Congregation al A dministration
mighty forces, of all the forces there are. This
is forgotten when in a low day the cry is raised
that nothing is necessary but more spirituality
and evangelism, purer doctrine, restored faith in
the Bible, deeper loyalty to Christ. These do not
always come at call. They are hindered now
by our disturbed and protesting attention to ad-
ministration. We are not free-minded for our
spiritual work. The remedy lies, not in absorbed,
unorganized devotion to the spiritual ; that would
throw us the more out of joint with the modern
world. It lies in solving the outer problems, un-
til soon, adjusted in ways suitable to the new day,
we find "a heart at leisure from itself" and re-
cover "the joy of the working."

Such development of our administrative sys-
tem must be the general concern. It has already
Administration bccu Hoticed that in a democracy
the General the cultivatiuii of patriotic citizen-
ship and the service of the State are
universal duties. It has been weil said that a
democracy never enjoys the rule of the best, but
only of the average man. Transfer the adminis-
tration to the few best, and you convert your
democracy into an aristocracy. Preserve your
democracy by all means, cultivate and qualify
the average ability, extend the general partici-
pation. Congregationalists everywhere should
give its due measure of thoughtful effort to
polity.

Nor is this so superficial and unworthy as
[32]

Hssential Congregationalism

deemed by some. Its honorable character is seen
in the State, where it is accounted a principal de-
partment of study and action, one of Administration

the highest vocations. The states- worthy and
man and the political economist are
not working directly upon character. Their serv-
ice tO' manhood is indirect. But though they
hold no evangelistic services, they are endlessly
evangelizing. You do not think of Abraham
Lincoln as a mere administrator — the phrase
often becomes a sneer upon Congregational lips
— nor Theodore Roosevelt, nor President Taft,
nor Governor Hughes, nor Everett Colby, nor
Uren of Oregon ; nor in education, the presidents
of our colleges and secondary schools; nor in
our Church, Leonard Bacon, nor H. M. Dexter,
nor A. H. Quint, nor the secretaries of our na-
tional societies. Administrative work done with
vision and heart is worthy of the best man's part,
is filled with the spirit of worship, serves the
Kingdom of heaven at principal points, greatens
the servants, organizes the progress of mankind.
Polity is intimately interwoven with doctrine, as
Professor Ladd and others have taken pains to
show. At its source our Congregational organi-
zation flows out of our democratic conception of
the ways of God with man. An aristocratic and
mediative conception of the Holy Spirit gives an
aristocratic polity. Nor can the deep influence
of organization and administration upon personal
and social character, in either State or Church, be
[33]

Congregational Administration

overlooked. We of this land of the free church
and the free state know what we can do in a few
decades in the Philippines for peoples just re-
leased from four hundred years of lordliness and
degradation. Dr. R. W. Dale wrote that questions
of organization and polity "'cannot be evaded or
postponed. Ecclesiastical institutions are at once
an expression and a discipline of the character of
the churches. The connection between organ-
ization and life is never accidental or arbitrary." '
We ought not to speak with a sneer or even light-
ness, adds Mr. Macfadyen, of "mere matters of
organization. It would be as reasonable for the
soul to speak of mere matters of the body.
... It is true that a soul may live and triumph over
manifest infirmities and deficiencies; and this is
very much what the Congregational ideal has done
with its very defective organization for more than
two hundred years. But part of the duty which
our churches owe to the principles and ideals they
inherit is to give them the solid assistance of an
effective business management and practical or-
ganization." ' Here, then, is the need of this hour
for Congregationalists — "an adequate adminis-
trative system," "achieving national unity with-
out weakening the sense of personal and local in-
dependence." In words historic and immortal,
"we can if we will."

' Congregational Church Polity, pp. 3, 4.
* Constructive Congregational Ideals, pp. 44-47.

[34]

LECTURE II
MINISTERIAL LEADERSHIP

II

MINISTERIAL LEADERSHIP

In our Congregational theory the Church is
first of all, composed of ordinary men and women
who love our Lord Jesus Christ and unite for
service in his name. This theory, as held in com-
pleteness and consistency by us, distinguishes our
polity. Out of the Church comes the specialized
ministry of religion. Needing instructors and
leaders, the Church lays hands oil a sufficient
number and puts them forth. They in turn are
evermore responsible to the Church and depend
upon her for opportunity and resources. The
Church is first, the ministry second and sub-
ordinate.

In practical administration, however, the min-
istry leads. Scarcely an individual church any-
where is organized apart from its primacy of
agency. The machinery of the Leadership
Kingdom is in its hands even to an un-
fortunate degree. This leadership oi a class
of ^men is Inevitable and not to b^ deplored.
No more than the State, can the Church ^^osper
save by competent and devoted leaders. The
primacy of leadership among practical problems
of administration needs emphasis, but not argu-
ment. Mr. John R. Mott, in his latest volume,
"The Future Leadership of the Church," is say-
ing, "Wherever the Church has proved inade-
quate, it has been due to inadequate leadership.
[37]

Congregational /Jdministration

. . . The failure to raise up a competent min-
istry would be a far greater failure than not to
win converts to the faith, because the enlargement
of the Kingdom ever waits for leaders of power.
. . . To secure able men for the Christian min-
istry is an object of transcendent, urgent, and
world-wide concern. It involves the life, the
growth, the extension of the Church ■> — the fu-
ture of Christianity itself." ^

At the present moment we Congregationalists
— and others -with us — are convicted of remiss-
ness and consequent weakness on this principal
point. Our problem of leadership is affecting to
an alarming degree our whole enterprise. It has
been for some years a low time with regard to
our ministry. Full ranks of young men have not
been coming. Too few of the best equipped men
have come. We are painfully aware of a low
conception of the ministry among college stu-
dents. The phases and causes of this situation
have been much in print, and are freshly given
in Mr. Mott's volume. There are this year en-
couraging signs that the tide will make in again,
but it is too soon to predict this with assurance.

Primary responsibility for its leadership rests
upon the Church. It may not be discharged upon
The Church Pri- the ministry, nor upon the
tnariiy Responsible young men in colleges, nor
even upon the Christian home. This mighty
institution named the Church, whose exist-
*The Future Leadership of the Church, pp. 3, 4.
[38]

Ministerial Leadership

ence, prosperity and usefulness absolutely de-
pend, under God, upon its leadership, should
maintain measures adequate to insure that lead-
ership. Its best agency for this is the Christian
home. At this time the Church and the home
are not furnishing the conditions and motives
which, when present, will always carry a sufficient
number of their sons intO' the ministry. That
vocation is now discredited in the minds of great
numbers of Christian parents and church-mem-
bers, and hence inevitably in the minds of the
boys and young men. Mr. Mott's unequaled ob-
servation leads him to testify that increasing
numbers of Christian parents and church-mem-
bers in the evangelical churches generally do not
care to have their sons enter the ministry, are
not thinking them prayerfully on in that direc-
tion, but are actively turning them toward other
vocations. This atmosphere cannot be kept nega-
tive, leaving young men unaffected to reach an
unbiased decision. Indeed, there is little scruple
about making it affirmative and influential. Un-
til it is corrected the best hope tarries. Until the
ministry is restored to its sacred place in the re-
gard of church-members and parents, no formal
measures can contend successfully for recruits.
Nor is there any correction of this state of things
save by what the psychologists are calling re-
education. The mind of the Church and the
home, now working too habitually away from
the ministry, must be restored to a favorable
[39]

Congregational Administration

habit. It is a case for mental and spiritual heal-
ing — disclaiming the technical meaning of the
phrase.

But now, having laid this obligation where it
fundamentally belongs, upon the Church as an
Ministry Mainly institution, Upon Christians and
Responsible church-niembers in general, upon
parents and teachers and church officers in
particular, I feel like throwing it specifically
upon the ministry itself. When you are
not theorizing, but urging practical measures,
you have to say that in every department of hu-
man activity results depend upon the leaders of
action. Theirs is the prime responsibility for the
long working of cause and effect. The ministry
of the Church is definitely responsible for its
own numbers and quality. The reeducation of
the Church and the home on this subject is its
task. And prior to that it has to rectify its own
state of mind. For at the present time the min-
istry is not warmly accrediting and sustaining
its own craft, is not exalting its own vocation, is
not crying with an exultant challenge to the
young men, including its own sons. Here as
elsewhere statements must be careful, and the ap-
peal is to your general observation. On that
basis, and on suggestive evidence appearing time
by time in our religious journals, are we not
within bounds in saying that there is in the minds
and homes of ministers themselves wide-spread
reluctance to have their own sons follow them?
[40]

Ministerial Leadership

Mr, Mott says: "Even ministers and their wives,
in an increasing number of cases, are not encoiu--
aging their sons to consider this cahing. Far too
frequently they positively discourage such serious
consideration." ' If this is true, there is much
to be said in palliation and even justification of
special cases ; there is also much to be said to the
Church about suffering such a state of things,
such treatment of its leaders, as would justify
any number of them in reaching this state of
mind. But my contention at this moment is this,
that such a minister, or such a group of minis-
ters, is both unfit and unwilling to lead other
men's sons into the ministry, unfit and unwilling
to reeducate the Church and the home on the
subject. The case must remain lean and unhope-
ful so long and so far as the ministers of Christ
remain heavy-laden and dispirited with their
task, so far as they judge it by its incidentals, so
far as its great visions fail them;, so far as they
cannot lay upon their own sons first and then on
others a hand of joy unspeakable and full of
glory. ^ \

And now — for we are in the domain of ad-
ministration— it is urged that Congregational-

istS should take constructive Adequate Measures

measures for sustaining their RecLuired
ministerial leadership at its highest point
of efficiency. We certainly have no ade-
quate measures at present. Far too little is being
* Future Leadership of the Church, p. 96.
[41]

Congregational Administration

done, and most of that is volunteer effort, partial
and unrelated. The Congregational denomination
as such, with a national life and world-wide serv-
ice, is conducting no apparatus for assuring its
own permanent power through adequate leader-
ship. It is wonderful that we fare on as well as
we do. But are we not arriving at that adminis-
trative consciousness which would take earnest
measures to restore conditions and develop pro-
visions? It is time that the Congregational
Church undertook its ministerial leadership in
large-minded, far-reaching and patient plans.

What, then, have we to do that may be said
to require so much? We have, in brief phrase,
to reeducate our churches, to rectify conditions,
and then to go out after the best young men in
our colleges and homes.

I. First in the order of a minister's career
stands his theological training. Our schools of
Congregational thcology posscss the Confidence

Divinity Schools ^f churchcs and ministry to
a high degree. There is, of course, dis-
tressed and militant criticism ; there are also
better grades of the same fabric, not less firm,
but inwrought with courtesy, faith and cheer.
There are improvements and enrichments always
due in theological training. It is desirable that
these be pressed upon the seminaries, for vested
interests incline to slow down into security and
comfort. But criticism and impulse are in no
danger of failing from the ecclesiastical earth.
[42]

Ministerial Leadership

What, then, should our churches, as organized
into a branch of the Church of Christ, do for
and with the seminaries? The question of de-
nominational control, perhaps, comes first to
mind. There is excellent historical counsel on
this subject. It is vital to both churches and sem-
inaries to enjoy unreserved intimacy together.
The mutual benefits are too obvious for rehearsal.
The seminaries draw their life from the Church
and the Kingdom, and exist solely to serve these.
Administrative control by the organized churches
is logical and practical, even in Congregational-
ism; its absence looks strange to many eyes, but
this also is very Congregational. Local auton-
omy here does not imperil great interests, while it
makes for that priceless thing, the freedom of
the truth. Advance has come and must come
through the fearless pioneering of men who grow
used to the wide horizon. But, short of control,
the association of churches and ministers with
the theological schools should be perfect, pro-
moted on both sides with perseverance and love.
Each should offer the other all possible service.
Each should be sure of the other's readiness.
The active exchange should be continuous and
whole-hearted.

Given intimate association and sturdy criti-
cism, there is but one further requisite for
assuring continuous improvement increased
and adaptation in our ministerial Endowments
training. That one essential is ample resources.
[43]

Congregational Administration

The same old cry, to be sure, simply because
there is no other cry and no adequate re-
sponse to this one. The required advances
in training noiie see more sanely or desire
more ardently than our seminary faculties and
trustee boards. Give them power to do always
the better thing, and they will do it; any timor-
ous or indolent reluctance is easily overcome.

Down to almost the present hour in Congre-
gational administration, financial action has been
entirely local, individual and voluntary. A bet-
ter day has dawned. Witness our scheme of
proportionate benevolence, here at last and here
to stay. We are reducing to system the use of
money in the service of God; the day of senti-
mental disorder is declining. Into this process
our theological institutions should be admitted.
Endorsement of the seminaries by the National
Council and other denominational bodies as con-
spicuous parts of our machinery requiring pro-
vision adequate to extreme efficiency would sound
an urgent note in the ears of our generous givers.
Enormous gifts go annually into education. No
proper proportion of these is for theological edu-
cation. If one or two of our seminaries are am-
ply endowed through private generosity, the rest
are straitened and strained well-nigh to the
breaking point. Our churches want the finest
young men out of the best equipped colleges of
the land. They cannot have them unless they
enable their professional schools to equal, in their
[44]

Ministerial Leadership

own department, the amplitude, the freedom, the
pedagogical quality to which the young men have
become accustomed in the colleges. The lack
at present is not in the methods in vogue in our
theological halls, nor in the men who labor there ;
it is in the financial inability of these alert and
eager men to develop the methods.

II. Considering conditions in the ministry
which need attention and repair, the first is that oi
the minister's salary. This is doubtless to salaries
be regarded as the lowest thing of all but it can-
no be belittled out of sight. Recently the Rev.
Jonathan Hardup and his friends have been ex-
pressing breezy and not at all sordid opinions in
our religious papers. The National Council at its
Cleveland meeting passed an earnest resolution
that better financial support of the ministry be
urged upon the churches. Several important arti-
cles during recent years in our magazine litera-
ture have discussed this factor in the situation;
none so frankly and justly as Mr. Mott's volume,
to which frequent reference is being made in this
lecture. The cost of education for the ministry
and of living as ministers must live, is steadily
increasing. The special demands upon the par-
son's purse are not only greater than formerly,
but greater in proportion to his income than upon
any other person in the community. His salary
has not risen proportionately; in many commu-
nities it has declined. "Thousands of ministers
receive stipends which amount to less than the
[45]

Congregational A dm in istratio n

wages of day laborers." Nor is the meager sal-
ary always paid promptly, while some of it is
never paid. This financial injustice constitutes
a main deterrent from the ministry. It acts upon
the young men themselves, and still more forcibly
upon their parents. But it were well if the
churches could understand how it acts. It is no
matter of shrewd commercial calculation. In
this question are involved high interests and sa-
cred values, such as a minister's financial integrity
and standing in the community, his personal
growth by means of books and meetings and
travel, his mental ease and freedom for the high
levels whereon lies the significance of religious
work, his ability to create and sustain a home,
the education of his children, his provision for
sickness and old age. All these and other things
belong inherently to manhood; they are human,
not merely professional. And being human,
they are not to be nullified by professional
conditions.

Now the rub comes at the point of discovery
that these financial conditions of the ministry are
Wrong unnecessary and morally wrong.

Conditions Neither consecrated young men nor
their parents are afraid of poverty. Min-
isters who are worth while do not abandon
the ministry through love of money. Nec-
essary and fruitful sacrifice commands as much
heroism as ever. But the current financial
conditions of the ministry are not necessary, and
[46]

Ministerial Leadership

submission to them is ceasing tO' be heroic.
"Men," says Mr. Mott, "are not less heroic than
of old; but they have knowledge and discern-
ment, and they see that it is not poverty, but care-
lessness and selfishness that dictate the financial
provision for many ministers to-day." * This
means that the pastor's M-ork may lie among men
and women who will discredit him in advance
for accepting an unworthy and ineffective situa-
tion, who will be by so much less accessible to
the high impulses which he brings, who will,
worst O'f all, be so far forth themselves unfit to
constitute a sacrificial force for Christ and right-
eousness. Less wonder, in this view of the
facts, that the young man shuns the barren
sacrifice, and that his parents, living in a
parsonage, perhaps, are sadly silent as he turns
away.

The aim of this moment is less to describe this
situation than to urge denominational action to
correct what has grown to be a great how correct
wrong. In the unequal local con- the wrong
ditions of our churches the difficulty cannot
be conquered separately. Cooperative effort
is required upon a denominational and even
an interdenominational scale. Example and
stimulus are given us by our English breth-
ren. The Congregational Union of Eng-
land and Wales at its meeting in May, 1909,
adopted with enthusiasm a plan for raising and
' Future Leadership of the Church, p. 93.
[47]

Congregational A dministration

administering "the Central Fund for Ministerial
Support." The amount to be raised is not less
than two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. It
will be vested in The Congregational Union of
England and Wales, Incorporated, and be con-
trolled by the Council of the Union in accordance
with the careful terms of the Central Fund
Scheme. The object is "the better support of
the recognized ministry of the Union, un-
til an adequate minimum stipend shall be
secured for all accredited ministers in charge,"
after which the Fund shall also be available for
grants to ministers temporarily without charge
and ministers superannuated. The Union has
taken this radical step believing "that once this
primary problem is satisfactorily dealt with, the
seriousness of other denominational difficulties
will be largely relieved." It may be added that
the Baptist body in England has formulated an
equally thoroughgoing provision for ministerial
support. These examples, afforded by bodies
standing equally with us for local autonomy,
we Congregationalists ought soon to imi-
tate. Our primary problem is the same and
calls for similar denominational action. Yet
even then it will remain inadequate to repair in-
sufficient salaries out of a national Congrega-
tional treasury. The trouble is enormously
augmented by sectarianism and the financial
waste in overchurched communities. We must
agree with Mr. Mott's conclusion, when he says :
[48]

Ministerial Leadership

"Nothing is clearer than that the different Chris-
tian communions should deal thoroughly with the
problem of insuring adequate salaries for their
ministers, and that the various Christian bodies
unitedly should agree on a policy which would
do away with the unnecessary multiplication and
unwise distribution of churches." '

III. Close to this matter of adequate salaries
lies that of putting within the reach of our min-
isters the means of sustaining their "The Doom of
mental and spiritual power. In- leadership"
creased salaries, even if they came at once
wherever needed, would not obviate this
further requirement. The draught upon the
pastor's thought and vitality is incessant and un-
calculating. His sustained intellectual production
is equaled by no other man in the community.
His sympathies may never cease tO' flow, for hu-
man need holds the spigot open night and day.
It is Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes who says, better
lose a pint of blood than have a nerve tapped.
Dr. Charles Cuthbert Hall, in a lecture from this
platform, thus presented in thrilling words "the
doom of leadership" :

"He who has borne the burden and heat of the day learns
in bitterness of soul the doom of leadership. To stand
in the midst of the ecclesia, with the ordinary vicissitudes
of man's life transpiring upon one's self from day to day,
its variations of mental activity, its episodes of spiritual
depression, its yoke of earthly care, its fettering relation-
ships, and yet to behold a thousand souls assembled and
waiting for inspiration from one soul ; to be conscious per-

* Future Leadership of the Church, p. 94.

[49]

Congregational Administration

petually of this silent demand upon one's selfhood ; to know
that life must be maintained at the giving point, at the
point of spiritual exaltation, where influence is generated
for the uplift of many souls ; to look into the faces of men
and women gathered in the house of God, and to see in
some the hunger of expectation that must be fed, in others
the absence of energy that must be supplied — that is the
doom of leadership." *

Every faithful pastor is consciously living this
doom; many are living it with a disheartening
sense of untimely, unforeseen and unnecessary de-
feat. Within a few weeks a pastor in New Eng-
land has been reported unable to buy a single book
since his graduation from the theological school
several years ago. It is a confession of gathering
tragedy. The greater tragedy is found in the
large numbers of such pastors dwelling amid the
dulness of church-members who do not buy
books themselves and do not realize the min-
ister's need. You may find in every state num-
bers of pastors, not all so-called home mission-
aries, who, not one year, but year after year, can-
not afford to attend their State Conference and
often are embarrassed to attend their local As-
sociation. Again the laymen who never think of
going are blind to the worth of such privileges
to the pastor's brain and heart.

These are two main points among others in
which our ministry suffers and declines. Cor-
porate duty, ecclesiastical strategy and brotherly
love unite in demanding organized effort to turn
back this ebbing tide of power. Nor should it
' Qualifications for Ministerial Power, p. 173.
[50]

Ministerial Leadership

be done with an eye solely to individual pastors,
though with personal regard for each one. It
must be the action of a great branch of the
Church of Christ providing for its own leader-
ship for the ends of the Kingdom. We cannot
let our leaders go unnourished. We cannot af-
ford to leave our corporate life in the hands of
weak men ; and the case is worse when inherently
strong men go weak through lack of sustenance
than when weak men are enabled to do their best ;
it is the latter situation on which the divine bless-
ing may be expected.

If it be asked what can be done on this line,
the answer is in part ready; correspondence
courses of study and reading, sum- Practical
mer schools or institutes, circulating Measures
libraries, pastoral tours through remote re-
gions, such as have proved so profitable
in New York State, pastoral exchanges be-
tween centers and circumference. A great
body of churches administering cordially such a
purpose will not be at a loss for timely measures.
Pastors who are unable to buy books must be pro-
vided with them by gift or loan. Pastors whose
studious opportunities were brief and habits
poorly formed must be given further training.
Pastors who cannot reach the stimulating atmos-
phere of our Congregational meetings, our large
churches and our mighty cities must be brought
there or have the energy of these transported to
them. We cannot afford, for the sake of our
[51]

Congregational Administration

corporate well-being, in duty to the Kingdom,
to let our leaders stop reading and learning and
thinking and greeting the new morning with a
cheer. Hitherto it has been almost completely
left to the individual, solitary there in his isolated
parish. It has been every man for himself, and
when he can no longer keep the pace, Christ have
mercy on him ! A beginning of better fraternity
and strategy has been made. About a dozen states
have arranged courses of reading which are
recommended to partially trained men, but which
are confessedly of small value. There are sum-
mer schools and institutes here and there, use-
ful, but limited. Some of our seminaries earn-
estly try to make their resources helpful, as when
Andover assembles the home missionary pastors
of Massachusetts for ten days of instruction and
spiritual uplift, or when Hartford invites pastors
and physicians to a course of lectures on Religion
and Medicine, or when Atlanta maintains con-
tinual plans which carry her influence through-
out the Gulf States. In many sections surely,
though I have meager reports thereon, at least a
little is done to give men the privilege of attend-
ing state meetings or district congresses, or tO'
visit the cities, touch the pulse-beat of the great
churches, and catch step with the marching
throng. At this moment, as often in these lec-
tures, I find myself speaking as a westerner in
eastern conditions where my words sound alien
and irrelevant. Does any pastor in New Eng-
[52]

Ministerial Leadership

land need to be helped to a city or to a central
meeting? Lacking railroad fares, he finds the
walking short. In California — and to some de-
gree in other states — we have pastors whose
fares to San Francisco are from $15 to $25
each way, and the running time a night and a
day. A Sunday exchange is far beyond reach;
the visit of a fellow minister rarer than other
theophanies. Leave such pastors to themselves,
and your prayers for them ring hollow. Leave
them to themselves, and your devotion to home
missions, to the growth of Congregational
power, to the advance of the Kingdom, lacks
wisdom at a main point.

In fine, the personal welfare and industrial ef-
ficiency of our ministers through the burden and
heat of the day are coming to form a chief con-
cern of our churches. In part by increased sal-
aries, in part by methods of intellectual and spir-
itual supply, we purpose to do tardy justice to
those who go out under the crushing ends of our
common load, we purpose to organize victory
in regions where we have remained indifferent
to inefficiency or defeat. The National Council,
at its Cleveland meeting in 1907, projected action
along several specific lines and appointed a Com-
mission on Ministerial Education, with which
our theological faculties are heartily cooper-
ating.

IV. When we organize the case of our pro-
fessional leaders, we shall not stop short of an-
[53]

Congregational Administration

other provision, viz., that of support in sickness
and old age. In this we are behind other
For Sickness branches of the Church — of course
and Old Age ^^^ ^^^ . ^^^^ jg corporate work,

and we have been individuahsts. Now we all
know in what caustic language this matter can
be attacked by a well-to-do individualist,
and in what cold and unsympathetic words
the argument can be laid against pauper-
izing manhood. But there stands here a problem
in righteousness and brotherhood, to be solved
without prejudice, with appreciation of fortitude
and sacrifice in terribly stringent conditions, and
with a sharp conscience of justice instead of
charity.

What does the Church demand of its minis-
ters ? Nothing, some one replies : the young man
Ministry a who enters the ministry takes his
Vocation ^^^.j^ risks and must not complain.
Happily this is not the universal reply,
and yet many of us have fallen in with
it, and the age has dropped toward a com-
mercial conception of the ministry. But God
will never suffer the conception to prevail. If this
matter of the Church and her leaders is a busi-
ness matter, it is spiritual business. It is engaged
with God upon the spirit of man. The ministry
is a vocation. The Church recognizes the divine
call and adjusts her call to that. The Church can-
not take pleasure in that easy running in and out
of the ministry of which we see lamentably much
[54]

Ministerial Leadership

to-day. It is not a business or profession to be
lightly assumed with a calculating eye and pres-
ently to be discarded as unprosperous. It is the
highest of vocations, to be entered with a lifelong
purpose and uncalculating devotion. The Church
demands the entire life of her ministers, their
undivided attention and their unswerving purpose
unto death; and quality of ministerial work is
clearly seen to be in direct proportion to such un-
reserved and dateless consecration. With less
than this churches often put up, but the Church
is never satisfied. Really providential interrup-
tions are understood; but the Church's concep-
tion of the sacred calling stands at the ideal
height, and the Church's demands upon her min-
isters abate nothing from the man's total gift
of himself and all that he hath.

Now the Church knows well enough where this
brings a minister out in old age. He has made
no material provision for himself ; he could not ;
the Church would not permit him ; it would not
even allow him normal self-preservation; he is
worn out untimely, and a younger man is called
to his parsonage and pulpit — "Business is busi-
ness!" Oh, but our vaunted individualism has
led to such heartless evictions of faithful servants
and such shameless denials of corporate responsi-
biHty for our brethren! Even now, with our
clearer vision, we are making no haste to rectify
our action, as our state and national funds for
ministerial relief pitifully show. But the better
[55]

Congregational Administration

days will come, more dutiful on our part as a
church, more sustained and relieved for servants
of Christ worn out in the warfare.

It is a day of old-age pensions. The British
and German governments exhibit them on the
largest scales, while they are seen on all sides in
smaller forms. More centralized denominations
than ourselves have this provision in full opera-
tion for their ministries. We must follow them,
for we cannot come near meeting the case by en-
larged salaries. The Central Fund Scheme of
the Congregational Union of England and Wales
already looks in this direction.

But one thing we must cease; we must cease
calling this a charity; it is not charity, it is quid
Ministerial Seiief pro QUO; it is wcll-eamed pay-
not Charity ment for labor rendered ; it is
barely living wages for a life clean fore-
spent in our service. Our gifts cannot match
the desert. God will assure "the wages of going
on and not to die." But let us meanwhile give
the bread and water, yea, the butter and honey,
in a way worthier of us and of them. A
comparison is sometimes made, in a way that
seems to me mistaken, between the ministry
and the army and navy. There is more
of a parallelism here than is usually stated. The
government pays more adequate salaries and re-
tires its offtcers on half pay, because, it is said,
the government gets the total service of the life,
whereas the Church cannot command this. I sub-
[56]

Ministerial Leadership

mit that this is blinking facts and obHgation.
From the hour when the young man enters the
pastorate, and shall we not say when he enters
the seminary, the Church commands his total sac-
rificial service under a command more regal and
a constraint more potent than those of the State.
In daily quality, in faithfulness, in completeness
of sacrifice the Church gets a service unmatched
by the State ; the State's servants give nobly, even
Christianly in many cases, but the Church's serv-
ants give more divinely, for their lives run nearer
God's. But my point is that you call for their
all, and you get it ; you get it; the cases wherein
you do not get it are beneath notice. When, then,
the State's faithful servants are retiring in fair
measure of comfort on half pay, how shall your
spiritual servants fare? Pittances doled out to
extreme cases of privation, and to such only, can-
not truthfully be called proper returns for service
rendered or gifts at all worthy of the giving
Church. The trouble is not with the committees
which administer the funds; the trouble is with
the funds. This matter must be shaped up on
higher principles than the mere prevention of
starvation. Far more than that is due to the sick
or aged servant himself and his family. And
beyond the obligation to him and them stretches
the large matter of administrative wnsdom. The
ministry as a factor in our church life, deprived
of the means of self-provision, must not be left
to run out into an old age beginning earlier than
[57]

Congregational Adniinistvation

in other callings and wandering off into cool dis-
missal, neglect and oblivion. It is more than in-
justice; it is poor policy. The evils of it do not
escape the young men we want in the ministry,
do not fail to affect the total product of church
work, and surely do not meet the approval of the
Judge who doeth right.

I would not be understood to mean that the
Church should bring all its ministers under the
working of such a policy. It could not, for they
•would not. Most of them manage to escape this
recourse. As we do justice in other respects, a
smaller proportion will need it. Perhaps it can
one day be brought well-nigh to an end. Mean-
while the high potencies of Christian manhood
will continue to carry our ministers and their
families bravely, and for the most part silently,
through.

V. There are other things to be done toward
restoring our ministry to its place of power.
General conditions vitally affecting pastoral effi-
ciency, felt by many ministers, perceived by
young men looking that way, can be much im-
proved. Some of them are actually better than
reported ; in these cases the facts need to be shown
up.

Freedom of thought and speech is one of the
points emphasized of late years in most of the
Ministerial ai'ticlcs Upon the ministry. The
Freedom suppO'Scd dearth of this freedom is
said to be almost the chief deterrent upon
[58]

Ministerial Leadership

college men. They get the idea that the
ministry may not deal honestly and fearlessly
with truth, following wherever it leads, uttering
it without fear or favor. They note that even
yet ministers here and there suffer ecclesiastical
discipline for their theological holdings and pul-
pit teachings, or move on to escape disagreement
with the center aisle. That such things have ut-
terly ceased from the Congregational domain
cannot be affirmed. We seem tolerably unani-
mous against iron creeds and the sport of heresy-
hunting. We have no tribunals for reducing
domineering pews, and holding church commit-
tees to honorable and considerate treatment of
pastors. And we continue to believe it more
suitable, usually, for a pastor to suffer and depart
than to wage even a just and victorious warfare
likely to result in a torn and bleeding church.
But we, the ministry and members of the Con-
gregational churches, have it in our power, first,
to improve still further our conditions of free
faith and untrammeled speech, and, second, to
make it clear to all the world, and to students,
that unhappy experiences of this kind are to re-
main as near zero among us as anywhere in the
world of free thought, and that a young man and
a minister would better gird up his manhood and
march on unshrinking past this lion — he is
chained, and most of him is stuffed.

Personal opportunity for self-realization and
u^^eful achievement is another point heavily criti-
[59]

Congregational Administration

cized to the detriment of the ministry. In many
departments of action to-day such opportunity
Ministerial is magnificent. Limitless resources
Opportunity in an Open field challenge man's
utmost aspiration and endeavor. The minis-
try appears to be disadvantaged in this re-
gard. The high-hearted young man says he
doubts the open field, the resources of action,
the progressive character of the churches,
the adequacy of church funds, the enterprise of
church plans, the breadth of view, the stride for-
ward which is SO' thrilling in some other lines.
Now this is a most sensitive point with a normal
man up to fifty years of age. The man worth
while in the ministry demands first of all the
chance of life. This is the prime inquiry; not
for comfort, or recognition, but a great field of
freedom and resource whereon to render tO' God
the noblest account of himself. You will not an-
swer him by pointing to a score of our leading
churches with a remark about room at the top.
He is not an individualist. He has accepted the
age of combination. He thinks the Church
should act with as wide a reach and as long a
purpose as does industry or education or
philanthropy or statesmanship. Such scope he
would prefer to find elsewhere than tO' miss it
in the ministry. A large fraction, I for one be-
lieve a major fraction, of our six thousand Con-
gregational ministers are already restive with our
conservative hesitation to adopt frankly the more
[60]

Ministerial Leadership

efficient organization. In an age of concerted ac-
tion they do not see, among some thousands of
independent churches rather gingerly holding
hands, a rich chance to make full account of their
lives. And they are right. The opportunity of
our ministry will not be commensurate with that
in other departments of modern life until the
Congregational churches have achieved "a na-
tional unity on a grand scale" — repeating the
words of John Fiske from the former lecture.
This is no ungodly lust after a bishopric; it is
the righteous and timely demand to join a great
body of men who march out together into the
great issues where two put ten thousand to flight.
We have many men who prefer to chase a thou-
sand alone — God bless them !

VI. It is time to formulate what is coming to
be, I believe, our all but unanimous conception of
the ministry. And here I must. The congregational
in the interest of frankness, conception
acknowledge my disagreement with Mr. Heer-
mance, whose chapter on the ministry seems
to me unequal to the rest of his valuable
volume. With many affirmations and denials in
this chapter all Congregationalists are in full ac-
cord. We are as far as ever from the sacerdotal
idea of the ministry as an exclusive and govern-
ing priesthood. We stand for "a ministry, not
an order of priests." We subscribe as heartily
as ever to the statement adopted by the Council
of 1865, as follows: — "The ministry of the
[61]

Congregational Administration ■

gospel by members of the churches who have jjeen
duly called and set apart to^hat work implies in
itself no power of government, and ministers of
the gospel not elected to office in any church are
not a hierarchy, nor are they invested with any
official power in or out of the churches." But
this has ceased tO' be a sufficient statement of the
position and character of our ministry. It does not
lead logically into the old pastoral theory of the
ministry advocated by Mr. Heermance, as earlier
by Dr. Dexter. That theorywas that jthejninis-
try was no larger than the pastorate, that a man
entered_the ministry only by assuming thepas-
torate of a local church and ceased from the min-
istry jjjgonjaying^^^vnjdiatpa^to^ Involved
in this were several things, some of which have
permanent validity, some not. The minister was
chosen out of the membership of the church he
was to serve; or if not, he must at once become
a member of it. Hig ordination was mere induc-
tion into that limited pastorate, was of course an
action of that one church, and was to be repeated,
as affirmed in the Cambridge Platform, if heaver
entered upon the pastorate of another church.
Between pastorates he had no standing as a.min-
istej, though he might be looked upon as worthy
and experienced.

Now this pastoral theory became almost
at once in early New England too small to
cover the facts. The churches held the min-
istry in higher esteem and administered it
[62]

Ministerial Leadership

upon a larger view. Ordination became
a ^social act, performed by representatives
of the churches. The ordained pastorai '

man was considered a minister Theory inadequate ^
beyond the bounds of his own parish, and
his official acts properly ministerial wher-(
ever performed. In 1812 the General Con-
ference of Connecticut asserted that the or- (
dained man remained amenable to discipline
when out of a pastorate. Repeated ordination (
to^the miiiistry gave way tO' installation into the
pastorate, already a different matter in Congre-
gational eyes. Dismissal from a pastorate ceas^
to be deposition from the ministry. The close
of the last pastorate of a lifetime was not ipso
facto departure from the ministry. The man's
standing in the eyes of men, his responsibility to
the Congregational order, his right to officiate
temporarily in any church that invited him —
in short, his, full ministerial_character and power,
both_^in the Church and before the law of the land,
abode upon him, and in their sacred folds was
he buried, however late and full of years. He
himself, indeed, might lay off his ministerial char-
acter by definite act of withdrawal. He might,
if unworthy, be stripped of it, but, as Congre-
gationalists have jealously protested, only by a
similar body to that which ordained him, viz., a
council convened for that specific purpose. This
is not the practise of the pastoral theory of the
ministry, any more than it is of the sacerdotal
[63]

Congregational Administration

theory. Neither, it should be added, must we
keep on affirming the obsolete pastoral theory in
order to save our practise from slipping over into
the sacerdotal theory. Nor, be it further added,
is it the Presbyterian theory. In that scheme
the minister is not a member of a church at all,
but of a presbytery. He is thus part of a body
which is above the churches and has authority in
the churches. And it is by this body that he is,
humanly speaking, made a minister. Between
this and the Congregational practise here advo-
cated there is a gap which we have neither reason
nor willingness to bridge. It is, I believe, pos-
sible to formulate our ministerial theory and
Congregationally safe to practise it in accordance
with the larger facts thus presented and the
wider social order of the present day.

In our polity, then, the ministry is greater than

the pastorate. I like Dr. Ross' putting of it as

Kingdom a function in the Church-Kingdom.

Theory It is an Order or range of service

in the Kingdom and the Church. It is

not ouside the Church, and we rightly hold

our ministers to church-membership. It is not

abo've^ the Church, not a hierarchy with gov-

, erning power over the churches. It is only

/ by way of the pastorate that it becomes official

I in the churches. A minister must be a pastor or

, be invited to perform pastoral service in order

I to get the office and opportunity of leadership in

\ any church. The ministry, as distinguished from

[64]

Ministerial Leadership

the pastorate, is to be found not merely in the
churches, but in and among them in a pervasive
sense. It belongs to the churches in common, to
the Church Catholic. It is a service to the
Church at large, ready to define itself upon in-
vitation into a pastorate of any local church at
any time. This distinction discloses the safety
enjoyed by every Congregational church with
reference to the body of men called the ministry.
No one of these men, nor all of them combined,/
can enter the field of any local church for the
purpose, or by the pow^r of any official action,)
save upon that church's invitation and for thef
term of that church's pleasure.

Being such, the ministry is in our Congrega- ,
tional view a lifelong function. We do not hold^
that ordination confers an indelible character. It /
rather recognizes a divine call into a sacred and'
permanent vocation. It seems clear to us thatt
God has such an enduring service of religion and
calls men into it. It is the number of men called
of God into the lifelong service of religion and
the Church that we, in common with all Chris-
tians, mean by the ministry. At this point, _as
distinctly as at any, we repudiate the pa_storal
theory w^ith its temporary character. We mean
to ordain only such men as have entered upon a
long engagement with God.

Let us, then, frankly accept the implications of
this conception. We ordain a man to- the ministry
of Jesus Christ ; we install him into the pastorate
[65]

Congregational Administration

of a particular church. We should no longer hesi-
tate_at genera] ordination to the ministry apart
Implications from installation into a pastorate.
There is no reason in the character of Congrega-
tional ordination, though there may be special
and personal reasons, against taking the graduat-
ing class of any seminary and ordaining them
together in one great day to the Christian min-
istry, to go their several ways into pastorates
or evangelism or religious education or the mis-
sion field as the Spirit may lead them. In parts
of our country, perhaps not here in New England,
we are frankly practising such general ordina-
tion. And so logical and practical is it, that it
seems likely to win its way, aided by the modern
decline of installation and the increasing brevity
of formal pastorates.

f We should also cease to claim for the local
, church the exclusive right to ordain. That be-
/ longs with the pastoral, not with the Kingdom
I theory of the ministry. The right of every church
' to invite any man to officiate as its pastor is not
to be denied, nor its right to call a council to or-
dain a candidate. The Congregational churches
may, indeed, prefer to retain this method of get-
ting at the ordination of new men. But let us
discharge our minds of the fiction that the mean-
ing of this method is that ordination is the pre-
rogative of a single church, a sacred part of its
wonderful autonomy, while the cooperation of
other churches in ordination is social courtesy
[66]

Ministerial Leadership

and a good display of church fraternity. It is
time to hold and practise the larger idea that
the Cqngregationa]__ Church — Congregational
Churches, Tf the phrase is preferred — provides
itself, or themselves, with a ministry. The
ordination of a candidate is the act of the Church
at large, performed by the churches of a vicinage
acting coordinately and representing not a single
church but the denomination. Nor need we wait
for the individual church to initiate the procedure
and give the churches right and occasion to or-
dain. Ordination should be by that body, namely,
the local association of^ churches, to which we
safely entrust the standing of ministers ; and the
association should be ready to meet for ordina-
tion at the call of its own officers, upon the re-
quest either of a local church or of the candidate
himself. And even if ordination by a council of
churches is still preferred, it should be as compe-
tent and orderly for an association of churches
as for a single church to call that council. The
provision, be it repeated, of an unfailing line of
men discharging the ministerial function in the
Kingdom and the Church is the duty and pre-
rogative of the Church, or of the churches cor- ^
porately, not singly.

This may sound heretical to many mature and
ecclesiastically jealous Congregational ears. It
may therefore be necessary to congregational
protest once more that this is strategy
not a process of Presbyterianizing the Con-
[67]

Congregational Adininistraiion

gregatioiial ministry. It will not have es-
caped attention that the self-control of each local
church still remains uninvaded. Though the
churches act corporately in filling the ranks of
the ministry, they cannot thrust a single minister
into the pastorate of any church or withdraw
a pastor. Our ministers remain members of
local churches and so are amenable to ordinary
church discipline. A church is as free as ever
to advance one of its own members for temporary
service in its own pulpit, as free as ever to re-
quest other churches to unite in ordaining a
promising candidate. And ordination by local
association, which will be brought forward in an-
other lecture, is no less completely in the control
of the churches than is ordination by council.
The larger conception of the ministry does not
elevate the ministry above the churches, nor give
it power over the churches. And be it further
-protested that here is no attempt to produce a
, new conception of the Congregational ministry
I or to alter our Congregational practise. The at-
' tempt is to state clearly, albeit with cordial ap-
proval, what is believed to be the increasing be-
lief and practise, the truer and foreordained idea.
It is offered, too, as a most significant element in
our denominational reconstruction. The achieve-
ment of a national unity involves such enlarged
administration of the ministry. And there exists
no more important point in Congregational states-
manship. The welfare of our churches and the
[68]

Ministerial Leadership

fruitage of their work depend under God upon
their ministerial leadership. The full ranks, per-
sonal quality and efficiency of that leadership de-
pend upon the most commanding conception of
it wrought out into the most liberal and engaging
opportunity of service. Here is our supreme
strategy. There is all to gain and nothing to
lose in it. It makes for manhood, vision, power.
The ministry wants, not to be carried, but to be
challenged and enabled. There is no danger of
enfeebling and pauperizing such a body of Christ-
called men. Give them room and resources.
Then make your scrutiny of candidates search-
ing, your selection rigid, your demands heavy,
the battle fierce all the day long, the sacrifice a
whole burnt offering; these men will keep full
ranks, will fight the fight, will finish the course,
will keep the faith, — and with God be the rest!

[69]

LECTURE in
FORMS OF LOCAL FELLOWSHIP

Ill

FORMS OF LOCAL FELLOWSHIP

EsSENTiAiv Congregationalism resides in the
local church. If we try to state our polity in a
single sentence, we must affirm the native right of ^
individual Christians to organize themselves into'
a church, sovereign in its private life and unit-^
ing with other sovereign churches in voluntary (
forms of fellowship and work. It is in the local,
church not as an isolated and self-sufficient in-
teger, but as a social being and member of a body,
that we find the essence of our Congregational
order. Our tersest characterization must have
room for our social forms. Rising thus in the

local church and moving out- Distinctive Feature

ward, our order is seen to dif- of congregational
fer radically from polities whose
essence lies in an authoritative hierarchy. But
careful words are necessary to differentiate it
from polities whose source and direction agree
with ours. It is important to get into view, over
against Presbyterianism for example, just what
we must stand for and all we need to stand for.
I should state this essential distinction thus : Coii-
gre^ationalism stands and must stan^for direct
democi-acy in the local church and absence of
authority in the fellowship forms. Such double
statement may seem to many unnecessary. It
is admitted that either half involves the other.
[73]

Congregational Administration

Direct democracy in the local church means free-
dom from all coercion from above. The absence
of authority from the whole fellowship system
guarantees independent popular action in the local
church. Yet it seems well to utter both points
in a working statement of our polity. For we
are self-conscious and distressed at both points.
We have to lay stress, now on the one, and then
on the other. A platform two planks deep feels
firmer.

The phrase, pure or direct democracy in the
local church, may appear to miss the point. Our
Local Church a historic words have been "the
Pure Democracy autonomy of the local church." We
have meant by these w^ords real and entire self-
government. That has seemed the precise point
to guard, the proud distinction of our democratic
churches. Many are satisfied to assure the
churches this freedom from outside interference.
It matters not under what forms each sovereign
church may conduct its private life. Dr.
]\Tackennal deemed it sufficient, "if it be recog-
nized that the government of each particular
church is in its membership." Without obscur-
ing this, may we not, in thesc^ days when our un-
invaded self-control is secure, put our local life in
some richer phrase, such as direct democracy? An
addition of meaning is not denied, is intended
rather, but not a substitute principle; for the es-
sence of democracy is free popular self-cuntrol.
No attempt is made to alter Congregational prac-
[74]

Forms of Local fellowship

tise, but only to characterize it. As a matter of
fact, bare autonomy has been our fighting Hne.
Behind that hne our church methods have agreed
upon more than sheer freedom to do as each hked.
If a church here and there chose to commit its
annual procedure to an authoritative session, the
rest of us did not count that good Congregation-
alism ; it was, so far forth, straight Presbyterian-
ism in local administration ; it delegated authority
out of the hands of the people. We, the onlook-
ers, took refuge in the principle of auton-
omy, initiated no action against that church, and
waited for time; but we were not satisfied. It
was a case of autonomy, but it was not good
Congregationalism.

It is now entirely safe to withdraw all but the
sentinels from the fighting line of bare autonomy.

We could throw the total force More Than Bars

back there, armed cap-a-pie, at a Autonomy
bugle call, but it is cold ground to hold idly night
and day. In inside practise we stand for that which
is signified by the phrase "direct democracy."
The Congregational churches are those which do^
as they like, indeed, with none to say them nay,
but which like to handle local affairs by direct
popular action. We are used to membership
franchise and universal participation in church
administration. We call our important business
meetings according to legal forms; other meet-
ings we convene informally, perhaps at the close
of midweek prayer meetings. In all cases we,
[75]

Congregational Adminisiraiion

the people, do business at first-hand on the basis
of equal rights and duties. This is not other than
autonomy; it is more than autonomy. It is the
Congregational practise of autonomy. This ad-
dition to bare autonomy deserves to be inserted
in our statement of Congregational principles
and our characterization of Congregational prac-
tise. It is too central to be omitted. It ought
also to be contended for, and restored wherever
impaired. There are one or two lapses from it
which may be mentioned here.

In the first place our direct democracy too often
suffers at the hands of pastors or standing com-
Autocratic mittees. It is easy for some pastors to
Officials make themselves almost the whole
thing, the sole administrators — in blunt term,
autocrats. Many cases of such autocracy are but
mildly guilty, the church not only making no
outcry, but welcoming the relief. There are,
however, heinous cases of tyranny on the part
of strong men who are determined to have their
way. All pastors should remember that the peo-
ple rule in our polity, and the people should suffer
no pastor to forget. The Congregational pastor
is neither ruler nor hired servant. He should
neither lord it over the flock, nor do their work
for them at market-place wages for a definite
time. He is the elected leader, whose duty is to
lead and train. He will do well to have con-
spicuous among his working principles this one,
that he will do nothing which he can get any one
[ 76 ]

Forms of Local Fellowship

else to do. It is his business to secure the widest
distribution and most effective discharge of__Chris-
tian service and church administration. The
church well-trained and led feels no sense of
helplessness when it sorrowfully surrenders its
pastor to another field.

Scarcely less uncongregational and undemo-
cratic is the assumed domination of a church com-
mittee. A recent case of it has been reported to
be as flagrant as this, that the decision of a board
of trustees was enforced against the majority ac-
tion of the church. Responsibility for such an
offense must be divided between the board that
arrogated the authority and the church that suf-
fered it to do so. No Congregational church
should allow any issue to be carried beyond its
own immediate reach or counter to its own de-
cision. Nor should any pastor or church officer
ever try to thwart the popular will or to proceed
without it.

The other impairment of our direct democracy
is the ecclesiastical society. How this arose out
of the early union of Church and Ecclesiastical
State, and how it has persisted in Society
New England, though hardly known from the
Hudson River to the Pacific, need not be related.
This parish system withdrew secular affairs from
the management of the church into the control
of a small body of men who might or might not
be members of the church. ToO' often, in the
Unitarian controversy which smote New Eng-
[77]

Congregational Administration

land, they were not members. The church had
no standing before the law; legally the society
was the church. The great majority of church-
members were thus debarred from exercising in
a main section of church affairs their native right
to handle their own business. A curious paradox
appeared here. The original contention that citi-
zens of a town should not be taxed for the min-
ister's salary without being represented in the
business of the church led to the debarment of
the great majority of contributing church-mem-
bers — all the women and many of the men —
in order to admit into business management the
few men who were contributors without being
church-members.

Relief has come through laws in all the states
providing for the direct incorporation and legal
standing of the church, with the consequent con-
trol of all its business. Under this provision the
transfer from the society to the incorporated
church has proceeded slowly. I am interested
now, not in presenting the actual situation,
but in urging that this parish system is a
serious impairment of that direct democracy
which is our very life and to which we insist upon
conforming our Congregational order. A church
is competent indeed to commit its affairs to a
small body of inside and outside males called the
society, or to continue to leave its affairs in their
historic hands. It is the way in which our New
England churches have actually been compelled
[78]

Forms of Local Fclloivship

to live. But it is not proper Congregationalism;
it is a weakness in the very citadel of power, the
local church. It is to the honor of our Congre-
gational character that damage so slight and in-
frequent has resulted from a dual system of which
it has been forcibly said, "No other churches
anywhere, under any polity, were ever more
completely in subjection to a power largely
outside and independent of themselves. . . .
The result of union with the State was that
the Church was bereft of liberty and independent
life." '

Turn now to the other half of our statement
of essential Congregationalism, namely, the ab-
sence of authority from our Authority Absent from
fellowship forms, or the sub- congregational

stitution of public opinion for ^^""^^'^^p
authority in those forms. This may seem to be
the main point in our polity and the best way to
put it. We have been very assertive of local in-
dependence. Such assertion of right often sounds
combative; it certainly has often been divisive
among brethren. Is it not preferable to use a
phrase which faces the other way? Absence of
authority from our fellowship forms is a
joint phrase. We utter it together in that cor-
porate capacity against which our churches have
hurled their bolts of autonomy. It^ affirmatively
dis2Lyows_Jhat dread monster, authority. It
frankly adopts public opinion as its working
* Ross, Church Kingdom, pp. 331, 332.
[79]

Congregational Administration

force. It leaves the local church secure in free-
dom and democracy. This is all that our
churches demand. This being assured, based
upon our mutual trust, we are ready to develop
our voluntary fellowship forms unto full effi-
ciency. We never have been unwilling to frame
the larger union and perform the wider service;
we have only waited to be sure of our way.
Agreeing that our larger life is to be void of
coercion, we hesitate no longer, as is shown by
the universal interest now given to administrative
reorganization.

Note, then, our present problem in terms of
our two main principles, independence and iel-

independence in lowship. The former is as price-
Local Field legg ^g g^g,.^ ^^^ j^ jg f^j^^jjy ^^^

forever secure. Its sphere and scope have shrunk
in our modern social conditions, though the in-
terests which lie therein never can lose their pri-
macy. The inmost parts of the spiritual service
which produces individual salvation and parish
ministration continue to be discharged by the
churches one by one. Our combined work rests
heavily upon that which the churches must con-
tinue to do mainly alone.

The limits, however, of the strictly local field
are suprisingly narrow. Cooperation has now
a large place, even in the spiritual work just re-
ferred to. Revival work is now largely done in
cooperation. No large city should remain un-
provided with a federated parish system resem-
[80]

Forms of Local Fellozvship

bling that of the New York City Federation. And
when you think of it, how Httle can a local church
properly do in entire disregard of the common
good! All private affairs are matters of com-
mon concern. The election of a pastor or a dea-
con, the budget for the new year, plans of local
work — all such things affect the sisterhood of
churches. And that church is contributing most
to the Kingdom which in all these things called
local and private is sensitive to the wider interests

and needs. . . .

Beyond the circumscribed local activities,
which are properly left to each church alone,
stretches away the common field cooperation Beyond
which must be worked in union. ^*"=^
Just here occurs the mistake. Too often our in-
dependence has meant the right to work our sep-
arate wills out in the larger domain. It was
natural enough, for our church work was obliged
to begin and continue long without ways
for laboring together. But that time is now
past. We agree that the local organization and
most of the parish ministration are best handled
by the single church. Let each church continue
to elect its own officers, care for its own property,
and sustain the various forms of worship and
helpfulness. But out in the larger region, m the
affairs which cover a city, a county, a state, a
o-reat section, or the whole country — out there,
what right has a church to do its separate will?
It was Dr. Quint, one of our ablest ecclesi-
[8i]

Congregational Administration

asticians, who said, "It is manifest that no church
can rightly assume to do, without consultation,
what may affect the character and work of the
churches in general." ' There still are pastors
and churches declining to cooperate in plans that
would adequately cover a city, persistently turn-
ing their sole and singular work out into the
city wherever they choose v/ith small regard to
fellow laborers. In one of our strategic centers
the pastor of a leading church has consistently
declined parish cooperation. He said recently
to a brother pastor, "I propose to attend strictly
to my own church, and I advise you to do the
same." Such independence, persisting in separ-
ate action, is now outdated. The social age is
in full swing. Without losing individual initia-
tive we must unite. Without neglecting the
strictly local work we must organize our churches
for effective labor in the wider field. Out there
independence must yield to fellowship. Minis-
ters must learn to be colleagues and colaborers.
Churches must learn the same lesson. Our pres-
ent concern is not the safeguarding of independ-
ence, but the development of fellowship.

The problem of the hour may be stated thus :
Given independence, how much fellowship can
How Much we develop ? There have been times

Fellowship ^i^gj^ ^j^^^y f^^g^l y^g ^^j^gj. ^^^^^, (.j^^^

a fair measure of fellowship, how can we se-
curely establish independence? Until freedom
' Dunning, Congregationalists in America, p. 494.
[82]

Forms of Local Fellowship

is won, all sacrifice must serve it, all other good
must wait. Fellowship is the greater good, but'
only if it be of freemen. The field has swept on-/
ward. Sacrifice now belongs to fellowship. In-'
dependence must not be impaired; it never will(
be. We are free and independent churches.
How much can we rejoice in one another? How
much can we do in union? How shall we freely
organize in order to manifold our service to the
Kingdom? All would work out grandly if Con-
gregationalists would unanimously adopt this so-
cial purpose, would take local independence for
granted, would quietly sustain their local life,
and would turn their main administrative atten-
tion to fellowship. We should find the wisest
forms and methods, and our missionary work
would leap forward. Any one familiar with our
state meetings or our National Council can pre-
dict the relief and the release of energy, if all
should sit together taking freedom for granted,
too sure of it to assert it, trusting one another
without suspicion, absorbed in love and strategy.
"It is time," writes another, "to answer the ques-
tion. Upon what terms is it possible for Congre-
gationalism to become a manifested power?
But that can never be till we have learned that
independency is not an ultimate object, but only
the means to a higher end." '

Proceeding from the local church into our
fellowship forms, the ministerial association may
» Macfadyen, Constructive Congregational Ideals, p. 59-
[83]

Congregational Administration

claim a passing notice. It might be called, as it
has been, a voluntary social club, without admin-
Ministeriai istrative significance, save for the im-
Associations portant fact that it has held in its
hand, to the present hour in some sections, prime
interests of the churches, namely, the licensure
of candidates and the standing of ministers. As
long as this is so, every member is responsible
to the association for his ministerial character
and the association must answer to the churches
for all its members. A body with such respon-
sibilities cannot be called a social club, and must
not decline to hold its members to moral and
professional standards. But, being a purely min-
isterial body, it never can properly represent
democratic churches. Beyond New England it
has small place in the denomination. In many
locahties it has never existed; elsewhere it has
disbanded or been merged with Monday minis-
ters' meetings. "Ministerial associations," wrote
Dr. Ross, "are temporary in our polity. They
were the stepping-stones in this country between
the independency which relied on the State and
associations of independent churches. They se-
cure the fellowship of the clergy, not of the
churches, except through their pastors." '

The association or conference of churches, on

the other hand, is taking its place at the head

of our line O'f fellowship. It is truly and closely

representative of the churches. It is the churches

' Ross, Church Kingdom, p. 294.

[84]'

Forms of Local Fellowship

of a convenient vincinage organized together and
meeting by elected delegates for mutual help and
united labor. The members of the Associations
association are the churches ; the indi- °^ churches
vidual delegates are simply members of the meet-
ing. Here commences our indirect or representa-
tive democracy. Not_until the nineteenth century
came the hour of association of churches. They
would Tm^e arisen in the seventeenth century
save for opposition by the ministry. In 1641
Alassachusetts Colony adopted a code of laws
permitting both ministerial and church associa-
tions. In 1662 its legislature ordered a synod
to settle, among other questions, this : "Whether,
according to the Word of God, there ought to
be a consociation of churches, and what should
be the manner of it." "This question," say
the Colonial Records, "was unfortunately
returned to the Secretary of State by the
elders." "The elders stifled this attempt of
the laymen for church association," is a later
comment.

The association of churches at once approved
itself and spread rapidly. It now covers all our
churches. And so true is it to Congregational-
ism, that its function has been steadily enlarged,
till it has come to be our pivotal fellowship body.
As concerns service in the Kingdom of God, the
association's field remains small; our extensive
ministries must go through state and national
ao-cncies. But as concerns orderly and re-
[85]

Congregational Admin istration

sponsible organization, for both safety and sig-
nificance, the local association is for the present
the most important of our fellowship bodies. I
would therefore bespeak for it the unfailing in-
terest of churches and ministers. Because the
association is the churches in immediate organi-
zation, able to report and appeal instantly back
to the churches, liable to be called to prompt ac-
count by the churches, prepared to carry oiit the
will of the churches into wider fields of fellow-
ship, it is both safe and important to magnify
this body.

In its enlarging scope and function the asso-
ciation is charged first with the welfare of its
Welfare of own cliurchcs. Our churches have
Its Churches \^q^y\ dcscrtcd by one another. Our
independence has been shamefully unfraternal.
Under our competitive system hundreds of our
churches can barely make a living; some that
ought not to fail starve to death. Some, badly
located or abandoned by the currents of social
life, ought to remove or disband. Some that
are doing noble work might be helped to multi-
ply the service and increase the joy. Our
churches are slow to learn what it means to be
members one of another.

Included in the association's duty is the reli-
gious condition of the county or district, so
far as this belongs to Congregationalists. The
questio'U is, What is our part in the religious
welfare of this district, and how shall our
[86]

Forms of Local Fellowship

churches, organized in the association, perform
their part? Enter here the duties of church ex-
tension and evangehzation. church Extension
Why should a new church be and Evangelization

formed when and where a few individuals would
like to have it? Every Congregational church
in the district is affected by each new church or-
ganized. The latter will draw members from one
and another church, and probably will appeal to
the churches singly and to the home missionary
society for financial aid. It is time all over the
land for church extension to proceed upon advice
and cooperation, and for the power of Christ
to be carried throughout a city or a county by
the united churches. Bay Association of
churches in California covers a large county, in-
cluding the cities of Berkeley, Oakland, and
Alameda. New Haven West Association in
Connecticut covers the city and county of New
Haven. These bodies are competent to spread
the united power of all the Congregational
churches over the spiritual needs of those coun-
ties. I do not, of course, forget specially organ-
ized church extension societies and city mission
societies, which have the advantage of restricted
aim and special pleading. But I believe that the
associations of churches can well handle such
work until the local fields grow so dense as to
require separate organizations.

For this work of church welfare and exten-
sion an advisory, prudential or missionary com-
[87]

Congregational Administration

mittee of the association is sufficient. One such
association acts through a prudential committee,
Prudential or whosc function is described as fol-
Advisory lows in the coustitution : "It shall be

Committees ^i^g ^^^y Q,f |.j-,g Prudential Committee
to promote the welfare and fellowship of the
churches of this association in all possible ways,
and especially as follows: (a) To consider the
opportunities, responsibilities and resources of
the churches of this association, and to study the
-whole field with reference to the best distribution
and employment of forces; (b) To receive any
requests for counsel, to offer advice in needy
and difficult cases, and when necessary to report
to the association ways and means for meeting
such cases and execute the association's pro-
visions for relief; (c) To initiate and report plans
for new enterprises and forward movements, in
short, all that pertains to the extension of
Christ's kingdom throughout the county. And
to make its work effective the Prudential Com-
mittee is hereby empowered by the churches
through the association to assume from year to
year whatever financial responsibility may be
necessary." This particular committee has led
the association to serve the churches in several
important advances, such as the union of two
churches, the erection of a new meeting-house,
the purchase of a parsonage, the organization
and housing of a new church, tKe removal of
a church to a better site — these along with
[88]

Forms of Local Fellowship

lesser acts of helpfulness and a constant brooding
watch-care over the churches and their united
fields. The committee answers every call upon
its service and is expected to proffer advice and
initiate work at its discretion. It would be hard
for men who appreciate the labor of such a com-
mittee to think any association in the country
well off without one, or in lack of some adequate
provision for such service.

Another charge upon the local association is
the orderly standing of churches and ministers.
Dr. Quint wrote: ''No Congrega- ^^^^^^^ ^,
tional church is independent. It can churches and
become so by withdrawing from its Ministers
affiliations with the other churches, but in that
case it ceases to be a part of the Congregational
body." ' The Council Manual, issued by the
National Council as its expression of Congrega-
tional organization, explicitly includes member-
ship in a local association as requisite for a
church which would secure and maintain Con-
gregational character and standing. Every Con-
gregational church is thus amenable to the de-
nomination, and every association is responsible
for the good standing of its churches. The same
is true of every Congregational minister. His
good name and commendation to the churches
used to be in the hands of ordaining, installing
and dismissing- councils. In the decline of in-
stallation, ministerial standing has passed over to
* Dunning, Congregationalists in America, p. 492.
[89]

Congregational Adniinistration

the associations of churches. We have reached
such proportions that we can secure good order
in no less methodical way. The National Coun-
cil has affirmed the conditions of ministerial
standing to be threefold :

(i) Membership in a Congregational church;

(2) Ordination tO' the Christian ministry;

(3) Membership in that body, in most states

the local association of churches, which

holds the standing of ministers.

Now for the safe and orderly procedure of our

denominational life throughout this great coun-

_ , , . ^. try this matter of the good stand-
Local Association _ ■' ...

Responsible for ing of churchcs and ministers is
Good standing extremely important and gives
prominence to the fellowship body charged with
it. I believe that we are wise in laying it upon
a local body, composed of the churches and min-
isters themselves, closely conversant with all per-
sonal character and church conditions, meeting
regularly and as a matter of course, easily meet-
ing in special session either to correct irregular-
ities or to perform specific tasks. The state con-
ference is less suited to be the custodian of min-
isterial and church standing. Nor is there any
local body adequate to bear this obligation save
the association of churches. The council is fugi-
tive, while these responsibilities are permanent.
The ministerial association is limited to the
clergy, while these responsibilities pertain to the
churches inclusive of the clergy. The National
[90]

Forms of Local Fellowship

Council recommended that all local associations
of churches so amend their constitutions as to
provide for ministerial standing, and that all
ministerial associations turn their members over
to the church bodies. The transfer is already
well-nigh universal.

There is one new feature in the possible scope
and function of the association of churches which
I desire to join with Mr. Heermance ordination by
and others in advocating. It is the Association
ordination of_ ministers. It seems to some like
red revolution to carry over ordination from the
time-honored council to the upstart association.
But there are reason and good order in it. In
our Congregational history ordination by other
bodies than the council is far from unknown,
while at present there is a distinct trend toward
the association of churches. Several State bodies
have recommended it in whole or in part. And
those who have considered it and seen it work
cannot help believing that it will gradually win
its way. It cannot be forced. Those who prefer
ordination by council are as free as ever to em-
ploy that method. The change must come as a
recognized improvement.

It is evident at a glance that ordination by an
association of churches is good Congregational
ordination. No man ordained by The Best
such a body would have his minis- ^'^^^^'^^ ^ody
terial standing questioned anywhere in the land.
The association is a better body than the council
[91]

Congregation al Administration

for this service, inasmuch as it includes all the
churches of the vicinage and has permanent life
and records. Having more time and repeated
sessions for its business, with standing officers
and commitees, it is less likely than a council to
perform a mistaken ordination, while it is always
at hand to correct such an error.

"Over some case of ministerial delinquency or
impotence we ask, Who ordained this man? A
council in northeastern Maine or southwestern
California. Write that council and charge back
its blunder upon it; bid it recall those ordination
papers and terminate the mischievous or in-
effective career. Impossible; the deed was done
by an agency irresponsible, because too short-
lived to be brought to an account, created for the
work of an hour with endless consequences, and
falling apart beyond recall before sunset. It gave
the ordained man the sole copy of credentials
good for a lifetime to the ends of the Congre-
gational earth and beyond. It sent no records
to a responsible custodian. And yet there is a
thoroughly Congregational and representative
body, dignified, stable, inclusive of all the neigh-
boring churches and ministers and responsible
for all, possessing all the prerogatives and ma-
chinery for ordination. It writes such deeds in
permanent records. It is more cautious, because
it studies constantly the interests intrusted to it,
and because it must answer any day for the deeds
it has done. It can be called together as readily
[92]

Forms of Local Fellowship

as a council. Holding stated meetings, it need
not for every case be called in extra session."

The main objection to ordination by associa-
tion of churches, aside from sentimental devotion
to the council, is a fear of some encroachment
upon the liberties of the churches. Let us con-
tinue to ordain, say the fearful, by the council
which disbands at once; let us not trust this prin-
cipal matter in the hands of a permanent body
able to act repeatedly; independence is endan-
gered by a permanent body. That general
proposition is, I trust, being sufficiently argued
in these lectures. To make a stand on ordina-
tion seems to me peculiarly inapt. There can
be no threat upon liberty at this point; it is too
brief and fleeting. Time is a necessary element
in tyranny. Ordination is done and past in a
day, else a council never could perform it. It
passes over into permanent ministerial standing;
in that there is time for tyranny.

Suffer another moment's emphasis upon our
present management of the life of our ministry.
Licensure, or approbation to preach, The Life of
is in the hands of the association of °"'" ^i^i^*^^
churches or ministers. Ministerial standing, as
a permanent holding, is in the same hands. Cer-
tification of that standing is therefore given at
any time by the association, and the council is
no longer depended on for a minister's creden-
tials. Virtual deposition from the ministry for
sufficient cause is in the same associational
[93]

Congregational Administration

hands; for while technical deposition is held by
a council, the refusal of an association to sustain
longer a minister's membership and standing-
locks him, and ought to lock him, out of our pul-
pits. It has always been next to impossible to
secure formal deposition by a council; it is now
rendered unnecessary by the normal working of
ministerial standing in the association of
churches. Thus that body presides over the
whole extent of a minister's professional life, his
ordination alone excepted. At that juncture we
turn to the council, as though to say that we will
not entrust with this man's ordination the bcKly
to which we commit his entire career, though
that body be composed of the very churches
which must in any case perform his ordination.
Safety, consistency, fitness and all the values of
good order should, and I believe will, transfer
ordination to the association's hands. And this
is another argument for locating the whole proc-
ess of ministerial standing in associations of
churches instead of associations of ministers.

It remains to suggest that many other things
hitherto performed by the council would often

other Functions ^^ ^^^"^ "''o^'^ appropriately and
for the effectively by the association of

Association churchcs. The installation or dis-

missal of a pastor, the organization or migration
of a church, the union of two churches, many
appeals for advice and material assistance, coun-
sel upon cases of discipline or business difficulty
[94]

Forms of Local Fellowship

— such things belong more fitly to the associa-
tion with its system of meetings and records, of-
ficers and committees. For, be it said for the
smaller churches and their pastors who shrink
from pressing their desires and rights, it is a main
weakness of our council system that it assembles
the "leading churches" and "leading pastors,"
seldom including those who would most appre-
ciate participation in ecclesiastical affairs. These
fellowship functions are occasions of growth and
brotherly love, as well as service. It is neither
fraternity nor strategy to magnify an agency
which in the human nature of the case leaves
many churches and pastors out in the cold year
after year. Moreover, most of these denomina-
tional occasions concern the whole circle of the
vicinage, small and large churches alike. It is
both good Christianity and good democracy to
substitute the association of churches for the
co-uncil in these denominational activities. The
transfer would be one more step in simplifying
and strengthening our polity.

What, then, of the council, our true and tried
servant, our familiar friend, our Congregational
way, the habit of three hundred Permanent scope
years — what of this? No dis- °^ ^^^^ c°"°°"
honor will be shown it in the change. So useful
an agency is it that we should be entirely un-
willing to deprive ourselves of it. It is admitted
that some occasions for fellowship can be better
served by a council than by an association. Rep-

[95]

Congregational Administration

resentatives from a larger neighborhood, even
from beyond state boundaries, are sometimes
needed, as in an extreme case of discipline or
financial distress. I have knoAvn a council to be
preferred for the good reason that the larger body
could not be entertained in the small meeting-
house. And a case frequently arises of such
length, delicacy or complexity as to require a
small and select council.

Beyond these ordinary uses, however, the coun-
cil has in our practise of the Congregational pol-
court of ity a special function which assures it
Last Resort abiding honor. For this function I like
the brief, trim phrase, "court of last resort." To
this title Mr. Heermance and others object, with-
out suggesting another equally terse and ade-
quate. Having dismissed authority from our
total system, and having committed our decision
to rational constraint by public opinion, it would
seem as if no phrases could threaten our serenity.
But in whatever terms stated, the provision is a
real Congregational distinction and protection.
We must always have some recourse from mis-
takes and injustice. If a church, for example, or
a minister has just complaint against the decision
of the association of which either is a member,
an appeal must be within reach to a judicatory
regarded superior, because more disinterested,
because concentrated upon the one issue, and be-
cause advantaged by information of the former
trial. Refuge has not always been found in a
[96]

Porms of Local Fellowship

council. In early days resort was had to town
officers or the state legislature. In the consoci-
ational days in Connecticut an appeal from one
consociation might be presented to a neighboring
one in joint session; if the two decisions coin-
cided, they constituted a doubly final and author-
itative settlement of the case. Both these lines
of appeal have disappeared. We look to the State
no longer, save in legal complications. Nor do
we appeal from one association or conference to
another, expecting the two to play a drawn game
or enforce a joint decree. Least of all do we
think of carrying our appeals up to state or
national bodies. To these we give no legislative
or judicial functions, and to them present no
such business. We thus have no ascending ju-
dicial system, such as would remove our difficult
cases from the vincinage to distant judgment-
seats. On the contrary, we carry our appeals
directly back to the local churches. Our resort is
to a council, that familiar immediate represen-
tative of the churches, whose nature is to utter
the best available judgment of the churches and
leave it to be enforced by its inherent reason and
public opinion. If we need a safeguard against
other polities, here is one. The Presbyterian
may carry his troubles up the line, to presbytery,
synod and assembly, and accept the results form-
ulated in the distant judicatories. The Congre-
gationalist turns back to the local churches whose
fraternal advice is his final dependence. As long
[97]

Congregational Administration

as this method of appeal stands, a drift into other
poHties is blocked. Equally blocked is a tendency
into any sort of perilous centralization. We may
freely develop the local association, only keeping
the council behind it as court of appeal. This
turn is pivotal in our polity; upon it we swing
back to the pro re nata action of the churches.
And should the council come to be mainly limited
to this function of appeal, it would therein retain
eminence and power such as should satisfy its
most jealous advocates.

Returning now to the association of churches,
let me for a moment urge the importance of
Uniform agreeing upon a uniform terminol-
Terminoiogy ^g-y ^^^ National Council has

recommended that our local organizations of
churches take the name "association," and our
state bodies be called "conferences." This is a
subordinate but not trivial matter. An incon-
sistent terminology causes confusion in any de-
partment of thought or action. Science corrects
it at every discoverable point. So does practical
wisdom, bent upon improving methods and pro-
ducing results. These are days of the constant
migration of pastors and church-members. Their
familiarity with our working terms and methods
affects efficiency. These facts, plus the increas-
ing administrative significance of our ecclesiasti-
cal bodies, argue the importance of uniform
features and phraseology. In its main lines our
work is one and the same throughout the land.
[98]

Forms of Local Fclljzvshil)

Local variety is required only in minor details.
Preference for our inherited names is natural
enough, but unworthy to stand against our desire
for united power.

In such ways as have now been indicated our
local fellowship is being shaped. The trend all
over the countr}^ is to magnify the local associa-
tion, composed of the churches themselves in
immediate union for the common work of the
vicinage. Here, close to the separate churches,
in their first organized body, we find the safest
basis of good order. Here we fear no danger to
our liberties, for these are the very churches
whose liberties are precious. Here we have an
agency adequate to meet the conditions of the
local field, competent also to enter those wider
relations which remain to be considered.

[99]

LECTURE IV
STATE UNIFICATION

IV

STATE UNIFICATION

The state is as natural a district for religious
as for civil organization. Interests and activities
of the churches too large for our local associa-
tions, yet too restricted for national administra-
tion, we handle statewise. Thus we have a state
organization in every state and two in California.
They have been styled conferences or associations
or conventions. To secure a uniform termin-
ology the name "conference," recommended by
the National Council, is being gradually adopted.

The membership of both local associations
and state conferences, which may be discussed
as one question, presents difficulties Local and state
requiring thought and experiment. Membership
The present variety is confusing. In some cases,
local or state, the membership is limited to
churches, these being represented in the meetings
by pastors as such and elected delegates. In
other cases ministers, whether pastors or not,
have personal membership, with or without vot-
ing rig^hts; this membership, as held and inter-
preted in local associations, constituting their
ministerial standing. There are state bodies
which determine their own membership inde-
pendently, as of course they are free tO' do, while
others base their membership upon the local as-
sociations. Now similar to that regarding termin-
[ 103 ]

C on s.y€ (Rational Adniinist ration

ology, though much more cogent here, is the
argument for uniformity. Not until we have
achieved it, can a minister or active layman, re-
moving from one state to another, enter upon his
new relations unconfused.

The first question concerns the duties and
prerogatives connected with ministerial standing.
Ministerial Shall the minister's connection with
Membership and a local association of churchcs,
standing which he is obliged to secure and

keep unsullied, be reckoned as membership? If
so, what kind of membership, entitled to what
privileges, and charged with what duties? If not
membership, what is it? Can sO' vital and re-
sponsible a connection, involving discipline for
cause, be ordered and insisted upon without being
accorded the status of membership? Ministerial
standing is coordinate with the standing of a
church; if the latter involves full membership in
an association, with voting rights in all meetings,
should the former be limited to less? In this
matter is it right to reckon a minister as no more
than an individual church-member? The local
association is the body in and through which de-
nominational administration is carried on; shall
a minister have no participation in administration
save as a church-member occasionally elected as
delegate to an association meeting? If a larger
share is just or desirable, is it sufficient to give
him an associate or honorary membership, with
all rights save that of voting?
[ 104]

State Unification

Three practises now in vogue among us may
be stated as follows: — (a) in some associations
all ministers hold personal voting membership;
(b) in other associations there is no ministerial
membership, but pastors are ex officio delegates
and voting members of the meetings; other min-
isters have no place in any meeting save as duly
elected delegates of churches; (c) in still other
associations even pastors hold nO' ex officio place
in the meetings, but must be elected as delegates.

It is easy to object to any one of these arrange-
ments, but the most just and consistent solution
does not instantly appear. Ministerial a Difficult
membership, giving each minister, Solution
whether pastor or not, voting rights in every
meeting, puts a minister on a par with a church,
gives him undue prominence in the meetings and
the organization generally, and introduces a
double and disparate membership. On the other
hand, tO' refuse ministerial membership is liable
to injustice. For the minister, not the pastor
only, is held under responsibilities peculiar to
him, not shared by any layman, shared only by a
church. We Congregationalists — and freemen
generally — have a very vital rubric entitled
''taxation without representation." We feel like
insisting in simple justice that one who is held to
unique accountability must be given unique rights
in the organization which holds him.

There are times when ordinary injustice at
this point would be magnified intO' grievous
[ 105 ]

Congregational Administration

wrong. The discipline of a minister as church-
member belongs in the church which holds his
Complicated by membership. But his discipline as
Disoipiine minister belongs in the associa-

tion which holds his standing. It is a grave
question whether he ought to be held amenable
to disciplinary action by a body in which voting
membership is denied him, and in which his
fellow ministers, likewise excluded from mem-
bership, have no right to give judgment in his
trial. Discipline for delinquency reveals the dis-
parity between minister and lay delegate; the
latter the association cannot call to account, his
case lying totally within his own church. If
you surrender the associational discipline of min-
isters, you do indeed remove that difference be-
tween them and lay delegates, but you also throw
out the real values of ministerial standing. Un-
less the rolls are kept purged of delinquents, it
is worth nothing to stand in the lists. It is a
good thing to withdraw the special privileges
formerly accorded to the clergy and hold them
to the common standards of manhood and social
order. But when the question concerns their
professional responsibilities, you will find neither
ministers nor laymen willing to reduce the craft
to the lay level or refuse it the standing commen-
surate with its obligations. Between such depre-
ciation and the segregation of ministers as a
class or order in their own exclusive associations,
where the church cannot pass upon their pro-
[io6]

State UniUcation

fessional standing, there is safe middle ground.
The double membership of churches and minis-
ters disturbs very httle the thought of the
churches, and introduces no disorder into cur-
rent affairs. If, however, complete ministerial
membership should upon discussion be refused,
then the ex officio standing of pastors in the
association meetings has not a little in its favor.
I believe that, thinking this matter out through
some years of experiment, churches and ministers
will agree upon the justice and desirability of
safeguarding the rights and obligations pertain-
ing to ministerial membership. If it come to be
regarded as a special privilege, it will go and
ought to go. If it turn out to be justice and a
true way of sustaining the high character and se-
curing the full service of our ministry, it will be
retained.

A further inquiry concerns the membership
of the state conference, and particularly its rela-
tion to that of the local aSSOcia- state conference
tions within the state. At present versus Association
f 1 • £■/• o 1 • i Membership

conferences dirier. borne admit
every pastor as one of the representatives of his
church, but no ministers on any other terms.
Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska, California and
others admit as members coordinate with the
churches all ministers who are members of local
associations within the state. This introduces
the dual membership again, the voters in all
meetings being ministers as such and delegates of
[ 107]

Congregational Administration

churches. What these states seem to mean is
this : Admitting the right of the state conference
to determine its own membership, it is thought
wiser to base it directly and completely upon
membership in local associations. Upon this is
founded majority membership in the National
Council. It is consistent and practical for the
state body also to rest its membership upon the
local bodies. The states just named are saying
that their state conference membership shall con-
sist of all the churches and all the ministers
named in the lists of their local associations.
The purpose evidently is to assemble the total
recognized forces of the state, to apply the total
available power at this pivotal point between local
and national forms of work.

Conceivably it may still be asked why the state
conference should, in constituting its member-
Higher Memberships ship, refer at all to the local
Rest on Good Standing associatious. The auswcr is,
Because our Congregational practise leaves in the
associations the determination of the good stand-
ing which consists in membership acquired and
retained. The state conference, the national so-
cieties and the National Council then accept the
matter of membership as settled and adjust their
practise thereto. The question then becomes one
as to representation in these higher bodies. And
the two classes to be represented are : — ( i )
churches and (2) ministers, the whole number of
the latter as an ordained ministry, not merely the
[108]

State Unification

major fraction of them as pastors. Our organific
direction, as considered in the first lecture, is
from below upward. The single church is first.
The churches organize the local association, and
make it the corner-stone of our fellowship struc-
ture. The churches carry up to the state confer-
ence nothing which the smaller bodies can bear
just as well. And the churches carry on to the
national bodies only the still wider interests com-
mon tO' the states. It is admitted, of course, that
these adjustments are still sub judice; all meth-
ods always are in Congregationalism. But these
are present phases and attempted interpretations.
The wisest structural details will seasonably an-
swer our united inquiries. And the denser states,
whose state meetings tend toward an unmanage-
ably large membership, may make special contri-
butions toward the solutions.

Beyond membership come the two main mat-
ters of all — state unification and state superin-
tendence. Consider first the unifying state
of our total Congregational organ- Unification
ization with its agencies and labors in each state.
The National Council at its Cleveland meet-
ing recommended as follows : — "That the state
organizations become legally incorporated bod-
ies; and that under a general superintendent
and such boards as they may create, and acting
in cooperation with committees of local associa-
tions and churches, they pro\dde for and direct
the extension of church work, the planting of
[ 109]

Congregational Administration

churches, the mutual oversight and care of all
self-sustaining as well as missionary churches,
and other missionary and church activities, to the
end that closer union may ensure greater ef-
ficiency without curtailing local independence."
Action of this sort had been begun in several
states prior to the Cleveland meeting, and since
then has been accelerated and extended. Michi-
gan was the first state to formulate definite prog-
ress toward a unity of state work, with Wiscon-
sin and Northern California moving that way.
Ohio then outstripped Michigan, to be herself
outdone by Northern and then by Southern Cali-
fornia. And now Wisconsin and Michigan are
showing us all the way unto complete unity of
state interests under a single administrative head.
Other states in their annual meetings and by
committees or groups of individuals are advanc-
ing in this direction.

Certain thoughts appear to be brewing in many
minds, somewhat as follows : — ( i ) It is desir-
state Consciousness able and really obligatory to
and State Eights unify our Congregational
forces and forms for superior efficiency. (2)
A state consciousness has been born, and is
growing lustily. (3) Within its own borders
state administration is more effective than na-
tional. The former has the advantages of in-
timate knowledge, close range, personal con-
tact and strong pressure on localities, churches,
individuals. (4) The right of a state to self-

[IIO]

State Unification

administration is superior to the right of any
national body to act within a state's boundaries.
Mr. John Fiske says again, "Stated broadly, so
as to acquire somewhat the force of a universal
proposition, the principle of federalism is just
this: that the people of a state shall have full
and entire control of their own domestic affairs,
which directly concern them only, and which they
will naturally manage with more intelligence and
with more zeal than any distant governing body
could possibly exercise." ' Thus to efficiency and
expediency we add state rights. Each fellowship
body takes precedence of the higher ones. The
rights of the state conference are prior to those
of the national bodies. Nothing is left to the
latter save what the churches see will be most
effective when handled nationally. Thus our
Congregational administration is "broad-based
upon the people's will." Our national organiza-
tions have not always acted so; they could not
until yesterday, but only to-day are they fairly
beginning the new ways. We are all freshly
realizing the supremacy of the churches, the rep-
resentative principle, and the movement from be-
low upward. There is no danger of stripping
our national work of its magnificent proportions.
Duty to our splendid societies must be kept
aflame. The limits of state administration are
quickly reached. Just now, in the warmth of state
reorganization, there is special need of steadiness,

'American Political Ideas, pp. 133, 134.
[Ill]

Congregational Adiiiijiistration

and vision. It is easy for mortals, acting in what-
ever capacit}^, to groAv so intent as to lose sight of
the greater horizons. But wherever the sky-line
may be, here at hand are the state boundaries, en-
closing concrete and instant obligations.

Full details cannot be given of the reorganiza-
tion which has taken place in the several states
already mentioned. Reports can be obtained
from the state registrars. At this time it will be
more profitable to present some of the major ele-
ments in the process.

First, the incorporation of the state confer-
ence. That it is possible to incorporate a body
Incorporation of of such extended bulk is proved
state Conference j^y ^.j^g ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^g General Con-
ference of Michigan has lived an incorporated
life since 1886, and others from more recent
dates. Others still, like Ohio and California,
have secured incorporation within the last two
years. State missionary societies have been cor-
porations for a much longer period. Reasons
for this step seem cogent. Under such an inter-
pretation of Congregationalism as we are here
submitting, no damage to our liberties need be
feared. The state conference is simply the
churches themselves, lacking all alien elements.
Its responsibilities are changing and developing.
Financial and legal obligations will be heavy in
thoroughgoing state unification. The confer-
ence, once incorporated, is quite equal to all re-
sponsibilities and opportunities.
[112]

State Unification

The state conference being thus prepared for
whatever may befall, the proposal is no less than
to unify in its hands and con- state work
duct under its superintend- ^"'^"^ *" conference
ence all the Congregational work in the state. It
may be well to repeat that the private spheres of
the separate churches and local associations are
not to be invaded, that only the common work
laid out in state proportions is in view, and that
throughout the new method the force continues
to be the influence of public opinion and not the
arm of coercion. Under such safeguards the
states are proceeding to do the thing which seems
good theory to us all, to simplify complexity, to
transform competition into combination, to re-
duce operating expenses, to direct the whole sys-
tem from one office. It is easier to state this and
to cheer for it than to achieve it; but it can
be achieved everywhere. The conviction is
already wide-spread that the results will be
cheaply bought at whatever price of labor and
patience.

In some states the relations between state con-
ference and state missionary society present dif-
ficulties. The latter body has ac- conference
quired a strong and independent versus

,- r /-v , ■ ,1 1 • , 1 Missionary Society

life. Our action through it has
grown habitual. In some cases, Connecticut and
California for example, its relations with the
conference have been vital. The conference
elects the directors of the Missionary
[113]

Congregational Administration

Society of Connecticut. The General
Association of Northern CaHfornia used to elect
the members of its home missionary society,
while at present the twenty-one directors of the
Northern California Congregational Conference
are ipso facto the total membership of the home
missionary society, and elect its directors from
their own number. Elsewhere the conditions are
less favorable, the missionary society being quite
separate from the conference. The question be-
ing asked in state after state is this, Why should
not the conference do its state missionary work
directly? The conference is the churches organ-
ized, as the Connecticut constitution admirably
puts it, "for the purpose of fraternal intercourse
and cooperation and mutual incitement in all the
evangelizing work of Christian churches." Why
then must it employ a separate incorporated body
and turn the churches' contributions into a sepa-
rate treasury? Moreover, the churches are in-
terested in developing a state superintendency
much wider than that hitherto confined mainly
to home missionary work. Must there be two
superintendents? There need be but one in case
the state conference manages directly its home
missionary interests.

The issue here is not yet so clear as to induce
uniform action. The Ohio conference has or-
various ganized its state work into two bu-
Methods reaus; of one of these the home mis-
sionary society is a main part. In Michigan the
[114]

State Unification

general association, the home missionary society/
the foreign missionary society, and the central
advisory board have all been united into one cor-
poration, the Michigan Congregational Confer-
ence. For legal reasons the home missionary so-
ciety retains a nominal existence, but within a
few years may entirely disappear. In Northern
California financial obligations compel for the
present the retention of the home missionary so-
ciety as a separate corporation. In Southern
California the early disappearance of that society
into the state conference has been provided for.
The Nebraska state body has under consideration
a plan which merges the home missionary society
in the conference. Wisconsin has reduced its
state affairs, including its home missionary so-
ciety, to a splendid unity.

Possible legal and financial complications may
present in any state grave difficulties. Trusts
must be faithfully administered. Legal
Funds must not be lost by unwise complications
attempts to transfer them. Future gifts and leg-
acies must not be jeopardized. The strong senti-
ments of living givers must not be shocked. Such
considerations urge deliberation until good coun-
sel settles upon the changes most certain to con-
serve all interests. But on the other hand the
financial and legal forms become subject to modi-
fication in so far as it appears that moral in-
tegrity inheres in their general management for
specified ends rather than in details of method.
[115]

Congregational Administration

Administrative forms are but means of convey-
ing spiritual power. It is the end that is precious
to the givers of money. And it may transpire
in these state negotiations that a minority,
scarcely numerical at all, but forceful and per-
sistent, can roll into the path obstacles which
would not appear at all to a unanimous company.
Legal difficulties are adjustable to unanimous de-
sires held faithfully to an unaltered purpose. In
the tri-church negotiations the committee on
vested interests affirmed that no insurmountable
obstacles were presented by property considera-
tions. The law can bring to pass such changes
as right-hearted persons have ceased to contend
against.

The relations of the state conference with our
national missionary societies comprise one of the

Conference and mOSt delicate matters to be ad-

National Societies j\isted. In certain of the reor-
ganizing states this has proved to be a point of
some friction. Our national societies have been
accustomed to solicit funds freely and without
concert anywhere in the land. They have gone
in and out among our churches without let or
hindrance. They have dealt directly and sepa-
rately with the churches, each society seeking the
largest possible income without regard to any
other society. The confusion and discomfort of
this system, the increasing irritation and inade-
quacy, the rising demand for cooperation between
the societies, the need of orderly and reliable
[ii6]

State Unification

giving, — these have brought on our present
trial of proportionate benevolence. This
advance has been synchronous with the
growing state consciousness and consolida-
tion. And now the states are undertaking to ap-
ply, each in its own territory, the offered plan of
benevolence, and on the other hand are serving
friendly notice upon the national societies that
their solicitations must no longer be independent
of state advice and joint management. Our
churches are unwilling to have a scheme, elabo-
rated however carefully in New York or Boston,
laid down hard all over the land from the na-
tional offices. There is something which looks
like assessing the churches, or at least assessing
the conferences and associations ; and assessment
is another of those dreadful words which, when
uttered megaphonically from national headquar-
ters, make autonomous Congregationalists nerv-
ous. The state conferences are therefore saying.
Hand this new scheme to us for inspection and
application.

These adjustments between the state and na-
tional bodies must be made with the utmost pains

and good-will. It is true, and it For increased

must be kept clear, that the one de- Efficiency
sire is for increased efficiency. No' detriment to
the glorious work of our national societies will
be permitted. No injustice will be done them by
the state bodies. On the contrary, the confer-
ences purpose to give the societies a better hear-
[117]

Congregational Administration

ing in the churches and to offer themselves as
new agencies for presenting the national forms of
work, raising increased funds and training the
churches to systematic giving. The con-
ferences should commend all the national
societies to the churches, inspire and hold
the churches to their duty, welcome the
secretaries and agents of the societies, instruct
and stimulate the churches, operate detailed finan-
cial plans, thus coworking with the national so-
cieties. Nothing less is proposed by any state.
It may indeed seem new and strange to the of-
ficers of the societies to hear the conferences
claim to be in charge of their own fields. But
it is believed that all parties concerned will soon
discover power and a superior brand of Congre-
gationalism in the new measures with their sys-
tem, their multiplied leaders and interests, their
distributed responsibility.

If it be asked in what actual terms adjustments
have already been arranged in any states, the re-
Experiments in ply must be very partial. In some
Several States cascs cooperation has been initiated
at useful points, in the faith that no problems in
fraternal adjustment will prove bafRing. As con-
crete examples, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North-
ern California may be cited again.

In California the state and national adjustment

is affected by the residence among us of district

secretaries or agents of the national societies

whose field is the entire Pacific Coast. With

[ii8]

State Unification

these brethren, as also with state superintendents
of national forms of work, we have the happiest
relations. We have entered upon our new ad-
ministration with the cordial cooperation of these
men, believing- that all adjustments will prove
manageable as they emerge. Our board of
t\venty-one directors is entrusted with our state-
wide future, the relations with the national so-
cieties being one of the main things left confi-
dently in their charge. In Michigan, while noth-
ing has been formulated in the constitution or in
resolution, the state leaders and forces are a unit
in insisting that all national work in the state
shall be under state direction, and that there
shall be in Michigan no officers or agents of the
national societies wholly directed from without
the state.

The most definite statement of relations thus
far made is by the Wisconsin State Association.
It is as follows: "That the Association through
its board of directors shall control the work now
done by The Congregational Sunday-School and
Publishing Society, but the national society shall
be consulted in the appointment of superintendent
and missionaries and in the initiation of all im-
portant measures. All money received for the
Sunday-school work in our denomination in Wis-
consin shall pass through the hands of the treas-
urer of the Association, but the national society
shall receive from such offerings and bequests
an amount to be determined from year to year
[119I

Congvcgatioyial Administration

by the board of directors. Appeals to the
churches of Wisconsin in behalf of the national
society shall be through the office of the State
Association. The directors shall organize this
work under a committee of their own appoint-
ment, of which committee the superintendent of
Sunday-school work shall be a member ex officio.
While the work of this committee shall be dis-
tinct from the work of the home missionary com-
mittee, it shall be coordinate with home mission-
ary work, and the Sunday-school and home mis-
sionary committees shall have a joint conference
at least once a year. The superintendent and
Sunday-school committee shall use the office force
of the Association in their work and shall use the
association office for their headquarters."

The points here are state management under a
superintendent and committee of Sunday-school
work, consultation with the national society, con-
tributions to the national treasury, appeals by na-
tional society agents to be made through the
state office, the state Sunday-school superintend-
ent and committee to use the state headquarters
and to be appointed by and responsible to the
state board of directors. The design in both
Michigan and Wisconsin is to develop similar
relations of state superintendence and cooperation
with all the national societies alike, reducing the
present diversity to order.

An easier adjustment is that between state
conference and local associations. What the

[ 120]

State Unification

churches through their representatives plan for
the whole state can best be put Into execution

through the local associations. conference and

These are smaller groups of the -Associations
same churches. There should be no friction within
the state. The Congregational way is to appoint
an active committee in each local association to
cooperate with the central committee of the con-
ference. In Michigan there are such advisory
committees heading up in the board of trustees
in the conference. The same is true in Wiscon-
sin, Ohio and California. Thus the whole state
shares the responsibilities of administration. The
two main points are always and everywhere the
same : — local responsibility all along the work-
ing line and effective state unity.

Thus we reach the question of administrative
headship in a Congregational state. What form
shall the state executive take? Administrative
What the states are working at is, Headship
as we have seen, to unite all activities under a
single administration. The unifying body must
be the state conference with a board of directors
large enough to manage the whole diversified
work. The board should contain at least one rep-
resentative from each local association in the
state. In Michigan the directors number one
from each local association and four at large ;
in Wisconsin the same plus moderator, registrar,
and treasurer ; in Southern California and North-
ern California twenty-one similarly distributed;

[121]

Congregational Administration

in Ohio, twenty-seven; in South Dakota, fifteen.
The aim is to make these directors the responsi-
ble managers, more or less directly, of the total
state work. They may act through bureaus and
committees, and even through separate home mis-
sionary corporations. Wherever the latter can
legally be dispensed wath, the unity of work and
the immediate management of the directors may
be complete. In some states, notably Michigan
and Wisconsin, the directors are already going
one step further. They are putting the state
work under a single executive, elected either by
the directors or the conference, responsible to the
board and subject to its direction. In these states
the superintendent is in charge not merely
of the home missionary work as heretofore, but
of all forms of work now organized together
under the directors of the incorporated state con-
ference. The different departments — home mis-
sionary, Sunday-school, church building, foreign
missionary and others — he will conduct through
heads of departments and committees. The
whole force is the executive agency of the board
of directors, which is itself responsible to the con-
ference. This complete unification of state work
is rational and practical. It is also proper and
consistent Congregationalism.

We come now to superintendence as an ele-
ment in Congregationalism. Its discussion is
most pertinent here, because in state work it is
most in evidence and debate. But it opens out
[ 122]

State Unification

into larger proportions. Let the precise point of
inquiry be noted. The question is not whether the
employment of executive agents superintendence
is germane to the Congrega- a factor in

. 1 ,., , , (. , , Congregationalism

tional polity; no body of churches
can grow and serve without such leaders. The
question is not whether to admit into our system
an element hitherto rejected; the element is pres-
ent. The question is, Shall we build it up, and
how far? We are quite accustomed to the class
of men called superintendents; shall we enlarge
their scope and influence? This is one point of
difference between denominations which are al-
ready practising federation and even discussing
union. Along this line of administrative super-
intendence how far can we safely and wisely go,
either to promote our own efficiency or to meet
other bodies inclined to union?

Let us bear in mind our large use of this form
of service. We find it in the secretaryships of

our national societies. Enlarged superintendence
We have it nearer home "' Dangers and usefulness

in the district secretaries and state superintend-
ents sustained by these societies. We have super-
intendents or secretaries of city missions, of
church extension societies, of Sunday-school
work, of Christian Endeavor, of the Brother-
hood, and of other lines of work. Chief of all
for current developments in our polity are the
state home missionary superintendents or secre-
taries. This is the office which the states now
[ 123]

Congregational Administration

reorganizing are enlarging, to bear in some cases
cited the total administrative headship of the state
work. The very first step in the enlargement of
this office is sensitively challenged. The scope of
the office has been confined to our home mission-
ary churches. But surely a dividing line solely
financial between churches, separating the one
division as independent from the other as de-
pendent, is far from making a fraternal and gra-
cious distinction. It is proposed to minimize this
distinction and make the state superintendent
the servant of all the churches. This is ques-
tioned, resented, resisted by some leaders and
churches, as derogatory to themselves and a men-
ace to local autonomy. But it is neither, when
rightly constituted, manned and understood. Cu-
riously, some persons and churches are sensitive
to the presence of a Congregational superintend-
ent suffered to run at large in a state. His mere
existence irritates. If he venture to ask a church,
Is there anything you care to have me do for
you? the question sounds like a threat against
liberty; surely it contains the veiled approach of
authority ; the man is a fledgling bishop ! It is,
however, interesting to learn from any home
missionary superintendent, how few churches
there are which never call upon him for any sort
of service. It is safe to say that there is no such
official in the land whose desk is often free from
business pertaining to self-sustaining churches.
It is already happily and fruitfully true that our
[ 124]

State Uniiication

churches and superintendents are ignoring the
hne between missionary and non-missionary
churches, that the superintendents are regarded as
servants of all the churches, and that to forbid
our self-supporting churches to seek further serv-
ice from the superintendents would embarrass
our state conditions as few other things could.
To promote the home missionary superintendent
to be superintendent of all the churches would
be scarcely more than formal recognition of ac-
tual fact. And then to bring together in his
executive hand all the reins of state activity
would be simply to consolidate our scattered in-
terests around the natural and prepared center.

Such an enlarged superintendency lies wholly
in the realm of administration, having no legisla-
tive or judicial function. It is Confined to

clothed with no irresponsible au- Administration

thority, possessed of no coercion; nothing is in
Congregationalism. It is influential leadership;
influential certainly and strongly, else it need not
be at all. It is service and sacrifice, not lordship.
It is the organ of the churches' mutual care. Its
opportunity is wide and grand, its duties infi-
nitely exacting, its devotion even unto death.
Here, as everywhere in Congregationalism and
democracy, the personal equation bulks large. It
is nothing to say that the wrong man in this
office may grow lordly and tyrannical. In a
world of freedom all perversions are possible.
But as no man taketh this power unto himself,
[125]

Congregational Adininistraiion

so no man retains it by personal prowess. We,
the churches, appoint him, and supersede him for
cause. I heard Dr. Gladden ridicule the fear of
authority, saying that he should like to see a Con-
gregational officer attempt authority over the
churches; forthwith we would make him wish
that he had never been born. We need not deny
the tendency of official position to entrench itself
and put forth power. But if any concrete case of
it proceed far, the fault is the people's, the rem-
edy being always in their hands. Do not illus-
trate by the "big stick" in politics or industry.
In neither industry nor politics are there equal
incentives to righteousness, service, and sacrifice;
in neither are evil men so weak in social re-
sources, so exposed to rebuke and displacement.
No system of things is so secure from official tyr-
anny as a body of free churches, whose reliance
is upon genuine moral character and Christian
experience, whose instrument is right reason. In
our Congregational order we may develop the
executive superintendency without imperiling the
liberties of our churches. No superintendent can
obtain his office or hold it save by the concurrent
action of the churches. No superintendent can
touch a single church against its will. Be it re-
peated till "the youngest critic has died," — we
are a body of free churches; our officers are our
servants, always subject to our will. On such
a basis we may organize a unified and effective
order, and have for our responsible leaderships
[126]

State Unification

Christian men too choice in character, too win-
some in approach, too wise in counsel, too re-
sourceful in strategy, too effective in action, too
unreserved in sacrifice, too divinely attended, to
be suspected of ambition or begrudged the nth
power of influential service. Any system of
elected and removable superintendence is safe in
Congregationalism. Until we develop it, we are
behind our duty and beneath our opportunity.
Dr. Mackennal said again, in his address from
the chair of the Congregational Union of Eng-
land and Wales, "If it be recognized that the
government of each particular church is in its
membership, we may adopt diocesan and con-
nexional methods of administration, not only
without mischief, but even with the best results."

[ 127 J

LECTURE V
NATIONAL UNITY

V

NATIONAL UNITY

At the point reached by the preceding lecture,
there were more than twoscore separate state
conferences, each composed of the rphe Fieia
Congregational churches of a is the
single state, and vitally related
to the local associations in the same ter-
ritory. Our construction of an adequate admin-
istrative system must not, as we have heard from
Mr. John Fiske, stop short of achieving national
unity. The field is the country, cut and uncut
by state boundaries, and the field is the world.
There are problems and opportunities sectional,
national, continental and ecumenical, requiring
larger regimentation and "farflung battle lines."
This we discovered a century ago. For a hundred
years we have lived in these greater visions, and
have wrought unto the ends of the earth. Ap-
paratus for each new line of service came at call,
in the best way, the only way it could come, by
experiment and invention; it was, in Professor
Ladd's phrase, "Progress by individual inquiry."^
The Congregational churches knew not how to
rise up all together, act in full national force
through accredited representatives, and create a
S3^stem of agencies expansive enough for the
* Principles of Church Polity, p. 57.
[131]

Congregation al A d ministration

growing day. Such churches as desired to —
and that was the great majority — accepted and
employed the societies launched by a few organiz-
ing individuals. Those unrepresentative, self-
governing societies were true Congregational
products of their time, suited to Congregational
spirit and action. They were supported with
fervent and generous devotion, and drew our in-
dependent churches together in common service.
And when in these last days the spirit of Con-
gregational unity began to stir within us, behold
among us several unifying agencies of truly na-
tional proportions and influence! It was only
too plain, however, that since each was partial
and specialized, independent of the others and the
churches, and was missionary rather than admin-
istrative, no one of them was capable of organiz-
ing a truly national unity of the Congregational
churches.

Our unifying body is the National Council. It
came to the kingdom for this hour. Far-sighted
The National men, they who organized it in 1871,
Council "qj^ |.j-jg grave of buried prejudices."

The Congregational churches cf the United
States, not their associations and conferences, are
the constituent members, as saith its con-
stitution. The delegates to the meetings of
the Council, elected in the local and state bodies,
are representatives of the churches which directly
compose those bodies and the Council. Thus our
highest administrative agency is but one step re-
[132]

National Unity

moved — it were better called a half step — from
the churches themselves.

The National Council is a permanent body,
having perennial life like the conferences, associa-
tions and the churches themselves, a Permanent
There are some who speak as if the ^°^^
Council had no enduring existence, sprang anew
intO' being on the stroke of a gavel once in three
years and dropped dead a few days later
under the same magic touch. It is the tempo-
rary session of a permanent body that is opened
and closed upon a gavel stroke by a few tech-
nical words. If this was not intended at Oberlin
in 1 87 1, we have grown to the stronger idea. It
is explicitly stated in the constitution, at any rate,
and we may hope our fathers knew how well
they were building that platform. "The Con-
gregational churches of the United States," they
said, "by elders and messengers assembled,
do now associate themselves in National Coun*
cil" ; "the churches will meet in National Council
every third year" ; "at each triennial session" —
the phrase is "triennial session" — certain officers
shall be chosen "to serve from the close of such
session to the close of the next triennial session."
It is the constitution of a living organism, never
disappearing altogether, never unproductive, but
rising into full view and formal action once in
three years.

In the section of the constitution just quoted,
provision is made for secretary, registrar and
[ 133 ]

Congregation al A dm in ist ration

treasurer, who shall hold office and continue ac-
t;\-e during the triennium; also for a provisional
Moderator of Committee to arrange for the next
National Council j-egular sessiou and for any special
session that may be called. As to the ad interim
standing of these officers and this committee, there
can be no difference of opinion ; nor respecting
any and all standing committees, for these also are
expressly provided for in the constitution. Over
the moderatorship there has arisen since the
meeting of 1901 an earnest disagreement. The
moderator elected then was the Rev. Amory H.
Bradford, D.D., of New Jersey, of bluer Con-
gregational blood than John Wise or Nathaniel
Emmons, and equally loyal to Congregational
spirit and principle. Believing himself moder-
ator until his successor should be elected, and
desiring to make the office useful between ses-
sions, he ventured to speak out in the organized
silence of Congregationalism. It was a mon-
strous thing to do ! Some told him so when they
had caught their breath. Moderator of what?
There was nothing to be moderator of between
October 1901 and October 1904. But he went
right on serving the churches as moderator of
the National Council of the Congregational
Churches of the United States until his successor
was elected in the triennial session at Des Moines.
That successor was busier yet in the same
capacity until the present moderator was elected
in 1907 at Cleveland. In the current triennium
[134]

National Unity

our leader is rendering much admirable service,
is generous with time and influence, and is in no
danger of being declared an ad interim incompe-
tent. Many of us are sure we have a standing
moderator of the National Council ; some refuse
to acknowledge him. Congregationalists are not
compelled to take what they do not want. We
are waiting hopefully for that unanimity of which
we sing. In 1871 our fathers had not reached
this issue of a permanent moderatorship. In
their constitution they ordered the election of a
moderator at the beginning of every stated or
special session "to preside over its deliberations" ;
in the following sentence, however, they direct
him as moderator to open with an address the fol-
lowing meeting of the Council. A pertinent by-
law has been added since then, which says, "The
presiding officers shall retain their offices until
their successors are chosen." etc. At Des Moines
we were instructed in a sincere and very expert
speech from the floor that that clause of the by-
law, when enacted, was not intended to mean
what it says. At the present time we desire to
have it mean what it says. It would seem wise,
however, to take such action as may set the whole
matter at rest.

In Congregationalism some one does a thing,
and presently the rest of us exclaim, Why, that's
right! So now we have a stand- The First
ing moderator, and not merely a congregationaiist
sessional presiding officer. We could not longer
[135]

Congregational Administration

do without him. The national organization of
six thousand Christian churches is an important
factor in the social order. Its moderatorship is
an eminent post of honor and service, — not a
prize of ambitious politics, but a stewardship en-
trusted to capacity and consecration. Its oc-
cupant should be a man of national proportions,
administrative ability, and spiritual power. He
is for the time the first man in the Congregational
land. We have not yet reached, we may never
reach, the point of expecting our moderator to
devote his whole time to this office. We could
not call a pastor away from his church or a lay-
man out of his business without at least fair
promise of a service longer than three years. Nor
is this so needful while the secretaryship con-
tinues powerful and productive.

The secretaryship of the National Council, as
things now stand, should be the most conspicuous
Secretary of position in the leadership of our

National Council churches. There is, of course,
large room for divergent conceptions of it. To
me it seems mainly an outdoor office. There
is much indoor work to be done, of which the
Year Book is the most palpable product. The
churches should enable the secretary tO' conduct
this indoor work through assistants and em-
ployees. He himself, being a man of national
size, and persona grata everywhere, should be out
among the churches. All the state conferences
and many of the local associations should know
[ 136 ]

National Unify

his voice and feel his heart. He would carry
everywhere the great issues of our organized
churches. In his person would be greeted Con-
gregationalism incarnate, and men would know it
as a living thing. In many parts of the land his
appearance would do more than anything else to
give Congregationalism a local habitation and a
name. Through him churches and pastors would
learn, for example, that the two-cent annual
assessment is a real and reasonable thing, and
that honor is involved in its prompt payment. A
secretary of the Council might, from his office
desk, desire just such far-stretching ministry,
and might wonder at not being invited in all
directions. It would certainly be well for the
churches in their organized bodies to request his
service, and I can think of but one good reason
why they might hesitate to do so. But when a
man becomes a secretary he does not forfeit his
native right of initiative and administration. Let
him invite himself out and range freely among
us. This office is a post of eminence and leader-
ship. We elect its incumbent for his capacity as
leader. Let us then expect him to lead, giving
him support, attention, cooperation. His salary
should be adequate to first-class constructive
ability. And ample funds should be furnished
for extensive service afield. It would be interest-
ing, perhaps painful, to learn how generally our
churches and ministers still conceive of the Na-
tional Council secretary as an office employee
[ 137]

Congregation al Administrition

rather than as an organizer of national forces for
world-wide enterprise.

National Council finances cannot be passed
over in silence. We have reached a pass wherein
Finances of wc must presently, perhaps at the

National Council ^ext meeting of the Council,
choose between two alternatives : either to
increase considerably the Council's income for
operating expenses or to decline our en-
larging service to the Kingdom of God.
For some years the annual income of the
Council stood at one and one-half cents per Con-
gregational church-member. At that rate seven
hundred thousand members would give $10,500
a year. Since the last meeting of the Council
two cents per member have been called for,
amounting to $14,000 from seven hundred thou-
sand members. The state conferences are the
bodies to collect this money and pay it into the
national treasury. It is surprising and humiliat-
ing to learn that there is always a number of states
delinquent in payment, some of them two or even
three years in arrears, and that these national
moneys are never paid in full. Ultimate respon-
sibility rests upon the churches. There are
pastors and church officers who flatly refuse or
silently repudiate their part of this common ob-
ligation. For such men or groups of men cur-
rent life has the sharp term "grafters"; they
gather in as gratuity the standing benefits of
membership in national Congregationalism. Such
[138]

National Unity

conduct is indefensible; it does not fall under
casuistry; it is simply wrong. Finance is never
unmoral, but often immoral. The guilty men
and churches cannot be imprisoned for debt;
they may yield to Congregational sentiment as
that grows vigorous and searching.

But what do we want of funds, and in-
creased funds in our national administration?
The salary and expenses of the increased
national secretary have been men- income
tioned. The Year-Book, indispensable to our
denominational life, is an expensive kind of book.
The salary and office expenses of the treasurer
are not large, but real. Beyond these there
spreads out an enlarging scope of official
and committee work, for which at present we
have almost no provision. We appoint standing
committees to transact important business be-
tween sessions; these committees cannot count
on having their bare traveling expenses paid for
a single meeting in the three years. There
are lines of new work which require increasing
expenditure, such as the Brotherhood movement,
interdenominational comity, evangelism, social
reform. The National Council has initiated
work on all these lines, appointed committees,
even approved the employment of special agents
or secretaries, without offering the least financial
provision for the work. This state of affairs can-
not, it would seem, be continued. Our six thou-
sand churches must not be limited to the service
[ 139]

Congregational Administration

of men who can afford and are interested to
pay their own expenses or are able and willing to
solicit contributions for their special tasks. Con-
gregational work is already too multiform and
expensive for these devoted and generous men.
Must we imprison ourselves within the little forms
of work which can be carried on in the good old
way? The alternatives are endowment funds
for administration, or increased per capita dues,
punctually and regularly paid, from all our mem-
bers in the land. I believe the Council must
seriously undertake this vital matter. In the
present triennium some of our indispensable
pastors and laymen have declined committee serv-
ice, because of their quickening conviction on
this financial problem.

Nor have we yet the whole financial predica-
ment before us. There is another factor in it
Expenses of which bears more sharply than many
Delegates would havc it Upon the proper con-
stitution and efficiency of the National Council. I
refer to the expenses of delegates to the meetings
of the Council. Our national meetings never can
be completely representative so long as attend-
ance is left to the convenience and financial re-
sources of individuals. At every meeting there
are large gaps in our ranks, mainly according to
distance save for special modifying circum-
stances. And the actual attendants are in very
many cases not those we should choose to send,
but those who can and will go. It is not that any
[ 140]

National Unity

pastor or layman is unworthy to go; we are dem-
ocrats. On the contrary, just because all are
worthy, we desire to distribute the high privilege
of service and culture. We desire to be repre-
sented by the men of our choice, and at special
junctures by those best fitted for the issues to be
wrought out. Large numbers of us have already
fallen out of sympathy with those pastors and
laymen, attendant on the Council again and
again, who resist the change which would alter
considerably the personnel of the meetings. We
ought to be entirely free to send what delegates
we would. The matter cannot be left to state
and local bodies. These have always been at
liberty to pay their own delegates' expenses, but
they neither do it nor can do it. In so broad a
land the burden remains too unequal.

The only solution of the problem, the only way
to assemble whomsoever we would, the only way
to enlist gradually our total force, No other
the only way to make our national ad- s°i"ti°°
ministration a real and vital thing to our ministers
and churches everywhere, is to provide amply
and administer equitably a central fund for dele-
gates' expenses. True enough, w^e have sorrow-
ful object-lessons on either side of us, awakening
dread of the difficulties and dangers of such a
fund. But nothing great was ever done in
dread of difficulty and danger. The Congrega-
tional churches of the United States in National
Council assembled are six thousand strong, doing
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enormous business for the Kingdom of God. As
at present managed, the frequent remark is far
from groundless, though severe and unjust, that
the Council appears to be composed not of six
thousand churches, but of certain numbers of in-
terested individuals able to attend. The critic
should discover the motives of genuine consecra-
tion underlying personal interest in the men
whose costly and faithful service sustains the
national administration which alone gives co-
herence and scope to our sectional and local life.
But the criticism should be silenced by altering
the general conditions.

The change now transpiring in the character
of the Council's meetings is viewed with some
Meetings of conccm. It is a matter which calls

National Council f^j- careful attention and provi-
sion. Time was when the meetings were largely
of inspiration and communion. Noble addresses
were heard with leisurely attention and discussed
with sustained interest. At present the Provi-
sional Committee is hesitating to invite speakers
and assure them the time assigned them. At the
Cleveland meeting the encroachments of business
repeatedly threatened an impasse in the program.
The difficulty will increase if Congregationalists
continue to enjoy doing business in open session.

We must give business the right of way. With
our glorious themes and speakers we have other
occasions to commune. But this is our one op-
portunity in three years to shape our national
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National Unity

unity, to initiate and advance measures, and to
authorize and direct our ad interim administra-
tion. The Council meeting if", Business Sessions

therefore a business session. The ^^.iniy
program should be conformed to that idea. The
pressure grows heavier. No wonder the question
is up, How long will triennial sessions suffice for
the business of sO' large a body of churches?
No man could wish to multiply meetings. Pos-
sibly we might appoint an executive or business
committee charged with more general functions
between sessions.

Among considerations of national unity, main
interest is directed just now to the relations be-
tween our missionary societies ^^^.^^^^ Council
and the Council. Preceded by no and
small amount of discussion, the ^^*^°"^^ ^°"^"''
matter was taken up at Cleveland, and the follow-
ing recommendation passed by the Council :
"That the administration of the benevolent inter-
ests of our churches be directed by the represent-
atives of the churches in national organization,
and that this Council appoint a commission of
fifteen, including a representative from each of
our benevolent societies, who shall report at its
next regular meeting such an adjustment oi these
societies to the body of the churches represented
in this Council as shall secure such direction, care
being taken to safeguard existing constitutional
provisions of these societies and the present mem-
bership of their boards of control, but also to

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lodge hereafter the creation and continuance of
these administrative boards in the suffrage of the
representatives of the churches."

This recommendation states clearly the desires
of those who favor including the missionary so-
Kationai Unity cictics in the achievement of na-

Must tional unity. They believe it

Include Societies • ^^ i ■ .1 • i-

Wise to bring these main lines
of our service into such representative rela-
tion to the churches supporting them as can be
secured only through the Council. Past and pres-
ent relations are generally understood. The
unrepresentative status of each society was per-
sisted in long enough to set up chronic irritation.
Improved relations are still only partially repre-
sentative, not yet gearing and belting the socie-
ties into the Congregational system. The
societies have approached the churches each in its
own separate way, negotiating with associations
or conferences or state missionary societies.
Though they are national societies, they have not
formed alliance with the national organization of
our churches. Only one of them, Ministerial
Relief, is an agency of the National Council. The
rest remain independent, self-governing bodies.
They have barely begun to labor together as
members one of another and their several affairs
parts of a single enterprise. Statements here
must be general, with no time for detailed excep-
tions. Substantial and hopeful advances in the
relations of the societies to one another, to the
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National Unity

churches and to organized Congregationalism
are observed with satisfaction. The ordinary
mortal hailed the Joint Missionary Campaign as
opening a new era of cooperation.

The recommendation of the National Council
quoted above shows what more is asked. The
Committee on Polity introduced under Direction
their recommendations with °^ council
these sentences : "With this view of the Congre-
gational order as representative, and not purely
independent, your committee unite in the judg-
ment that local, state and national associations
afford ample organization for the direction of all
of our denominational activities, and that the
function of these organizations may be inclusive
of all such interests, not imperiling, but directly
safeguarding the autonomy and liberty of the
local church. Believing, therefore, that in the
interest of simplicity, unity and efficiency our or-
ganism should be representative, we urge the
elimination of all such organizations as are not
under the direction of our representative bodies."
The action thus recommended by the National
Council would result at least in the coordination
of our national societies under the direction of
the Council. Just how, will have to be worked
out. The Council appointed the commission of
fifteen to report the wisest procedure. The Con-
gregational Board of Ministerial Relief illus-
trates what might be done with all the societies.

Our Baptist brethren, more independent hither-
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to than we, have passed us, and are showing us
the way and the spirit of the way. At their
Baptist General Convention in 1908 they

Reorganization g^i^j . '"fhe general activities of the
denomination are now carried on by eight incor-
porated societies. These are entirely independ-
ent one of another, and while deriving their sup-
port from the denomination at large, are legally
independent of the denomination as a whole. This
form of organization, dating as far back as 1812,
was a natural outgrowth of circumstances — in-
deed there seemed to be no other way at the time
to attain the ends in view. ... In these days,
however, the old methods are out of date. The
general work of the denomination, it is believed,
will be more economically and more effectively
rendered under a suitable plan of definite coor-
dination. Such a plan is in accordance with the
practise of large business interests to-day and
would command the confidence of laymen whose
support is essential to the prosperity of the
work.

"Be it resolved by the Northern Baptist Con-
vention : That at the earliest practicable date there
should be an organic union between the various
general denominational societies and the North-
ern Baptist Convention, to the end that the de-
nomination through its convention may be able
to determine a suitable related policy for all its
general activities," etc.

This action was unanimous. And best of all,
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National Unity

the societies readily promised to begin working
the new plan without waiting for the legal steps
to be taken. Have our Congregational societies
been heard offering as much? We hope, how-
ever, to pursue organic union in the same unan-
imous way.

A further reorganization of our missionary
agencies seems wise to many, and has not escaped
the attention of the Commission of Fifteen. To
say that the sevenfold character of our Congrega-
tional work is confusing to our churches is to put
it mildly. It is doubtful if a majority of our
church-members could give all the names of our
seven societies. Only a minority of our churches
have been carrying the full number of our socie-
ties upon their benevolence lists, many churches
contributing to but two or three. Doubtless the
plan of proportionate benevolence will gradually
improve this situation. Nothing, however,
would relieve it so thoroughly as to reduce the
number of societies. Such reduction would also
tend, as constantly appears in the business world,
to simplify administration, diminish operating
expenses and multiply efficiency.

It has been suggested, as one of several pos-
sible readjustments, that our seven societies
might be compacted into three :

1. A foreign missionary society — the Ameri-
can Board.

2. A home missionary society, the resultant of
the Congregational Home Missionary Society,

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Congregational Administration

the Congregational Church Building Society,
and the Board of Ministerial Relief.

3. A home-land religious educational society,
a union of the American Missionary Association,
the Sunday-School Society, and the Congrega-
tional Education Society.

Such a readjustment would leave the publica-
tion work standing by itself as a business agency,
serving the whole denomination, capable of large
expansion and efficiency.

These are natural and effective departments of
benevolence, as is seen in other branches of the
Church. Were we now projecting our work on
a clear field, we should probably lay it out in pre-
cisely these three departments. A popular vote
throughout our churches would, with little doubt,
declare for these. To remodel the sevenfold
structure of a century may be more difficult than
to build threefold from the foundation; yet the
designs in this case do not differ radically, and
the alterations would be almost confined to inter-
nal partitions and rearrangement of space and
sentiment. Some such consolidation of our work,
under the direction of the National Council,
would answer admirably the crescendo call for
thorough systematization of our Congregational
fellowship. The purpose extends to the achieve-
ment of national unity, and is as urgent there as
at nearer points. The demand is not merely to
approve individually and locally, but also to con-
trol in our representative organizations the
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National Unity

agencies which we entrust with our funds and
business. This demand may be mistaken. The
desired unification may prove unmanageable.
But if it should appear to be the mature
judgment of the churches, we should not shrink
from the application of our principle of evolution
and progress. The chief desideratum is a thor-
ough study of the situation in the best of spirit.
It is time, of course, to repeat the ancient and
honorable reminder that such a national body as
is now being described, set at the Liberty Not
head of the Congregational repre- threatened
sentative system, does not threaten the lib-
erties of the churches. It declines legislative
and judicial functions. It has no authority to
intrude into the private affairs of a single church.
It offers no coercive interference to confer-
ences and associations in their respective fields.
As we have seen, the churches organize
the Council, and the movement is from be-
low upward. The Council has nothing but
what is left over from the lower bodies — left
over because too great for even state manage-
ment. The Council is a national union for na-
tional purposes. On these wide issues it formu-
lates the thought and will of the churches. It
spreads these formulations before all the churches
at once. It organizes action in which the whole
denomination can cooperate. It has apparatus for
executing the ascertained will of the denomina-
tion. Thus it is the servant of the whole body,
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Congregational Adininistration

the agency through which six thousand churches
may act as one on Hues of universal Congrega-
tional duty.

Let me quote Dr. Mackennal again at this
highest of constructive points. He says, "I am
heartily at one with those who believe that
national religions needs demand a National
Council with power to administer its own resolu-
tions; and I think it would be quite within our
wisdom to devise a scheme, which, while rigidly
safeguarding the autonomy of the churches in all
which concerns their congregational life, should
also make the Union (the National Council)
autonomous in all the larger matters committed
to its charge." ' There is food for further
thought here. It must be frankly acknowledged
— boasted, if you will — that we have not
that corporate autonomy of which he spoke.
We do not give our organized bodies power to
administer their own resolutions; we give them
Corporate permission to persuade us to admin-
Autonomy jg^g^. ^j^gjj- rcsolutious. We are so

wrapped up in the autonomy of the Christian man
and the single church, that we never have tried to
devise a scheme to make our organized bodies
autonomous in their respective spheres. We
autonomous men and churches surrender auton-
omy when, without any extraneous elements
whatever, we unite in associations, conferences
and National Council. Suppose the Council
•Evolution of Congregationalism, p. 211.
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National Unity

should say to a state conference, "Brethren, we
have all covenanted together in a union which in-
volves the common pledge of two cents a member
annually; pay your share of it." The chances
are, because the facts have been, that from
various sections of that state would rise autono-
mous growls, which being interpreted would
mean, "I never pledged two cents a member, and
you can't make me pay it. I'll pay it when I get
ready — if I want to." The Council's officers
know better than to exercise corporate autonomy
towards anybody. We all know how their calls
to service read : "Dear Brethren, the National
Council, lamenting its inability to consult every
church-member beforehand on each separate
question, but trusting in the good-will of the
churches — which in your persons has never yet
failed us — would respectfully inform you, etc.,
etc. . . . and would count it a great favor if you
would kindly consider wdiether, at no very dis-
tant day, you will bear your share in these im-
portant proceedings to which your National
Council is in honor bound, but on which it is most
regrettable that several of your leading members
were unable to be present to vote." While we
appreciate such deferential approach to our per-
sonal and local throne, we are well aware how
little of the world's earnest business could be con-
ducted in that fashion. What we still have too
much of is not personal and local autonomy in
personal and local affairs; it is personal and local

[151]

Congregational Adm in istratio n

autonomy in corporate affairs, independent deci-
sion how far we will act, or whether we will act
at all, in affairs for which we have become jointly
responsible as members of these several denomi-
national bodies. At this point, as suggested in a
preceding lecture, correction of our Congrega-
tional system is indicated. Some of us surely
agree with Dr. Mackennal that Congregational-
ists have wisdom enough "to devise a scheme,
which, while rigidly safeguarding the autonomy
of the churches in all which concerns their con-
gregational life, should also make our unifying
bodies (the Union) autonomous in all the larger
matters committed to their (its) charge."
Therein would be truly achieved "national unity
without weakening the sense of personal and
local independence."

We have been moving hitherto, as we proposed
in setting out, from below upward, from local
Toward National church to National Council, from
^°"y local autonomy to national unity.

For three hundred years our churches have been
advancing in this direction. The other polities
have had authority above the churches, and have
been conceding more and more local independ-
ence. We have overdone the latter, and are now
constructing real unity; a unity, however, which
shall not be at any point or in any degree apart
from the churches, but everywhere and totally of
the churches, by the churches and for the
churches. We will not even segregate our min-
[152]

National Unity

istry in orders of clergy, presbyteries, or minis-
terial associations. We will not even put our
parish business out of our hand for a twelve-
month by means of an authoritative session. The
affairs within our reach we will handle by direct
democracy, the greater affairs by representative
democracy. Our power shall continue to be in-
telligence and right reason shaped into public
opinion. Yet will we draw together into firm
and enduring array, into fellowship as wide as
the country and real everywhere, intO' unified
Christian service. We will live at liberty in the
private parish ways where souls are born from
above and learn their Master's sacrifice. We will
organize mighty and dependable union for the
great affairs of the Kingdom, wherein petty in-
dependence is impotent.

It is not too much to say that in working out
such an adequate administrative system we

should be giving the world a new ^ew Achievement

achievement. There is nothing i" Ecclesiastical

• ,1-1 -, XT ,1 .1 Administration

quite like it. J\ever yet has the
ecclesiastical world secured genuine and unham-
pered democracy, with everything — even the
official ministry — standing within the scope of
the local church, and then proceeded out of such
entirely voluntary materials to build up effective
and enduring national unity. There are many to
say that it cannot even now be done, that either
the democracy will be damaged or the unity will
not be reached. That it has not been done is
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Congregational Administration

true. That it will one day be achieved must also
be true, as God and brotherhood are real. Some-
time there will be seven hundred thousand Chris-
tian men, each one free to^ follow what the Spirit
saith to him, living happily together in churches
as truly self-conducting as their members — seven
hundred thousand Christian souls, or a million,
glad and faithful to hold unbound their places in
orderly array up to national unity, eager in such
union to multiply for the love they bear Him, the
power He gives. It may be that that time is
drav.ang near. It may be that we are just now
those Christians. At any rate, the vision is
superb; not they who do not reach it, but they
who dO' not follow, fail.

[154]

LECTURE VI

CONGREGATIONALISM AND

CHURCH UNION

VI

CONGREGATIONALISM AND
CHURCH UNION

Christian unity is one thing, the union of
churches another. Either may exist without the
other. Conceivably there might be a single ad-
ministrative body of churches on earth, inclusive
of all church-members, in which and among
whom there would be little Christian unity. Such
external union would be difficult and not endur-
ing, as church history shows. On the other hand,
Christian unity in beauty and power, universal
and abiding, is not dependent upon the absence of
diversity and formal division. It may be
said that the grand objective is essential unity
and universal fellowship, with divisions solely
for practical efficiency. What we have to-day is
divisions unable to unite, aware of spiritual unity,
with enough fellowship to flavor worship, to dis-
turb complacency, to mitigate competition, to con-
fuse conscience, and to lure us onward. We need
not forget that it was Christian unity, not church
union, for which Jesus prayed "that they may
be one, even as we are," and of which he said,
"By this shall all men know that ye are my dis-
ciples, if ye have love one to another." Yet he
must be a Christian without conscience who takes

[157]

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from those divine words no rebuke against the
disruptions of Christendom. For the age-long
discussion has not only revealed an anemic spirit
of unity, but has kept that spirit anemic. There
are many wlx) decry the cause of church union
"with cheers for unity and communion. Chris-
tians are one, they insist — are one so deeply
that we need not labor for formal union. And
you cannot get their minds upon the cruel wrongs
still perpetrated in the name of Christ. The
spirit is finally judged by its fruits. And down
to this very day. even in this best land, many
fruits of the spirit which actuates the Christian
bodies are no less than frightful. The shameful
facts are found in hundreds of overchurched
communities with their wastes and strifes, while
in administrative offices we may still hear — al-
beit less often — insolent refusals to correct the
wrongs.

Dr. H. K, Carroll's racy description of eccle-
siastical variety in our country is too true
Infinite Variety to be merely amusing. "The
of Religions f^j-gj- impression one gets," he says,

*'in studying the results of the census is that
there is an infinite variety of religions in the
United States. . . . Our native genius for
invention has exerted itself in this direc-
tion also, and worked out some curious
results. The American patent covers no less
than two original Bibles — the Mormon and
Oahspe — and more brands of religion, so to
[158]

Congregationalism and Church Union

speak, than are to be found, I believe, in any
other country. . . . We scarcely appreciate our
advantages. . . . One may be a pagan, a Jew,
or a Christian, or each in turn. If he is a pagan,
he may worship in one of the numerous temples
devoted to Buddha; if a Jew, he may be of the
Orthodox or Reformed variety ; if a Christian, he
may select any one of one hundred and twenty-
five or one hundred and thirty different kinds, or
join every one of them in turn. He may be six
kinds of an Adventist, seven kinds of a Catholic,
twelve kinds of a Mennonite or Presbyterian,
thirteen kinds of a Baptist, sixteen kinds of a
Lutheran, or seventeen kinds of a Methodist. He
may be a member of any one of one hundred and
forty-three denominations, or of all in succession.
If none of these suit him, he still has a choice
among one hundred and fifty separate and in-
dependent congregations, which have no denomi-
national name, creed or connection. , . . Accord-
ing to the scientists no atom is so small that it
may not be conceived of as consisting of halves.
No denomination has thus far proved too small
for division. Denominations appear in the list
given in this volume with as few as twenty-five
members. I was reluctantly compelled to ex-
clude from the census one with twenty-one mem-
bers. The reason was, that while they insisted
that they were a separate body and did not wor-
ship with other churches, they had no organized
church of their own. Twelve of them were in

[159]

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Pennsylvania, divided between Philadelphia and
Pittsburg, six in Illinois and three in Missouri.
They were so widely scattered they could not
maintain public worship.'"

Such words ought to be caricature or criminal
libel, not a sober statement of facts.

We may hail an awakening conscience respect-
ing this horror. Think how wide-spread the in-
terest and effort toward union are.

Current

Movements Outsidc our owu land the move-

Toward Union , , ■ r^ i -r* i j

ment appears m Canada, England,
Scotland, Wales, Australia, and New Zealand, and
in all Protestant mission fields in the world, with
advanced phases in India, China, and Japan,
Many branches of the Church are engaged in it.
In our own land the Federal Council is formed of
thirty-three denominations holding nearly twenty
millions of members. In England the Free
Churches are federated in a national council. In
Canada Presbyterians, Methodists and Congre-
gationalists are working toward organic union.
In Australia the present movement includes even
the Church of England. In South India
all the Protestant missions have united in
a Missionary Conference, while Presby-
terians, Reformed and Congregationalists have
been fused into one body called the South India
United Church. In China all the Protestant mis-
sions are federated and acting together through a
series of councils. In Japan since 1900 nearly

' Religious Forces of the United States, pp. xiv, xv, xviii.
[160]

Congregationalism and Church Union

all Protestant missions have wrought through a
"Standing Committee of Cooperating Christian
Missions," while at the present time practically
all Japanese Christians are consummating a na-
tional federation of churches. Thus the missions
have taken the lead toward union. With them
close communion has been, as a missionary said
years ago, the communion that shuts in, not out.
They have done much to rouse and shame the
home-land churches out of their lethargy, till
now the whole English-speaking world at least
has been "stabbed broad awake."

The agitations of this subject show, too, that
multitudes of Christians, whole denominations,
are discovering the difference be- Essentials and
tween essentials and non-essentials, Non-essentiais
in doctrine, conduct and administration. This is
a great discovery for any one. The Protestant
world is attaining new perspective and propor-
tion. The result is to clear the road of petty
obstacles to union.

The next discovery is breaking here and there,
like the new dawn, the discovery that in essen-
tials of doctrine multitudes of Christians and
whole bodies of churches agree. If only the es-
sentials be formulated in spiritual and fraternal
terms, we make our confession of faith in a
unison of wonder and joy, as appeared so beauti-
fully in the Tri-church Council at Dayton in 1904.
Therewith has come the surprise that thus the
heaviest obstacle to union is being rolled away.
[161]

Congregational Adininistration

Nothing has been so pitilessly divisive as doc-
trinal contention. It thus appears that in some
cases the problem of union reduces to one of
polity, adjustments in organization and property
interests.

Nothing is plainer, however, than that the
cause of church union must proceed in great
Progress by variety. Few generalizations of
Experiment ^^^-y ^.^j^ j^g niade. The enterprise

is experimental everywhere. We are not far be-
yond the beginning, and there is no end. Beyond
the heights we see must lie other ranges of form
and good. Some organic unions are being
completed before our eyes, of which there is no
better instance than that of the South India
United Church. Other bodies are still too far
apart to treat definitely with one another. Evan-
gelicals and Unitarians cannot yet meet in doc-
trine. Episcopalians and free churches are still
in sturdy disagreement upon historic ordination.
Such bodies may cooperate in some forms of
moral and religious work, may even federate as
do Episcopalians with others in the Federal
Council and the New York City Federation. But
before negotiating union, they must spend much
time in mutual approaches.

How, then, stands our Congregational duty
in this imperial enterprise of the reunion
of Christendom? In the first place, all
Congregationalists should face toward union.
This may seem to some too much to ask.
[162]

Congregationalisni and Church Union

Can we expect seven hundred thousand per-
sons to be unanimoiis on a matter so deeply
affecting personal duty, preference Facingr
and convenience? Not, to be ^o^*'^^ u°"°
sure, on all details; not, perhaps, on every
concrete case which might arise. But on
the general theme that church union must be
furthered, that the wounds of Christendom
must be healed, that denominations must ac-
tually unite, and that O'Ur power must serve this
cause, — so far we ought to be awake and unani-
mous. It is quite evident that we are far from
unanimity. Some of us object to negotiations
for union with any other branch of the Church.
While tri-church union with United Brethren
and Methodist Protestants was in hand, there
were many who lay heavily in indifference and
opposition. T.hey did not judge that case on its
merits ; they did not prepare their own minds for
unprejudiced consideration of it. Not all were
of this sort who opposed that union ; some did
think it through and turn it down on large
reasoning. But not a few allowed local and
personal considerations to entrench them against
£0' great a procedure in the Kingdom of God,
while others failed to discern any significance in
an attempt to heal the breaches in the walls of
Zion. And so from several directions came t!ie
time-worn protest that Congregationalists might
better let well enough alone.

Be it urged, then, that church union is a
[163]

Congregation al Adniinistration

matter too momentous for indifference, thought-
lessness, ignorance or opposition; that it is now
Why not thrust forward by the cry of human-
TTnite? \^y j^j-,j ^1-,^ gpjrit of God in front
of most other issues in religious progress;
that it is the true Christian part to be seeking
ways and means to promote it ; that every con-
crete instance should find all minds antecedently
hospitable and all feet ready to run ; that in every
case the burden of proof lies on those who de-
cline; that the proper question is not, Why should
we unite? but, Why should we not unite?
not, How can we evade this predicament?
but, How can we assure this advance?
When two or more branches of the Church ap-
proach each other with mutual desire, their nego-
tiations will resemble those of the Tri-church
Council at Dayton, not those of the same body
later at Chicago, not those of our own National
Council on the same issue at Cleveland. At
Chicago and Cleveland we lacked much of a
unanimous purpose to find a way of union.

More than most Christians, ought Congrega-
tionalists to take this hospitable and ready pos-
Duty of ture. Sectarianism has been at a
congrega- low powcr in US. Evcu loyalty to

tionalists < ^ i wt ^

our own has been weak. We have
been widely sympathetic, and have lived no strait-
ened life. We have lavishly contributed members
and money beyond our own boundaries. If we
cannot now as a denomination act the larger parts
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Congregationalism and Church Union

in the world drama, the greater shame is ours.
We ought to welcome sincere approaches from
any church bodies at any time. In negotiations
we ought to stand, whether in doctrine or polity,
for essentials only. With us difficulties of union
would in most instances be found in administra-
tion. We understand essentials and non-essen-
tials of doctrine; and on essentials we are in
agreement with large sections of the Church.
Differences of polity remain; and polity is a
minor thing.

It is also worth while to remember that nego-
tiations which fail may yet advance church union.
The participants will have learned of one another,
will have greeted wider horizons, will have
grown in stature. Congregationalists have
gained much from intercourse with United
Brethren and Methodist Protestants. Abiding
effects will be found operative if that negotiation
breaks out again, or if some other body solicits
us.

The working principle in practical church
union is opportunism. Who knows what can be
done? Every inch must be taken opportunism the
and held. Every fraternal glance working
must be answered in kind. Every ^"ncipio
extended hand must be clasped. Nay more, our
ov/n eyes and hands and hearts must be reaching
out every way to touch and draw our brethren.

In the second place, we must, in the interest of
church union, develop effective unity and loyalty
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Congregational Administration

of our own. It is not strictly true that the hon
and lamb unite, certainly not on even terms, to
Congregational pi'ocluce a third crcature better
unity for Tjnion than the two Originals. The result
^^ ®" is all lion. To the lamb are left not

even memories of former days that were better
than these. Recall the characterization of historic
Congregationalism as a river rising in New Eng-
land and emptying south and west into Presby-
terianism. Sometimes w^e think that outpour
was checked in 1852 by the Albany Convention,
when the disastrous Plan of Union, which cost us
several thousand churches in the middle west,
was abrogated. It was in good measure checked ;
but since then almost every ecclesiastical
family has been tapping our waterw'ays. Our
power pours at last, we trust, into the kingdom
of heaven; but too much of it goes thither by
trickling off in driblets to tumble over firmer
banks into more acquisitive streams. Most
easily of all are Congregationalists lured into
other folds. . It is to our credit that we are
broad-minded and hold no petty shibboleth to be
the only open sesame to heaven; but we ought
to stop dissipating our energies. It is time to
believe hard in ourselves, in the Congregational
Church, in Congregational methods and spirit.
We need strength for treating as a church body
with other bodies. Firm organization will ren-
der us more fit, not less, for union. When
strong forces unite, then there is gain. The
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, Congregatioiialisiii and Church Union

Kingdom comes as distinct factors coalesce in a
richer and higher unity.

In the tri-church discussions the question kept
recurring whether Congregationahsts had co-
herence, whether we really consti- Movement by
tuted an orgranism, whether, in Enlightened

° 1111 Conviction

ease union were voted by the three
national bodies, our Congregational churches
could be led into it. The question was pertinent.
Certain it is that we cannot carry all our churches
and ministers into any union upon the call even
of their own representatives in National Council.
Whether to ratify and join the union or refuse
to do so would have to be left to every local
church. Any church would be free to desert the
advancing host. A strong minority might fall out
and maintain the old body on the old ground. A
majority even might hold back, discrediting the
whole affair. It is impossible for us to deny
that weakness in our organization. It is weak-
ness for the purpose of church union, at least for
any attempt at speedy union ; for ours is the slow
way of popular enlightenment and conviction. On
the whole, however, we count it strength, and de-
cline to alter our method. We never shall ad-
vance in blind obedience to leaders. But we
shall strengthen our internal bonds and acquire a
firmer and more loyal coherence. Our corporate
life will be more robust, pervasive and retentive.
It will grow more certain that, when an issue has
finally been decided upon full deliberation, prac-

Congregational Administration

tically all of us will move together. Then, if
obviously fitter to survive alone, fitter also shall
we be to negotiate and unite.

We need, in the third place, to understand and
use certain important advantages which we enjoy
Freedom an i" the department of polity. The
Advantage world movement has been toward
freedom and democracy, and there
can be no return. Freedom, once possessed, is
not surrendered. If lost, the battle will be
fought out again, whatever waits. Union move-
ments must crystallize near the points of greatest
advance. Denominations which are free cannot
return to unite with others which lie under
authority; the latter must come forward. Herein
we of the Congregational polity — Congrega-
tionalists and others — lead the ecclesiastical
V oiid. We are the freest. It is not bigotry
which forbids us to unite with any but the free;
it is the command of life itself. We may and
must develop coherence, leadership and united
action; but this, as we have seen, is not to fall
back into fetters, but to advance out of individual-
istic into organized democracy.

Now this freedom of ours may at any moment
block a particular negotiation for union. In the
Congregational- main, howcvcr, it gives us large ad-
ism an Ideal vantage. Human progress is bring-
° ' ^ ing others forward. In this free land

all the other polities have perforce developed
their free elements. We sometimes say that Con-
[i68]

Congregationalism and Church Union

gregationalism is fitted to be the denominational
solvent. That it cannot be just as it stands to-
day. Other bodies have a compactness, solidity,
esprit de corps, effective leadership, which will
not be surrendered and are not incompatible with
freedom. These Ave must acquire, while other
bodies come forward to meet our freedom. Con-
gregationalism is suited to advanced stages of
life. It is, indeed, in its elementary practise,
easy for new members, new churches, new fron-
tiers, new missionary conditions. But for its best
employment it requires good measures of popular
intelligence, steadiness, self-control, initiative ;
these firm-based upon inherited and renewed
moral character imbued with the spirit of love
and of Christ. What could we do in some hot
hours of mob violence, when the Roman hier-
archy has been able to quench the fury and folly
of the hordes which dare not defy the throne?
"Congregationalism," wrote Dr. Dale, "is an
ideal polit}^ This is at once its reproach and its
glory. The transcendent prerogatives and powers
which it claims for the Church lie beyond the
reach of communities which are not completely
penetrated and transfigured by the Spirit of
Christ. But as churches approach more nearly
to the perfection to which Christ has called them,
their authority becomes more and more august,
and they enter more and more fully into the pos-
session of the blessedness which is their inherit-
ance in him."

[ 169 ]

Congregational Administration

Close to this lies another advantage which we
should use tirelessly. The hope of reaching
Union on church union in the aggregate

Local Fields ]ea^s through the local churches.
True and lasting church union is no less than
conformity of heart and character, separate de-
nominations growing into likeness and lo\^e. It
is labor lost for officials to arrange a formal
union of bodies of churches which have not yet
discovered one another and clasped hands. It
has seemed to many that the federation move-
ment was in far sounder youth in England and
Wales than in our own land. Here, as was truly
said at the outset, it has been federation at the
top, the denominational leaders attempting
through the national bodies to bring together the
many corporations as if into a great ecclesiastical
trust. The Free Church Council of England
and Wales has been federation at the bottom.
That movement has covered the whole land, from
the Scotch border to Land's End — cities, vil-
lages, hamlets, countrysides, with local councils,
every church enlisted, denominational barriers
lowered, no gaps left between pai'ishes, every neg-
lected home and every lost or laden souj sought
out for ministry. You can predict the effect of
such mighty causes. Can any denominational es-
trangrements or contentions withstand such
gravity of love ? Our federation at the top will
never win and hold until from the officers' quar-
ters it overruns the field. But if now the leaders
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Congregationalism and Church Union

of the thirty-three denominations whose names
appear in the Federal Council can actually lead
out their millions of members in federated action
on the local fields, the day of real union will dawn.
The advantages of separate divisions and
machinery pertain mainly to leaders, central of-
fices, large churches. The evils of sectarianism
press hardest on the common people, small
churches and their pastors in the meager fields,
where the bills of fanaticism and local jealousies
are paid in blood money.

The way of wisdom, then, is exactly our Con-
gregational way. We must labor for concrete
union on local fields, and start The congre-
the cry up the line. Popular ^^t^^^^^ ^^^
movements often burst suddenly into mighty
power after a season of silent preparation.
So the temperance movement now, amazing
all but those who have guided the quiet work for
years in church and school and home. So the
direct primary movement in politics, which has
run by its own inner force since i860 well-nigh
over the land. Church union is now getting
quiet seed-sowing in all quarters, in Sunday-
school and home missionary work, in foreign
missions, in new cooperation of agents, superin-
tendents, pastors and churches, in brotherhoods
and young people's movements, in more and
more frequent organic union of churches: the
summer growth will be short and swift, I be-
lieve, and the harvest not far ahead. We may
[171]

Congregational Administration

awake any morning to a great popular uprising in
church union, so commanding that denomina-
tional lines will be scorned, and even the great
polity lines be for a time as though they were not.
I find it already said openly that even now "the old
classification of church polities into the Episcopa-
lian, the Presbyterian and the Congregational
has ceased to be of practical moment."

The most hopeful field, however, for union ef-
fort seems to me to lie within each great polity,
Union in ^^^ within the family groups.
Family Here are found the points of least
Groups resistance and the lines of strong-
est contact, A few more words from Dr. Car-
roll will best reveal the possibilities. He says :
"A closer scrutiny of the list [of our church
bodies] shows that many of these one hundred
and forty-three denominations differ only in
name. Without a single change in doctrine or
polity the seventeen Methodist bodies could be re-
duced to three or four, the twelve Presbyterian to
three, the twelve Mennonite to two, and so
on. The differences in many cases are only sec-
tional or historical. The slavery question was
the cause of not a few divisions, and matters of
discipline were responsible for a large number.
Arranging the denominations in groups or fami-
lies, and counting as one family each the twelve
Mennonite, the seventeen Methodist, the thirteen
Baptist bodies, and so on, we have, instead of one
hundred and forty-three, only forty-two titles.
[ 172]

Congregationalism and Church Union

In other words, if there could be a consoHdatioii
of each denominational group, the reproach of
our division would be largely taken away."

This family reunion is proceeding hopefully,
as, for instance, in the return of the Cumberland
Presbyterians to the northern Presbyterian body,
the overtures between northern and southern
Presbyterians, northern and southern Methodists,
northern Methodists and J^.Iethodist Protestants,
Baptists and Free Baptists. Similar action is in
place between Congregationalists, Baptists, Dis-
ciples and others.

Within these families or groups what divisive
forces still hold Christians apart? Dr. Carroll
classifies the historic causes of division under four
heads.

1. "Controversies over doctrine;"

2. "Controversies over administration or dis-
cipline ;"

3. "Controversies over moral questions;"

4. "Controversies of a personal character."
Almost all of these have disappeared like the

slavery question. Two or three more general
forces, likely to hinder union at any time, may be
mentioned.

The first includes many standing disagree-
ments, most of them upon non-essentials, some
quite trivial ; some in doctrine, standing
some in administration, some not Disagreements
strictly in either field. Thus far the convictions
of Baptists, and probably Disciples also, upon
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Congregational Administration

immersion form toward us such a barrier. Our
doctrinal disagreements upon the person of
Christ hold Unitarians and Congregationalists
apart; this is not a minor disagreement, but its
action is within polity and family precincts. The
bishopric was one of the issues which created the
Methodist Protestant body; it might still hinder
their happy return to the parent church.

A second seriously divisive force is the bunch
of things called historic associations. Every
Historic branch of the Church makes his-

Associations ^^^y ^^^ loves it. To merge with

others seems disloyal to the fathers. Denomina-
tional patriotism is exceeding strong in some
quarters. It might be hard for some lineal Bap-
tists to lie close with the children of those who
stoned the prophets out of Massachusetts into
Rhode Island. And the "Wee Frees," both in
Scotland and among Cumberland Presbyterians,
are showing the stubbornness of tradition and the
historic conscience, and are continuing to make
fiercely separative history. Mason and Dixon's
line has been almost a wall of fire between sec-
tions of churches which broke apart on that
awful issue. Such surcharged memories yield
slowly to the grace of God. We have fathers
and brethren among ourselves who shook mourn-
ful heads over the proposed surrender of our Con-
gregational name in the negotiations with United
Brethren and Methodist Protestants. As to this
name of ours, no minister who could get day's
[174]

Congregationalism and Church Union

wages for the time spent in uttering it would ever
need a donation party or fall upon the tender mer-
cies of relief funds. But it does have flocks of
beautiful creatures lodging in the branches
thereof. These three hundred years of ours are
wonderful ; can any other loyal children think to
match them? No one should be so disloyal as
to be inconsiderate of others' attachments.

There remains the divisive power of tempera-
ment. After all light and heavy humor about it,
temperament is a deep-running reality. Tempera-
In church union discussions we use it in '^®"*
an ample sense. Good people differ in personal
qualities, disposition, character, culture, manners,
home life, social ways. It is not well to think,
and it is worse to say, that some are better than
others. For purposes of church dissension men
may be better or worse; for purposes of church
union they are merely dissimilar. Such differ-
ences characterize neighborhoods, groups, organ-
ized bodies, districts, denominations. Some
people and groups are mutually congenial ; others,
though respecting one another, lack affinities. It
was freely said that we Congregationalists would
not most naturally have sought United Brethren
and Methodist Protestants, nor they us. They
both belong rather in the Methodist group. Many
opposed the union on this score. We should
find our own kind more numerous, it was thought,
among Presbyterians; similar psychological ele-
ments and unities, similar grades of cultivation,
[175]

Congregational Administration

similar historic extractions and developments,
similar social manners and customs and resources.
It seems to many that we have drifted farther
from Baptists and others in our administrative
group than from the Presbyterian family.

Such divisive forces I desired to introduce into
our line of thought, but not to discuss with any
Brotherhood fulncss. What shall we think of
Mightier them with respect to the duty of

church union? It seems clear to me that they
should not be permitted to block any actual at-
tempt whatever at union. Among all Christian
communions on earth the uniting power of
brotherhood ought to be mightier than all com-
binations of divisive forces. It is not so yet;
and who will cast the first stone? My convic-
tion is this, that, when any two Christian bodies
have been moved of God toward compounding
their differences, have met, have found them-
vSelves hopefully near to union on the graver
issues of doctrine and property and polity, it is
grief and shame to suffer the union to fail on
these minor counts. The scandal of disunion,
the beauty of union, the primacy of love, the
word of the Master, each and all are too
sovereign and august to be overborne by per-
sonal pettiness. Temperament? "One is your
Master, and all ye are brethren." Our Church,
with its glorious history and matchless name?
"God so loved the world." Our preferences?
"Hereby know we love, because he laid down
[176]

Congregationalism and Church Union

his life for us : and we ought to lay down our
lives for the brethren." The duty of church
union is red, blood-red.

The union of churches is chiefly a means to-
ward the reunion of Christendom. But what
really is this greater end? It is Eeunion of

said that, if we could once get to- Christendom

gether in one all-inclusive organization, we
should inevitably break up again ; the bulk would
be too enormous and clumsy to move. The
reply is that then we might properly divide. We
should have established the primacy of union in
the conscience of the Christian world. We
should have bowed together under the scepter of
love. The trouble is not that United Brethren,
Methodist Protestants and Congregationalists
are living and working in three separate organ-
izations; the trouble is that they have declined
to unite. That, not actual working divisions,
is the scandal of Christendom. We could
justify church divisions made upon convenience,
temperamental affiliations, or preference for cer-
tain forms of worship or administration, pro-
vided that the separate bodies never preyed upon
one another, always cooperated, in honor pre-
ferred one another, and sprang together with a
loyal shout wherever essential unit}' was seriously
questioned. The profound issue of unity once
made supreme in the heart of the Christian world
and sovereign in its practise, agreeable and prac-
tical measures of diversity promote health and
[ 177]

Congregational Administration

efficiency. The second great commandment does
not forbid us to select our church relations, along
with our social associations, among our affinities
and conveniences. Ideas rule, not forms and
physical arrangements. The question is not, Are
the churches of Christ divided into separate ad-
ministrative bodies? not, How many separate
bodies? but, What does it mean? Why do
they remain apart? Why do they permit the
wrongs and woes of division to flourish? So
long as the answer is that they are not willing to
unite, that they prefer to tolerate the wrongs and
woes, that they even prefer to flourish themselves
upon those wrongs and woes, so long must the
duty of church union stand paramount. Not
until the answer may be that the evils of division
are at an end, that the churches are heartily ready
to unite, that existing divisions express quite
minor choices of practical convenience and per-
sonal preference, that all such choices are held
subject to constraints of fellowship, — not until
essential unity has thus embodied its victory all
round the world, can church union halt or falter.
But in order to compass such unity how far
must church union be carried? Who knows?
Limits of Not, I believe, so far as to a single

Church Union all-embracing organization; per-
haps not so far as that in any Christian country.
But just so far, though it be unto a single organi-
zation and the ends of the earth, as may be neces-
sary to unite the whole Christian world in un-
[178]

C ongrcgationalism and Church Union

doubted and unfailing brotherhood. The or-
ganic union of Christian denominations must be
fostered. Cooperation is not sufficient. Federa-
tion is not sufficient. The best Christian con-
science condemns the one hundred and forty-
three denominations and their attempted vindica-
tions. The future must decide where a halt in
the union movement may be made.

[179]

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