CHAPTER IV NINETEENTH CENTURY EXPANSION The Dynamic In the history of America the nineteenth century will always be known as the time of swiftly enlarging life. The foundations had been laid, liberty had been won, and the nation was ready to develop its vast resources. An unnumbered multitude of immigrants crowded in to share the task. Steam and electricity put undreamed of powers in men's hands. Congregationalism was ready to have part in this expansion. The little group of churches founded on the Atlantic sea line had become a vigorous body covering all New England. The strength gained in two hundred years of preparation was to accomplish wonderful results in the next century. We do not know just how many Congregationalists there were in 1800. The statistician was not abroad. But they invested their strength so well that in the century which followed they kept pace with the growth of the nation in all the essentials of achievement. Rise of Unitarianism This seems the more remarkable when it is remembered that the century began with a distinct loss. For many years Congregationalists had been drifting apart into two theological groups. The cleavage began in the controversy over the "Halfway Covenant." It showed itself in the opposition to revival methods and messages at the time of the "Great Awakening." There followed a sharp disagreement over the theology of Jonathan Edwards. The two parties came to be known as the Liberals and the Orthodox. Suspicion and dissension were in the air. The question most debated was the divinity of Christ. An increasing number believed Him only the loftiest of created beings. The stormy days of the Revolution and the anxious days of nation building which followed postponed the break. But at last it came. Oddly enough, its beginning was not among the Congregationalists, but in the feeble company of Episcopal churches then found in New England. In 1787 King's Chapel, an Episcopal church in Boston, declared itself no longer a believer in the Deity of Christ. In the same year a Boston Congregational pastor published a hymn book from which all recognition of the Trinity, or the Deity of Christ, was excluded. In 1801 the Old Pilgrim Church at Plymouth became Unitarian, a portion of its members withdrawing to found a Congregational church. It was a heavy blow to Congregationalists that this church, the first of their churches established, should be the first to withdraw from their fellowship. From this time on one church after another passed over to Unitarianism until there were three score or more in eastern Massachusetts. In Boston only two churches (the Old South and Charlestown) remained in the Congregational body. This rapid growth was not duplicated in other parts of the country. Down to the present time Unitarianism has little strength outside the locality where it began. How it Happened It is not possible in this brief history to give a detailed account of the nature and causes of this unhappy division. It should, however, be clearly understood that there was not at the outset any desire or purpose to form a new denomination. Even the name Unitarian was distasteful to the early Liberals, because in England it was used by a type of semi-infidel thought widely different from their own reverent attitude toward the Scriptures and toward Christ. They accepted the name only when at last it became evident that there must be a break and that they must adopt some distinctive title. It should also be noted that the Unitarian protest was not solely concerning the deity of Christ. They also objected, and quite as strenuously, to the rigid Calvinism common in the New England of that time, with its views about depravity, atonement, salvation, heaven and hell. In other words, it was a contest between two widely different modes of thinking. Very few churches went over bodily to Unitarianism. Ordinarily a minority remained Congregationalists and founded another church. Sometimes, odd as it seems, the majority of the church desired to continue in the Congregational way but were forced out. The explanation is found in the fact that all the churches of that time had a double organization, the "church" and the "society." The latter was the legal corporation and the courts decided that it had the right to say whether the church should be Unitarian or Congregational. The church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was an illustration of the working of this principle. Its pastor, Rev. Abiel Holmes (father of Oliver Wendell Holmes), was a Congregationalist of the most orthodox type. His congregation gradually became Unitarian. Finally the "society" held a meeting and voted that he was no longer their pastor. Then the "church" met and decided by a small majority that he was still their pastor. None the less the church and its pastor had to move out of their house of worship. They took with them the communion set and some money which had been raised for the poor. But by order of court these had to be returned! Those were certainly strenuous times. The Loss of Very early in those sad days of controversy there arose the question who should control Harvard College. Naturally there was intense interest in the matter, for the college was not only profoundly important to the churches but the object of warmest affection. In 1805, after a long struggle, the liberals elected their candidate to the chair of theology. This, of course, settled the question. Andover Seminary The loss of Harvard was the immediate cause of the establishment in 1808 of the well-endowed and vigorously manned theological seminary at Andover the first school of its sort in the land, and which became a force of incalculable value. Very soon Andover was sending out " fifty or sixty recruits each year for the evangelical ministry so trained and equipped for their work as never young ministers had been before since the apostolic era." It was a great advance over the old custom by which a minister was trained in a sort of apprenticeship through serving as assistant to some distinguished pastor. The same new energy and unity among Congregationalists which caused the founding of Andover resulted in 1821 in the establishing of Amherst College, which for many decades was to furnish no small portion of their leaders. Other Seminaries In due succession other theological schools sprang up. In 1816 the seminary soon to be located at Bangor was started at Hampden, Maine. Bangor has always been of special service to men not fully equipped in collegiate preparation. In 1822 Yale Divinity School was organized under the leadership of Nathaniel W. Taylor, creator of "The New Haven Theology." In 1834 the followers of Edwards established at East Windsor, Connecticut, the beginnings of the present Hartford Seminary Foundation. James H. Fairchild later made — The founding of Oberlin Seminary in 1835 was due to the increasing discussion of the slavery question. Charles G. Finney, then pastor of Broadway Tabernacle, New York, was secured as leader. distinguished contribution to its life. In 1858 Chicago Theological Seminary- the first seminary in that city was established by the enterprise and loyalty of the churches and pastors of the Middle West. The Seminary is now affiliated with the University of Chicago, near which its new quarters are located. As early as 1869 the needs of the Pacific Coast were met by the Pacific Theological Seminary, now located at Berkeley, California. Since 1901 those of the South have been similarly served by the Seminary at Atlanta, Georgia. The Missionary From the outset the New England theologians were a great deal more than mere intellectual disputants. In the very midst of the controversy just described, at least a part of the Congregational churches were beginning to catch a vision of an entire world to be evangelized. Three great undertakings prove the growing power and the living faith of our fathers, viz., the beginnings of foreign missions, the advancing frontier of home missions, and the work undertaken for the belated races of the South and West. Founding of the Let it never be forgotten that the foreign missionary enterprise had its beginnings not in the wisdom of the church leaders, but in the indomitable faith of a few college boys. In 1806 |