schools of the church, and seminaries of education for its ministry.

At the time of its rigid exclusion of Baptists and Quakers from the colony, Massachusetts enacted severe laws against Episcopacy; and Episcopalian petitioners for liberty to exercise their religion, and the privileges of citizens, were answered with fines and imprisonment.

In all the early New England settlements, the ministers were supported, and the expenses of public worship provided for, by taxation. This was deemed just and equitable. Besides, none but church-members were admitted to have the rank of freemen or citizens, with a right to vote and hold offices. As the settlements progressed, it was found expedient to extend the right of citizenship to all the inhabitants, without respect to their religious professions, and the support of the Gospel was devolved on the voluntary contributions of its friends. This is called the voluntary system, in opposition to that by the government, which is called the compulsory system.

The religious qualification for citizenship tended to the corruption of religion, by inducing hypocritical professions; and was found to be, on many accounts, objectionable; in consequence of which, it was abandoned.

The voluntary system of supporting the Gospel is adapted to all countries and conditions; and, though it affords opportunity for the miserly and avaricious to refuse their due share of contribution for this object, it is undoubtedly justified both by the Scriptures and by the highest expediency.

In proportion as the Gospel takes effect, it will dispose men to contribute liberally for its support; and a pure Gospel will tend powerfully to this result.

The New England colonies always purchased their lands of the Indians, and aimed to deal justly and kindly with them. But various collisions arose, and cruel Indian wars were added totheir other trials. Besides, the colonists were frequently obliged to defend their chartered rights and privileges against the Eng

lish crown, which was continually attempting to impose new restrictions upon them, and to reduce them to a state of vassalage. In both these conflicts the colonists were obliged to unite together for the purpose of supporting each other; and their frequent struggles and trials proved invaluable preparations for that mighty struggle for national independence and republicanism that was accomplished by the revolutionary war in 17751782.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PROGRESS AND FRUITS OF CONGREGATIONALISM IN AMERICA.

AFTER a period of general religious declension and formality, in 1760, there was a great revival of religious interest, under Jonathan Edwards and others, by which the churches were greatly enlarged and strengthened. During the revolutionary war, the public mind was too much diverted by the exciting incidents and imminent dangers of the time, to allow of any remarkable progress in the religion of the country. The churches, however, generally held their own during that dark and perilous period, and performed invaluable services to the cause of liberty, by their steady inculcation of the great lessons of piety and virtue, and their strenuous advocacy of the great doctrines of liberty and justice.

The Congregationalists were the fathers of American liberty and republicanism. Republicanism was one of their great ideas, and the reformation of the state in conformity with this idea was regarded by them as a part of their Heaven-appointed mission. They attempted it in England, and failed, under Cromwell. The established itinerants and organizations of despotism were too strong for them, and Cromwell was not true to the Congregationalist mission. Under the name of liberty he established an iron despotism, superseding one despotism by another.

The Presbyterians were generally monarchists. They wanted a limited monarchy, corresponding to their limited and modified episcopacy; but, as the government and supremacy of the people did not enter into their religious system, no more did it into their political one. Their influence turned the scale in favor of monarchy in England, at the close of the protectorate. They might have given the country a president, holding his appointment for a term of years; and they might have contributed to institute a representative legislature, appointed by the whole. people, according to the views of the Congregationalist republicans. But they did not want anything of the kind. They wanted a hereditary sovereignty and aristocracy; and accordingly, by their influence, the English monarchy was restored and reëstablished in 1660.

Had not the Congregationalists come to this country; had they not been driven here by the relentless persecution of the English sovereigns, and been made willing to encounter every possible hardship, as exiled apostles of liberty and religion, rather than conform to the ritual of civil and religious despotism at home, the American republic would never have existed.

How amazing are the ways of Providence! On what wheels within wheels move the course of human events, making, in many cases, the blood of the martyrs the seed of the church, and the tyrant persecutors of liberty and piety the unintentional founders of a new empire of civil and religious freedom!

The early Presbyterianism of this country became favorable to republicanism through the force of circumstances which it did not originate, and through Congregational influences.

Massachusetts began its contest with the English government in favor of colonial rights in 1763, under George III. The first colonial congress was convened at New York, Oct. 7, 1765. Committees of correspondence, to arouse the whole country to united resistance of English tyranny, were first appointed at Boston; and these extended through the colonies in 1772. The introduction of tea, on which a tax was demanded without the

consent of the colonial legislature, was forcibly resisted at Boston, and three hundred and forty-two chests broken open, and emptied into the sea, Dec. 18, 1773; and the first blood in the revolutionary war was shed in the battle of Lexington, near Boston, April 19th, 1775. Directly after this, on the 25th of June, 1775, followed the hard-fought battle of Bunker Hill, in which the determined bravery and energy of the Americans secured to a defeat the ordinary benefits of a glorious victory. The battle of Bunker Hill was lost, but the cause was gained.

The first offensive operations of the British, in the revolutionary war, were made in New England; and the courageous spirit and determined resistance which they met from the sons of New England were an essential condition of the success of the American cause in that mighty struggle.

New England bore a large part in all the conflicts and sacrifices of the revolutionary war, and also in the councils of the nation by which it was directed and carried on; and her example and influence were decisive in favor of the general adoption of republican governments throughout the colonies.

Nor was this all. Congregationalism was not restricted to New England. It was disseminated in the Baptist order throughout the south, and wherever it was carried it served as a leader of republicanism in the state.

Jefferson, one of the framers of the constitution, is said to have made the Congregational government of a Christian church the model to which he aimed to conform, as far as might be, the government of the nation.

All connection between the Congregational churches in New England and the state terminated during the revolutionary war and subsequently, and religious liberty has long been perfect in every part of the United States.

Congregationalism, except with the Baptists, did not extend much beyond New England till the commencement of the nineteenth century. Those who emigrated west or south generally connected themselves with Presbyterian churches, and their Con

gregationalism was absorbed and lost in Presbyterianism. For the more convenient coëxistence of both orders in the same field, a plan of union was adopted between the general assembly of the Presbyterian church in the United States and the general association of Connecticut, whereby Congregationalist churches were allowed to be connected with presbyteries, and to have a representation by lay delegates in all Presbyterian church courts.

The practical operation of this plan was gradually to lead Congregational churches to the adoption of Presbyterianism, and it has contributed to extend the latter at the expense of the former.

Like most amalgamations, however, of heterogeneous elements, it has proved unsatisfactory to both parties. It was discarded by the Old School assembly after its excision of the New School portion of the general body in 1837; and, though recognized as still in force by the New School assembly at Washington, in 1852, was disapproved by the general Congregational convention at Albany in the samne year, and is nearly abandoned by all parties.

It is principally objectionable, in the view of strict Presbyterians, as introducing a foreign element into the Presbyterian courts, and tending to weaken the general attachment to Presbyterianism. But it is discountenanced by Congregationalists as tending to produce the gradual defection of Congregational churches from the principles of their order, and gradually attaching them to the principles and usages of Presbyterianism.

Since 1840, Congregationalism has been considerably revived in parts of the Middle and Western States, where it had previously been planted, and many new churches, associations and conventions, formed. It is multiplying its congregations in most of the considerable cities of the Middle and Western States, and bids fair to become a powerful rival of Presbyterianism in this part of the country. It only waits to have its system completed by the addition of a stated national convention, to meet annually, or at regular intervals of three or four years, in which state associations, conferences, conventions, &c., can be repre