EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION, a re ligious denomination founded in Pennsylvania about the beginning of the 19th century by Jacob Albright, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who was born in Pennsyl vania 1759, and from about 1790 traveled among the German population as an evangelist. Al bright founded a society of converts in 1800, which so increased in numbers that it was finally organized in 1807 as the Evangelical Association of North America, with Albright as bishop. The theology of the association as de fined in its 21 articles closely resembles that of the Methodist Episcopal Church, from which, also, it differs little in government and form of worship. The Church was divided in 1891, when a minority, numbering 40,000, organized the United Evangelical Church. In 1916 the association had 27 annual conferences, including one in Japan, one in Switzerland, and two in Germany; 1,663 preachers, 115,243 communi cants, and property valued at about $11,000,000. Besides its German elements it has a relatively large English-speaking membership and pub lishes English periodicals and English books.
It has four bishops, a well-equipped publishing house at Cleveland and another at Stuttgart, Wiirtemberg; a biblical institute and North western College at Naperville, Ill.; two semi naries; an orphan home at Flat Rock, Ohio; a charitable society; a missionary society, sus taining domestic and foreign missions in Japan and China and assisting the European churches; a Woman's Society; a Church Extension Society. Hospitals are maintained in various cities in Germany, and in Chicago and in Bismarck, N. Dak. Its periodicals are The Evangelical Messenger (weekly) ; The Mis sionary Messenger (monthly) ; Der Christliche Botschafter (weekly). Consult Plitt, 'Die Albrechtsleute' (Erlangen 1877) ; Carroll, 'Re ligious Forces of the United States' (New York 1912) ; Orwig, of the Evangeli cal Association' (1858).