The sense of mutual fellowship characteristic of modern Congregationalism has its further illustration in the formation of an `Internation al Congregational Council.' representative, by appointed delegates, of the churches of all lands into which Congregationalism has penetrated. Its first meeting was held at London in 1891, and its second at Boston in 1890. Provision has been made for its continuance.
Missionary Agencies.—The benevolences of Congregationalism have called into hying a larte number of diannoinational agencies. In the Unit ed States organized home missions began with the formation of the Missionary Society of Connecticut, in 1798, and the Massachusetts Missionary Society in 1700. Similar local so cieties have been formed in the States where Congregationalism is strongly represented, and they serve as auxiliaries to the national Con gregational Home .Missionary Soeiety, founded in 1820, to which a large share, not merely of the westward extension of Congregationalism, but of the maintenance of the feebler churches in the older States, is due. A second society by which Congregational effort is carried for ward within the territory of the United States, from Porto Rico to Alaska, is the American Missionary Association, organized in 1S-10 by anti-slavery sympathizers, which now maintains an extensive educational and evangelistic work, chiefly among the negroes of the South, but also among the mountain whites. the Indians of the West, the Eskimos of Alaska, and the Chinese of the Pacific Coast. The Congregational Edu cation Society, founded in 1815, has for its work the strengthening of schools and colleges in the newer portions of the land, and the assist ance of worthy and needy candidates for the ministry. The work of the Congregational Church Building Society and of the Congrega tional Sunday-School and Publishing Society is sufficiently indicated by their titles. tional foreign missionary effort reaching forth from the United States is under the direction of the American Board of Commissioners for For eign Missions, founded in 1810, and now carry ing on work in India, Turkey, China, Japan, Micronesia, Africa, Austria, Spain, and Mexico. In Great Britain the work of home missions is under the charge of the Congregational Church Aid and Home Missionary Society, and that of foreign evangelization of the London Mission ary Society, founded in 1793. Canadian Con gregationalism has its o\\11 Foreign Missionary Society.
Theological Seminaries.— Congregat ionalism has always believed in an educated ministry. In order to secure is proper training for their min isters, the early New England Congregational ists established 'Harvard and Yale, and the course of instruction in both of those institu tions of learning was long regulated by the de sign of equipping men for the ministry. But by the first quarter of the eighteenth century the ordinary course of collegiate instruction was increasingly felt to be inadequate for the needs of ministerial training, and the result was the foundation at Harvard, in 1721, of the Hollis professorship of divinity, and the beginnings of a similar professorship of divinity at Yale in 17-10—a professorship that was not fully estab lished there until 1755. Even more influential
in the ministerial training of the eighteenth cen tury than the instruction of these professors, was the custom, which grew into increasing prominence as the century went on, of taking a few months of training supplemental to the col lege course, under the guidance of sonic eminent pastor, before applying for ministerial lieensure. Such household theological seminaries were pre sided over by many of the prominent pastors of New England; and among such instructors Jona than Edwards, of Northampton, :\ hiss. .Toseph Bellamy, of Bethlehem, Conn.; Charles Backus, of Somers, Conn.; and Nathaniel Emmons, of Franklin, Mass., were conspicuous.
The inunialiate Cause of the establishment of theological seminaries, in the modern 'sense of the term, in America, was the passage of Har vard College to the control of the party soon to he known as Unitarian, in 1805. Deprived thus of of their chief seat of ministerial train ing, the conservative of east ern Massachusetts began at once to plan for separate schools of theological instruction. Two independent designs for the establishment of a theological seminary—the one by repre sentatives of the older type of New England Calvinism, and the other by men of the Ed wardean sympathies—were happily combined, after much effort, in 1808, and resulted, in Sep tember of that year, in the establishment of Andover Theological Seminary, at Andover, Mass. Conspicuous in the teaching force of this institution, from its foundation to his resigna tion in 1840, was Leonard Woods, its first pro fessor of theology; while Moses Stuart, from 1810 to 1848, was eminent for his services in the study of the Old Testament and in introducing the theology of Germany to the knowledge of American students. Even more conspicuous as a theological leader at Andover was Edwards A. Park, who taught in the institution from 1830 to 1881, and, from 1817 to the year last men tioned, occupied its chair of theology. Andover Seminary under its first instructors occupied a theological position which represented a union on broad and generous lines of the various shades of conservative New England opinion, in opposi tion to the Unitarian movement of its day. Under Professor Park the Edwardean theology was even more emphasized and developed. For twenty years past Andorer has• been distin guished by a cordial welcome to the newer phases of theological discussion, especially as developed in Germany.