Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. II, Part 17

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 800

USA > Missouri > Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. II > Part 17

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Olivet Congregational Church was organ- ized in 1883, and the Rev. Henry C. Scotford was the first pastor. For a number of years the congregation occupied a small chapel at Eighteenth Street and Lydia Avenue. The Rev. George Ricker succeeded Mr. Scotford, and served for some months. He was followed by the Rev. Robert L. Layfield, un- der whose care the church did constantly a strong evangelistic work, and established several missions in neglected neighborhoods. During his pastorate, the site at Nineteenth Street and Woodland Avenue was purchased. and the basement to the present edifice was built. The auditorium was completed dur- ing the pastorate of Mr. Layfield's successor. the Rev. H. L. Forbes, to whom much credit is due for the completion of the building proj-

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN KANSAS CITY.

ect. The Rev. R. Craven Walton succeeded Mr. Forbes, and served until 1900, when the present pastor, the Rev. G. E. Crossland, was installed. The church numbers Iro members, and the property is valued at $10,000.

The Southwest Tabernacle Congrega- tional Church, at Twenty-first and Jefferson Streets, was organized November 27, 1888. About a year previously a few members of the First Congregational Church opened a Sunday school, with D. R. Hughes as super- intendent, in a hall at Twenty-first and Sum- mit Streets. At that time the southwest portion of the city was practically without churches. The Sunday school soon resulted in a call for preaching. The first service was held Sunday evening, November 29, 1887, when the Rev. H. E. Woodcock, a retired pastor residing upon the field, conducted the meeting and delivered the first sermon. The work having outgrown its quarters, in the summer of 1888 the congregation occupied a tent, with the Rev. Howard H. Russell (now national secretary of the Anti-Saloon League), then serving as city missionary un- der the City Congregational Union, in charge. His services continued for three years. In the summer of 1889 the site of the present church edifice was secured by the City Congregational Union, and the building was erected, its cost at completion being about $25,000. In 1891 the Rev. Charles L. Kloss, now of Webster Groves, Missouri, was called from Argentine, Kansas, and re- mained as pastor for seven years. During this time the membership of the church stead- ily increased, and the Sunday school work was extended, and in the latter part of the period 'mission schools were organized and buildings were erected at Penn Valley and at Genessee. June 5, 1898, the Rev. J. P. O'Brien, the present pastor, entered upon his work, called from St. Louis. Under his leadership the church has grown steadily. and has fully maintained its active aggressive character. It has always kept in touch with the working people, and has been the church home of many people of Welsh descent. In 1900 the membership was 280.

Ivanhoe Park Church had it beginnings in the labors of workers from Olivet Church. It was organized October 12, 1895, with about twelve members, and the present chapel at Thirty-ninth Street and Michigan Avenue was first occupied December 8th fol-

lowing. The first minister was the Rev. Wil- liam Sewell, who was succeeded in 1896 by the Rev. Martin Luther, the first installed pastor. In 1898 the Rev. Leroy Warren be- came pastor; he served until September I, 1900, when he resigned, and was succeeded by the Rev. Alfred H. Rogers. The church numbers fifty members, and the property is valued at $3,000.

Beacon Hill Congregational Church was organized in the summer of 1896, through the effort of members of the First Church, who recognized the necessities of people of their denomination in that portion of the city. The organizing membership was about sixty in number, which had increased in 1900 to 126. The first pastor, the Rev. J. H. Crum, S. T. D., was yet serving in the same year. Services are held in Ariel Hall, on Twenty- fourth street, near Troost Avenue. In addi- tion to meeting current expenses, the con- gregation has made considerable progress toward establishing a church home. A site at Troost Avenue and Twenty-fourth Street has been purchased at a cost of nearly $5,000, and $3,000 has been expended in putting in a foundation for a stone church building, to cost upward of $25,000. The time of com- pletion is uncertain, the policy of the congre- gation being to progress only so rapidly as means actually in hand will permit. The church strives to keep itself in touch with its sister churches by co-operating with them in the work of missions, and in all benevolent causes, as well as in all other ways in which there can be mutual helpfulness.

A vigorous and useful organization known as the Fourth Congregational Church, now merged in the Beacon Hill Church, was for several years maintained at Twenty-fourth Street and Howard Avenue. The Plymouth Congregational Church, on the Southwest Boulevard, near the State line, did a strong and much needed work for several years prior to 1899, but is now continued only as a Sunday school and mission.

The Congregational Churches of Kansas City are not religious clubs, but are working organizations seeking to save men. They have made themselves felt for righteousness and progress in municipality, and are known as believing in an applied Christianity, in the Kingdom of God that is to come in this world.

HENRY HOPKINS.

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN ST. LOUIS.

Congregational Church in St. Louis .- This article on Congregationalism in St. Louis can be but the briefest outline of the theory or principle of the Church's life in that city. To do more would be impossible. Indeed, we must begin with the history of the Church of our order far beyond the limits of the city and far beyond the present cen- tury, which has witnessed such a development of church life. Congregationalism is more a development of Christianity under God's providence and by His Spirit than a denomi- nation. It is a great principle or body of principles of free, progressive, expanding, evangelical Christianity, embodied at last in free churches.

There are four theories or doctrines of the Christian Church, namely :

"(1) Fellowship and unity on the princi- ple of infallible primacy, which emerges in the Papacy.

"(2) Fellowship and unity on the princi- ple of apostolic succession, which emerges in Episcopacy.

"(3) Fellowship and unity on the princi- ple of authoritative representation, which emerges in Presbyterianism.

"(4) Fellowship and unity on the princi- ple of church independency, which emerges in Congregationalism."

In these four theories fellowship is a com- mon factor and unity a common end sought, but sought by a different principle in each and destined to success or failure according to the truth or fallacy of the theory. These four theories are actual theories and have re- spectively developed into or dominated large communions.

In order of age, says an eminent authority, they are: First, Congregational; second, Presbyterial ; third, Episcopal; fourth, Papal. In the order of historic development they are: First, the Papal ; second, the Episcopal ; third, the Presbyterial ; fourth, the Congrega- tional.

We take, of course, the last of these four theories of the Christian Church, distin- guished by the two facts that it is oldest in principle and latest in development. Church historians conceive that the primitive churches were as absolutely independent one of the other as were the "synagogues or clubs from which they came;" that there was at first no organic system of fellowship between

the independent churches, and when such fellowship arose it was without the exercise of authority. Here is a true definition of Con- gregationalism: "The Congregational theory of the Christian Church is that the kingdom of Heaven, being itself one, has but one nor- mal manifestation or natural development, which appears first in individual churches, equal in origin, rights, functions and duties, which are consequently independent one of another in matters of control; then in associ- ations of churches, without authority, by which the fraternity and unity of all Chris- tians are expressed and the churches co- operate in Christian labors, all being subject to Christ alone and to His revealed will. It shuns independency on the one hand, with which it is sometimes confounded, and on the other hand the exercise of authority by asso- ciated churches. It also avoids all minis- terial or prelatical rule." Its constitutive principle is "the independence under Christ of each fully constituted Church of Christ, or the autonomy under Christ of every local congregation of believers duly organized."

A principle of Congregationalism is, of course, fellowship; but since fellowship is common to all polities and should never be spoken of as a principle peculiar to any one of them, since the fundamental idea of the Church of Christ is "the communion of saints," the distinctive principle of Congre- gationalism is the independence of the local church. Growing out of this constitutive principle, in the order of development, is therefore :

(1) The local congregation of believers, having power of self-government under Christ, to manage all its internal affairs, com- plete, autonomous, independent of external control.

(2) These independent churches in the closest relation to one another in fellowship. a fraternity or brotherhood, with obligations and duties that bind them into associations of communion, assistance, co-operation.

(3) This fellowship finding expression in councils of churches to inquire and advise in matters of common concern.

(4) That fellowship widening out into :

(a) District associations or confer- ences.

(b) State associations or conferences. (c) National associations.

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN ST. LOUIS.

(d) And finally, general councils of all national associations, or, in other words, an ecumenical as- ciation.

So the statement is true that, "when organ- ized, as it some time will be, the Congrega- tional theory of the Christian Church will have reached ecumenical comprehension.

This development will be normal from be- ginning to end, with no introduction of for- eign elements, with no damage to the liberty of local churches. Its constitutive principle dominates fellowship in every stage of its widening development."

This Congregational theory is simple ; it is comprehensive; it is consistent; it is living and revolutionary. As has well been said of it, "It bears in its bosom popular govern- ments, democracies in the nations, because first in the churches. It makes all men broth- ers, under one Father, in essential equality. It makes the people of the Lord free-a king- dom and priests unto God." It withholds from any the power of "lording it" over God's heritage. And so this theory of church gov- ernment, by its very leveling power, has been opposed by aristocracies and hierarchies "as no other polity has ever been or can ever be. Yet it still lives, to contend for mastery ; for the life of God is in it." Indeed, "the in- fluence of this theory of the church upon lib- erty in the state has been immense." Indeed, we may say with one of the keenest minds, "It laid the foundations of this republic, and may even claim the form of its development." "The church," says Palfrey's History of New England, "was the nucleus about which the neighborhood constituting a town was gath- ered ;" and no institution "has had more in- fluence on the condition and character of the people" than these little towns of New Eng- land, which were republics in themselves. "The germ of our state," it has been well said, "and national institutions was this town church, and this church was democratic and Congregational." "To Robert Browne be- longs the honor of first setting forth in writ- ing the scheme of free church government" -this "government of the people, by the peo- ple and for the people."

Congregationalism is, therefore, a spiritual democracy, and as we grow more and more intelligent as a people, and more and more virtuous as a people, such spiritual democracy must make itself felt. "The most significant

fact of modern history," says Hatch's "Origin of Early Christianity," "is that within the last hundred years many millions of our own race and our own church, without departing from the ancient faith, have slipped from beneath the inelastic framework of the ancient organ- ization and formed a group of new societies on the basis of a closer Christian brotherhood and an almost absolute democracy." The church, "in the first ages of its history, while on the one hand it was a great and living faith, so on the other hand it was a vast and organized brotherhood. And, being a broth- erhood, it was a democracy."

To write the history of Congregationalism, therefore, for this or for any city, is more than merely to give dates of formation of the churches bearing its distinctive name, with their numbers and membership. It is the rather to analyze the principles and elements from which those churches spring and which they exemplify. It is to seek the original efforts and influence of the constitutive prin- ciple of Congregationalism and then of the system as it has developed and produced results. If we follow the history of Congre- gationalism in St. Louis as a development of Christianity, under God's providence and by His Spirit, the local history of development during the present century is in outline this :

In 1811 Stephen Hempstead and family, Congregationalists from New London. Con- necticut, followed two sons who had come a few years earlier to Missouri, and finally settled at Bellefontaine. Appalled by the re- ligious destitution, and missing church privi- leges and wishing for them, he wrote to Dr. Channing, of Boston, doubtless with the idea that that was a source of wealth and benevo- lence, appealing for a minister, and saying that he thought a thousand families at least had already come into Missouri with religions preferences. The division between the evan- gelical Congregationalists and the Unitarians had not then openly developed, and was not publicly acknowledged till some years later, when Dr. Channing led off in the separation. No answer seems to have come to Mr. Hempstead's request to Dr. Channing. Had a favorable response come it is impossible to say what would have been the effect on those who finally became Unitarians in Boston and vicinity, especially if their great leader, in person or by proxy. in heeding the call from this then far West, had led his wealthy fol-

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN ST. LOUIS.

lowers into a great home missionary move- ment thitherward. But that was not destined to be. The rupture between the two orders had not taken place; moreover, there were other movements on foot. The Congrega- tionalists had formed their Home Missionary Society in Massachusetts in 1799, but their efforts were chiefly directed to Maine, Ver- mont and New York, to which emigration from Massachusetts then chiefly flowed, as Maine was then a part of Massachusetts, Vermont was a new State, and Massachusetts had obtained a large portion of land in west- ern New York, on account of a grant in its original character. This was one fact. There was also another, and that was a controversy between the orthodox and evangelical move- ment of Congregationalism, especially toward foreign missions, and Unitarianism, and this was absorbing attention.

Then, too, the Connecticut Home Mission- ary Society, organized in 1798, had its atten- tion specially called to its own people settling in northeastern Ohio on the lands reserved to that State when it surrendered to the United States Government its chartered claims to the lands running west in its own latitude, and for that reason called "The Western Re- serve," and sent missionaries early to them and further west to the then Territory of Michigan and other parts of the Northwest Territory, now numerous and great, populous States of the interior of our country.

But what called direct attention to St. Louis was the following: The Rev. Samuel J. Mills, failing to be sent as a foreign mis- sionary, received commission from that so- ciety-the Connecticut Home Missionary Society-to explore West and South, and in 1812 came down the Ohio, crossed southern Illinois, but was warned that it was not quite safe to come as a Protestant missionary to St. Louis, and so went south to Memphis and New Orleans and formed the first Presbyte- rian Church in those cities. His report kindled great interest in Connecticut and Massachusetts regarding this portion of our country. Mr. Mills also was so interested hé came again in 1814. and this time visited St. Louis, preaching in Mr. Hempstead's house, distributed Bibles and raised $300 for 'Bible work. This was one of the causes underlying the origin of the American Bible Society, in 1816, as a national society. Some have thought this preaching by Mr. Mills the first

Protestant preaching in St. Louis, but this can hardly be true, for there is evidence that a Baptist minister had preached once before and Methodist circuit riders years before, although they did it in defiance of the local laws of the Spanish and French authorities in that town, forbidding any but Catholic settlers to come. These preachers, disregard- ing those local laws against Protestant preaching, crossed after dark from Illinois, held services in the night and returned be- fore morning. There is also this to be said, this preaching was not perhaps within the bounds of the present city of St. Louis, but at other places in the State; for the first Methodist Church in the city was not formed till 1820. A few others in the State were formed earlier. Mr. Mills' work, as we have seen, was only transient and preparatory ; he gave himself up subsequently to the foreign missionary work. But the first permanent effort in church organization was made by Rev. Salmon Giddings, from Hartford, Con- necticut. Mr. Giddings was graduated from Williams College, 1811; Andover Theologi- cal, 1814; ordained under commission by the Connecticut Home Missionary Society in the Congregational Church, Hartford, December, 1815; journeyed on horseback and reached St. Louis April 6, 1816, where he found no Protestant Church and could not succeed in organizing one till November 15, 1817, when nine members united in forming the First Presbyterian Church of St. Louis; five of these were Congregationalists-Mr. Hemp- stead and family and connections. This or- ganization was named Presbyterian doubtless because it was thought such a form of church government better fitted to gather in those who came from the Southern States and from Pennsylvania, where that denomination pre- vailed. Thus the Congregational and Pres- byterian Churches began the work in St. Louis and were united in the home work. Those great bodies of Christian workers were united for years in the foreign work-down, in fact, to 1870. Indeed, the A. B. C. F. M., to-day the largest organization in the Con- gregational Church, has still a prominent Presbyterian for its vice president. We refer to D. Willis James, of New York; and his father-in-law, W. E. Dodge, occupied before him the same position. So closely related have the two great bodies East and West been, and so close they still are, that many

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN ST. LOUIS.

Presbyterian members and churches still con- tribute to the A. B. C. F. M. In his work Rev. Mr. Giddings also organized nine churches in Missouri and eight in Illinois-all Presbyterian-and led several ministers to come from New England as home mission- aries, and he and they were all the time supported by the Connecticut and Massachu- setts Home Missionary Societies, till the formation of the American Home Missionary Society, in 1826, when that society assumed their support and the State societies became auxiliary to it. That grand society did an immense work in all this portion of our coun- try, but to recount it, or even to follow up all its work in St. Louis and vicinity, would be beyond the province of this review. We may truly say that, as the Missouri and Mis- sissippi mingle their waters in one river, so the waters of the stream of Congregational- ism and Presbyterianism were mingled in the great river of salvation, which has continued to flow in St. Louis for more than three quar- ters of a century. But we can notice only a few of the many facts of this earlier history. For example, Rev. Artemas Bullard, the most prominent pastor of the First Presby- terian Church from 1838 to 1855-called "the second founder in the seventy-fifth anniver- sary"-was a Congregationalist from Wor- cester County, Massachusetts, and went back to that State and collected large sums from the Congregationalists for a Presbyterian College at Webster and for other church pur- poses, as also did others. In 1845 he led ten ministers from New England Congregational Churches, five of them from Andover Sem- inary, to come to Missouri and aid in building up Presbyterian Churches. Several pastors of various Presbyterian Churches in St. Louis owed their education and early religious training and their membership to Congrega- tional Churches. Congregationalism and Presbyterianism, therefore, were combined in the early preaching of the gospel and the formation of Protestant Churches-and Con- gregationalism could do it, or thought it could do it, for it was behind and builded church and State and college in New Eng- land. It had its Harvard, its Yale, its Dart- mouth, and subsequently its Amherst and its Williams to train its men.

But why was no Congregational Church formed in St. Louis during all its early years of growth from about 2,000 inhabitants, when

Mr. Giddings came, to nearly or quite 100,000 in 1852? Almost all other denominations had churches, and the Presbyterians had formed some seven of various kinds before any efficient attempt was made to gather a regular Congregational organization. Va- rious causes combined in this delay in the progress of Congregationalism in St. Louis, some general and some local. In the first place, as we have already said, the Congre- gationalists had largely pre-empted New England with their heritage of strong churches and colleges, and the questions that were pressing the body in the East either be- came too absorbing or the denomination did not consider enough the beauty and fitness of its own democratic form of government for new and growing States, and indeed many Congregationalists thought a more central- ized form of church government was better adapted for the new country, and did not at the time realize what afterward became so plain until they had given away hundreds and thousands of organizations. There is a sec- ond reason in the fact that, while Congrega- tionalism has never been anything other than a vigorous system, it has always been over- generous ; or, in other words, more eager to propagate and support what Dr. Ross has so aptly called the church kingdom rather than a denomination. A spirit of liberality has always pervaded the Congregational Church. It has contributed a very large share "to found institutions of learning East and West, and to carry on missionary work at home and abroad." This is to its credit rather than otherwise. So that whatever loss it may have sustained has not been due to the lack of vitality, but to the disregard of so-called de- nomination and the appropriation of its fruits by others.

There is another reason for the delay in the progress of the denomination in the plan of union between the Congregationalists of Connecticut and the Presbyterians, adopted in 1801, by which they agreed not to form rival churches where one would answer all the needs of smaller communities, intended for good. This actually operated to the pre- vention of the free progress of our churches all through portions of the country. The difference between the two has been well thus put : To Congregationalists evangelism was everything, the propagation of a polity noth- ing. With Presbyterians the former was to

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN ST. LOUIS.

be done, but the latter was not to be left un- done. Each preferred his own system. The Presbyterian took care of his; the Congrega- tionalist left his to take care of itself. Hence, under the plan of union, it became the chief privilege of Congregational missionaries to build up Presbyterianism in the West. Where Congregationalism was thoroughly estab- lished and united and working definitely it grew stronger and stronger, as in New Eng- land; but in newer portions of the country, first in the middle States and then throughout the West and Southwest, where Congrega- tionalism was in a formative and dependent state, Presbyterianism, with its more concen- trated government, easily gained the suprem- acy and held it firmly. As has well been said, however, "If Presbyterianism has secured any part of our birthright it is because we have surrendered it; the fault was not that they loved their polity too well, but that we did not love ours enough." Thus it came about in regard to the work carried on by the American Home Missionary Society that, though "most of the means and the men for this work were furnished by Congregational- ism, every church organized by the mission- aries for an average of some twenty years was Presbyterian." It was magnificent gen- erosity, but was not good denominationalism. There was also a tendency among the early Congregationalists of Connecticut toward more authority over individual churches than in Massachusetts and other New England States. The consociation, which was a "mid- dle way between Presbyterianism and Con- gregationalism," as compared with the asso- ciation and conference was more potent in Connecticut during periods of early history than in other parts of New England. This Presbyterianized form of Congregationalism had for a time its influence in the Connecticut Home Missionary Society, which was more or less a center of power, as we have already seen, for the propagation of the gospel in the West and Southwest. Then Presbyterians were a more compact body. Ministers, also, often thought their position more secure, authoritative and permanent under the Presbyterian system than in popular Con- gregationalism.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. II, Part 17

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n Publication date: 1901 Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors Number of Pages: 800

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 800