m THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE OF CONNECTICUT. THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE OF CONNECTICUT THE CENTURY CO. NEW-YORK Copyright, 1883, by THE CENTURY Co. THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE OF CONNECTICUT. I. THE first of the many snow-storms that made memorable the winter of eighteen hundred and seventy-five had just fallen on the smooth roads of New Albion ; a slight thaw with a following frost had polished up the sleighing, and two hearty-looking gentlemen, behind a powerful gray horse that needed no urging, were taking their first taste of the winter pastime. They seemed to be enjoying it ; for, as they flew past the pedestrians toiling along the sidewalk, their faces shone and their laughter rang merrily. The one who held the reins was a man of forty, smooth-shaven, but for a narrow, brown side-whisker; with a clear and fair skin, into which the stinging winter air was bringing a healthy crimson tint ; a strong chin, a well chiseled nose and brow, a blue eye, and a kindly smile. You would have guessed he was a clergy- man, and would have missed ; he was the cashier and manager of the First National Bank of New 2 THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE Albion. The other was perhaps a little younger, with dark skin, full beard, and bright, black eye ; his figure was slight but well made, and he wore a gray ulster, and a sealskin cap without a visor ; a journalist, you would have said, or perhaps an artist, and would have been wrong again ; for he was the Rev. Theodore Strong, pastor of the Second Congregational Church in the same thriving town. The cashier, Mr. Franklin, was his parishioner, and had been his college class- mate ; the old friendship had been the cause of the minister's location in his present pastorate, and was now one of its strong supports. Old Major, the good gray horse, had learned well the way to the parsonage, before which he used often to halt after banking hours ; whence the parson, if he was to be had, was whirled away for a breezy hour or two on the country roads. These drives with his old friend were unadulterated recreation. It was a distinct understanding between them that the cares of the bank and the parish were always to be left behind. " No shop, now, old fellow ! " Franklin had said when he came for his friend the first time ; " religion and business ought to be mixed some- times, no doubt; but, for you and me, just now, rest is both business and religion." To such a respite the hard- worked parson was nothing loth, and the hours thus spent were full OF CONNECTICUT. 3 of the keenest delight. All anxieties being resolutely left behind, the minds of both friends were free to take in every fresh phase of roadside beauty, every new glory of sky or river or meadow. Other common pleasures they had in books and studies beyond the range of their work, of which they communed with much invigorating conversation ; while, as each was a good story-teller and sure to pick up a budget of mirthful anecdote, their discourse was plenti- fully spiced with fun. It must not be inferred that the banker always refused to consult with the pastor about the parish work ; on the contrary, he was his most trusted and judicious counselor ; it was only that these hours of recreation were sacredly guarded from the intrusion of professional anxieties. On this December afternoon the talk had ranged widely as usual, and had kept clear, as usual, of all work-day topics, when, suddenly, Mr. Strong, in a tone half apologetic, broke out : " 'Ware, Walt ! I'm coming perilously near to the Second Parish in my next remark as near as Bradford." " Twenty miles ! Rather dangerous ! Well, go ahead ; but see that you keep your distance." " The matter is this : Johns, of the East Church, in that metropolis, is trying to start a 4 THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE Congregational club, into which he wants to gather all of that ilk in this region, representa- tives, at any rate, of all the principal churches ; he has written me to come up to help him incu- bate the project. Shall I go ? " "Yes, go, and 'sit on it' hard." " You are explicit, as usual. Now tell me why. Don't you like Congregational clubs ? " " Never tried one. But clubs are generally wooden things. What is it proposed to do with this one ? " " Oh, there is to be a supper, of course, once a month ; and a paper read by somebody after supper, and a discussion of the paper, and a general powwow after the discussion." " Just so. Stuff, talk, that's a club. But what special topics do you think this one will be most apt to light on ? " " Denominational topics, largely, of course ; how to consolidate our churches ; how to increase the esprit du corps ; how to promote our various benevolent enterprises." " Certainly. It is part of a movement to stiffen the last syllable of that sesquipedalian sectarian substantive, ' Congregatdonaltro*,' I do not like the name at all, and the sting in its tail, which it is now proposed to sharpen and harden, is the part I like least." "There you go again," laughed the parson. " It's a downright insult, Major, when a man OF CONNECTICUT. e r with such a horse as you are insists on riding a hobby." " Oh, well," continued the banker, " there's nothing particularly sinful in this indulgence that the Bradford Congregationalists propose ; doubtless, the fellows who like to run things will enjoy it much, but I doubt if the outcome is valuable. There will be some increase of good- fellowship, and much burning of incense under the nose of the idol of the tribe. The more per- fect the success of the club shall be, the further off will be the practical cooperation to which we must come at last." " There is truth in what you say," answered the parson ; " and I own that I am coming more arid more to your way of thinking about such matters. But when two ride a hobby one must ride behind, and I am not yet quite so fierce a foe of the sects as you are." For a few moments there was silence, broken only by the click of Major's hoofs upon the icy road and the sough of the wind through the pine forest by the side of which they were driving. " Look here, Theo," the banker at length con- tinued, " couldn't we do a better thing?" " Several things, no doubt But what, for instance ?" " Couldn't we organize a Christian League Club here in New Albion?" g THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE * " Softly, softly, sir ; you are breaking over bounds." " I know I am ; but you began it." "And what was said, a few minutes ago, about clubs?" " I remember ; but there are clubs and clubs. This need not be a wooden one indeed, it couldn't be ; it would have to be made on a very pliable pattern. " Show us how." " The thing has no shape in my own mind yet ; but why shouldn't we strike for a little practical Christian union in this town ? We have enough of the sentimental sort, and bad enough it is. The union meetings of the week of -prayer always bring out the prayer-meeting rounders, men who have no standing in their own churches nor among their fellow-citizens ; men like old Bill Snodgrass, who can reel off cant by the fathom, and whose word, in any business transaction, is as good as his bond only because neither of them is worth a row of pins. There never is a union meeting in which Bill doesn't exalt his horn at least twice. Then there is young Cyrus Smiley, the effusive and irrepres- sible, and Tom Trafton, the censorious sputterer, whose prayers are mainly digs at the ministers." " I know it," broke in Mr. Strong, greatly amused at the vivid characterization of his OF CONNECTICUT. j friend. " But have you heard Trafton's last on his own pastor?" " No ; what was it ?" " Dr. Sampson told me the story himself. You know that Tom has taken a special dislike to the Doctor, and betrays it in all his prayers. The other night, in the prayer-meeting, he said, in his jerky way : ' O Lord, grant that our temp'r'l food may not be so skerse and poor as the spir- itooal food pervided for us ; for ef it is, we sh'll all be in the poor-house within six months.' ' Franklin laughed. " Tom outdid himself that time. Think of let- ting such a creature loose in a prayer-meeting ! But that is the sort of person that revels in union meetings. At home he can be suppressed, at least in part; but a joint service of the churches gives him vent. So that, practically, our attempt at Christian union consists mainly in meeting together a few times a year, to be rasped and disgusted by these persons who put themselves forward as the representatives of our common Protestantism. Now, I wonder whether some plan could not be devised by which the real people in our churches could be brought into working union, and the flood-trash kept out" "Yes, that's the question. But you don't seem to get ahead very fast in answering it." " Patience, patience, young man ! We'll work g THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE this thing out, but it will take time. The fact is, New Albion is an excellent place to start such an experiment. The relations between the churches are amicable ; there has been no un- necessary multiplication of religious societies as yet; there are no churches here that ought to be killed, except one or two colored churches ; the population is intelligent, the ministers are all good friends; the thing can be done." " Undoubtedly, my eloquent friend ; but what thing ?" " We can have a meeting, from time to time, of the ministers and certain representative men of the various churches, to consult about the interests of morality and religion in this com- munity. That's the dry bones of it." " The next question is how to make these dry bones live." " Yes, and you must help me solve that. Your practical tact and skill in managing people come in play just here." " Thank you ! I wish devoutly that something of the sort could be brought about, and I v/ill do my best to devise a feasible way of accom- plishing it. But it must be managed cautiously. Don't flush your game !" Old Major had arrived at the parsonage, and the parson dismounted, with a promise to give the matter of which they had been talking early and full attention. II. THE problem which we have seen the banker and the parson getting ready to attack is a knotty and an ifrgent one. How to bring the Christian churches of our country into practical unity ; this is a question round about which a great deal of talk has been going on, but to the careful consideration of which but few minds have been turned. All the discussion has vibrated between two points : the desirableness of a spiritual fellowship among denominations, and the feasibility of an organic union of the denominations. A great multitude agree in say- ing that the sects ought to dwell together in unity, that is to say, that the ministers ought to exchange pulpits, and that members ought to pass freely by letter from one church to another, and that Christians ought to meet now and then in union meetings, and say pleasant things in their prayers and speeches about one another, and sing together " Blest be the tie that binds," I0 THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE and so on. So much of Christian union as this, nearly everybody believes in. The more strenu- ous sectarians stick at some of these points, but not very persistently ; to refuse this much in- volves some measure of opprobrium. But there are many who insist that, while Christian union may have this extent, it can have no more ; that it is vain, and, indeed, rather sacrilegious to ask for anything beyond this. Others declare that this sentimental union is of no value ; that what we want and must have is organic union, a consolidation of all the sects into one church, so that Protestantism shall stand over against Romanism, compact and united, all under one central government, moving with well ordered and harmonious march to the conquest of the world. These two conceptions have divided between them the debaters about Christian unity ; and it must be owned that each side brings against the other arguments that are well- nigh unanswerable. The believers in what is called spiritual unity insist that the organic unity asked for is impossible ; the believers in organic unity declare that spiritual unity, as it now exists, is of very little consequence. Some abatement of these extreme views must, indeed, be made on both sides. The measure of unity to which the churches have already at- tained is by no means to be despised ; their OF CONNECTICUT. l l relations are vastly better than they were forty years ago, when Presbyterians or Congregation- alists had no more dealings with Methodists or Baptists than the Jews once had with the Samar- itans ; when keen contempt and bitter abuse were common currency among the sects. It is not a slight, but an important gain, that Christians of all names are able now to meet together on friendly terms in social worship. On the other side, it is too much to say that the dream of the Church existing as one compact body can never be realized. Stranger things than that have come to pass. The truth lies about midway between these disputants. The spiritual unity to which we have attained, though not worthless, is ridicu- lously inadequate to the present need of the Church ; and the organic unity for which we are exhorted to labor, though it may not be impos- sible, is yet a long way off. Is there not, some- Avhere between the emotional fellowship of the present and the organized ecclesiasticism of the future, a measure of cooperation that is both desirable and attainable ? This was the problem to which the practical mind of Mr. Walter Frank- lin had turned. He was a man, as his pastor well knew, who had a way of bringing things to pass ; and Mr. Strong was not therefore sur- prised, at the close of the next Sunday evening's service, to be joined at the church door by his 12 THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE friend, with an ominous gleam of speculation in his eyes. "Pretty well used up to-night, Theo ?" he queried. The Romans knew how to convey more delicately the hope of a negative answer. " Not at all," said the minister, who never knew on Sunday night how tired he was. " Fresh as a lark. Come home with me, and we'll have it out." "Have what out ?" " That matter that you're eager to talk about You have done bravely in keeping away till the Sunday work was over, and I haven't the heart to put you off any longer. Come on." " Seems to me I have detected a few delicate allusions to it in sermons and prayers to-day. Your mind's as full of it as mine is, dissembler ! And I'm only going over with you to find out your plans." " Well," said the parson, as he let his friend in at the door of the parsonage, " it has been on my mind now and then, I own. And the place to begin is Jerusalem. I saw Dr. Phelps last week, and, in talking about church sociables and so forth, I asked him why the Old Church did not sometimes invite their neighbors to their festivities. He took me up at once, of course, and told me very cordially to come over to their sociable on Tuesday evening, and to bring along OF CONNECTICUT. 13 a good delegation of the Second Church people. I replied that it was rather hard to be obliged to beg an invitation ; but that I should pocket my humiliation and go, which seemed to please the old gentleman mightily. So I want you and your wife, and Deacon Hunter and his wife, and Shaw and his mother, and the Burnham girls, and a few others a dozen or fifteen of our wide-awake people to meet here on Tuesday night, and we will go over in a body and take 'em by storm." " Capital ! " exclaimed Franklin. " The church sociable is one of the strongholds of sectarian exclusiveness ; if we can capture that and turn its guns upon the enemy, one great point will be gained." " There is no need of despising the church sociable," replied the minister. " It serves a good purpose, and is no more accountable than the Church itself for ' sectarian exclusiveness.' Human nature is to blame for that, not the Church, nor the sociable." " But I am not talking about remote causes," persisted the banker. " What I see is this : the church sociables in most of our villages and large towns cut up society into cliques. Active and zealous church members find but little time for the cultivation of social relations beyond the bounds of their own parishes. I have heard it !4 THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE said, more than once, by intelligent citizens, that there is not much general social intercourse among the best people of this town, and that the fault lies at the doors of the churches. The First Church people are a set by themselves, and so are the Second Church people, and the Episco- palians, and the Baptists, and all the rest. The devotion of the church members to their own societies hinders the development of a broad, social life." " That is true," answered Strong, " and there is something here to regret, beyond question. Nevertheless, there are compensations, which you, Walter Franklin, must not overlook. If the churches have somewhat hindered the culti-- vated classes outside of the large cities from con- sorting together, they have also helped to bring together the cultivated and the uncultivated classes, and that is one of the things that most need to be done. They have substituted verti- cal lines of division in society for horizontal ones. Bad as the church cliques are, they are not so bad as the stratifications of social aestheticism. But I am not defending social exclusiveness in the churches ; I am trying to overcome it, as a step toward something higher." " You are perfectly right, and you may count on me. We will be on hand Tuesday evening. Good-night ! " OF CONNECTICUT. l $ It was a merry company that followed Mr. Strong into the parlors of the First Church ; and though they were received at first with polite bewilderment, it was not long before hospitality and good-fellowship asserted themselves in the heartiest fashion. The hosts exerted themselves to entertain their guests, voted the innovation a delightful one, and promised to return the visit. This was the beginning of a series of fraterniza- tions among the churches of New Albion ; none were neglected ; the Adventists, who worshiped in Central Hall, and the two colored churches, were surprised in their turn by visiting delega- tions from the other churches that dropped in at their prayer-meetings, and stopped afterward to shake hands and to say a few pleasant words. So far as it could be done socially, the ecclesias- tical entente cordiale was fairly established in this prosperous town. All this was so much of the nature of a recre- ation, that the banker and his friend excepted it from the list of forbidden subjects, and often chanted the praises of Christian fraternity to the music of Major's sleigh-bells. " It is all excellent, so far as it goes," said the banker, one day in January ; " but I want to see the thing put on a business basis. The im- provement in the social relations of the churches is a great gain ; it signifies vastly more to have r g THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE the people meet in this friendly way, and show each other neighborly courtesies, than to have them talk the cant of Christian union now and then in a prayer-meeting but it is not enough. We want some method by which this fraternity shall have a distinct and influential expression." " Exactly," answered the parson ; " we have been getting up steam ; now we want to utilize our power. How shall we do it ? " " I thought you were managing the business," replied Franklin ; " but, since you ask the ques- tion, I'll give you my idea. Let us have a little party at my house some evening, including the ministers and about three of the best members of each church, and see what comes of it." " How shall the three best members of each church be chosen ? " " We must choose them ourselves. We know this community well enough to pick our men." The preparation of this list was not, however, an easy matter, as the banker and his pastor found. Mr. Franklin's knowledge of the business standing of the " leading members " served to thin out Mr. Strong's ample catalogue of nominees. " Rodney Merrill ? Yes ; he's a good talker, but his word doesn't stand for much. Better put young Porter, the carpenter, in his place. Stevenson ? H'm ! He's a customer of mine ; but I don't like his way of doing business. OF CONNECTICUT. l y Montgomery ? I've got some memoranda on Montgomery. He failed not. long ago ; and not ten days before the collapse he borrowed a thousand dollars at our bank, solemnly assur- ing me that he had not less than twenty thou- sand dollars in available assets, and not more than five thousand dollars of debts. The in- ventory showed that his .figures were exactly right, only the debts were twenty thousand, and the assets five. It was a mere slip of the tongue, no doubt; but we'll pass Montgomery. This com- pany must be a clean one, and there is no lack of sound and reputable men in our churches." " How about the colored brethren ? " queried Mr. Strong. " The colored brethren must be left out," was the answer ; " not for social, but for ecclesias- tical reasons. One of the first duties of this league of ours, if it ever gets into operation, will be the suppression of these colored churches. When the colored people abandon their own organizations, and join the other churches, they may come in as representatives from them. We will have no color-line in the Christianity for which this club stands. I'll go as far as any other man in fraternizing with colored men ; but with colored churches, never. The secta- rianism whose only basis is the color of the skin is the meanest kind of sectarianism." 2 III. OUT of the thirty-two persons invited, thirty, representing all of the eight churches of New Albion, gathered in Mr. Franklin's parlors on the sixteenth of January. The clergymen were all present, and the absentees were not conspic- uous. Tea was served in the parlors, and Mr. Franklin was amused to see how completely sectarian lines were blotted out in "the grouping of the guests about the small tables. To the eye of the social devotee it would have seemed, no doubt, a mixed multitude people of all grades of society were here ; but the hospitality was so frank and hearty, and the entertainment of such a simple sort, that the humblest people were at their ease. And what was of more con- sequence, these people were all known to one another as being engaged in various kinds of benevolent work in the community ; the camer- aderie of Christian service was a stronger bond than that by which most social circles are drawn together. Dr. Emmons Hopkins Phelps, the 18 THE CHRISTIAN LEAGUE. ICj venerable and well beloved pastor of the " First Church of Christ in New Albion," was tcte-a- tete with the Rev. Murray Henderson, the young pastor of the Universalists ; Dr. Thomas Samp- son, the stalwart wit and excellent scholar, who adorned the pulpit of the Baptist Church, was cheek by jowl with the genial Dr. Philip Strick- land, of St. Mark's Episcopal Church ; and here and there Congregational deacons were sand- wiched between Episcopal vestrymen and Methodist stewards. " What are you going to do with your happy family when you get them trained ? " asked the Rev. John Wesley Thorpe, Methodist, of the beaming host. "Travel with 'cm," was the prompt answer. " Take 'em up to Hardscrabble and West North- field, and over to Hockset, and show 'cm to the natives for ten cents admission, the proceeds to be divided equally among the home missionary societies of the several denominations." " Such a show would be a great curiosity in those parts, no doubt," said the clergyman. " But my friend Peters, here, thinks that the saints in Hardscrabble would be horrified to see Dr. Phelps eating and drinking with a Uni- versalist." " It is somewhat bewildering, I own," replied the banker.