, 1876-12-09
a Glance at the Religious Pro-
crcs. OF the Century.


Y. at the General Convention;
During the Centennial period, which
broon with the celebration at Lexington
ON the 18th of April last year, and wh'ch
may be reckoncd as closing with the Iast
day ofthe Philadelphia Exposition, near
IL every phase of our national progress
for A hundred wears has received partlcu-
lar attention. Historical specialists have
carefully CLEANED their respective heIds'
and we have the net products OF tlelr
agricultural, industrial, artistic literary
scientific, political and sectarian research
cs, bound up in one choice centennial
sheaf. One or two matters of very high
Importance have been pretty much over
looked, however. 1t falls in our way le-
ultimately to supply a part OF this mis-
sion, by recalling, too briefly as we must,
a few pivotal facts in the religious his
tory of the country both before and since
the Declaration of Independence,
The fact has never been sufficiently
emphasized that the Pilgrim, Puritan,
and Huguenot colonies began their reig-
iOus careers in America under cOmman
tendency Of liberation. 1t has been Gus
tomary to draw sharp distinction be-
tween the spirit of the Pilgrim who set.
tied in Plymouth and the temper Of the
Puritans who few years later founded
Salem on the opposite side of MNssachu.
sctts Bay. But any one who will take
the trouble to compare the covenant OF
the church instituted at Salem in 1920
the first church organized in America
with the declarations of faith and fellow
ship made 10y the Pilgrim colony at the
same time, will hardly see reason to con.
clude that the Pilgrims held milder
theology than the Purtans or exercised
larger measure Of Christian toleration.
| take the responsibility affirming that
the covenant of the first church IN Salem
has never been improved upon by any
church or any sect since. 1t was cove
nant thoroughly Christian, truly apos-
tolic and comprehensively liberal.
So far as the early church records of
the Pilgrim community throw light on
this point, they indicate similar gentle
ness and catholicity of spirit. 1t would
seem as if the memorable and signifc mt
saying of John Robinson, the Pilgrim
minister, at Delft Haven, just before a
part Of his congregation set sail in the
SpeeaneN and NaHROrer for America ::
II charge you before God and his blessed
angels, that you follow me no farther
than you have seen me follow the Lord
Jesus Christ for the Lord has more
truth yet to break out of his holy Word, y
had given its keynote to the religious
thought Of people who had already
had some taste of both the sweet and tht
bitter Of the freedom Of worship. The
Huguenots, who settled numerous and
always influential communities, first r
New York as early as 1929, and subse
quentIy in Rhode Island, Massachusetts
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia an,
South Carolina, were uniformly charact
erized by the same liberal and traterna
spirit 1t may surprise some Of my hear
ers to learn that the Presbyterians, who
established their first church in thi
country in 1890, were at the first distin
guished for the simplicity and breadtl
OF their creed and for the freedom o
their organization. 1t was not till fort,
years later, in 1929, that they adopted
the Westminster Catechsm and Comics
sion of Faith.
Now it would be natural to expect
that religious communities started as W,
have seen the most important of our ear
lier settlements were, with tendency t
freedom that found happy expression il
their first covenants, and under the pow
erful impulse to liberal thought and feel
ing derived from the circumstance tina
they had come here to enjoy a libert,
that had been denied them elsewhere
would steadily advance in career of en-
larging Christian federation and catholi
city. 1t presents a curious and by n,
means comforting anomaly in the histor,
of human progress, to find on examina
tion that just the opposite thing iron
what might have been expected actuall
took place. At the time of the reyolu