The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-10-13
FOR CHURCH UNION
WORK OF UNITING CONGREGATIONS
 THE WORLD OVER.

WORK OF UNITING CONGREGATIONS
 THE WORLD OVER.
 Canada, soufk Africa and England are
 Active and Are Watching Move-
 ment in This Country With
 Interest.
 II -e-
 London, Oct, e--(SpeciaL )-The mod | erating, and healing effects of time have | wrought such changes in the religious \ world that denominationai union has ! been made possible in cases where ! dozen years ago such a thing would | have been regarded as impossible. The | recent merger in the British 1sles by which new Methodist Church having | upward of 100000 members was formed ! is an instance.
 The unanimity with which this | great combination of religious forces \ was carried to a conclusion has caused a strong hope hefe that the confer | ence of Congregationalists at Cleye- land, Ohio. will be equally as success | ful in uniting with the Methodist Prot | estants and~the United Brethren. Rat ! ification of the plan of union proposed | by a committee of the three churches l named would be another step toward g moro general movement for closer Tel 1 lowship of Congregationalists. Metho- | dists and Presbyterians throughout the
  | the National Council of Congregational | Churches and England eagerly awaits | the verdict.
 In Canada preliminary steps have been taken for union between the Con- l gregationalists. the Methodists and the Presbyterians. Negotiations will have to continue several years before union can be accomplished, a joint commit tee on union now having the matter in haifa. The Canadian Congregations alists have arrived in their union plans ! in a similar place to that attained by the American Congre egationalists. They favor union, provided the other parties to the negotiations will accept I fundamental Congregational principles, such as the recognition of the inherent independence of the individual church or congregation. and freedom from a l creed to which members of the churches must subscribe. The Congregational | Union of England and Wales has ad- vised the Canadian Congregationalist | to do all that they can to bring about union, but not relinquish these prin- l ciples.
 The movement in South Africa is just taking form, and involves the l Congregationalists and the Presbyte- 1 rians Nothing official has been done, | but leading men in both denominations l have had conferences, and 1t has been | agreed to bring the, matter up in two l oficial assemblies, and to ask the ap- | pointment of committees through which
 negotiations may be conducted. l There were none of these difhcul- | ties in the way of the three Metho- | dist bodies that have just made such 1 a notable piece of church history here. | Three separate lives were merged into one organism to be known as the Uni ted Methodist Church. There was no
 quibbling over doctrine. no discussion l over the division of missionary funds.
 no scramble for office. Enthusiasm
 marked every step. Men who had
 waited and prayed for years, who had | struggled to live to see this union,
 wept with joy as the signatures were
 affixed to the document that sealed the
 merger.
 Of the three uniting congregations
 the Methodist New Connexion Is the
 eldest of the three contracting parties
 and has been in existence for 11O years.
 It represents the first division that took
 place in Methodism after the death of
 John Wesley. The question at issue
 as Is almost all the subsequent divis-
 ions of Methodism, was practically the
 right of the people to place in the government of the church.
 The leader of the agitation was
 Alexander Kilham, who contended TOT |
 order their own form and fix their owr time for religious worship, the rign' of Methodist preachers as apart iron
 clergymen of the Established Churcf to administer the Sacraments. and th'
 right of the people to make and ad'
 minister the laws of Methodism.
 The two first reforms were granted by the conference under what IS knowl
 in Methodist history as "The Plan ol
 Pacifiication,", passed in 1795, but tht third reform was refused, and for ad
 yocating this reform in a pamphlet, MT
 Kilham was expelled from the confer ence in 1796, and in the following year 7 after a deputation to the co01erenc'
 had failed to obtain redress. the Meth odist New Connexion was formed. . The second of the Uniting Churches is the Bible Christian denomination. which has behind it an unbroken and successful history of eighty-ntne years of fervent evangelism. It orignated
 through the remarkably successrui lay l ministry of William O'Bryan, who re- fused to confne his labors within the I narrow bounds of circuit. Because l he would not limit his labors to the . circuit preachers plan he was expelled { from the chapel at Gunwen, in lSl0, a chapel" says Rev. G. Eayrs. in his lit- l tie handbook, the erection of which he had superintended. of which he had given half the cost, and Tor Wnicn ne . had given the freehold, with more lano , for a burial ground"
 The third church, the United Meth
 odist Free Church. is itself a union of
 denominations, each of which had sue
 cessfully striven for certain reforms in
 the Wesleyan Church. and, in conse- quence of their failure. had formed
 themselves into separate denomina- ! tions.
 These controversies have now passed
 into history, and many of the princi- ples for which the separate denomina"
 tions stand have been conceded by the
 Wesleyan Church, and the fact that the historic Uniting Conference took
 place in John Wesley's Chapel is
 proof that all the old bitterness has
 passed away.
 If another proof is needed it is found
 in the fact that the three new memo-
 rial windows of Wesley's Chapel are
 the gift of the three denominations |