CONGREGATIONALISM IN THE SOUTH.
2. Since the War.
DIST. SEC. C. L. WOODWORTH, BOSTON.
The denomination which took possession of this country in the name of Christ, which brought in the cabin of the Mayflower the model of a democratic state, as well as of a democratic church, was, practically, ruled out of the South for two hundred and fifty years. Only since 1865 has it been possible for her to enter the South in all the largeness of her freedom and of her faith. If it now be asked, What has she to show for these thirteen years of opportunity among the poorest of the poor, we answer, “Something of which she need not be ashamed.”
Within five months from the time when the first gun of the rebellion sent its shot at the heart of the Union, Congregationalism, through the American Missionary Association, was at Fortress Monroe with bread and clothing, with books and Bibles, with teachers and preachers. Nor was this the only channel of its charity to the needy. It maintained a vast work of physical relief during and after the war, through the New England and National Freedmen’s Aid Societies, and through agencies of more private bounty. And not alone in the way of physical relief, but a large number of teachers were sent out by these same agencies, and kept in the field for years and years. They have passed away, indeed, but the amount expended by them was very large, how large we will not try to estimate even approximately.
The Society first in the field alone remains to do the work for the Congregational churches. No sooner had General Butler established himself at Fortress Monroe than the Association pushed in its workers among the unhoused, half-clothed, half-starved thousands of contrabands that had flocked inside his lines. From that beginning, in 1861, the work has spread into every Southern State, and though its income and its working force are scarcely half what they were in 1870, yet it is among the great societies which our churches cherish and love. It has just completed seventeen full years of labor on the Southern field, and the number of laborers sent out year by year are tabulated below:
| Teachers | |
| 1862 | 15 |
| 1863 | 83 |
| 1864 | 250 |
| 1865 | 300 |
| 1866 | 353 |
| 1867 | 528 |
| 1868 | 532 |
| 1869 | 532 |
| 1870 | 533 |
| 1871 | 321 |
| 1872 | 346 |
| 1873 | 323 |
| 1874 | 273 |
| 1875 | 260 |
| 1876 | 206 |
| 1877 | 203 |
| 1878 | 209 |
| ————— | |
| Total No. of Teachers | 5,267 |
The tangible results of this work, as they appear in permanent Christian institutions, and their natural outcome in the South, will be seen in the statement below: