On this page

• Departments (1)
  • 
• Text (3)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    THE WESTERN CHRISTIANS AND REFORMERS.

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    provide for their families , by making their purchases on the Sunday . And that this meeting also strongly recommends to masters , tradesmen , and manufacturers , to discourage the system of pay-tables , or payment of wages in gangs , now too frequently . establish&dj ^ yjbre ^ public-houses . '

    Untitled Article

    36 tfNlTABIAN CHRONICLE .

    Untitled Article

    [ From the Christian Examiner . ] The Western Christians . —The oldest society in the Christian connexion was formed in Portsmouth , New Hampshire , in March , 1803 , The brethren professed to renounce all

    impositions of mere human authority in matters of faith " arid conscience , and to come together on the common ground of believers in the Gospel , each one reserving to himself the right , as a member of the society , to interpret the Gospel according to the light which God should give him- A

    similar movement , not from concert , but from a common feeling of impatience , under the tyranny of established creeds and ecclesiastical judicatories , was made about the same time throughout the United States ; in consequence of which the denomination almost immediately arose into

    consequence , alike for its numbers and its zeal . In New England it consisted for , the mpst part , in . the beginning , of secessions from the regular Baptists ; in the South , of secessions from the Methodists ; in the West , of secessions from the Presbyterians .

    The statistics of the body , from its want of organization , or a regular correspondence among its members , must depend , more than such computations usually do , on conjecture . Mr , Stone , writing in 1829 , makes the number of congregations in the Christian connexion in the United

    States to be 1500 , and the number of communicants to be 150 , 000 ; and allowing , us is usual in such esti- «

    The Western Christians And Reformers.

    THE WESTERN CHRISTIANS AND REFORMERS .

    Untitled Article

    mates , at . " least four hearers , On $ n average , to every communicant , he concludes that the whole number of souls actually under the influence of this denomination must exceed half a million . The Quarterly Register and Journal , in 1830 , gives them 1000 churches , 300 ministers , and ~^ 70 W ~ cl ) rmmTmc ^

    in the second edition of his excellent History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley , published the present year , gives them 200 ministers , 800 congregations , 25 , 000 communicants , and 275 , 000 worshippers . The remarkable discrepancy in these estimates does not appear to have originated in any real or supposed decline of the denomination in

    numbers or influence , during the three last years , taking the whole country together . From the best evidence which we have been able to collect , it is probable that Mr . Stone has not much overstated the present number of congregations in the connexion ; -but that he has overstated , by at least one half , the number of

    communicants , and , nearly m the same proportion , the number of souls otherwise connected with the societies . Mr , Clough , in his letter to Mr . Smallfield , says , that the minutes of the Conferences , in 1827 , gave ' an aggregate of about 500 ministers ; ' they may now amount to 750 . For a time the Christians' had to

    submit , almost universally , and still have to submit , in some places , to a mispronunciation of their name , being called Christ-yans ; but this is passing away everywhere , as a mere vulgarism . Of their distinctive opinions and sentiments it is not easy to speak , as each one appears to have brought into the connexion the peculiar theological prejudices in which he was educated : and it has not been the

    aim or the policy of the party to produce a real or seeming uniformity in matters of mere speculation . Neither have any pains been taken to define with accuracy and precision

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 1, 1833, page 36, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2607/page/4/