Union

Congregationalists, through their National Council, have invited Presbyterians to merge with them. There are no immediate prospects of the consummation of this union, which would create probably the strongest Protestant denomination in the U. S.; but there is every reason to believe that the union will be effected within two or three years.

The basis of union is the so-called "Cleveland Plan," developed by a committee of Congregationalists and Presbyterians in that city. It provides that no creed shall be binding upon the entire membership, but that all individual churches in the union denomination shall regard as valid the creed and ministry of every other church in the union.

This proposal, greeted with enthusiasm by most Presbyterians, now goes to a special Presbyterian committee (which includes J. Ross Stevenson of Princeton, William Pierson Merrill of New York) and will thence be reported to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church next May.

The union church would have 2,600,000 communicants and as many more adherents, principally north of the Mason and Dixon line. Its average annual donations would be close to $75,000,000. (The present ratio of Presbyterians to Congregationalists is about two to one.)

In Revolutionary times great efforts to unite these churches were inspired by Jonathan Edwards (Congregationalist) and John Witherspoon (Presbyterian President of Princeton College).

This year's meeting of 2,800 delegates to the National Council of Congregational Churches at Springfield, Mass., has been regarded as one of the most important in a century. Dr. Rockwell Harmon Potter, famed, good-humored, heavy-set orator of Centre Church, Hartford, was elected Moderator.

The retiring Moderator, William E. Barton of Oak Park, Ill., opened the subject of Church union. He began by rejecting overtures from the Episcopalians. Episcopalian bishops will not admit the validity of Congregational consecration or ordination of ministers, but they offer to reordain them if a merger can thereby be effected. Said Dr. Barton: "I would consider it equally a compliment if it were suggested to me that my children would appear to him [i.e., an Episcopalian bishop] more nearly legitimate if I would consent at this time to a supplemental marriage at the hands of a justice of the peace. . . . Any movement for reunion which is to include the Congregational Church must meet us on a level. We shall assume no spirit of arrogance . . . nor can we admit any implication of their superiority over us."

President Coolidge was elected Honorary Moderator. The next meeting (in 1925) will be held at Washington. Moderator Potter refused to guarantee that the Honorary Moderator would be present.