This inquiry was prompted and intensified, in many cases, by the gradual defection of ministers from the early faith of the churches, resulting often in the alienation from the minister of a majority of the church, while he retained the sympathy of a majority of the parish The legal discovery which both parties made precipitated the crisis to which we have referred. Any statement of the parish system, which did not include the salient points of this decisive period, would be so exceedingly imperfect that we must give them, although in the briefest space that we can command.

The Trojan horse appears to have been carried into the Massachusetts churches in a sentence in the article in the Bill of Rights, which is partly quoted above, carried in without warning, for neither friend nor foe had the suspicion that any danger was lurking within it. The concluding paragraph is as follows:

"Provided, notwithstanding, that the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, shall at all times have the exclusive right of electing their public teachers, and of contracting with them for their support and maintenance."1

On a cursory perusal, this seems to be a suitable provision, harmless and beneficent; the churches at the time so regarded it, and reposed in that security for thirty years. From this dream of safety they were then suddenly aroused. The word "churches," it will be noticed, is not embraced in this enumeration of organizations; "parishes" and "religious societies" are; and the courts were appealed to to decide on the legal status of the churches. Two or three ecclesiastical questions had already come before the civil courts, and had elicited decisions, which, as we all now read them, might properly have been regarded as a warning bell. They were not so read in their day, and our churches were wholly unprepared for the shock. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in the Dedham case, was delivered by Chief Justice Isaac Parker, November, 1820. The following are its main points:

"Where the majority of the members of a Congregational church separate from the majority of the parish, the members who remain, although a minority, constitute the church in such parish, and retain the rights and property belonging thereto.

"As to all civil purposes, the secession of a whole church from the parish would be an extinction of the church; and it is competent to the members of the parish to institute a new church, or to engraft one upon the old

1 Journ. of Conven., 1779-80, 323.

stock, should any remain; and this new church would succeed to all the rights of the old, in relation to the parish.

"The only circumstance which gives a church any legal character is its connection with some regularly constituted society; and those who withdraw from the society cease to be members of the church, and the remaining members continue to be the identical church.

"The non-concurrence of the church in the choice of the minister, and in the invitation to the ordaining council, in no degree impairs the constitutional right of the parish. That council might have refused to proceed, but the parish could not, by that, have been deprived of their minister." 1

This doctrine, of course, makes the church the mere dependence of the parish, having legally no separate organic life. Through the application of their own laws, as interpreted by the court, the ecclesiastical superstructure, which the pious founders of New England had reared with such infinite pains, was by this decision smitten and shattered. Instead of "the world, or civil state raised out of the churches," which had been the vision of the elder Winthrop, it was the world or civil state raised over the churches. The sceptre had departed from Judah :

"At this distance of time, we can hardly understand the powerful religious, as well as legal, effects of this decision, and the discussions it gave rise to. The burning of a minister on Boston Common might have attracted the eyes of Christendom more; more tears would have been shed; but for searching the faith of the Massachusetts man, for making martyrs in all towns, precincts, and parishes, nothing could be devised superior to this far-reaching decision." 2

It took our bewildered churches some time to comprehend fully the situation. They were slow to believe that as churches they were powerless, having no claims to their sanctuaries, their records, their parsonages, their communion furniture, the gifts of the pious dead, with whom they and their fathers had communed, except as they derived it through parishes, with which, in some cases, they had ceased to have any affinity. The attempt, in two or three instances, to retain the records, or communion-plate, brought the question again into the courts, and the previous decision was confirmed. In the Brookfield case, the opinion of the Supreme Court was delivered by Chief Justice Shaw, October, 1830:

"Where a parish or religious society is by its constitution limited to any place, the church of such society is equally limited, being indissolubly connected with such society; so that an adhering minority of the church,

and not a seceding majority, constitutes the church of such parish or religious society, to all civil purposes.

"A church connected with a parish is not a corporation, or quasi corporation, for the purpose of holding property.

"The body of communicants gathered into church order, according to established usage, in any town, parish, precinct, or religious society, established according to law, and actually connected and associated therewith for religious purposes, for the time being, is to be regarded as the church of such society as to all questions of property depending upon that relation.

"Upon the dissolution of the connection between a minister and a parish, he ceases to be the pastor of the church in such society; and a reservation, with the assent of the church and the society, of the right to retain his relation as pastor of such church is nugatory and void.” 1

We can give but one more decision of the Supreme Court, that in the Hollis Street Church case, delivered by Shaw, C. J., March, 1850. For the first time since the new issue was opened, a case is brought into court in which the church, as such, has rights to be protected against the encroachment of the parish.

“The church is a voluntary organization, not a corporation nor a quasi corporation, in the usual sense in which those terms are used; but like a corporation in respect to its power to act by votes and by majorities.

"The funds of a Congregational church, derived from the voluntary contributions of members on communion-days, from other donations not specifically appropriated by the donors, and from accumulations of interest, are held by the church in their own right, to be appropriated at their discretion both as to principal and interest, and not by the deacons in trust for the society connected with the church, or for any purpose of general charity, to be enforced by an information filed by the public prosecutor."

There is here no relaxing of the previous decision. It only decides that while a church remains connected with the society, it can have the control of purely church funds. Should it withdraw, the step would be construed as the act of individuals, and it could not take the communion contributions with it; but while it remains it can appropriate them at its discretion.

Still other points relating to the internal economy of the churches came up for judicial settlement. The scope and force of ecclesiastical councils were swept within the purview of the courts, and legal decisions were announced, defining the functions of councils, both mutual and ex parte.3 Important pecuniary settlements, as notably in the instance of the venerable pastor of Bedford, hinged upon the construction by the courts of the results of council.4

110 Pickering, 172.
8 3 Mass., 182; 9 Mass., 277.

25 Cushing, 345.
4 21 Pickering, 114.

This was the outcome, in one direction, of the parish system, as legalized in Massachusetts. History records that the Moors were invited into Spain to expel an enemy, and remained on the soil as lords and oppressors. A somewhat similar experience had befallen the Congregational churches of Massachusetts. The parishes, or societies, which in their early days they had summoned to their side as servitors and helpers, had become their masters. About eighty of these churches became exiles from the ancient altars and homes of their worship, associated with saintly memories and traditions. More than half of them were driven out as churches, by parish or town votes, gathered often largely from the ranks and the resorts of the notoriously ungodly. The rest were compelled by conscientious convictions to secede individually, and form new churches. The movement was not attended with any outward demonstration, as when, on a similar issue, at a later day, hundreds of the honored ministry of Scotland, with Chalmers at their head, went forth in solemn procession, amid the applause of Christendom, leaving behind them the establishment, with its churches and manses and stipends, and launched the Free Church of Scotland upon its noble career. But in a more solitary way, these churches, one by one, gave rare proof of their fidelity to principle, " and took joyfully the spoiling of their goods."

We have a curious illustration of the adage, that "The whirligig of Time brings in his revenges," as we turn to the early records of the Plymouth Court, and find that under date of Oct. 1, 1658, a graceless lieutenant,

"Being presented for speaking reproachfully of the Court, and saying the law enacted about ministers' maintenance was a wicked and a devilish law, and that the Devil sat at the stern when it was enacted, the words being proved, he referring himself to the Bench, they censure him to be fined fifty shillings." 2

Upon this Mr. Buck has well remarked:

"In 1830 any man might have said it anywhere in Massachusetts without fine or contradiction. So unanimous had the dissatisfaction become, that in 1833 an amendment of the Third Article of the Bill of Rights was adopted, by which the ancient policy of the Commonwealth, derived from the mother country, and steadily maintained for two hundred years, was abandoned." 3

The amended article, which constitutes the present basis, reads thus:

1

Cong. Quart., V, 216. 2 Plym. Col. Rec., III, 150. 3 Eccls. Law, 64.

"As the public worship of God, and instructions in purity, religion, and morality, promote the happiness and prosperity of a people, and the security of a republican government; therefore, the several religious societies of the Commonwealth, whether corporate or unincorporate, at any meeting legally warned and holden for that purpose, shall ever have the right to elect their pastors, or religious teachers, to contract with them for their support, to raise money for erecting and repairing houses for public worship, for the maintenance of religious instruction, and for the payment of necessary expenses; and all persons belonging to any religious society shall be taken and held to be members, until they shall file with the clerk of said society a written notice declaring the dissolution of their membership, and thenceforth shall not be liable for any grant or contract which may thereafter be made or entered into by such society; and all religious sects and denominations, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good citizens of the Commonwealth, shall be equally under the provision of the law; and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law."1

We cast no reflection on the judiciary of Massachusetts. The judges are only the interpreters of the laws; and in the long roll of those who have adorned the office in that State, those whom we have quoted rank among the most honored. There has always been a doubt, in legal circles, of the correctness of the decision. To common minds, the elaborate argument of the Hon. Lewis Strong, of Northampton, as presented in Pickering's reports,2 and as analyzed and arranged, evidently by some legal hand, in the "Spirit of the Pilgrims," 3 appears to be conclusive; but jurists, as learned and pure-minded as any among the living, accept the decision to-day as the only fair interpretation. That a case should have come into court which made such a legal judgment possible, is proof that our fathers had introduced into their system of church administration a false principle, an element of weakness and of danger.

A very able Report on the Rights of the Congregational Churches of Massachusetts" was drawn up for the Congregational Library Association, in 1858, by the Rev. Enoch Pond, D. D., of Bangor, Me., and was published in the "Congregational Quarterly," 1863.4

After presenting what seems to be decisive arguments, adverse to the judicial decision, the report passes to another, which it pronounces," it possible, more conclusive." From the reports of the discussions in the convention, given in the contemporary press,

1 Jour. of Mass. Conven., 384.
Spir. of Pilg., V, 402, sq.

210 Pickering, 176–81.

Coug. Quar., V, 428.