RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Evangelical Alliance Evangelical Association
States and Canada. Dr. Philip Schaff made four journeys abroad to awaken interest in the gathering and to invite chosen speakers. He presented the matter before church diets including the Old Catholic Congress, before the faculties of universities and selected groups of clergymen, also in audiences with the German Emperor and Mr. Gladstone. Among the more eminent speakers from abroad, all clergymen and doctors of divinity, unless otherwise stated, were Joseph Angus (Baptist), R. Payne Smith, W H. Freemantle, Stanley Leathes, and Rev. C. D. Marston (Anglican), John Stoughton and Joseph Parker (Independent), Wm. Arnot, John Cairns, and Robert Knox (Presbyterian), all of Great Britain; Georges Fitch, E. F. Cook and T. Lorriaux of France; I. A. Dorner, Theodor Christlieb and W Krafft of Germany; Profs. C. Pronier and J. F. Astie' and Franck Coulinof Switzerland; Cohen Stuart from Holland; Prof. M. Prochet from Florence; M. Kalopothakes, M.D., from Greece; and Revs. Antonio Carrasco and Fritz Fliedner from Spain. The Rev. Narayan Sheshadri, a converted Brahman of high caste, was one of the most interesting figures of the conference.
The seventh conference (Basel, 1879) was not so large and imposing. The eighth conference (Copenhagen, 1884) took the alliance to distinctly Lutheran ground and brought the strict Scandinavian Protestantism into fellowship with the churches of other lands. The conference at Florence (1891) gave an impulse to Italian evangelization. The tenth conference (London, 1896) was a jubilee meeting commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Alliance.
The Alliance has appealed against religious persecution in a number of instances through the press and deputations of influential public 5. Appeals men, and while the appeals have not for Relig- always accomplished their immediate ious purpose, they have had a considerable
Liberty, moral influence in favor of a more general adoption of the principles of religious liberty. It successfully exerted its influence for the release of the Madiai family in Florence, 1852, who were punished for reading the Bible and holding religious meetings; for the release of Matamoras, Carrasco, and their friends, who, during the reign of Queen Isabella in Spain, were thrown into prison and condemned to the galleys for the same cause, 1863. It aided in inducing the sultan of Turkey to abolish the deathpenalty for apostasy from Mohammedanism in his dominions after the Crimean War, 1856. It interceded for the Methodists and Baptists in Sweden, 1858, which country has since abrogated the penal laws against Roman Catholics and Protestants not belonging to the Lutheran Confession. It sent in 1871 a large deputation to the Czar of Russia (then at Friedrichshafen) to plead for the oppressed Lutherans in the Baltic Provinces. Among the delegates from the United States were Philip Schaff and William Adams of New York, Bishop Mcllvaine of Ohio, and the laymen William E. Dodge, Cyrus Field, and Nathan Bishop. It sent a similar deputation to the embassy from Japan, on its visit to the United States and the courts of Europe in 1872, to remonstrate against the persecutions of Christians, mostly Roman Catholics, in Japan. It has not forgotten the Nestorians in Persia, who appealed to the Alliance for protection against the oppression of a Mohammedan government. It prepared a memorial to the Czar on the persecution of Baptists in Southern Russia, 1874. At the seventh General Conference a deputation was appointed to wait on the Emperor of Austria in behalf of certain Christians in Bohemia, who were debarred the liberty of holding even family wor-
ship; and the request was granted by the special interposition of the emperor. In the last few years efforts have been made to secure a more enlightened and humane treatment of the Stundists in Russia and the Armenian Christians in Asia.
A new kind of work has been undertaken by the British and German branches in cooperating in the maintenance since 1905 of an Alliance School at Steglitz near Berlin to train students for religious work in Russia. (Philip Schaff! ) D. S. Schaff.
Bibliography: The Proceedings of the Liverpool meeting of 1845 and of the General Conferences at London, Paris, Berlin, Geneva, Amsterdam, New York, Basel, Florence, and the London jubilee conference of 1896, were all published in English, most of them also in French, German, and Dutch, in the cities where they were held. Of these publications especially valuable are the volumes relating to the Conference at Amsterdam by Rev. P. Steane, those at New York (1873 and 1884) by Schaff and S. I. Prime, that at Basel by J. Murray Mitchell, at Florence by R. A. Bedford, and at London by A. J. Arnold, and of the Washington, Boston and Chicago meetings. Among publications of the American branch are its Reports, 1867- 1905, the Narrative of the State of Religion in the United States by Prof. H. B. Smith, presented to the Amsterdam Conference, 1867, the similar Narrative presented by Philip Schaff to the Basel Conference, a Report on the Alliance Deputation to the Czar of Russia, 1871, and the Reunion of Christendom by Philip Schaff, 1893, the author's last literary work. The British branch publishes yearly Reports, a monthly periodical, Evangelical Christendom, 1847-99, The Evangelical Alliance Quarterly, 1899-1906, and the bimonthly Evangelical Christendom, 1906 sqq. For brief but somewhat unsatisfactory historic accounts of the Alliance consult Rev. James Davis in the Proceedings for 1874, and A. J. Arnold, in the Jubilee volume, London, 1897. Consult also Life of Philip Schaff, N. Y.t 1897, pp. 252-274, 332 sqq., 340 sqq. The President and Corresponding Secretary of the American branch is Rev. Leander Chamberlain, D.D., The Chelsea, W. 23d St., New York. The office of the British branch is 7 Adam St., Strand, London, and its secretary is H. Martyn Gooch.
EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION: An ecclesiastical body which originated as a result of the evangelistic labors of Jacob Albright (q.v.), who began preaching in 1796 among the Germans in Eastern Pennsylvania. The first organizations among his converts were formed in 1800. The first general meeting took place in 1803, which acknowledged Albright as a minister of the Gospel, and solemnly ordained him by the laying on of hands, in accordance with the precedent in Acts xiii. 1-3. Albright was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, with whose doctrine, polity, and spirit he was fully in accord. But he was compelled to organize, much against his own purpose and will, because the leaders of the Methodist Church did not wish to do work at that time among the Germans of this country. In 1807 the first regular conference was held, in Kleinfeltersville, Pa., composed of the ministers and officers of the Church, twenty-eight in number. Albright was elected bishop and authorized to compile a Scriptural creed and a plan of organization, but he died May 18, 1808, leaving this work unfinished. George Miller, an excellent writer, John Walter, an eloquent preacher, and John Dreisbach, a man of uncommon gifts of organization and leadership, carried the work forward. In 1809 a second conference was held, at which the book of discipline begun by Albright and completed by George Miller, was adopted and the name, " The So-called Albright People," was
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