RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
I»yttelton McAll Mission
his De re diplomatica (1681), which is still a classic in this department, and as to Merovingian paleography has never been surpassed. In 1682 Colbert, to whom it was dedicated, sent Mabillon to Burgundy to make a study of the archives there which concerned the royal house; and he made further journeys of the sort, to Germany in 1683, to Italy in 1685-86, publishing some of his results in the Vetera analecta (4 vols., 1675-85) and in Musceum Italicum (2 vols., Paris, 1687-89). He took part in the controversy as to the authorship of the Imitatio Christi between the Benedictines and the Augustinians (see Kempis, Thomas a, III.), in his Animadversiones invindicias Kempenses (an answer to a book published by the Augustinian Testelette) deciding for the mythical Italian Benedictine abbot John Gersen. Against the Trappist De Ranee1 (see Thappists), who had declared that scholarship was a hindrance to monastic perfection, Mabillon maintained, in his Traite des etudes monastiques (1691) that learning was necessary to monastic clergy and no violation of the rule of St. Benedict. Other important works of his are the De liturgia Gallicana (1685); the edifying little book La Mart chretienne (1702), and the Dissertatio de pane eucharistico, azymo et Jermentato (1674), the last of which is printed with other smaller treatises and a number of letters in the Ouvrages posthumes de Mabillon et de Ruinart (3 vols., Paris, 1724). Another portion of his extensive correspondence is contained in Valery's Correspondance inedite de Mabillon et de Montfaucon avec I'ltalie (3 vols., Paris, 1846); and a complete edition of his letters is in preparation. (G. LaubmannI".)
Bibliography: T. Ruinart, Abrege de la vie de . . J. Mabillon, Paris, 1709; C. de Malan, Hist, de Mabillon et de la congregation de St.-Maur, ib. 1843; H. Jadart, Dom Jean Mabillon, Reims, 1879; E. de Broglie, Mabillon et la societe de I'abbaye de St.-Germain-des-Pres, 2 vols., ib. 1888; S. Baumer, J. Mabillon, Augsburg, 1892; Lichtenberger, ESR, viii. 520-521.
McALL MISSION (Mission populaire evangelique) : A French undenominational, evangelistic mission founded in Paris in 1872 by Robert Whitaker McAll (q.v.). The immediate impulse to this act was the remark of a French working man that the French common people, though opposed to an imposed religion of forms and ceremonies, were ready to hear, if some one would teach them a religion of freedom and earnestness. The mission is addressed, not to Roman Catholics, but to free-thinkers, whether atheists or well disposed to religion, but it is conscientiously opposed to the Church of Rome. Some converts from Roman Catholicism have been made, but the majority of the converts are from the ever-increasing class in France which has broken with all religion.
The opening, Jan. 17, 1872, of a small shop as an evangelistic hall in Belleville, the communistic quarter of Paris, was the pioneer act of modern city missions in any country. French Protestant pastors and church officers welcomed it and freely lent their aid; the government, still guarding itself sedulously against the dangers inherent in meetings of working men, was quick to perceive that the Mission aux ouvriers, as it was at first called, tended
to order; and authorized McAll to open as many halls as he would. In 1888 the work attained its largest number of halls, 130; forty-two being in Paris and its environs, and the others in thirtythree departments, Algeria, Tunis, and Corsica. In 1906 there were but fifty-eight halls, a number of those formerly worked by the mission having been taken over by Protestant churches, and others closed in the interest of better methods. The work is thus far more extensive than in the days of more mission halls, in part owing to boat work and itineracy, in part to larger and more varied use of the halls.
Sunday-schools were introduced into the mission in Jan., 1873, and immediately afterward McAll took advantage of the Thursday half-holiday to open supplementary schools for religious instruction, an example followed by the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. The first adult Bible class in France was established in a McAll hall. The Christian Endeavor movement was introduced into France by C. E. Greig, then in charge of work among the young in the mission halls, and, after McAU's retirement, the director of the mission. The Christian Endeavor Society is of inestimable value in regions where there are no Protestant churches with which the converts may unite.
Although the one purpose of the mission is evangelization, many agencies contribute to this end. The halls are centers of temperance and dispensary work, mothers' meetings, fraternal societies, lending libraries, Bible and tract distribution, and an extensive domestic visitation. The first industrial school in France was established in a McAll hall in 1874. The first social settlement in France was founded in 1899 in connection with the work of the mission in Roubaix, and several others have since been opened elsewhere.
In 1878, 1889, and 1900 the McAll Mission, in cooperation with the British and Foreign Bible Society, and the French and the London Tract Societies, carried on evangelistic work in connection with the expositions of these years, with continuous religious meetings and an extensive sale and distribution of religious literature.
In 1882, desiring to put the work upon a permanent basis, McAll formed a Board (Comite de direction) of French, English, and American residents of Paris. At that time the name of the work was changed from Mission aux ouvriers de Paris, which it had hitherto borne, to its present name, Mission populaire evangilique de France. The board, however, wishing to associate the founder's name with the work, voted to add the sub-title " The McAll Mission." The president of the board was a prominent business man of Paris, Louis Saalter.
In 1885-88, the London Seaman's Mission loaned one of its boats to McAll for work in the coast cities, several permanent stations being the outcome. One of these boats, going up the Seine to Paris, aroused an immense interest there. Subsequently two chapel boats, Le Bon Messager and La Bonne Nouvelle, were built for service in the inland waterways of France, and have carried the gospel to many sequestered villages, in some of which permanent work has been established. In
McAll Mission MacArthur