THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 86
eee
Hist. of the United Brethren in Christ, Dayton, 1890-93;
E. L. Shuey, Handbook of the United Brethren in Christ, ib.
1893; the Year Book, an annual. Special phases are
treated in: C. Newcomer, Life and Journal, Hagerstown,
Md., 1834; L. Davis, Life of Bishop David Edwards, Day-
ton, 1883; A. W. Drury, Life of Rev. Philip William Otter-
bein, ib. 1884; idem, Life of Bishop J. J. Glossbrenner, ib.
1889.
UNITED EVANGELICAL CHURCH: A religious body organized in Naperville, Ill., Nov. 30, 1894, with 55,000 members. Its constituency had been a part of the Evangelical Association (q.v.) and its separate organization was due to a “ division brought about by an unwarranted assumption of power exercised by those in official position, in that they refused to submit to the findings of duly constituted trial conferences, assumed to expel ministers and members without trial, and refused to arbitrate the differences existing between the parties in the controversy.’ Its doctrine is similar to that of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Its conferences are general, annual, and quarterly. The annual conferences are the seat of authority. The general conference has only such powers as are conferred upon it by the discipline. Bishops and presiding elders are eligible for two consecutive terms of four years. Laymen are fully represented in all the conferences. No member can be deprived of his rights without due process. Local church property is held for the benefit of the congregation.
The church embraces 10 annual conferences, 997 organized congregations, 737 ministers, 69,066 members, 911 Sunday-schools with an enrolment of 106,934. Its property has a value of about $3,600,- 000. Its annual income is now over $700,000. Three educational institutions are maintained: Albright College at Myerstown, Penn., Western Union, at Le Mars, La., and Dallas, at Dallas, Ore. The publishing-house, located at Harrisburg, Penn., issues fourteen separate periodicals with a combined circulation of 147,632. Missionary operations are under the direction of the board of home and foreign missions. Auxiliary to the general board is the woman missionary society, with a membership of 6,685, and receipts amounting to $13,714.36 in 1905. The receipts of the general board in 1905 were $98,110.74, and its expenditures $96,323.69. It maintains three mission stations in Hunan, China, located at Changsha, Siangtan, and Liling.
W. F. Het.
BrspuiocrRapHy: Consult the works mentioned in EvanGcEt- IcAL ASSOCIATION, especially A. Stapleton’s Annals, and the Evangelical, the Zeitschrift, and other periodicals of the denomination.
UNITED FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. See PRESBYTERIANS, I., 2.
UNITED FREE CHURCHES. Ld.
UNITED NORWEGIAN LUTHERAN CHURCH. See Luruerans, III., 6, § 2.
UNITED ORIGINAL SECESSION CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. See PresByterians, L., 6.
UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF NORTH AMERICA. See Pressyrerians, VIII., 6.
UNITED SOCIETIES IN SCOTLAND. PurRvEs, JAMES.
See Mrruopists,
See
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF.
I. Historical Review.
The Period of Settlement (§ 1). Development Since 1776 (§ 2). The Problem of Immigration (§ 3). Separation of Church and State.
The General Government and the Church (§ 1). Effects upon Religious Life (§ 2). Attitude of Some States (§ 3).
III. Voluntazgy System of Church Support. IV. Leading Dénominations. V. Theological Education,
VI. Development. VII. Statistics.
I. Historical Review: The religious history of North America opens with the landing of Columbus (1492), whose first act was to raise the 1. The banner of the cross and dedicate the Period of new world to Christ and the Church. Settlement. For more than 300 years, under the devoted lead of Spanish and French monks, the effort to convert the native Indians to the Roman Catholic faith continued, often with brilliant success, though frequently marred by religious intolerance and cruelty peculiar to the spirit of the age (see INDIANS OF NortH AMERICA, Missions To THE; Home Missions; and Roman CatuHotics). The Protestant era in America begins with the settlement of Virginia in 1607, followed in 1620 by the landing of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts Bay. From then on, America was, on an immensely larger scale, what Geneva was under Calvin, a refuge for persecuted Protestants of all lands. Puritans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Baptists, Huguenots, Salzburg Lutherans, Moravians, Lutherans, and Reformed refugees from the Palatinate, Mennonites, and others, emigrated thither in order to find a quiet place to practise their religion, and showed in their new home predominantly a religious earnestness and a tolerance which sprang not from indifferentism, but from bitter experience of unrighteous persecution. English Roman Catholics, also, who then were subjected to severe penalties in England, found in Maryland an asylum. These were joined by the Dutch Reformed in New York, and the English Episcopalians in Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, who, however, had not come for conscience’ sake. Thus the American colonies were made up of almost all branches of European Christianity, mostly Protestants, with a small number of Roman Catholics. Of course these churches were all weak; but they were strong enough to produce a people able to defend themselves against the demands of Great Britain, and under the leadership of George Washington, by the aid of France, to carry on a successful war of seven years’ duration, which issued in their complete independence of the British crown. With the peace of 1783, or even with the declaration of independence in 1776, the colonial period of the country closed. The nation was 2. Develop- then composed of thirteen colonies, ment Since loosely bound together, and number- 1776. ing scarcely three million inhabitants. The representatives of the free people, assembled in Philadelphia in 1787, drew up a constitution, modeled, indeed, upon that of England, but further developed upon its principles. A sharp
II.
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