CHAP. I.—Providential Preparations for the Discovery of America

Purpose of the long concealment of America, 1. A medieval church to America, 2. Revival of the Catholic Church, 3. especially in Spain, 4, 5.

CHAP. II.—Spanish Christianity in America

Vastness and swiftness of the Spanish conquests, 6. Conversion by the sword, 7. Rapid success and sudden downfall of missions in Florida, 9. The like story in New Mexico, 12, and in California, 14.

CHAP. III.—French Christianity in America.

Magnificence of the French scheme of western empire, 16. Superior dignity of the French missions, 19. Swift expansion of them, 20. Collision with the English colonies, and triumph of France, 21. Sudden and complete failure of the French church, 23. Causes of failure: (1) Dependence on royal patronage, 24. (2) Implication in Indian feuds, 25. (3) Instability of Jesuit efforts, 26. (4) Scantiness of French population, 27. Political aspect of French missions, 28. Recent French Catholic immigration, 29.

CHAP. IV.—Antecedents of Permanent Christian Colonization.

Controversies and parties in Europe, 31, and especially in England, 32. Disintegration of Christendom, 34. New experiment of church life, 35. Persecutions promote emigration, 36, 37.

CHAP. V.—Puritan Beginnings of the Church in Virginia.

The Rev. Robert Hunt, chaplain to the Virginia colony, 38. viBase quality of the emigration, 39. Assiduity in religious duties, 41. Rev. Richard Buck, chaplain, 42. Strict Puritan régime of Sir T. Dale and Rev. A. Whitaker, 43. Brightening prospects extinguished by massacre, 48. Dissolution of the Puritan “Virginia Company” by the king, 48. Puritan ministers silenced by the royal governor, Berkeley, 49. The governor’s chaplain, Harrison, is converted to Puritan principles, 49. Visit of the Rev. Patrick Copland, 50. Degradation of church and clergy, 51. Commissary Blair attempts reform, 52. Huguenots and Scotch-Irish, 53.

CHAP. VI.—Maryland and the Carolinas

George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, 54; secures grant of Maryland, 55. The second Lord Baltimore organizes a colony on the basis of religious liberty, 56. Success of the two Jesuit priests, 57. Baltimore restrains the Jesuits, 58, and encourages the Puritans, 59. Attempt at an Anglican establishment, 61. Commissary Bray, 61. Tardy settlement of the Carolinas, 62. A mixed population, 63. Success of Quakerism, 65. American origin of English missionary societies, 66.

CHAP. VII.—Dutch Calvinists and Swedish Lutherans.

Faint traces of religious life in the Dutch settlements, 69. Pastors Michaelius, Bogardus, and Megapolensis, 70. Religious liberty, diversity, and bigotry, 72. The Quakers persecuted, 73. Low vitality of the Dutch colony, 75. Swedish colony on the Delaware, 76; subjugated by the Dutch, 77. The Dutch evicted by England, 78. The Dutch church languishes, 79. Attempts to establish Anglicanism, 79. The S. P. G., 80.

CHAP. VIII.—The Church in New England.

Puritan and Separatist, 82. The Separatists of Scrooby, 83. Mutual animosity of the two parties, 84. Spirit of John Robinson, 85. the “social compact” of the Pilgrims, in state, 87; and in church, 88. Feebleness of the Plymouth colony, 89. The Puritan colony at Salem, 90. Purpose of the colonists, 91. Their right to pick their own company, 92. Fellowship with the Pilgrims, 93. Constituting the Salem church, and ordination of its ministers, 95. Expulsion of schismatics, 97. Coming of the great Massachusetts colony bringing the charter, 98. The New England church polity, 99. Nationalism of the Puritans, 100. Dealings with Roger Williams, Mrs. Hutchinson, and the Quakers, 101. Diversities among the colonies, 102. Divergences of opinion and practice in the churches, 103. Variety of sects in Rhode Island, 106, with mutual good will, 107. Lapse of the Puritan church-state, 108.

CHAP. IX.—The MIddle Colonies and Georgia.

Dutch, Puritan, Scotch, and Quaker settlers in New Jersey, 109. Quaker corporation and government, 110. Quaker reaction from Puritanism, 113. Extravagance and discipline, 114. Quakerism in continental Europe, 115. Penn’s “Holy Experiment,” 116. Philadelphia founded, 117. German sects, 18. Keith’s schism, and the mission of the “S. P. G.,” 119. Lutheran and Reformed Germans, 120. Scotch-Irish, 121. Georgia, 122. Oglethorpe’s charitable scheme, 123. The Salzburgers, the Moravians, and the Wesleys, 124. George Whitefield, 126.

CHAP. X.-THE EVE OF THE GREAT AWAKENING

Fall of the New England theocracy, 128. Dissent from the “Standing Order”: Baptist, 130; Episcopalian, 131. In New York: the Dutch church, 134; the English, 135; the Presbyterian, 136. New Englanders moving west, 137. Quakers, Huguenots, and Palatines, 139. New Jersey: Frelinghuysen and the Tennents, 141. Pennsylvania: successes and failures of Quakerism, 143. The southern colonies: their established churches, 148; the mission of the Quakers, 149. The gospel among the Indians, 150. The church and slavery, 151.

CHAP. XI.-THE GREAT AWAKENING

Jonathan Edwards at Northampton, 156. An Awakening, 157. Edwards’s “Narrative” in America and England, 159. Revivals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 16o. Apostolate of Whitefield, 163. Schism of the Presbyterian Church, 166. Whitefield in New England, 168. Faults and excesses of the evangelists,169. Good fruits of the revival, 173. Diffusion of Baptist, principles, 173. National religious unity, 175. Attitude of the Episcopal Church, 177. Zeal for missions, 179.

CHAP. XII.—CLOSE OF THE COLONIAL ERA

Growth of the New England theology, 181. Watts’s Psalms, 182. Warlike agitations, 184. The Scotch-Irish immigration, 186. The German immigration, 187. Spiritual destitution, 188. Zinzendorf, 189. Attempt at union among the Germans, 190. Alarm of the sects, 191. Mühlenberg and the Lutherans, 191. Zinzendorf and the Moravians, 192. Schlatter and the Reformed, 195. Schism made permanent, 197. Wesleyan Methodism, 198. Francis Asbury, 200. Methodism gravitates southward and grows apace, 201. Opposition of the church to slavery, 203; and to intemperance, 205. Project to introduce bishops from England, resisted in the interest of liberty, 206.

CHAP. XIII.—RECONSTRUCTION

Distraction and depression after the War of Independence, 208. Forlorn condition of the Episcopalians, 210. Their republican constitution, 211. Episcopal consecration secured in Scotland and in England, 212. Feebleness of American Catholicism, 214. Bishop Carroll, 215. “Trusteeism,” 216. Methodism becomes a church, 217. Westward movement of Christianity, 219. Severance of church from state, 221. Doctrinal divisions; Calvinist and Arminian, 222. Unitarianism, 224. Universalism, 225. Some minor sects, 228.

CHAP. XIV.—The Second Awakening

Ebb-tide of spiritual life, 230. Depravity and revival at the West, 232. The first camp-meetings, 233. Good fruits, 237. Nervous epidemics, 239. The Cumberland Presbyterians, 241. The antisectarian sect of The Disciples, 242. Revival at the East, 242. President Dwight, 243.

CHAP. XV. —Organized Beneficence

Missionary spirit of the revival, 246. Religious earnestness in the colleges, 247. Mills and his friends at Williamstown, 248; and at Andover, 249. The Unitarian schism in Massachusetts, 249. New era of theological seminaries, 251. Founding of the A. B. C. F. M., 252; of the Baptist Missionary Convention, 253. Other missionary boards, 255. The American Bible Society, 256. Mills, and his work for the West and for Africa, 256. Other societies, 258. Glowing hopes of the church, 259.

CHAP. XVI.—Conflicts with Public Wrongs

Working of the voluntary system of church support, 261. Dueling, 263. Crime of the State of Georgia against the Cherokee nation, implicating the federal government, 264. Jeremiah Evarts and Theodore Frelinghuysen, 267. Unanimity of the church, North and South, against slavery, 268. The Missouri Compromise, 270. Antislavery activity of the church, at the East, 271; at the West, 273; at the South, 274. Difficulty of antislavery church discipline, 275. The southern apostasy, 277. Causes of the sudden revolution of sentiment, 279. Defections at the North, and rise of a pro-slavery party, 282. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill; solemn and unanimous protest of the clergy of New England and New York, 284. Primeval temperance legislation, 285. Prevalence of drunkenness, 286. Temperance reformation a religious movement, 286. Development of “the saloon,” 288. The Washingtonian movement and its drawbacks, 289. The Prohibition period, 290.

CHAP. XVII.—A Decade of Controversies and Schisms.

Dissensions in the Presbyterian Church, 292. Growing strength of the New England element, 293. Impeachments of heresy, 294. Benevolent societies, 295. Sudden excommunication of nearly one half of the church by the other half, 296. Heresy and schism among Unitarians: Emerson, 298; and Parker, 300. Disruption, on the slavery question, of the Methodists, 301; and of the Baptists, 303. Resuscitation of the Episcopal Church, 304. Bishop Hobart and a High-church party, 306. Rapid growth of this church, 308. Controversies in the Roman Catholic Church, 310. Contention against Protestant fanaticism, 312.

CHAP. XVIII.—The Great Immigration

Expansion of territory and increase of population in the early part of the nineteenth century, 315. Great volume of immigration from 1840 on, 316. How drawn and how driven, 316. At first principally Irish, then German, then Scandinavian, 318. The Catholic clergy overtasked, 320. Losses of the Catholic Church, 321. Liberalized tone of American Catholicism, 323. Planting the church in the West, 327. Sectarian competitions, 328. Protestant sects and Catholic orders, 329. Mormonism, 335. Millerism, 336. Spiritualism, 337.

CHAP. XIX.—The Civil War

Material prosperity, 340. The Kansas Crusade, 341. The revival of 1857, 342. Deepening of the slavery conflict, 345. Threats of war, 347. Religious sincerity of both sides, 348. The church in war-time, 349.

CHAP. XX.—AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

Reconstructions, 351. The Catholic Church, 352. The Episcopal Church, 352. Persistent divisions among Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, 353. Healing of Presbyterian schisms, 355. Missions at the South, 355. Vast expansion of church activities, 357. Great religious and educational endowments, 359. The enlisting of personal service: The Sunday-school, 362. Chautauqua, 363. Y. M. C. A., 364. Y. W. C. A., 366. W. C. T. U., 367. Women’s missionary boards, 367. Nursing orders and schools, 368. Y. P. S. C. E., and like associations, 368. “The Institutional Church,” 369. The Salvation Army, 370. Loss of “the American Sabbath,” 371.

CHAP. XXI.—THE CHURCH IN THEOLOGY AND LITERATURE

Unfolding of the Edwardean theology, 374. Horace Bushnell, 375. The Mercersburg theology, 377. “Bodies of divinity,” 378. Biblical xscience, 378. Princeton’s new dogma, 380. Church history, 381. The American pulpit, 382. “Applied Christianity,” 385. Liturgics, 386. Hymns, 387. Other liturgical studies, 388. Church music, 391. The Moravian liturgies, 394. Meager productiveness of the Catholic Church, 394. The Americanizing of the Roman Church, 396.

CHAP. XXII.—TENDENCIES TOWARD A MANIFESTATION OF UNITY

Growth of the nation and national union, 398. Parallel growth of the church, 399; and ecclesiastical division, 400. No predominant sect, 401. Schism acceptable to politicians, 402; and to some Christians, 403. Compensations of schism, 404. Nisus toward manifest union, 405. Early efforts at fellowship among sects, 406. High-church protests against union, 407. The Evangelical Alliance, 408. Fellowship in non-sectarian associations, 409. Cooperation of leading sects in Maine, 410. Various unpromising projects of union: I. Union on sectarian basis, 411. II. Ecumenical sects, 412. III. Consolidation of sects, 413. The hope of manifested unity, 416. Conclusion, 419.