Of these popular movements toward the Congregational way, that at Lowell
is a typical illustration. Some of the colored people near this little
hamlet desired to build for themselves a church. With infinite pains and
self-denial and labor they gathered the material for a small, wooden
building and put up the frame with their own hands. Being refused the
official encouragement they felt they had a right to expect from their own
denomination, they began to consider the whole question of church
relations and polity, and made up their minds to become a free church.
They held their services in the cabin depicted in the accompanying
illustration, and sought to push forward the completion of their little
and rude church building. A furious storm blew the frame down. With sore
hearts they piled up the lumber neatly around the foundation frame and
felt that they must give up their cherished hope of having a church
edifice. Having learned of the Congregational way, which superimposes no
centralized church government over the people and seeks to aid the poor
rather than to oppress them, they organized themselves into a
Congregational church, and were recognized in our fellowship by a council.
Afterward they were visited by a representative of the Association, whose
form is seen in the foreground of the picture of their ruined church. A
cheering conference was held with them. In this conversation a single fact
came out which shows something of the labor and self-denial in the
movement. It was found that the young minister of this, and a similar body
of colored people several miles away, although he was afflicted with an
ulcerated ankle, which might well have laid him up in his house, had
repeatedly walked seventeen miles over the heavy roads in order to keep
faithfully his preaching appointments. The people were willing to do their
very utmost. It is hoped, with the aid of our Church Building Society,
that they will now be able to put up their little church building and
prosper in their Christian endeavor of having a free Congregational church
for their religious home.
[Illustration: REV. A. W. CURTIS, D.D.]