The purpose of "orders" and "congregations" is to provide a suitable environment for people of a religious temperament whose circumstances permit them to attend to its development in a more exclusive and, as it were, professional way.

He worked there, as he said himself, 'like a horse;' spent his mornings in the schools, his afternoons in the cottages; preached four or five extempore sermons every week to overflowing congregations; took the lead, by virtue of the 'gift of the gab,' at all 'religious' meetings for ten miles round; and really did a great deal of good in his way.

The Established clergy, and the greater part of their congregations, were averse to Charles upon considerations perfectly moderate, at the same time not easy to be shaken.

All the churches of some one denominationof course, either Methodist or Baptistin a county, or, perhaps, in several adjoining counties, are closed, and the congregations unite at some centrally located church for a series of meetings lasting a week.

From 1770 to 1790 Negro preachers were in charge of congregations in Charles City, Petersburg, and Allen's Creek in Lunenburg County, Virginia.

In 1805 he returned to North Carolina where he often preached to various congregations.

It became increasingly clear, as the years passed, that if the Union were to be forced through, there must be a new Disruption, and a Disruption which would cost the Free Church those Highland congregations which for thirty years it had been its glory to maintain.

Three years later, the Reformed Presbyterian Church united with the Free Church, and in the same year (1876) the United Presbyterian Church gave up one hundred and ten of its congregations, which united with the English Presbyterian Church and thus formed the present Presbyterian Church of England.

As a matter of fact, he received in all some half-dozen calls during the course of his ministry from congregations in Edinburgh and Glasgow; while at one period of his life scarcely a year passed without private overtures being made to him which, if he had given any encouragement to them, would have issued in calls.

These overtures he in every case declined at once; but when congregations, in spite of him or without having previously consulted him, took the responsibility of proceeding to a formal call, he never intervened to arrest their action.

This decision, which he announced to his people towards the close of the summer, had the incidental effect of keeping him in the United Presbyterian Church, for in the following year the English congregations of that Church were severed from the parent body to form part of the new Presbyterian Church of England; and Wallace Green congregation, somewhat against its will, and largely in response to Dr. Cairns's wishes, went with the rest.

During the winter months he preached a good deal in Edinburgh, especially by way of helping young or weak congregations, more than one of which he had at different times under his immediate care until they had been lifted out of the worst of their difficulties.

The congregations to which I have preached have far overpaid my labours; and the students whom I have taught have given me more lessons than many books.

Since he got to St. Agatha's he's cheered up a bit, and talks to me now instead of his big congregations and their fat purses.

Juke refused St. Anne's, with its chances, its congregations, and its scope.

Their congregations do not object to the presence of strangers, but usually invite them to participate in the worship.

The style of the preaching which we heard on the different occasions above described, so far as it is any index to the intelligence of the several congregations, is certainly a high commendation.

In Philadelphia, an earlier pastorate, "he preached to great congregations of eager listeners, and with a success unparalleled in the history of that city and rare in modern times."

In 1862 an organization was formed called the "Tai-hoey," or "Great Elders' Meeting," consisting of the missionaries of both the English Presbyterian and Reformed Churches and the delegated elders from all the organized congregations under their united oversight.

Congregations were formed and organized with their own elders and deacons, and in this he took the first steps.

Some congregations were ready to call and support such pastors, and the men were there, for the careful training of native agents had always been a marked feature of the Amoy Mission.

About twenty native pastors have been ordained, settled, and entirely supported by their own congregations.

Nor do we say anything of those gifts, partly of the intellect, but also of the soul and temper and character, by which he was able at once to charm without tiring the most refined and fastidious society, to draw to him the hearts of hard-working and anxious clergymen, and to enchain the attention of the dullest and most ignorant of rustic congregations.

The preamble to an act passed in 1425, during the reign of Henry VI., just five centuries after the meeting at York, states that, "by the yearly congregations and confederacies made by the Masons in their general assemblies, the good course and effect of the statute of laborers were openly violated and broken."

But in the meantime what had become of the congregations committed to their charge?