Christian love is worship, and that God is the Almighty Creator, the Fountain of all good, life, light, truth, and love; the one eternal Father-Mother.

The conditions of membership are the desire to lead a pure life, freedom from debt, and freedom from marital bonds, and the form of admission is the confession of sin before the elder or eldress of the family. The society at the present time has two classes of membership, probationary and covenant. Probationary members are those accepted on trial and are subject to withdrawal or rejection. Covenant members are the fully consecrated and permanent members. The successful candidate for membership in this society, in any degree, must comprehend the faith and principles of the society and must freely and voluntarily agree to abide by such faith and principles.

ORGANIZATION

The organizations include the family or local society, consisting of one or more families, and a central ministry, or bishopric, presiding over all subordinate bishoprics and societies.

In the days of the largest membership there was at the head of the order a ministry or bishopric, consisting of two brethren and two sisters. An equal number formed a lower ministry at the head of each group of societies; and the same number of elders stood at the head of each family. Subordinate orders of trustees, deacons, and caretakers had oversight of all business and industrial matters, while the ministry and elders were set apart for spiritual labor and ministration. With the decline in membership the quota of leaders has been reduced, and the ministry and elders have been obliged to exercise an oversight of temporal affairs. The central ministry appoints its own members. Subordinate ministries are appointed by the central ministry, with the approval of the older members. Elders and trustees in societies are appointed by the presiding ministry of the society, with the approval of the central ministry and of older members, and the deacons and deaconesses in families are appointed by the elders of the family, with the approval of the presiding ministry. There is no special ordination or setting apart, merely the announcement of the appointment. In worship the exercises employed by the Shakers are said to be derived from the inspiration of the Spirit. Elder, or Father, Joseph Meacham affirmed that he was shown in vision the various exercises, saw the hosts of heaven worshiping in these movements, and he taught them to the people. Modern experts in physical culture have in some cases studied out scientifically the very movements which marked the early Shaker worship. Of these the only one that forms a part of the present-day worship is the march, accompanied by motions of the hands. Shakers have been noted for their inspirational singing, the wordless songs practiced for years giving place to hymns and anthems of peculiar but impressive character.

WORK

In their earlier days Shakers maintained schools. At present there are no distinctively Shaker schools, but many orphaned children are taken into the societies, where they are given a common school education and taught a trade. Charitable work of wide extent has been done in all societies in caring for the poor, and also in the case of transient members a great but silent work has been accomplished in rescuing, equipping, and inspiring with faith, hope, and energy the discouraged and unfortunate, thereby raising numbers of men and women from the ranks of paupers to self-respecting and useful citizens.

Believers are interested in the various benevolent activities and reform movements, including the movement for international disarmament, antivivisection, and animal-rescue work.

The publications of the Shakers are of wide scope in subject matter and include a history of the order and tracts bearing on doctrinal and spiritualistic themes.

CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES

STATISTICS

Summary for the United States, with urban-rural classification.-A general summary of the statistics for the Congregational Churches for the year 1926 is presented in Table 1, which shows also the distribution of these figures between urban and rural territory.

The membership of the Congregational Churches comprises those persons who have been received into the local churches by vote of the members.

TABLE 1.-SUMMARY OF STATISTICS FOR CHURCHES IN URBAN AND RURAL TERRITORY, 1926: CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES

1 Urban territory includes all cities and other incorporated places which had 2,500 inhabitants or more in 1920, the date of the last Federal census; rural territory comprises the remainder of the country.

Per cent not shown where base is less than 100. *Based on membership with age classification reported.

The data given for 1926 represent 5,028 active Congregational Churches, with 881,696 members. These figures are exclusive of 225 federated churches, each consisting of a Congregational unit combined more or less closely with a unit of some other denomination. These federated churches reported a total membership of 37,022, of whom 20,152, or more than one-half, were Congregationalists.

The classification of membership by sex was reported by 5,024 churches and the classification by age was reported by 4,471 churches, including, however, only 1,555 which reported any members under 13 years of age.

Comparative data, 1890-1926.-Table 2 presents, in convenient form for comparison, a summary of the available statistics of this denomination for the censuses of 1926, 1916, 1906, and 1890. Figures for 1916, 1906, and 1890 include those for the Evangelical Protestant Conference of North America, which united with this denomination in 1925.

TABLE 2.-COMPARATIVE SUMMARY, 1890 To 1926: CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES

1 Statistics include the Evangelical Protestant Church of North America, united in 1925 with this denomination.

A minus sign (-) denotes decrease.

State tables. Tables 3, 4, 5, and 6 present the statistics for the Congregational Churches by States. Table 3 gives for each State the number and membership of the churches classified according to their location in urban or rural territory and the total membership classified by sex. Table 4 gives for selected States the number and membership of the churches for the three censuses from 1906 to 1926, together with the membership for 1926 classified as under 13 years of age and 13 years of age and over, Table 5 shows the value of church property

and the debt on such property, for 1926 alone. Table 6 presents, for 1926, the church expenditures, showing separately the amounts expended for current expenses and improvements, and for benevolences, etc., and also gives the data for Sunday schools. Separate presentation in Tables 5 and 6 is limited to those States in which three or more churches reported the principal items shown (values or expenditures), in order to avoid disclosing the financial statistics of any individual church. The States omitted from these tables can be determined by referring to the complete list which appears in Table 3.

TABLE 3.-NUMBER AND MEMBERSHIP OF CHURCHES IN URBAN AND RURAL TERRITORY, AND TOTAL MEMBERSHIP BY SEX, BY STATES, 1926: CongregaTIONAL CHURCHES

TABLE 4.-NUMBER and Membership of CHURCHES, 1906 TO 1926, AND MEMBERSHIP BY AGE, 1926, BY STATES: CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES

United States..

5.028 5,900 5,765 881, 696 809, 236 735, 18416, 291 752, 534 112,871

2.1

Includes figures for the Evangelical Protestant Church of North America.

Based on membership with age classification reported.