garded as the day of meeting. Confining the sessions to those places was deemed a departure from the Platform; and Hartford North Association repeatedly remonstrated against it. Since 1735 they have been held within the limits of the several associations in rotation, the needed alterations being made as new associations were formed; and the sessions have commenced upon the third Tuesday in June.*

As there were but four district associations at first, the General Association was small. Only two delegates were ordinarily appointed from each, and some of these often failed. After the associations were increased to seven or eight, the average number of delegates did not exceed eleven. This was the fact in sixteen instances between 1740 and 1761. In 1828 it was voted that in future, every district association shall send three delegates to the General Association.

For a long time delegates from the district. associations were required to take attested copies of all the acts of the General Association, to be recorded or kept on file for the use of their respective bodies. How far this requisition was regarded it would now be difficult to ascertain. If copies were uniformly taken, they were not always recorded; though in some instances they are found on the books of the associations. In 1776 a vote was passed

*Note F.

that important acts of the General Association should be printed. How far this was done is not known. Since 1800 this body has uniformly published either extracts from its minutes, or the minutes at large; and in consequence of improvements made from time to time, these now form a document of much value.

After the Platform was adopted" and had time to operate, the churches became more regular and harmonious in their discipline, enjoyed more general peace, and their numbers constantly increased."* Better rules for the examination of candidates for the ministry could hardly have been given than were prepared and recommended by the General Association in 1712.†

Though the Platform was severely tested by several trials, particularly by the well known "Wallingford Case," in 1758, yet when that case was over, and the high excitements produced by it had time to subside, the confidence of the people in ecclesiastical bodies, so far as it had been impaired, was in a measure restored; and where their feelings were not disturbed, it was greatly increased. After this, "the advice of the General Association was very generally adopted by the associations and consociations; greater attention was paid, both

*Trumbull, Vol. II. p. 17. + Trumbull, Vol. I. p. 489, 90. Note G.

to the morals, qualifications and orthodoxy of candidates for the ministry; ordinations have generally been attended by the consociations of the several districts in which they have been performed."*

When the Cambridge Platform was adopted, there were twelve worshiping assemblies within the present limits of Connecticut, several of which enjoyed the labors of two ministers, though it does not appear that quite so many churches were duly organized. When the Saybrook Platform was adopted, there were forty-one churches in what was at that time regarded as the territory of Connecticut: excluding the one in Rye, there were forty, and about as many ministers. President Stiles speaks of thirty churches as acceding to the Platform at first,† probably referring to those represented in the conventions in 1709, in which, as far as we know, there was entire unanimity on the point of accepting the Plat form. But it does not follow that the churches not represented did not fall in at once or very soon with what was done for other reasons may be assigned for their not being represented than a supposed opposition to the constitution. There is satisfactory evidence that all the churches then existing were consociated sooner or later, and the presumption is, that they were generally, if not universally consociated in 1709,

* Trumbull, Vol. II. p. 525. † Note H.

The

and that the pastors were associated. number of churches reported to the General Association the present year, [1841,] is 246; the number of pastors 190, and of stated supplies 21 total 211. All the churches are represented as consociated excepting 15: almost all the pastors and stated supplies belong to the district associations, together with other ministers who are without charge.

NOTES.

NOTE A, p. 35.

"THE principal alteration," says President Stiles, "which they [the churches] deemed [to have been made] was this, that whereas the congregational councils were elected promiscuously from the churches, the churches were now limited to the consociated council, as a standing council on matters of discipline, which they vested with a decisive power on matters which they submitted to them: and which they might on all other matters repair to, advise with, and consult as congregational councils."* This view is far more agreeable to the letter of the articles, than the construction which he undertakes to make out might be put upon them. The President, however, errs in supposing "that for the first forty years after the Platform there was not a single instance of consociated ordinations." "In the three western consociations,” the Rev. Moses Dickinson affirms, "it always has been the practice ever since the first formation, for the whole consociation to be convened at every ordination. How it has been," he adds, "in the county of Fairfield," will appear from the following letter:

REV. SIR,

Agreeable to your request, I have examined the records of consociations for the western district in Fairfield county, from which it appears that the con

* Christian Union, p. 79.