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VOLUME X

EVANGELICAL CHURCH CONFERENCE, a convention of delegates from the different Protestant churches of Germany. The conference originated in 1848, when the general desire for political unity made itself felt in the ecclesiastical sphere as well. A preliminary meeting was held at Sandhof near Frankfort in June of that year, and on the 21st of September some five hundred delegates representing the Lutheran, the Reformed, the United and the Moravian churches assembled at Wittenberg. The gathering was known as Kirchentag (church diet), and, while leaving each denomination free in respect of constitution, ritual, doctrine and attitude towards the state, agreed to act unitedly in bearing witness against the non-evangelical churches and in defending the rights and liberties of the churches in the federation. The organization thus closely resembles that of the Free Church Federation in England. The movement exercised considerable influence during the middle of the 19th century. Though no Kirchentag, as such, has been convened since 1871, its place has been taken by the Kongress für innere Mission, which holds annual meetings in different towns. There is also a biennial conference of the evangelical churches held at Eisenach to discuss matters of general interest. Its decisions have no legislative force.  EVANGELICAL UNION, a religious denomination which originated in the suspension of the Rev. James Morison (1816–1893), minister of a United Secession congregation in Kilmarnock, Scotland, for certain views regarding faith, the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation, and the extent of the atonement, which were regarded by the supreme court of his church as anti-Calvinistic and heretical. Morison was suspended by the presbytery in 1841 and thereupon definitely withdrew from the Secession Church. His father, who was minister at Bathgate, and two other ministers, being deposed not long afterwards for similar opinions, the four met at Kilmarnock on the 16th of May 1843 (two days before the “Disruption” of the Free Church), and, on the basis of certain doctrinal principles, formed themselves into an association under the name of the Evangelical Union, “for the purpose of countenancing, counselling and otherwise aiding one another, and also for the purpose of training up spiritual and devoted young men to carry forward the work and ‘pleasure of the Lord.’” The doctrinal views of the new denomination gradually assumed a more decidedly anti-Calvinistic form, and they began also to find many sympathizers among the Congregationalists of Scotland. Nine students were expelled from the Congregational Academy for holding “Morisonian” doctrines, and in 1845 eight churches were disjoined from the Congregational Union of Scotland and formed a connexion with the Evangelical Union. The Union exercised no jurisdiction over the individual churches connected with it, and in this respect adhered to the Independent or Congregational form of church government; but those congregations which originally were Presbyterian vested their government in a body of elders. In 1889 the denomination numbered 93 churches; and in 1896, after prolonged negotiation, the Evangelical Union was incorporated with the Congregational Union of Scotland.

See The Evangelical Union Annual; History of the Evangelical Union, by F. Ferguson (Glasgow, 1876); The Worthies of the E. U. (1883); W. Adamson, Life of Dr James Morison (1898).

 EVANS, CHRISTMAS (1766–1838), Welsh Nonconformist divine, was born near the village of Llandyssul, Cardiganshire, on the 25th of December 1766. His father, a shoemaker, died early, and the boy grew up as an illiterate farm labourer. At the age of seventeen, becoming servant to a Presbyterian minister, David Davies, he was affected by a religious revival and learned to read and write in English and Welsh. The itinerant Calvinistic Methodist preachers and the members of the Baptist church at Llandyssul further influenced him, and he soon joined the latter denomination. In 1789 he went into North Wales as a preacher and settled for two years in the desolate peninsula of Lleyn, Carnarvonshire, whence he removed to Llangefni in Anglesey. Here, on a stipend of £17 a year, supplemented by a little tract-selling, he built up a strong Baptist community, modelling his organization to some extent on that of the Calvinistic Methodists. Many new chapels were built, the money being collected on preaching tours which Evans undertook in South Wales.

In 1826 Evans accepted an invitation to Caerphilly, where he remained for two years, removing in 1828 to Cardiff. In 1832, in response to urgent calls from the north, he settled in Carnarvon and again undertook the old work of building and collecting. He was taken ill on a tour in South Wales, and died at Swansea on the 19th of July 1838. In spite of his early disadvantages and personal disfigurement (he had lost an eye in a