MACKENNAL, ALEXANDER (18351904)

This article appears in Volume V17, Page 251 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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MACKENNAL, ALEXANDER (18351904) , English Nonconformist divine, was born at Truro in

Cornwall

CORNWALL

, on the 14th of January 1835, the son of Patrick Mackennal, a Scot, who had settled in

Cornwall

CORNWALL

. In 1848 the family removed to London, and at sixteen he went to Glasgow University. In 1854 he entered Hackney College to prepare for the Congregational ministry, and in 1857 he graduated B.A. at London University. After holding pastorates at Burton-on-Trent (1856-1861), Surbiton (1862-1870), Leicester (1870-1876), he finally accepted the pastorate of the Congregational Church at Bowdon, Cheshire, in 1877, in which he remained till his death. In 1886 he was chairman of the Congregational Union, which he represented in 1889 at the triannual national council of the American Congregational churches. The first international council of Congregationalists held in London in 1891 was partly cause, partly consequence, of his visit, and Mackennal acted as secretary. In 1892 he became definitely associated in the public mind with a

movement

MOVEMENT

for free church federation which grew out of a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of meetings held to discuss the question of

home

reunion. When the Lambeth articles put forward as a basis of union were discussed, it was evident that all the free churches were agreed in accepting the three articles dealing with the Bible, the Creed and the Sacraments as a basis of discussion, and were also agreed in rejecting the fourth article, which put the historic episcopate on the same level as the other three. Omitting the Anglicans, the representatives of the remaining churches resolved to develop Christian fellowship by united action and

worship

WORSHIP (i.e. " worth-ship," O. Eng. weor8scipe)

wherever possible. Out of this grew the Free Church Federation, which secures a measure of co-operation between the

Protestant

PROTESTANT

Evangelical churches throughout England. Mackennal's public action brought him into association with many well-known political and religious leaders. He was a lifelong advocate of international peace, and made a remarkable declaration as to the Christian standard of national action when the Free Church Federation met at Leeds during the South African War in 19oo.
Besides a volume of sermons under the title Christ's Healing

Touch

TOUCH (derived through Fr. toucher from a common Teutonic and Indo-Germanic root, cf. " tug," " tuck," O. H. Ger. zucchen, to twitch or draw)

, Mackennal published The Biblical

Scheme

SCHEME (Lat. schema, Gr. oxfjya, figure, form, from the root axe, seen in exeiv, to have, hold, to be of such shape, form, &c.)

of Nature and of Man, The Christian Testimony, the Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, The Kingdom of the Lord Jesus and The Eternal God and the Human Sonship. These are contributions to exegetical study or to theological and progressive religious thought, and have elements of permanent value. He also made some useful contributions to religious history. In 1893 he published the Story of the English Separatists, and later the Homes and Haunts of the Pilgrim Fathers; he also wrote the life of Dr J. A. Macfadyen of Manchester. In 19o1 he delivered a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of lectures at Hartford Theological

Seminary

SEMINARY (Lat. seminarium, from semen, seed)

, Connecticut, U.S.A., published under the title The Evolution of Congregationalism. He died at Highgate on the 23rd of June 1904.
See D. Macfadyen, Life and Letters of Alexander Mackennal
(1905). (D. MN.)

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