Chapter X: Act 1906: , specifying as it does cheques alone, appears to exclude documents (5)

In regard to church government, the Baptists agree with the Congregationalists that each separate church is complete in itself, and has, therefore, power to choose its own ministers and to make such regulations as it deems to be most in accordance with the purpose of its existence, that is, the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. A comparatively small section of the denomination maintain that a "plurality of elders" or pastors is required for the complete organization of every separate church. This is the distinctive peculiarity of those churches in Scotland and the north of England which are known as _Scotch Baptists_. The largest church of this section, consisting of approximately 500 members, originated in Edinburgh in 1765, before which date only one Baptist church--that of Keiss in Caithness, formed about 1750--appears to have existed in Scotland. The greater number of the churches are united in association voluntarily formed, all of them determined by geographical limits. The associations, as well as the churches not in connexion with them, are united together in the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland, formed in 1813 by the Particular Baptists. This union, however, exerts no authoritative action over the separate churches. One important part of the work of the union is the collection of information in which all the churches are interested. In 1909 there were in the United Kingdom: Baptist churches, 3046; chapels, 4124; sittings, 1,450,352; members, 424,008; Sunday school teachers, 58,687; Sunday scholars, 578,344; local preachers, 5615; and pastors in charge, 2078.

At the beginning of the 20th century the Baptist Union collected a "Twentieth Century Fund" of L250,000, which has largely assisted the formation of new churches, and gives an indication of [v.03 p.0374] the unity and virility of the denomination. A still stronger evidence to the same effect was given by the Religious Census taken in 1904. While this only applied to London, its results are valuable as showing the comparative strength of the Baptist Church. These results are to the effect that in all respects the Baptists come second to the Anglicans in the following three particulars:--(1) Percentage of attendances at public worship contributed by Baptists, 10.81 (London County), 10.70 (Greater London); (2) aggregate of attendances, 54,597; (3) number of places of worship, 443.

2. _The Continent of Europe._--During the 19th century what we have called the modern Baptist movement made its appearance in nearly every European country. In Roman Catholic countries Baptist churches were formed by missionaries coming from either England or America: work in France began in 1832, in Italy missions were started in 1866 (Spezia Mission) and in 1884 (Baptist Missionary Society, which also has a mission in Brittany), and in Spain in 1888. In Protestant countries and in Russia the Baptist movement began without missionary intervention from England or America. J. G. Oncken (1800-1884) formed the first church in Hamburg in 1834, and thereafter Baptist churches were formed in other countries as follows:--Denmark (1839), Holland and Sweden (1848), Switzerland (1849), Norway (1860), Austria and Rumania (1869), Hungary (1871), and Bulgaria (1884). Baptist churches also began to be formed in Russia and Finland in the 'fifties and 'sixties.

3. _British Colonies._--In every colony the Baptists have a considerable place. There are unions of Baptist churches in the following colonies:--New South Wales, Victoria, S. Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, New Zealand, Tasmania, Canada (four Unions) and S. Africa. The work in S. Africa is assisted by the Baptist South African Missionary and Colonial Aid Society, having its seat in London.

_The Baptist World Alliance_ was formed in 1905, when the first Baptist World Congress was held in London. The preamble of the constitution of this Alliance sufficiently indicates its nature: "Whereas, in the providence of God, the time has come when it seems fitting more fully to manifest the essential oneness in the Lord Jesus Christ, as their God and Saviour, of the churches of the Baptist order and faith throughout the world, and to promote the spirit of fellowship, service and co-operation among them, while recognizing the independence of each particular church and not assuming the functions of any existing organization, it is agreed to form a Baptist alliance, extending over every part of the world." This alliance does in fact include Baptists in every quarter of the globe, as will be seen from the following statistics:--

Churches. Members.
United States--
National Baptist Convention 16,996 2,110,269
Southern Baptist Convention 20,431 1,832,638
"Disciples of Christ" 11,157 1,235,798
Thirty-five Northern States 8,894 986,821
Fourteen other Bodies 7,921 414,775
Australasia 270 23,253
Canada 985 103,062
S. Africa 52 4,865
United Kingdom 2,934 426,563
Austria Hungary 37 9,783
Denmark 29 3,954
Finland 43 2,301
France 28 2,278
Germany 180 32,462
Italy 53 1,375
Mexico and Central America 58 1,820
Netherlands 22 1,413
Norway 39 2,849
Rumania and Bulgaria 5 374
Russia and Poland[1] 131 24,136
S. America 63 3,641
Spain 7 245
Sweden 567 43,305
Switzerland 8 796
West Indies 318 42,310
Ceylon 25 1,044
China 137 12,160
India 1,215 121,716
Japan 40 2,326
Palestine 1 106
Philippines 4 425
Congo 21 4,673
West Africa 10 629
------ ---------
Total 72,681 7,454,165
====== =========

In 1909 the comparative totals were roughly:--72,988 churches; 7,480,940 members. In both sets of figures the Disciples of Christ (U.S.A.) are included.

LITERATURE.--Thomas Crosby, _The History of the English Baptists_ (4 vols. London, 1738-1740); D. Masson, _Life of John Milton in Connexion with the History of his Time_ (6 vols. 1859-1880, new ed. 1881, &c.); B. Evans, _The Early English Baptists_, i. ii. (1862-1864); H. C. Vedder, _A Short History of the Baptists_ (London, 1897); A. H. Newman, _A Manual of Church History_ (Philadelphia, 1900-1903); R. Heath, _Anabaptism_ (1895); C. Williams, _The Principles and Practices of the Baptists_ (1903); E. C. Pike, _The Story of the Anabaptists_ (1904); J. H. Shakespeare, _Baptist and Congregational Pioneers_; J. G. Lehmann, _Geschichte der deutschen Baptisten_ (1896-1900); G. Tumbuelt, _Die Wiedertaeufer_ (Bielefeld, 1899); _The Baptist Handbook_ (annually); _The Baptist World Congress_, 1905; _The Religious Census of London_ (1904).

(N. H. M.)

4. _United States of America._--The first Baptist Church in America was that founded in the Providence settlement on Narragansett Bay under the leadership of Roger Williams (_q.v._). Having been sentenced to banishment (October 1635) by the Massachusetts Court because of his persistence in advocating separatistic views deemed unsettling and dangerous, to escape deportation to England he betook himself (January 1636) to the wilderness, where he was hospitably entertained by the natives who gave him a tract of land for a settlement. Having been joined by a few friends from Massachusetts, Williams founded a commonwealth in which absolute religious liberty was combined with civil democracy. In the firm conviction that churches of Christ should be made up exclusively of regenerate members, the baptism of infants appeared to him not only valueless but a perversion of a Christian ordinance. About March 1639, with eleven others, he decided to restore believers' baptism and to form a church of baptized believers. Ezekiel Holliman, who had been with him at Plymouth and shared his separatist views, first baptized Williams and Williams baptized the rest of the company. Williams did not long continue to find satisfaction in the step he had taken. Believing that the ordinances and apostolic church organization had been lost in the general apostasy, he became convinced that it was presumptuous for any man or company of men to undertake their restoration without a special divine commission. He felt compelled to withdraw from the church and to assume the position of a seeker. He continued on friendly terms with the Baptists of Providence, and in his writings he expressed the conviction that their practice came nearer than that of other communities to the first practice of Christ.

In November 1637 John Clarke (1609-1676), a physician, of religious zeal and theological acumen, arrived at Boston, where, instead of the religious freedom he was seeking, he found the dominant party in the Antinomian controversy on the point of banishing the Antinomian minority, including Mrs Anne Hutchinson (_q.v._) and her family, John Wheelwright (_c._ 1592-1679), and William Coddington (1601-1678). Whether from sympathy with the persecuted or aversion to the persecutors, he cast in his lot with the former and after two unsuccessful attempts at settlement assisted the fugitives in forming a colony on the island of Aquidnek (Rhode Island), procured from the Indians through the good offices of Williams. By 1641 there were, according to John Winthrop, "professed Anabaptists" on the island, and Clarke was probably their leader. Robert Lenthall, who joined the Newport company in 1640 when driven from Massachusetts, probably brought with him antipaedobaptist convictions. Mrs Scott, sister of Mrs Hutchinson, is thought to have been an aggressive antipaedobaptist when the colony was founded. Mark Lucar, who was baptized by immersion in London in January 1642 (N.S.) and was a member of a Baptist church there, reached Newport about 1644. A few years later we find [v.03 p.0375] him associated with Clarke as one of the most active members of the Newport church, and as the date of the organization is uncertain, there is some reason to suspect that he was a constituent member, and that as a baptized man he took the initiative in baptizing and organizing. At any rate we have in Lucar an interesting connecting link between early English and American Baptists.

The Providence church maintained a rather feeble existence after Williams's withdrawal, with Thomas Olney (d. 1682), William Wickenden, Chad Brown (d. 1665) and Gregory Dexter as leading members. A schism occurred in 1652, the last three with a majority of the members contending for general redemption and for the laying on of hands as indispensable to fellowship, Olney, with the minority, maintaining particular redemption and rejecting the laying on of hands as an ordinance. Olney's party became extinct soon after his death in 1682. The surviving church became involved in Socinianism and Universalism, but maintained a somewhat vigorous life and, through Wickenden and others, exerted considerable influence at Newport, in Connecticut, New York and elsewhere. Dexter became, with Williams and Clarke, a leading statesman in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

The Newport church extended its influence into Massachusetts, and in 1649 we find a group of Baptists at Rehoboth, with Obadiah Holmes as leader. The intolerance of the authorities rendered the prosecution of the work impracticable and these Massachusetts Baptists became members of the Newport church. In 1651 Clarke, Holmes and Joseph Crandall of the Newport church made a religious visit to Lynn, Mass. While holding a meeting in a private house they were arrested and were compelled to attend the church services of the standing order. For holding an unlawful meeting and refusing to participate quietly in the public service they were fined, imprisoned and otherwise maltreated. While in England on public business in 1652, Clarke published _Ill News from New England_, which contained an impressive account of the proceedings against himself and his brethren at Lynn, and an earnest and well-reasoned plea for liberty of conscience.

Henry Dunster (1612-1659), the first president of the college at Cambridge (Harvard), had by 1653 become convinced that "visible believers only should be baptized." Being unwilling to hold his views in abeyance, he relinquished in 1654, under circumstances of considerable hardship, the work that he greatly loved.

In 1663 John Myles (1621-1683), a Welsh Baptist who had been one of Cromwell's Tryers, with his congregation, took refuge in Massachusetts from the intolerance of the government of Charles II. They were allowed to settle in Rehoboth, Mass., and even after they were discovered to be Baptists they were allowed to remain on condition of establishing their meeting-place at a considerable distance from that of the standing order. Myles did much to promote the growth of the Baptist Church in Massachusetts, and was of service to the denomination in Boston and elsewhere. Thomas Gould of Charlestown seems to have been in close touch with President Dunster and to have shared his antipaedobaptist views as early as 1654. Some time before 1665 several English Baptists had settled in the neighbourhood of Boston and several others had adopted Baptist views. These, with Gould, were baptized (May 1665) and joined with those who had been baptized in England in a church covenant. The church was severely persecuted, the members being frequently imprisoned and fined and denied the use of a building they had erected as a meeting-house. Long after the Act of Toleration (1689) was in full force in England, the Boston Baptists pleaded in vain for the privileges to which they were thereby entitled, and it required the most earnest efforts of English Baptists and other dissenters to gain for them a recognition of the right to exist. A mandate from Charles II. (July 1679), in which the Massachusetts authorities were sharply rebuked for denying to others the liberty to secure which they themselves had gone into exile, had produced little effect.

In 1682 William Screven (1629-1713) and Humphrey Churchwood, members of the Boston church, gathered and organized, With the co-operation of the mother church, a small congregation at Kittery, Me. Persecution led to migration, Screven and some of the members making their way to South Carolina, where, with a number of English Baptists of wealth and position, what became the First Baptist church in Charleston, was organized (about 1684). This became one of the most important of early Baptist centres, and through Screven's efforts Baptist principles became widely disseminated throughout that region. The withdrawal of members to form other churches in the neighbourhood and the intrusion of Socinianism almost extinguished the Charleston church about 1746.

A few Baptists of the general (Arminian) type appeared in Virginia from 1714 onward, and were organized and fostered by missionaries from the English General Baptists. By 1727 they had invaded North Carolina and a church was constituted there.

From 1643 onward antipaedobaptists from New England and elsewhere had settled in the New Netherlands (New York). Lady Deborah Moody left Massachusetts for the New Netherlands in 1643 because of her antipaedobaptist views and on her way stopped at New Haven, where she won to her principles Mrs Eaton, the wife of the governor, Theophilus Eaton. She settled at Gravesend (now part of Brooklyn) having received from the Dutch authorities a guarantee of religious liberty. Francis Doughty, an English Baptist, who had spent some time in Rhode Island, laboured in this region in 1656 and baptized a number of converts. This latter proceeding led to his banishment. Later in the same year William Wickenden of Providence evangelized and administered the ordinances at Flushing, but was heavily fined and banished. From 1711 onward Valentine Wightman (1681-1747) of Connecticut (General Baptist) made occasional missionary visits to New York at the invitation of Nicolas Eyres, a business man who had adopted Baptist views, and in 1714 baptized Eyres and several others, and assisted them in organizing a church. The church was well-nigh wrecked (1730) by debt incurred in the erection of a meeting-house. A number of Baptists settled on Block Island about 1663. Some time before 1724 a Baptist church (probably Arminian) was formed at Oyster Bay.

The Quaker colonies, with their large measure of religious liberty, early attracted a considerable number of Baptists from New England, England and Wales. About 1684 a Baptist church was founded at Cold Spring, Bucks county, Pa., through the efforts of Thomas Dungan, an Irish Baptist minister who had spent some time in Rhode Island. The Pennepek church was formed in 1688 through the labours of Elias Keach, son of Benjamin Keach (1640-1704), the famous English evangelist. Services were held in Philadelphia under the auspices of the Pennepek church from 1687 onward, but independent organization did not occur till 1698. Several Keithian Quakers united with the church, which ultimately became possessed of the Keithian meeting-house. Almost from the beginning general meetings had been held by the churches of these colonies. In 1707 the Philadelphia Association was formed as a delegated body "to consult about such things as were wanting in the churches and to set them in order." From its inception this body proved highly influential in promoting Baptist co-operation in missionary and educational work, in efforts to supply the churches with suitable ministers and to silence unworthy ones, and in maintaining sound doctrine. Sabbatarianism appeared within the bounds of the association at an early date and Seventh-day Baptist churches were formed (1705 onward).

The decades preceding the "Great Awakening" of 1740-1743 were a time of religious declension. A Socinianized Arminianism had paralysed evangelistic effort. The First Church, Providence, had long since become Arminian and held aloof from the evangelism of Edwards, Whitefield and their coadjutors. The First Church, Boston, had become Socinianized and discountenanced the revival. The First Church, Newport, had been rent asunder by Arminianism, and the nominally Calvinistic remnant had itself become divided on the question of the laying on of hands and showed no sympathy with the Great Awakening. The First Church, Charleston, had been wrecked by Socinianism. The General (Six Principles) Baptists of Rhode Island and [v.03 p.0376] Connecticut had increased their congregations and membership, and before the beginning of the 18th century had inaugurated annual associational meetings. But the fact that the Great Awakening in America was conducted on Calvinistic principles was sufficient to prevent their hearty co-operation. The churches of the Philadelphia Association were organized and engaged to some extent in missionary endeavour, but they showed little interest in the Edwards-Whitefield movement. And yet the Baptists ultimately profited by the Great Awakening beyond almost any of the denominations. In many New England communities a majority in the churches of the standing order bitterly opposed the new evangelism, and those who came under its influence felt constrained to organize "Separate" or "New Light" churches. These were severely persecuted by the dominant party and were denied even the scanty privileges that Baptists had succeeded in gaining. As the chief objection of the "Separates" to the churches of the standing order was their refusal to insist on personal regeneration as a term of membership, many of them were led to feel that they were inconsistent in requiring regenerate membership and yet administering baptism to unconscious infants. In several cases entire "Separate" churches reached the conviction that the baptism of infants was not only without Scriptural warrant but was a chief corner-stone of state-churchism, and transformed themselves into Baptist churches. In many cases a division of sentiment came to prevail on the matter of infant-baptism, and for a while mutual toleration prevailed; but mixed churches had their manifest disadvantages and separation ultimately ensued.

Among the Baptist leaders gained from Congregationalism as a result of the awakening was Isaac Backus (1724-1806), who became the New England champion in the cause of religious liberty and equality, and the historian of his denomination. To Daniel Marshall (d. 1784) and Shubael Stearns, "New Light" evangelists who became Baptists, the spread of Baptist principles and the multiplication of Baptist churches throughout the southern colonies were in great measure due. The feeble Baptist cause in Virginia and North Carolina had been considerably strengthened by missionaries from the churches of the Philadelphia Association, including Benjamin Griffith, John Gano (1727-1804), John Thomas, Benjamin Miller, Samuel Eaton, John Garrard and David Thomas, and several churches, formed or reformed under their influence, united with the association. In 1776 the Ketockton Association was formed by this group of churches. The Virginia colonial government, in earlier days cruelly intolerant, gave a limited toleration to Baptists of this type; but the "Separate" Baptists were too enthusiastic and too much alive to the evils of state control in religious matters to be willing to take out licences for their meetings, and soon came into sharp conflict with the authorities. Stearns was an evangelist of great power. With Marshall, his brother-in-law, and about a dozen fellow-believers he settled at Sandy Creek, North Carolina, and in a few years had built up a church with a membership of more than six hundred. Marshall afterward organized and ministered to a church at Abbott's Creek about 30 m. distant. From these centres "Separate" Baptist influence spread throughout North and South Carolina and across the Georgia border, Marshall himself finally settling and forming a church at Kiokee, Georgia. From North Carolina as a centre "Separate" Baptist influence permeated Virginia and extended into Kentucky and Tennessee. The Sandy Creek Association came to embrace churches in several colonies, and Stearns, desirous of preserving the harmonious working of the churches that recognized his leadership, resisted with vehemence all proposals for the formation of other associations.

From 1760 to 1770 the growth of the "Separate" Baptist body in Virginia and the Carolinas was phenomenal. Evangelists like Samuel Harris (1724-_c._1794) and John Waller (1741-1802) stirred whole communities and established Baptist churches where the Baptist name had hitherto been unknown. The Sandy Creek Association, with Stearns as leader, undertook to "unfellowship ordinations, ministers and churches that acted independently," and provoked such opposition that a division of the association became necessary. The General Association of Virginia and the Congaree Association of South Carolina now took their places side by side with the Sandy Creek. The Virginia "Separate" Baptists had more than doubled their numbers in the two years from May 1771 to May 1773. In 1774 some of the Virginia brethren became convinced that the apostolic office was meant to be perpetuated and induced the association to appoint an apostle. Samuel Harris was the unanimous choice and was solemnly ordained. Waller and Elijah Craig (1743-1800) were made apostles soon afterward for the northern district. This arrangement, soon abandoned, was no doubt suggested by Methodist superintendency. In 1775 Methodist influence appeared in the contention of two of the apostles and Jeremiah Walker for universal redemption. Schism was narrowly averted by conciliatory statements on both sides. As a means of preserving harmony the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, a Calvinistic document, with provision against too rigid a construction, was adopted and a step was thus taken toward harmonizing with the "Regular" Baptists of the Philadelphia type. When the General Association was sub-divided (1783), a General Committee, made up of delegates from each district association, was constituted to consider matters that might be for the good of the whole society. Its chief work was to continue the agitation in which for some years the body had been successfully engaged in favour of religious equality and the entire separation of church and state. Since 1780 the "Separate" Baptists had had the hearty co-operation of the "Regular" Baptists in their struggle for religious liberty and equality. In 1787 the two bodies united and agreed to drop the names "Separate" and "Regular." The success of the Baptists of Virginia in securing step by step the abolition of everything that savoured of religious oppression, involving at last the disestablishment and the disendowment of the Episcopal Church, was due in part to the fact that Virginia Baptists were among the foremost advocates of American independence, while the Episcopal clergy were loyalists and had made themselves obnoxious to the people by using the authority of Great Britain in extorting their tithes from unwilling parishioners, and that they secured the co-operation of free-thinking statesmen like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and, in most measures, that of the Presbyterians.

The Baptist cause in New England that had profited so largely from the Great Awakening failed to reap a like harvest from the War of Independence. The standing order in New England represented the patriotic and popular party. Baptists lost favour by threatening to appeal to England for a redress of their grievances at the very time when resistance to English oppression was being determined upon. The result was slowness of growth and failure to secure religious liberty. Though a large proportion of the New England Baptists co-operated heartily in the cause of independence, the denomination failed to win the popularity that comes from successful leadership.

About 1762 the Philadelphia Association began to plan for the establishment of a Baptist institution of learning that should serve the entire denomination. Rhode Island was finally fixed upon, partly as the abode of religious liberty and because of its intelligent, influential and relatively wealthy Baptist constituency, the consequent likelihood of procuring a charter from its legislature, and the probability that the co-operation of other denominations in an institution under Baptist control would be available. James Manning (1738-1791), who had just been graduated from Princeton with high honours, was thought of as a suitable leader in the enterprise, and was sent to Rhode Island (1763) to confer with leading men, Baptist and other. As a result a charter was granted by the legislature in 1764, and after a few years of preliminary work at Warren (where the first degrees ever bestowed by a Baptist institution were conferred in 1769), Providence was chosen as the home of the college (1770). Here, with Manning as president and Hezekiah Smith (1737-1805), his class-mate at Princeton, as financial agent and influential supporter, the institution (since 1804 known as Brown University) was for many years the only degree-conferring [v.03 p.0377] institution controlled by Baptists. The Warren Association (1767) was organized under the influence of Manning and Smith on the model of the Philadelphia, and became a chief agency for the consolidation of denominational life, the promotion of denominational education and the securing of religious liberty. Hezekiah Smith was a highly successful evangelist, and through his labours scores of churches were constituted in New England. As chaplain in the American Revolutionary Army he also exerted a widespread influence.

The First Church, Charleston, which had become almost extinct through Arminianism in 1746, entered upon a career of remarkable prosperity in 1749 under the leadership of Oliver Hart (1723-1795), formerly of the Philadelphia Association. In 1751 the Charleston Association was formed, also on the model of the Philadelphia, and proved an element of denominational strength. The association raised funds for domestic missionary work (1755 onward) and for the education of ministers (1756 onward). Brown University shared largely in the liberality of members of this highly-cultivated and progressive body. Among the beneficiaries of the education fund was Samuel Stillman (1737-1807), afterward the honoured pastor of the Boston church. The most noted leader of the Baptists of South Carolina during the four decades following the War of Independence was Richard Furman (1755-1825), pastor of the First Church, Charleston. The remarkable numerical progress of Baptists in South Carolina from 1787 to 1812 (from 1620 members to 11,325) was due to the "Separate" Baptist movement under Stearns and Marshall far more than to the activity of the churches of the Charleston Association. Both these types of Baptist life permeated Georgia, the latter making its influence felt in Savannah, Augusta and the more cultivated communities, the former evangelizing the masses. Many negro slaves became Baptists in Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. In most cases they became members of the churches of the white Baptists; but in Richmond, Savannah and some other towns they were encouraged to have churches of their own.

By 1812 there were in the United States 173,972 Baptist church members, the denominational numerical strength having considerably more than doubled since the beginning of the 19th century.

_Foreign Missions_.--Baptists in Boston and vicinity, Philadelphia and Charleston, and a few other communities had from the beginning of the 19th century taken a deep interest in the missionary work of William Carey, the English missionary, and his coadjutors in India, and had contributed liberally to its support. The conversion to Baptist views of Adoniram Judson (_q.v._) and Luther Rice (1812), who had just been sent, with others, by the newly-formed American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to open up missionary work in India, marks an epoch in American Baptist history. Judson appealed to his American brethren to support him in missionary work among the heathen, and Rice returned to America to organize missionary societies to awaken interest in Judson's mission. In January 1813 there was formed in Boston "The Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in India and other Foreign Parts." Other societies in the Eastern, Middle and Southern states speedily followed. The desirability of a national organization soon became manifest, and in May 1814 thirty-three delegates, representing eleven states, met in Philadelphia and organized the "General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions." As its meetings were to be held every three years it came to be known as the "Triennial Convention." A Board of Commissioners was appointed with headquarters in Philadelphia (transferred in 1826 to Boston). The need of a larger supply of educated ministers for home and for mission work alike soon came to be profoundly felt, and resulted in the establishment of Columbian College, Washington (now George Washington University), with its theological department (1821), intended to be a national Baptist institution. Destitution on the frontiers led the Triennial Convention to engage extensively in home mission work (1817 onward), and in 1832 the American Baptist Home Mission Society was constituted for the promotion of this work. The need of an organ for the dissemination of information, and the quickening of interest in the missionary and educational enterprises of the Triennial Convention, led Rice to establish the _Latter Day Luminary_ (1816) and the _Columbian Star_, a weekly journal (1822). From the first the attempt to rouse the denomination to organized effort for the propagation of the gospel met with much opposition, agents of the Convention being looked upon by the less intelligent pastors and churches as highly-paid and irresponsible collectors of money to be used they knew not how, or for purposes of which they disapproved. The fact that Rice was unduly optimistic and allowed the enterprises of the Convention to become almost hopelessly involved in debt, and was constrained to use some of the fund collected for missions to meet the exigencies of his educational and journalistic work, intensified the hostility of those who had suspected from the beginning the good faith of the agents and denied the scriptural authority of boards, paid agents, paid missionaries, &c. So virulent became the opposition that in several states, as Tennessee and Kentucky, the work of the Convention was for years excluded, and a large majority in each association refused to receive into their fellowship those who advocated or contributed to its objects. Hyper-Calvinism, ignorance and avarice cooperated in making the very name "missions" odious, ministerial education an impertinent human effort to supplant a spirit-called and spirit-endowed ministry, Sunday-schools and prayer-meetings as human institutions, the aim of which was to interfere with the divine order, and the receiving of salaries for ministerial work as serving God for hire or rather as serving self. To counteract this influence, Baptist State Conventions were formed by the friends of missions and education, only contributing churches, associations, missionary societies and individuals being invited to membership (1821 onward--Massachusetts had effected state organization in 1802). These became highly efficient in promoting foreign and domestic missions, Sunday-school organization, denominational literature and education. Nearly every state soon had its institutions of learning, which aspired to become universities.

Before 1844 the sessions of the Triennial Convention had occasionally been made unpleasant by harsh anti-slavery utterances by Northern members against their Southern brethren and somewhat acrimonious rejoinders by the latter. The controversy between Francis Wayland and Richard Fuller (1804-1876) on the slavery question ultimately convinced the Southern brethren that separate organization for missionary work was advisable. The Southern Baptist Convention, with its Home and Foreign Missionary Boards, and (later) its Sunday-school Board, was formed in 1845. Since then Northern and Southern Baptists, though in perfect fellowship with each other, have found it best to carry on their home and foreign missionary work through separate boards and to have separate annual meetings. In 1905 a General Baptist Convention for America was formed for the promotion of fellowship, comity and denominational _esprit de corps_, but this organization is not to interfere with the sectional organizations or to undertake any kind of administrative work.

Since 1845 Northern and Southern Baptists alike have greatly increased in numbers, in missionary work, in educational institutions, in literary activity and in everything that pertains to the equipment and organization of a great religious denomination. Since 1812 they have increased in numbers from less than 200,000 to more than 5,000,000. In 1812 American Baptists had no theological seminary; in 1906 they had 11 with more than 100 instructors, 1300 students, and endowments and equipments valued at about $7,000,000. In 1812 they had only one degree-conferring college with a small faculty, a small student body and almost no endowment; in 1906 they had more than 100 universities and colleges with endowment and equipment valued at about $30,000,000, and an annual income of about $3,000,000. In 1812 the value of church property was small; in 1906 it was estimated at $100,000,000. Then a single monthly magazine, with a circulation of a few hundreds, was all that the denomination possessed in the way of periodical literature; in 1906 its quarterlies, monthlies and weeklies were numbered by hundreds. The denomination has a single publishing concern (the American Baptist Publication Society) with an annual business of nearly $1,000,000 and assets of $1,750,000.

Baptists in the Dominion of Canada had their rise about the close of the 18th century in migrations from the United States. They have been reinforced by considerable numbers of English, Welsh and Scottish Baptists. They are divided into four sections:--those of the Maritime Provinces, with their Convention, their Home and Foreign Mission Boards, an Education Board and a Publication Board, and with McMaster University (Arts, Theological and [v.03 p.0378] Academic departments) as its educational institution; those of Manitoba and the North-west, with Brandon College as its educational institution; and those of British Columbia. Canadian Baptists numbered 120,000 in 1909, and are considered in the above general estimates.

(A. H. N.)

[1] The figures for Russia include only the German-speaking Baptists. It is impossible to ascertain the numbers of properly Russian Baptists. Estimates have been made which vary from 60,000 to 100,000.

BAR, FRANCOIS DE (1538-1606), French scholar, was born at Seizencourt, near St Quentin, and having studied at the university of Paris entered the order of St Benedict. He soon became prior of the abbey of Anchin, near Pecquencourt, and passed much of his time in the valuable library of the abbey, studying ecclesiastical history, especially that of Flanders. He also made a catalogue of the manuscripts at Anchin and annotated many of them. During the French Revolution his manuscripts passed to the library at Douai. Bar died at Anchin on the 25th of March 1606.

See J. Lelong, _Bibliotheque historique de la France_ (Paris, 1768-1778); C. C. A. Dehaisnes, "Catalogue des manuscrits de Douai," in the _Catalogue general des manuscrits des bibliotheques des departements_, t. vi. (Paris, 1849-1885).

BAR, a town of Russia, in the government of Podolia, 50 m. N.E. of Kamenets, on an affluent of the Bug. Pop. (1897) 10,614. It was formerly called Rov. Its present designation was bestowed upon it in memory of Bari in Italy (where she was born) by Bona Sforza, the consort of Sigismund I. of Poland, who rebuilt the town after its destruction in 1452 by the Tatars. From 1672 to 1699 it remained in possession of the Turks. In 1768 a confederation of the Polish nobles (see next article) against the Russians was formed in the town, which was shortly after taken by storm, but did not become finally united to Russia till the partition of 1793.

BAR, CONFEDERATION OF, a famous confederation of the Polish nobles and gentry formed at the little fortress of Bar in Podolia in 1768 to defend the internal and external independence of Poland against the aggressions of the Russian government as represented by her representative at Warsaw, Prince Nicholas Repnin. The originators of this confederation were Adam Krasinski, bishop of Kamenets, Osip Pulawski and Michael Krasinski. King Stanislaus was at first inclined to mediate between the confederates and Russia; but finding this impossible, sent a force against them under the grand hetman Ksawery Branicki and two generals, who captured Bar. Nevertheless, a simultaneous outbreak of a _jacquerie_ in Little-Russia contributed to the extension of the confederation throughout the eastern province of Poland and even in Lithuania. The confederates, thereupon, appealed for help abroad and contributed to bring about a war between Russia and Turkey. So serious indeed was the situation that Frederick II. advised Catherine to come to terms with the confederates. Their bands under Ignaty Malchewsky, Michael Pac and Prince Charles Radziwill ravaged the land in every direction, won several engagements over the Russians, and at last, utterly ignoring the king, sent envoys on their own account to the principal European powers. In 1770 the Council of the Confederation was transferred from its original seat in Silesia to Hungary, from whence it conducted diplomatic negotiations with France, Austria and Turkey with the view of forming a league against Russia. The court of Versailles sent Dumouriez to act as commander-in-chief of the confederates, but neither as a soldier nor as a politician did this adroit adventurer particularly distinguish himself, and his account of his experiences is very unfair to the confederates. Among other blunders, he pronounced King Stanislaus a tyrant and a traitor at the very moment when he was about to accede to the Confederation. The king thereupon reverted to the Russian faction and the Confederation lost the confidence of Europe. Nevertheless, its army, thoroughly reorganized by Dumouriez, gallantly maintained the hopeless struggle for some years, and it was not till 1776 that the last traces of it disappeared.

See Alexander Kraushar, _Prince Repnin in Poland_ (Pol.) (Warsaw, 1900); F. A. Thesby de Belcour, _The Confederates of Bar_ (Pol.) (Cracow, 1895); Charles Francois Dumouriez, _Memoires et correspondance_ (Paris, 1834).

(R. N. B.)

BAR (O. Fr. _barre_, Late Lat. _barra_, origin unknown), in physical geography, a ridge of sand or silt crossing an estuary under water or raised by wave action above sea-level, forming an impediment to navigation. When a river enters a tidal sea its rate of flow is checked and the material it carries in suspension is deposited in a shifting bar crossing the channel from bank to bank. Where the channel is only partly closed, a spur of this character is called a "spit." A bar may be produced by tidal action only in an estuary or narrow gulf (as at Port Adelaide) where the tides sweep the loose sand backwards and forwards, depositing it where the motion of the water is checked. Nahant Bay, Mass., is bordered by the ridge of Lynn Beach, which separates it from Lynn Harbor, and ties Nahant to the mainland by a bar formed in this way.

BAR, THE. This term, as equivalent to the profession of barrister (_q.v._), originated in the partition or bar dividing the English law-courts into two parts, for the purpose of separating the members and officials of the court from the prisoners or suitors, their advocates and the general public. Theoretically, this division of the court is still maintained in England, those who are entitled to sit within the bar including king's counsel, barristers with patents of precedence, serjeants (till the order died out) and solicitors, while the other members of the bar and the general public remain without. Parties in civil suits who appear in person are allowed to stand on the floor within the bar instead of, as formerly, appearing at the bar itself. In criminal trials the accused still stands forward at the bar. There is also a "bar" in parliament. In the House of Commons it remains literally a bar--a long brass rod hidden in a tube from which it is pulled out when required to mark the technical boundary of the House. Before it appear those who are charged with having violated the privileges of the House; below it also sit those members who have been returned at bye-elections, to await their introduction to the House and the taking of the oath of allegiance. In the House of Lords the place where Mr Speaker and the members of the House of Commons stand when summoned by Black Rod is called "the bar."

The "call to the bar" in England, by which a law student at one of the Inns of Court is converted into a barrister, is dealt with under INNS OF COURT. The exclusive privilege of calling to the bar belongs to those bodies, which also exercise disciplinary power over their members; but it was widely felt by members of the bar in recent years that the benchers or governing body with their self-elected members did not keep a sufficiently watchful eye on the minutiae of the profession. Consequently, in 1883, a bar committee was formed for the purpose of dealing with all matters relating to the profession, such as the criticizing of proposed legal reforms, and the expression of opinions on matters of professional etiquette, conduct and practice. In 1894 the committee was dissolved, and succeeded by the general council of the bar, elected on a somewhat wider basis. It is composed of a due proportion of king's counsel and outer barristers elected by voting-papers sent to all barristers having an address in the _Law List_ within the United Kingdom. Its expenses are paid by contributions from the four Inns of Court. Its powers are not disciplinary, but it would draw the attention of the benchers to any gross violation of the professional etiquette of the bar.

Each state in America has its own bar, consisting of all attorneys-at-law residing within it who have been admitted to practice in its courts. Generally attorneys are admitted in one court to practice in all courts. Each of the United States courts has a bar of its own. An attorney of a state cannot practise in a court of the United States unless he has been admitted to it, or to one of the same class in another district or circuit. He cannot appear in the Supreme Court of the United States unless specially admitted and sworn as an attorney of that court, which is done on motion in case of any one who has practised for three years in the highest courts of his state and is in good standing at its bar. In most of the states there is a state bar association, and in some cities and counties local bar associations. These consist of such members of its bar as desire thus to associate, the object being to guard and advance the standards of the profession. Some own valuable libraries. These associations have no official recognition, but their influence is considerable in [v.03 p.0379] recommending and shaping legislation respecting the judicial establishment and procedure. They also serve a useful purpose in instituting or promoting proceedings to discipline or expel unworthy attorneys from the bar. There is an American Bar Association, founded in 1878, composed of over 3500 members of different states of like character and position. Some of these associations publish annually a volume of transactions. The rights, duties and liabilities of counsellor-at-law are stated under ATTORNEY. As members of the bar of the state in which they practise they are subject to its laws regulating such practice, _e.g._ in some states they are forbidden to advertise for divorce cases (New York Penal Code [1902] s. 148a) (1905, _People_ v. _Taylor_ [Colorado], 75 Pac. Rep. 914). It is common throughout the United States for lawyers to make contracts for "contingent fees," _i.e._ for a percentage of the amount recovered. Such contracts are not champertous and are upheld by the courts, but will be set aside if an unconscionable bargain be made with the client (_Deering_ v. _Scheyer_ [N.Y.], 58 App. D. 322). So also by the U.S. Supreme Court (_Wright_ v. _Tebbets_, 91 U.S. 252; _Taylor_ v. _Benis_, 110 U.S. 42). The reason for upholding such contracts is that otherwise poor persons would often fail of securing or protecting their property or rights. In fact such contracts are seldom set aside, though no doubt the practice is capable of abuse.

BARA BANKI, a town and district of British India in the Fyzabad division of the United Provinces. The town, which forms one municipality with Nawabganj, the administrative headquarters of the district, is 17 m. E. of Lucknow by railway. The population of Bara Banki alone in 1901 was 3020. There is some trade in sugar and cotton.

The district has an area of 1758 sq. m. It stretches out in a level plain interspersed with numerous _jhils_ or marshes. In the upper part of the district the soil is sandy, while in the lower part it is clayey and produces finer crops. The principal rivers are the Gogra, forming the northern boundary, and the Gumti, flowing through the middle of the district. In 1856 it came, with the rest of Oudh, under British rule. During the Sepoy war of 1857-1858 the whole of the Bara Banki talukdars joined the mutineers, but offered no serious resistance after the capture of Lucknow. The cultivators are still, for the most part, tenants-at-will, rack-rented and debt-ridden. In 1901 the population was 1,179,323, showing an increase of 4% in the decade. The principal crops are rice, wheat, pulse and other food-grains, sugar-cane and opium. Both the bordering rivers are navigable; and the district is traversed by two lines of the Oudh and Rohilkhand railway, with branches. Trade in agricultural produce is active.

BARABOO, a city and the county-seat of Sauk county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., about 37 m. N.W. of Madison, on the Baraboo river, a tributary of the Wisconsin. Pop. (1890) 4605; (1900) 5751, of whom 732 were foreign-born; (1905) 5835; (1910) 6324. The city is served by the Chicago & North-Western railway, which maintains here an engine house and extensive machine shops, and of which it is a division headquarters. Baraboo has an attractive situation on a series of hills about 1000 ft. above sea-level. In the vicinity are Devil's Lake (3 m. S.) and the famous Dells of the Wisconsin river (near Kilbourn, about 12 m. N.), two summer resorts with picturesque scenery. The principal public buildings are the court-house (in a small public park), the public library and a high school. Dairying and the growing of small fruits are important industries in the surrounding region; and there is a large nursery here. Stone quarried in the vicinity is exported, and the city is near the centre of the Sauk county iron range. Among the manufactures are woollen goods, towels, canned fruit and vegetables, dairy products, beer, and circus wagons (the city is the headquarters of the Ringling and the Gollmar circuses). The first permanent settlement here was made in 1839. Baraboo was named in honour of Jean Baribault, an early French trapper, and was chartered as a city in 1882.

BARABRA, a name for the complex Nubian races of the Egyptian Sudan, whose original stock is Hamitic-Berber, long modified by negro crossings. The word is variously derived from _Berberi_, _i.e._ people of Berber, or as identical with _Barabara_, figuring in the inscription on a gateway of Tethmosis I. as the name of one of the 113 tribes conquered by him. In a later inscription of Rameses II. at Karnak (_c._ 1300 B.C.) _Beraberata_ is given as that of a southern conquered people. Thus it is suggested that Barabra is a real ethnical name, confused later with Greek and Roman _barbarus_, and revived in its proper meaning subsequent to the Moslem conquest. A tribe living on the banks of the Nile between Wadi Haifa and Assuan are called Barabra. (See further NUBIA.)

BARACALDO, a river-port of north-eastern Spain, in the province of Biscay; on the left bank of the river Nervion or Ansa (in Basque, Ibaizabal), 5 m. by rail N.W. of Bilbao. Pop. (1900) 15,013. Few Spanish towns have developed more rapidly than Baracaldo, which nearly doubled its population between 1880 and 1900. During this period many immigrant labourers settled here; for the ironworks and dynamite factory of Baracaldo prospered greatly, owing to the increased output of the Biscayan mines, the extension of railways in the neighbourhood, and the growth of shipping at Bilbao. The low flat country round Baracaldo is covered with maize, pod fruit and vines.

BARACOA, a seaport city of N.E. Cuba, in Santiago province. Pop. (1907) 5633. The town lies under high hills on a small circular harbour accessible to small craft. The country round about is extremely rugged. The hill called the "Anvil of Baracoa" (about 3000 ft.) is remarkable for its extremely regular formation. It completely dominates the city's background, and is a well-known sailors' landmark. The town is the trading centre of a large plantation region behind it and is the centre of the banana and cocoanut export trade. There is a fort dating from the middle of the 18th century. Baracoa is the oldest town in Cuba, having been settled by Diego Velazquez in 1512. It held from its foundation the honours of a city. From 1512 to 1514 it was the capital of the island, and from 1518 to 1522 its church was the cathedral of the island's first diocese. Both honours were taken from it to be given to Santiago de Cuba; and for two centuries after this Baracoa remained an obscure village, with little commerce. In the 16th century it was repeatedly plundered by pirates until it came to terms with them, gave them welcome harbourage, and based a less precarious existence upon continuous illicit trade. Until the middle of the 18th century Baracoa was almost without connexion with Havana and Santiago. In the wars of the end of the century it was a place of deposit for French and Spanish corsairs. At this time, too, about 100 fugitive immigrant families from Santo Domingo greatly augmented its industrial importance. In 1807 an unsuccessful attack was made upon the city by an English force. In 1826 the port was opened to foreign commerce.

BARAHONA DE SOTO, LUIS (1535?-1595), Spanish poet, was born about 1535 at Lucena (Cordova), was educated at Granada, and practised as a physician at Cordova. His principal poem is the _Primera parte de la Angelica_ (1586), a continuation of the _Orlando furioso_; the second part was long believed to be lost, but fragments of it have been identified in the anonymous _Dialogos de la monteria_, first printed in 1890; the _Dialogos_ also embody fragments of a poem by Barahona entitled _Los Principios del mundo_, and many graceful lyrics by the same writer have been published by Francisco Rodriguez Marin. Cervantes describes Barahona as "one of the best poets not only in Spain, but in the whole world"; this is friendly hyperbole. Nevertheless Barahona has high merits: poetic imagination, ingenious fancy, and an exceptional mastery of the methods transplanted to Spain from Italy. His _Angelica_ has been reproduced in facsimile (New York, 1904) by Archer M. Huntington.

See F. Rodriguez Marin, _Luis Barahona de Solo, estudio biografico, bibliografico, y critico_ (Madrid. 1903); _Dialogos de la monteria_, edited by F. R. de Uhagon (Madrid, 1890).

(J. F.-K.)

BARANTE, AMABLE GUILLAUME PROSPER BRUGIERE, BARON DE (1782-1866), French statesman and historian, the son of an advocate, was born at Riom on the 16th of June 1782. At the age of sixteen he entered the Ecole Polytechnique at [v.03 p.0380] Paris, and at twenty obtained his first appointment in the civil service. His abilities secured him rapid promotion, and in 1806 he obtained the post of auditor to the council of state. After being employed in several political missions in Germany, Poland and Spain, during the next two years, he became prefect of Vendee. At the time of the return of Napoleon I. he held the prefecture of Nantes, and this post he immediately resigned. On the second restoration of the Bourbons he was made councillor of state and secretary-general of the ministry of the interior. After filling for several years the post of director-general of indirect taxes, he was created in 1819 a peer of France and was prominent among the Liberals. After the revolution of July 1830, M. de Barante was appointed ambassador to Turin, and five years later to St Petersburg. Throughout the reign of Louis Philippe he remained a supporter of the government; and after the fall of the monarchy, in February 1848, he withdrew from political affairs and retired to his country seat in Auvergne. Shortly before his retirement he had been made grand cross of the Legion of Honour. Barante's _Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne de la maison de Valois_, which appeared in a series of volumes between 1824 and 1828, procured him immediate admission to the French Academy. Its narrative qualities, and purity of style, won high praise from the romantic school, but it exhibits a lack of the critical sense and of scientific scholarship. Amongst his other literary works are a _Tableau de la litterature francaise au dixhuitieme siecle_, of which several editions were published; _Des communes et de l'aristocratie_ (1821); a French translation of the dramatic works of Schiller; _Questions constitutionnelles_ (1850); _Histoire de la Convention Nationale_, which appeared in six volumes between 1851 and 1853; _Histoire du Directoire de la Republique francaise_ (1855); _Etudes historiques et biographiques_ (1857); _La Vie politique de M. Royer-Collard_ (1861). The version of _Hamlet_ for Guizot's _Shakespeare_ was his work. He died on the 22nd of November 1866.

His _Souvenirs_ were published by his grandson (Paris, 1890-99). See also the article by Guizot in the _Revue des deux Mondes_, July 1867.