Indian Territory. The negotiations which had been pending several years for a union with the British Methodist Episcopal Church having been carried to a successful termination, the General Conference in 1884 ordered that a declaration be issued announcing the consummation of the union. The territory covered by the British church, which included chiefly Canada and Bermuda, was made the tenth district of the African M. E. Church, and placed under the jurisdiction of Bishop R. R. Disney.

THE ZION AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

This church originated in a withdrawal of colored people from the Methodist Episcopal churches of New York City, in 1819. They retain all the distinctive features of the parent church, except that they elect their bishops annually, and that they do not consecrate them by formal ordination. They have bishops, elders, and deacons, and General, Annual, and Quarterly Conferences. At the last General Conference reports were presented showing the following condition of the church: Number of conferences, 21; elders, 500; deacons, 347; traveling preachers, 234; local elders, deacons, and preachers, 1,800; members in full connection, 154,807; churches, 1,180; Sunday-schools, 2,071; officers and teachers, 9,222; scholars, 90,323; value of church property, $4,109,321. They had a Zion Wesley Institute at Salisbury, N. C.; a Book Concern; and a missionary force of one missionary, fourteen exhorters, five elders and deacons, 500 members, and 158 probationers. At this Conference a financial "plan" was adopted, the basis of which was an assessment of fifty cents a year upon each member of the church over fifteen years of age and able to pay. The proceeds of this fund were to be apportioned, (1) to the payment of the salaries of the bishops and the expenses incurred in their regular episcopal tours; (2) to the Zion Wesleyan Institute; (3) to the Book Concern; (4) to the periodical The Star of Zion; (5) to the superannuated ministers; (6) to the payment of the salaries of the General Steward and Secretary.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE BAPTIST CHURCH.

Origin of the Baptists-English Baptists-Welsh Baptists-Scotch BaptistsIrish Baptists-Continental Baptists.

IN

ORIGIN OF THE BAPTISTS.

N the popular mind the chief distinctive feature associated with that body of Christians comprising a number of subdivisions and known as Baptists, is their practice of Immersion, as, in their judgment, the only Scriptural form of Baptism. They are supposed to differ from all others mainly on the mode and subjects of Baptism. This is in part true; but to give our readers a more accurate conception of this large body, we will first glance at their claim to a place in history, and then give a synopsis of their beliefs and practices.

Baptists, or as formerly derisively designated Anabaptists, i. e., rebaptizers, claim to have a history antedating the Reformation. Indeed, they assert substantially, that the advocates of their views and principles were the true precursors of Jerome of Prague, of John Huss, of Martin Luther, of Zwingli, of Calvin, and of Knox. It is sometimes charged that they sprung from those wild, lawless, enthusiastic, Iconoclastic peasants in Germany, who appeared in the time of Luther, and who are known in the records of that era as "The Madmen of Munster." This they emphatically deny. D'Aubigne, the well-known historian of the Reformation, says: "Some persons imagine that the Anabaptists of the times of the Reformation and the Baptists of our day are the same, but they are as different as possible."

That they were numerous in Germany, Switzerland, and England during the early part of the sixteenth century, is an unquestioned fact of ecclesiastical history. At that time they were known as Anabaptists, i. e., rebaptizers, because they then, as now, regarded nothing, except the immersion of a believer in water, in the name of the Trinity, as Scripture baptism.

But they claim a higher antiquity than the eventful era of the Reformation. They affirm that their views of the Church and the ordinances may be traced through the Paterines, the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Vaudois, the Cathari, and the Poor Men of Lyons-the Paulicians, the Donatists, the Novatians; to the Messalians, the Montanists, and the Euchites of the second and closing part of the first century, to the Apostles and the churches they founded. Mosheim says: "The true origin of that sect which acquired the name of Anabaptists is hid in the remote depths of antiquity." Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer, says: "The institution of Anabaptism is no novelty, but, for fifteen hundred years, has caused great disturbance in the Church." Cardinal Hossius, Chairman of the Council of Trent, bore this testimony: "If the truth of religion were to be judged of by the readiness and cheerfulness which a man of any sect shows in suffering, then the opinions and persuasions of no sect can be truer or surer than those of the Anabaptists, since there have been none, for these twelve hundred years past, that have been more grievously punished." This latter is certainly a very strong concession to the claims of Baptists, as the cardinal was an eminent and learned prelate of the Catholic Church, living in the earlier portion of the fifteenth century; thus, it will be seen, he concedes their existence from the third century.

To these we add two quotations from the popular English historian, James Anthony Froude. Of the Anabaptists of the Netherlands he says: "On them the laws of the country might take their natural course, and no voice was raised to speak for them. For them no Europe was agitated; no courts were ordered into mourning; no royal hearts trem

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bled with indignation. At their deaths the world looked on complacently, indifferently, or exultingly. For them history has no word of praise."

In describing the policy of the Duke of Somerset in England, in 1549, he says: "A commissioner was appointed to hunt out and try Anabaptists; to examine them and report on their opinions, and, if mild measures failed, to deliver over the obstinate, in the old fashion, to the secular arm." And Jeremy Taylor, as quoted by Palfrey, says: "Anabaptists are as much to be rooted out as anything that is the greatest pest and nuisance." This evidence is sufficient to show that Baptists are well sustained by those not of them, when they assert their growth and present power in the religious world to have been attained despite the most bitter persecutions, both secular and religious.

There is much Baptists hold in common with all Evangelical Christians. They believe in the Divine authenticity and credibility of the Bible, accepting all its books as inspired. They believe in the Trinity, in man's creation in holiness, in his fall through transgression, and the consequent sinfulness of the whole human race; in man's guilt and condemnation, and the consequent impossibility of justification "by deeds of the law." They believe in what is termed the "vicarious atonement." That Christ paid the penalty due our sins, and that we can be justified only by faith in his word. That "we are saved from wrath through him." They believe in the necessity of regeneration, and that this is effected by the Holy Spirit. In a word, in those respects in which they agree with the great body of Evangelical Christians, they are Calvinists, especially holding in common with the great Presbyterian family the doctrine of election to eternal life in Jesus Christ.

They differ from others in holding that no person is, on any pretence, or for any reason, to be admitted into membership in the visible church until he or she has professed regeneration. Until this is claimed and satisfactory evidence given, they will not administer the ordinance of baptism. Hence they oppose infant baptism, regarding baptism in the name

of the Trinity as the "outward sign of an inward and invisible work." Consequently, they stoutly oppose everything savoring of "Baptismal Regeneration," believing a man must be regenerated and give evidence of saving faith before being baptized; and they say baptism must be the voluntary act of a qualified agent. They do not ask an applicant for membership to subscribe to a creed or to commit a catechism. They rely on the Holy Spirit, by means of the written word, guiding him into all truth, while causing him to grow in grace. They hold the Church of Christ to be a spiritual temple, "built up of lively stones." Hence, they have always protested against all alliances of Church and State, believing that Christ's kingdom is not of this world. Their churches are all independent of each other, each member, whether man or woman, black or white, having the same privileges as any other member. They deny the right of conference, or synod, or bishops, or any other ecclesiastical body to legislate for His churches; nor have they any creed binding all to subscribe to it. The Bible is pre-eminently their only creed. They contend for but one order in the ministry, that of ordained pastors. They have deacons, but their functions are not spiritual, they are temporal and secular, or at most assistants of the pastor in attending to details, as the care of the poor of the church, the pastor's salary, and the communion service, providing the bread and wine, and distributing at the table. The pastor presides in the examination of candidates for membership, but such examination takes place in the presence of the entire membership, and any member is at liberty to ask any appropriate question of the candidate respecting what is termed his "Christian experience," and views of Bible doctrine. The admission is by the vote of the entire membership, the majority deciding. They regard the ordinances as but two, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, holding the former to symbolize regeneration and the new life of faith in Christ, and the latter our dependence on Christ for spiritual life.