BAPTISTS 293 " Eclectic Review." This body holds different views on the question of communion ; the pre- vailing ones are those of Robert Hall. In all other respects they are united. Within half a century they have advanced rapidly in num- bers and influence. They support the impor- tant mission to India begun by Carey in 1793, a Baptist home mission, and missions in Ire- land, France, Africa, Honduras, and the West Indies. The Jamaica mission is now self-sup- porting, but the home society has established and sustains at Calabar, in Jamaica, a theolo- gical institution for native candidates for the ministry, which is in a flourishing condition, and promises much for Africa also. Baptist principles are spreading rapidly in all the widely extended colonies of Great Britain, par- ticularly Australia, New Zealand, St. Helena, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Cana- das. On the continent of Europe, within 35 years, nearly 30,000 converts have been bap- tized, and 100 churches planted in the princi- pal cities of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark, besides 220 churches in Sweden, with 8,807 members. Many of these converts have suffered severe fines and imprisonments ; some have been denied the liberty of marriage ; others have had their children forcibly bap- tized in the state church; others, still, have been condemned to perpetual banishment. But in the face of all this intolerance they have advanced. Hundreds, driven from their homes, emigrate to America. Recent information from France and Switzerland announces the gradual abandonment of infant baptism by the free evangelical churches, and also by some in the Protestant national church. In the United States the Baptist, with one exception, is now the largest denomination of evangelical Chris- tians. They are spread through every state and territory. Owing to a difference on the subject of slavery, in 1845 the southern Bap- tists, by mutual consent, formed separate or- ganizations for their benevolent enterprises. As early as 1764, when numbering in all Amer- ica only 60 churches and about 5,000 members, the Baptists founded their first college in Rhode Island. Long before, they had fostered Har- vard, and helped Franklin to lay the founda- tions of the university of Pennsylvania. They now have 28 colleges of their own, over 100 academies and female seminaries of a high grade, and 9 theological schools. They have publication societies at Philadelphia, Charles- ton, and Nashville, besides many flourishing private publishing houses in our large cities. They maintain 45 periodical organs, including a quarterly review. The Baptists of the United States also support the American and foreign Bible society, the American Baptist missionary union, the southern Baptist board of foreign and domestic missions, the Baptist home mis- sion society, and in part the " American Bible Union." Their missions are planted in Can- ada, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Hayti; in France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway; in western and central Africa; in southern India, Assam, Burmah, Siam, and China. The number of conversions from their colportages and missions in 1871 exceeded 5,000. Total number in the mission churches, over 50,000. The income of all the above so- cieties in 1871 was $800,000. In doctrine the Baptists of this country are Calvinistic, but with much freedom and moderation. The New Hampshire declaration of faith in 1833 is the most popular. Besides the general body of Bap- tists, there are in the United States nine smaller bodies, distinguished by peculiarities indicated by their respective names. The Seventh-Day Baptists differ only in the observance of the Jewish Sabbath ; the Free-will and the Anti- mission Baptists are seceders from the general fellowship on account of Arminian and Anti- nomian tendencies, though the latter are grad- ually adopting different views and returning to the general body. The General (or Six- Principle) Baptists, the Tunkers, and the Men- nonites are of foreign origin, and cling to their ancient usages. .The Christian connection, the Campbellites (or Disciples), and the Wine- brennarians (or Church of God) are new organ- izations, drawn from various sources, though agreeing with the Baptists generally as to the subjects and mode of baptism. For the pecu- liarities of each see the respective articles. It is asserted by some Baptists that they can trace their history in a succession of pure churches (cathari) essentially Baptist, though under va- rious names, from the 3d century down to the reformation. These churches, from the 5th century onward, were the subjects of system- atic persecution from the state churches, both in the East and in the West. Cyril of Alex- andria and Innocent I. of Rome, according to the historian Socrates, began this persecution by depriving them of their houses of worship, and driving them into secret places, under the laws of Honorius and Theodosius II., which forbid rebaptism (so called) under penalty of death. Yet their principles reappear among the Culdees of the West and the Paulians of the East, the Vallesii and the Paterines, the Albigenses and Waldenses, and emerge on all sides at the first dawn of the reformation. Mr. Bancroft says of the German Baptists of that era: "With greater consistency than Luther they applied the doctrines of the reformation to the social positions of life, and threatened an end to priestcraft and kingcraft, spiritual domination, titles, and vassalage. They were trodden under foot with foul reproaches and most arrogant scorn, and their history is writ- ten in the blood of thousands of the German peasantry ; but their principles, secure in their immortality, escaped with Roger Williams to Providence, and his colony is witness that nat- urally the paths of the Baptists are paths of freedom, pleasantness, and peace." (See ANA- BAPTISTS.) In England, from the time of Henry VIII. to William III., a full century and a half, the Baptists struggled to gain their footing,
