THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
tine, Africa, the Bahamas, Trinidad, San Domingo, Turk's Island, and Italy are the present beneficiaries. At an earlier date Jamaica was evangelized by this body. The present annual income of the Foreign Missionary Society is about £100,000. It supports about three hundred missionaries and evangelists and has about 20,000 members in its mission churches.
About 1S12 a conviction was expressed by a writer in the Baptist Magazine that, while numerically strong, the Baptists of England and Wales exerted little influence because of their lack of union. " Union of the most extensive, firm, and durable nature " was earnestly advocated by him. A number of brethren met in London the same vear to plan for a union. Particular Baptists contended much more strenuously than General Baptists for church independency, and the recognition of the fullest independence of the local churches was indispensable. Among the principal promoters of the enterprise were Joseph Ivimey, the historian, Drs. Ryland and Rippon, of London, and James Hinton, of Oxford. The union did not at once take firm hold on the denominational life or become a marked success. But the great religious and political upheaval of the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century (Re- 6. Baptist form bills, Catholic Emancipation, Union. abolition of Corporation and Test Acts, Hampden Controversy, Tractarian Controversy, etc.) aroused Baptists anew to the importance of making their influence felt and the Union grew in importance. The determined and successful Romanizing propaganda of the Oxford school and the disruption (1843) of the Scottish Church encouraged English dissenters to believe that disestablishment was possible in England and led to concerted efforts for religious equality. At the formation of the Anti-State-Church Association (1S44) Baptists were the only religious body represented. In the recent agitation against the education act, Dr. John Clifford (q.v.) was the recognized leader and to him and his free church coadjutors was largely due the victory of the Liberal party in 1906.
Through the enthusiastic advocacy of Robert Robinson and Robert Hall, and other favoring influences, open communion became widely prevalent in England early in the nineteenth century. In Wales, however, restricted communion has always prevailed. In 1845 a number of " Strict Baptist " churches formed the Baptist Evangelical Society under the leadership of Dr. John Stock. This society undertook missionary work in Germany and founded a theological college at Manchester. The most eminent English Baptist leaders of the present day carry their liberality so far as to practise open or mixed membership. Alexander Maclaren, the famous Manchester preacher was for many years pastor of a mixed church. The same is true of Dr. Clifford. F. B. Meyer, president of the Baptist Union, 1905-06, was for some years pastor of a pedobaptist congregation in London.
The coming of Charles Haddon Spurgeon to the pulpit of New Park Street Church, London, in 1854, marks an epoch in the history of British Baptists.
Within a few years he became recognized as one of the greatest of preachers. That he built up a church of six thousand members, preached regularly in the Metropolitan Tabernacle to 7,000 people with a large overflow, that he reached through his published sermons millions of people throughout the world, represent only a small part of his beneficent activity. From his Pastor's College hundreds of young men went forth as pastors into all parts of Britain and throughout the world, and it is estimated that considerably over a hundred thousand have been added to churches pastored by Spurgeon's students. The Stockwell Orphanage founded by Spurgeon has 7 Charles se* an example to Baptists and others Haddon m practical philanthropy. His Book Spurg-eon. Fund supplied the needs of multitudes of pastors. His magazine and his popular writings multiplied his influence. The last years of Mr. Spurgeon (1884-92) were somewhat embittered by a controversy in which he became engaged with the Baptist Union because of its toleration of liberal views on the Scriptures, the person of Christ, the atonement, future punishment, etc. His own Puritan convictions made him incapable of seeing anything but the abomination of desolation in less rigorous modes of thought that had become widely prevalent. When the Union refused to exclude from its fellowship those whose teachings he regarded as unsound he severed his connection with this body and was followed by many of his former students and the churches to which they ministered.
The Baptists of Wales suffered much during the first half of the eighteenth century from hyper- Calvinism, but the religious fervor of the race was too great to be completely quenched. More promptly than the English Baptists, they responded to the quickening influences of the evangelical revival, especially to the Calvinistic phase of it represented by Whitefield. During the latter part of the century Sandemanianism and Socinianism made some headway among them. The teachings of Andrew Fuller finally prevailed, and w l h ^e sPirit °f evangelism attained to a Bantists fervor among Welsh Baptist preachers rarely surpassed. Christmas Evans (q.v.) was from 1791 onward by far the greatest evangelizing force. Anglesea was the chief scene of his labors, but he is said to have traversed Wales forty times on preaching tours and to have preached one hundred and sixty-three associational sermons. Many other men of power carried forward throughout Wales the work in which Evans was the chief prophet. Pontypool College (1836) grew out of earlier efforts at ministerial education. Haverfordwest College was founded in 1839 and Llabollen College in 1862. Like the English denominational colleges these are small institutions in which two or three teachers instruct twenty or thirty students for the ministry. The Welsh churches, while retaining for home work a liberal share of scholarly ministers, have sent to England and America many of their brightest and best. The Philadelphia Association has profited largely by Welsh talent and consecration. The Welsh Baptists at present num-