THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
been constituted. The first of these on record is that in Savannah, Ga. (1788) of which Andrew Bryan was for many years pastor. The largest negro Baptist church before emanci- 10. Col- pation was that in Richmond, Va., of oredBap- whi(;h {qt twenty.five years Robert S' Ryland, president of Richmond College, was pastor. In many churches controlled by the whites a majority were negroes. After emancipation they everywhere effected separate church organization. Associations were almost immediately formed, State Conventions soon followed, and in 1SS0 a National Convention was organized with its Home Mission, Foreign Mission, Education, Publishing, and Baptist Young People's Union Boards. Besides the University, Theological Seminary, and Colleges founded and fostered by the American Baptist Home Mission Society, they have established, own, and control scores of institutions of higher and lower grades. Over 15,000 students are in attendance at these schools. While hundreds of their ministers have enjoyed educational advantages and are in a position to elevate those under their ministry, thousands are illiterate and incapable of wise leadership. Since emancipation they have increased in number fivefold, the present membership, according to the statistician of the National Baptist Convention (190.5) being 2,189,000.
The first to gather German Baptist churches in America was Conrad Fleischmann, a Swiss, who in 1S41 organized three churches in Pennsylvania. By 18.51 there were eight small churches 11. German with 405 members. The present mem- Baptists, bership is about 25,000. They have seven annual Conferences and a triennial General Conference. Their publishing house is located in Cleveland and their training-school for ministers is organically connected with the Rochester Theological Seminary. Educational and missionary work among the Germans of the United States and Canada has been from the first generously assisted by American Baptists.
The first Scandinavian Baptist church in America was formed in Illinois in 1848. At present there are about 5,000 Dano-Norwegian Baptists with eighty-six churches, whose representatives meet annually in seven Conferences. Their ministers are educated in the Dano-Norwegian Department of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Swedish Baptists (first church organized 1853) are far more numerous, having at present over 300 churches and nearly 25,000 members. The education of their ministers is provided for in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Scandinavian Baptists are most numerous in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska.
4. Minor Baptist Parties in the United States: (a) The Six-Principles Baptists are a survival of the General Baptists that prevailed in Rhode Island and Connecticut in the early time. They still contend for the laying-on of hands as an indispensable ordinance. They have at present less than a score of churches with less than a thousand members.
(6) The first Seventh-Day Baptist church was organized at Newport, R. I., in 1G71. As the name
12. Scandinavian Baptists.
indicates, they make the celebration of the Jewish Sabbath as the day of rest and worship rather than the Lord's Day an essential, and devote much of their attention to showing the error of adopting another day and the evil consequences that flow from this perversion. They have institutions of learning at Milton, Wis., and Alfred Center, N. Y., and circulate considerable literature through their publishing house at the latter place. They have ninety-seven churches with a membership of less than 9,000, scattered over twenty-four States. For the so-called Seventh-Day Baptists, German, see Communism, II, 5.
(c) The Free-Will Baptists originated in New Hampshire in 1780 under the leadership of Benjamin Randall who left the Congregationalist body to become an anti-Calvinistic and open communion Baptist. The Arminian teaching was no doubt due to Methodist influence. Free-Will Baptists took an active part in the antislavery agitation (1835 onward) and thus closed the South against their influence. They were reenforced in 1841 by 2,500 Free-Communion Baptists of New York State; but the Adventist movement a little later deprived them of a large number. From 1845 to 1857 their numbers declined from 60,000 to 49,000, but by 1870 they regained this loss. They have lost about 1,500 members since 1890; the present membership (1905) is 86,322. They have 1,543 churches distributed over thirty-three States. They early adopted quarterly and annual conferences, the former made up of delegates of churches, the latter of delegates from the former. The system is overtopped by the General Conference composed of delegates from the local annual conferences. The quarterly meeting may discipline churches, the annual meeting quarterly meetings, and the General Conference annual meetings. Ministers are first licensed by the quarterly meeting and after probation are ordained by the council appointed by the same body. Women are eligible for ordination to the ministry. Negotiations looking to the union of the Free-Will Baptists with the Regular Baptists of the North are pending with good prospects of success.
(d) It has been noted that the General Baptists from Virginia first introduced Baptist teaching into North Carolina. Some of the churches formed under this influence refused to amalgamate with the Separate and Regular Baptists. After a time they adopted the name Original Free-Will Baptists to distinguish themselves from the more numerous body mentioned above. They differ from the Free- Will Baptists in practising foot-washing, anointing the sick with oil, restricting the ministerial office to men, and having ruling elders for the settlement of controversies. Annual conferences may silence unworthy preachers, disown elders, and settle church difficulties. They have three Conferences, 167 churches, and less than 12,000 members, all in North Carolina and South Carolina.
(e) A number of General Baptist churches of the older English type failed to amalgamate with the more popular Baptist parties of the nineteenth century. The first association of this party was formed in Kentucky in 1824. This association