BAPTISTS. 



53 



influence in favor of the election of Dr. 

 Arenas, who would carry out his policy. 

 The opposing candidate was Don Manuel 

 Pardo, and so close was the vote, the mode 

 of choosing a president being, like ours, by an 

 electoral college, that the election was thrown 

 into the Peruvian Congress, and a prelimi- 

 nary meeting of Congress was assembled July 

 14, 1872, to decide the question of the presi- 

 dency. Meantime General Tomas Gutierrez, 

 Balta's Secretary of War, had been urging the 

 President to annul the election, and by a coup 

 d'etat assume the power of dictator over the 

 republic. Balta was, however, a man of too 

 much principle to do this, and having ascer- 

 tained that Congress would decide in favor of 

 Don Manuel Pardo, his opponent, he made 

 public his intention of resigning his office on 

 the termination of his term, to the successor 

 appointed by Congress. This did not suit 

 Gutierrez, and he immediately seized and im- 

 prisoned Balta, and proclaimed himself su- 

 preme chief of the republic, placing his broth- 

 ers, Sylvestre and Marceliano, in office as min- 

 isters. This usurpation was of brief duration. 

 The President-elect fled to the foreign war- 

 ships in the port of Callao for protection, but 

 neither the people nor the soldiers would rally 

 under Gutierrez, and four days after the usur- 

 pation commenced, under the leadership of 

 Colonel Zevallos, a body of the people at- 

 tacked and killed Sylvestre Gutierrez, the usurp- 

 er's Minister of War. Hearing this, and re- 

 solved to be revenged, General Gutierrez sent 

 his brother Marceliano to the military barracks, 

 where President Balta was confined, with or- 

 ders to kill him there and then. Marceliano 

 shot him at once as he lay on his couch, ill, 

 but the same night both he and his brother, 

 the usurper, were killed, and their bodies hung 

 the next morning, naked and disfigured, in 

 front of the cathedral. (See PERU.) 



BAPTISTS. REGULAR BAPTISTS. In the 

 following table is given a general exhibit of 

 the associations, churches, ministers and mem- 

 bers, of the Baptist denomination throughout 

 the world : 



The following are the statistics of the reg- 

 ular Baptist churches in the United States, as 

 given in the American Baptist Year-Boole 

 for 1872. The table is arranged in the order 

 of the proportion of members of the Bap- 

 tist churches to the entire population of each 

 State : 



The churches are grouped into associations, 

 of which the number is now 820. 



The following table shows the growth of the 

 Baptist denomination throughout the United 

 States, by periods averaging ten years each, 

 since the year 1770 : 



The following statistics of the Baptist church- 

 es of Great Britain are given in the Baptist 

 Hand-Boole for 1872 : 



Of the 2,459 churches in England and Wales, 

 1,940 are in England, and 519 in Wales. The 



