BAPTISTS. 



former of whom there are 13,000, and of the 

 latter about the same number. A special 

 want among them is schools. The Council of 

 the Creek Nation have offered 640 acres of 

 land and $10,000 in money, with $75 per year 

 for each scholar educated, to any denomina- 

 tion who will found a permanent school there. 

 Measures were recommended to found in the 

 Creek Nation, as such a school, an Orphans' 

 Home, on the plan of an industrial school ; or, 

 if this shall be found inexpedient, then to 

 devote the funds raised for this purpose to 

 the establishment of a select school. 



The receipts of the Sunday-school Board 

 were $14,240.65. It publishes a paper, Kind 

 Words, a library of fifty volumes, lesson and 

 question books, etc. An improved interest in 

 Sunday-schools was remarked. The debate 

 on a motion to continue the Board revealed 

 a nearly equal division of opinion in the con- 

 vention on the subject. The motion prevailed 

 by a small majority. The trustees of the theo- 

 logical seminary at Greenville, S. C., reported 

 that they had determined to remove the in- 

 stitution as soon as a suitable location should 

 be found elsewhere. It Avas considered desir- 

 able to place it where it would not interfere 

 with any other institution. Propositions had 

 been received from Louisville, Ky., Nashville 

 and Chattanooga, Tenn., and Atlanta, Ga. ; 

 but they were not so matured at the time of 

 the meeting of the convention that a final 

 choice could be made then. It was considered 

 desirable that at least $300,000 should be pro- 

 vided by the State and place to which the 

 seminary should be removed. The matter was 

 left open till the meeting of the Board of 

 Directors in August. The Board met at the 

 appointed time, and decided to establish the 

 seminary at Louisville, Ky. 



A letter and resolutions were read in the 

 convention from the Baptist Union of Great 

 Britain and Ireland, in response to a resolu- 

 tion adopted at the previous meeting of the 

 convention, expressing sympathy with the 

 position assumed by the Baptists of the United 

 Kingdom, in cooperation with other non-con- 

 formist denominations, in favor of the dissolu- 

 tion of the connection of Church and state. 



The Consolidated Baptist Convention is an 

 organization of colored Baptists. Its thirty- 

 second annual meeting was held in St. Louis, 

 Mo., in October. Its published report gives 

 the number of churches as 38 ; of church- 

 members, 9,457. The treasurer's receipts for 

 the year ending on the 1st of October, 1872, 

 were $43,315.03. The sum of $37,029 is re- 

 ported as having been " raised generally by local 

 agents and auxiliaries," and as having been 

 expended in the same manner. The conven- 

 tion have property in Hayti which is valued 

 at $2,000. 



The English Baptist Union meets twice a 

 year, in the spring and in the fall. The spring 

 meeting of 1872 was held at Exeter Hall, in 

 London, in April. Forty-three new church 



organizations had been formed during the pre- 

 ceding year, sixty new chapels built, and forty- 

 seven chapels enlarged. The total amount of 

 expenditure on church-buildings in the same 

 time was 130,000. Eighty-two ministers 

 were inducted to the pastoral office. From 

 reports presented at this meeting it appeared 

 that forty - three congregations were sus- 

 tained by lay agency alone. It was shown 

 that this feature of the denominational polity 

 had been largely developed within a few years 

 past. The number of church-members reported 

 at this meeting was 234,395; a net increase 

 of 9,720 was shown from the previous year. 



The autumnal meeting was held in Manches- 

 ter in October. A paper was read on the prog- 

 ress of the Baptist churches in England dur- 

 ing the present century. By this paper it was 

 shown that, in 1801, there were in England 

 417 Baptist churches; in 1871 there were 1,940. 

 The increase was nearly fivefold, or in the 

 ratio of 21 to 100 in seventy years. During 

 this time the population of the country had in- 

 creased about threefold ; so that the increase 

 of churches had exceeded the growth of the 

 country in population. This excess of increase 

 appears still larger when reckoned by the 

 number of members. " At the beginning of 

 the century the average number of members 

 in each church was probably 60 or 70. In 

 1841 the average number of members in 714 

 churches reporting to the Baptist Union, was 

 110; in 1860, the average in 1,012 churches 

 was 121 ; and, in 1871, the average in 1,496 

 churches was 129." Counting the aggregates 

 in 1801, there were about 30,000 members, 

 and every 270th man or woman of the whole 

 population was a member of a Baptist Church. 

 In 1871, with nearly 180,000 members, every 

 120th man or woman was a member of a Bap- 

 tist Church. 



The action of the Non-conformist Conference 

 on the separation of Church and state was 

 laid before the Union at its autumnal meeting. 

 The following resolution was adopted as the 

 response of the Union to it : 



Resolved, That this Union, being thoroughly con- 

 vinced that the establishment by law of the Churches 

 of England and Scotland involves a violation of re- 

 ligious equality, deprives those churches of the right 

 ot self-government, imposes on Parliament duties 

 which it is incompetent to discharge, and is hurtful 

 to the religious and political interests of the com- 

 munity, and that it ought, therefore, to be no longer 

 maintained, urges on all its members the desirable- 

 ness of earnest efforts to place these views fully be- 

 fore the nation, and especially of forming in their 

 own districts local non-conformist associations, and 

 otherwise promoting the principle of full and com- 

 plete religious equality. 



The English Baptist Union, at its autumnal 

 meeting, adopted a scheme for the settlement 

 of denominational disputes by arbitration. It 

 provides for the appointment annually, by the 

 Union at its autumnal sessions, of a standing 

 committee of five members, u of whom three 

 shall not be stated ministers," who "shall un- 

 dertake the reference of any dispute cogniza- 



