BAPTISTS. 



69 



was willing to withdraw, but Wekerle would not 

 consent to any combination in which he was not 

 included, and eventually the Emperor gave way 

 and asked Dr. Wekerle to select his colleagues. 

 The new ministry was gazetted on June 12. It 

 contained all the members of the old one except 

 Count Csaky, Minister of Public Instruction and 

 Worship, whose place was taken by Baron Eotvos ; 

 Count Tisza, Minister at the Austrian court, who 

 was succeeded by Count Julius Andrassy ; and 

 Count Bethlen, Minister of Agriculture, whose 

 duties were assumed temporarily by Baron Fje- 

 'dervary, the Minister of National Defense. Dr. 

 Wekerle stated in the Reichstag that the King 

 was in agreement with the ministry as to the 

 necessity of the ecclesiastico-political reforms, 

 and considered it indispensable that they should 

 promptly become law. Three 'new peers were 

 nominated to fill the existing vacancies, and on 

 June 21 the civil-marriage bill was adopted in 

 the Chamber of Magnates by 128 votes to 124. 

 Parliament adjourned on June 30. On July 26 

 Count Andor Festetich was appointed Minister 

 of Agriculture. 



Roumanian Separatists. On May 7 the 

 members of the executive committee of the Rou- 

 manian National party were brought to trial at 

 Klausenburg on an indictment charging them 

 with having contravened the law by questioning 

 the validity and binding force of the act of 

 union in a document published in 1892, which 

 declared that Transylvania had been unjustly 

 deprived of its autonomy and its historical and 

 national* rights by becoming incorporated in 

 Hungary on a basis that denied to the Rouma- 

 nian people the participation that was due to 

 their numbers, and in disregard of the principles 

 that secured the autonomy of the principality. 

 The prisoners, 23 in number, were lawyers, cler- 

 gymen, professors, journalists, and physicians. 

 All except three were found guilty and sentenced 

 to terms of imprisonment varying from eight 

 months to five years. Their condemnation caused 

 much excitement in Grosswardein and other Rou- 

 manian districts of Hungary, where agitators con- 

 vened nocturnal meetings of the peasantry and 

 harangued against the ecclesiastical and school 

 policy of the Government. Several leaders, were 

 arrested, but, as the military were quartered in 

 the disaffected districts, few outward disturbances 

 took place. M. Hierpnymi, the Minister of the 

 Interior; visited the districts in which the Nation- 

 alist agitation had made most progress and sought 



to confer with the leading men of Hungarian, 

 Saxon, and Roumanian nationality, in the hope 

 of removing real grievances and effecting a rec- 

 onciliation between the Roumanians and the 

 Hungarian gentry. 



Agrarian Socialism. In various parts of 

 Hungary, as well as in Austria, agricultural dis- 

 tress has produced discontent among the peas- 

 ants, and led to a political agitation against the 

 feudal and ecclesiastical ownership of land, and 

 in favor of universal suffrage, state help, and 

 other demands of the Socialists. In sections 

 where Nationalist movements are rife the coun- 

 try people are impelled to join in them chiefly 

 by hopes of improving their economic condition 

 by self-government. In the Alsold district, 

 where thousands of laborers who were employed 

 on the works for the regulation of the river 

 Theiss have been thrown out of employment, 

 riots took place and preparations were made for 

 a peasant insurrection in the beginning of May. 

 There had been wholesale conversions there to 

 the Nazarene sect and to the Socialist and Nation- 

 alist parties. The danger of an uprising was 

 averted by the arrival of a large military force, 

 and the Government endeavored to mitigate the 

 discontent by colonizing the unemployed on state 

 lands and by starting public works. Dr. Wekerle 

 proposed to utilize the landed property of the 

 towns and districts, which amounts to over one 

 sixth of the total area of Hungary, in the interest 

 of the unemployed, and promised to arrange for 

 the representation of the lower classes in the gov- 

 ernment of municipalities and communes. So- 

 cialism prevails chiefly in the parts of the country 

 where the estates are entailed and the peasants 

 are reduced to the position of day laborers. They 

 used to receive good wages, but these have fallen 

 of late years below living rates. In some dis- 

 tricts, where the peasants themselves own land, 

 they are still comfortably off. 



The most serious disturbance occurred at Hod 

 Mezo Vasarhely. The Socialist leader, a former 

 police officer named Kavacz, a man of great 

 prowess and force of character, was locked up 

 for proclaiming internationalism, saying that he 

 and his followers were not Magyars and had no 

 fatherland, for they had been deprived of the 

 soil. This man had acquired great influence over 

 the common people, and when they attacked the 

 town hall, trying to rescue him, half the police 

 force made common cause with the rioters. 



B 



BAPTISTS. I. Regular Baptists in the 

 United States. The " American Baptist Year- 

 book " for 1894 gives as footings of the statistics 

 of the Baptist churches in the United States : 

 Number of churches, 38.122 ; of ordained minis- 

 ters, 25,354 ; of members, 3,496,988. The churches 

 are represented in 1,498 associations ; number of 

 members received by baptism during the year, 

 176,077. Amount of contributions during the 

 year: For missions, $1,467,294; for education, 

 $367,417; for miscellaneous purposes, $2,739,- 

 589; for salaries of ministers and other church 

 expenses, $7,986,464 ; total for all purposes, $12,- 



560.714. Value of church property, $78,605,769. 

 The Baptists sustain in the United States 7 

 theological institutions, with 54 instructors, 776 

 pupils, and property aggregating in value $3,401,- 

 618; 35 universities and colleges, with 701 in- 

 structors, 9,088 pupils, and a property valuation, 

 including endowments, of $19,171,045 ; 32 semi- 

 naries for young women, with 388 instructors, 

 3,675 pupils, and $4,211,906 of property; 47 

 seminaries and academies for young men or for 

 both young men and young women, with 369 in- 

 structors, 5,250 pupils, and $3,787,793 of prop- 

 erty; and 31 institutions for the education of 



