BAPTISTS. 



65 



'000 in all, conditioned upon $346,000 more being 

 secured; 11 institutions had successfully com- 

 pleted their efforts to secure the supplementary 

 amounts required, reporting a total of $476,000 

 pledged; and payments had been made by the 

 society to 15 institutions, of $67,955 a sum 

 which was supplemented by $213,942 collected 

 by the institutions. Within the past twelve 

 years the society had paid in grants to institutions 

 $1,0(39,522, while the aggregate of collections re- 

 ported (including $400,000 by the University of 

 Chicago) was $2,081,625; making the aggregate 

 increase $3,151,148. A favorable report was 

 made of the meeting of the trustees of the South- 

 ern Baptist Theological Seminary on the admis- 

 sion of woman missionaries as students of the 

 seminary. Two hundred and fifty students had 

 matriculated in the institution, 50 of them being 

 from outside the bounds of the Southern Baptist 

 Convention. 



Negro Baptists. The negro Baptists num- 

 bered in 1860 not more than 400,000; but at 

 the end of 1901 they had increased till their 

 number was returned at 1,800,000, and 1,600,000 

 was regarded as a safe estimate, after exagger- 

 ations were allowed for. They have about 16,000 

 churches and 10,500 ordained ministers, many of 

 the ministers serving several churches. Their 

 numbers in the States where they are most 

 numerous are: In Alabama, 182,075; in Texas, 

 137,639; in North Carolina, 140,205; in South 

 Carolina, 140,107; in Mississippi, 200,118; in 

 Georgia, 221,442; in Virginia, 227,208. During 

 1901 75,000 baptisms were reported and esti- 

 mated among them. Marked intellectual prog- 

 ress had taken place among them during the 

 past forty years. While in 1860 the minister who 

 could read the Bible was an exception, in 1900 

 the exception was the man who could not read 

 it. In the cities and large towns generally there 

 were able, cultivated ministers, who preached to 

 intelligent congregations meeting in excellent 

 .and well-furnished houses of worship, while the 

 Sunday-schools were studying the International 

 lessons; but in the rural regions progress was 

 slow and the conditions were not such as were 

 desirable. But the general eagerness of the 

 negro Baptists to provide for the education of 

 their children was seen in the fact that nearly 

 all the 26 schools aided by the American Bap- 

 tist Home Mission Society were crowded to over- 

 flowing. The enrolment in these and in some 

 other schools not receiving aid from the society 

 was about 7,500. The negro Baptists have well- 

 organized State conventions and local associa- 

 tions, through which a considerable missionary 

 and educational work is done. The National 

 Baptist Conference, organized about 1886, has a 

 foreign mission board, which in 1901 raised about 

 $6,000 for all purposes: a home mission board, 

 with its own subordinate publication board that 

 had been at work about five years; and an edu- 

 cational board of about the same age, which has 

 not as yet undertaken any distinctly school 

 work. Another body, the Lott-Carey Convention, 

 in some of the Atlantic coast States, in 1901 

 raised nearly $3,000 for missionary work in 

 Africa. Negro Baptist conventions in 6 States 

 have been in cooperation with the American 

 Baptist Home Mission Society and the Mission 

 Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, pri- 

 marily for the benefit of ministers who have had 

 only meager educational advantages. This work 

 had been very beneficial. Plans for broader co- 

 operation were now under consideration. 



The colored National Baptist Convention met 

 in Birmingham, Ala., Sept. 17. The Rev. E. W. 

 VOL. XLII. 5 A 



Morris, D. D., presided. Prominence was given 

 to the foreign mission work, and much interest 

 was manifested in it. The National Baptist Pub- 

 lishing House reported a prosperous and profita- 

 ble work and success in the independent publi- 

 cation of its own literature. One of the sessions 

 of the meeting, at which an address was deliv- 

 ered by Mr. Booker T. Washington, was marred 

 by a disaster resulting from a panic, in which 

 104 persons of the crowded audience were killed 

 and 9 others injured. 



The annual meeting of the Lott-Carey Foreign 

 Missionary Society, held in Washington, D. C., 

 in September, was attended by more than 150 

 delegates. The financial reports were satisfac- 

 tory and indicated a flourishing condition. 



Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec. 

 The annual Convention of the Baptist Churches 

 of Ontario and Quebec met in Montreal, Oct. 15. 

 In his annual address the retiring president, A. 

 McNee, Esq., spoke of the material prosperity of 

 the churches, of the educational advantages they 

 enjoyed with their 6 institutions for the higher 

 learning, of the importance of a clear, candid, 

 large, liberal, and symmetrical presentation of 

 their distinctive doctrines, avoiding narrowness 

 and dogmatism, and, in view of the movements 

 toward organic union in other families of 

 churches, of the desirability of making an earnest 

 effort to " consolidate all those bodies more or 

 less intimately related to the Baptists, and whose 

 differences are superficial rather than vital." The 

 Rev. J. L. Gilmour, B. D., was chosen president of 

 the convention. The educational report related to 

 the condition of McMaster University, with 

 Woodstock and Moulton Colleges, in which 500 

 students were enrolled. The current account of 

 these institutions showed a surplus of $2,523 in 

 excess of expenditure. The Forward Movement 

 fund showed a debit balance of $14,083, against 

 which there were unpaid subscriptions, estimated 

 to be good, amounting to about $8,000. The 

 other institutions of higher learning were Acadia 

 College, Nova Scotia (under the jurisdiction of 

 the Convention of the Maritime Provinces), 

 Feller Institute in Quebec, and Brandon College 

 in Manitoba. The Publication Board reported a 

 total of $42,404 assets. A net profit of $502 was 

 returned, and had been distributed among certain 

 benevolent causes. The Sunday-School Commit- 

 tee returned 36,450 enrolled pupils, with an aver- 

 age attendance of 24,998, with 4,472 officers and 

 teachers, and contributions of $4,287 to various 

 missions and $12,897 for school purposes. Of 

 the 427 schools, 16 w r ere mission schools and 2 

 union schools. The advisability of appointing a 

 superintendent of Sunday-school work was rec- 

 ommended by the convention to the considera- 

 tion of the boards interested in this subject, and 

 to the committee. The Church Edifice Board, 

 with a permanent fund of $9,500, had received 

 $2,718, and had made loans amounting to 

 $2,385. During its history it had helped 91 

 churches with loans aggregating $43,000. Four 

 churches had repaid their loans in full during 

 the year. The total disbursements of the Com- 

 mittee on Western Missions (Manitoba, the 

 Northwest, etc.) had been $6,337. Seventy-three 

 men were engaged in work in the missions, which 

 returned 98 churches and 300 preaching stations. 

 Fourteen German and 6 Scandinavian churches 

 were mentioned. The Board of Home Missions 

 had assisted 124 pastors and 50 students, who 

 had been serving 290 churches and preaching sta- 

 tions. The churches had given $10,297 to mis- 

 sions, returning, according to the representations 

 of the report, 44 per cent, on an annual invest- 



