64 



BAPTISTS. 



Baptist Church of New Brunswick met at 

 Penobsquis, October 6th. The Rev. G. T. 

 Hartley presided as moderator. The report 

 of the corresponding secretary showed that 

 341 members had been added to the Church 

 during the year. Eeports were received from 

 74 Sunday-schools, returning 352 teachers and 

 3,126 pupils. The Foreign Missionary Society 

 reported that there were needed, to pay all of 

 its liabilities to January 1, 1878, $864. The 

 Home Missionary Society had $66.40 in the 

 treasury. Very little money had been re- 

 ceived during the year, and very little had been 

 expended. 



The Nova Scotia Conference of Free Baptists 

 represents about 3,300 members. It is engaged 

 in the work of both home and foreign mis- 

 sions. A missionary in India has heretofore 

 been partly, and will hereafter be wholly, sup- 

 ported by it. 



III. SEVENTH-DAT BAPTISTS. The Seventh- 

 Day Baptist General Conference met for 

 ita 63d annual session at New Salem, W. 

 Va., September 19th. The Sabbath-school 

 Executive Board stated that they had re- 

 ceived returns from 50 out of 74 Sabbath- 

 schools to which they had sent blanks, re- 

 porting a total of 737 officers and teachers, 

 4,177 scholars, and $1,099.03 raised for the 

 expenses of the schools and for benevolent 

 purposes. The duty of preparing and publish- 

 ing lessons for the year had been confided to 

 the executive board of the Sabbath Tract So- 

 ciety. The trustees of the Memorial Fund 

 reported that the total amount of notes, cash, 

 and other assets held by the board was $45,562, 

 besides which it held the receipts of different 

 institutions for notes and cash paid directly to 

 them, but to be counted as parts of the Memo- 

 rial Fund, to the amount of $14,452, making 

 the whole value of the fund $60,015. The 

 attention of the Conference was called to the 

 case of Mr. Daniel C. Waldo, a member of the 

 Seventh-Day Baptist church of Cussewago, 

 Crawford County, Pa., and of a man in his 

 employ named Albert C. Wood, who had been 

 fined, and were liable to imprisonment under 

 the State law of 1794, for working on Sunday ; 

 with reference to which a resolution was 

 passed, declaring " that we regard such fining 

 and imprisonment as a species of persecution 

 for conscience' sake, flagrantly inconsistent 

 with the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of 

 Pennsylvania, and also with the first amend- 

 ment to the Constitution of the United States, 

 passed March 5, 1789, which provides that 

 Congress shall make no law respecting the es- 

 tablishment of religion, or prohibiting the 

 free exercise thereof. That we hereby express 

 our sympathy for Brother Waldo and his asso- 

 ciate, as persons suffering for righteousness' 

 sake, -aad^ that provision be made, here and 

 now, for the preparation of a petition to the 

 General Assembly of Pennsylvania in favor of 

 the entire repeal of the Sunday Law of 1794, 

 aa a law in direct conflict with the rights 



of conscience and the exercise of religious 

 liberty." 



The minority of a committee who had been 

 appointed by a previous General Conference 

 to prepare an expose of the doctrines and 

 principles of the denomination, presented a 

 report covering 16 points of doctrine, which 

 was ordered printed in the minutes, to be 

 acted upon at the next meeting of the Con- 

 ference. The Committee on the State of Reli- 

 gion reported that the total gain of the 

 churches during the year, above the losses, 

 had been 259 ; 13 churches had enjoyed revi- 

 vals. A church among the Danish settlers in 

 Dakota has been added to the body. 



The 36th annual meeting of the Seventh-Day 

 Baptist Missionary Society was held at New 

 Salem, W. Va., September 20th. Resolutions 

 were adopted advising that aid be given to 

 weak churches struggling for existence in 

 preference to opening new fields; and that 

 the sixth-day evening before the first Sabbath 

 in each month be set aside for a season of 

 prayer for the mission cause ; suggesting that 

 every member of the churches and societies set 

 apart at least five cents a week for the cause ; 

 and recommending the general adoption of the 

 plan of systematic giving. 



The 22d annual meeting of the Setenth-Day 

 Baptist Education Society was held at New 

 Salem, W. Va., September 21st. The treasurer 

 reported that his receipts from all sources had 

 been $1,852, and his expenditures the same. 



The 34th annual meeting of the American 

 Sabbath Tract Society was held at New Salem, 

 W. Va., September 23d. The society resolved 1 

 to discontinue the system of sending out lec- 

 turers to propagate the doctrines of the de- 

 nomination, on account of its expense, and to 

 replace the lecturers by evangelists. A scrip- 

 tural commentary, designed to be a critical 

 exposition of all the passages of Scripture re- 

 lating to the Sabbath, as well as of all those 

 supposed to relate to it, which is in course of 

 preparation by the Rev. James Bailey, was 

 recommended as a work likely to be of great 

 value in the promotion of the Sabbath cause. 



IV. TUNKEES, DUNKABDS, OR GERMAN BAP- 

 TISTS. This denomination has no distinctive 

 name which is acknowledged by its adherents, 

 but in their own intercourse and religious 

 meetings they call themselves Brethren. The 

 Brethren believe in trine immersion and feet- 

 washing, are opposed to a paid ministry, and 

 have peculiar views regarding dress and con- 

 formity to the world. The first attempt to 

 make an enumeration of the Brethren was 

 made by Howard Miller in 1877. The result of 

 the census, so far as the returns have been com- 

 pleted and compiled, shows them to number 

 about 60,000 members. They are most nu- 

 merous in Pennsylvania, where they have 69' 

 churches and 14,861 members. They are also 

 numerous in Ohio. 



The General Council of the Tunkers was 

 held at New Enterprise, Pa., May 22d. D. 



