Baptists

a large religious denomination. The sect originated in England during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, and has spread throughout all parts of the English speaking world. It is difficult to state a religious belief in a few words. The Baptists inherited a reverence for the Scriptures and a Trinitarian faith from the Church of England. The denomination holds that baptism is a holy ordinance requiring an intelligent faith on the part of one who is baptized, and may therefore be administered only to adults. Infant baptism is, in their judgment, only a christening or naming, a dedication of the child by its parents, not the offering of one's self implied in baptism. Immersion is the form of baptism generally preferred. In Great Britain and Ireland at the present time there are about 3,000 Baptist churches with a membership of one-third of a million. One of their most noted men was the late Rev. Charles Spurgeon, whose mammoth tabernacle and work in London have a world-wide reputation.

Roger Williams, who was expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635, is considered the founder of the Baptist church in America. In Boston, as late as 1661, Baptists were sentenced to be fined and "well whipped." In 1678 the doors of their meeting house were ordered nailed up by the court. At the beginning of the present century, there were in the 'United States about 44,000 Baptist churches with a membership of over 4,000,000, or about one-eighteenth of the entire population. The denomination is strong in the South and includes a large number of colored churches. There are about 1,000 churches in Canada, with an approximate membership of 100,000. Recent statistics of the denomination show that it has in this country thirty-one colleges, seven seminaries, thirty-two schools for women only, forty-six academies and seventeen schools for negroes and Indians, with an enrollment of about 40,000 students, and endowments aggregating between $40,000,000 and $50,000,000. The older of these institutions are Brown University, Colby, and Colgate. To the above showing must be added a controlling interest in the University of Chicago. See Anabaptists