Baobab
a tree also styled the monkey-bread, African calabash, Ethiopian sourgourd tree. It has a look, its stem being of little height, but of great thickness; one specimen was found 30 feet in diameter.
The fruit is about 10 inches long. Externally it is downy; within this down is a hard, woody rind, containing an eatable pulp, of slightly acid taste. The juice mixed with sugar is serviceable in putrid and pestilential fevers. The is known as Adansonia digitata, being French traveler, who lived from 1749 so named after Adanson, a celebrated , a celebrated to 1754 in Senegal. The tree is liable to be attacked by a fungus which, vegetating in the woody part, renders it soft and pithlike. By the negroes of into chambers, and dead bodies are susthe W. coast these trunks are hollowed pended in them. in the department of Pas-de-Calais, 12 BAPAUME (ba-pōm'), a French town miles S. of Arras.
Here, on Jan. 2 and 3, 1871, took place two bloody struggles and the Prussian "army of observation"; between the French Army of the North the French were defeated, with heavy losses.
It was again the scene of much and very heavy fighting during the World War (1914-1918) and changed hands several times. As a result the largest part of the town was destroyed.
See ARRAS, BATTLES OF. from bapto, to immerse or dip), a rite BAPTISM (from the Greek baptizõ, (from the Greek baptizō, which is generally thought to have been usual with the Jews even before Christ, being administered to proselytes. From this baptism, ho the B however, that of St. John Baptist differed, because he baptized Jews also as a symbol of the necessity of perfect purification from sin. Christ himself never baptized, but directed his disciples to administer this rite to converts (Matt. xxviii; 19); and baptism, therefore, became a religious ceremony sacrament with all sects which acknowlamong Christians, taking rank as a edge sacraments .
Church the person to be baptized was dipped in a river or in a vessel, with the words which Christ had ordered, generally adopting a new name to further express the change. Sprinkling, or, as only in the case of the sick who could termed, clinic baptism , was used it was t In the primitive not leave their beds. The Greek Church and Eastern schismatics retained the custom of immersion; but the Western Church adopted or allowed the mode of baptism by pouring or sprinkling, since continued by most Protestants. This to the 3d century, before which its existpractice can be traced back certainly ence is disputed. Since the Reformation there have been various Protestant sects called Baptists, holding that baptism should be administered only by immersion, and to those who can make a pertanists in Africa baptized even the dead, sonal profession of faith. The Monand in Roman Catholic countries the practice of baptizing church bells-a BAPTISTS custom of 10th century origin-continues to this day. Being an initiatory rite, baptism is only administered once to the same person. The Roman and Greek Catholics consecrate the water of baptism, but Protestants do not. The act of baptism is accompanied only with the formula that the person is baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but, among most Christians, it is preceded by a confession of faith made de by the person to be baptized, if are BAPTISTS Massachusetts Colony previous to his immersion. After being immersed, in 1639, by Ezekiel Holliman, whom he in turn immersed with 10 others, he organized a Baptist Church in Providence, R. I. There were other Baptists, however, who emigrated from England in the 17th century, and, before the end of the 18th century, became numerous in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia, and other States. In all the British colonies, exan adult, and by his parents or if he be a child. The Roman Catholic cepting Rhode Island, the Baptists were persecuted for a long time. After form of baptism is far more elaborate than the Protestant. This church teaches the Revolutionary War the Baptists that all persons not baptized increased with great rapidity, espedamned, even unbaptized infants are not cially in the South and southwestern admitted into heaven; but for those with States, and have steadily increased ever whom the absence of baptism was the since. chief fault, even St. Augustine himself believed in a species of mitigated damnation. Protestants hold that though the neglect of the sacrament is a sin, yet the saving new birth may be found without the performance of the rite which symbolizes it. Naming the person baptized forms no essential part of the ceremony, but has become almost universal, probably from the ancient custom of renaming the catechumen.