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 BAPTISTS Lemaitre and other famous actors. In 1858 he was decorated with the Legion of Honour, and was promoted to be an officer of the order in 1886. He died in Paris on 15th March 1891, having just completed his sixty-eighth year. Banville’s claims to remembrance rest mainly on his poetry. His plays are written with distinction and refinement, but are deficient in dramatic power; his stories, though marked by fertility of invention, are as a rule conventional and unreal. Most of his prose, indeed, in substance if not in manner, is that of a journalist. His lyrics, however, rank high. A careful and loving student of the finest models, he did even more than his greater and somewhat older comrades, Hugo, de Musset, and Gautier, to free French poetry from the fetters of metre and mannerism in which it had limped from the days of Malherbe. In the Odes Funavibulesques and elsewhere he revived with perfect grace and understanding many old poetic forms, such as the rondeau, the vilanelle, and the pantoum. He was a master of delicate satire, and used with much effect the difficult humour of sheer bathos, happily adapted by him from some of the early folk-songs. He has somewhat rashly been compared to Heine, whom he profoundly admired; but if he lacked the supreme touch of genius, he remains a delightful writer, who exercised a wise and sound influence upon the art of his generation. (c.) Baptists.—(1) United Kingdom.—The condition of the Baptists in the United Kingdom during recent years appears to have been one of steady prosperity, their members and adherents having increased at a rate probably more than proportionate to the increase of the population at large. In the Baptist Year-Book for 1901, the following statistics were given for their churches in 1900, excluding chapels which are “ non-associated ” and have no relations with the Baptist Union : churches 2739 (2812), places of worship 3918 (3798), members 365,678 (304,163), Sunday scholars 528,131 (448,921), local preachers 5562 (4155), pastors 1992 (1841). The figures in brackets are those for 1891; and in comparing them it should be borne in mind that whereas in 1891 estimated statistics were included for those churches which failed to send in returns, these are omitted in 1900, and “the figures given represent the statistics actually received in the returns from the churches ” • and “ the editor, as in former years, does not vouch for more than approximate correctness in the statistics.” The Baptist Missionary Society, the earliest to be founded in the United Kingdom {i.e., outside the Church of England), had a home income of <£77,642, 2s. 9d. for the year ending 31st March 1900 ; and the expenditure during the same period was £81,912, 4s. lid.: the list of missionaries on active service contains 146 names. Perhaps the most important event of recent years was the inauguration of a “ Twentieth Century Fund ” on the same general lines as those of the Wesleyans and Congregationalists. The proposal was to raise at least <£250,000 before 21st April 1902, one half to be allotted to a “ forward movement,” and the rest to assisting weaker churches in the maintenance of their pastors, providing an annuity fund, building a Baptist church house, &c. Of this sum about <£180,000 had been promised by August 1901 ; and the president of the Baptist Union declared, in the Autumn assembly of the previous year, that the movement had “ risen far above money ” and been productive of much spiritual good. The Baptist Year-Book, published annually, gives full particulars of Baptist societies, colleges, publications, &c. (w. e. Co.)

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reported 29,473 churches with 4,181,686 members. If to these we add numerous smaller bodies, such as the Free-Will Baptists and the Primitive Baptists, the total Baptist Church membership in the United States is about 4,500,000. But the chief growth in recent years has been in the direction of internal organization and education. Without any central ecclesiastical authority, or any one form of worship, or any one binding creed, the Baptists have developed a number of large and powerful voluntary organizations, which in turn have reacted strongly on the denominational life. Some of these were formed early in the 19th century, but many of them are of recent growth. The most important are the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Union (formed in 1814), the American Baptist Publication Society (1824), the American Baptist Home Mission Society (1832), the Southern Baptist Convention (1845), the American Baptist Historical Society (1853), the Baptist Congress (1882), the American Baptist Education Society (1888), and the Baptist Young People’s Union of America (1891). Since 1870 five different Women’s Societies have been formed for prosecuting missionary work at home and abroad. The Educational Society has had a notable career. Through its agency the University of Chicago was founded, and from the treasury of the Education Society sixty-six other institutions have been aided, the total assistance thus offered amounting to $1,273,100. Almost all of this was given on condition that far larger sums should be raised by others, and the resulting increase in the endowment of educational institutions has been very great. A scarcely less important work has been done by refusing aid to institutions whose further existence was needless. The Baptist Congress is an organization meeting annually in various cities for the discussion of questions of current interest, furnishing a platform on which all varieties of denominational opinion may find a hearing. It has done much to promote mutual understanding and tolerance of divergent views. The Baptist Young People’s Union now includes several thousand young people’s societies, and by its “Christian Culture Courses” (in which 15,000 persons were enrolled and examined in 1899) has performed a valuable work. The result of these various movements has been increased concentration of effort and centralization of administrative power, a decline of interest in sectarian controversy, and increased hospitality to new truth on the part of the entire denomination. No longer content with the attitude of protest and separation, the churches have devoted themselves to the development of their resources, and the training of leaders for the future. The most striking change has been seen in the new attitude of the denomination towards education. In their earlier history in the United States, the Baptists were inclined to depreciate formal intellectual discipline, as tending to interfere with the spontaneity and power of true religion. But within twenty years the interest in education has advanced with unprecedented rapidity, and the gifts to education have been very generous. Brown University, founded in 1764, is the mother of all the Baptist institutions of the country. Yassar College, founded in 1861 under Baptist auspices, was the pioneer in the collegiate instruction of women in America, and marked a new epoch in American education. The University of Chicago, founded in 1890, seemed to grow up out of the prairie as if by magic, and within ten years reported 3500 students, and a property in buildings and endowment amounting to $13,000,000. This one institution has visibly changed the intellectual and religious (2) United States.—During the period 1875-1900 development of the western states. Large sums have also the Baptists of the United States increased more rapidly been expended in academies and secondary schools, while than the population as a whole, until in 1900 they the “freedmen’s schools,” planted by northern generosity