An Outline of Baptist History

-21- thing is certain, we can never be a party to an arrangement which would imply approbation of slavery, " In the light of this statement the Southern Baptists withdrew. They met in Augusta, Georgiä in May, 1845:and established a separate convention. The Northern Baptist convention, however, was not organized until 1907, Burroughs states, ''The people of the two conventions constitute one denomi- nation, "' "The Methodists came to grief over the case of a slave-owning bishop in Georgia whose second wife added several household slaves to his estate. In 1857, the Presbyterians, North and South, parted company. The secession of the Southern churches, in fact, foreshadowed the secession of the Southern states. First, the churches split, then the political parties split, and then the Union split.” (The American Pageant, p. 330.) . Anti-Masonry Controversy. This controversy took place particularly in the middle states between 1826-1840. William Morgan, once a mason, published a book exposing the secrets of the order. He suddenly disappeared in 1840 and was believed to have been dealt with by the masons, As a result great opposi- tion arose against the masons. In a great number of Baptist churches the major- ity opposed secret societies and in many cases the minority was disciplined. A few flourishing churches were crippled or even went out of existence. The growth of all was retarded. The question has been asked whether a church has a right to discipline a person on a matter which is personal. The answer is, of course, that a local church has a right in the light of what the Bible teaches to set their own standards and expect the membersto abide by these standards. The controversy between the masons and the anti-masonsisstill going on, though not to such a degree as it did in the early days. . The Bible Society Controversy. The American Bible Society was founded in 1816. In August of 1835 the American Baptists presented to the American Bible society an application for money to aid in the printing of a Bengali version of the Scrip- tures, prepared by William Yates, a Baptist missionary in Calcutta. After months of discussion, $5000, was appropriated to the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions. In a resolution dated March 25, 1836 only such versions should be encouraged ''as conform in the principles of the translation of the common Eng- lish version at least so far as that all the religious denominations represented in this Society can consistently use and circulate said versions in their several schools and communities. '' The Baptist Foreign Missionary Board declined the funds. In Philadelphia, in 1837, the Baptists organized the American and Foreign Bible Society. Millerism. In 1833 William Miller, a memberof the Baptist Church in Low Hampton, New York, a man with a limited education but an eloquent speaker, announced the end of the world to come to pass in 1843. He later changed it to October 22, 1844. The Financial Panic of 1839 encouraged Miller's teach- ing. When the manifestation did not come, many of his followers forsook him. On January 29, 1845, a Council voted to sever relations with Miller and his Baptist church at Low Hampton, New York, due, of course, to his false teaching.