Baptists

War. As was the case with the Presbyterians, Methodists and Congregationalists, the Baptists concluded their annual conference at Milwaukee (TIME, June 9), by compromising on the war issue.* A resolution was introduced declaring that the Baptist Churches would not support War. It was rejected in favor of the usual resolution that War is undesirable. Colored Members. Dr. L. K. Williams, pastor -of Olivet Baptist Church of Chicago, "largest Protestant Church in the world," spoke on "Colored Baptists of America." Said he: "In 1865 there were about 400,000 Baptists of color. . . . They rallied to it (The Baptist Church) in larger numbers than to all other churches combined and more than they did to any other cause or institution. . . . Negroes represent only about one tenth of the total population in America, but they are now about 40% of the entire Baptist family in America and about one third of all the Baptists of the whole world. . . . Thus the salvation of Negroes is logically and largely the work of Baptists." He declared that the presence of the Negro in the North as elsewhere created "a real or an imaginary problem which is the severest test of the worth and practicability of Christianity." He added that "to protect a credulous, inexperienced voter from the avarice and selfishness of 'designing men, is the golden opportunity and imperative duty of humanity-loving, God-fearing men."

* It can, however, be said that none of these four denominations is militaristic. If the armor of Mars is black, and if the wings of the Angel of Peace are white, it can be said that the words of Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists are gray. Thus they record progress since the days, 800 years ago, when Saint Thomas a Becket was continually calling upon Pope Alexander III to unsheathe the sword of St. Peter.