BEETS, bêtz, HENRY: Christian Reformed; b. at Koedijk (a village near Alkmaar, 20 m. n.w. of Amsterdam), Holland, Jan. 5, 1869. He came to the United States at an early age, and studied at John Calvin College and Theological Seminary of the Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids, Mich. After graduation in 1895, he was pastor at Sioux Center, Ia., until 1899, and since the latter year has been pastor of the Lagrave Street Christian Reformed Church, Grand Rapids. He has been secretary of the Board of Heathen Missions of his Church since 1900, stated clerk of its synod since 1902, and a member of the joint committee of American and Canadian Churches for the revision of the Psalms in meter since 1902. In theology he is a firm Calvinist, adhering strictly to the creeds of the Synod of Dort and the Westminster Standards. He has been associate editor of De Gereformeerde Amerikaan, a monthly, since 1898 and editor-in-chief of The Banner, a weekly, since 1904. He has written Het Leven van Pres. McKinley (Holland, Mich., 1901); Sacred History for Juniors (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1901); Sacred History for Seniors (1902); Compendium of the Christian Religion (1903); Primer of Bible Truths (1903; in collaboration with M. J. Bosma); and Kerkenorde der Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerk (1905; in collaboration with W. Heyns and G. K. Hemkes).

BEGG, JAMES: Minister of the Free Church of Scotland; b. at New Monkland, near Airdrie (10 m. e. of Glasgow), Lanarkshire, Oct. 31, 1808; d. in Edinburgh Sept. 29, 1883. He studied at Glasgow and Edinburgh; was ordained minister at Maxwelltown, Dumfries, May, 1830; became colleague at Lady Glenorchy's Chapel, Edinburgh. Dec., 1830, minister in Paisley 1831, at Liberton, near Edinburgh, 1835, and, after the Disruption in 1843, at Newington, a suburb of Edinburgh. In 1865 he was moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church. He began his career as an ardent supporter of evangelical views and a decided opponent of the "moderate" party in the Church. He was strongly opposed to lay patronage and to voluntaryism. He strenuously resisted the aggressions of the civil courts on the jurisdiction of the Church and was disposed to continue the fight within the Establishment; but in May, 1843, he left with his brethren. (See the section on the Free Church of Scotland in the article PRESBYTERIANS.) In the Free Church he became the leader of a minority opposed to all change and when he was charged with standing in the way of progress he gloried in his steadfast adherence to the ideas of his youth; his followers were most numerous in the Highlands. He was an advocate and supporter of popular education and was interested in a movement to secure better homes for the working classes. He wrote much for periodicals and edited several journals at different times (The Bulwark, for the maintenance of Protestantism; The Watchword, against the union with the United Presbyterians; The Signal, against instrumental music in worship). Among his larger publications were A Handbook of Popery (Edinburgh, 1852); Happy Homes for Workingmen and How to Get Them (London, 1866); Free Church Principles (Edinburgh, 1869), and The Principles, Position, and Prospects of the Free Church of Scotland (1875).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: T. Smith, Memoirs of James Begg, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1885-88; DNB, iv, 127-128.