A fraternal organization of young people's societies in Baptist churches, which does not insist upon any one particular constitution or uniformity of name in the local organizations. It was organized in Chicago, Ill., in July, 1891, and was incorporated under the laws of Illinois in September of the same year. The organization is international in its scope and has auxiliary organizations in all the states of the Union, in all the provinces of Canada, and in Brazil, while its work is followed by many individuals in foreign countries as well. The membership of the union consists of accredited delegates from young people's societies in Baptist churches and from
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The Junior Union, with the same object as the senior society, was called into existence to serve those of younger age, and is supposed to be made up of those between twelve and sixteen years old. The Advanced Department is for those who, having completed the regular courses, wish to pursue further study in any of the same lines. The courses of study in the Junior and Senior Departments are followed by annual examinations, and diplomas are issued to successful students. While only a small proportion of those taking the studies undergo examination, it is conservatively estimated that not less than 1,500,000 young people have taken one or more of these courses during the past sixteen years.
In the first years of the movement the enthusiasm was phenomenal, and though the interest is not now so vigorous, it is far more satisfactory and significant. The most recent statistics would indicate that there are 600,000 persons connected with the societies of the Union in the United States and Canada.
The organs of the movement are two, Service, a monthly illustrated magazine which is the successor of The Baptist Union, the original organ; and Our Juniors, a monthly sixteen-page paper devoted to the interests of the Junior work. These organs carry the text of the study work and general information of the movement, and are now published by the American Baptist Publication Society in Philadelphia, the denominational publishing-house. The Rev. E. Y. Mullins (q.v.), of Louisville, Ky., is president of the union, and the Rev. George T. Webb is the general secretary.
An order of women in the Protestant Episcopal Church, having as its object the spread of Christ's kingdom among women and the strengthening of parish life. It had its origin in the senior Bible class for women in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, New York City, which had chosen as its class name " Daughters of the King." The teacher of the class, Mrs. M. J. Franklin, who also became the founder of the order, called a meeting on Easter Eve, 1885, and, the rector's consent for the formation of an association being obtained, a committee was appointed to select a badge and a motto for the order. The badge chosen was a Greek cross fleury of silver, charged on the horizontal with the words Magnanimiter crucem sustine, which became the motto of the order, and at the base of the perpendicular were the initials of the watchword, F. H.. S. (" For His Sake "). It was neither intended nor expected that the order would in any way supersede the old-established aid societies, women's gilds, or other parochial activities, since it was organized as a semi-religious order, standing for the ratification of the confirmation vow. Only communicants of the Episcopal Church are eligible to membership. They are admitted with a solemn service before the altar, invested with the cross--the emblem of their faith--and pledged by a vow to prayer and service.
The order works through parochial chapters, and has a central council, composed of fifteen members elected at the triennial convention, these members themselves meeting twice annually. Local assemblies have been formed in nearly every diocese in the United States, and the order is also well established in Canada, England, China, Haiti, the Danish West Indies, Honolulu, and Australia. The order is distinctively churchly in character, loyal to the rector of the parish, and intended to give the best expression to the Christian life. Its aim is quality rather than quantity. There are at present nearly 900 chapters and about 15,000 members on the roll of the order. It supports a Daughter in the foreign field, and its office is in the Church Missions House, New York City. The official organ of the order, The Royal Cross, has been issued since 1891, and serves as a medium for the free exchange of views and as a record of chapter work for the spread of Christ's kingdom among women.
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In the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, unassociated local societies existed for years until a commission appointed by the general conference, in 1890, organized a connectional society for young people similar in plan to that recently formed in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and to this new organization they also gave the name of Epworth League. In the same year the Methodist Church of Canada provided a similar organization with the same name, and these two denominations each gave their organization an official paper called, in both instances, The Epworth Era. The movement thus rapidly established in the three great Methodist denominations of the continent grew amazingly in numbers and enthusiasm, spreading throughout the Methodist churches and into the mission fields, and became the leading denominational young people's society.
In each denomination the Epworth League is under the oversight of a board, with a general secretary. A representative international committee manages all interdenominational interests, and eight great international conventions have been held. The local chapters are grouped for administration chiefly by districts and conferences following the denominational organization; and the local chapters of the league are, according to the age of the membership, organized as junior, intermediate, and senior, with adaptations to the needs of those served. The distinctive work is done under four departments, among which are distributed the oversight and promotion of the devotional and evangelistic activities, study and training in the Bible, the missionary and cognate movements, Christian citizenship, temperance and other reforms, social service and Christian philanthropy, and the general literary and social activities required by young life. The avowed purpose of the Epworth League is to win, to save, and to train the young people for Jesus Christ, and thereby to create a world-conquering Church. For this purpose it is marshaling the Christian young people and adding their splendid capabilities to the resources of the Church in the winning, saving, and training of their associates. The heart of the work is in its weekly devotional meeting, and it is developing a mighty leavening power through study classes in the Bible missions, evangelism, Christian stewardship, and Christian experience.
The enthusiasm of the early days of the Epworth League has been succeeded by a policy of practical and systematic achievement, and the organization is now accomplishing a service of greater value than ever before, while its future is believed to contain possibilities yet unmeasured. Of late years the intensive forms of work have rapidly increased, and this fact has radically changed the character of the conventions, and has given rise to summer institutes for instruction and training in the Christian life and in practical service. Out of these have come hundreds of volunteers for the ministry, the mission fields, and other forms of service. The Epworth League has profoundly influenced the life of the Methodist churches through the effect of these methods upon the younger ministry, the later missionary recruits, and the young laymen promoted from chapter cabinets to official boards. It is developing a spirit of liberality that promises well for the future Church. From small incomes the young people contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to the official benevolences, in addition to their contributions for local support. In the Methodist Episcopal Church there are now Epworth League secretaries under appointment for India and Mexico, and money has been provided for the publication in the native languages of literature for the systematic religious culture of the young people. The practical ideal of a world encircling army of trained Christian young people of all nations, united to win the world, is rapidly coming into view. The Epworth League is still increasing in numbers, though approaching the limit fixed by the denominational strength. The statistics given by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, are: chapters 4,067, members 145,091; by the Methodist Episcopal Church: senior chapters 13,427, members 573,317, junior chapters 6,127, members 235,646--a total of 19,554 chapters and 808,963 members. These numbers are, however, inadequate, for official statistics have been required but recently, and these figures do not include about thirty unreported conferences and missions. Statistics for the Methodist Church of Canada are not at command. The general secretaries and headquarters of the Epworth Leagues for the three leading denominations given above are as follows: for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the Rev. F. S. Parker, Nashville, Tenn.; for the Methodist Church of Canada, the Rev. S. T. Bartlett, Toronto, Ont.; and for the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Rev. Edwin M. Randall, Chicago, Ill.
An interdenominational young people's society, founded Jan. 13, 1886, by Mrs. Margaret Bottoms (q.v.). Its real origin was in a New York circle of the type of the Lend-a-Hand Clubs (see VII.), which took the name of "The King's Daughters," and, after its reorganization as a club of ten members, adopted the four mottoes of the older society, with the watchword, "In His Name," and the badge of a silver Maltese cross, bearing the initials "I. H. N." and the date " 1886." This circle soon formed the model for others, the distinction between the King's Daughters and the Lend-a-Hand Clubs lying in the former's firm Trinitarianism and in its declaration that "ours is distinctly a spiritual organization, based on strictly
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The purpose of the society is to influence "first, the heart, next the home, then the Church, and after that the great outside." The constitution provides for circles and chapters of circles with state secretaries, a general supervision being exercised by a central council, though the greatest latitude is allowed individual circles in aims and methods. The official organ is the weekly Silver Cross, published in New York City.
An interdenominational society for the promotion of the Christian life of its members and the extension of the kingdom of God. Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century a large number of young people's societies have grown up in churches of different communions, with a desire, on the part of those who formed them, to enter into the missionary and philanthropic work of the world. In many instances these societies are affiliated with one another, so that they keep up a mutual acquaintance by correspondence and by meetings through local organizations and at national congresses. As early as the year 1874 Miss Mary A. Lathbury, then directing the children's department of The Christian Advocate, founded the Look-up Legion, based upon what are generally known among the societies as the " four mottoes,"
Such societies were formed generally among the older children of Sunday-schools, each with its own officers, under the direction, however, of some older person. The Look-up Legion spread so far that it was divided into several groups, and its membership, extended to perhaps 100,000 persons. Each of the members wore a Maltese cross with a rising sun behind it.
The earliest society formed under the "four mottoes" was established by Miss Ella Russell in the city of New York in the year 1871. The boys who formed it were members of a mission-school in which she was a teacher. They took the name of the "Harry Wadsworth Helpers" from the hero of E. E. Hales (q.v.) story of Ten Times One is Ten (Boston, 1870), in which the "four mottoes" first appeared. Various other Harry Wadsworth Clubs, Ten-Times-One Clubs, Lend-a-Hand Clubs, Look out Clubs, etc., exist in various parts of the world. The United Society of these clubs, at Boston, receives communications from Japan, from China, from the countries on the east of the Mediterranean, from various island groups of the Pacific, from South America, and from every part of the United States. All these societies, while they attempt to maintain mutual good-fellowship, and while members are pledged to help each other in sympathy and Christian union, have at the same time some duty each in bringing in the kingdom of God. It is understood in their organization that the members must not live for themselves alone, but must bear each other's burdens. The greater part of the clubs are formed among young people, although some clubs are in existence which were formed in 1871, in which the adult members are still personally interested. The Lend a Hand Record is a monthly journal, published in Boston, and forming the medium of communication between the members of the different societies.
The young people's society of the Lutheran Church in America, organized at Pittsburg, Pa., Oct. 30-31, 1895. It unites, in a common cause and for a common purpose, the Lutheran young people's societies in the Lutheran Church, regardless of synodical affiliation or linguistic difference. They aclmowledged, as the bond of their union, the Word of God as the only infallible rule of faith and practise, and the unaltered Augsburg Confession as the correct exponent of that Word. The foundation upon which this organization is built is that of the church itself, and any society, no matter what its name, connected with a Lutheran congregation or institution of learning, is entitled to membership by conforming to and subscribing the constitution of the Luther League of America. It insists that each society cooperating with the League should be connected with either a Lutheran church or Lutheran institution of learning, and that its active members should be composed of communicants of the Lutheran Church, so that it embraces to-day, upon consistent grounds, Young People's Associations, Luther Alliances, Christian Endeavor Societies, King's Sons and King's Daughters, Young Men's and Young Women's Societies, gilds, and kindred organizations. Wherever these societies exist in Lutheran churches, it is presumed, and rightly so, that they are established in the interest and for the upbuilding of the Lutheran Church. The purpose of these leagues is to encourage the formation of young people's societies in the Lutheran congregations, to stimulate the various young people's societies to greater Christian activity, and to foster the spirit of loyalty to the church. It develops clear Christian faith by encouraging Bible study and imparting a knowledge of the Lutheran Church, historical and doctrinal, and of its usages. It trains the church's youth for active service; and it insists that care be exercised in the assignment of work. To the individual member of the league it proposes to quicken a clearer consciousness of
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In xii. 1-xiii. 6 it appears that Jerusalem is now attacked by the whole heathen world, but the heathen nations themselves are destroyed and Jerusalem is not captured. Chap. xiv. describes anew the last battle for Jerusalem, with the singular discrepancy, however, that the city is first taken and plundered before the judgment of God overtakes the heathen. God, surrounded by his angels, appears on the Mount of Olives, which is rent by an earthquake. Now begins the messianic age, which is like a perpetual day without cold or burning heat. The outlines of the land are changed, it becomes an immense plain above which rises Jerusalem alone; ever-flowing streams issue from the city and run toward the east and the west. Those heathen who have survived the dreadful defeat recognize Yahweh's rule and come yearly to Jerusalem for the feast of tabernacles.
For a long time these chapters were believed to be by the same hand as chapters i.-viii.; it was only the citation of Zech. xi. 12-13 in Matt. xxvii. 9-10 as a word of Jeremiah that gave rise to a different view. Joseph Mede, in Dissertationum ecclesiasticarum triga (London, 1653), conjectured that chaps. ix.-xi. were by Jeremiah. This hypothesis, although valueless, led to a closer study of the book and at the present time but few critics attribute chaps. ix.-xiv. to Zechariah. Indeed, it seems almost impossible that the same author could have written i.-viii. and ix.-xiv. The marked characteristics of the earlier chapters are lacking in the later, and the political situation, as well as the prophetic quality, is totally unlike. Of these chapters,. xii.-xiv. (excepting xiii. 7-9) appear to constitute a typical specimen of the deuteroprophetic literature. A conclusive proof of the late composition of this section is the announcement of the cessation of prophecy (xiii. 2-3), since this indicates a period when the prophets who appeared in public (not purely literary prophets like the author) were degenerate and deceivers; that is, a period when literary study had taken the place of immediate prophetic inspiration. It is, however, unlikely that xii. 1-xiii. 6 is by the same hand as xiv., especially since Jerusalem is said to have been taken in xiv., while the contrary is stated in xii.
Strange to say, the portions ix. 1-ix. 17 and xiii. 7-9 are thought by some critics to constitute one of the earliest prophetic writings (from the period before 722 B.C.), while others place this section in the second century B.C. In x. 6-9 the departure of Ephraim and Judah, and in ix. 11 that of the whole people, is assumed as having already taken place. A still more important point is that in ix. 13, "the sons of Yawan," that is the Greeks, appear as enemies whose destruction marks the beginning of the messianic era. This can signify only that the Greeks were then a world-power and that this verse was written after the appearance of Alexander the Great. It is true that the mention of Egypt and Assyria as the two great world-powers recalls Hosea (cf. viii. 13, ix. 3-6); but this name may just as well signify the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae (cf. also Isa. xxvii. 13), since in later prophetic writings designations from the older prophets are freely adapted to contemporary conditions. The repeated mention of Ephraim alongside of Judah is more significant, but not decisive; for in x. 6 sqq. it appears that Ephraim must first return from captivity. The conclusion therefore follows that some passages in chaps. ix.-x. belong to the Greek period, while nothing certainly proves that the remainder is of earlier date. Chap. xi., with its continuation xiii. 7-9, offers much greater difficulties. Kuenen and others have rightly asserted that the words "to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel" are incompatible with a postexilic origin. It can not be denied that the condition of the Ephraimitic kingdom under Pekah, when the Ephraimites in alliance with the Arameans attacked Judah, suits this perfectly. The shepherds killed within a month (verse 8) might then be explained by the murders of Zechariah and Shallum (II Kings xv. 8, 13). However, the designation of an Ephraimitic king as "the man that is my fellow," xiii. 7, would be strange. Two Septuagint manuscripts read Israel instead of Jerusalem in verse 14, and in this case the text would refer to conflicts between the capital and the rest of the country; while these can not be proved, they are quite possible in the Greek period (cf. also xii. 7), so that this chapter might also be referred to that epoch. Any satisfactory result as to chapter xi. is therefore impossible, but this has nothing to do with the date of the other chapters, since it can not
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While Munzer was in Zwickau, all went well with the "prophets," but his successor, Nicolaus Hausmann (q.v.), was less amenable, and on Dec. 16, 1521, Storch and his followers were accused of repudiating infant baptism. He and one other alone remained obdurate and, ignoring a summons to reappear later for a second examination, he went, together with Stubner and a certain Markus Thoma, to Wittenberg to secure university support. Here he succeeded in half winning Andrews Rudolf Bodenstein von Carlstadt (q.v.), convinced Martin Borrhaus (q.v.), and for an instant swayed even Melanchthon. So serious, indeed, became the situation that Luther, then in hiding in the Wartburg, was forced to leave his retreat and return to Wittenberg, where he arrived Mar. 7, 1522. [Before he left the Wartburg, in answer to Melanchthon's difficulties about infant baptism Luther wrote a letter justifying the practise on the ground of unconscious or subconscious faith exercised by the infant, and defying his opponents to prove that the infant does not exercise saving faith. A. H. N.] He sternly repressed the radicals, though he was unable to supply their demand for Scripture passages explicitly commanding infant baptism, his conclusion being that "what is not against Scripture is in favor of Scripture, and Scripture in favor of it "-- an argument ill calculated to satisfy his opponents. Nevertheless, his presence in Wittenberg made it impossible for the Zwickau prophets to remain, and both Carlstadt and Borrhaus, continuing in their radicalism, ultimately found a more congenial home amid Zwinglian surroundings. With the exit of Storch and Munzer from Zwickau, their sectaries soon subsided, and in Apr., 1522, Luther visited the city and delivered four sermons to enormous audiences (estimated by one contemporary at 14,000 and by another at 25,000) on the evils of religious radicalism and fanaticism.
The story of the wild career of Thomas Munzer is well known. Of Stubner nothing is recorded except that, after leaving Wittenberg, he went to Kemberg, a town of Prussian Saxony, where he disappeared from history. Concerning the fortunes of Storch there is more information. After the Wittenberg episode he apparently remained for some time in Thuringia, for Luther seems to have had another interview with him shortly before Sept., 1522. He would also appear to have remained with Carlstadt in Orlamunde, but in 1524 he was in Hof, where he renewed his agitation until he was driven from the place, only to repeat his madness at Glogau in Silesia. Early in 1525 he was apparently cooperating with Munzer in stirring up the Peasants' War, and in the course of this occupation he seems to have come to Munich, where he is said to have died in a hospital. During the closing years of his life it would seem that his radicalism increased, for he is reported to have taught rejection not only of marriage and of infant baptism, and the renunciation of all worldly goods, but also to have inculcated full indulgence of the flesh and the right of deposing and even of killing civil authorities.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. H. Newman, History of Anti-Pedobaptism, pp. 62-76, Philadelphia, 1897; G. Tumbult, Die Wiedertaufer, pp. 8-11, Bielefeld, 1899; R. Bachmann, Niclas Storch, der Anfanger der Zwiekauer Wiedertaufer, Zwickau, 1880.
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