Next to this, the activity of Baptists in Sunday-school work is the key to their prog ress. The Sunday schools of Robert Raikes (q.v.) were secular schools; the first real Sun day school, with the Bible as the textbook. was that of William Fox. In 17q7 the Second Baptist Church of Baltimore began such a school and after 1800 Sunday schools increased rapidly. The progress of missions and Sun day schools caused a great demand for the Bible, both in the English version and in trans lations made by missionaries. This led to local societies for the circulation of the Scrip tures, and at length to a national organization, the American Bible Society-, formed in 1816 by representatives of evangelical denomina tions. The refusal by the Society to print versions made by Baptist missionaries caused the holding of a convention in Philadelphia in 1837 and the forming of the American and Foreign Bible Society. A controversy in this body about the translation of the Bible into English was the origin of the American Bible Union, in 1850.
The unanimity of Baptists in these new enterprises was soon impaired. Violent oppo sition was made to the Sunday schools, mis sionary and Bible societies, and even to the Convention, as unscriptural. Deeper still, as a cause of disunion, was the drift of the ma jority of the churches away from the older extreme Calvinism, to which the minority re mained attached. The result of agitation of these questions was division of the churches, a comparatively small minority withdrawing from co-operation with the others and forming the body since known by the various names of Old School, Primitive or "Hard Shell" Bap tists. The churches of this order have shown little capacity of growth in the North, and many of them have become extinct; but they are numerous and even flourishing in some South ern States, especially in the mountainous parts of Tennessee and Georgia. There was another large secession of Baptists in the South and Southwest as a result of the movement led by Alexander Campbell and others, from 1815 to 1835, resulting in the establishment of the Disciples of Christ (q.v.). This did not se riously affect the Baptists of the Middle and New England States., but they suffered almost equally from the agitation known. as the Mil lerite movement, which was the origin of the Adventists (q.v.).
In spite of all hindrances Baptists increased notably in numbers in the period we are con sidering. They participated in the great re vivals that characterized these years. At the beginning of the century, being one in 14 of the population, they came by 1845 to be one in six, having increased in members from 100,000 to 686,807, and in churches from 1,200 to 8,406.
3. From the Division in 1845 to the For mation of the Northern Baptist Convention, 1907.— The controversy regarding slavery ef
fected schisms in nearly every religious body of the United States. From 1825 onward this became a subject of bitter debate everywhere, and could not be kept out of the meetings of religious societies, inasmuch as it was at bot tom an ethical and religious question. Com promises proved unworkable, and in May 1845 a convention representing the Baptist churches of the South met at Augusta, Ga., and formed the Southern Baptist Convention. The com mon missionary enterprises were thencefor ward carried on by various boards elected bv the Convention and responsible to it and thence to the churches. This has proved to be a very compact, flexible and effective organiza tion, much superior to that of the North. There the old Convention was transformed after the division into the American Baptist Missionary Union, and made an exclusively foreign mis sionary society, and the Home Mission and Publication Society remained entirely inde pendent. Three organizations instead of one proved 'to be a complicated and expensive method of doing the business of the churches, besides introducing rivalry and confusion, which became worse rather than better as time went on. The two Bible societies further com plicated matters, and at one time threatened another disruption, but a convention held at Saratoga in 1883 effected a settlement of the Bible question by recommending that the work abroad be done through the Missionary Union and that at home through the Publication Society.
During this third period Baptists have pros pered in all their enterprises, but their most notable advance has been in educational work. They began before the Revolution to establish schools, Brown University having been opened in 1764, and a number of colleges and theo logical schools were founded before 1850. Their combined endowments were small, prob ably less than $500,000, and their students few. There are now (1917) 15 theological schools, with 1,449 students, property valued at over $3,000,000 and endowments of more than $6,000,000; 12 institutions of collegiate grade, with 41,030 students, property valued at nearly $39,000,000 and endowments of over $42,000, 000; besides academies to the number of 118, with 18,019 students, nearly $7,000,000 in pro. erty, but with endowments less than $2,000,111 — most of them having none whatever. These statistics do not include institutions like George Washington (formerly Columbian) University and the University of Chicago, founded by Baptists and largely endowed by them, which are not distinctively Baptist. The inclusion of such would about double the figures given above for property and endowment.