# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1911_S522
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

522 Kirchlich⸗Zeitgeschichtliches.

Baptisten pflegen bekanntlich mit großer Zuversichtlichkeit zu behaupten,
daß ihre Lehre vom Untertauchen das Zeugnis der „Wissenschaft“ für sich
habe. Interessant ist darum folgende Mitteilung des Cristien Observer:
„Baptists are necessarily displeased with the article on Baptism' which
appears in the neπw Eneyclopaedia Britannica.“ In part this writer says:
„The Didache“ bids us pour water on the head, and Christian pictures
and sculptures ranging from the first to the tenth century represent the
baptized as standing in the water, while the baptizer pours water from
his hand or from a bowl over his head. Even if we allow for the difficulty
of representing complete submersion in art, it is nevertheless clear that it
was not insisted on; nor were the earliest fonts, to judge from the ruins
of them, large and deéep enough for such usage. The earliest literary
notices of baptism are far from conelusive in favor of submersion, and
areé often to be regarded as merely rhetorical. The rubrics of the manu-
scripts, it is true, enjoin total immersion, but it only came into general
vogue in the seventh century, when the growing rarity of adult baptism
made the Greek word “baptizo“ patient of an interpretation that suited
that of infants only.“ Immersionists are fond of saying that the scholar-
ship of the world is on their side. But this latest word from the 'scholars“
shows how frail is such a elaim.“

Liberalismus unter den Presbyterianern. Die Spannung zwischen
dem konservativen und dem liberalen Flügel der Presbyterianer nimmt an⸗
scheinend zu. Der Presbytéerian schreibt, man empfinde in den konservativen
Kreisen, „that the situation in the church was grave, that the church had
been quiet and patient long enough, and that it now was her duty to step
forward and to use the power which she possessed for the maintenance
of the truth and the deéfense of the church. The present tendeney in in-
stitutions of learning to belittle evangelical faith and to substitute a gen⸗
eral and indefinite religion, the effects of this course upon the lives 0f
voung men and women, the promulgation of unseriptural teaching in
various ways among the people in general, impel these men to feel that.
the crisis is serious.“ — Unitarian ideas“, sagt Rev. Osborne, „are grow-
ing among Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists. The teachings of
Prof. A. Harnack, of Berlin, are largely the source of this. These teach-
ings have been brought to this country by people who have studied under
him in Germany and now occupy professorships in Methodist, Baptist,
and Presbyterian seminaries.“ (K. Z.)

In den Vereinigten Staaten gibt es noch 300,000 Indianer: in Cali⸗
fornia 20,000; Arizona 39,000; Oregon 3600; Washington 8000; Ne⸗
vada 5300; Idaho 4000; Oklahoma 117,000; New Mexico 18,255;
Montana 10,428; South Dakota 20,000; Wisconsin 10,688; Wyoming
1700; Utah 1745; North Dakota 8000; North Carolina 1900; Nebraska
3700; Kansas 1300; New York 5500; Minnesota 10,000; Michigan 6700;
außerdem je eine kleine Anzahl in Colorado, Florida und Texas. Im Jahre
1908 konnten 68,147 Indianer lesen und 69,209 Englisch sprechen. Die
Regierung unterhält für die Indianer 116 boarding-schools und 163 Tag⸗
schulen und gibt dafür etwa zehn Millionen Dollars das Jahr aus.

Die Zahl der akademisch gebildeten Neger in den Vereinigten Staaten
beträgt 47,324, einen auf etwa 200 Neger. Von diesen sind 15,530 Geist⸗
liche und 21,268 Lehrer (davon 13,525 Frauen). Von den übrigen zirka