Baptists and the Russian Empire by S. B. H.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 22, 1912

Baptists and the Russian Empire

By S. B. H.

It will be remembered that the Rev. Robert S. MacArthur, president of the World's Sunday-School Association, went to Russia in the interests of securing religious freedom for Baptists in the czar's dominions. Whatever successes have attended his labors is portrayed in letters from which the following report published in the Washington Star of February 4 appears to be a synopsis:—

“Baptists the world over are elated at the apparent success that has greeted the efforts of Rev. Dr. Robert Stuart MacArthur, president of the World's Sunday-School Association, in convincing the Russian minister of the interior that the leaders of the denomination should be allowed to preach their doctrine regularly in the big tabernacle they have just finished erecting in the city of St. Petersburg.

“The minister has also given his sanction to the proposition of allowing the Baptists to erect a Bible college in the Russian capital city, where theological students will be trained for the denomination's ministry.

“In letters to the leaders of the denomination in this country, Dr. MacArthur points out that there are many conditions placed in the articles of permission which the ministry has granted for the effort, but that these should be passed over when it is considered that the Russian government has yielded to the requests of the Baptists, and is now allowing them to preach their faith to the populace.

“One of these conditions is that no Baptist minister may, in his teachings, entreat a Russian to come into the Baptist fold. The names of those who might become members of the church on solicitation can not be taken, and the Russian who listens to a Baptist expounding the gospel must come into the church on his own volition.”

S. B. H.