"That is the interesting part. Do you know they are next to the largest denomination in the world except the Catholics?" "What is that, daughter? You evidently got into some fairy tales in the library. Why, the Methodists are as large as all the other denominations put together, and as for the Baptists, they are but a drop in the bucket. Look at them in this town, and I guess the bunch here is a pretty good sample of them everywhere." "Oh, father, either those books in the library are wrong or else you and lots of other folks are terribly mistaken. The Baptists and the Methodists are the two largest denominations in the world, except the Catholics." The father wore an incredulous and bewildered look. "There may possibly be a lot of Baptists scattered over the earth," admitted Sterling, "but you must have quality as well as quantity, and quality is what the Baptists have not." "You are prodigiously mistaken," replied Dorothy in a vehement manner. "I could hardly believe it myself as I read it; but it is a fact that the Baptists hold a high place in history. One writer says that the Baptists are in the front ranks in the matter of education. Two writers say that the great Foreign Mission movement of the present and the past century was started by the Baptists of England. Another book says they have led in founding and perfecting Sunday schools." "England?" said the father. "I didn't know that any Baptists had ever found their way across the seas to England." "Why, father, England owes much of her present greatness to the Baptists. In the Puritan movement that saved England from Catholicism and kept her Protestant the Baptists are said to have played a large part." "When did they come into existence?" "They claim that they have always been in existence since the days of the apostles." "Well, well, that is a clincher sure." "Father, it does look as if the truths which the Baptists hold are the truths which Christ taught and which the first Christians practiced; and if so, then the first churches were in that sense Baptist churches." "All of the other churches knocked out at the first blow," said the father with a laugh, "and Christianity starting off with only Baptist churches." "This history which I read also said that all through the centuries since Christ there seem to have been bands of Christian people believing substantially what the Baptists of today believe. This was not proved with absolute certainty, but all the evidence points that way. The great Roman church came into power and ruled the religious world, but there were always bands of Christians protesting against Catholicism and standing up for those truths and practices which they believed the Bible taught. Baptist historians say that these persecuted churches held very largely what the Baptists of today believe."