The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1898-02-05
MISSOURI CHURCHES.
Building Capacity and Membership Of
the Various United Bodies.
There Are In the state 5s5.639 Church
Members. IsIChUreh Edaoes. g.
o64 Organizations and Property
VaIasd &C sIs,6o3.7S5.e
I 81. LOUIS, Jan. s9.-A writer in ths
st. Louis Republic furnishes these In
terestipP church statistiei of Missouri:

ST.. LOUIS, Jan. "A writer In ths
| st. Louis Republic furnishes these in
! teresting church statistiei of Missouri:
The religious censu5 OF q great state like
Missouri presents nam features OF interest.
1 Here are represented nearly ali the forms of
| tn Christian religion, and even most OF ths
| nonchristian bell IFS known to the civilized
world In the Unlied States In general 80. 81
per cont OF the Inhabitants enrolled a.
| members OF the various denominations. In
the separate states and territories this per-
l. centage thus averaged ranges from CO S. n
New Mexico down 70 less than one-eighth "a
much. or 7.9S in Oklahoma. M!ssouri's pro-
| portion Of ga may be taken as coming up to
the substantial average She has larger pro-
| portion OF church members In her population
! than Maine and New Hampshire in New En-
gland. than Michigan and. West Virginia
amongst the oldsr states and than her next
| door neighbors Kansas and Arkansas. along
with many other
And In the other elements OF religions proa-
| perlty Missouri does not fall behind the ex-
hibit OF str myth made by her 725, ,5S9 churoh
| members The state possesses O. IeI church
edihoes, with q seating capacity OF 1 CSC, ,669;
s,064 church organic 2tions and church proper
| ty 70 the value o. = e53 III Ia all OF these
| particulars shs ranks either sixth or seventh
among the atar 5 VI the union. There were Ia
1890. las separate re4g gious denominations found
by the census enum srasOrs, besides 1i9 conEre-
| cations clASs7d as independent Out OF the
chaos Of the If3 sectS. Ii8 have successfully
been gathered into Is family groups Thus
there are IL diisrent kinds OF AIethodists all
Of whom may properly be gfouped together; 10
kinds OF LutheranS. iS kinds Of Baptists -
kinds OF Presby yterians, the same number OF
varieties OF Msnnonites and 50 on down through
the list OF Is family groups which include the
vast majority Of American Christianity
There are In the whole county eight family
groups. having each over 5Oo.00o communal
cdnts. These are Ia order Of size. RopaR
Cath lies. Methodists, Baptists Presbyterian.
Lutherans. Disciples OF Christ Eptscopaiiaas
Gnd ConZregationalists. In Missouri ths first
three and last two OF thsss groups hold the
same rank as In the rest Of the country but the
Disciples OF Christ are In the fourth Instead Of
sixth piscs. so that both Prssbyterians and
Luthersn5 tall below them. and with 0T77S
mSmbers they are stronger here than IA any
other s!ets In the union There are also LaH
meubers OF o denominations calle1 Christians.
closely related 10 the foregoing. with WHOM
they are often confounded-
The Roman Catholic. Methodists aud Bap-
lists seem to b. very nearly equal in numbers,
having respectively los. .so4. lds 5M and 1851
members They are de sIdedly the strong de-
nominations OF the state But It must be re-
membered that the Roman Catholic figures in
clude all confirmed persons as communicates,
which practically means all adherentS that are
more than nine or ten years OF age
About three-fourths OF the BaptistS belong 70
the denomination called Regular Baptists,
tsouth), the rest boing divided among various
smaller bodies Over one-half OF the Metho-
dtsts belong to the southern division OF that
church and about one-third OF them TO the
northern The colored people OF the state have
SIS church edifices, $40 organizations, and own
, church property 70 the value OF 1919. AT Their
q. 452 members ore nearly all Methodfsts ana
BaptIsts of various sects. Prssbyterians Of all
names have h3.5iO members, and Lutherans.
Including tbs German Evangelical synod, 5s-
no, Nearly half OF the former number are
made up Of members OF one OF the smaller
divisions OF this body. the Cumberland Presby-
terians Nearly as numerous are the Northern
Presbyterians whilst the southern branch or
the church Is comparatively small The
Episeopahans and CongreEattonnlists are req
fesenLe2 by the comparatively small numbers.
s.o5s ar6 7o7 Both Of them are mainly found
In the cities
After these eight principal bodies come three
curiously assorted denominations having about
the same strength each-the Jews, with I. $50
members the United Brethren. with 4. S6i, ana
the Christian Union. with SGD. The Latter
Day Saints come next In number with s.iso
members They are stronger IN only four other
states and ons territory. Utah. Idaho, Arizona
and Iowa All the Missouri ulsmbers belong
to the branch known as the Reorranized
Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints
This ss,E split OF from the main body. which
finally settled In Utah in 1879. when It rejected
the leadership OF Brigham Young and refused
TO accept the revelations permitting polyganly.
The only other denominations found in tha
state with q membership OF over u thousand
each are the Dunkards, with 2,oeo communi-
cants: the German Evangelical Protestants,
Unitarians, with lls5. and the Evengelisal as
ISOLATION. with i,IoA The next group COM
prises s5s SpTitualists, 7ls Msnnonites, III
UnIversalists. el5 Friends, and Ssj Reformed.
The denominations remaining that have over
8 hundred members each are Christian seien-
lists with S7t; Salvation army. 34oi Church or
the New Jerusalem. SO; Plymoth Brethren.
e.sI Church OF GOD, 22l, and Society OF Ethical
Culture, I60 There are. besides independents
congregations with q membership OF I6o. Tho
Christian scientists have greatly increased
since the census was taken, as have also the
members Of the Salvation army.
There yet remain TO be noted ave small de-
nominations, having less than 100 members
each in the state Most numerous OF these
are the SO MoravianS, IN Laclede county where
they have three church buildings Twenty-Five
persons belong to conmunistIc societies, which
tor Missouri, are represented by the Society OF
Altruists. b wing It's seat in JEFFERSON county
The Church Triumphant and Christadel-
phians have each 20 members. The former
society was founded by George Jacob Sehwein-
furth Last OF all come the Theosophists who
are credited with but Is members