icences for their meetings, and soon came into sharp conflict
with the authorities. Stearns was an evangelist of great power. With
Marshall, his brother-in-law, and about a dozen fellow-believers he settled
at Sandy Creek, North Carolina, and in a few years had built up a church
with a membership of more than six hundred. Marshall afterward organized
and ministered to a church at Abbott's Creek about 30 m. distant. From
these centres "Separate" Baptist influence spread throughout North and
South Carolina and across the Georgia border, Marshall himself finally
settling and forming a church at Kiokee, Georgia. From North Carolina as a
centre "Separate" Baptist influence permeated Virginia and extended into
Kentucky and Tennessee. The Sandy Creek Association came to embrace
churches in several colonies, and Stearns, desirous of preserving the
harmonious working of the churches that recognized his leadership, resisted
with vehemence all proposals for the formation of other associations.

From 1760 to 1770 the growth of the "Separate" Baptist body in Virginia and
the Carolinas was phenomenal. Evangelists like Samuel Harris
(1724-_c._1794) and John Waller (1741-1802) stirred whole communities and
established Baptist churches where the Baptist name had hitherto been
unknown. The Sandy Creek Association, with Stearns as leader, undertook to
"unfellowship ordinations, ministers and churches that acted
independently," and provoked such opposition that a division of the
association became necessary. The General Association of Virginia and the
Congaree Association of South Carolina now took their places side by side
with the Sandy Creek. The Virginia "Separate" Baptists had more than
doubled their numbers in the two years from May 1771 to May 1773. In 1774
some of the Virginia brethren became convinced that the apostolic office
was meant to be perpetuated and induced the association to appoint an
apostle. Samuel Harris was the unanimous choice and was solemnly ordained.
Waller and Elijah Craig (1743-1800) were made apostles soon afterward for
the northern district. This arrangement, soon abandoned, was no doubt
suggested by Methodist superintendency. In 1775 Methodist influence
appeared in the contention of two of the apostles and Jeremiah Walker for
universal redemption. Schism was narrowly averted by conciliatory
statements on both sides. As a means of preserving harmony the Philadelphia
Confession of Faith, a Calvinistic document,