"Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Matthew 16:18.

      The Baptists began their denominational life under the ministry of the Sav­iour, and down through the ages they have been the strongest advocates of civil and religious liberty. During these many centuries they have had different names applied to them, and while some would have us believe that the Baptists lost their identity as a denomination, or are of later origin than the time of Christ, yet by the belief and practices of this peculiar people since the Lord constituted the first Baptist church, they can be identified as of the same faith as John the Bap­tist. And as civilization rolled on, we find, in the colonial days in America, the Regular and Separate Baptists of Virginia. Just why there was this distinction, we do not know; someone has described them as being one and the same people, "having a distinction without a difference." Be that as it may, in the early settle­ment of Kentucky, we again find the Regular and Separate Baptists, each contend­ing for supremacy. In 1801, during the greatest revival of religion the State has ever experienced, notwithstanding the fact that several previous efforts had failed, another effort was made to agree upon terms of union. The Regular Baptists, or South Elkhorn Association, appointed a committee consisting of David Barrow, Ambrose Dudley, John Price, William Payne and Joseph Redding, to con­fer with a committee from the Separate Baptists, or South Kentucky Association, composed of Robert Elkin, Daniel Ramey, Thomas J. Chilton, Moses Bledsoe and Samuel Johnson. At a conference of the joint committee on August 22, 1801, after considerable discussion, terms of union were agreed upon, which it was hoped would be satisfactory to all the churches. A convention was called, to be com­posed of two members from each church in the two Associations, and this conven­tion was held at the historic old church building, the Stone Meeting House (Provi­dence), on Lower Howard's Creek, Clark County, Kentucky, on the second Satur­day in October, 1801. The terms of union, as previously agreed upon by the joint committee, were unanimously approved by the convention, and the names of Regu­lar and Separate were dropped forever and they became known as United Baptists. The terms of union can be found in any history of Kentucky Baptists.

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