News and Notes | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 30, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 38.

News and Notes.

RELIGIOUS.

—There are no Protestant missionaries among the million and a half of people in Tripoli, North Africa.

—There are 7,000 Esquimau converts in Greenland under the care of the Danish Missionary Society.

—It is estimated that in 1784 there were 420,000,000 of pagans, and that these had increased in 1884 to 835,000,000.

—The Pope has appointed The Very Reverend Lawrence Scanlon of Salt Lake City as titular Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of Utah Territory.

The London Baptist is quoted as saying that Mr. Spurgeon's sermons are more in demand among the English ritualistic clergy than those of any other preacher.

—It is stated that one of the most important questions to be decided at the Episcopal Convention which meets in October is the adoption of the revised prayer book.

—Dr. Thompson characterizes the Dorner doctrine of future probation as “incipient theological dry rot.” We think it has got far beyond the incipient stage of theological rottenness.

—The Pope, in an encyclical to the Bishops of Hungary, condemns neutral and mixed schools and opposes the bill in the Hungarian Diet to legalize marriage between Jews and Christians.

—The next Baptist Congress will be held in Baltimore, beginning November 16 and continuing two days. Among the questions to be discussed are the following: “Inspiration of the Scriptures,” “Faith Cures,” “Religious Instruction in State Education,” “The Future Life,” and “Popular Indifference to Religion.” The subject of “Sabbath Observance” will be discussed under these three heads: “Scriptural Grounds,” “Utilitarian Grounds,” and “How Best Secured?”

—“A learned college professor” writes as follows to the Independent: “I believe in a minister’s getting Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and all the other studies of a seminary. I believe in seminaries; but why should the Book of books only be a book for reference, and not a direct and the most important study in a theological course? . . . The faculties of theological seminaries are as good men as are to be found anywhere, but our system has run away from teaching the English Bible, and in the midst of so many studies there seems to be no room for the most important.”

—The Methodist Recorder says: “The ‘Big Veda,’ the religious book of the Hindoos, is the stronghold of the Hindoo religion. Hitherto it has existed in Sanskrit, and the people of India have not been able to read it, but have regarded it with superstitious reverence. It is now to be translated into Bengali, and it is thought that when once the people can read it, much of the veneration for it will be destroyed. So knowledge becomes the ally of the Christian missionary.” Well, some people can draw comfort from anything. The idea that the millennium is to be advanced by the increased circulation of the heathen books! We suppose the Recorder would say that knowledge has become the ally of the Christian missionary, in that it enables Ingersoll to give his blasphemous books so wide a circulation.