p. 215 | Religious Notes by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 4, 1882

Religious Notes.

By Editor

-Moody and Sankey have declined for the present, an urgent invitation to enter upon a year's evangelistic work in London.

-Mr. John F. Slater of Norwich, Conn., has given a million dollars for the Christian education of the colored people of the Southern States.

-The number of Protestant communicants increased about 14,000 in the city of Berlin during the past year, owing largely to the labors of the city missionaries.

-A Chicago paper says that Mr. Miln's new religious organization for the promotion of ethical culture will be known as the "First Monetarian Church," and will worship in the church of the Indefinite.

-A contemporary says of a certain Sunday-school, that, "having a surplus after paying the expenses of a recent festival," bought an easy chair for their pastor, etc. There was no sarcasm intended, either.

-Says the S. F. Chronicle: In the Church of the Advent yesterday morning, Bishop Kip, assisted by five other clergymen, admitted a sister into the "Sisterhood of the Good Shepherd," thereby fairly inaugurating the Protestant Sisterhood movement on this coast.

-A Methodist bishop recently said that "if half the Methodist membership were cut off, the church would be all the stronger." This would probably apply to other churches. A church's strength lies not in the number of nominal members, but in the working members.

-A magnificent flutter has been raised among the numerous mediums and clairvoyants of San Francisco, by a demand from the authorities for a license of $50 per quarter, payable in advance. Some have taken down their signs. They claim exception on religious grounds.

-But very little attention is paid in China to the education of women. A lady missionary, who has been teaching and traveling for nearly ten years in China, says that out of eight hundred women whom she had visited, only four could read at all, and only one could read the Chinese language well.

-"Pew-renting and the annual meeting of the First Church, Kalamazoo, was made a gala-time, with musical and literary exercises, supper, etc. The innovation was delightful to all." To be sure. The good people had doubtless attended so closely to their religious duties for so long a time that they needed a little change.

-The Jewish Messenger suggests that "an editorial union" of the religious press, embracing different denominations, with occasional meetings, would knit religious papers more closely together, and be of general advantage. Whereupon the Independent remarks: "We would heartily welcome such a union in this city. There are subjects enough in which we all have a common sympathy." Why not have a "denominational union" of the various churches? Are there not points enough in which they all have a "common sympathy?" We expect to see this before very long.