Religious Notes | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 19, 1882

Religious Notes.

—In the Fiji Islands there are 9,000 Catholics.

—Dr. Cuyler says that the four characteristics of a good Sabbath-school teacher are Painstaking, Patience, Perseverance, and Prayer.

—The Sabbath Recorder is publishing some interesting letters of experience in regard to the keeping of the Sabbath of the Lord, and their change from the first day of the week.

—The Methodist will now be discontinued, and consolidated with the Christian Advocate. The most important reason for the step is that "the original uses of the Methodist no longer exist."

—Last week the Latter Day Saints held a Conference in Oakland for the Northern District of California. A resolution was unanimously adopted endorsing the Prohibition party of California, and pledging the Convention to support it.

—A correspondent of the Sacramento Record-Union says: "The sacred observance of Sunday as a day sanctified and hallowed by the command of God can be established only by keeping the Republican party steadily on its present course." So?

—The Christian Union says, in answer to a question, that "the weight of evidence is that infant baptism was introduced into the Christian Church sometime subsequent to the apostles." Correct. And in this connection would it not be well for some persons to read Gal. 1:8?

—Dr. Wm. M. Taylor said in a recent sermon that it was unwise to regard the Roman Catholics as outside the Christian fold. He said that in forming statistics of the Christians of New York, it was wrong to separate "that most venerable branch of the Christian Church" from the Protestant branch.

—A missionary of the American Sunday-school Union gives the following report of five months' work in Kentucky: "In five months I have organized twenty-nine Sunday-schools, with 109 teachers and 1,266 scholars." He also reports 200 conversions, and two churches organized. A pretty good showing.

—A Boston Judge has fined a confectioner $10 for delivering ice-cream on Sunday to his customers for their Sunday dinner. That Judge was as discriminating as they are here. When arrests were made by the wholesale in San Francisco, hatters were fined and liquor men escaped. Only "unnecessary business" must be stopped.

—Our readers must not be surprised if in this column of "Religious Notes" they occasionally find an item that seems to have a political complexion. Now that the religious press and the pulpit are devoted principally to the advocacy of "police regulations," we cannot separate the two in quoting from them. Modern religion and politics coalesce very easily.

—A German lady, writing to some English-speaking Christians, gives this picture of the present state of things in Germany: "Our preachers are asleep, dead, and are afraid of really vital Christians. They speak smooth things, and preach in a learned way. We must have evangelists. The people are barren in the knowledge of God's word." And Germany is not alone in her need. The tendency in our own country is to a mere form of godliness, without the vital power of the gospel.

—A correspondent of the American Baptist Flag, writes against the holding of association meetings on Sunday, and says: "Our church has to be closed, and there are so many saloons and drug stores open, and restaurants, and other places where people go and while away their time, and suffer more or less from the influence of Satan's wiles, while if our pastor could be here, there would be other places for them to go." Seventh-day Adventist Churches never suffer in that way, although they are without regular pastors all the time. The reason is plain. It is because they are taught to work for others, instead of depending on a pastor for their own spiritual existence.

—The S.S. Times has a good article entitled, "Planting Seed Too Deep." It states a fact well known by agriculturists, that seed covered too deep, even with the best of soil, will not grow; and then it makes an application of this principle to religious teaching. We quote a few sentences: "A large share of all the seed sown by parents in the minds of their children, is smothered to death by the mother-earth of scolding, or of the needless repetitions and amplifications which follow it." Of Bible teaching, it says: "Soil is necessary. Planting below the surface, by a stimulating question, or a suggestive remark, or a helpful illustration, is better than broadcast sowing on the bare and hard earth. But, after all, the seed is the chief thing, not the soil. Yet there are teachers and superintendents and preachers who take one or two grains of good truth seed, and then devote themselves to shoveling earth upon it until the seed is buried out of sight and hope forever. The seed was good enough, but it was killed in the planting." We hope to give further extracts in a future number.

—At the autumn meeting of the New York and Brooklyn Association of Congregational Churches, commencing October 10, Henry Ward Beecher who had been assigned to open the discussion of the subject of "Spiritual Barbarism," made it the occasion for announcing his withdrawal from the Association. His object in withdrawing was to relieve the Association from the responsibility of his views, and not from any ill-will. He says that the Old Testament writers constructed their conception of God from the example of their animal inclinations and appetites, and not from the example of their reason and moral sense. In short, he rejects the greater part of the Old Testament, as gross and barbarous. As a natural consequence, then, he must reject those New Testament writers who quote from the Old Testament. But Beecher's infidelity is no new thing. It has been for a long time very thinly disguised. The worst of the matter is that the Association passed a resolution the next day asking him to reconsider his action in withdrawing from their body, and expressing concurrence in his belief. To put the matter plainly, they eagerly assured him that they believe as little of the Bible as he does.