Religious Notes by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 27, 1882

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 8, No. 28.

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Religious Notes

By Editor

—Father Gavazzi is now in London, pleading for the Free Church of Italy.

—A congregation of Chickasaw Indians lately gave $400 to foreign missions.

—There are more than 6,000,000 children in America outside of any direct Sunday-school influence.

—Walter C. Jones, an Englishman, has just given $360,000 for the religious missions in Japan and China.

—During the preaching of Mr. Barnes, the revivalist, in Frankfort, Ky., 1,249 persons were enrolled as converted.

—At the Seventh-day Adventist camp-meeting in Parker, Dakota, July 2, services were held in English, German, and Danish.

—The Chinese Sunday-school of Mount Vernon Church, Boston, numbers 110, and is increasing so rapidly that it is difficult to find teachers.

—The number of tracts given out by the London Religious Tract Society during the eighty-three years of its corporative existence, is 2,099,210,520.

—For the first time in the last quarter of a century, Calvary Presbyterian Church, in San Francisco, is entirely free from debt, with a balance in the treasury.

—In the report given at the fortieth anniversary of the Sunday-school of the South Congregational Church, New Britain, Conn., it was stated that four-fifths of those who united with that church on confession of faith had come up from the Sunday-school.

—Rev. Geo. O. Barnes, the Kentucky revivalist, closed his work in Frankfort by baptizing thirty-three converts who were convicts in the penitentiary. The men were placed in wagons and taken to the river and baptized, being surrounded all the time by guards armed with rifles.

—Rev.(?) Geo. C. Miln, who was too “liberal” even for the most “liberal” Unitarian Church in Chicago, succeeds Prof. Swing as editor of the Alliance. That journal now announces that it “now drops entirely its religious character.” This announcement the Christian at Work thinks was, under the circumstances, entirely superfluous.

—The Methodist ministers of Providence, R. I., recently discussed the subject of ordaining women. The presiding elder said that he did not object so much to their preaching, but there were other things involved which they could not do; and one of these was to baptize by immersion. That ought not to be any objection among the Methodists.

—A recent report says that the aggregate attendance on the Chinese mission schools in this State was larger during June than ever before. The number of names of pupils on the roll was 908. The average attendance was 437—the largest average ever reached. The total number of pupils who have been enrolled from September 1 to June 30 was not less than 2,152.

—A Methodist minister of Toronto, recently preached a sermon on “Life Insurance,” advising every man to secure a policy. The subject of securing life is a good one for a sermon; but in this part of the country people need far less urging to secure the benefits of this life, than they do to secure those of the life to come. That minister should read Matt. 6:23, and then preach again.

—At the Connecticut State Sunday-school Convention, Mr. Joseph Tomlinson, Statistical Secretary, reported that there were in Connecticut 1,018 Sunday-schools; officers and teachers, 17,700; whole number of children and adults in Sunday-school, 133,620; average per cent. not attending any Sunday-school, 42.5. The expense of carrying on Sunday-schools was $83,295. The amount given by 385 schools for benevolent purposes was over $45,000, an average of over $116 apiece.

—The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, of Brooklyn, N. Y., have succeeded in having a matron attached to the police station-houses. During the past month she has met 210 women and girls in her official capacity. She finds homes for such as can, and visits them in their homes, making them feel that they are objects of friendly oversight. Especial attention is given to young girls who are arrested for the first time, and the success of the movement has proved the wisdom of its originators.

—When the Democratic Convention pledged the party in California to work for the repeal of the Sunday Law, it was freely stated that Democrats would not “scratch” their ticket, and therefore no fears were entertained of losing the church vote. But the California Christian Advocate says: “The Pacific Methodist, the Rev. H. W. Featherstun, Presiding Elder of San Francisco district, and all of the preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church South that we have seen or heard from, very positively declare that they will not vote for men who are pledged to repeal our Sunday Law.”