Religious Notes | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 27, 1883

Religious Notes.

—A Convention of all the different sects of Open Communion Baptists is to be held this fall at Minneapolis, Minn.

—The New York City Mission of the Bible House reports for August, 41 city missionaries, 311 meetings, 51,250 attendance, 50,500 tracts distributed, 5,687 visits made, 139 temperance pledges obtained, and 310 families relieved. The receipts were $1,236, and the payments $3,846.

—It is said that no less than fifteen churches have been added during the past year to those already in the city of Minneapolis, Minn., which are distributed as follows: Presbyterian, one; Unitarian, one; Universalist, one; Roman Catholic, one; Baptist, two; Methodist, three; Congregational, four.

—The colored people of New York and Brooklyn are trying to raise money to build a church at San Domingo for their own people. At present there is not a Protestant church in the city of San Domingo. The Government will donate a suitable spot of ground as soon as the funds are secured for the building.

—The following is the work of colporteurs of the California Bible Society during the year: Families visited, 2,910; found destitute, including Roman Catholics, 1,287; families supplied, 289, including 161 Roman Catholics; individuals visited, 1,687; supplied, 505. Of the individuals visited 682 were sailors of whom 232 were supplied with the Scriptures in six languages. Thirty ships and other sailing vessels were visited, and the Word of God distributed in eight languages during the month.

—All the different branches of the Methodist Church in Canada have now united, so that henceforth in Canada there will be but one body. The Christian at Work thinks that this should stir up the Methodists and Presbyterians of our own country, "to say nothing of the development of a union feeling which shall bring still closer together the various denominations now dis-severed," and predicts that the time will come when "the pulpit hedges and the communion fences are overthrown."

—The following item from the Christian at Work will be read with interest by the readers of the SIGNS, whose attention has been of late especially called to the Waldenses: "Many years ago a colony of Vaudois emigrated to South America, and finally settled in the Argentine Republic. They have, amid all their vicissitudes, remained true to the faith of their fathers. The church at home has allotted to them two pastors. Their industry and independent efforts for the education of their children, and general good behavior, attracted the attention of the President of the Republic under which they live. He has lately paid them a visit, and expressed himself much pleased with these model citizens."

—The Rev. Phillips Brooks, of Boston, has been preaching in England, while on his vacation, and is considered one of the most eloquent pulpit orators ever heard in that country. The people of Geneva, Switzerland, however, were deprived of the privilege of hearing him, which misfortune happened on this wise, as related by the Times, of that city: "The combined vestries of the American and English churches could not furnish a surplice to fit him, and the reverend gentleman was obliged to forego his intention of preaching because the longest surplice to be found was an inch too short." As the Examiner says, It is a case of no gown, no gospel. The reverend gentleman would modify the charge to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, by adding, "providing you can find a gown large enough."