News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 13, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 11.

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News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—Charlotte, S. C., has a colored Salvation Army.

—The Toronto Presbytery has denounced secret societies as opposed to religion.

—The General Conference of the M. E. Church will meet May 1, at Philadelphia.

—The next consistory at Rome is fixed for March. Probably four cardinals will be appointed.

—The City of Mexico organ of the Catholic Church, El Cronista, has suspended publication.

—"The Religious and Benevolent Association" is the title of a Spiritualist society recently organized in Waco, Texas.

—Dr. John Hall wrote: "I would rather have a church of five-and-twenty members than a crowd of twenty times that number."

—Rev. J. Hyatt Smith, one of the great Baptist preachers and ex-member of Congress, has gone over to the Congregationalists.

—Rev. S. L. Beal, until recently pastor of the Universalist Church in Brockton, Mass., has abandoned that belief and embraced Spiritualism.

—Chicago doesn't know what to do for audiences in her 300 churches, but her 4,000 saloons are amply provided for.—N. Y. Commercial Advertiser.

—Mennonites in Nebraska occupy three entire counties, are good farmers and hard workers, and so economical that their prosperity is remarkable.

—A prominent clergyman of Lockport, N. Y., positively refuses to marry any young couple unless the bridegroom first signs a temperance pledge.

—A misanthrope, named Warren, recently deceased at Barnardstown, Vt., bequeathed all his property "to oppose that horrid old monster of kingcraft called religion."

—The Bible Banner is "glad to note" that Rev. Joseph Cook assures the public that Wendell Phillips "was a genuine believer in Christ." Mr. Phillips had a world-wide reputation; and the Christian belief of such a man, that is not known until publicly proclaimed after his death, could not have been of a very emphatic character, in fact hardly worth speaking of.

—Dr. Sprecher, of Calvary Presbyterian Church, San Francisco, preached a sermon Sunday before last, on the "New Heavens and New Earth," in which he took the Bible position that Heaven is as real and tangible a place as this earth, and that the future abode of the redeemed will be this earth renewed and purified, and made a fit habitation for holy beings.

—W. J. Colville reports to the Banner of Light that Spiritualism is fifty per cent. stronger all over England than when he was last there. Also, that the doctrine is making rapid headway in France.

—Rev. Nelson Ayers, rector of the Church of our Saviour, New York, Sunday, Feb. 24, declared his belief in the doctrine of purgatory, for which he was complimented by the Catholic clergy but was compelled by his congregation to resign.

—The remains of a young man who was supposed to have committed suicide, at Lafayette, Ind., were denied interment in the cemetery of his church (Catholic). His father sought redress in one of the courts, and defeated the church authorities. The remains were buried in the cemetery, whereupon the father was officially excommunicated and the ground declared desecrated.