News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 9, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 15.

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News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The Revised Version of the Old Testament will appear early in May.

—The American Presbyterian mission in Shan-Tung, China, has a membership of 2,070.

—The Jewish feast of the Passover commenced Monday night, March 30. Its services last one week.

—The Cherokee Indians have a Baptist membership of 2,000. Three hundred additions to this faith were made the last year.

—The pope has made another appeal for more Peter's pence. The contributions to this fund have been very light in the past few years.

—The International Sunday-school Lesson Committee is to meet in Cincinnati, April 15. Earnest discussions are in progress as to what lesson plans they should adopt.

—The Wesleyan missionaries in the Fiji Islands have 1,200 congregations, 1,730 local preachers, 1,070 head teachers, 11 European ministers, 51 native ministers, and 32 catechists.

—The pastor of the Lutheran Church at Allentown, Pa., has served the congregations of that church for a period of fifty-eight years without intermission. This case is probably without a parallel in this country.

—The General Annual Conference of the Mormon Church convened at Logan, U. T., April 4. The attendance is reported moderate, none of the three first priests of the church being present. The prospect is that an effort will be made to compromise in some way their views on polygamy.

—Some leading facts about the Baptist denomination are subjoined: Associations, 1,178; ordained ministers, 16,678; churches, 28,599; membership, 2,507,733; received by baptism, 135,740; Sunday-schools, 10,994; officers and teachers, 82,247; scholars, 792,780; value of property, $25,685,959.

—The President has again surprised the denizens of Washington, this time by passing by all the uptown fashionable congregations, and securing a pew in a small, unpretentious church on Four-and-a-half Street. The pastor, Dr. Sunderland, was formerly pastor of a Presbyterian Church in Buffalo, where Mrs. Cleveland, the President's mother, attended.

—A vessel which recently sailed from Boston, bound for West Africa, carried 132,000 gallons of rum as a part of her cargo. What a disgrace to this country has this vile traffic become! Men are not satisfied to debauch themselves, but must place before the heathen of poor darkened Africa, an insurmountable barrier to the spread of the gospel. 'How art thou fallen!'

—At the annual meeting of the American Tract Society lately held, the treasurer's report showed the receipts for the year to be $357,470; expenditures, $345,983; number of books, tracts, and periodicals circulated, 9,250,000; colporters employed, 161, who made 155,225 family visits, and circulated 133,463 volumes; 56,000,000 pages of tracts, to the value of $37,150, were distributed.

—A popular New York church has taken the initiatory in a programme for church service. The exercises are much varied, and interspersed with frequent singing. The discourse occupies but twenty minutes! Evidently that congregation does not mean to be troubled with much moralizing from the minister. The innovation is said to be very popular, as is shown by the largely increased congregations.

—The Waldensians at present number 17 congregations, with 12,800 members; 195 day schools, with 5,500 scholars and 200 teachers; 70 Sunday-schools, with 3,600 pupils. The principal stations of these people are Turin, Florence, Rome, Naples. The Waldensians are increasing but slowly, and the schools are becoming smaller, because the Roman Catholics are everywhere planting schools near theirs, and thus drawing off many of the children.

—The Chicago Presbyterian ministers have been discussing the use of an optional liturgy. They find nothing in their 'Directory for Public Worship' which forbids responsive reading of the Scriptures, or the use of written or printed forms of prayer, if any church decides to adopt such forms. The prospect is, therefore, that not long hence a liturgy will be prepared for the churches of that persuasion that wish to use it, and many of them will fall into line with the ritualism of the Episcopalians and Roman Catholics. What next?