RELIGIOUS NEWS AND NOTES.
—Upward of 33,000 Hindus have renounced heathenism and accepted Christianity this year. —A publishing house in Paris is preparing an edition of the Lord’s prayer in more than twelve hundred languages and dialects. —The church missionary society of England asks this year for $1,050,000, or $30,000 more than it has had in any previous year. —At a late meeting of a Western Presbytery, this fact was stated: “Out of 7,000 children within the bounds of the Presbytery only 1,000 are regular attendants at church.” —In Pennsylvania there are Lutheran pastors who serve five, six and seven congregations, and there are two who serve eight. One charge has a reported membership of 1,726. —The Alumni Record of the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., shows nearly six hundred men in the Methodist ministry, and over twelve hundred instructors in the colleges of this country. —Mr. Sankey, now in England, having failed to induce Mr. Moody to join him there, will begin a revival himself, with the assistance of English preachers, and intends to make a tour of the whole of England. —The First Baptist church, at Brooklyn, are constructing a new building. The lecture room will be ready for occupation in a few weeks. When completed, it will be one of the largest and most beautiful churches in Brooklyn. —The church missionary society, the largest in the world, reports 123,724 native Christians connected with its missions, found on every continent. It employs 205 European and 179 native clergy, and 56 European and 2,705 native lay agents. —The Portuguese colonists at Springfield and Jacksonville, Ill., who in 1846 fled from the Madeira Islands, to escape religious persecution, celebrated their thirty-second anniversary, in a grove near Springfield, August 23. They number about 1,000. —A company of scientific, literary and artistic men, under the direction of Profs. Panchich and Valtrovich, and Milutinovich, an engineer, will start this month from Belgrade on a tour through the newly acquired districts of Old Servia for the purpose of examining the old churches and monasteries there, taking sketches of the historic remains and collecting manuscript, and what other literary curiosities are to be found. —The present year is the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of the first pastor of a Reformed (Dutch) church in this country. The Rev. Jonas Michaelius assumed the pastorate of the Dutch church in New Amsterdam in April, 1628. He found here fifty members present at the first communion. From that small beginning this branch of the Reformed church has become a body consisting of nearly 79,000 communicants, belonging to over 43,000 families. —The Methodist Mission in Mexico reports twenty missionaries, of whom thirteen are women, two Bible women, ten native and two local preachers, six theological students, twelve teachers making in all ninety-seven agents employed. It has 273 members, 394 probationers, 329 day scholars, 560 Sunday scholars, three regular churches, and sixteen preaching halls. The average attendance on worship is 1242. The mission press has issued 701,261 pages, and is valued at $9211. —The third annual distribution of the 4,000 Bibles and Testaments given as prizes for proficiency in the Scriptures to the children of the London Schools Board school was made at the Crystal Palace, London, on July 13. The books are the gift of Mr. Francis Peek and the religious tract society. Sir Charles Reed, in the course of a short address, said that 188,000 children attended the religious instruction, which was entirely voluntary, in the Board schools, and of these 105,000 competed for the prizes. No complaints had ever been received from the parents of the children on account of the religious teaching. This was entirely unsectarian. In the opinion of the board the conduct of the scholars had greatly improved since the study of the Bible had been introduced. In 1876, the first year the prizes were distributed, there were 12,000 competitors; in 1877, 84,000, and this year, as above stated, 105,000.