Religious Notes by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 8, 1883

Religious Notes.

By Editor

—The income of the Salvation Army is declared to be $600,000 a year.

—The authorities of Neuchatel have prohibited evening meetings of the Salvation Army.

—"There are now in the United States 110 theological seminaries, representing fifteen Protestant denominations."

—Joseph Cook thinks that the quality of our modern Christianity is not inferior to that of the ancient church. Of course not. Christianity is just the same; the trouble is that there is so little of it.

—The Day-Closing League have sent a letter to the president of the Manhattan Railway Company, asking that trains should run not faster than one mile while passing churches at the time of service.

—During the Moody meetings in London, Mr. Wilbur F. Crafts given great aid as an evangelist, and said that one of the greatest hindrances to the world is seeing inconsistency in the lives of professed Christians. "Much of what is called Christianity," he said, "is mere sanctified worldliness."

—The pope is about to make a fresh batch of saints. A number of Catholic priests who in the past have suffered martyrdom, it is claimed for the faith, are to be canonized. The Monitor says that after the lapse of several centuries the church has decided to honor the memory of these martyrs by elevating them to the celestial dignity. Which of us, we suppose, that the church will now allow to enter Heaven.

—In New Zealand the Mormons are said to be exercising the wisdom which Catholics have exhibited the world over. The church agents have exhibited the foresight to look out for good sites for meeting-houses and to buy in advance, and apparently to buy large lots of ground before prices have advanced with the growth of population. By the time they are ready to build the church buildings they are able to sell a part of the purchase for enough to pay for building.—Examiner.

—The Protestants in Madrid have been obliged to build a hospital for Protestant patients, converts from Catholicism, because the Priests in Catholic hospitals were constantly importuning them to confess. Mr. Fliedner says he followed two sisters in the largest hospital in Madrid from bed to bed. They carried a large basket of tracts and linen. At each bed they asked if the patient had confessed; if the answer was in the affirmative he was provided with clean linen; if the contrary, he got nothing.

—It is a novel thing to see a secular paper defending the Bible against the attacks of a minister of the gospel. Rev. Heber Newton, of New York, an "advanced," liberal preacher, holds that the Bible must be criticised just as is any ancient author, and that the books of it have been edited and changed to answer the purposes of different generations. The New York Herald says: "Biblical criticism is a subject which only men of learning can intelligently discuss," and that "questions of such a grave matter must be shaped by the best thinkers, not by the second best," and that "Mr. Newton's position is not a fortunately chosen one." It then adds: "In this controversy we have heard particular fears for the Bible. It has taken care of itself so long that we do not expect any immediate danger to it. It is like good wheat bread—you may rail at it as much as you please, but when you are down-right hungry you are always glad to get it." Good for the Herald.