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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 1, 1883

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 9, No. 9.

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Religious Notes

By Editor

-The Bible is wholly put into eight African tongues, and partly into thirty-four more, and the thirty-fifth is being prepared for.
-It is said that Mormonism is steadily spreading over Idaho, one-third of the population already belonging to that class of people.
-The Oakland branch of the Salvation Army announces that General Booth, head of the army in England, will soon visit this city.
-The Roman Catholics have been in China three hundred years, and they have not yet given the Bible, or any portion of it, to the Chinese.
-The Jewish Times speaks of a church that has a debt of $200,000, and forcibly says: "We do not believe in dedicating debts to the service of the Lord."
-Prof. Bernhard Weiss, of Berlin University, places the writing of the Book of Revelation at A. D. 70, and that of John’s Gospel about twenty or twenty-five years later.
-The first newspaper in India was published by Baptist missionaries in 1838. Now there are 240 papers published there, over 100 of them in their native languages.
-There are 120,000,000 women and girls in India, and at the most liberal estimate not more than one in every 1,200 has yet been placed under any kind of Christian instruction.
-The Advocate across the bay seems to think that the murder of Dr. Glenn was owing to the repeal of the Sunday Law. This gives us a clew to the cause of the Tehachepi disaster, and the floods along the Ohio.
-One of the Chickasaw Indians proposed to the American Bible Society to pay half the cost of supplying the school children of his tribe with New Testaments if the Society would pay the other half. The Bible Society accepted the offer and forwarded him a box of 500 New Testaments, which he is now distributing.
-The first instance of a priest of the Greek Church turning Presbyterian, occurred in New York a few days ago. At the last meeting of the New York Presbytery, Dr. Crosby stated that Rev. Bjerring, formerly rector of the Greek Church of that city, wished to become a member of the Presbytery. A committee was appointed to confer with him and report at the next meeting.
-Dr. Nevins, for ten years of the American Presbyterian Mission to China, has labored in a thickly-settled province where twenty years ago the name of Jesus had not been heard. His circuit extended over 1,000 miles, and he labored five years before he had a convert. He is now on his return to his field, where he expects a Christian welcome in over 200 villages. There are now sixty central stations where the gospel is regularly preached by native converts.
-The Sunday Law is being strictly enforced in Saxony. The Minister of the Interior has ordered that in the future workmen employed by the Government shall rest on Sunday; and the magistrates of towns and villages are prohibited from having work done on a Sunday which can be done on any other day. The police are instructed not to allow the peasants to work on Sunday in the fields, carpenters to ply their trade, sailors to load or unload ships. Hunting, and other amusements, by which divine service might be disturbed, are prohibited; and especially military shooting parties are no longer allowed to practice with music on Sunday morning during the time of service. Noisy amusements are interdicted, and all beer saloons and dance halls are put under police surveillance Saturday night and Sunday.—Chronicle.
-Hon. Wm. E. Dodge, who recently died in New York, will doubtless be remembered for his charities, more than for his success as a business man. It has been estimated that there have been years in which his benefactions averaged $1,000 a day throughout the year, while frequently the sum given away by him amounted to $250,000, and at no time within several years did it fall below $200,000. Mr. Dodge was also consistent in his religious life, always living strictly up to his convictions. He had much stock in railroads, and was a Director in several companies, but he invariably sold out, no matter what the sacrifice, and withdrew from the company, as soon as it began to run trains on Sunday. We cannot but admire such consistency, because of its scarcity, even though it was exercised toward the Sunday. Were all the advocates of Sunday observance so careful, the Sunday-law question would be quickly settled.
-In the last number of the North American Review, Bishop McQuaid (Catholic) had an article on the "Decay of Protestantism," which has called forth a great deal of comment. The Bishop argues that piety is dying out of the church; that ministers are worldly, caring more for wealth and a position than for the gospel; and that there is getting to be the greatest looseness in matters of doctrine. This last needs no argument; and granting that, the others must of necessity follow. The article sets forth the moral delinquencies of the Protestant denominations in a strong light, and many religious journals are seeking to refute it. Some are content to say that it is not true, but a writer in the Occident brings the strongest argument yet produced in rebuttal. He argues in substance that the Bishop’s assertions in regard to Protestantism cannot be true because the Catholic church is not increasing in numbers! But this is no more to the point than is the Bishop’s conclusion that because religion is dying out among Protestant denominations, therefore it is gaining among Catholics. We would suggest to those who come within the scope of the Bishop’s criticism, that there is a practical way of disproving the truth of his article, which they would do well to adopt.