News and Notes | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 29, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 29.

News and Notes.

RELIGIOUS.

—The first local Sunday trains on Massachusetts railroads were run to accommodate people who had moved into the country and wished to continue to attend church in Boston.

—A church for the sole use of the Chinese in Brooklyn will probably be erected. Some sixty converted Chinese were present at the recent opening of rooms in Raymond Street for worship.

—The Wesleyans of London have raised $200,000 with which to establish a mission in the West End. There are no worse heathen in China or Africa than there are in London, or, indeed, in any other large city.

—The editor of the Golden Gate calls upon Spiritualists to “make provision for the aged and infirm of their own faith,” by establishing a home in some quiet place “where mediums, broken down in health, can go for rest and recreation.”

—It is reported that a few days before Dr. Kittredge left Chicago for his new pastorate in New York, he was called upon to open a poultry show with prayer. We don’t know whether he complied with the request, or not, but we hope not. Prayer is too often turned into mockery, and thus the influence of real religious service is weakened.

—It is a fact that infidels, Spiritualists, and others of that class, originate nothing; their “religion” is simply Christianity perverted. As an instance of how dependent they are, we read that in a Spiritualist meeting in San Francisco a “sacred solo” was sung, entitled, “Simply to the Truth I Cling,” a parody on that grand old Christian hymn, “Rock of Ages.”

—The Nashville Christian Advocate says: “Is the prevalent type of Christian character in your congregation such as you could commend to a body of converts from heathenism? If not, would it not be well for you to do some earnest work at home while you are praying for far-off lands?” Here are two religious opinions of different dates. The Christian Union: “This is the whole of ‘righteousness—to be unselfish, to obey reason and to love beauty.’” The prophet Micah: “What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

—In the St. Louis Republican, of June 20, 1886, a Catholic writer, James Keegan, has the following to say about Sunday: “It is by no means certain that the obligation to rest on Sunday was rigidly insisted on among the early Christians. It was only when Christianity became, or was becoming, the religion of the State that laws enforcing abstention from labors on that day were enacted by the civil power, and afterwards insisted on and confirmed by various councils of the church. It was not until the twelfth century that the limits of Sunday were finally settled; before that time, in many places, the vigil or eve began the ‘Sunday.’ Like most other salutary customs, the Sunday observance grew by slow degrees to be what it is.”