p. 286 | News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · May 7, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 18.

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News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The Bible is circulated in Pennsylvania in twenty-two languages.

—In his twenty-five years' pastorate, Dr. Cuyler has received 3,610 persons into the membership of the church.

—Thursday, May 21, has finally been fixed as the first day for the revised Old Testament to be exposed for sale.

—At the recent meeting of the Presbytery of San Francisco, the Committee on Foreign Missions reported that the average attendance upon the services in the Chinese church in San Francisco is about 500.

—Ground has been purchased in Sacramento, Cal., as a site for a grand Catholic cathedral. John Mackay has given $100,000 towards founding the church.

—Chaplain McCabe, the indefatigable money-raiser and church-builder of the Methodist Church, has undertaken to collect this year a missionary fund of $1,000,000.

—The Greek Church is engaged in missionary work in Japan. Their missionaries report 7,000 converts, 90 churches, 277 chapels, 13 priests, 93 traveling preachers, and 1 seminary, with 41 pupils.

—The Roman Catholics of Germany have organized a "Palestine Union" for the propagation of the Roman Catholic faith among the natives of the Holy Land, and the amelioration of the country by the erection of churches, schools and hospitals, and the establishment of Roman Catholic colonies.

—Masses for the dead are now celebrated in some of the congregations of the Church of England, but they call this rite "Celebration of the Blessed Sacrament on behalf of the faithful departed." The "Guild of All Souls" is an association formed for the purpose of extending this particular rite in the English Church.

—A writer in the Methodist Recorder, in speaking of Bishop Morris, gets mixed up as follows: "At an advanced period of his ministry he fell from the shining walls of Zion with the trump of God in his hand, and has gone to his peaceful rest in Heaven." Can the Recorder tell us what person has been commissioned to blow the trump of God since the death of the bishop?

—Bishop McQuade, of Rochester, has ordered that hereafter in his diocese none but Roman Catholics and actual communicants shall sing in the choirs. He says: "How revolting it is for the congregation to hear the voice of one who does not believe in what he or she is singing. It is mockery instead of worship." The bishop is certainly consistent, and his statement is true. There is altogether too much mockery in modern worship.

—An Eastern paper says: "In the police court of a Missouri town, the other day, several 'young ladies and gentlemen of the highest social standing' were tried and fined for disturbing public worship. The offense consisted in writing notes and talking in church." It would be a matter of interest to know just how low one may fall before losing his position among those of the "highest social standing."