RELIGIOUS NEWS AND NOTES.
—The popularity, in England, of the doctrinal idea of a personal devil is proved by the fact that the Rev. Flavel Cook, who prosecuted Mr. Jenkins for non-belief in the personality of Satan, has received, in money, presents aggregating $30,000. —The Commentaries of the late Rev. Albert Barnes on the Scriptures have, it is said, reached a circulation of between one and two million copies. They have been republished in Great Britain, and translated and published in Welsh, French, German, Chinese and Malagasy. —A wealthy gentleman called a few weeks ago at the office of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions and handed the Secretary a check for $10,000. He said he had made a legacy of that amount to the Board, but as he knew they were a little short of money, he thought he would pay it in that way instead of waiting till he was dead. —Rev. Dr. J. P. Newman thus closes some remarks upon the inefficiency and well nigh utter helplessness of the chaplains of our army: “There is but one chaplain, and he an old Catholic priest, on our whole frontier. The Chaplaincy in the United States army is a failure, and should be abolished or reformed.” —The Pope has been addressing the foreign ecclesiastical colleges of Rome; and he does not forget to call down maledictions on the Italian Government for making “Rome, which was destined by God to be the capital of the spiritual world, the capital of Italy.” He declares emphatically: “I shall never cease to repeat that the temporal power is necessary to the Holy See in the actual order of providence; and I will protest with ever-increasing vigor against the violations repeatedly made against the church of its liberties, of its rights.” In preparing the ground for the erection of some Government buildings in Rome, it has been found necessary to demolish three church edifices. This act has drawn forth one of Pius Ninth’s characteristic addresses, in which he declares that the aim of the Government “is not only to destroy the spiritual authority of the Church, but also the temples consecrated to God.” —There are now reported to be 114 Protestant missionaries in Japan. In Kobe a Japanese Christian is chaplain of the city prison. The head of the Normal School for women in Tokio is a Wesleyan; a Japanese gentleman of high rank is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. A large store has been opened in Tokio for the sale of Bibles and other Christian books in the language of the Japanese. The first church of the Religion of Humanity, was recently organized in New York. The Evangelical Messenger commenting on this, says: “A great many people have outgrown Christian doctrine, and their religion is so very peculiar that they must invent new names for it to preserve it from evaporation. The name is the only real thing about it.” —According to the “Century of Gospel Work,” the increase of ministers in the leading Protestant denominations in the country since 1776 has been as follows: Methodist, from 20 to 20,453; Baptist, from 370 to 19,517; Presbyterian, from 140 to 7,954; Congregational, from 575 to 3,233; Lutheran, from 25 to 2,662; Reformed German, from 35 to 623; Reformed Dutch, from 25 to 476; Episcopalian, from 250 to 3,140; Moravian, from 12 to 75. —The Michigan State law which suspends the traffic in liquor on the Sabbath has, according to a report made to the Councils in Detroit, worked well in that city. It orders all saloons to shut up at 11 o’clock at night, and to remain closed during Sabbath. From 1871 to 1874 the number of cases of drunkenness and breach of peace brought before the public courts of Detroit increased from 2,009 to 3,141. In 1875 they fell to 2,215, and in the first six months of 1876 to 930. The diminution of the Monday morning cases has reached 70 per cent.—Christian Statesman. —The abuse of religious rites at funerals has reached its climax in Philadelphia. Two brutal fellows there entered the prize-ring, and one of them pounded the other to death. The Ledger announced his funeral with the couplet:—
“None knew him but to love,
None named him but to praise.”
Attached to an anchor of flowers upon his coffin was a card on which was written,
“Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast.
There by His love overshadowed
May his soul rest.”
It is to the credit of the ministers of the city that the friends of the deceased had difficulty in securing the services of a clergyman to officiate at the funeral; but they finally succeeded in suborning two Episcopalians and one Lutheran. So the savage was buried with the forms of the prayer-book, and religion represented to the sodden roughs as a hypocritical farce. Those ministers should be called to account by the authorities under which they labor.—Interior.