RELIGIOUS NEWS AND NOTES.
—A monument to Luther will be erected at Eisleben, his birthplace. The Emperor of Germany has given 3,000 marks to help defray the cost. —Still they come. Sixty-one more families of Mennonites, numbering 300 persons, arrived in New York city, August 3. They were to leave for Kansas the evening of the same day. —One of the founders of Mormonism, Sidney Rigdon, died not long since at his home in Friendship, N. Y. He was a leader among the Saints up to the time Brigham Young was elected President of the sect over him. During his last years he took to the more worldly occupation of lecturing on geology, and became highly respected by his neighbors. —Thus says a leading Baptist paper:—“A movement is in progress in France and Switzerland favorable to a stricter observance of the Lord’s day (Sunday). In Paris a society has been organized for promoting this object on both religious and social grounds. In Germany also, an effort is making to secure a better observance of the day of rest.” We wish success to all such associations who are advocating “a stricter observance of the Lord’s day,” in Switzerland, France and Germany. And by this we mean a stricter observance of the only day that the Lord has ever claimed as his, viz.: the seventh day of the week. —Within five years 4,600 out of 6,000 square miles of Palestine have been surveyed by British surveyors; nearly 4,000 heights have been measured; the position of three-fourths of the Biblical towns has been set at rest; and the true sites of the cave of Abdullam, and the ford of baptism of the Jordan have been ascertained. —In the by-laws of the First Congregational church, Cleveland, Ohio, is this article: “No person shall be deemed eligible to membership in the church who will USE, or FURNISH TO OTHERS, LIQUORS as a BEVERAGE.” It met with some opposition when it was put in, but it has been a rock of strength and purity. We would like to see another clause added to this church article, “or who will rent any buildings where such liquors are made or sold.”—The Morning. —A call has been issued for a meeting of the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, at Philadelphia, October 13, 1876, for the following purposes: (1) to elect a missionary bishop for Cape Palmas, Africa, and a missionary bishop for China; (2) to receive the resignation of the Rev. Dr. William F. Adams, missionary bishop of New Mexico and Arizona; (3) to receive and act upon Commissions of the House of Bishops, having charge of its relations with churches abroad; (4) to consider the circular of the Archbishop of Canterbury in respect to a second Pan-Anglican Synod. —Mr. Atkinson, the American missionary to Japan, recently received a call from two men in Shikoken, one of the four large islands of Japan, asking some one to come and teach them and others the Christian religion. He complied with the request and was accompanied by two others. Of the meetings held he thus speaks:— “Fifteen people were gathered the first time. I spoke to them of the difference between Protestantism and Romanism. Twenty-four were present at the next meeting, with others on the sly out of sight. At the next meeting a hand-bill was found over the door, which read, ‘A teacher from America will lecture on the Bible every day at two o’clock. Any one who will, may come and hear.’ Who put the notice there I do not know. During the whole ten days the house, holding some 350 persons, was literally packed. On the last day at least 400 were present. There was no disturbance. The Governor was friendly and requested that the officials should render what assistance they could.” This unprecedented interest to hear the gospel is a cause of great rejoicing.