p. 135 | Religious Miscellany

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Mar 30, 1876

Religious Miscellany.

—March 6, Hon. Richard H. Dana, Jr., was nominated United States Minister to Great Britain, as successor to general Schenck.

—An appeal has been made to the citizens of Toronto for funds to aid the “Institut Canadien,” the organization which carried on the Guibord litigation.

—Protestant missions were begun in Brazil in 1859. There are now fifteen organized churches in the Empire, and missionary work is everywhere successful.

—Within the last five years, seven hundred Buddhist temples in Japan have been converted into dwelling houses, or adapted to other uses than for worship.

—The “Methodist Almanac” states the total membership of the M. E. church in the United States to be 3,025,427, and the total number of itinerant ministers to be 27,591.

—The great Sunday-school at Stockport, England, is famous everywhere. Its last report shows in its main school 301 teachers and 3,614 scholars. Including four branch schools, the total membership is 424 teachers and 4,702 scholars. Since this school was founded, 4,992 teachers and 89,324 scholars have been enrolled in its membership.

—Realizing the power of the press, the Pope—according to reports—has sanctioned the starting of a great newspaper in Rome this year, which is to be the organ of the whole Catholic world. It is stated that among its reporters there will be high officials, that it will have cardinals upon its editorial force, and that the nuncios of the Roman See at the courts of Europe will act as its correspondents, transmitting to it regularly the news of their capitals.

—The inhabitants of Ceylon protest against the grant of £14,000 made by the English government to the two State churches represented in that country. This sum was to be raised by taxation from the whole people, while it is a fact that 2,158,595 of the entire population are non-Christian, and out of 250,000 nominal Christians 190,000 are Roman Catholics, leaving only 60,000 Protestants of whom only 15,000 are members of the Episcopal and Presbyterian State churches of Great Britain. This kind of treatment they have rebelled against, and have “unanimously resolved to memorialize the Queen and Legislative Council in opposition to this great injustice.”

—There are three classes that demand the exclusion of the Bible from the schools: Roman Catholics, who demand Catholic schools for their children; and who, having sworn allegiance to a foreign potentate, are therefore in right no true citizens of this country; Secularists, who have formed an alliance with the Romanists, on account of their hatred of the very names of Christian and the Bible, and who would willingly substitute the Koran or anything else for the Bible. The former are for purely sectarian, and the latter purely secular schools. Judaism also strikes hands with Romanism, not only in excluding the Word of God from our schools, but in forbidding its use by the common people at home, as is evidenced by a recent article in the Jewish Times, which says: “For those who know not to discriminate between good and evil, between the chaff and the grain, the sacred books are as poisonous as the snake’s bite.”

—The Examiner and Chronicle says that “Rhode Islanders are practical people. If a new idea appears with a practical kernel in it, they strike boldly for it and put it to practical proof.” This paper still further states that it is the first State that has taken legislative action in regard to the taxation of church property, the question now attracting such general attention. A bill passed the House, exempting the buildings used for church, educational and charitable purposes, but taxing the land and all invested funds. But before the bill passed the Senate some amendments were made, exempting buildings used exclusively for religious or educational purposes, and the land upon which they stand, and immediately surrounding the same to an extent not exceeding one acre. This may be very flattering to the little State of Rhode Island, but we beg leave to correct this statement as California several years since passed the same law.