Religious Notes | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 11, 1883

Religious Notes.

—Moody and Sankey have gone to Ireland.

—The idea is becoming prevalent that it is unnecessary for worldly people to go through the ceremony of joining the church, the relations being already close enough for all ordinary purposes.

—The death of the Queen of Madagascar has altered the religious affairs of that country. At Andovoranto the missionary has been exposed to outrage by a gang of robbers said to be acting under the authority of one of the native generals.

—From the Livingstonia Mission in Central Africa comes the news of the completion of the translation of the New Testament into the Chinyanja language, and of the launching of a new missionary steamer upon the waters of Lake Nyassa.

—The sentiment of the Mormon Annual Conference, now in session at Salt Lake, is in favor of standing by polygamy. The speeches of the "apostles" are full of braggadocio. They claim 2,300 church members in Arizona, and twice that number in Idaho.

—Anam and Tonquin (or Cochin China), the bone of contention between China and France, contains about 200,000 square miles of territory and 21,000,000 inhabitants. In this region the Catholic Church claims 420,000 adherents. This status has been attained by generations of hard missionary labor, through severe persecution, and at a cost of many lives and much treasure.

—A new Methodist Church, in a certain locality, which is adorned with a large cross on its steeple, drew from an old Methodist who stood gazing at it, the remark: "Do you see that big cross on that church? Well, I remember, when the Methodists were poor, each member bore his own cross; but now," he added, "they have become rich, and they have stuck their cross on top of the church."

—A missionary from the Island of Peru, in the Samoan group, writes that there is not a heathen left. Missionary labors were commenced there only eleven years ago. During this time the island has been evangelized, churches, chapels, and mission houses have been built at the expense of the natives, and they are now supporting their own pastors, and contributing to the society that sent them pastors and teachers.

—The sum of $2,000,000 has been subscribed for the new Catholic University in Milwaukee, and Bishop Spaulding having obtained the pope's permission, the building will be commenced immediately. Some people may think it ridiculous to ask the pope's permission to build churches in America; and so it is, but there are ominous signs that his permission will be wanted in more important matters in this country before this generation shall have passed away. Rome has a million adherents in Puritan New England, while a quarter of the population of Wisconsin are of the Catholic faith; and these are merely straws.

—A missionary meeting was recently held at Ikweci Lamaci Mission, Natal, South Africa, where native Christians and native heathen came amicably together, both parties agreeing that the work of the foreign missionaries was necessary and good. One of the heathen said: "Although we are not Christians ourselves, we are glad of what is done for us by the missionary. We know that when we or our children are sick, and our doctors cannot cure us, he is always ready to help us with his medicines." At the close of the meeting the Kaffirs made a spontaneous free-will offering, consisting of twenty-five [English] shillings in money, twenty-nine fowl, two and a half sacks of Indian corn, three sheep, and one goat.

—"Coming events cast their shadows before." The recent concessions of the German Empire to the demands of the Roman Church, or rather a recession from a position stubbornly though unsuccessfully maintained for nine years, indicates a gradual ascendancy of papal authority. Bismarck struck the blow, by the passage of the famous "May Laws," aimed at the abridgement of Roman power and influence in the empire, at a time when his Government was at the zenith of its might, and the Vatican was at its lowest ebb. If the pope has been enabled to win such a signal victory under such adverse circumstances, what may we not expect in other countries where his following is proportionately much stronger. And what may we not expect in the United States, when the Church-and-State party (whose principles are the main support of popery) shall have become the dominant power—an event surely to be expected. The sympathy of this party with the pope's cause is manifested when its organ, in speaking of Bismarck's concession, says: "The friends of justice and of true liberty have cause for satisfaction in the result." True liberty, forsooth!