RELIGIOUS NEWS AND NOTES.
—There are 2,500 missionary stations in India, and nearly 2,000 of them manned by native laborers. —The present number of Young Men’s Christian Associations in the State of New York is eighty-nine. —October 28 and 29 are the days set apart this year for united supplication in behalf of Sunday-schools. —In France the number of Sunday-schools has increased since 1856, from 300 to 1,050. There are 88 in Paris, with 7,693 scholars. —It is stated that at Honolulu a Chinese Young Men’s Christian Association is in full operation, having a Chinese president. —A petition, containing 60,000 signatures, has been sent to Parliament from Ireland, asking that the liquor saloons be closed on Sundays in that country. —Rev. Joseph Cook says there are 20,000 copies of Tom Paine’s “Age of Reason” distributed every two years among the factory operatives of New England. —An exchange says: “Fifteen years ago there were only five Protestant congregations and about 400 communicants in Italy, while now there are 121 congregations, 8,000 communicants, and about 41,000 hearers.” —The Catholic Review says: “Catholics in this land are already about as one in six. We receive accessions every day from the ranks of the Protestant sects; few, if any, of our own number now fall away from us; the immigration of the future to a great extent will be in our hands.” —The Turks have possession of the city of Adrianople, and are hanging innocent Christians and Bulgarians. A letter from there says: “Thirty-three were hung to-day, and numbers are executed on alternate days. The most substantial and respectable men are selected, and their property confiscated. They are hung on the lamp-posts, or the sun-blinds outside shops, so that one cannot get out of sight of men dangling in the air.” This is only a specimen of the wholesale murders daily perpetrated by the Turks. —The Pope has nearly finished the “Memoirs” on which he has been working for more than forty years. He has provided, however, that they are not to be published until ten years after he dies. He has had no aid in their preparation, except from Father Dresciani, one of the most learned of the Jesuits. Among the manuscripts to be used in the preparation of the Memoirs is the correspondence of the Pope with Charles Albert, King Victor Emanuel, Napoleon III., and Count De Cavour.