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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 7, 1883

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 9, No. 22.

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Religious Notes.

By Editor

-There are now seventy Welsh Baptist Churches in this country, with an aggregate membership of about 1,000 persons.
-It is reported that in the revival meetings in Springfield, O., that have just closed, over 1,000 persons professed to be converted.
-Over 10,000 persons were in attendance at the yearly meeting of the German Baptists, or Dunkards, at Bismark Grove, Kan., last month.
-It is now a generally accepted fact that the great lack of the theological seminaries is in not giving more thorough instruction in vocal culture.
-It is stated on good authority that the expenses of the Archbishop of Canterbury, on his recent promotion to that position, amounted to $150,000.
-The French State Council has decided that the Government is entitled to discontinue the salaries of church officials, including even the bishops.
-Are there not many professors whose experience is somewhat similar to that of the man who testified in class-meeting that he had "been a Christian off and on for thirty years"?
-Dr. Cuyler says: "A Christian who has no heart for doing good is not more than half converted." We think that he has put it too high; it is a question if such a person is converted at all.
-It is said that Rev. E. M. Long, of Philadelphia has spent years in preparing courses of illustrated sermons. Large paintings on canvas are used, and afterward loaned to ministers who desire them.
-The Churchman (Episcopalian) says: "There are thousands and thousands of people who have no thought of throwing away Christianity, but who, so far as any organized form of it is concerned, are all at sea as to what to believe in."
-In a recent address the Bishop of Rochester declared that unless the church sets herself to stem the tide of intemperance, the building of churches may as well be stopped, as there will be no soil left in which to sow the seed of the gospel.
-A movement has recently originated in Germany, called "The General Evangelical and Protestant Missionary Union," the object of which is to excite an interest in missions, to dissipate prejudices, and to bring about a better appreciation of the missionary cause.
-The Sunday School Times says: "If a man really counts himself and all his possessions as the Lord's, he will be pretty sure to see that the Lord has at least one-seventh of his time and one-tenth of his income. If he falls short of this service, any talk he may make about his entire consecration is—all talk."
-The Christian at Work says: "It is a shame that so many of our public buildings and works are monuments of shameless fraud and swindling. It sometimes seems that honesty is dying out of the American character, and that unscrupulosity and chicanery are taking the place once held by conscience."
-A religious paper states that Protestantism is rapidly gaining ground in France, while Rationalism is beginning to die out. But it sometimes happens that even Protestantism is only another name for Rationalism, and we fear it may be the case in France. It is getting to be somewhat that way in this country.
-It is stated that even the Quakers are to revise their standard of "Doctrine, Practice, and Discipline." Like other bodies, their theory is much more strict than their practice, and they revise the standard, so that when they compare themselves with it, they will seem to be all right. It is much easier to reform one's creed than his life.
-The Christian at Work concludes a notice of a new novel, in these words: "It ends well, and is full of noble Christian sentiment, without obtruding religion on the reader's notice." Some persons are inconsiderate enough to put religion forward everywhere; but this one has kept it out of his novel. It is well; if it were put in, it would only spoil the novel for those who would read it, without helping the cause of religion in the least.
-A dispatch from Rome says: "Peter's pence have continued to decrease so rapidly for the past few months that an appeal addressed to all the bishops is being prepared by the pope, urging them to awaken the faithful to the necessity of providing funds for the needs of the Holy See." The deficiency in funds is doubtless owing to the pope's interference in Irish affairs, which has caused much disaffection among Irish Catholics. They do not believe in the pope's infallibility, in temporal matters.
-Dr. W. C. Gray, speaking of the report of the Committee on Collegiate and Academic Education, at the General Assembly of the Presbyterians, at Saratoga, says: "To put the whole thing in a nutshell, we are short about 800 ministers of the actual present demand. Our vacant churches and new mission fields would take that many more men than we have, and the number of candidates for the ministry is decreasing year by year, while the number of our churches is increasing. What is to be done?"