p. 395 | Religious Notes

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 30, 1883

Religious Notes.

—Nearly one-fourth of the population of Wisconsin are said to be Catholics.

—The Jews in London number about 100,000. They have three weekly newspapers, fifteen synagogues, and a rabbinical college, with the finest Jewish library in the world.

—An Episcopal paper thinks that “one reason why the world is so unwilling to join the church, is because the church is so very willing to join the world.” A very fair statement of the case.

—The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions expended last year in its Mission for the Indians, $31,360. It has ten missions, sixteen missionaries, nine native ministers, seventeen licentiates, and 1,240 communicants.

—A London clergyman has started a dancing school in connection with his church. “His idea is to wean the young from the more demoralizing places which exist in such large numbers in the English metropolis.” A parallel to this came under our own observation, in the case of a church member who, in order to keep his sons at home, started a saloon in his own house. We have not been able to learn the particulars of the result, but there is no doubt but that such a plan would be successful as long as the supply of liquor held out.

—Four Reading Railroad laborers were arrested in Philadelphia, on Sunday the 12th inst., upon the charge of illegally performing worldly labor on that day. Testimony was offered to show that the work could not be accomplished on any other day of the week, in consequence of the frequent passage of trains, and the magistrate, taking that view, decided that the work was a necessity and discharged the defendants. From this it appears that even in Pennsylvania a man may work on Sunday, provided he is not an observer of the Sabbath of the Lord, the seventh day of the week.

—The Pacific prints a sermon on “The Gospel and the Age,” preached by Rev. J. W. Hough, in the First Congregational Church, Oakland, in which the following sentence occurs: “If science shall succeed in proving its theory of evolution to be true, it will have done a hundred-fold more to interpret the ways of God to man than did the discovery of the Moabite stone, or the framing of the Andover creed.” Yes, if science shall prove evolution to be true, there is nothing that can be compared with it. And this it may do just as soon as it succeeds in proving the Bible to be false.

—The following from “Rusticus,” a writer for the Occident, has the right ring: “I have heard of a preacher who boasts that he can fill any place of worship. He has unbounded confidence in his powers of attraction. And he does draw crowds. But there are no conversions under his preaching. The people go as they would go to a theater. They admire the messenger, but pay no attention to the message. It is the manner that interests them, and not the matter. Now I don’t believe there is anything gained by getting people to go to church if the church has to be turned into an opera house, or a lecture hall, in order to secure their attendance. I would try by all means to bring men to hear the gospel. But if they will not come to the wells of salvation to draw water out of them, I would not fill those wells with rum, or even with lemonade, and then stand and cry: ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.’ It is sad and humiliating to see men with the vows of God upon them, resorting to stage tricks in order to fill their houses. And it is equally sad to see good people turn the cold shoulder to earnest and faithful preachers, because they will not preach themselves, but Jesus Christ, the Lord.”