Religious Notes | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 12, 1883

Religious Notes.

—A "Life of St. Patrick" has been discovered in the Royal Library at Brussels.

—Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, died July 4. His illness was of long continuance.

—There are 30,000 Christian Indians in the United States, and it is said that half of these are Baptists.

—A Philadelphia preacher says that divine truth cannot find its way into hearts that are cramped by corsets.

—A writer in the Christian Herald, says: "I tell you that the party of the future must recognize God, the Sabbath, and the Bible."

—"Entire Baptist Churches are being gobbled up by the Mormons in Sweden," says the Rev. Mr. Lijirath, a Baptist missionary in that country.

—The First Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church of San Francisco was dedicated last Sunday, the 8th. The services will be conducted in the Swedish language.

—A movement is on foot in Washington to open the National Museum, the Smithsonian Institute, Congressional Library, and similar institutions, on Sunday. A few ministers favor the movement.

—The District returns of the English Wesleyan Church this year show a total of 407,068 members, indicating a net increase of 13,314. There was a decrease in only two districts.

—The San Francisco Alta thinks that the "botheration of the star-route trials will not have been endured in vain if one of its effects is such an increase of Ingersoll's legal reputation that he can make as much money as he needs without going about the country abusing his Creator."

—The San Francisco Occident (Presbyterian) says: "What New England now needs, above all other things, is a sound orthodox and conservative theology, and if it is not speedily secured, it will surely become 'missionary ground,' where the evangelical churches should send the pure and unadulterated gospel."

—The Independent begins a notice of Prof. Samuel H. Kellogg's book, "The Jews; or, Prediction and Fulfilment," on this wise: "We find that we have been mistaken in supposing that no respectable advocate could be found in these days to make himself responsible for a belief in the literal return of the Jews to their ancient land."

—A minister in the East, as reported by the Christian Statesman, thinks that the National Reform movement is "the triumphal chariot prepared of God, wherein the warriors for Christ are to ride into the city of Destruction and capture it for his kingdom." Very pretty; only he is mistaken as to the party that will capture the city of Destruction, and the means by which it will be done.

—At the recent meeting of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, a memorial was read, asking for a declaration of the Synod concerning the Scriptural character of immersion as baptism. The question was referred to a committee, and the report, which was adopted, stated that "there is no element of Scriptural baptism which is not active in baptism by immersion, and it is therefore a valid Scriptural baptism." This is quite a concession for that body to make.

—In an article in the S. S. Times on "Practical Lessons from the Early Church," Bishop Simpson says: "The fact that the descent of the Spirit occurred on the anniversary of the giving of the law seems to indicate the perfect union between the legal and spiritual requirements. The law was magnified and made honorable by the death of Christ; and also by the effusion of the Holy Spirit. No growth in grace, no spiritual attainments can diminish the requirements of the law in its eternal principles."

—The editor of an Oakland contemporary comments on a report from a church in this State, and begins thus: "A Sabbath [Sunday] recently passed with this church, though not quite well, found these words of — altogether just." We have long been aware that the Sunday Sabbath was suffering from a serious disease, and we are not surprised to learn that it is not well yet. We are glad that its friends realize its condition to some extent. But we have no hope that it will ever be any better. The best doctors in the land have prescribed for it, but the well-known degeneracy of its ancestry precludes the possibility of its ever recovering.

—At the recent Missionary Conference in Japan, Dr. Gordon, in answer to the statement so frequently made that the Japanese have in Buddhism a religion sufficient for their needs, replied in the first place that the inconsistencies of the followers of Buddhism proclaim the fact that they are conscious of its insufficiency. He said: "If the Greek, Papal, and Protestant churches were all to regard the four gospels and the rest of the New Testament as having a curious historical interest, and should base their teaching, one on the Shepherd of Hermas, another on the Epistle of Clement, and the third on the Epistle of Barnabas, and then all unite in believing and teaching atheism, the resulting confusion would only fairly represent that which exists among the Buddhists of Japan." And in the second place he replied that the well-known immorality of the Buddhist priests unfits them to be the religious leaders of the people. A Buddhist priest himself confessed that hardly three in ten of the priests are pure.