Religious Notes by Editor

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

Religious Notes.

By Editor

—The Bishop of Bohemia, alarmed at the rapid spread of spiritualism, has declared that any one professing a belief in spiritualism is guilty of heresy.

—The Alabama Advocate says: “If any Methodist in this State has made a large contribution to the missionary cause since the war—now seventeen years past—we do not remember it. And yet there are many who have made fair fortunes in this time. Why is this so?”

—A writer in an anti-monopoly paper, in a plea for working people, says: “The truth is, that hand work is still disgraceful—almost as much so as when God pronounced his curse at the expulsion from Eden.” Can any one inform us in what part of the Bible this curse upon hand labor may be found?

—The vestry of All Souls Church, of which Rev. R. Heber Newton is pastor, has passed a resolution approving his views as expressed in his recent sermons on the Bible, and declaring those sermons to be in perfect accord with their opinions. Of course they are. Mr. Newton says that that is why he delivered them: he thought the people wanted such stuff.

—A bill has been introduced in the New York Senate, and was immediately ordered to third reading, to prevent any attempt to personate or represent Jesus Christ by any show, play or dramatic representation, whether free or for an admission, and declares the violation of its provisions a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not less than $100 and imprisonment for not less than six months.

—A dispatch from Harrisburg, Pa., of the 5th inst., says: “A bill exempting those who observe the seventh day of the week from the penalties of the Sunday laws of 1794 was defeated in the House to-day—37 ayes to 130 noes.” This question has been agitated in Pennsylvania long and well, and at one time the friends of the Lord’s Sabbath had fair prospects of success; but we think there is little hope that the subject will ever get a favorable hearing. The members of the Pennsylvania Legislature are doubtless, some of them, professing Christians; but we doubt if they are aware that they are helping to fulfill prophecy. The following scripture has been most signally demonstrated at any rate: “Truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.”

—At the recent session of the Methodist Conference of New York, Dr. Buckley, of the Christian Advocate, warned the members against confidence men, describing the method by which they worked. He said that two brethren had already been deceived by sharpers, and he had accidentally come upon another who was in their clutches. It was well that the Doctor should instruct the young preachers, who have doubtless been so deeply engaged in their theological studies that they have not had time to read the newspapers, but it occurs to us that he did not do his whole duty. Since sharpers are able to succeed only by deceiving their victims with the promise of a large sum of money for which no equivalent is to be given, would not a little sermon based on the eighth commandment have been in place?

—A man was hanged in Charlestown, Mo., on the 6th inst., for brutally murdering a woman more than a year ago. He was attended on the scaffold by a Baptist minister, who had been his religious instructor. From the scaffold he harangued the crowd of 5,000 people thus: “My brothers and sisters—I am standing on the brink of eternity. I am happy to say I am at rest with Jesus. I am going, with golden slippers and long white robe, to walk up and down the streets of glory. I am in Jesus and he is in me. I want you all to love each other, be honest and live right.” He then sang a hymn, and was swung off. The sight of a fiendish murderer exhorting a company of people to love each other and live right, must put Satan himself to blush. We hardly know which excites the most disgust,—his brazen impudence, or the kind of religion that puts a premium on crime, and makes murder the surest pass-port to Heaven. This may not be the direct teaching, but the tendency is in that direction. Such farces bring religion into disrepute. We do not say that a murderer may not sincerely repent and finally enter Heaven, but when the genuineness of his repentance has not been proved, a little more modesty would be becoming.