p. 174 | News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 12, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 11.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The Young Men's Christian Association of Syracuse, N. Y., is putting up a building to cost $50,000.

—There are Buddhists in St. Louis, and they are talking about building a temple to worship in, as the Paris Buddhists have done.

—Monsignor Capel thinks the fight in this country is to be between agnosticism and Catholicism, and that the Protestant church will go one way or the other.

—Mr. Spurgeon's son is about to return to New Zealand with British contributions to the amount of £2,500, toward the building of a tabernacle at Auckland.

—During the past week 1,400 children have had their throats blessed by a priest at Kalamazoo, Mich. This operation is believed by many to insure against throat diseases for a year.

—The Young Men's Hebrew Association of Philadelphia, with only one dissenting vote, has expressed its disapproval of Sunday services, in conjunction with the regular Sabbath services.

—The Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, Dr. T. L. Cuyler, pastor, has a membership of 1,960. The benevolent contributions last year amounted to $17,780. The Sunday-school numbers 1,350.

—Dr. Cunningham Geikie, the author of a "Life of Christ," and "Hours with the Bible," is going to Egypt and Palestine, and will write a series of twenty letters on the manners and customs of those countries.

—Mr. Ensign, the Northwestern Secretary of the American Sunday-school Union, says: "One-tenth of our income belongs to the Lord, and giving does not begin till our debts to the Lord are paid." That is the truth.

—Miss Caldwell, who has given a large endowment for a Roman Catholic university in this country, will this year be the recipient of the golden rose annually given by the pope to the church's greatest benefactor.

—There is said to be in Odessa, Russia, a congregation of Hebrews that accepts the New Testament. The congregation now numbers twenty-eight persons, and their profession causes no little excitement in southern Russia.

—At a church social at Silver Springs, N. Y., on the night of March 2, fifteen persons were poisoned by eating oysters. Three of them died in great agony before midnight. There are hopes that three or four of the others may recover.

—The Christian at Work says: "The Dutch Reformed Church is claimed to be the wealthiest church in the United States in proportion to membership, yet gives less per member to missions than any other great Protestant body. The Moravians, who are among the poorest, give the most."

—Rev. A. N. Alcott, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Kalamazoo, Mich., has resigned his pastorate and withdrawn from the Unitarian body, because the last session of the State Conference declined by a majority vote "to recognize either Jesus Christ or Christianity, or even Theism," in a proposed new constitution. We should say it was high time to withdraw from such a body.

—In Turkey and Persia the sale of Bibles is unrestricted, and whole wagon loads are taken there for distribution. Rev. Dr. Bruce, the traveling agent for the British Bible Society in Persia, reports great success. Some time ago, 400 copies were taken, at Yezd, from one of the colporters. After a protest they were given back to him, but with the injunction to leave the neighborhood with them as soon as possible, as his life would be in danger. The colporter did not heed this admonition, remained at his post, and sold all the 400 Bibles.