Religious Notes | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 10, 1883

Religious Notes.

—"Pilgrim's Progress" has been translated into nearly all the languages of India.

—Bishop McNamara has recently organized the first Independent, or Reformed Catholic Church of Chicago.

—Sitting Bull, with 140 other Sioux, has espoused the Roman Catholic faith, and is soon to be received into the church.

—Joseph Cook makes a strong plea for female medical missionaries for India. There is no question but that they are needed.

—The Roman Catholics of Germany are not in favor of the proposal to keep the fourth centenary of Luther's birth as a great national festival. They strongly protest against it, and call it "persecution."

—Of seventy-one churches in India and Ceylon connected with the American Board, there are fifty that receive nothing from its treasury. The proportion of self-supporting churches in this country will hardly exceed that.

—Joseph Cook, speaking of Christian missions in foreign lands, says: "We have thrown but a pebble into the great ocean, yet we stand back in our conceit, and, watching the ripples created by our pebble, imagine that we are reforming the world."

—By a majority of two to one the Special Committee of the Free Church Assembly in Scotland have decided that the Scriptures do not forbid the use of instrumental music in worship, and that no constitutional prohibition of the church stands in the way.

—Dr. McLean, of the First Congregational Church, Oakland, presented some petitions at a recent prayer-meeting, in favor of high license. The people showed their good sense by refusing to sign the petitions, saying that they were not in favor of a liquor monopoly.

—The S. F. Jewish Times notes as proof that the Lord watches over his own, the following item: "There were about forty persons of Jewish extraction in Beaugard (Miss.) during the cyclone. All of them were picked out of the débris, but not one was seriously injured."

—At the California State Sunday-school Convention, which was held at Los Angeles last month, a resolution was passed deprecating the repeal of the Sunday Law, and praying and beseeching all persons, and the press, both secular and religious, to work and labor for its reenactment.

—Dr. Pentecost (Congregationalist), of Brooklyn, N. Y., received a hundred members by profession last year, fifty of whom he immersed. He prefers immersion, and commonly practices it, yet he thinks sprinkling is also baptism. He does not, however, believe in infant baptism.

—Dr. T. L. Cuyler recently celebrated the twenty-third anniversary of his pastorate in Brooklyn, and the thirty-seventh of his ministry. Among other things, he said that most of all he thanked God that he was a minister, for no throne was ever built that came within ten leagues of a pulpit for the preaching of Christ.

—The Episcopal Register says: "To get men for the ministry of the city churches, combining piety, education, ability, and social refinement, in sufficient numbers to supply the demand, is becoming an increasing difficulty. Piety, education, and ability are in demand for the country churches. Yet the men are not forthcoming."

—The strife has so culminated between the High and Low church parties in the Episcopal Church of the Evangelist, Philadelphia, that the Low church members are going to bring the matter before the courts on the ground that they have been defrauded of their place of worship by the ritualists. Several policemen were present at a recent service where trouble was expected.

—The Presbyterians of the Pacific Coast have resolved to establish a college which, "while it is unsectarian in its spirit and purpose, shall yet be positively and decidedly Christian in its character." The committee in charge of the project announces the intention that "this shall be not a school merely, but a college in fact as well as name, and that it will ultimately become to the Pacific Coast what Princeton College is to the Atlantic Coast." Proposals for eligible sites are invited.

—An exchange says: "About two years ago one native Chinaman in the village of Kokei, China, was the solitary follower of the Christian religion among the dwellers in that place. Through his influence, and that of the ministers, a neat little chapel has been built, which now has thirty church members, and over fifty regular attendants on worship. The native Christians have contributed two-thirds of what the building cost. They now carry on their Sunday services themselves, and provide for the expenses."

—A writer in the Congregationalist affirms that in the Connecticut Valley and to the west, in almost any community, may be found "scores, and even hundreds of people who, a few years ago, were regular attendants upon church, but have now dropped the practice altogether." He adds further: "Many towns are truly sinking down into heathenism, so far as Sabbath worship is concerned. Men often pay well to support preaching, and are friendly to the minister, but never are seen in the house of God."

—The Jewish Times (San Francisco) takes a firm stand against the desecration of the Sabbath by the Jews, and pleads for its strict observance. Closing an article on the subject it says: "We plead for a faithful observance of the Sabbath, not because it will not prove unprofitable, but because it is divinely commanded. It is not for us to calculate whether it involves profit or loss. It is not a matter of dollars and cents—It is a matter of duty, and if we perform that duty, it will be a matter of peace, joy, and heavenly blessing."

—Dr. Sprecher, of San Francisco, in a recent sermon on "Eternal Punishment," said: "Philosophically, we can see nothing in death to change character. In the absence of a revelation to the contrary, we must conclude that men must go on sinning after death as before." The thought just occurs to us that we would like to have the Doctor give his opinion of Rev. 5:13. There is "a revelation" to the effect that a time will come when sin will not be known in God's universe. Sin is the transgression of the law, and God will not perpetuate rebellion. God did not create sin; and when the "times of restitution of all things" come, sin will be left out, as a natural consequence.