p. 606 | News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 8, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 38.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—It is reported from China that Princess Kung has been converted to Christianity.

—A year ago a Miss Caldwell gave $300,000 toward founding a great Catholic university in this country. This sum has been increased to about $5,000,000, and it has been decided to locate the university in Washington, D. C.

—The Methodist Church in Great Britain has 3,787 ministers, 35,961 local preachers, 16,834 chapels, and 768,624 members. In the last thirty years the increase of membership has more than kept pace with the increase of population.

—The American Church Congress will meet in New Haven, October 20, and continue its session four days. It will be the greatest gathering of the kind ever held in the United States. Canon Farrar has signified his intention of being present, as have also several other prominent English divines.

—The Churchman tells of an Episcopal missionary in North Carolina, who has charge of six missions, and who receives the magnificent sum of $257 per year, with which to pay his traveling expenses and support a wife and five children. The same church has men who receive their tens of thousands.

—The Russian Government has issued a decree making the Greek Church the established religion of the Baltic provinces. Protestantism will only be tolerated. Children born of mixed marriages are to be trained in the Greek Church. The decree excites great discontent among the German settlers.

—The Catholic Church in St. Louis boldly lays aside its mask and begins a war on free education. St. Patrick's Parish, one of the largest and wealthiest in the city, announces that children attending public schools will hereafter be barred from the celebration of the holy communion. The vicar-general supports the parish priests.—Bulletin.

—A Unitarian pastor in New Hampshire has discovered a way of making the communion more "spiritual" than ever before. The bread and the wine are placed upon the table, and all the congregation look at it, none of it being consumed. By this means a much larger number of people partake of the communion than formerly. Under the circumstances, it is doubtless better as it is.

—The Christian Leader (Universalist) deserves credit for uttering the following truth: "A church that has not the habit of giving regularly, as a part of its religious worship, will never be noted for munificence. Here and there a man may save up all for one magnificent offering. But it is unlikely and unnatural. Of any hundred munificent givers it will be found that ninety-nine were trained in the noble art by long previous habit."

—The Zouave regiment, organized by Pius IX. in 1860, recently held its 25th anniversary meeting, called by them a "jubilee." Members were present from Holland, France, Belgium, Germany, and America. The term "jubilee" shows that they have not lost hope in their cause, and their leader expressed his confidence that the day "was not far distant," when they would "fight under the old flag for the Church and the legitimate royal rule."

—Those who think Moslemism is dying out, and who have never heard of the educational facilities which the Moslem schools afford, would no doubt be somewhat surprised by a visit to one of the numerous schools of the prophets, which is held in the court of the great mosque El Azbarat. The school is crowded by many thousands of students, sitting in Turkish style on the pavement, drinking in these lessons, which, as priests, sheiks, professors, they in turn will themselves proclaim to the faithful. These students come from thousands of miles up the Nile—from beyond the great deserts of Africa—from the holy cities of Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, and Damascus—from Turkey, Persia, India, and China. The professors do not receive a farthing of salary, and the scholars do not pay a piaster for tuition. All are supported by the pittance they can earn elsewhere and the charities of the faithful. The students live on the coarsest of food, wear the poorest of clothing, and at night sleep on the pavement of the mosque. When the course of duty is complete, they go out as missionaries, Koran in hand, preaching the Moslem faith to the uttermost parts of the Mohammedan world. And there is not a year that does not witness to the erection of Mohammedan fanes and temples in Europe.—Christian at Work.