Religious Notes | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jun 14, 1883

Religious Notes.

—There are 165,000 teachers and scholars in the Protestant Sunday-schools of Philadelphia.

—The number of students in the various Presbyterian theological seminaries during the past year was 446.

—The Chicago Tribune receives Beecher's Sunday sermon by telegraph, and publishes it in its Monday morning issue.

—Rev. Gilbert Reid in a letter from China to, the Christian at Work, says: "I realize that the Chinese have unsurpassed memories, and I learn that many of the children can repeat the whole of the New Testament."

—The Congregationalist tells the following little story: "In the primary class last Sunday, the teacher asked what was meant by 'Then had the churches rest?' and got response from one of the smallest boys: 'I suppose they didn't have any preaching.'" We have no doubt that that small boy voiced the sentiment of many older members of the congregation.

—Dr. Lionel Beale, of London, is authority all over the world on physiology, and ought to know whereof he speaks when he says of Herbert Spencer's books that they "contain so much false physiology that they will not be read ten years after his death, except as literary curiosities." But this will not hinder the progress of evolution. It is one of the glories of all forms of opposition to the truth of the Bible, including "science falsely so-called," that they exist entirely independent of such old-fashioned things as hard facts.

—Many persons in this country, speaking of the missionary work in India, ask, "Are the native Christians truly converted?" The Standard says that the one item of benevolence affords pretty good evidence as to the genuineness of conversion, and that the converted natives of that country, although poor, contribute yearly for religious work one dollar per member, and aptly inquires: "But what now, if our new brethren abroad should learn how little we bestow in proportion to the wealth we enjoy, would not there be ground for the query on their part: 'Are the Christians of America truly converted?'"

—Rev. G. W. Knox, of the American Presbyterian Mission in Japan, says: "I find there are more than 1,100 communicants in Presbyterian Churches in this one city of Tokio alone. Ten years ago the work was not begun. He cites this as proof that mission work is not a failure. But we will not believe that missionary work is a failure, even if we cannot see any results at all. The reflex influence of the work yields a good income on the investment. People must have something to call out their energies and develop their benevolence, or they will lose their own religion. Missionary enterprises work in two ways.

—The Young Men's Christian Association is receiving blows from all quarters. Dr. Potter, of the Sixth Ward Baptist Church, New York, recently declared in the Baptist Ministers' Conference, that the grandest humbug in New York is the Association palace at the corner of Thirty-third Street and Fourth Avenue. In an interview with a Sun reporter he described the Association "as a great, splendid, aristocratic organization, which gets from young men a fee of five dollars, and gives them the worth of their money in a bowling-alley, library, and gymnasium." He says that it does incalculable injury to the church.

—Dr. Cuyler thinks that it is a humiliating confession of weakness for a pastor to send for a professional revivalist to conduct a revival in his church. And he does not put much confidence in revivals so conducted. He relates the following: "A somewhat noted evangelist once held special services in a Brooklyn church for three weeks, and at the end of the time said to me, 'I have brought one hundred souls to Christ.' At the end of the year I inquired of the pastor, 'How many of those hundred can you put your hands on to-day as apparently genuine Christians?' His sad reply was, 'I could count them all on my ten fingers.'"

—A short time before his death, Bishop Peck, of the M. E. Church, gave all his property to the Syracuse University, wisely preferring to dispose of it during his life-time, rather than leave it by a will. Speaking of it to a friend, he said: "I have an ambition to die without anything, for I am going where I shall have infinite riches of a kind that will suit me better than any of these material things." We wish there were more of the same mind; and we are glad to know that when the good bishop gets to heaven, he will find that the riches there are not immaterial, but are a more "enduring substance" than anything that he possessed on earth.

—Rev. W. F. Crafts speaking of the New Criticism, which, we may explain, is Rationalism in a Christian dress, says: "While welcoming all the valuable results of critical Bible study, we hardly need to reshape our theology to it, until its nebulous hypotheses are cooled into scientific certainties." And Dr. Delitzch says: "Many of the former results of the critical school are now out of fashion. Its present results contradict each other. In reality we know little and imagine that we know much." And all this time the Bible holds its own, and tells the same story that it did eighteen centuries ago. The trouble is with the readers, not with the Book. All these difficulties in harmonizing the Bible arise from "an evil heart of unbelief."

—The Rev. Bradley Abbott, vicar of Clapham, Eng., one of the most prominent of the English ritualistic party, is in San Francisco. In answer to a question as to the similarity of the ritualistic practices to those of the Romish Church, he enumerated the different vessels, etc., and said: "Mass, of course, is said in English, but I think that perhaps Latin would be more desirable for the sake of uniformity. We have, of course, auricular confession, and have all the seven sacraments of Catholic truth. With reference to doctrine, I think we are at one with the Romish Church, with the exception, of course, of the dogmas of immaculate conception and the papal infallibility." He says that ritualism has gained greatly within the last twenty years, at which, we doubt not, the pope greatly rejoices.