News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · May 21, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 20.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—There are fourteen Protestant congregations in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia.

—There are, according to latest statistics, in the kingdom of Prussia, 17,659,114 adherents of evangelical churches, 9,220,326 Roman Catholics, and 357,554 Jews.

—The prohibition against the Jews settling in Syria has been revoked, and the Holy Land is open to them once more. They are fleeing from the countries in Europe where they are persecuted, and an association in London is helping them to go to the land of their fathers.

—Dr. William Hayes Ward has finished his work in Chaldea, and is well on his way home. He left Bagdad, March 18, and should reach New York the last of May, or first of June. He has had a successful expedition, and we shall expect some important information when he reaches home.

—The Peabody Fund in London now amounts to $4,086,595. Up to the end of last year the fund had provided for the artisan and laboring poor of London 10,144 rooms, beside bath rooms, laundries and wash houses, or homes for 18,453 persons. The expense of the management of the fund for the year was only $5,670.

—Statistics for 1884 place the number of evangelical preachers in this country at 76,760, the congregations at 126,109, and the communicants at 10,561,648. Of various miscellaneous churches, the preachers number 38,791, the congregations 10,763, and the adherents 7,169,655. The Roman Catholics report 6,905 priests, 7,663 congregations, and 6,800,000 souls, including their entire population. They are very far from possessing the land, though they love to have people think they possess it.

—In the New Jersey Sunday-school Association, a short time ago, an argument, "an hour and a quarter long," was delivered trying to show why the Old Testament Scriptures should not be taught in Sunday-schools. After which, the following resolution was passed with but one dissenting voice: "Resolved: That it is the judgment of this Association that from their graphic and touching narratives, their record of the supernatural dealings of God with man, their constant pointing to the Messiah in biography, type, and prophecy, the reverence shown for them by the Great Teacher himself, who regarded himself as their consummation and fulfillment, the Old Testament Scriptures are especially suitable to be taught in our Sabbath-schools." A very becoming rebuke.