Religious Notes by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 21, 1883

Religious Notes.

By Editor

—A church for deaf mutes is in contemplation in Philadelphia.

—A "Gospel Tent," under the direction of the Baptists, has been opened for service in New York City.

—A Roman Catholic paper, of New York City, says that "five-eighths of the army of the United States are Catholics."

—Rev. Minot Savage, President of the Unitarian Association of Boston, has declared his abandonment of the belief in a personal God.

—By a vote of two to one, the United Presbyterians have decided that churches desiring to do so can have the help of an organ in singing.

—It is stated that after the mission of Moody and Sankey to Belfast, Ireland, seventy young men gave themselves to foreign missionary work.

—It is stated that only one minister in the New England Conference of the M. E. Church receives as high a salary as $2,000, the average being about $560.

—The latest on record from the ubiquitous small boy is his statement that he saw a donkey in the "theological garden." We agree with the Christian at Work, that he was not very far out of the way.

—The Jewish Times aptly puts the case thus: "The Brooklyn police have shut down on Sunday excursions and picnics. This is right. Nothing should be allowed to interfere with the side-door business of the gin-mills."

—A society "to perpetuate the memory and to foster and promote the principles and virtues of the Huguenots," has been formed in New York City. Next to a society for perpetuating and fostering Bible Christianity, that is the best move that could be made. New York and one or two other cities stand greatly in need of some such society.

—Dr. Cuyler, in an article in the Christian at Work, says: "There is no lack of lawyers, or of physicians, or of civil and mining engineers, or of editors; but there is a lamentable lack of men who cannot only occupy but fill the 'sacred desk,' as our Yankee forefathers called it. In a republic of fifty million souls, the mighty work to be done increases; the trained workmen diminish."

—Dr. Duryea, of Boston, writes to the Christian at Work: "I think the theological ship has been in the water so long since the Reformation, that it has been subject to the growth of a mass of barnacles, and needs to be hauled on the dry-dock and scraped." And we might add that it did not have an entirely clean bottom when it was launched, and that makes an overhauling the more necessary.

—Here is a statement of a fact that should be emphasized; it is by Prof. F. A. Gast, of the Reformed Theological Seminary, Lancaster, Pa., in an article in the Hebrew Student, on "The Relation of the Old Testament to the New:" "There is no New Testament doctrine that is entirely new, and whose roots do not strike far back into the Old. On the other hand, there is no Old Testament doctrine that is peculiar to the Old, and that does not assume a higher form in the New."

—The Missionary Review says that the Hindus "not only believe in probation in one state of existence after death, but they believe in 8,400,000 successive periods of existence, each beginning with birth and ending with death, and probation continued in each and all of them." Some professed Christians believe in two probations, one before, and one after death, but they lack a great deal of being as "advanced" as the Hindus. If they would only add 8,399,999 probations to their list, they would be one ahead of the Hindus, and the most "advanced" theologians in the world; and they would also have just as much Scripture evidence in support of their position as they have now.

—The Kentucky correspondent of the N. Y. Examiner, gives some reasons for the prevalence of murder in that State, chief among which is the time-serving policy of the churches. If a man commits murder, and is acquitted in court, his church relations remain the same as though nothing had happened; and when there are several such in one church, the pastor does not care to say anything about the sin of murder, lest some unpleasantness might occur. So the churches bow to crime. The correspondent further says: "Again, the business that of all others promotes murder and all other forms of crime is strongly intrenched in the churches. Capital owned by professed Christian men is largely invested in the manufacture and wholesale trade in whisky. There is no use to try to disguise this state of things. Take out the capital owned and controlled by church members from under the whisky business and the trade would collapse."

—The N. Y. Tribune recently published letters from seven prominent ministers, who gave their opinions on Sunday observance. The most of them took a reasonable view of the matter. Dr. Howard Crosby said: "Personally, I believe in a strict Puritanical Sabbath [Sunday], and such I observe every week; but I have no right to force my belief on others, or make my belief the guide of their conduct." Dr. Wm. Taylor thinks that Christians must determine, not by law, but by their own actions, the kind of Sunday the country will have. Dr. Armitage, of the Baptist Church, believes in laws to require the irreligious and thoughtless to preserve order; but the best means to preserve the religious character of the day is by extending the influence of the religion with which it is identified. Dr. Ormiston, of the Dutch Reformed Church, is the only one who takes strong grounds in favor of legislative restrictions. He says: "The people will not keep Sunday unless required to do so by laws which are rigidly enforced." And we can add to this last remark the statement that some will not even under such circumstances.