p. 206 | News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 27, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 13.

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News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The M. E. Church South is about to establish a mission in Cuba.

—Victoria, B. C., is to be made an archbishopric, and plans are under way for a magnificent cathedral.

—The Methodist ministers of the Ohio Conference have voted to sign a pledge of abstinence from opium and tobacco.

—The California State Sunday-school Association will hold its seventeenth annual convention in Oakland, May, 6-8.

—General Booth has issued an order that, at 12:30 o'clock daily, every soldier of the Salvation Army is to make the sign of the letter S, as evidence that he is saved!

—The Prussian Government has consented to the reinstatement of the archbishop of Cologne, which practically settles all differences between that Government and the pope.

—The remains of Babu Keshub Chunder Sen, the recently deceased leader of the Brahmo-Somaj in India, were duly cremated at Calcutta, and the ashes deposited in his chapel.

—The Methodist ministers of Cincinnati have issued an appeal to their brethren asking for contributions to aid in restoring churches destroyed by the great flood, and also to aid distressed pastors and members.

—The new Congregational creed has twelve articles. It is generally commended for its brevity. Rev. 14 brings to view a small company that will escape the seven last plagues and sing a song of deliverance on Mount Sion. Their creed has but two articles—"the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus."

—The Defense, a Paris Catholic journal, publishes a letter from Rome stating that the pope believes his independence threatened, especially since the Court of Cessation decided that the real property of the Propaganda Fide should be converted into Italian rentes. The letter asserts that the pope is again considering the advisability of leaving Rome, and that Malta will probably be the place of his future residence.

—There has been incorporated in San Francisco, "The Society of Progressive Spiritualists." The object is claimed to be the encouragement of moral and religious sentiments in society, to ordain spiritual teachers, upon whom the society shall confer all the rights now enjoyed by the clergy of all religious societies, to institute schools in progressive thought, and to encourage in its highest and purest significance a faithful monogamic marriage.

—The Jesuits, says the London Tablet, have ten or twelve men at work on the Zambezi, in Central Africa, and within five years they have lost twelve by death. Ninety-two members have joined this African regiment of pioneers. A training school is to be established near Port Elizabeth, South Africa, under the direction of Father Weld, Superior of the order, and men will be fitted for the interior missions. The Jesuits have purchased an estate of 7,000 acres for the school and mission house.

—The Mormon bishop West recently delivered a fiery address to his people, saying that "the blood of the Gentile persecutors shall be spilled on their own threshold, to appease the anger of our prophet. Tune the lyre, beat the cymbals, for our revenge is at hand!" Of Governor Murray he said, "His head shall be placed upon the walls of our city, and his entrails scattered throughout the streets of Zion, that every Gentile adventurer may behold, and take care that we are left to pursue our road to Paradise unmolested."

—Some Oregon Indians have explained to Government officials their reason for not wanting to enter their lands as private individuals. On having the legal requirements explained to them, they replied that it was a violation of their religion to deal in land; that the Great Chief had made them from the dust of the earth, and after they wandered on its surface for a certain length of time they returned to its bosom and again became part of the elements of the earth. Dealing in land they regarded as dealing in their own flesh and blood.

—While the Mormon problem is being discussed by the politicians and moralists of the United States, the different sections of the church are not inactive. Among the Mormons in Utah are 50,000 of Scandinavian and Lutheran stock. A special effort is making to restore them to Christianity. The Presbyterians are working through Norwegian evangelists. The Methodists have a Norwegian missionary at Salt Lake, where he has erected a church edifice and opened a school. The Swedish Lutherans have sent a minister who has gathered a congregation, and a Danish Lutheran clergyman will soon also commence operations.—Christian at Work.