p. 142 | News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 28, 1884

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—During the past year the foreign missionary societies of the world report a gain of 308,643 communicants.

—The American Baptist chapel that was damaged by the mob at Canton has been repaired and is again opened for preaching.

—A Baptist missionary to the Telegus, India, reports 227 converts baptized within three months. Another in China, reports twenty-seven.

—Burmah has a population of 3,500,000, the most of whom are Buddhists. The American Baptists have six missionaries, five native preachers, and the China Inland Mission has also one station.

—The laying of the foundation of a new Methodist Church in Christiana, Norway, after being talked about for thirty years, came off recently with a grandeur commensurate with the long delay.

—Rev. Abner P. Webb, a co-laborer with Judson, in Burmah, between 1833 and 1837, now nearly eighty years of age, resides in Fruit Vale, Oakland, Cal., and is connected with the Baptist Church in East Oakland.

—“The Jesuit priests who labor among the Chinese,” says the Hongkong correspondent of the Philadelphia Press, “adapt themselves so entirely to the people with whom they have to do as to even cultivate pigtails.”

—Rev. Dr. Cuyler says that if he had to begin his life work again, he would devote less time to the reformation of fallen men and women, and much more to the salvation of children. Those who are just beginning their life-work might profit by this hint.

—Joseph Cook says: “Christian faith and practice have not yet been lifted into entire harmony with the tone of the Christian Scriptures, and the work most needed in the church at large to-day, is the Christianization of Christianity.” And this is just the work of the Third Angel’s Message of Rev. 14: 9-12.

—The California Christian Advocate says: “A religious paper should not attempt to be a political organ. Parties change often, and are sometimes exponents of great immoralities. A truly Christian paper cannot support any private or public wrong. It always advocates righteousness, whether parties are for or against it. The way of truth is plain; the pay of partisan service may taint and corrupt.”

—The laundry department of Trinity House, which was established in connection with the charities of Trinity Church, Boston, has proved a success. The object is to provide work for needy women. Last year its earnings were about $3,500; $2,600 was paid out as wages to women, many of whom were unable, in consequence of ill health and ignorance, to compete with strong and skilled workers. This is certainly practical church work.

—The Interior speaks of Joseph Cook’s lectures as follows: “It is the way of the world for a man to speak well of a horse when he owns him, even if he does not think it safe to put him in traces. We bought the right to print Joseph Cook’s lectures, and will pay the bill; but we will not print them if the first day’s work is a fair sample. It was sorry trash.” This criticism was principally on account of his eulogy of the late Wendell Phillips.

—At Wilkesbarre, Pa., last week, the Grand Army of the Republic were forbidden by a Catholic priest to attend in uniform the funeral of their comrade, John Mundy. The members then made arrangements with friends of deceased to have the funeral in another cemetery. This the priest also forbade, saying that Mundy was a Catholic and should be buried in consecrated ground. He carried his point. His objection to the Grand Army was its being a secret society.

—There is a strange revival work going on in Russia. The men and women who are carrying it on are called Standists. They began their work in Norway and Sweden before the Methodist and Baptists missionaries. They carry the open Bible, and thousands gather about them to hear the gracious words of life. They take their name from the German word stund, meaning an hour—an hour with God. They call men and women in the busiest time of the day to come and spend an hour with God. The sect has swept over a large part of Russia and made captive one village after another.