News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 17, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 36.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—Of the 365 churches in Rome, seven are Protestant.

—The whole number of Congregationalist Churches in the British Empire is 5,172.

—Says the Chicago Mail: "We are pleased to see that religious subjects are once more becoming popular with Chicago ministers."

—Miss Adele Fielde, the well-known Baptist missionary to China, is about to return to that country. She sails from San Francisco on the 19th.

—In the California Methodist Conference, Bishop Fowler stated that Hon. C. Maclay had offered to donate buildings and endow a theological seminary with $100,000, to be located at San Fernando, Cal.

—A man in Nebraska claims that he had demonstrated that the soul can be seen—he has seen one himself. A secular journal makes unfeeling comments on the fact that he had to make use of a microscope in order to see it.

—The Salvation Army in Boston is threatened with prosecution for blasphemy because it gives "three cheers for Jesus." Is it not profanity? We have been shocked by the irreverence and profanity of a Salvation Army orator, or a "holiness" preacher, as much as by that of any gamin in the street.

—According to the minutes of the Southern Baptist Convention, just published, the white Baptists have 570 associations, 14,102 churches, and 997,509 members; the colored Baptists have 7,480 churches with 871,043 members. Total Baptists in the South, 1,868,552. Baptisms for the year were 64,301 whites, and 38,538 colored.

—Cardinal Manning, probably the ablest and most distinguished Catholic divine among English-speaking nations, announces that a Catholic Congress will be held in London, probably in June, 1886. It will be constituted of clerical and lay delegates from English-speaking countries, and will be held by the authority of the pope, who has examined and approved Cardinal Manning's plans.

—The editor of the California Christian Advocate visited the cemetery in Salem, Or., in which Bishop Haven was buried. Writing to his paper, he said: "We were very much pleased and impressed by the scene. The good bishop's resting-place is as delightful as any one could wish." It is strange that the Doctor did not tell how the bishop likes his resting-place, since in the beginning of the paragraph he said that he went there to hold communion with the dead.

—A fashionable New York lady, when asked to contribute to a worthy object, replied: "I cannot, I did all I could afford to do for charity during the winter. I went to the charity hall and attended a number of theatrical entertainments given for charitable purposes." That is a specimen of very much of the charity of these days. And the churches are fostering just such a false and absurd idea, by teaching the people that if they fill their maw with rich viands, at fifty cents apiece, they are engaged in a work of charity.

—Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul's, wrote: "A church should not be so filled with pews but that the poor may have room enough to stand and sit in the alleys, for to them equally is the gospel preached." Hardly "equally," under such circumstances. Why not let the poor sit down in the pews? "And if ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here, in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool; are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?" Jas. 2:3, 4.