Religious Notes

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Sep 6, 1883

Religious Notes.

—The First Congregational Church at Oakland, Cal., has voted to pay the Superintendent of its Sunday-school a good salary, so that he can devote his whole time to the work.

—There is a sharp lesson for all Christians in the following letter from a Brahmin to a missionary: “We are finding you out. You are not as good as your Book. If your people were only as good as your Book, you would conquer India for Christ in five years.”

—A witty journalist, speaking of the troubles of a certain church, said they were due to the fact that “half of the congregation worship the God of their fathers, and the others the Fathers themselves.” With too much truth this last might be said of very many worshipers.

—The Christian at Work says: “What is known as Spiritualism or Spiritism is not all trickery by any means, for there is a domain of human nature as yet unexplored. The time cannot be distant when the mystery connected with witchcraft, mesmerism, Spiritualism, and mind-reading, will all be cleared up, and powers unsuspected in the world of emotion and nerve force evolved, which will seem incredible to us in the present state of our knowledge.”

—Bishop Huntington, of the Episcopal Church of New York, told in a recent sermon what he considered the threatening danger of the church of this country. Said he: “It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism, not Romanism, that in our day and in this land is likely to quench the light of the gospel, or re-crucify Christ. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church-going, hollow-hearted prosperity.” The S. S. Times says of this assertion, “These are sharp words, and the worst of it is that their sharpness comes from their truthfulness.”

—The papers that have exultingly printed the text of what purported to be a Phœnician copy of a part of Deuteronomy, 2,700 years old, the original manuscript of which was offered to the British Museum for the modest sum of $5,000,000, will now proceed to inform their readers that the whole thing is a fraud. Mr. Shapira, the alleged discoverer, is simply a trader in relics, who thought to impose on Biblical scholars for his own profit. The manuscript had various changes from the received version, and the fact that it contained an extra commandment would have kept it from being generally popular, even had it been proved to be genuine.

—The Christian at Work says: “The surliness of some of the fashionable pew-owners of this city certainly needs correction, as these folks need a course of lectures on good manners. It is not an uncommon thing for some pew-owners in a church on Fifth Avenue, this city, on arriving late and finding their pew occupied, to quietly stand at the head of their pew and wait for the strangers who may be occupying it to get up and go out. We have witnessed this more than once in one church in this city, and have heard of this boorishness in other churches.” Perhaps a few sermons on the principles of true Christianity would not be amiss in those churches.

—The Alameda Encinal says: “The Sabbatarians of Pennsylvania, on undertaking to stop work and recreation on Sunday, in several towns, are met by a threat to enforce the Sunday law to the utmost, in order to make it odious.” Our neighbor is for once off the track. Sabbatarians have no interest whatever in having work stop on Sunday, for all of whom we have any knowledge work on that day themselves. Sabbatarians are those who keep holy the seventh day, in conformity to the requirements of the fourth commandment; and they do not desire a State or National law in its behalf, for the law of God is all-sufficient. Sunday-keepers are not Sabbatarians by any means.