Religious Notes

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 4, 1883

—The Salvation Army has been expelled from the Prefect of Savoy, France.

—Father Riordan, pastor of St. James' Parish (Catholic), Chicago, has been appointed Coadjutor Bishop of California.

—The tenth missionary journey of Mr. Geo. Muller of Bristol, England, was commenced Sept. 26, when they started for Madras, in order to spend six months in gospel itineracy throughout India.

—Mr. Pointet has instituted a Bible-carriage movement in France. In a suitable vehicle furnished with religious reading, he has traveled through ten departments of the republic, selling Bibles and tracts, and using his carriage for a pulpit when he finds opportunity to preach.

—One of the Chickasaw Indians proposed to the American Bible Society to pay half the cost of supplying the school children of his tribe with New Testaments if the society would pay the other half. The Bible Society accepted the offer and forwarded him a box of 500 Testaments, which he is now distributing.

—Sitting Bull, the famous Indian Chief, was to have been received into the Catholic Church at Fort Yates last week, but the ceremony had to be postponed because he could not decide which of his two wives to put away. The forms of the church forbid more than one wife to a communicant, and, although the great warrior received all the other tenets with "readiness of mind," this requirement has so far proved too much for him.

—The 400th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther will occur November 10, but the citizens of Wittenberg, Germany, began the celebration on the 13th inst. It is reported that 50,000 visitors were present, including the Crown Prince and about 2,000 clergymen. The exercises began with religious services and a grand procession. Relics of Luther's day and work were on exhibition, and portraits of Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Zwingle and other reformers adorned the walls of the hall where the services were held.

—The awakening of Japan to an imitation of American and English progress is not all in the interest of Christianity—not as much perhaps as it might be, if the "children of light" were as "wise in their generation" as the "children of this world." The infidels are said to be outdoing the Christians in the production of their standard works in the Japanese language. The works of leading infidel authors—Paine, Ingersoll, J. S. Mill, Draper, and Buckle—are all translated, and quite extensively circulated. And it must be remembered, that it is a much easier task to lodge error in the mind of a heathen, than it is to plant the truth in his heart.

—The average school-boy would not be apt to find much religion in an arithmetic; but the Spanish authorities have discovered it. Some Germans sent to Spain a book entitled "An Easy Method of Reading and Arithmetic." A few thousand of these, not long ago, were stopped in the Custom House, and so high a duty demanded on them that the owners refused to reclaim them. But the authorities decided that they were religious books, and as such could not be offered in public sale without the authority of the State Council, and this body decreed that they must be burned, because any book not written by Catholics must be against the State religion. Is it any wonder that Spain, once at the head, is now at the tail-end of nations in progress and influence?—Christian at Work.