RELIGIOUS | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 31, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 34.

RELIGIOUS.

—A colony of Russian Jews has been started in New Jersey, by the Jewish Alliance. The colonists have built a synagogue, which was dedicated with great rejoicings.

—Bishop Fallows, of the Reformed Episcopal Church, is said to have expressed the opinion that "the time has come for the setting apart of woman for the work of the gospel ministry."

—A Presbyterian missionary in India is credited with the statement that some of the best native Christian preachers come from the fakirs. He says some of the fakirs are outwardly pure, striving by painful austerities to work out a righteousness of their own.

—The annual report of the China Inland Mission for the past year gives the number of its stations at 64 in 15 provinces, with 65 out-stations, 110 chapels, 294 missionaries, 132 helpers, and 2,105 communicants. The number of persons baptized last year was 551. There are 66 organized churches.

—Forty Irish members of Parliament have signed a declaration to the Pope in which they tell him that they "can recognize no right of the Holy See to interfere with the Irish people in the management of their political affairs." Of course in so doing they have denied about everything which the Popes have always held dear.

—The Missionary says: "Hundreds of the natives of the South Sea Islands have sacrificed their lives in carrying the gospel to the heathen. From one church in the Havre group, sixty have been killed while acting as missionaries. Shall not these examples arouse many among us to do and venture all that the perishing may be saved?"

—The statement is made that the Greeks are showing great solicitude for the improvement of their priests. The reason for this seems to be that their eyes have been opened, and they see that the religious indifference manifested by the people is due to the fact that the priesthood occupies such a low plane intellectually, morally, and religiously.

—A Tract Society has been founded in Brazil for the purpose of providing Christian literature for the 3,000 Protestant families of the empire, as well as for others who can be reached by it. The Religious Tract Society of London will aid the work, and one of the most eminent scholars of Brazil, Gen. Couto Megalhaes, has given $1,000 towards this enterprise.

—The Swedish Lutherans have a college and seminary at Rock Island, Ill., which has an attendance of over three hundred pupils, and graduates annually about seventy-five students. They also have a high school and college at St. Peter, Minn., one at Wahoo, Neb., and another at Linchburgh, Kan., besides five orphan schools in operation.

—A wealthy brewer (brewers are all wealthy) has offered to build a cathedral in Liverpool at a cost of $1,250,000. Some of the religious papers object decidedly. They say he is not only a brewer but is owner of a large number of drink shops in Liverpool. The money he would put into the cathedral is, they say, "blood money," and it ought not to be accepted. It is recently reported, however, that Bishop Ryle has accepted the offer.