Religious Miscellany

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 26, 1875

Religious Miscellany

Religious Miscellany.

—The Presbyterian Chinese Mission Church has 65 members, nine of whom were received on the 25th ult.

—The Levant Herald states that the Turkish government has authorized the circulation of the Bible in Turkey.

—Great interest was created in Fort Dodge July 14 by the sermon of a native Sioux Indian, the Rev. Luke C. Walker. A crowded audience of whites listened to him.

—The Presbyterians of Scotland and Ireland are being agitated and divided upon the question of fermented wine for the Lord's supper, some opposing and some favoring its use.

—Professor Seelye, of Amherst, while in India, delivered a course of lectures on Christianity, to the educated Hindoos. They have been published and are having a great run.

—It is stated that the majority of the last senior class at the New Brunswick Theological Seminary offered themselves for the foreign mission field, but were not accepted for want of funds to sustain them.

PARIS, August 11.—A request by the Government of France to the pope, to authorize a prayer for the preservation of the Republic, has been refused. His holiness, however, has decreed the recital of a formula salvum fac populum.

—A Chinese convert, in conversation with a missionary remarked: "We want men with hot hearts to tell of the love of Christ." And if there is ever to be a widespread revival work in our land and the world, we must have such men.

—A mob of 200 French Catholics surrounded and stoned a house at Danielsonville, Ct., last week, in which Mr. Pentenade, a colporteur and missionary, was reading the Scriptures, and were only kept from further mischief by the arrival of the police.

—It is unlawful in New Jersey for railway trains (except mail trains and milk cars) to run on Sunday. The Sabbath Union calls for the enforcement of the law in this respect. The railroad lines on which the Sunday laws are broken, are controlled largely by New York and Philadelphia.

—Eighty-five years ago the Methodists could not obtain the use of any church in Boston in which to preach. Then they were called heretics, and were persecuted by all the other sects. But they have forgotten all this now and can cry out against "new doctrines" as lustily as their persecutors of old.

—One hundred and fifteen female missionaries have gone to foreign lands from Mount Holyoke Seminary, Massachusetts, eighteen of them from the last two graduating classes. Applications are on the file for twenty more, Cape Colony, Africa, asking for eight to serve as teachers. Several of the graduates have already gone to Cape Colony, where they have had great success in Christian works.

—Sir Moses Montefiore has just started on another mission to Palestine, in aid of the Jewish interests there. The Independent says: "He is about as typical a specimen of an active philanthropist as lives on the face of the earth, and we hope he may long live, although he now is nearly ninety-one years old. To the great lawgiver and to Maimonides, the Jews may add Montefiore as their third Moses."

—The pew question is coming to the front in France. In Anjon cures very generally adopt the plan of selling the sittings by auction on the first Sunday of the year. The plan is more simple than edifying. The cure and the treasurer walk round the church, followed by the congregation, and at every halt one hears, "Going at 5 francs (or 15 f., or 20 f.,)" everybody shouting as in an ordinary auction room.

—At a meeting of ministers, not long since, the question discussed was: "How can the devotional exercises of the Sabbath be made more impressive and instructive?" Responsive reading was suggested; repeating the Lord's Prayer in concert; a modified Liturgy; and some other things. It was very sensibly suggested that the best thing to be done was to make more of the forms we have, and introduce more reverence into pulpit services.

—Speaking of the unlasting effects of Methodist Revivals, the Examiner and Chronicle says:—"Communities are burnt over with wild excitements; thousands received into the church to be turned out again, or retained as dead weights; society filled with very wicked men, ex-churchmembers; and the very soil worn out, as by the old Southern mode of cultivation, so that rational and Scriptural labor for souls is rendered almost a hopeless task.

—The India Conference Theological Seminary has now thirty-four endowed scholarships, each one of which secures perpetual support for a student in the school. The course of study is well arranged, and the instruction thorough. A good nucleus for a library has been formed. Eleven students were graduated from the school last December, and are now at work in the various stations of the mission. Over thirty are at present in attendance.

—Of the New York Presbyterian churches the Examiner and Chronicle says:—

"Many of the churches are crushed with heavy debts. To pay the interest, the taxes, assessments, and furnish money for the running expenses, is a simple impossibility. Five churches have gone out of existence from sheer inability to maintain themselves, and five more are reported to be on their way to dissolution, unless the Presbytery, by contributing funds, arrest the downward course. Over $500,000 are needed at this moment to relieve the embarrassment of the New York churches."

—Messrs. Moody and Sankey were four months in London. Their principal efforts were in the four quarters of the city. Where there were not capacious buildings for the meetings, they were erected. One of these contains eight thousand five hundred chairs. The Agricultural Hall in the northern part of the city gave accommodation for fourteen thousand, and at evening services, was crowded to excess. All classes attended the services, and were generally pleased with the "American laymen." Aug. 14: they arrived in New York on the steamer Spain. A party of gentlemen, including several clergymen, met them at the wharf. Moody is accompanied by his wife and two children, and Sankey by his wife and three children. Moody says that they will go to Northfield, Mass., for the present. A meeting of ministers and others has been held in Washington, in which was considered the subject of inviting Messrs. Moody and Sankey to visit this city and hold a series of meetings. A Committee was appointed to lay the matter before the churches and request them to appoint delegates to assemble at noon on Monday next to extend the invitation and arrange for the erection of suitable buildings for meetings.