News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Jul 15, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 27.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The foundations of the twenty-second Protestant church in Rome have been laid.

—During the year 1885, two lady physicians of the M. E. Women's Foreign Missionary Society in India, and one assistant, treated 28,253 patients.

—The Christian Cynosure mentions as an evidence that civilizing influences are at work in the heart of Africa, the fact that last year the natives bought ten tons of soap from the Scotch mission at Livingstonia. Pretty good evidence.

—A Philadelphia woman has given an estate and $100,000 to establish a home for twelve aged Presbyterian ministers who do not use tobacco. The Congregationalist thinks that it would be difficult to find twelve aged Presbyterian ministers who do use tobacco. It ought not to be possible to find any ministers, whether old or young, who use tobacco.

—Would that many might read these words spoken by the President of the Baptist Missionary Union: "Giving should be an act of worship. Why do we have fairs and festivals? Is it not to do away with the pain of giving, as if giving were a sort of surgical operation, whose pain should be relieved? Let us honor the offerings of the poor, and not depend only on the few gifts of the rich; the latter are precarious—the former are abiding."

—The popular writer, H. H. Boyeson, in an article in the Congregationalist, entitled, "The Clerical Profession in Germany," says: "A State church cannot well avoid fostering hypocrisy and worldliness; and mere intellectual advantages, without reference to character, are apt to push men into positions for which mere intellectual qualifications are insufficient. Where appointment and advancement are dependent upon secular authorities, influences will be brought to bear upon the clerical profession which tend toward the decay, rather than the awakening of spiritual life." We think no one can successfully dispute this statement.

—That the much-dreamed-of temporal millennium is receding, rather than approaching, is evident by the following facts given by the Missionary Review: "In the year 1800, the common estimates rarely placed the population of the world as high as 800,000,000. Let us suppose it even 1,000,000,000—an estimate that would usually be considered extravagant. Of this 1,000,000,000, it is claimed that there were 200,000,000 Christians of all kinds, Greek, Romish, and Protestant. This leaves 800,000,000 of the non-Christian population of the world in 1800. The present population is reckoned, by the highest authorities, at about 1,400,000,000. Of these 400,000,000 are claimed as nominal Christians. Suppose these to be all true Christians—and none will claim that—we have 1,000,000,000 yet unsaved. That is, there are 200,000,000 more souls to be reached and rescued by the gospel than there were eighty years ago!"