NOTES OF NEWS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 12, 1878

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 52, No. 24.

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NOTES OF NEWS.

—A church built by the American Baptists at a cost of $20,000 has just been opened in Rome, Italy.

—The value of the gold mined in this country yearly is, in round numbers, about $47,000,000.

—Lewiston, Maine, with a population of 20,000, has not had an arrest for drunkenness in 20 years.

—The parents of Bayard Taylor, our Minister to Germany, recently celebrated their diamond wedding.

—The liquor trade of Great Britain exceeds the entire aggregate of the coal and iron trade of that kingdom.

—The value of the annual agricultural products of the United States, as given in the last census report, is $2,447,588,658.

—A dangerous malarial fever has prevailed lately in Louisville, Ky., caused by defective drainage in parts of the city.

—In the Straits of Magellan new coal mines have been opened, which produce anthracite coal equal to the best in Pennsylvania.

—The last census of Palestine shows a total Jewish population of nearly 15,300; of these 8,000 live in Jerusalem.

—Elihu Burritt, while earning his living as a blacksmith, mastered eighteen ancient languages and twenty-two European dialects.

—A copy of the Mentz Bible, printed by Guttenburg in 1455—being the first book ever printed—was sold at auction in Paris last June, for $10,000. It is printed on vellum, but is not quite perfect, several portions having been restored in fac simile.

—Ostrich farming, the rearing of ostriches for the sake of their plumes, has become one of the most important industries of South Africa. In 1877 about 60,000 pounds of feathers, worth $1,967,030, were exported from the Cape of Good Hope.

—According to latest reports, there are 29,206 itinerant ministers, 74,990 local preachers, and 4,489,877 lay members of the Methodist church, of whom in this country there are 23,194 itinerant and 26,642 local preachers, and 3,896,999 members.

—The holy see has obtained from the English government an assurance that Roman Catholics in Cyprus shall enjoy the same liberties as in England. In consequence, large plans for proselytism in the island are being organized, and they hope that Cyprus may become the base for an extensive Asiatic propaganda.

—General Roberts, who commands the British army advancing on Candahar from Quettah finding the Afghans confronting him in force, delayed attacking them until he should so strengthen himself as to make victory certain. A dispatch dated Nov. 5 says that a battle has been fought, resulting in the total defeat of the Afghans. Peiwar Kotal has been taken by the British, although the Afghans fought desperately. Dec. 6, all was quiet in Khyber Pass.

—An exchange gives the following facts in regard to the Papacy:—

“The custom of kissing the pope’s toe was introduced about A. D. 708. Adrian I. caused money to be coined with his name, A. D. 780. The first pope who kept an army was Leo IX., 1054. In 1077 Gregory VII. compelled Henry IV., Emperor of Germany, to stand barefooted in the snow at the gate of the Castle of Canosa. The pope’s authority was established in England in 1079; and in 1161 Henry II. held the stirrup while Pope Alexander III. mounted his horse. In 1191 Celestine III. kicked the crown from off the head of the Emperor Henry VI., to show his prerogative of making and unmaking kings. Kissing the pope’s toe and other ceremonies were abolished by Clement XIV. in 1773. The pope was deprived of the remains of his temporal power in December, 1870.”

—At the Lord Mayor’s Dinner, London, Lord Beaconsfield was received with the utmost demonstrations of respect by the municipal authorities. His manner was of the most demure humility; his honorary decorations of ribbons, diamonds, and gold were excessively gorgeous. In his speech he deigned to inform his Queen’s subjects that the purpose of the Indo-Afghan war is to secure a “scientific rectification of frontier.” Over this piece of information the “Jingo” party were of course highly exuberant. Still, there are Englishmen and British statesmen who are apt to look facts in the face, and take fine phrases for just about as much meaning as they really contain, or seek to cover. Mr. Gladstone never rendered more sagacious, or more needed, service to his country than in this important turning-point in English history. In the open Parliament of the nation, his voice is heard, and despite the noisy jeers of a servile press, his signal wisdom and tremendous sincerity of patriotism are beginning to tell. In the spirit of one of the old prophets, he aims his appeals, straight and with overwhelming force, to the conscience of the nation, in view of the eternal principles of right and wrong. In his masterly speech of last Saturday, he compared the national conscience over an unjust war to the blood on Lady Macbeth’s hand, which the perfumes of Arabia could not sweeten, and declared that the people of England would yet discover that “national injustice is the surest way to national downfall.”—Advance.