News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 28, 1886

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The new British Parliament will have more than eighty Catholic members. One of them is from Scotland, the first returned from that country since the Reformation.

—Protestant missionaries have gained a foothold in Corea, a country which was long closed against the gospel. A colporter who has been laboring two years in Seoul, the capital, reports seventy men desirous of joining a Christian church, and one in another city reports twenty.

—As the Russian dissenters from the Greek Church are strictly forbidden to print any books in Russia, they have recently opened a large printing office in Roumania. A number of pamphlets have been published there, defending the dissenters against the attacks of the orthodox church. These pamphlets are having a large circulation in Russia, to the consternation of the clergymen of the established church.

—It is stated on the authority of statistics published by the Biblical Institute of Stuttgart, that there are twenty-six Bible societies in Germany, besides numerous branch associations and the three agencies of the British and Foreign Bible Society. During the past year, these societies have sold and given away 515,062 copies of the Bible; and since the work commenced in 1712, 19,914,316 copies have been distributed. The estimated circulation of the Scriptures in the whole world since the beginning of the present century, is 200,000,000 copies. Of this number, 120,000,000 copies are placed to the credit of the British, 50,000,000 to the American, and 30,000,000 to all the other Bible societies. During the past year, these various societies disposed of over 1,500,000 Bibles.

—The London Truth gives currency to an “edifying anecdote” of a vicar of the Church of England. He receives an income of £1,500 a year, out of which he used to pay a curate £20 a year for doing nearly all the work of his parish. The curate asked to have his salary raised to £25, and was promptly dismissed. The vicar then found another curate who offered his services for nothing, on condition that he was allowed to live in the vicar’s house. Being an absentee, the vicar agreed; and subsequently, when the new curate asked for a small salary, the worthy person magnanimously consented to let him take in lodgers. This is entirely characteristic of the way livings are disposed of in the Church of England. It is no wonder that the present Parliament contains more than two hundred members who are in favor of disestablishment in England, Wales, and Scotland.

—Bismarck invited the pope to arbitrate between Germany and Spain in reference to the Caroline Islands. The pope accepted the honor with many thanks. Then Leo conferred decorations of the Order of Christ on Prince Bismarck and the Prussian Minister to the Vatican, and Emperor William returned the compliment by decorating the Cardinal Secretary of State and his assistants. And now the pope, ever watchful and alert to advance Catholic interests, thinks he may venture to ask a favor. So he has petitioned the Emperor to grant Catholic missions in German colonies the same rights that Protestant missions enjoy. But Emperor William will not allow French Jesuit missionaries in his newly annexed colonies in Western Africa, well knowing that these French Jesuits are always troublesome political intriguers. The request, as a leading religious paper says, “is characteristic of Rome, which always seeks and demands ‘freedom of worship,’ except where it has full and sole control.”