News and Notes | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 31, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 13.

News and Notes.

RELIGIOUS.

—The Pope has approved the plans for the Catholic University at Washington, D. C.

—All the evangelical churches of Europe and America contributed $10,371,000 to missions during the past year.

—The Presbyterian Synod of India is composed of twenty-eight churches, 712 communicants, and 2,328 Sunday-school scholars.

—The Christian at Work says that "it requires no gift of prophecy to foresee that the Northern and Southern Presbyterian Churches will ultimately be reunited."

—The Boston correspondent of the Cynosure complains that the church bells of that city are a nuisance. The Catholic bells seem to be particularly objectionable.

—A recent meeting in Chicago in the interests of a more stringent Sunday law was addressed by Socialists, Knights of Labor, and by both a Baptist and a Presbyterian minister.

—A late dispatch from Berlin says: "The greatest discomfort is caused here by the continued expulsion of Russian Jews who have lived for forty years in Prussia and who have sons in the army."

—"A Congress of churches and Christians" is now in session in Chicago considering the nature and principles of the secret lodge system and its influence on the Christian religion and civil liberty.

—It is stated that D. L. Moody, the evangelist, will visit this coast in May next at the time of the International Convention of Young Men's Christian Associations, held in San Francisco, and the Conference of General Secretaries, held in Oakland.

—The dry goods clerks of Chicago are going to petition the Legislature of Illinois to pass a law forbidding the opening of business houses on Sunday.

—The Synod of Alabama has unanimously expressed its judgment that the time had come when the General Assemblies of the northern and southern churches should take such action as will combine their strength and resources on such plan of cooperative union as will avoid friction and waste, and so increase their efficiency, in the various departments of church work.

—Professor G. Frederick Wright, of Oberlin, Ohio, has an article in a recent number of the Congregationalist explaining that Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed by fire and brimstone, but by petroleum gas and oil. The miracle was in having the torch applied at the right time! For the Bible account of the destruction of those cities see the nineteenth chapter of Genesis, particularly verse 24.

—It is now positively asserted that McGlynn's land views have not been condemned by "the church;" and the doctor is seriously meditating a journey to Rome. It seems that Cardinal Gibbons has been interesting himself in McGlynn's behalf; and it is stated that the Pope not long since directed the Cardinal to say to the Doctor that "his holiness" saw nothing in his land theories contrary to Catholic teachings.

—The Church of England, called also the "Anglican Church," is said to have 13,000,000 members and 23,000 clergy. Of this church the Gospel in all Lands says: "As membership in a State church is claimed as a national right, and not because of the possession of saving faith in Christ, it is probable that not more than 3,000,000 are communicants in the sense that the word is used in America, and the others may be more properly classed as adherents."