p. 14 | News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 1, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 25.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The Chicago Bible Society reports 10,000 families in that city without a copy of the Bible.

—The M. E. Church has 225,000 negro members, who support 1,219 preachers and gave $21,000 last year to benevolent objects.

—The fifth annual conference of the Young People's Societies of Christian Endeavor will be held on July 6-8 at Saratoga Springs, N. Y.

—It is worth noting that several Spiritualist papers which we have seen, regard the conviction of Herr Most and his fellow-anarchists as an outrage on liberty. This shows the nature of the "liberty" of which Spiritualists prate so much.

—The Methodist Recorder says: "One of the greatest curses of almost every church to-day is the presence in it of unconverted, godless persons, who often, from motives of selfishness or ambition, seek to control it, lead it into channels of worldliness, and permeate it with their own spirit."

—Nothing can be more true, or more worthy of attention, than the following from the Sunday School Times: "No Sunday-school teaching is complete until it has brought home some important truth to the scholar, in its practical bearing upon his personal life and duty. No review of any series of lessons is what it should be unless it brings before the minds of the scholars the practical teachings which these lessons have emphasized while they were under examination."

—Spurgeon says: "We may live to see men calling themselves Christians and differing in no single item from Mohammedans; in fact, even now there are religionists among us who are not so near the truth as the followers of the False Prophet. Oak has given place to willow; everybody has grown limp. Out of the generality of limpness has come an admiration of it. A man cannot speak a plain word without being accused of bitterness, and if he denounces error he is narrow-minded; for all must join the mutual admiration society, or be placed under ban and be howled down."

—The Congregationalist says: "To reach the heart effectively for Christ, it is not often, if ever, necessary to make novel and startling appeals to the mere senses. Some revivalists are greatly open to criticism in this direction. Conversion, even that of the most phlegmatic person, implies some positive quickening of the emotions which is actual excitement, and in the cases of many persons this may become a very perceptible excitement without being at all untrustworthy or otherwise objectionable. But when there is a deliberate purpose, followed by an effort to create excitement, such as would not have occurred without being specially labored for, and such as can be produced only by startling means, the person who is responsible is chargeable fairly with offensive and injurious sensationalism. This is not the right method in which to do God's work, and its fruits almost invariably are shown in the end to have been evil rather than good."