News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 10, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 47.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—A noon-day prayer-meeting has been established at Peking, China.

—Pilgrim's Progress has been translated and published in seventy different languages by the Religious Tract Society of London.

—The Jesuit college at Beirut, Syria, has been elevated by Pope Leo to the rank of a Roman university, in which the study of Oriental languages will be a specialty.

—Attached to the Theological Seminary at Sharanpur, India, is a school for the wives of the students, to fit them for their duties when their husbands become pastors.

—A Chinese Testament in English characters has just been printed at Ning-po. It is a practical adaptation of what is known as "Pigeon English" to missionary purposes.

—Dr. R. S. Storrs has just completed his thirty-ninth year as pastor of the Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn, N. Y. When he began his pastorate, the city had 65,000 inhabitants; now it has 700,000.

—Rev. Thomas Tennant, who died recently in Evansville, Ark., at the age of one hundred and fifteen years, was probably the oldest preacher in the world. He had been a Methodist minister for ninety years.

—A Roman Catholic priest of St. Louis has announced that he will refuse the first steps toward confirmation to any child that attends the public schools. Other priests state that this is the attitude of the entire church.

—The Journal of Education says that the American Board of Missions "has laid all civilization under obligation to it for the grand work it has done for the world;" and that not only in a moral and religious point of view, but by promoting "a knowledge of ethnography, geography, history, and general science."

—Three young converts of the Nyanza mission in Central Africa, have suffered martyrdom. They were bound to a scaffolding under which a slow fire was made, and were slowly roasted to death. One of their tormentors was so impressed by their Christian fortitude that he has determined to become a Christian.

—A Catholic priest, in a sermon recently preached in Notre Dame Church, Montreal, told his hearers: "I want you to understand that the church forbids you to read those [Protestant] Bibles. If you have any of them in your houses, burn them; and if you don't want to burn them, bring them to me, and I will burn them."

—The German Government has decided to tolerate Catholic missions in German colonies. But, as might be expected, the Catholic members of the Reichstag are not satisfied with toleration. They threaten to vote solidly against all credits asked by the Government for its colonial enterprises, in the naval budget, unless Catholic missions are guaranteed unconditional equality with those under Protestant auspices.

—In Japan the opponents of Christianity have banded together to resist the spread of the Christian religion. Several such associations exist in different cities; but in no case do they appear to be numerous. Not infrequently Buddhist priests, aroused by the spread of Christianity, attempt to refute its doctrines. But the people are pleased with the gospel of the missionaries. "The priests," they say, "have a losing cause; they are not able to defend their religion."

—The Medical Missionary Society of Edinburgh, has been in existence thirty-four years, and has done an amount of good that cannot be computed. In 1881 a similar society was organized in New York City, and quite recently another has been organized in Chicago. The object of the New York society is not only to train medical missionaries for foreign lands, but to aid the sick and the poor at home, among whom it has treated thirty thousand cases. It has students from England, India, Turkey, Persia, and the West Indies, as well as from our own country.