News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 22, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 40.

Read the full edition

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The sale of Spanish family Bibles is said to be increasing in Buenos Ayres.

—Of native Christians in the Japanese churches, only one-fourth are females.

—The Roman Catholics claim 100,000 adherents among the negroes of the South.

—Since 1825 the American Tract Society has issued 9,089,773,300 pages of books and tracts.

—Remarkable revivals are reported among the Huguenot settlements in the south of France.

—The General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church has outlined its benevolent work the ensuing year on the basis of an average contribution of $2.81 from each member.

—The Savannah Times says that a large number of the members of the Methodist Church in Decatur, Ga., seceded recently, because the pastor ruled that the organist could not play in the church unless she gave up playing for dances.

—There are seventy-three Roman Catholic bishops and archbishops in this country, of whom it is said that thirty-three are of Irish descent, thirteen of German origin, twelve French, nine English, and two Spanish. None of them are American.

—The new cathedral which has just been completed at Moscow, cost more than $10,000,000. Half a century has been consumed in its construction. The building accommodates 10,000 worshipers, as it covers 3,000 square feet. The bells alone cost $75,000. The largest weighs twenty-six tons, and the smallest only thirty pounds.

—Detachments of the Salvation Army have found their way to the Thibetan border; but, to their great astonishment, they have been able to make no impression whatever on the people. Their drums were beat in vain, and their dress of Saffron yellow, the sacred color of the Buddhists, attracted no attention to them. They visited a monastery, but the monks would not interrupt their litanies to greet them.

—The Religio-Philosophical Journal (Spiritualist) indorses Beecher's work as follows: "While the Journal sees the inconsistencies, the want of perfect candor, the vacillation, and the finesse of this great pulpit orator, yet it does not disparage his work, but fully recognizes his power as a liberalizer, and a stalwart veteran in man's struggle with ignorance and superstition, on his march toward a higher life here and hereafter."