News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 3, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 21.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The Catholic Church, through the Baltimore Council, has forbidden its priests to attend horse-races or theaters.

—Two Americans in Japan are reported as having been confirmed in the Buddhist faith. They are both graduates of Harvard College.

—According to the Baptist Year Book there are 1,500 students preparing for the ministry in the various schools of the denomination.

—We hasten to note the occurrence of one truth in the Baptist Flag. It is this: "Half of all the doctrines taught in America to-day, even by Protestants, are Roman Catholic doctrines."

—The Turkish Government is closing many of the mission schools in Syria. The interest in education has come to be so great, however, that the people are opening schools of their own.

—The French Government took the pains to employ a corps of short-hand writers to make notes of Lent sermons in France. The Ministry of Public Worship intends to know whether preachers take advantage of their pulpits to undermine the civil authority.

—Pope Leo is said to have an income of $1,500,000 annually, and it is stated on the authority of Monsignor Capel that the Pope's personal expenses are limited to $2.50 a day." If Monsignor Capel tells the truth, then the Pope is amassing a very pretty sum with which to further the arts of diplomacy for the church.

—More is given to destroy than to save. During the last thirty years war has caused Christian nations the loss of 2,000,000 men and of $15,000,000,000; the yearly expenditure of these nations on standing armies is $2,500,000,000. And yet some think too much is given to spread the principles of the gospel of peace throughout the world.—Christian at Work.

—The New York Observer says: "The average Anarchist is made up of about equal parts of atheism and ignorance. He does not hate law and order so much as he hates religion, and his skill in blasphemy is only equaled by his dexterity with a beer-mug. He is down on churches, schools, banks, and 'bloated monopolies' in general, down on the family, society, and government, down on everything except the saloon." He may be found down in the saloon.

—At a meeting of Congregational Churches in Litchfield, Conn., about one hundred and fifty years ago, the following action was taken: "Voted that this consociation judge general neglect of family prayer to be of so scandalous a nature as may fully debar the heads of families from special church privileges, and if continued in, exposes them to the censure of the church where they live, or to which they belong." If such action were taken by many churches at the present time, the membership would be materially diminished.

—The Christian at Work says: "The territory of Russian Siberia, one and a half times as large as the United States, has belonged to Russia for three centuries, yet of the four million inhabitants nearly one-half are still pagans. Paganism is fostered by the home Government. The pagan priests are allowed to collect and burn the copies of the Bible with which the missionaries supply the converts, and no missionary may baptize without the authority of the pagan civil authorities, who are allowed to do almost anything to drive Christianity from the country."

—Dr. Austin Phelps says: "One thing we must confess with downcast eye. It is the tendency of the great Christian sects to lean upon worldly greatness for their prestige. In apostolic times Christian assemblies needed the admonition respecting the man with 'a gold ring and in goodly apparel.' Their successors to-day have not outlived the need. They seek prestige inordinately from wealth and culture. . . . Witnesses have borne testimony before the English Parliament that they had 'never seen a poor man in soiled or tattered garments in a church of the Establishment.' State churches have taken the lead in this corruption, but others have not been ashamed to follow, at varying distances in the rear."

—Rev. C. E. Robinson says in the Old Testament Student: "I fear that too many young ministers, at graduation, know less of the English Bible, and how to use it, than some men otherwise uneducated, who have made it the subject of special, constant, and reverent study. There are seminary students who know all about the great heresies of church history, and the dogmatic and philosophical differences between the great schools of theology, adept in Greek, Hebrew, and patristic lore, who might stand abashed before some plain expounding of the Word, thoroughly familiar with its text and spirit." We are glad that some are waking up to the fact that no amount of "culture" in a minister will make up for ignorance of the Bible.