News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 45.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—Rev. E. P. Hammond, the evangelist, has recently returned to this country, after an absence of about two years abroad.

—A recent census of the attendance at the several churches in London reveals the fact that less than one-tenth of the population of that city are church-goers.

—The rate of increase in the so-called dissenting church in England for the last ten years has been only two per cent. more than the increase in population.

—Rev. Dr. Gibson, of San Francisco, is authority for the statement that only two per cent. of the 50,000 young men in that city attend church services on Sunday.

—D. L. Moody, the evangelist, is at Cambridge, Mass., laboring for the conversion of the students of Harvard College. So far he has found them rather unimpressible.

—The South Carolina Synod has requested Professor Woodrow, who is accused of teaching the doctrine of evolution, to resign his chair in the Theological Seminary.

—Notwithstanding the incongruity of the action, the Universalist General Convention at Akron, Ohio, decided by a unanimous vote to engage in foreign missionary work, and a committee on foreign missions was appointed.

—A split is likely to occur in the United Presbyterian Church on the question of instrumental music. It is difficult to imagine what they can do with any kind of music so long as they confine themselves to Rouse's version of the Psalms.

—The General Conference of Connecticut Congregational Churches convened at Hartford on the 9th inst. A large share of the time of the Conference was devoted to the discussion of Sunday observance, Sunday papers, and Sunday railway trains.

—In the late Synod of the Presbyterian Church at Alleghany, Pa., Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, of Philadelphia, presented resolutions stating that the gradual departure from orthodox beliefs was alarming in its extent, and calling upon the ministers to exercise vigilance and oppose the spread of any false theology.

—At a recent Sunday-school Institute in New York City, the subject of one address was "The New Testament Rooted in the Old." This is a profitable theme, and one that Sunday-schools everywhere would do well to consider. This is especially true in reference to those who have become tinctured with antinomianism.

—A Boston paper states that last year there were in that city over 11,000 births. Of this number over 7,000 were Catholics. Commenting upon this fact, a Catholic paper says: "A steady annual growth of seven in eleven, independent of the gain by immigration, will in the course of one generation make Boston the most distinctly Celtic city in the world." The truth is that the United States is rapidly becoming a Roman Catholic country.

—The Catholic Union and Times of October 21, is authority for the statement that "at Savannah, Ga., the Catholic schools have become part of the public school system. They have the benefit of the public funds; their teachers are elected by the County Board of Education, but must be practical Catholics; Catholic text-books are used, and catechism is taught without trenching upon the hours devoted to study by the regulations of the Board." Rome is opposed to public schools only when she cannot control them; allow Catholics to furnish the teachers and the text-books while the State pays the bills and even a Jesuit is a friend of free schools.

—The second "Bible and Prophetic Conference" held in this country, convened in Chicago on the 16th inst., and remained in session till the 21st. The promoters of the Conference are pre-millennialists. They believe that the second advent is imminent, and that when Christ comes he will reign in person upon the earth for a thousand years, during which time all the world will be converted. They are members of the several so-called orthodox denominations; and aside from their belief in the literal and personal appearing of the Saviour at the beginning of the thousand years of Rev. 20, they have little if any more truth than the great mass of professed Christians of to-day.