News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 6, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 17.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—Chicago has an estimated Lutheran population of about 200,000, of which number 37,000 are communicant members.

—Bishop Foster says: “Unmistakably, the times are tumultuous, and the horizon all round looks lowering and tempestuous.”

—It is estimated that there are now 160,000,000 copies of the Bible in existence. This would allow one Bible to every nine persons.

—The meeting of the American Congress of Churches, for 1886, will be held in Cincinnati, May 25-27. Governor Foraker is to preside.

—A correspondent of the Religio-Philosophical Journal thinks there is no doubt that dogs sometimes not only see spirits but are influenced by them.

—An exchange says that the New York churches have appointed a committee of three, whose duty it shall be to prevent the desecration of Sunday. Those three men will have their hands full.

—In a single day in the city of Hartford, Conn., ten people were divorced. And the cause? Just ponder it, reader,—it was intemperance. And in one case it was the wife who was the drunkard.—Christian at Work.

—The churches have not gained much by Sam Jones’s meetings in Cincinnati. It is said that no more than fifteen members have been received into the Baptist Churches, and fifty is thought to be a large estimate for the Presbyterian Churches. But then Mr. Jones got well advertised.

—Pilgrimage in the Greek Church would seem to be conducted on sound commercial principles. The Very Rev. Archpriest Hatherly, who is about to make his third pilgrimage to Jerusalem, offers to procure water direct from the River Jordan at five shillings per bottle, payable in advance.—Christian Union.

—The Watchman says: “Where in all the deliverances of earth’s proudest philosophers shall you by searching find so much, so compressed, and yet so speaking truth as you can find in the few sentences that make up the sum of the ten commandments?” And then it very truly says of the Jews: “Whenever, and in just so far as, they discarded any part of this code of divine inculcation, they forsook the living Jehovah.” Then since God does not change, it necessarily follows that people who now forsake any part of the ten commandments, just to the same extent forsake God. God has not one standard of righteousness for Jews, and another for Christians.

—The N. Y. Observer says: “Some days ago, Father Deasy presented the pope with the Peter’s Pence from the diocese of Boston. Such offerings from this country are constant. Mr. Parnell is in receipt of thousands weekly from the Irish in America. There is no poverty or depression in business in these United States which prevents hundreds of thousands of dollars from being sent to the pope and Mr. Parnell.” So far as the money sent to Mr. Parnell is concerned, we have nothing to say. It may be profitably expended, which cannot be said of that sent to the pope. But we cannot help thinking what a howl is constantly going up from these same donors to the pope and Ireland, because the thrifty Chinaman sends his little wages to his native country.