p. 766 | News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 17, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 48.

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News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—A convention of believers in the faith-cure was recently held in Pittsburgh, Pa.

—There are 15,000 people living in polygamy in Utah and the bordering Territories.

—The Virginia Presbyterian Synod has indorsed the theory of evolution, as being in harmony with the Scriptures.

—English colporters in Persia find that Bibles in the Persian language are well received. Even the Mohammedans welcome them.

—Forty-four lady physicians have gone to Asia as Protestant missionaries during the last fifteen years; and their medical skill has opened the way for effective preaching of the gospel.

—A gentleman of Leeds, England, who has done much to promote missions in Africa, has offered $25,000 to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions if it will promptly found a new mission to the Wamasai and Wakuafe tribes in Central Africa. If his offer is accepted, he will open a road from the Zanzibar coast to Victoria Nyanzi.

—The new opera, the Mikado, has been performed in several churches in Western New York, with results that have caused some uneasiness. An essential part of the play is a comic wedding; and its introduction into the churches has led to several mock Japanese marriages, which it is feared may prove not to be "mock" marriages after all.

—A man has just been received into a Brussels hospital whose foot has been hurt by excessive walking; and he turns out to be a professional pilgrim, that is, one who goes on pilgrimages to shrines for devout Roman Catholics who wish to go themselves, but are too busy and can afford to hire substitutes. The Congregationalist thinks that the pilgrimage business is "looking up."

—It is said that in Ecuador there is a church for every one hundred and fifty inhabitants, and ten per cent. of the population are priests, monks, or nuns. Two hundred and seventy-two days are observed either as feast or fast days, one-fourth of all the property belongs to the church, and the priests control the Government in all its branches. Following these statements, it is easy to believe that seventy-five per cent. of the people can neither read nor write.

—There are more than forty thousand Bohemians in Chicago, who are intensely infidel in their sentiments. Several Bohemian papers are printed, and in one of the ablest the most blasphemous representations of the Bible are published weekly. During the year two free-thinking churches have been formed. They have a clannish feeling, a conviction that they have not been received as a welcome addition to the population, that makes missionary work among them very difficult.

—Bishop Ireland recently said of the decrees passed at the Plenary Council held in Baltimore a year ago, which have just been returned from Rome with the pope's sanction and amendments: "The purport of these decrees is that the Sunday laws must be observed by Catholics. They also insist that Catholics shall desist from the liquor traffic. The great restrictions are placed upon the drinking of liquor; and even its use at church fairs and picnics, or any celebration except that in which the church is directly concerned, is forbidden." Some of the leading religious journals welcome this new ally for the temperance and Sunday movement. They seem to forget, or to entirely ignore, the past record of that church. But has the leopard changed his spots? If any believe this, let them read the pope's encyclical, which has just been published. They will find that he there affirms the very principles that guided the church in the Dark Ages.