News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 24, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 49.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—New York is to have a new building for the Young Women’s Christian Association, which is to cost $150,000.

—The American Board is about sending a trained nurse to Japan, to establish a training-school for nurses at Kioto.

—The Indian school at Carlisle Barracks, Pa., which had 84 students in 1879, now has 494 students, from 38 different tribes, their ages ranging from seven to twenty-four years.

—San Francisco is to have a new and magnificent Catholic cathedral. Work on it has already commenced, and it is believed that the corner-stone will be laid in two or three months.

—The Osservatore Romano states, as the result of the estimates made by the various missionaries, that the total number of the members of the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world is between 275,000,000 and 300,000,000.

—The recently published annual report of the Women’s Christian Association of Hartford, Ct., states that during the last thirteen years nine hundred women have been entertained at the “Home” provided by this Association for the benefit of women, young women especially, who enter the city in search of work.

—A correspondent of the Religio-Philosophical Journal hits a weak point in the evangelical Christianity of the day when he says: “When great men die, theology gets genial and mild. It is a terrible strain on the creeds” to teach that “national heroes and great philanthropists who are not devotees of the church are lost in endless ruin.”

—General Gordon, whose death in the Soudan was universally lamented, is reported as saying to a Roman Catholic bishop: “Do not forget me in your prayers. Catholics and Protestants are but soldiers to different regiments of Christ’s army; but it is the same army, and we are all marching together.” This feeling is becoming more and more prevalent.

—In Eisenstadt, Germany, there is a community of Jews who have always been faithful in the observance of the Sabbath. Their “quarter” has always been closed on Sabbaths and holidays. Three years ago a Christian bought a house there, and as he protested against the gates being closed on Saturdays, the street was kept open. The man died recently; and the Jews promptly bought his house, and on the 17th of October again enjoyed a quiet Sabbath.

—The evils of the pew-renting system are forcibly expressed in the following from the Boston Transcript: “A gentleman prominent in one of our oldest churches, speaking of a possible change in the pastorate, said: ‘I think it a matter of buying up stock — excuse me, I mean pews. If Mr. —’s friends can buy up pews enough before the parish meeting, they will, of course, call him. If the other side gets the pews, why, Mr. —’s friends will be left. You laugh; but the control of a church is a good deal like the control of a bank or railroad nowadays. If you can buy up a majority of the pews, you can run it to suit yourself.’”