p. 46 | News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 20, 1887

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—A Roman Catholic priest in Boston has sued his archbishop for slander.

—We read in the New York Observer of the Law and Order League of Newark, N. J., that it "is a terror to evil-doers; and Newark enjoys a Sunday of comparative quiet."

—Says the Christian Statesman: "Signs multiply that the Workingmen's party is to be a powerful factor in future political campaigns." That explains why the National Reformers are trying so hard to make it appear that their movement is in the interest of laboring men.

—A Spiritualist paper in San Francisco states that "hundreds of people, in this vicinity, are now investigating the phenomena of Spiritualism where ten took any interest in the subject one year ago. The cause is advancing with giant strides." That is probably true, but it is none the less true that Spiritualism is a Satanic delusion.

—The Christian Register says: "We cannot maintain the intellectual supremacy of Jesus against Plato or Aristotle, because the force of Jesus's life was not exerted in intellectual directions." That is to say that because Christ did not teach "philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world," it cannot be made to appear that he was intellectually the peer of heathen philosophers!

—In its issue of November 4, 1886, the Christian at Work stated that "the Sabbath was known to the Egyptians, and observed before the exodus;" but December 30, the same paper says: "The Egyptians might have had the week, . . . but there is no evidence of the fact." Will the Christian at Work explain how a people can have the Sabbath and yet know nothing of the week? And if it were true that there is no evidence that they had the week, pray how could there be any evidence that they had the Sabbath?

—The New York Independent says: "The days of creation were reckoned from morning to morning, contrary to the Jewish custom." How does the Independent know this? The Jewish custom was to reckon "from evening to evening;" and this was in exact harmony with the account of creation given in the first chapter of Genesis, where we read, "The evening and the morning were the first day." Six times in this account is the day described as "the evening and the morning;" that is, a definite period of darkness, followed by one of light constituted the day.

—Speaking of the trial of the professors who are accused of teaching heresy at Andover, a San Francisco paper remarks that such things "carry one's mind back to the dark days of the Inquisition." But really they should do no such thing. The idea that professors in theological seminaries, or for that matter in other institutions, should be allowed to teach any thing that caprice, or even their best judgment, may suggest is preposterous. If any professor cannot teach in accordance with the rules of the institution with which he is connected, he should make way for someone who can. Those who found and control colleges certainly have a right to say what shall be taught in them.