News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Feb 4, 1886

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The Woman's Christian Temperance Union is credited with being instrumental in procuring laws in fourteen States in favor of compulsory education in the effects of alcoholic liquors on the drinkers.

—It is said that fifty Mormons have been convicted and punished under the polygamy law. The Mormons as a body would be glad of a revelation setting aside polygamy; but the leaders fear that the fraud would be too transparent.

—In Portland, Me., the roller-skating rinks have proved such an injury to the health and morals of young girls that the leading physicians and clergymen have united in petitioning the Mayor and City Council to revoke the licenses under which they are kept open.

—Twenty-five years ago there were no theological schools or students in China, and only four of the eighteen provinces were occupied with missionary posts. Now there are twenty schools with 260 students, and missionaries are at work in all the provinces but one.

—Some young ladies of Hartford, Conn., have formed a society which might well be copied in every city and village in the country. They call it the "Tongue Guard;" and each member pledges to pay a penny into its treasury every time she says anything against another person. The money thus raised is devoted to charitable purposes.

—The vicinity of Osaka, Japan, was recently visited by destructive floods; whole villages were swept away, and hundreds of lives lost. But the American missionaries were kindly cared for by the governor, who had them removed to a place of safety and provided with every comfort, and their houses carefully guarded, yet refused all compensation for his service.

—In a recent rebellion in Spain, the pope took sides with the Government, and assured Queen Christiana that he would help her as far as was consistent with the spiritual character of his office. The history of the past shows that the popes of Rome consider a great deal of interference in political matters not inconsistent with their office as spiritual head of the church. It will be remembered that the pope recently mediated between Germany and Spain in the matter of the Caroline Islands. Speaking of this fact in a recent consistory, he said that he was "gratified to act as a peace-maker between the nations." Is the pope feeling after temporal power? And are the nations willing to give it to him?

—The Catholic Review says that the public schools are unsafe for Catholic children, because the "predominant influence of those schools is a Protestant influence." "Even when a majority of the children, and, it may be, some of the teachers, are Catholic, the atmosphere is Protestant." So the Review would have Catholic schools, where the teachers will be free to give constant instruction in the catechism, and to introduce Catholic devotions and practices. James Freeman Clarke, D. D., is more liberal. At a recent meeting of the Unitarian Club in Boston, he declared that if he "had a child to be taught in matters of religion in the public schools, he would as willingly have it taught by a Roman Catholic or a Jew as by some Protestant teachers," and that "religious instruction should be wholly confined to the churches and the Sunday-schools of various denominations."