News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 16, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 48.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions has a debt of $150,000 on which it is paying interest.

—The greatest sale of any book per annum in Italy is said to be that of the holy Scriptures, without note or comment.

—According to the last Israelitish annual, the number of Jews in the world at present is but 6,300,000, of whom 5,400,000 are in Europe.

—The St. Louis Presbytery, in the trial of the Converse brothers, editors of the Christian Observer, has decided that a belief in evolution is not heretical.

—The tithe war in Wales has so impoverished some of the clergy that they have been compelled to ask for aid. Their appeal has been responded to by the Duke of Westminster, who sent them $2,500, and by four Welsh bishops, who each sent $500.

—November 23, the semi-annual conference of the Jewish Rabbis, after a lengthy discussion, appointed a special committee to draw up a petition to be presented to the fiftieth congress, urging upon that body the necessity of the establishment of a national marriage law.

—Archbishop Ryan, of Philadelphia, has announced that under the decrees of the Baltimore Plenary Council balls for charitable purposes are prohibited. This will give certain so-called Protestant denominations a monopoly of the ball business as a "means of grace."

—The Christian Statesman asks: "What influence are we [the United States] exerting in favor of national Christianity?" A very decided influence we should say; and that it is having its effect too is shown by the way the Papacy is tightening its grip upon the throats of the European countries.

—Says the Pacific Herald of Holiness: "I, I, I, self, self, self, are the parrot-like repetitions of poor, proud, egotistical, unrenewed human nature." We do not see how any one who knows anything about "Holiness" people can doubt this statement. Yes, there is no doubt the Herald knows just what it is talking about.

—Prince Bismarck is reported as saying that "the church and the empire need each other, and will stand or fail together. Therefore a cordial intent with the Vatican is our policy. Catholics alone are imperial and subjects of authority. All other sects are more or less tainted with Republican notions; and the time has come for conservatives to cling to each other."