p. 350 | News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 10, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 22.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—Seventeen students of Yale Theological Seminary have pledged themselves to go as foreign missionaries.

—The number of Buddhists in the world is estimated at nearly five hundred million—one-third of the earth's population.

—A traveler who has seen all portions of the Western continent says that Brazil is the most irreligious country he has ever seen.

—After studying for six years at Stockholm, a nephew of Cetewayo, the late Zulu king, is about to return to his own country, and to establish a mission among the Zulus.

—The Augusta (Georgia) Presbytery has refused to prefer charges against Rev. Mr. Woodrow, the theological professor who teaches that man is evolved from the lower orders of animals.

—The Western Churchman says: "If the ancient practice of tithing were again resumed by Christian people, there can be no doubt that the treasuries of God would be full, where they are now empty."

—Sam Jones says: "If any man says only immersion is baptism, tell him I say he is a liar." This will no doubt be conclusive with those who esteem ranting more highly than they do Bible argument.

—The Southern Methodist General Conference, which was recently in session, adopted a resolution to appoint a commission of seven, to confer with a like commission which the General Conference of the M. E. Church was requested to appoint, for the purpose of devising a plan for the union of the two bodies. Four new bishops were elected.

—The following from the S. S. Times is well put: "As a rule, the narrower a man's views on religious questions, the more likely he is to call himself 'liberal.' Commonly the man who insists on that designation for himself is one whose belief is narrowed down to a vagueness of opinion on every point. The only thing that he is sure of is that everybody who believes more than he does is bigoted."

—Says the New York Christian Advocate: "The tendencies of card-playing are well shown in the growth of the disposition to play for wagers among ladies of a high social position in an aristocratic quarter of Boston. The pointed allusions to gambling in polite society, made on a recent Sunday by a prominent minister of that city, suffused with blushes the faces of the fair transgressors—their guilty consciences bringing this confession to their countenances." That it should be necessary in a congregation of church members to denounce card-playing, is a sad evidence of degeneracy in church discipline.

—"The thinking of the reformers, from Wycliffe down, and their faith had to be maintained in scattered bands against the consolidated learning, authority, and piety of forty generations, against the influence of the most glorious temples, of famous monasteries, and of ten thousand churches, radiant with all the arts of centuries, and alive with the memories of saints and scholars departed, whose sanctity glowed over their shrines." The religious papers quote the above extract with approval, and yet in spite of its testimony to the effect that all reforms have been carried on only against the opposition of "the church," they will still argue for Sunday on the sole ground that "the church" authorizes it.