p. 14 | News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 11, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 10.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—There are eleven Young Men's Christian Associations among the Dakota Indians.

—A movement is on foot among the Hebrews of this country to form an organization for the establishment of a Jewish theological seminary.

—The Moravians, with a membership in Europe and the United States of only about 20,000, maintain 82 mission stations, in which the number of native converts amounts to over 77,000.

—Beckx, formerly Superior General of the Jesuits, is now quite infirm, having reached the ripe age of 91. Two or three years ago he was succeeded in his influential office by a priest named Anderledy.

—The Woman's Christian Temperance Union is trying to arouse the women of all lands to influence their Governments to protect their homes by the total prohibition of the liquor traffic and the opium trade.

—Not less than 2,000 children, many of them Mohammedans and Hindoos, marched in procession at the anniversary of the Methodist Sunday-schools of Lucknow, India, December 29. Twenty-one schools were represented, each school having its banner. Over 1,000 prizes were given for regular attendance.

—The Examiner reports a case of religious persecution in Russia. Two Russian Baptists, who were accused by Russian priests because of their belief, were sentenced to death by the court. Their wives, children, and relatives also were arrested, and on expressing their determination not to yield their faith, were sent to prison.

—A Catholic journal, commenting on the fact that the vessel that carried Protestant missionaries to their field of labor, carried rum also as a part of its cargo, pronounces Protestantism a "sham at home, and worse than a fraud abroad." In reply, the Independent reminds the Catholic of the "monastery of St. Xavier and the convent of St. Vincent, with their monks and college at Latrobe, not very far from Pittsburg, and the Rt. Rev. Arch-Abbot Boniface Wimmer." "Does not the monastery own, and run an immense brewery," it asks, "which ships its beer all over the United States? The difference is that those missionaries hate the rum, while the monks make and drink and sell the beer."

—A correspondent of the Illustrated Christian Weekly says that the colporter of the American Bible Society stationed at Merida, Yucatan, although protected from serious harm by the civil authorities, has been made the victim of a series of exasperating persecutions instigated by the Catholic priests. He has been there since May last, and has distributed 16,000 tracts and sold 1,500 Bibles, either complete or in part. On the 15th of November, Protestant services were held in that city for the first time. In the audiences, and listening with reverent attention, were lawyers, doctors, State senators, and representative merchants, but not one woman. This fact is explained by the statement that "never was a priesthood more utterly demoralized than that which is found in the city of Merida. Never were the mothers and daughters of a great metropolis more completely swayed by priestly counsel and authority than in that city of 60,000 inhabitants."