News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 13, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 18.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—There are now thirty-one women in the Universalist ministry. Six of these have churches in Illinois.

—The church at Bryan Station, Ky., has had but two pastors, a father and son, in the 100 years of its existence.

—The latest Year-book of the National Church of Italy, the Waldensian, shows that the church numbers 15,000 communicants.

—It is stated that forty students of Cambridge University, England, and a large number from Oxford, are planning to go out as foreign missionaries.

—Two thousand children, nearly all of Hindoo and Mohammedan parentage, marched, not long since, in the annual Sunday-school procession at Lucknow, India.

—The very effort that is made to-day by the church for more civil recognition, is to us prima facie evidence that she needs herself to be reformed worse than the State.—Rev. Wm. Ballentine.

—At the celebration of the thirty-eighth anniversary of modern Spiritualism, in San Diego, Cal., among the floral decorations was the "Gates Ajar," made of smilax and marguerites, the gift of a "Methodist lady."

—During the past year there have been nine new periodicals started in foreign countries, in the interest of modern Spiritualism. The total number of Spiritualist journals now published in foreign lands is ninety-one.

—Monsignor Capel says that "the American people do not know the meaning of the word reverence." "You revere nothing," he says; "you are inclined to turn to ridicule the most solemn traditions and most sacred observances." Altogether too true. The third commandment is thus almost universally violated.

—The General Baptist Association of California, at its annual session held last week in San Francisco, adopted the following by unanimous vote: "We commend to our churches a hearty sympathy and support of the Chinese missionary work; we deprecate the unchristian spirit toward our Chinese population manifested by so many of the people of this State; the existence of this spirit should all the more prompt us to the exercise of the Spirit of Christ in seeking the salvation of the souls of the heathen among us."

—At the last regular weekly meeting of the Methodist ministers of San Francisco, Dr. Buchanan said: "We Methodists are just closing our year of jubilee. We have rejoiced greatly in our millions of members and our wealth. We have been greatly elated with our selfish material gains. But are the foundations so sure as we supposed? Is it so sure that the scarlet thread of pride and selfishness may not be weaving itself noiselessly into our very being? that an enemy may not be sowing tares in our church's life? Who knows?"

—Mr. Osborne, the Episcopal "missioner," speaking in Trinity Church, New York, said that the bottom of the present labor difficulties is selfishness. Selfishness, he insisted, is to-day the canker of society, and of individual life in all its ramifications. It has, he said, its manifestations in cruel indifference to the well-being of one's fellows. This is in harmony with the words of the apostle Paul: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves." The present labor troubles, serious as they are, are but the prelude to greater troubles that are coming on the earth in consequence of the selfishness of mankind.

—In a pamphlet published in 1874, in opposition to the assumptions of the so-called "National Reform" Party, Rev. Wm. Ballentine wrote the following true words: "We take it as a fundamental principle laid down in the Scriptures, and corroborated by history in all ages, that the church of Jesus Christ, in a state of reformation, receiving the smiles of his approbation, has never sought for civil establishment. It is only when pride, ambition, and an inordinate love of popularity, have become predominant in the hearts of her leaders; or when latitudinarianism and indifference to the truth of God prevail, that the church, becoming as useless as the vine that has fallen from its trellis and become unfruitful, seeks to be sustained by the secular arm, and fondled on the knee of civil power."