p. 654 | RELIGIOUS by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 29, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 41.

RELIGIOUS.

By Editor

—Seven hundred Christians are said to have been massacred recently in Anam.

—Catholic missions are about to be permanently established among the Indians of Alaska, Archbishop Seghers being now on his way to that region with two missionary priests.

—John Morgan, a noted Mormon elder, is reported as asserting that there is a great demand for Mormon elders in the South, especially in Tennessee, and that 200 converts to the faith will start for Utah next month.

—Dr. Goodell thinks that there may be a harmonious church that is not up to the Bible standard, and illustrates his idea as follows: "Your pastor and people are thoroughly united, you say, United? Yes—all frozen solid together."

—When the pope can be called in to arbitrate in such a matter as the dispute over the Carolines, between Spain and Germany, who shall say that there is no longer any danger from the papacy? The truth is, the pope is a very important factor, not only in Europe, but also in American politics, but is well pleased to have Protestants blind to his character and power. Protestant indifference and credulity are a great aid to papal schemes.

—Cardinal McCloskey died October 10, at his home in New York. As in the case of Pius IX., Protestants have been profuse in their expressions of respect and admiration for this Catholic dignitary. The Catholic Standard boasts: "Prayers for the dying cardinal and archbishop are offered up at a meeting of Protestant ministers, and his life-work and character are eulogized, and held up as a model, in Protestant pulpits on the Sunday following his death." The cardinal is to be succeeded by Archbishop Corrigan, who has administered the affairs of the diocese for several years.

—Four hundred thousand people in Boston. Three hundred thousand who are not habitual attendants at church worship. A large part of these who never cross church thresholds at all. That is the story "Plymouth Rock" tells. It is a true story. Prof. John L. Sullivan, short-haired rumseller and prize-ring ruffian, lives in Boston. Religiously he is doubtless in accord with the great majority. A little more religion, if at the expense of a little less belles-lettres and even a diminution of prize-fighting—would it do the city of the Puritans any harm?—Christian at Work.

—October 11 was the semi-centennial anniversary of the introduction of the gospel into the Fiji Islands. Fifty years ago, no portion of the South Sea Archipelago was sunk in deeper debasement. The very name Fiji was a synonym for cannibalism and everything that was inhuman and brutal in the most degraded savages. In all these islands nothing was so cheap as human life. Two-thirds of the children were killed as soon as they were born. Killing the sick to get rid of the trouble of taking care of them, and aged parents to avoid the helplessness attending second childhood, ranked as social institutions, and he would have been a brave man who disregarded either practice. Polygamy was universal, and women held a most degraded position. Of all dark places of the earth, Fiji seems to have been darkest. But all this is changed now. There are nine hundred Wesleyan churches in these islands; their services are crowded with devout congregations, the schools are well attended, and the first sound that greets the ears at dawn and the last at night, is that of worship from each dwelling at the hour of prayer.