News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 14, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 2.

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News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—There are twenty-six missionary vessels operating in connection with the various mission stations of the world.

—Workers in shops and industrial establishments in Russia are instigating a movement in favor of Sunday rest.

—The Baltimore Catholic Mirror estimates the colored Catholic population of the United States at 100,000.

—The recently completed Cathedral of Moscow, designed to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon I, cost $10,000,000, and was fifty years in building.

—A missionary in Western India, aided by the American Tract Society, has prepared and published a beautifully illustrated Bible Dictionary in the native language.

—It is not quite twenty-five years since a Protestant sermon was preached in Mexico for the first time. Now, there are ninety-eight ordained ministers, representing five different denominations, at work in that country.

—In defiance of the law, five young girls were recently initiated as nuns in the Hospital San Giovanni, in Rome. One of them, a girl of fifteen, of uncommon beauty, fainted during the ceremony. The populace suspected compulsion, and a riot was with difficulty averted.

—The ladies of the Methodist Woman's Missionary Society in India have started a newspaper designed especially for the zenana ladies. It is issued fortnightly from their press in Lucknow in the Urdi and Hindi languages, and it is proposed to start a similar paper in Calcutta in the Bengali language.

—The triumph of the British forces in Burmah opens Upper Burmah, with its 4,000,000 people, to the free entrance of the gospel, as well as to Western trade. And missionaries, with the Bible which they have translated, a Christian literature, and earnest native helpers, are ready to begin their labors without delay.

—Thirty-nine French priests, who recently presumed to dictate to the people under their spiritual charge how they should vote, were deprived of their Government stipends for interference in political matters. The Bishop of Pamiers remonstrated with M. Goblet, the Minister of Public Instruction and Ecclesiastical Affairs, but to no purpose. The Minister stated that while he would uphold the church, he would "exact from the clergy the same obedience that was exacted from other State-paid officials." His course was approved in the Chamber of Deputies by a vote of 331 to 167. Thereupon it was resolved that M. Goblet's speech and the result of the vote should be printed and placarded throughout the country.

—There are three Protestant colleges in the Turkish Empire,—Robert College in Constantinople, the Syrian Protestant College near Beyrout, and another college at Aintab. Each of these is in successful operation. There is also a theological seminary at Marsovan, which, since 1867, has sent out eighty graduates into the mission field. Last spring the Protestant community of Marsovan petitioned the American Board to elevate this school to the "position and work of a college," and accompanied their petition with a pledge of over $3,000 toward the expense. The missionaries are greatly encouraged by the "readiness manifested by the people to put their sons under strong Protestant influence for the sake of an education."