News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 25, 1886

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The educated native young men of Calcutta have started two papers in the interests of moral and social purity.

—An American missionary in Japan recently preached in a Buddhist temple, on the invitation of the Buddhist priest himself.

—It has been decided in the Court of Appeals at Amiens, France, that Catholic priests may marry. But the pope has not yet given his consent.

—It has been decided in the Brooklyn courts that the giving of "sacred concerts" on Sunday, in theaters or elsewhere, is not a violation of law.

—The Christian Union states that in several parts of Russia the practice of sacrificing animals as a part of public worship is still maintained.

—Of the 160,000 Poles whom Prince Bismarck is engaged in driving out of Germany, nearly one-half are Jews, and a considerable portion are Catholics.

—The North India Methodist Conference reports a native Christian community numbering 8,045. Of the converts last year, 27 were Mohammedans and 744 Hindoos.

—Of the 758 prisoners received at Joliet, Ill., last year, 209 said they were Roman Catholics by preference, and 522 had no religious preferences and had received no religious training. This is a forcible commentary on the duty of giving the youth moral and religious instruction.

—The Bible has been banished from the Government schools in Holland. But the people, at an annual cost of 3,000,000 francs, support a system of free schools in which Bible instruction is given. There are 424 of these free schools, which are attended by 70,000 children; and the beneficial influence is felt throughout the country.

—The Occident, a Jewish paper of Chicago, urges the substitution of Sunday for Saturday as the Sabbath. The time-honored Sabbath of the Bible has been almost entirely surrendered to the demands of business, and at present the majority of the Jews recognize no Sabbath whatever. The Advance thinks the proposed change would render "appreciable aid" to the Sunday cause.

—Joseph Cook calls the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Congregational churches "the five fingers of the evangelical hand." "We think in one way," he says, "on fundamental questions of theology. Let us maintain evangelical unity. Let us have no war between these fingers." Another evidence of the tendency among the churches to ignore doctrinal differences and unite on common ground.

—A letter from Japan states that Buddhism is "breaking down much faster than Christianity can take possession of the wrecks." While Buddhism is losing its hold on the people in its ancient home, the following news item in a recent number of the San Francisco Chronicle reads strangely: "Madame Blavatsky's theosophical society is to be revived in New York, and greater efforts will be made to spread the religion of Buddha."

—Dr. John Fulton, one of the ablest ministers of the Episcopal Church, has noticed an "unpleasant ecclesiastical case" which leads him to make the following sensible remarks: "From the days of Caiaphas until now, I must confess that priestly tribunals have often failed of the justice which is rendered in the courts of Cæsar. Pilate had at least the grace to say, 'I find no fault in this man.' It was the high priest who coldly found it 'expedient that this man should die,' whether innocent or guilty." Yet there is a large class in our country who determinedly ignore the testimony of the ages to the intolerance and bigotry of priestly rule.

—A movement is on foot in Scotland looking to the union of the three great Scotch Presbyterian bodies, the Established Kirk, the Free Presbyterians, and the United Presbyterians. Disestablishment in Scotland is now considered certain; and when it is secured, there will be no further need of separation. In this country the subject of union is much discussed. Just now, the Congregationalists and Free Baptists are considering the propriety of uniting their destinies; or, failing in that, the Free Baptists and "Christians" might form a union. The Independent comments: "We trust America and Great Britain will engage in a holy rivalry to see which can do most to unite the divided body of Christ."

—In a recent lecture Joseph Cook said: "The undermining of the evangelical denominations by bringing into their membership persons who profess in public one creed, and hold in private another, is perhaps the chief peril of the evangelical world in the great cities at the present hour." In other words, hypocrisy is destroying the vitality of the churches. If that is the case now, how much more will it be the case when a premium is put upon hypocrisy, by making church membership a prerequisite to political advancement?