News and Notes | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 16, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 23.

News and Notes.

RELIGIOUS.

—The Protestants of Italy, it is said, have three hundred churches.

—It is stated that at a recent meeting of Congregational ministers, Dr. Barrows reported that there were 330 needless evangelical churches in Massachusetts, costing $330,000 a year.

—An effort is being made to bring about a union between the English Presbyterian Church and the Welsh Presbyterians. Exchanges of pulpits are now of frequent occurrence, and a fraternal feeling prevails on both sides.

—It is said that “a practical evil among the colored people of the South is the multitude of secret societies, many of them with Bible names, into which they are led, and which absorb their time, their thought, their religion, their money, and often their morals.”

—The Christian World, London, says that in England “intolerance dies hard. In many places Primitive Methodists suffer from the intolerant bearing of those whose spirit is opposed to the liberal modern legislation. The Education Act, the Burials Act, the Marriage Laws, and other Acts are so manipulated as to inflict injustice upon those whose social position leaves them largely at the mercy of local authorities.”

—The American Christian Review, an organ of the followers of Alexander Campbell, has been consolidated with another paper under the name of the Octographic Review. The reason given for the change of name is, “that the name ‘Christian’ ought not to be applied to any other object or subject than the being who was originally created in the image of God, and by faith and obedience has been renewed in the image of Christ.”

—It is stated by a correspondent of a London paper that one of the most learned and respected of Hungarian rabbis, Dr. J. Lichtenstein, who has been 35 years Rabbi of Tapio-Szele has lately startled his co-religionists by two pamphlets in which he affirms the divinity of Christ. The pamphlets, being very ably written, have been noticed by all the leading newspapers, and have raised much controversy; for Dr. Lichtenstein professes to remain obedient to the Mosaic dispensation while recognizing that Christ was the Messiah.

—The Methodist Recorder, speaking of kneeling in prayer, which used to be the universal custom among Methodists, says: “In the earlier days of her history, every member of the church at least observed the order of the church in this respect. Those days, however, have passed away, and now, in many Methodist congregations, but few, even of the members, are observed to bow before God in prayer. As if in the presence of an equal, or an inferior, they indifferently sit, and often do not even bow their heads, but gaze around them as if they had no interest in the solemn worship that is being offered to the Majesty of Heaven.”