Religious Miscellany by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Jul 29, 1875

Religious Miscellany.

By Editor

—The Foreign Mission Committee of the Southern Church closed the year with a debt of $15,000.

—A tribunal at Posen has sentenced the prince bishop, Dr. Forester of Breslau, to a fine of 2000 marks or 133 days' imprisonment for illegally excommunicating a priest.

—Twelve English and American societies represented by about a hundred missionaries, several of them women, have made a foothold in the principal Japanese cities.

—The silly mummery of "blessing bells" is still practiced by the Catholics even in this country. The last instance was at West Hoboken a few days ago.

—In all Germany the number of Old Catholics is placed at 47,737 persons, with 54 priests, 32 churches recognized as parishes, and nearly 150 societies. It is a weak movement which will amount to nothing.

—In Ireland, within the last few months, two hundred and forty-three parishes, two hundred and two priests, and two hundred and thirty-six thousand lay members have gone over from the Catholic to the Greek Church.

—The corner-stone of a Carmelite convent has been laid upon the Mount of Olives. The site was purchased for the purpose by Madam la Princesse de la Tour d'Auvergne, and is asserted to be the very spot where our Lord taught his apostles the Lord's prayer.

—Several clergymen in Manchester, Eng., have united in forming a "Whist Club," thereby justly creating a great scandal. A clerical "Whist Club!" Most people will think, we fancy, that they had better have formed an association for some very different object.

—The Presbyterians of Scotland have sent out a missionary party to Lake Nyassa, in Africa. The English Government also sympathizes with the enterprise, so far as to appoint a naval officer to head the expedition and superintend its establishment at the site selected.

—Conferences have been going on between Northern and Southern Presbyterians with reference to a restoration of fraternal relations. Committees from the General Assemblies exchanged views, failed to agree, reported to their respective bodies, and each Assembly approved the action of its own committee.

—San Francisco claims a population of 275,000 persons. There are about fifty-five places where the gospel is preached every Sunday. The Presbyterians have twelve churches, the colored people three, the Chinese three, and the Roman Catholics thirteen. It is estimated that there are twelve thousand regular church-goers, less than five per cent of the population.

—In the most Catholic nation of Spain, where there are nine archbishops, ninety-three bishops, one hundred thousand priests, fourteen thousand monks, and nineteen thousand nuns, out of a population of fifteen million, less than a million can read or write. And so it is in every country where Catholicism rules. This indicates what a curse it is to the world.

—The Chancellor of Lincoln, Eng., before whom a Wesleyan minister brought suit to establish his right to place the title of "Rev." before his name on the tombstone of his child, has decided against the plaintiff, on the ground that he is a preacher in a schismatic body which the Church of England does not recognize. Also a bill which gave nonconformist ministers the right to officiate at funerals of their own people in parish burial grounds, was recently defeated in parliament.

—The Examiner and Chronicle thus laments the covetousness of the churches:— "It is frightful to think of how many whole churches, having pastors to instruct and guide them, contribute absolutely nothing, from year to year, to a cause so pre-eminent in its claims and popular in its character as that of missions, at home and abroad. Scarcely less appalling is the fact that of the contributing churches, not more than a fourth of their members are represented in the yearly contributions."

—The Marquis of Cholmondeley has been preaching at St. George's Hall, and so has the Earl of Cavan, who is also assisting at the meetings of Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Lord Radstock has been preaching on Sunday evenings at Beresford chapel, Walworth. Lord Carrick is preaching at Castlecomer and other towns in Ireland, while a son of the Earl of Chichester has done the same in villages of Sussex, of which county his father is Lord Lieutenant. All these things tend to make religion popular and to take away the cross.

—That the Jews as a whole have almost entirely lost their fear of God and a love for his worship is evident. Commenting upon the facts that they have no place of worship at Long Branch where thousands of them go, the Jewish Messenger says:—

"If it was a question of betting on the races, or paying for a fancy dress ball at one of the hotels, the Israelites would not be backward in contributions; but as to paying for worship, or merely exerting themselves to have worship without pecuniary expense, they are singularly weak."

—The New York Tablet, a Catholic paper, says: "The great enemy of the pope in Germany is neither the Old Catholic party, who objects to him for conscientious reasons, nor the German Government, who regard him as a political adversary artfully disguised in a cassock or gown. The force the Vatican has really to fear in this country is the determined rationalism of the educated classes. This is an intellectual power as strong, at any rate at present, as the fervent belief of his immediate adherents, and as there is not much visible difference in this respect between Catholics and Protestants, the pope has no reason to look upon the failure of the Old Catholic reform as calculated to improve his prospects."

—The English preachers who have long depended upon the professional sermon-writers are coming to grief. The business of furnishing sermons became so extensive that bureaus were established who employed and paid the sermon-writers, and sold to the clergy such as they needed from a "large and choice stock constantly on hand." The criticisms and exposures of this business have had the effect to decide many of the preachers to abandon it and do their own sermon-writing. But now come the "bureaus" who threaten to expose any of their old customers who refuse to continue their subscriptions. The lithograph preachers denounce this as blackmail, and ask protection from the law; but it will not avail them. Honesty is the best policy.