News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 4, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 46.

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News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The colored Baptists of Kentucky report 45,000 communicants out of a population of 172,000.

—It is stated that there are negotiations pending for a union of the Waldenses and the Free Church of Italy.

—The Seventh-day Baptists begin this month the publication of a four-page monthly in the Scandinavian language.

—The California Christian Advocate, in its last issue, contained a telegram announcing the death of Bishop Wiley, at Foochoo, China. No particulars were given.

—An English clergyman, Rev. Dr. Jessup, writing in the North American Review, calls religious papers "necessary evils;" the Independent retorts by calling him an "unnecessary evil."

—Before the year 1845 no denomination, either Christian or Jewish, was tolerated in Norway, except the established Lutheran Church. All denominations are now tolerated, but the law forbids any persons who have been confirmed in the State church to leave it before they have attained the age of nineteen years.

—It is said that the Massachusetts State Congregational Sunday-school Convention has resolved to abandon the Old Testament in the Sunday-schools and retain the New Testament. We hope that this is not true; but we do not wonder that they want to change from the International Series. It would be a difficult matter for anybody to devise a poorer series, and the demand for a change is increasing. It is, indeed, the very opposite of a series.

—The pastor of the Baptist Church in Alameda, Cal., has been giving a series of Sunday evening lectures on Spiritualism. The subject of one was, "The False and the True in Spiritualism," which is said to have attracted a full house. The pastor, it is said, "advocates Spiritualism as a science, but condemns it as a religion." We recall the fable of the camel who wished only to put his nose into his master's tent. Our Baptist friend will find that Spiritualism is a dangerous plaything. Better shun it as you would its author—the devil.

—The following from the Church Standard is worth committing to memory: "Let parents beware what they say about the sermon or the preacher before their children, in whose hearts the word of God may be seeking a lodgment. Why pray in the morning for the conversion of sinners, and then, by cold criticism of the sermon, neutralize the very means by which it pleases God to save? Thoughtless comments at the dinner table will do this far more effectually than all the profanity the children hear as they pass the drinking saloons on their way to school."

—Professor Andrew P. Peabody says in the Unitarian Review: "If professed Parsees, Buddhists, or Mohammedans, should ask a place on our list of preachers, room would be made for them at once and pulpits thrown open to them." The good doctor adds: "If men have outgrown all need of Christ and of the sacraments, they ought to quit preaching; they have no rightful place in a Christian church." Still better he says: "No man was ever made better by arguments against the trinity, or the divinity of Christ, or the personality of the Holy Spirit, or the vicarious atonement. The entire motive power of religion lies in its positive beliefs in those few vast truths into which one may grow for a life-time."