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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 13, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 43.

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News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

-The total membership of the African Methodist Episcopal Church is 405,000.
-President Northrop, of Minnesota, thinks that the church has made a general movement in the direction of modified Universalism.
-The Moravians of Bethlehem, Pa., have decided that the Esquimaux of Alaska present greater obstacles to conversion than any other people.
-The pastor of the Methodist Church in Schwartzenpach, Saxony, and some of his people, were recently fined 160 marks for meeting to sing on a Sunday at the hour of service in the State church.
-The S. F. Post some days ago contained the following announcement: "'Rev.' Mr. Miln, the tragedian, opens at the Grand Opera House on the 10th." There is nothing that sticks to a man like a title.
-The rector of a certain London parish has not been seen within the limits of the parish within seven years. His income from the parish is $5,325 a year, while his duties are delegated to a curate at a salary of $700 a year.
-At the meeting of the Church Congress at Carlisle, Dr. Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham, said that the so-called "Teaching of the Apostles" "is to be accepted as the private venture of some one who desired to set forth his views on moral conduct and church order, believing them to represent the mind of the apostles."
-The Christian at Work says: "The cry is for open Protestant churches, six days in the week. When Protestantism holds that private prayers in a church building are more efficacious than prayers at home, we will speak to the sexton and have the doors kept open." In addition, it suggests that those who are so anxious to have the church kept open to pray in, look after the family altar.
-The Christian at Work asks, "Was all wisdom interred with King Solomon in his sepulcher 3,842 years ago?" Well, now, we would like to hear its answer to its own question. Our answer would be that all the wisdom which Solomon communicated to others survived him, but that his own wisdom perished when his thoughts perished. More than that, Solomon's great-grandfather wasn't born 3,842 years ago.
-The Congregationalist, commenting on the loose manner in which Sunday is observed by professed Christians, says: "The superintendent of a Sunday-school in a thriving village, and a devout leader in the prayer-meetings of the church, is the proprietor of a provision store. He opens his store on Sundays as on other days, and, when business is brisk, he takes his young clerk from the Bible-class to drive the meat wagon."
-An Eastern college president says that he was recently conversing with a "conscientious" Episcopalian, a communicant, and a regular attendant at church, who was not aware of the existence of the Thirty-nine Articles, a copy of which was, of course, in his own prayer-book. This is a fair sample of the amount of knowledge that the majority of people possess concerning their own church. The number of people who belong to a church because of an intelligent belief of its doctrines, is very small.
-A correspondent of an Episcopalian paper is shocked at the "irreverence" of speaking of the apostles as simply "Paul," "John," etc., prefixing no title. But why put handles to the names of the apostles any more than to those of the patriarchs, like Abraham and Adam, who were even more venerable? And would profounder respect be shown by saying Professor Socrates, General Cæsar, etc? Is it unduly "familiar" to speak of "Charlemagne," "Washington," etc., without using any title?*—Independent.
-The Indian Witness says that the purely native Roman Catholics of India are "not better than the heathen around them," and adds: "The rich are like the rich Hindus, and the poor are like the poor Hindus. Their religion is gross superstition and idolatry. Christianity has not added a spark to their intelligence or respectability. They are closely on a par with Hindus of the corresponding classes in education; and we never heard of any collector or commissioner remarking upon the paucity of crimes among them." This is just the state of things in other countries, where Catholicism bears away; and yet there are people so deluded as to call it a branch of the Christian church.
-At the Episcopal Church Congress at Detroit, there was a strong plea by many ministers for the establishment of the confessional. The Rev. Edward Osborne, of Boston, said that to him it was not a matter of consultation and advice; it was confession of individual sins, and absolution by the priest. He said that he knew by experience the value of the confessional. One reason urged for introducing it, was that nine out of ten who had left the church for Romanism, had gone because of a longing for the confessional. The theory seems to be that people must be kept from joining the Roman Catholic Church by giving them everything that that church offers. It is much like the man who set up a bar in his own house, so that his boys might not acquire the habit of going to the saloons.