News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 2, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 37.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—It is reported that "General" Booth is coming to this country to look after the interests of the Salvation Army.

—A midnight mission has been started in Chicago in order to reach the class of people who are to be seen on the streets only after respectable people have gone to bed.

—The Tennessee Baptist says that there are 381 ordained Baptist preachers in that State who are without pastorates, because they are disqualified by lack of education to be acceptable to churches.

—The Rev. Dr. Pressense, of Paris, does not hesitate to ascribe the wild panic that seized upon the people of Toulon at the outbreak of the cholera, to the recent progress of materialism and the decay of faith in God.

—In the "prelude" to his discourse on a recent Sunday evening, Dr. McLean, of this city, said: "There are a few stores in our city which insist in doing business on Sunday. I believe that all such stores should be noted and avoided."

—So respectable a journal as the North American Review prints such stuff as this from the pen of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: "It was at a Jewish polygamous wedding that Jesus performed his first miracle, and polygamy was practiced by Christians for centuries."

—For the last thirty-four years, the Bible Societies of England and America have printed over 10,000 copies of the Bible for each business day. At an outlay of about $65,000,000, over 145,000,000 copies of the Scriptures have been published by these two societies since their formation in 1804 and 1816.

—We are pleased to see in a brief Chronicle report of the recent Methodist Conference in California the following item: "One man was refused admittance to the conference because it was not certain that he had abandoned the use of tobacco." If now they would go a step farther and refuse to admit a man into the church unless he abandoned tobacco, their record on that score would be about perfect.

—In the course of an answer to the question, "When and by whose authority was obedience to the fourth commandment changed from the seventh to the first day of the week?" the Christian Union of Sept. 11 says: "The day was not changed by any ecclesiastical authority from the seventh to the first; the change was a gradual one. In the early church for a time the seventh day was observed as the Sabbath, and the first day as the celebration of the resurrection."

—A telegram from London, concerning the cholera plague, says: "There has been an enormous revival of religious sentiment in Naples, and the shrines which were walled up by Garibaldi in 1860 have all been opened, and the whitewash scraped off the holy pictures. Crowds, wild with joy, watch the work and hail with shouts each restoration. The processions are continued in the poorer streets chiefly by women. The churches are thronged, and street altars are being erected. The police do not dare to interfere with the altars. The most extravagant stories of miracles worked are received with credulity by the populace."

—The following from the Holiness Evangelist sounds as though it was written to rebuke some of its own patrons, who claim that they have received a special revelation from the Lord, telling them that they need not keep his law: "If God intended to give a revelation to each individual soul directly, he would not have given us a Bible; and there would have been no way of telling what was truth, and what error, for each one would claim to have his ideas from God. But since God has given us all one revelation of infallible truth in his word, we can all test any special revelations God may give relating to things not made clear, and see if they accord with the Bible."

—Archbishop Gibbons denies the charge that Catholics neglect the Bible, and says that the students of the seminary in which he studied were "so familiar" with the Bible that "many of them, on listening to a few verses, could tell from what portion of the Scriptures you were reading." This he seems to regard as a great achievement, even for those who were studying for the priesthood. We will undertake to find hundreds of lay members of Protestant churches who can do that; and the archbishop would have a task to find a Catholic who would know anything of the Bible, except what his catechism contains. If the priests understood the Bible, then their guilt for neglecting to teach it is increased tenfold.

—"Rev." Dr. Jackson, of San Francisco, preached a sermon a few Sundays ago on "Atheism." On the text, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God," he said, "The world has known but few staunch atheists, and they were not fools. I allude to such illustrious characters as John Tyndall, John Stuart Mill, and Harriet Martineau, who are world-renowned for their learning and intelligence." Of course, according to the "Rev. Dr.," if they are "world-renowned," for wisdom, God would not dare to reverse the decision. We have yet to learn, however, that God will go to the pages of history, when he makes up his estimate of characters however great. Concerning the atheist, the preacher said, "We may say that he is in error, and pity him, but man is none the worse morally for being an atheist." Of course a man who does not believe in God, will not be bound by any of his laws, and, therefore, according to the above teaching, a man is none the worse morally whatever sin he may commit. This is in perfect harmony with Spiritualist doctrine, to which a large portion of the professedly religious world is fast drifting.