p. 702 | News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 20, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 44.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The expenses of the Methodist General Conference at Philadelphia were over $50,000.

—The pope has created nine new cardinals. In his recent allocution he made the customary wail about "the painful position in which the head of the church is placed," and bemoaned the trial through which "the church" is now passing.

—The Arkansas Methodist evidently has lost faith in the coming of the millennium, in this generation, at any rate. It says: "Facts and figures demonstrate that the effort to bring the adult world to Christ is a failure." It might have added that the Bible demonstrates the same thing.

—This from the Congregationalist: "In describing a new theater, one of our daily contemporaries says: 'The trap-room extends underneath the whole stage, and eight feet below it.' That is about where—in our inexperience—we always supposed it was; only we thought it went down much lower."

—Another convention of the United Presbyterians is to be held to consider the "present state of the question of instrumental music in worship." The call regards the present state of the question, allowing the use of instruments, "as a chastisement from the Lord on the United Presbyterian Church."

—The Roman Propaganda is said to have in the field no less than 6,700 missionaries. Of these 1,000 are Capuchins, laboring in India and the islands of the Indian Ocean; 2,500 Franciscans, who are in Morocco and America; 300 Oblates in Jaffa, Natal, and Ceylon; 700 priests of the foreign mission in Malosia, Corea, and Tonquin; 1,500 Jesuits in British Guiana, Armenia, and Madagascar; 200 Lazarists in Persia, Abyssinia, and Kiang Su; 500 Dominicans in the Philippine Islands and elsewhere. It is claimed that 700 of these last year converted 20,000 pagans and baptized (sprinkled) 118,000 children.

—The Independent reports a case in England, in which a curate brought suit to recover pay for sermons that he had not preached because the people, after hearing a few of his sermons, had refused to listen to him during the remainder of his engagement. The court decided in his favor, holding that a sermon is a sermon, even though it is so ridiculous as to make the people laugh. On this verdict the Independent comments thus: "We are inclined to dissent from this ruling. Undoubtedly a sermon is a sermon, but a farrago of absurdities is not a sermon, even though it be headed with a text and delivered from the pulpit. And many a string of solemn platitudes, which make the people not laugh but yawn, might be counted out in settling a contract for good, serviceable sermons."

—Rev. Calvin E. Amaron, in his statement of doctrine, read before the council by whose advice he was installed pastor of a church in Lowell, Mass., said: "I have no sympathy with Universalism, because I find for it no foundation in God's word; I have sometimes wished I could make restorationism agree with divine revelation, but I cannot and therefore reject it also; and I have a perfect abhorrence for the degrading doctrine of conditional immortality." He has a "perfect abhorrence" for the doctrine of life only through Christ, yet he professes to honor Christ. It is quite evident that he mistakes his personal prejudices for knowledge of the Bible; but a strongly expressed belief in inherent immortality and hatred of conditional immortality would be sufficient to secure a recommendation to an infidel, from the average so-called orthodox council.

—The S. F. Post says: "The superintendents of the Congregational Church of the Northwest have made a spirited remonstrance against the 'incompetency' and 'lack of common sense' evinced by many ministers sent out to them from the colleges and theological seminaries of the East. Such men, they say, however 'liberally educated' and 'thoroughly good in character,' without common sense, are 'thoroughly good for nothing in the work of the ministry' there, and 'our duty to the churches compels us to set our faces against them.'" A Western Presbyterian paper rejoices to see this remonstrance, and says: "It is no kindness to let a good-natured, heavy, lumpy, sodden sort of fellow blunder through the course in theology because his dear, good mother consecrated him to the work before the world knew what a thick-witted fool her baby was. But the world finds it out, and even the Christian world is not so entirely sanctified that it is pleased with and thrives on ungrammatical nonsense."

SECULAR.

—The business portion of Palatka, Fla., was entirely destroyed by fire on the 9th inst.

—Rear Admiral Alexander Murray, of the U. S. Navy, died in Washington, D. C., on the 10th inst.

—Works of art valued at over $9,000,000 have been imported into this country from Paris since 1877.

—A severe shock of earthquake occurred at Cletherae, about twenty-five miles from Manchester, Eng., the 14th inst.

—The superintendent of the Mt. Pleasant (Iowa) city schools, a teacher in the public school, and two students were drowned near that place Nov. 10.

—In the gale of November 9, the British schooners Northern Light and Elsie collided off North Head, Catalina, Newfoundland. Both sunk immediately.

—The French Cabinet has agreed to forego the indemnity from China, and Minister Ferry has announced that peace negotiations with China have been almost concluded.

—The Washington monument is now 510 feet 10 inches high, five feet higher than any other structure in the world. It is the design to have it completed in time for dedication Feb. 22.

—Governor Tritle, of Arizona, in his annual report to the Secretary of the Interior, says that he fears violence unless the extended immigration of Mormons into the Territory is restrained by law.

—The delivery freight depot of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, at Louisville, Ky., was burned on the 10th, and seventy-five car loads of general freight were destroyed. Loss, $100,000.

—A. D. January, Deputy State Treasurer of California, has just confessed a theft of $40,000 from county funds that were deposited with him for safe keeping. A passion for gambling was what led to his ruin.

—A passenger train was wrecked near Hempstead, Tex., on the morning of the 14th, and ten people were instantly killed, and very many seriously injured. The disaster was caused by discharged employes, and thieves, who sought to wreck a freight train for the spoils.

—In spite of the spread of education, drunkenness is greatly on the increase in England, especially among women. Out of eighteen drunken persons brought before a London magistrate a few days ago, thirteen were women, and of 17,000 persons apprehended during the twelve months in Liverpool, 7,000 were women.

—There is a wood-pulp factory at Augusta, Ga., at which the expedition with which paper could be manufactured was recently demonstrated. A tree was cut in the forest at six o'clock in the morning, was made into pulp and then into paper at six o'clock in the evening, and distributed among the people as a newspaper by six o'clock the next morning.

—Scarcely 25 years ago the most powerful piece of artillery was a 98 pounder, throwing its projectile with a velocity of 1,600 feet per second. Now the weights of guns have been increased from five tons to 100 tons, the velocities from 1,600 feet to 20,000 feet per second, the energies from 1,000 foot-tons to over 52,000, and the projectiles from 68 pounds to 2,000 pounds.

—At the session of the Municipal Council of Paris, Nov. 10, a vote was passed appropriating 100,000 francs for the expenses incurred by the Sanitary Department in its measures for eradicating the cholera, and 50,000 francs for the relief of families suffering from the effects of the epidemic. The Government of Holland has established quarantine against France.

—A model of Eads' ship railway is now on exhibition in New York. It bears a ship nine feet in length. Captain Eads says that a syndicate of sixty of the wealthiest men in this country, representing more than enough capital to carry it through, are interested in it, and that it will be constructed and in successful operation long before vessels will pass through the Panama Canal.

—There have been serious riots in connection with the election in the Mexican States of Coahuila and Nueva Leon. At Saltillo five men were killed and robbed, and fifteen or twenty wounded. A number were also killed in Santa Catharina. In Sabinos, Hidalgo, a battle occurred between the Government soldiers and citizens. The District Judge was killed, while the Colonel commanding the troops, together with about twenty soldiers, are reported to have been killed. The towns are full of dead and wounded on both sides.

—A London dispatch of Nov. 15 says that evidence has been secured which shows that the supposed conspiracy to blow up the Niederwald Monument a year ago, was in reality an attempt to kill the Emperor William, the Crown Prince, Bismarck, and other notables who passed in the procession over which the mine was concealed. The same dispatch says: "Since the Reichstag elections in Germany, it has been ascertained that not less than 650,000 ballots were cast for socialist candidates. This remarkably large vote for a party which is not only in opposition, but which has hitherto been supposed to number only a handful of malicious malcontents in each town, has set the Government to thinking."