News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 8, 1885

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—A Gutenberg Bible was recently sold in London for $19,500.

—A church congress will be held in 1885 at Portsmouth, England.

—It is said that the singing of hymns is becoming quite common in the meetings of the Friends. This causes the older and stricter members of the society to mourn.

—The recently published minutes of the Maine Baptist State Convention shows a slight loss in membership, and a steady decrease of ministers. In six years there has been a loss of twenty per cent.

—The Independent has caught it, too. In its last issue it refers to the fact that a hotel that was in process of erection near the Exposition grounds, in New Orleans, "fell to the ground with an awful crash," and significantly adds that "it was on the Sabbath day," and that forty men were at work. We suppose it means that the accident happened on Sunday, but what that has to do with it is more than we can imagine.

—We fully agree with the Congregationalist that the following remark made by a pastor at the funeral of a distinguished parishioner, has an "odd sound." Said the pastor:

"I have been pleasantly intimate with him, and I can bear the warmest testimony to his goodness of heart and many social graces. What his theological predilections may have been—whether, for example, he believed in a personal God, in a divine revelation, or in a life after the present—I never knew—had no means of knowing!"

—Recent events go to show that the spirit of the Turkish Government has in no wise changed in its attitude towards Christians. A band of eight men, headed by their chief, recently attacked three Bulgarian shepherds. The Pall Mall Gazette says: "They bound them, cut off their ears and noses, and then, by order of Feyzo, tore the skin off their legs, arms, and necks, calling out to them as they lay the veins bare to 'bear witness before the prophet that we know how to shed Slav blood.' After this their eyes were put out, and they were cut to pieces."

—Hon. A. C. Barstow, of Providence, R. I., a prominent member of the Congregationalist Church, in a letter written a few months ago, concerning the practice of examining a minister every time he changes his field of labor, said:

"What some candidates lack in system in their theology, they more than make up in their vain philosophy. Expecting to be catechized, and fearing to be cornered in their philosophies, they make more preparation to defend what they only half believe, than they do to state clearly that of which they have no doubt."

If this be true, it does not indicate a revival of primitive Christianity. On the contrary, we may look for a philosophical religion, since ministers will very naturally preach that upon which they bestow the most preparation.