p. 14 | News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 20, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 19.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The Southern Baptist Convention was in session at Memphis, Tenn., the 11th inst.

—At the World's Quadrennial Conference of the United Brethren Church being held at York, Pa., the committee to whom was referred the matter of a new constitution and confession of faith reported affirmatively May 11.

—The Examiner (Baptist) mentions as noteworthy the fact that upon a recent Sunday two Hebrew weddings, at which there was dancing, were allowed in New York. It says: "The Sunday law was enforced according to the wide spirit of that law."

—It is thought about eighteen and a half million persons pursue the scheme of study laid down by the International Sunday-school Lesson Committee. That committee recently met at Saratoga for its nineteenth yearly session, and mapped out the work for 1891.

—Joseph Damien, a Catholic priest, died of leprosy, at Kalawao, Sandwich Islands, April 15. It is well known that the island of Molokai has been set apart by the Hawaiian Government as a leprosy hospital, where all who are in any way infected with the disease are sent. Once there, it is impossible to leave. And yet, in the full vigor of early manhood, Father Damien resolutely volunteered to take up his abode there in order to console and help the miserable outcasts in their affliction. Knowing that he was dooming himself to one of the most horrible of deaths, he shrank not at what he considered his duty. However much we may differ with him in faith, we are bound to recognize something peculiarly noble in the character of such a man.