News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 9, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 35.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—According to the Catholic Review, there are in the United States 7,762,108 Roman Catholics.

—The religious convictions of the inhabitants of the globe are divided between more than one thousand creeds.

—Twenty-one convicts in the State prison at San Quentin, Cal., were recently confirmed in the faith of the Episcopal Church.

—There are still 40,000 wild Indians in the United States—12,000 in government and mission schools, 28,000 to whom no school opens, no missionary goes.

—The Primitive Methodists in England have 4,232 Sunday-schools, 62,083 teachers, and 430,014 scholars, according to their last annual report just published.

—The "Pilgrim's Progress" is being translated into Amharic. This, for the benefit of the Abyssinians, will be the eighty-fourth language in which it has appeared.

—The sum of $53,145,420 has been expended in twelve of the Southern States since 1865 for the betterment of the colored people, religiously, intellectually, and otherwise.

—On account of the ministers of Waterbury, Conn., being away on vacation a short time ago, a protestant minister could not be obtained to perform a marriage ceremony in the entire city of 30,000 inhabitants.

—The archives of the Vatican which have been closed to inspection for so many years have at last been opened to the world. A large amount of valuable religious historical matter not hitherto known will, it is thought, be made public.

—The Icelandic Lutheran Church in America is an organization of Icelanders holding Lutheran doctrines and polity. The fifth Annual Conference of this body has just been held at Argyle, in Manitoba. The denomination has twenty-two congregations.

—According to the statistics of the United Presbyterian Church the average salary of its ministers is $998. The highest average attained was in 1875, when it was $1,012. In 1880 it was $896, since when it has been gradually rising. Last year it was $940.

—The hostility to evangelical work in Austria is growing more intense. The Roman Catholic archbishop has called a conference to consider the question, "What means shall the priests employ in the hope of resisting successfully the further progress of the Free Reformed churches and the Baptists?"