News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 18, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 44.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—An item of the last census of France, shows that 3,000,000 Frenchmen asserted that they had no religious opinions.

—There are about 300 Seventh-day Adventists in Russia. One brother has lain in prison over four months on account of his faith.

—A London dispatch says: "The clergymen of the Church of England who hold brewery stock as members of the Clergy Assurance Society, have been directed to sell out."

—Of a Seventh-day Adventist Church of thirty-five members, mostly Spanish, at Relizane, Algeria, Africa, fifteen have recently emigrated to the Argentine Republic, South America.

—President Harrison takes a five or six miles' walk every Sunday afternoon between 4 and 6 o'clock. This is the only day that he is able to get all the time to himself that he wants.

—A Methodist correspondent of the Interior (Presbyterian) says: "A most notable sign of the strong and growing tendency of Methodism, in the United States, toward Congregationalism, is found in the waning power and influence of her bishops."

—The Catholic Mirror says that the Spanish Government has sent to the civil governors of every province of the kingdom a circular on the subject of the movement for inducing the pope to reside in Spain, instructing the authorities to do everything in their power to discourage the project.

—Philip O'Neill has an article in the Catholic Mirror of September 14 on "Honor to the Papacy," in which is given the following bit of history: "Out of a population of 85,000 it was calculated that 50,000 perished during nine months that Rome was sacked and plundered by the Lutheran troops. The year was 1527."

—In the pope's allocution with reference to the erection of the Bruno statue, delivered June 30, he refers to "that absolute freedom of thought which is the fruitful mother of all bad doctrines." Again he says: "Seeing, then, the baseness of such deeds, inasmuch as the government of Christendom has been confided to us, together with the guardianship and defense of religion, we declare that Rome has been outraged."

—Rev. Dr. Horton, of the First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, goes back on the Westminster Confession of Faith. Of the doctrine that for the glory of God some men and angels are predestined to everlasting life and some to everlasting death, he is reported to have said in a recent sermon: "That may be logically true, but it is theologically false. I don't believe it; the Presbyterian Church as a mass never believed it."