News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 9, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 47.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—The American Sabbath Union will hold its first anniversary in New York City, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, December 9, 10, and 11, inclusive.

—Rev. Dr. Grey, who is engaged in founding a Baptist theological seminary in Oakland, Cal., was chaplain of the U. S. Senate when Abraham Lincoln was killed, and officiated at the funeral.

—Rev. R. A. Torrey, pastor of the People's Church of Minneapolis, Minn., has accepted the invitation of Mr. Moody to take charge of the training-school for young men and women in Chicago, Ill.

—Rev. Father Gleason, of East Oakland, Cal., in a recent address, said that the reason why non-Catholics are not Catholics is on account of prejudice. They are reared in the belief that Catholics are misguided and benighted. But he is thankful this prejudice is not now so strong as formerly.

—The Catholic News has received a cablegram from Rome saying that the Pope has ordered that the personal and real property of all cardinals who leave no surviving relatives be bequeathed to the Propaganda. Those having relatives must make a generous provision in their wills for the same institution. These and all other funds devoted to the Propaganda will be invested in foreign countries. This is to prevent the seizure of the papal revenues by the Italian Government.

—The ultra Sunday advocates thought it very wicked to keep open the Paris exposition on Sunday; but Mr. Gladstone, a pillar in the Sunday cause, visited the great show in the evening, after attending church in the morning, and riding out in the Bois-de-Boulogne in the afternoon. According to American Sunday-law logic, it is very wrong not to have such places closed by law on the first day of the week, so that the great churchmen may be enabled to properly observe the day.

—The N. Y. Christian Advocate says: "The kingdoms of this world were established by force, and when men would extend their worldly kingdoms, the most effective means they can find for conquest is force. But the kingdom of God was established by love, and the most effective means of extending it among men is love. Conquests are made by Christ in no other way." But the Advocate will "advocate" the force of civil law to compel men to observe Sunday, in the name of Christ.

—"There never has been a time probably in the history of the church when the truth of Christ was more faithfully presented than it is by the pulpit today. It would be difficult to find among evangelical denominations, save in exceptional and rare instances, any real departure from the faith once delivered to the saints."—Christian at Work. And with all this assumption, there is just one point on which they can all co-operate, and that is the maintenance of the papal dogma of Sunday observance.

—The recent annual conference of Universalists, after much discussion in regard to a revision of their creed, adopted the following: "The Universalist Church reaffirms the position which it has held from the beginning, to wit: That it rests on, and believes in, the historical veracity of the New Testament records of the life and words and works of our Lord Jesus Christ." The New York Observer adds: "This is a creed which even Robert Ingersoll would find it possible to accept. It binds no one to accept Jesus Christ as divine."