News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 9, 1890

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 16, No. 22.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—Christians in the island of Crete complain of continued outrages by the Turks.

—The Presbyterian General Assembly, in session at Saratoga, favors the use of the Bible in the public schools.

—Rev. O. C. Wheeler, D.D., LL.D., the pioneer Baptist minister of California, is said to be almost blind from cataracts.

—The recent annual convention of Christian Scientists, held in New York City, was attended by about twelve hundred delegates. Reports were read from all parts of the country, showing a marvelous increase in the membership of the sect.

—The ex-priest, of Montreal, who recently assumed the role of prodigal son, renounced Protestantism and his home, and went back to "the best faith on earth," has returned to the bosom of his family, to the disgust of the archbishop.

—The Presbyterian General Assembly resolved to urge upon Congress the passage of the bill, now before the Senate, permitting the several States to prohibit or restrict the liquor traffic. Recent decisions of the Supreme Court are to the effect that a State cannot forbid or restrict the sale of anything brought in from another State, so long as the article remains in the original package.

—A German Catholic convention was recently held at Milwaukee to devise means for opposing the Bennett compulsory school law. Bishop Flasch upheld the right of the church to go into politics whenever its interests were attacked; and Bishop Katzer charged that the Bennett law was first suggested by the Masons, and was sustained by free-thinkers and others opposed to the Catholic Church.

—The Mormons are still importing converts from foreign lands to Utah. A party of missionaries recently arrived in San Francisco, bringing fourteen "neophytes" from New Zealand and Australia. Bishop King, in charge of Hawaiian missions, is shortly expected to bring home a party of native converts to the faith. In New York such immigrants are now frequently detained under the Contract Labor law, as most of the females are imported under pretense of being employed by persons in Utah. On the Pacific Coast, however, no effort has been made as yet to intercept them.

—A sensation occurred in a Jewish synagogue in Cleveland, Ohio, May 25, during the celebration of the Feast of Weeks. The preacher was Rabbi Werber, of Baltimore, editor of a Jewish journal, and there were about eight hundred persons in the audience. Manifest displeasure was shown by the audience as the speaker iterated sentiments not deemed orthodox, but they could no longer endure the heresy when he told them their ideas of the Messiah were ridiculous; that Christ had been on earth, and his second coming would be in the glare of a burning world. Pandemonium reigned, and Werber's friends had difficulty in protecting him from bodily harm until the police arrived and dispersed the congregation.