News and Notes | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 17, 1890

News and Notes.

RELIGIOUS.

—Hon. Samuel J. Randall, now recognized as the "Father of the House," by virtue of his long-continuous service in Congress, has recently united with the Metropolitan Presbyterian Church in Washington.

—The question as to whether one who uses tobacco should be admitted to the ministry or eldership is agitating the United Presbyterian Church, and it is expected that it will be an issue in the next General Assembly.

—The Episcopalians of Southern California, comprising about one-third of the communicants of the State, refuse to acquiesce in the election of Rev. Dr. Nichols, of Philadelphia, as assistant bishop of the diocese. They were not present at the convention held in San Francisco for the purpose of the election, having protested against holding it at such an inconvenient season. It is claimed that the protest was harshly disregarded.

—A religious row occurred in Buffalo, N. Y., on the second inst. An objectionable priest had been appointed over one of the parish churches by the bishop. The parishioners declared that he should not preach. He, however, went to the church in a carriage, escorted by the police, and two thousand women opposed his entrance. A fight ensued, and the priest was glad to get away, even with his surplice badly damaged.

—On the 2d inst., Bishop Vladimir, of the Greco-Russian Church, San Francisco, went through the ceremony of excommunicating a member named Nicholas Russell. The offense was disobedience for three years of the church law requiring each member to receive the holy sacrament at least once a year. Like the Roman Church, the excommunication curse extends to the next world. The bishop has since been suspended, by orders from St. Petersburg, on charges of immoral conduct.

—The Toledo Blade, one of the papers which publishes Dr. Talmage's sermons, explains that none of them have been cabled. They were all prepared by him before he left home, and left to be distributed weekly to the papers. The heading, "specially cabled," and the introductory statement before each one, which have appeared in some of the papers, were probably supplied in the various offices. Some of them, as the one credited to Mars' Hill, were never delivered at all.—Congregationalist.