p. 111 | News and Notes by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 19, 1892

News and Notes.

By Editor

FOR THE WEEK ENDING DECEMBER 12.

RELIGIOUS.

—The Congregational Church at Milford, N. H., has observed its 104th anniversary.

—In Allentown, Pa., a judge recently sentenced two liquor dealers to a fine of $50 and twenty days in prison for selling liquors on Sunday.

—Miss Emma Van Norden, daughter of a New York banker and millionaire, has joined the Salvation Army and donned the full uniform.

—A Philadelphia paper says that city has a publishing firm which furnishes ready-made sermons in great variety to Christian ministers throughout the country.

—In the Y. M. C. A. of Savannah, Georgia, objection has been raised to admitting a Swedenborgian minister to active membership, on claim that he is not a member of an evangelical church.

—The minister of a popular church in New York City announced that as most of his congregation would be at the Yale-Princeton football game, his church would not be open on Thanksgiving day.

—It is said that the proposition of the Epworth League, an organization within the Methodist Church, to establish headquarters at Chicago during the fair, to be occupied by members, regardless of color, sex, or geographical position, is meeting vigorous opposition in the South.

—The Presbyterian Ministerial Association of Philadelphia has resolved to “appoint a committee to solicit the appointment of similar committees by ministerial associations to devise suitable action to resist a repeal of congressional action closing the gates of the World’s Fair Exposition on Sunday.”

—If “this is a Christian nation,” as the Supreme Court decides, then France is more so, for that government pays the pastors of both the Catholic and Protestant denominations. But the incongruity of France’s rule is manifest in the colonies, where it also pays millions of francs to the support of Mohammedan mosques.

—The Christian at Work has also become favorable to the Salvation Army. It says: “It is folly to say, ‘We do not like their methods,’ for the methods seem to be inseparable from the objects sought. . . . The Salvation Army is at the present a great auxiliary to the church, and being such it is a movement with which goodly people of all denominations may be in heartiest sympathy.”

—The following expression of the Occident is a characteristic sign of the times: “To college boys Thanksgiving day is synonymous with football, not only in the East, but in the West. . . . A college can get several thousand dollars free advertising out of a good football game nowadays. But we are extremely sorry to see that a good Presbyterian institution in the East made its headquarters at an infamous saloon.

—The colored people in the vicinity of Camden, Arkansas, are excited over the appearance of a four-year old negro boy among them whom they believe to be Jesus Christ. Hundreds of laborers on the plantations and in the sawmills in this section have been seized with the Messiah craze, and it is impossible to induce them to go back to their work, for any amount of money. It is claimed that, in addition to the English language, he can read French, German, and Latin.

—There seems to be much inharmony in the great Metropolitan Temple, London, in regard to a successor to Rev. Chas. H. Spurgeon, deceased, as pastor. Dr. A. T. Pierson, formerly of New York, was chosen, against the wishes of a strong faction, who desired the son of the elder Spurgeon. These are incensed at some alleged interviews with Dr. Pierson in certain New York papers. The doctor denies the interviews, and the “Spurgeonites” refuse to accept his denials until inquiry is made in regard to them in New York. It is said that the influence of the Tabernacle is fast waning.

—According to the Rappel the Catholic clergy of France now number 55,540 men. These are the figures upon which the budget for 1892 is based. There are 18 archbishops, 59 bishops, 3,420 pastors of various ranks, 182 general vicars, 31,255 assistants, 7,109 vicars, 700 other ecclesiastics. At present there are 136 pastors deprived of their incomes on account of some conflict with the State authorities. The foreign clergy who hear mass in any other language than the French are not paid out of the State treasury. The Reformed and other Protestant clergy number 720, while in France and Algiers there are 60 rabbis. The cultus, or religious budget, for 1892 is 45,057,157 francs, or about 10,000 francs less than the preceding year.

—An effort is being made in this city to organize a Prohibition Church. The idea is to concentrate all Christian Prohibitionists in united church relationship in order to secure more efficient political action against the liquor traffic. The principle is somewhat similar to that of the proposed Civic Church which was urged some months ago, by a Baptist minister, the present effort being headed by a Methodist. The tendency of the times is toward a political church, such as has in the past been hinted at by the W. C. T. U. In such a church, of course, legal enactment against immorality will be the inspiration by which the “ambassador” will “beseech” men to be “reconciled to God.”