News and Notes by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 9, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 10.

News and Notes.

By Editor

FOR THE WEEK ENDING JANUARY 2.

RELIGIOUS.

—The Jewish Exponent says: “Fresh outbreaks of Anti-Semitism are reported from Russia, sanctioned by the government. This time, conversion to the church, as it was with Torquemada, is the only condition to avoid the severest penalty.”

—Monsignor Satolli, the special papal representative in America, has removed the sentence of excommunication from Father O’Flaherty, of Auburn, N. Y., who has been under the ban of the church for twenty-four years. It is said that a long list of similar cases are yet to be heard.

—The Moscow papers boast that since the beginning of 1891, 20,000 Jews have been converted to orthodoxy. The unhappy converts who have been driven to a pretended denial of their religious faith in order to escape intolerable persecutions, are rigorously governed by priests of the Russian Orthodox Church, who require them to attend the services of that church and to comply with its various rules, watching narrowly for any sign of evasion or repentance.

—In New York City, December 27, with great ceremony, was laid the corner stone of what is to be known as the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine. It is designed to be the greatest church structure in America, costing $10,000,000, and requiring twenty years to build.

—At the annual convention of the American Sabbath Union, recently held in Chicago, a resolution was adopted calling for $1,000,000 during the coming year with which to carry on the Sunday cause. The following officers were elected: President, Elliott F. Shepard, of New York; General and Corresponding Secretary, Rev. J. H. Knowles, of New York; General Field Secretary, Rev. H. H. George, of Pennsylvania; Treasurer, R. M. Perley, of New York.

—The National Reform Association and the American Sabbath Union are striving to get hold of the reins of government in order to have it run on religious lines. That the people may know what their ultimate success means, we give the following sentiment uttered by the editor of the leading organ of these two associations: “It would not do the average American a bit of harm to be put through a course of genuflections and prostrations after the Greco-Russian style. It might help to moderate some of this imprudence to be made to kneel oftener; even to get his face fairly in the dust, as I have seen in the case of well-dressed ladies, black-coated civilians, and officers in gold lace, as well as poor folks.” When men will boldly proclaim such sentiment, and openly seek the power to enforce it, what would they not do if they had the power? Will the “average American,” either Christian or infidel, sit listlessly down and allow such designs to obtain through negligent default?