RELIGIOUS by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 31, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 38.

RELIGIOUS.

By Editor

—The butchers and bakers of Indianapolis have decided to close their shops on Sunday.

—The pope has issued an encyclical on the subject of a native Catholic clergy in India, exhorting the Catholics of Europe to cooperate with him in the work of founding Indian seminaries.

—A recent London dispatch states that Facham Pasha, the governor of Cesarea, who personally inflicted inhuman tortures on Christian prisoners at Cesarea, has been decorated by the Sultan of Turkey and will soon be promoted.

—The Boston Pilot, a Catholic journal, is thus quoted by the Cynosure: "No good government can exist without religion, and there can be no religion without an Inquisition, which is wisely designed for the protection and promotion of the true church."

—Prof. Charles A. Briggs, of Union Theological Seminary, recently deposed from the Presbyterian ministry by the General Assembly for heresy, has declined an offer of a testimonial of $50,000 which Chaplain Parker, of San Diego, Cal., proposed to raise for him.

—The functions of the ministry are constantly widening. The latest appeal to their supposed powers and influence is by the dry goods clerks of this city, who are seeking to induce their employers to close their stores on Sundays. Having obtained the consent of all the merchants but two, the clerks invoked the aid of the ministry, who were asked to preach on the subject in their churches in order to whip the stubborn merchants into the Sunday traces.

—The London Present Truth says that on the 29th of June the ceremony of placing England under the patronage of St. Peter and the Virgin Mary was performed by Cardinal Vaughan, assisted by all the Catholic bishops of England but two. It was stated that the ceremony was one of "reconsecration," as it is claimed that Peter was from the earliest times the patron saint of England. The cardinal had previously published a statement to the effect that no slight to St. George was intended in handing the country over to St. Peter. St. George is still to be the military protector, and St. Peter the spiritual protector.

—The Board of Managers of the Missionary Society of the M. E. Church will petition Congress to repeal the Chinese Exclusion Law, on account of the alleged imminent danger to the missionaries and property of the society in China. All the Methodist Conferences are asked to send in petitions.

—Catholic papers claim, with some show of reason, that Lord Beaconsfield, once premier of England, died in the Catholic faith. He was born a Jew, but for the most part reared in the Church of England. At the time of his death it was wondered why there was no religious consolation administered. However, it is now stated that a certain Father Clare, a Jesuit priest and personal friend of the earl, was privately called and administered to him the last rites.

—The churches and religious societies having religious exhibits at the World's Fair were exceedingly illogical in covering up their exhibits on Sundays while the Fair was open. Claiming, as they do, that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath, if their exhibits are of a Christian character, that was the day of all others that they should have been displayed before an irreligious public. Do they not take Sunday to preach their theories of the gospel elsewhere? Why not also on the Fair ground?

—The Catholic News says: "Every Catholic should get the principle firmly into his head that the church is the only educator of its children. The State has duties but no rights in the matter except of seeing that its duties are efficiently performed. Its duties are to assist education by the proper persons whose right it is to educate. It has no right to appoint these persons or to dictate what shall or shall not be taught within certain narrow lines." This expression on the part of the News indicates the Church and State theory in full,—that the State exists principally as an executive officer of the church, to enforce its dictum. The principle is the same, whether advocated by Catholic or Protestant theorists, and where fully successful the result must be the same.