News and Notes by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 14, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 40.

News and Notes.

By Editor

FOR THE WEEK ENDING AUGUST 7.

RELIGIOUS.

—Since the beginning of the present year seven of Bishop Taylor's missionaries in Africa have died.

—At a Japanese Mission in San Francisco, July 30, sixteen adults were taken into the church (M. E.) by Pastor Ishizaka. Two were women.

—In this city a new mission has been opened, which a local paper describes as being a combination of old-fashioned Methodism and First-day Adventism.

—All the retail stores in this city will hereafter be closed on Sunday. The Clerks' Association, backed by the Federated Trades, has induced the merchants to take this step.

—A Rome dispatch of the 5th inst. says that it is expected there that Satolli, the papal delegate to the United States, will soon be officially recognized by the government.

—The Missionary Society of the M. E. Church has in China 118 American missionaries and assistants and 502 native helpers of all grades. The appropriation for the support of this work the current year is $183,501.

—Mr. Minas Tcheraz, now of London, will be one of the representatives of the Armenian Church at the World's Parliament of Religions to convene at Chicago September 11. He represented the Armenian people in the Congress at Berlin, for which service he was banished from Turkey.

—The annual synod of the Catholic diocese of Denver, Colorado, last week, passed a resolution approving Bishop Matz' policy of denying the sacrament to children who attend the public schools. As Papal Delegate Satolli, only a month ago, condemned the bishop's school policy, the synod stands in virtual antagonism of the delegate's position.

—While the Presbyterian General Assembly one year ago withheld its indorsement of the proposed Parliament of Religions at Chicago, yet a large number of Presbyterian ministers are coming to its support and will no doubt participate in its work. It is hard for a popular denomination to stand aloof from any popular move on the mere matter of principle.

—The ministerial fraternity of San Francisco work somewhat at cross purposes in the matter of the proposed Midwinter Fair. One class advocate the Fair from their pulpits as a means of providing work for many needy people, while others virtually discourage the project by demanding that it must not be held unless there is a guarantee that the gates shall be closed on Sunday.

—During the past year the American Tract Society has circulated 2,430,700 periodicals and 202 colporters have made 154,329 visits. The Benevolent Department has received in gifts and legacies $101,471.73, the amounts from other sources making a total of $204,142.25 in this department. The Business Department has received $256,624.02. In fifty-two years the colporters have made 14,163,167 family visits.

—M. Pobedonostseff, the Russian Minister of Religion, is said to have made use of most opprobrious epithets with regard to the two English Quakers who have been recently visiting Russia with the object of inquiring into the condition of the persecuted Protestants, and expresses his determination to thoroughly cleanse Orthodox Russia of these pestilent heretics, though all the fools in England try to prevent him.

—Dr. Edward Thomson, Pacific Coast secretary of the American Sabbath Union, reports the following victories in California,—the suppression of Sunday saloons in the counties of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Lake, and San Benito, and in the cities of Santa Ana, Santa Barbara, and San Jose. Sunday traffic has been discontinued by agreement in Bakersfield; the State Citrus Fair was closed on Sunday, and the last Legislature passed a one-day-in-seven rest law. As to the latter, however, many advocates of Sunday laws disclaim it as a victory.