RELIGIOUS | AdventAI

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

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 48.

RELIGIOUS.

—Major E. W. Halford, formerly private secretary to President Harrison, has organized a Bible class in the First Methodist Sunday school at Omaha.

—There has been a new and serious disagreement between King Humbert and the Vatican. The pope refuses to recognize the king's right to nominate a patriarch for Venice; so the Italian ministry has decided to refuse an official recognition to all bishops nominated at the last consistory.

—A Mormon elder who had been selected to represent that church at the World's Congress of Religions, is out with a statement showing that he was slighted to the extent of not being recognized on the program, and therefore did not have an opportunity to present the "distinguishing characteristics of the faith."

—One of the Hindu representatives at the World's Congress of Religions gave some wholesome advice to Christians about their missionaries abroad. He said: "Tell your missionaries to go about from house to house in humble garb; tell them to preach gentleness and mildness, and to practice what they preach. Tell them to preach Christianity, but tell them not to teach that in order to become a Christian it is necessary to become a carnivore."

—The Ministerial Alliance of Tacoma, Wash., recently adopted the following resolution: "Resolved, That the Ministerial Alliance of Tacoma recommends that the custom which now almost universally prevails in other cities become the habit here, viz., that the funeral service be completed at the house and the minister be not expected to accompany the procession to the place of burial." As a service at the grave, they recommend that those who attend there repeat the Lord's prayer in unison.

—In the great contest of religions at the Columbian Exposition, Buddha seems to have taken the first prize. The only convert reported is that of a Jewish merchant of New York City, named Charles T. Strauss, who renounced the faith of his fathers and became a Buddhist. However, those who professed to represent Christianity there were the first to make hostile attack upon the representative of other faiths they had invited to participate in the display. A Rev. Mr. Pentecost made several vicious thrusts at oriental delegates, and was particularly severe on the Hindus. A Mr. Ghandi replied in a manner, it is said, to gain the applause of the audience. Among other things he said that it was beneath his profession as a member of the Jain faith to stoop to depths which Mr. Pentecost had reached.