Religious News and Notes.
By Editor
—Rev. Samuel S. Haris, D. D., has been consecrated Episcopal Bishop of Michigan. —A Philadelphia lady owns a MS. copy of Wesley's Hymns in the handwriting of their author. —The Synod of the Pacific has 121 churches and 6,825 members, with 10,280 children in the Sunday-schools. —A church bell, purchased for Persia by California Presbyterian Sunday-school funds left the Troy (N. Y.) foundry Oct. 4. —A man 108 years of age, who has been a member of a church for eighty years, was recently received into the Baptist church at New Haven. —The Richmond Religious Herald says: "Here in the South are thousands of Baptist churches that promise their pastors but about $150 salary, and don't pay that." —Mrs. Thomas, a lady of Philadelphia, aged 80, has built a church at Kane (Penn.), at a cost of $20,000, and presented it to the Presbyterian congregation at that place. —The Department of the Interior has decided that women under the control of men by "Endowment House" marriages in Utah, cannot pre-empt lands in their own names. —The Episcopal Missionary Jurisdiction of Colorado and Wyoming reports 53 parishes and mission stations, 16 clergy, and 1091 communicants. There were 259 baptisms, and 106 confirmations last year. —The Prussian Court of Justice has rendered judgment in a suit against a person for printing a parody of the Apostle's Creed, for the complainants. In Prussia no one may offer insult to a religious faith. It is understood that the Belgium Bishops have rescinded their resolutions on the subject of communal and normal schools, and that the Pope approved their decision. Whatever the feelings of the Pope may be, he seems to favor concessions. —A Baptist minister was recently re-baptized, because he was baptized, twenty years ago, by a Methodist minister. And now appears an Episcopal minister in Canada who insisted on re-marrying a couple who had been married by a Methodist minister! —Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, a well-known preacher and editor, died in Berlin, Sept. 18. He was one of the editors of the Independent thirteen years, and was a very active man, until, as that paper says, "disease of an overworked brain compelled him to seek retirement." —The Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday published a five column expose of the Mormon Endowment House giving the marriage ceremony, oaths against the Government, grips, signs and penalties. The supposition is that it was written by some one officiating in that institution in some capacity in years past. —Nearly 3,000 pilgrims, many of them paupers and invalids, set out recently from Paris for Lourdes, and the total of pilgrims at that place for the season is said to be double what it was last year. Notre Dame de la Salette, which was reported to have fallen into disgrace, is soon to be crowned by the Archbishop of Paris. —The Christian at Work says, "Too often, with Americans, it is more the man than the sermon that attracts,—more the name of the preacher than the theme of the sermon." And the churches are responsible for the wrong, for no church wants a good man for a minister—he must draw. The churches "star it" as well as the theatres. —The Golden Rule says of Mr. Murry, its late editor, that the manner of life which he ever disliked, is not preaching, which he loved, but the so-called "work of the ministry." To which the Independent says, "Very well; but we do not see that that makes much difference. Paul did not like being stoned, but he stuck to his preaching nevertheless." —The Philadelphia Lutheran Observer warmly commends the efforts now being made in some of the States to enforce the old Sunday laws, which have so long been regarded as a dead-letter. It says that in Baltimore the daily newspapers are not to be exempted from the operation of the law, and the Gazette has already agreed to abstain from all work on its Monday issue from 12 o'clock on Saturday night to 12 o'clock on Sunday night. The past effort in Connecticut by Rev. Dr. Bacon and others to stop the Sunday excursions of the Sound steamers has thus far proved a complete failure, greatly to the regret of the Observer and the religious press generally. —According to the Monmouth (Oregon) Christian Messenger, the Methodist Episcopal Conference, lately convened in Portland, passed the following extraordinary resolution: "Reso'ved, That we hereby request Rev. Bishop Haven to appoint Rev. J. L. Powell to the superintendency of Public Instruction for the State of Oregon." Mr. Powell having been previously elected to that office, the Messenger inquires, very pertinently, what may be the force and significance of such appointment? "Is the Superintendency of Public Instruction a charge of the Methodist Conference? Is the Conference a political machine? Supposing Rev. L. J. Powell should embezzle, would he be responsible to Rev. Bishop Haven? Would it be a kind of Purcell matter? Or would the whole appointment be a kind of farcical, presumptuous display of unauthorized authority?"