News and Notes by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 13, 1893

News and Notes.

By Editor

FOR THE WEEK ENDING NOVEMBER 6.

RELIGIOUS.

—Rev. E. F. Dinsmore, pastor of the Haywards (Cal.) Congregational Church, has applied for admission to the Unitarian ministry.

—The ladies of San Francisco and Oakland, in the main church representatives, are moving by petition and otherwise to induce newspaper men to purify the press.

—It is said that in Brazil there is but one missionary to every 175,000 persons. It would be interesting to know how many of even these few are teaching the people to obey the gospel.

—Bishop Anser, of the German Catholic Mission in South Shantung, has been honored by the emperor of China with the decoration of the light blue button, because of his services in preserving concord between native Christians and non-Christians.

—Rev. Campbell Coyle, of this city, says in the Occident regarding California, "The Sabbath is very little regarded, and until it is Christianity will remain nominal." The converse of this proposition is nearer the truth. So long as Christianity remains nominal, the Sabbath will be little regarded.

—The month of November is consecrated by the Catholic Church to the "Holy Souls in Purgatory." Of this consecration the Catholic News says the church "requires us to believe that there is a state of suffering, after this life, in which souls are detained for a time in order to be purified and rendered fit for heaven."

—The Times of this city is authority for the statement that there is in Oakland an increasing demand for oriental sacred books. "The Koran in cheap form is one of the best-selling books, and a volume of extracts from Buddha is extremely popular. The sale of the Zend Avesta is restricted because it cannot be obtained in cheap form. The purchasers of these works are not only clergymen, but laymen, and there seems to be an intense curiosity to compare the sacred books of other religions with the Bible."

—Seventeen Protestant ministers and University professors of Columbus, Ohio, have united in signing a letter denouncing as fraudulent and unwarranted the many alarming statements and warnings against the Catholics now being scattered broadcast by the American Protective Association. The apologists are quite confident that there can be no danger from Catholic influence in this country while that people number only about one-seventh of the population. There would be ground for this assurance were it not for the fact that Protestants themselves are persistently, though perhaps unwittingly, doing the work of Catholics for them, in their endeavors to dominate the government by church influence. So long as the peculiar work of the Catholics is being done in the country, it matters little by whom it is done.