RELIGIOUS | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 17, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 58.

RELIGIOUS.

—Rev. H. S. Harrison, editor and proprietor of the Advance, Congregational Church paper, was instantly killed by a suburban train at La Grange, near Chicago, November 21.

—The pope has instructed the patriarchs of the Eastern churches in communion with Rome, to maintain at the Vatican a resident bishop to assist in the plans for the development of the Catholic clergy in the Orient, and prepare for a union of the churches.

—"The church cannot legislate; it can only declare God's legislation, and execute what he has formulated." So says the Good Way. It is a true saying, but why will it not apply to Sabbath legislation? Will the Good Way tell us when, where, or how God ever "formulated" Sunday observance?

—Advices by way of Lyons, France, from Seoul, state that all the Christian villages in Corea have been pillaged and burned, and that numbers of native Christians have been massacred. The report adds that all the French missionaries have, after great hardships, succeeded in reaching Seoul, the capital.

—A dispatch from Victoria, B. C., states that a band of Indians has just arrived from the north to wait on General Booth. They are from the Siwash Salvation Army, and are in uniform. General Booth is on his way to San Francisco. He has thus far met with extraordinary demonstrations on the part of the clergy of Chicago and other cities.

—A Toledo, Ohio, dispatch of November 20 notes the fact that the noted Catholic missionary, Rev. Walter Elliott, of the Paulist Order, is drawing large Protestant audiences, composed of members of nearly every denomination. His mission is specially to Protestants, explaining to them the various points of Catholic doctrine. It is claimed that wherever he goes he attracts many Protestant hearers.

—We have reached that point in the process of the healing of the "deadly wound" of the papal "beast" (Rev. 13) where the feeble protest of nominal Protestantism against Catholicism is merely a political protest. The contention against the fast-recuperating invalid has fallen from the high plane of Christian principle to the mire of strife for political prestige. Poor, degenerate Protestantism will soon find that in the use of papal weapons she is no match for the old mistress.

—Advices from Warsaw state that the governor of Russian Poland has been instructed by the czar not to interfere with the Catholic clergy, and not to impose any orders upon them. If this policy is adhered to by Czar Nicholas, he will have to depart from the custom of his predecessors, although a similar move was at one time made by his father. The faction in Russia favoring liberality in the treatment of Polish subjects has always been in the minority, and doubts are expressed that the present decision will continue long.

—Referring to the recent decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that Roman Catholic nuns may teach in the public schools wearing their religious garb, and to the dissension of one of the judges from the decision, the New York Christian Advocate says, "In this case, as often, sense and equity are with the minority." This is a logical and truthful conclusion, but the Advocate goes further, and very illogically advocates the employment of a like method by Protestants, as follows: "If this is and is to be the law, it will be well for Protestant sects to establish orders, of which the badge shall be, worked in appropriate and conspicuous letters, 'NOT ROMAN CATHOLIC.'" When Protestantism was indeed a spiritual power in the world, its warfare was based on the motto, "The Bible, and the Bible alone." The Christian's only legitimate weapon, offensive and defensive, is the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."

—Rabbi Voorzanger, of San Francisco, recently delivered an address before the Presbyterian Ministerial Union of that city and vicinity, on the subject of the "Modern Hebrew Idea of the Messiah." He asserted, says the Occident, that millions of the Hebrews, himself among them, hold that there will be no personal Messiah, but that the idea conveyed by the name rather means an era of general redemption, peace, and good will, when all creeds and faiths will be merged into one under the great light of truth, and find its final consummation in God. For the "able exposition," "delivered with such deference to the views of his hearers," the Occident adds that "applause and a vote of thanks were given the rabbi." This "modern Hebrew idea" is practically the same as is held by many professed Christian rabbis, who reject the scriptural idea of the second personal advent of Christ. True, the latter do not explicitly deny the Messiahship of Jesus, but they reject his teaching in regard to his "appearing and kingdom," which is practically the same. To deny his word is to deny him.