RELIGIOUS NEWS AND NOTES.
—The old John street church, the oldest Methodist church in America, celebrated its 112th anniversary in the church building, the 27th ult. —Three protestants at Alcoy, Spain, have been imprisoned for saying that Mary was married, and had other sons besides Jesus Christ. In Mahon, the sub-governor entered the church during services, and stopped them “because the singing was heard outside.” The same was done in Cadiz. —It is the old story. The Congregational church at Saratoga Springs, appraised in prosperous times at $70,000, now has a debt of $46,000—just about what the whole church is worth, and now they must have aid or they will go down, and Congregationalists won’t find a “church of their own order” there. —The Bible Society of Geneva, Switzerland, which has undertaken to send a copy of the New Testament to each school teacher in France, has already sent 27,000; 80,000 being the full number required. Each copy costs about sixty cents. Among the many letters of thanks received, is one from a Roman Catholic nun. —The American Bible Society have procured a new stop-cylinder press, upon which alone, a whole Bible can be printed every minute! This is the briefest and most significant commentary possible on the achievements of modern invention in the dissemination of the ever-living Divine Word. What a preacher the modern printing press has become! —The Brooklyn Eagle says that if Mr. Beecher had said a few years ago what he did last Sunday about the Bible, his church would have been quickly emptied, and he would have been expelled from every orthodox communion. The remark especially referred to by the Eagle was this: “The theory of the literal inspiration of the Scriptures is the theory of the devil, and would lead a man to infidelity.” —The Bishop of Chichester, in his recent triennial charge, referring to the perversions to Rome of several of his Brighton clergy, said: “Craft, subtlety, and secrecy were the characteristics of the Roman propaganda, and in this instance they had been unsparingly employed. No man could say how far the poison had extended. Such defections betrayed inward unsoundness and unsettlement, and they asked with fear, ‘Who shall be the next to forsake our communion?’” —The revision of the New Testament is almost completed, and will probably be presented to convocation in England next year. Already it is nearly all printed, the two universities having given £20,000 for the privilege of printing it, of which they pay £2,000 yearly. Bishop Ellicott, the chairman of the revisers, who has presided for six hours daily for four days every three weeks, is said never to have once lost his temper or failed to carry his colleagues with him. The revision of the Old Testament will require about three years longer. —An effort is being made in the Reformed Episcopal Church to do away with the observance of Lent as a church fast. At a recent conference of clergymen in Philadelphia, it was decided to recommend the policy of abandoning the services to the general standing committee, on the ground that the indulgence in worldly pleasures before and after Lent is increased by way of compensation for enforced abstention during the season of fasting, and upon the further ground that uniform moderation of life is the church’s great need, and that this may be better secured without Lenten observances than with them. The change, if it shall be made, will be a radical one, and will work a wider breach than ever between the two Episcopalian churches in this country.