RELIGIOUS NEWS AND NOTES.
—A nine days' prayer has been ordered in all the Catholic churches of New Orleans for the abatement of the yellow fever scourge. —The Lutherans have in the city of New York twenty churches. The church property is valued at $1,095,000 with a debt of $183,900. —This year's collection for the London Hospital Sunday fund so far reported amounts to $105,000. The total, when all in, it is thought will reach $125,000. —The new Michigan minutes of the Congregationalists show a list of 224 churches, with a membership of 16,911. This is a net gain of 1,559 over last year. —The Moravians have a deficiency in the foreign missions of $25,000, and they are calling upon the churches to make up the amount. The membership of the church is 200,000. —The oldest church in New Jersey, is the old Bergen Reformed church, organized in 1660. Its last three pastors have occupied the pulpit for 120 years. The present pastor has served the church 50 years. —There are over twenty daily papers now published in Rome, representing every shade of opinion, and have perfect freedom. Seventy years ago there was but one paper, published three times a week, which contained nothing but official bulletins and church notices. —There are over 200,000 Mennonites in the United States, distributed through a dozen States. They are a people whose religious beliefs approach more nearly to those of the Quakers than any others. They refuse the Old Testament, and deny that there is any original sin. —The Sunday-school membership of the Presbyterian church for the past seven years, as given by the Rev. Edwin E. Hatfield, stated clerk of the church, has been as follows: 1872, 485,762; 1873, 482,762; 1874, 516,971; 1875, 520,452; 1876, 555,347; 1877, 581,606; 1878, 599,882. —To July 1, 526,000 tracts had been given away to visitors of all nations at the French Exposition. The demand exceeds the supply. Reporters of French newspapers inquire if the distribution is sustained by the British Government, not conceiving that it can be supplied by voluntary contributions, through interest in their spiritual welfare. —The French Methodist Conference in that country has now, after more than a generation of evangelistic labor, twenty-nine chapels, ten parsonages, seven school-houses, and a young ladies' institution at Nimes; eight of its circuits show a diminished membership of sixty-one, and five an increase of forty-four. But, deducting deaths and removals, the net increase is seventeen. —The "Spanish Christian church" recently held its first assembly in Madrid. This is the name taken by the Protestant congregations of the Spanish peninsula. The organization is Presbyterian, and two presbyteries, Madrid and Andalusia, are already formed. The ministers are nearly all natives of Spain. The next assembly is appointed to meet in Madrid in May, 1880. —An exchange says: "Owing to the failure of some of the insurance companies to make good the insurance on a Methodist church destroyed by fire some little time ago, the Methodist Conferences are considering the matter of insuring their own churches. We see no good reason why the plan is not practicable, or why, considering that fine buildings, high salaried officers, and large commissions could be entirely dispensed with, the insurance rate could not be very greatly reduced—at least one half. In these days when all churches need to practice the closest economy, the matter may well receive the attention of all denominations."