Religious News and Notes.
By Editor
—The late Bishop Ames, of the M. E. Church, left an estate valued at $250,000. —Dr. Kalloch has retired from the Evangel, and is succeeded by J. T. Prior, assisted by A. J. Frost. —A saloon keeper in Chicago has prosecuted a Methodist minister for calling his saloon "a gilded hell." —The Evangel, Baptist paper of San Francisco, advocates taxing church property. Justice demands it. —Dr. Howard Crosby has already been selected to give the next course of lectures on preaching at Yale College. —Dr. Stevens Parker, of Elizabeth, N. J., has been chosen to succeed Dr. De Koven as president of Racine College. —Dr. Dollinger denies the report that he will return to the Catholic Church, though he was invited to do so by the new Pope. —M. De Laveleye, the distinguished Belgian economist, has separated from the Catholic and united with a Protestant church. —Bishop Bowman has been round the world visiting Methodist missions. While in Italy he heard of the death of his wife in St. Louis. —The chaplain of the Maine Legislature prayed that the members might have the grace to stop speaking when they got through! —The Central Baptist says there are three kinds of Baptists: Missionary Baptists, Omissionary Baptists, and Anti-Missionary Baptists. —The London Weekly Review says that since 1860 upwards of 600 Jews have confessed faith in Christ in the chapel in Palestine Place. —The Bishop of Ripon has expressed himself as being in favor of Nonconformists having the privilege of burials in the parish church-yards. —Mr. Moody expresses the opinion that tabernacle work outside of churches in large cities is a mistake, since the converts do not generally attach themselves to any church. —The American Wesleyans, numbering about 20,000 will hold their Quadrennial General Conference in Pittsford, Mich., next October. They are strongly opposed to secret societies. —The Free Church of Scotland with 1,000,000 members, contributes as much for missionary purposes as the whole church of England, with its 12,000,000 members and almost unlimited wealth. —The Sunday-school Convention in Yo Semite valley has had several lectures on geology. One was delivered at Glacier Point to an audience of 200. More than were ever gathered on that spot before. —Orion Clemens (brother to Mark Twain), has been dismissed from the Presbyterian church in Keokuk, Iowa, for denying the inspiration of the Old Testament, and for heretical views of Christ. —The Southern Methodist Church has an Indian Conference, with 4582 members. Several other denominations have Indian missions, which have been successful, and which call for increased efforts. —Col. Ingersoll dedicates a statue to Thomas Paine at St. Louis. Bishop Coxe, in the Independent, gives extracts from Paine's slanderous and abusive letter to George Washington, to show how he should be esteemed by patriotic Americans. —The Methodist Woman's Foreign Missionary Society reports for its tenth year the receipt of upward of $80,000, being a large increase over the previous year. Of this sum the Cincinnati branch raised the largest amount of any of the seven branches. —Dr. Toy, an able scholar and teacher, has resigned his professorship in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, Ky., his views on the inspiration of the Old Testament being too lax to meet the approval of the trustees and the denomination. —Dr. W. C. Gray, in a letter from Saratoga on the Presbyterian General Assembly, writes: "I have never attended an Assembly where there was as much cheering and laughter." An "Assembly" "with prayers and tears," and "groanings that cannot be uttered," would be a rarity now-a-days. —Dr. Dean, of Bangkok, Siam, writes to the Baptist Missionary Magazine, of a heathen idol in human form, in a temple there, 177 feet long, covered with gold from his crown to his toes. Hundreds of other temples in that city have costly images. There is money cost in heathenism. —The Christian at Work concludes an article "About Church Union," thus, "The prospect for church union is not immediate nor encouraging, and that so long as Christians prefer their own little systems and methods to unity, so long will Christ's army remain disunited and disrupted in the face of the common foe." —J. H. Pittinger, A. M., author of the "Theological Tri-lemma," and special contributor of the Bible Banner, is caustic in a criticism of Dr. Kellogg's argument on the soul. He says, "I accept the conclusion but not the philosophy," and closes thus: "I can not believe that you have yet followed out your philosophy to its legitimate results. But so far as it is adopted and followed out, it will lead you, and all who follow it, into darkness and error."