Religious Miscellany by Dudley Marvin Canright

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · May 27, 1875

Religious Miscellany.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

There is only one Catholic newspaper in the United States to every 300,000 Catholics.

Of the 754 journals published in Paris, 53 are devoted to religion and theology.

The Methodist Bishop Roberts of Liberia, Africa, having died, it is not thought best to endeavor to sustain a bishop there longer.

The fiftieth anniversary of the American Tract Society was celebrated March 28; in New York. In the past fifty years it has issued over 10,000,000 publications.

The Presbyterian General Assembly meets at Cleveland May 20. It is proposed to limit the office of elder to a term of years instead of for life as heretofore. The effort to unite the North and South Presbyterians is a failure for the present.

A new mission to the interior of Africa has been started. $50,000 has been raised for this purpose.

A new religious society has risen in Ohio. The members call themselves Eternalists, and hold that the soul is immortal, and occupies a succession of bodies on earth, both of men and animals.

Everybody rejoices that all the testimony in the Beecher case is finally ended. It is hoped that in a few more days this case of scandal will be dismissed from public attention.

The Methodists are fitting up an extensive camp-ground on the sea coast near Monterey, Cal. It is to be permanent after the fashion of the Eastern camp-meeting watering places.

A Baptist chapel has just been dedicated in Rome to the great horror of the Catholics.

A few years ago some copies of the Bible were sent to the interior of Abyssinia, Africa, which have caused much stir. About seventy Jews have embraced Christ.

The city of Berlin has only sixty-three Protestant places of worship, and only 115 clergymen, that is, one church or chapel to every 11,603, and one pastor to every 6,365 souls.

Eld. S. Carpenter, Seventh-day Baptist missionary to China, reports some encouragement in his work there.

In Burmah, India, the first home missionary society of natives has just begun its work.

The new school of the Church Missionary Society at Acca, Palestine, which has been closed by the Mohammedan authorities, has been re-opened by order of the Governor of Syria. A good deal of interest in the gospel has been manifested by the people of Acca.

The Paris papers publish a Papal Encyclical renewing the excommunication pronounced against the Old Catholics of Switzerland and censuring the authorities for protecting them.

The Jesuits have taken an extensive plot of ground at the east end of Beirut, Syria, and are beginning to build what promises to be a very large college upon it.

It is reported from Russia that 250,000 United Greek Catholics of Poland intend to join the Orthodox Russian church. Their priests have presented a statement to the Government explaining that the change of faith arises from the impossibility of their accepting the dogma of Papal infallibility.

The brave Moravian pioneers, who a few years since established themselves on the snowy mountains of Central Asia, far beyond the boundaries of civilization, were cheered last year by the coming of several converts, and one has lately professed faith in Christ.

BERLIN, May 10.—The bill for the suppression of religious orders passed to a third reading to-day in the lower House.

Word comes from Vienna that the Turks have murdered two hundred and seventy Christians in Roumania and Bulgaria during the last three months.

The London Times states that according to the Protestant statistics 30,000 Spaniards have become Protestants since the revolution of 1868.

NEW YORK, May 14.—A special dispatch from Rome states that the Pope's birthday anniversary was celebrated with extraordinary rejoicings. Deputations, letters, and congratulations arrived throughout the day. Twelve preceding pontiffs reached the age of 84. Pio Nono alone surpasses the years of St. Peter in his chair.

Images and figures, it is finally decided on appeal, are not objectionable features in the decoration of a church of the English Establishment, provided they do not give occasion for any idolatrous or superstitious practices. The ritualists now have as broad a license as they could wish.

The "nominally Christian countries" which the American Board has added to its field of operations seem to be about as hard to impress as those that are not Christian in any sense. In Austria, for instance, the opposition to Rev. Mr. Shauffler's mission at Brunn is open and bitter. The books and tracts which he gave the people have been taken away from them and torn up or burned. He and his wife have been summoned before the authorities, to answer the complaints made against them by the priests, of illegally distributing literature and enticing minor children into their meeting, and they have also been peremptorily forbidden to hold any more meetings either public or private.

D. M. C.