Religious News and Notes.
By Editor
—Mr. Ira D. Sankey has returned from England to New York. —The Fiji Mission is reported to be under remarkably encouraging circumstances. —W. H. H. Murray, the sporting preacher of Boston, and editor of the Golden Rule, has failed. —A new synagogue was dedicated in San Francisco, Aug. 8. Dr. Lilienthal of Cincinnati was present. —Pope Leo XIII. is doing one commendable work; he is simplifying church music, and restoring the Gregorian chants. —Dr. John Hall, of New York, is at Belfast, "resting and preaching." A good way for a minister to spend a summer vacation. —A church in North Carolina withdrew fellowship from a member on a charge of "general worthlessness." A good and sufficient reason. —No less a person than Dr. Newman Hall, the Congregational pulpit orator, is now the subject of a clerical sensation of an unpleasant order. —Steps are being taken to found another Methodist college, in Los Angeles. Sorry to hear it. Few in number and better in quality is a good motto for colleges. —Dr. Sage of Hartford says that some of the churches and pastors of that city refuse to administer baptism by immersion when it is required by the conscience of the candidate. —The first prize for canoe-rowing on Lake George, was taken by a Methodist minister. To his credit it is said he did not "enter" for a prize, but only took the oar by invitation. A "most remarkable convert" is announced for Mr. Moody in Baltimore, Prof. Reider, a Jewish Rabbi. We shall be pleased to hear favorable news from him after next Christmas. —A remarkable report comes from Russia, that the government has granted entire liberty of worship to the dissenters from the Greek Church, who number 12,000,000 of its subjects. —"Sunday literary clubs" in Baltimore have prospered greatly, to the delight of the Sunday-loving people, until they were closely investigated and found to be beer-drinking parties. —According to a recent and eminent Roman Catholic authority, that church is now the richest religious body in this country. The ratio of increase in its pecuniary resources from 1860 to 1870 was 128 per cent. —Religious freedom does not thrive in Spain. A Protestant meeting at Ganguella was broken up by the police; the minister was arrested, women driven out, and the names of all present recorded on police books. —The Methodists in Lincoln, Del., are zealous and enterprising. For the relief of the parsonage fund they announce an entertainment to include a balloon ascension and a horse race. Will the parson ascend or ride? —Four thousand Germans in Newark, N. J., in mass meeting, recently protested against the enforcement of obsolete Sunday laws, which are chiefly directed against Germans, and are at war with the spirit of liberty and humanity. —The British Wesleyans express surprise, as well they may; 40,000 new members were reported last year, yet the decrease in actual membership for the year was 3,308. Probably it was partly owing to emigration, increased by depression in trade. —The Baptist Banner contains the following: "J. R. Graves, in The Baptist, says he has no doubt people will be converted this year who will never taste death. He thinks Jesus will come and translate them as was Enoch. 'Even so. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen!'" —The colored Baptists of Alabama have sustained at Selma, during the past year, a theological and normal school with 252 students, and they not only kept out of debt for current expenses, but have paid $1,000 besides on the purchase price of the buildings and grounds. —The University of Vienna is a strong Catholic institution, and Prof. Brucke, a Protestant, has just been chosen rector—a thing without precedent in its history of more than 600 years. And more strange still, Prof. Grunhut, a Hebrew, has been elected Dean of the Jurist Faculty. —At an Episcopal church in Montrose, Scotland, after morning service, the incumbent gave a hymn and announced that, as he had forgotten his manuscript, there would be no sermon that forenoon." The "incumbent," in such mockery as this, more properly would be called an imcumbrance. Did Paul read a manuscript on Mars' Hill? —In a proclamation the queen of Madagascar says:-"I thank God very much because the gospel of Jesus Christ has entered my land and my kingdom." As Japan sends her young nobles abroad to learn the science of government, so it would be well to send some American youths to Madagascar to fit them to fill the offices to which they are aspiring. —In Rome, since it became the capital of United Italy, twelve Protestant churches have been built. Three of them are Episcopal, two are Methodist, one is Baptist, one Presbyterian, one other the American Union Church, while the four remaining are the Liberal Church, the Waldensian Church, the Evangelical Military Church, and the Apostolic Church of Rome.