Religious News and Notes.
By Editor
—An Old Catholic church at New Orleans is said to be in process of formation by ex-priest Vaudry. —The Watchman admits the “judgment of the most learned Biblical critics, that the words [1 John 5:7] are spurious.” —The San Francisco Pacific (Congregationalist) severely criticises Gen. Grant for his disregard of the “Christian Sabbath.” —Prof. A. E. Main in the Sabbath Recorder says a man had better be an Adventist than an unbeliever. We are gratified at the decision. —At the Presbyterian Chinese mission Church in San Francisco, ten were admitted to membership Nov. 16. They have long been members of a Bible class. —The first negro convert in Surinam, Dutch Guiana, was baptized by a Moravian missionary, a hundred years ago. Now, the mission numbers 22,130 adherents. —The California Christian Advocate says: “The California Advocate has uniformly had the widest circulation of the religious papers on the Pacific Coast,” of which we more than stand in doubt. —Dr. William Ives Buddington, for many years pastor of Clinton Avenue Congregational church, New York, died Nov. 29, from exhaustion in consequence of a cancer of the chin, from which he was long a sufferer. —Rev. Baldwin Brown, ex-President of the Congregational Union of Great Britain, has written a letter of sympathy to Rev. David Macrae, approving his repudiation of the confessional doctrine of future punishment, and exhorting him to stand firm for God's truth. —The Independent chides the Congregationalist for seeming to deny that Edwards and other New England theologians taught that the sufferings of the lost would increase the happiness of the saints. Better to repudiate than try to cover up or excuse such theology. —A German Jewish paper thinks the Zulus are descendants of Ishmael. Among other reasons, these are given: They practice circumcision, Abraham is a common name among them, they dislike pork, and their laws respecting individual purity are very similar to those given in the book of Leviticus. —President Hayes, in his message just delivered, recommends more decisive measures for the suppression of polygamy in Utah. If other means do not avail he thinks it will be well to deprive polygamists of the rights of citizenship. If they were not allowed to vote the Territory would soon fall under a better rule. —Rev. Dr. Dabney of Virginia, author of an incisive article in the last number of the Princeton Review on “Secularized Education,” says “it is a mistaken expectation that American opinion will compel the State schools to go back to a Christian character. The most of them are going rapidly in the opposite direction.” —There are seven missionaries at Uganda, Africa, laboring with the approval of King Mtesa. To Stanley, who revealed his Empire to the world, he said, “Say to the white people I am like a man sitting in darkness or born blind, and that all I ask is that I may be taught how to see, and I shall continue a Christian while I live.” —A Catholic hackman, of Holyoke, Mass., has obtained a verdict of $3,433 damages against a priest, for ruining his business. The court held that the priest had a right to excommunicate him, with which action they could not interfere; but beyond that a priest has no right to use his clerical office as a means to ruin a man's business. —The engineer of a Sunday camp-meeting excursion train was arrested in Baltimore and fined for violating the Sunday laws. On appeal the decision was reversed, on the ground that it was necessary to purposes of worship. The court said the tolling of bells, lighting of lamps, the blowing of organs, instrumental music, and paid choristers, might be stopped with equal propriety. —Mr. Spurgeon propounded to one of his candidates for baptism and church membership, the following question: “Well, if you are received into this church, what individual work are you going to take up and carry on for the Lord?” The Religious Herald thinks that “many such questions should be asked of new comers. Let them understand the church is a workshop, and is no place for idlers.” —A dispatch from Geneva says: The Swiss Federal Council, having received pressing memorials from several quarters urging it to stop the propaganda of Mormon missionaries in divers parts of Switzerland, has decided, in view of the powers possessed by the Cantonal Governments for the punishment of polygamy, and the efforts being made by the United States Government to suppress the institution in Utah, not to take any general action, but to act only in special cases. —The New York Christian Advocate (Methodist North) says: “we claim the South because the churches on the ground have failed to do the church work demanded of them. Intemperance, licentiousness, murder and oppression, riot and revel with such undisputed freedom that it is hard to trace the lines between the churches and the world. The blight of generations of cruelty and corruption is upon the land.” Of course the southern church does not take this kindly, and the prospect for Methodist union is not favorable.