Religious News and Notes.
By Editor
—Dr. Howard Crosby will give the next course of “Lyman Beecher Lectures” at Yale. —Mrs. Clarissa C. Cook, of Davenport, bequeathed $161,000 to the Episcopal church of Iowa. —Rev. Dr. Lovick Pierce, father of Bishop Pierce of the M. E. Church South, is 94 years of age. —The usual yearly $50,000 to the Catholics of New York city have been granted by the powers at Albany. —In Iceland there is a Bible in every house, and it is faithfully read. And Iceland has no theatre, prison, sheriff, cannon, nor militia. —Reports of amicable settlement between Germany and the Vatican are discredited by the Germania, an ultramontane newspaper. —The Baptist Annual says that, leaving out 51 churches in the largest cities, the Baptist pastors in the State of New York receive the average salary of $551. —Dr. Newman, the new English Cardinal, plays on the violin and violoncello with exquisite taste and skill. The symphonies of Beethoven are his evenings' delight. —Efforts are being made to locate the “oldest Sunday-school in America;” but it is hard to do. One in Plymouth, Mass., under Rev. John Robinson, dates as early as 1680. —Church trials are sometimes uncertain things. From some of the testimony which we have read on the Talmage trial, we fear he will not be benefited by the examination. St. Mark's Episcopal church in Detroit voted to go over to the Reformed body. This action will be resisted by the authorities of the diocese, at least as far as the property is concerned. —Dr. Dollinger, the leader of the Old Catholics, has just passed his eightieth birthday. In consequence of the action of the Synod allowing priests to marry he does not now hold relation with the church. —Bishop Baltes of Alton, Ill., recently prohibited the reading of the Freeman's Journal, a catholic paper, in his bishopric. The editor has compelled a retraction of the order. So much for having a Cardinal in the United States. —At a meeting of the London Presbytery a resolution was offered instructing church officers “absolutely to prohibit lotteries and kindred games of chance,” in the churches. After discussion it was withdrawn, and a modified or indefinite one passed instead. —The rector of a church in Suffolk, England, has appealed for help in behalf of a Presbyterian minister, to free his church from a debt of $12,000. Dean Stanley, Canon Freemantle, and Prebendary Auriol have contributed. Who would have thought it? —The Examiner and Chronicle says, Many of our readers intend to leave a part or all their property to our denominational enterprises. Why not do it now? And the Christian at Work adds, Sure enough—why not now? The dead never give,—they only relinquish. —Mr. Sankey writes from England: “The work of five years ago proves to have been of the Lord. It stands the test of time; and many of the most active workers in the churches and chapels are those who were converted during the years 1873, '4, and '5.” —Dr. Leon G. Walker, on the occasion of being installed as a Congregational pastor in Hartford, Conn., said, “I have no doubt that the doctrine of conditional immortality may be held compatibly with general orthodoxy of belief respecting the great doctrines of the gospel.” —Prof. Jagger, of Stuttgart, Germany, has announced that the soul is a special form of albumen, which “constitutes an aura which may rise above the threshold of consciousness, and even become offensive, as in some animals and negroes.” A happy triumph of science! Let us rejoice—this question is settled at last. —The Independent is sharp on sects. It says, “What Christ organized on the sole basis of discipleship was the church. What man organizes on a confessedly narrower basis he may call a church, and may administer in it the sacraments; but it is only a club—a good Christian club, very likely, but nothing more.” —The Wesleyan missionary, Rev. George Brown, three of whose companions were eaten about a year ago in New Britain, reports that he has just opened three new churches in the island, and two or three young men are waiting to be baptized. There are still three vacancies made by the loss of the three teachers, which have not been filled. In an inquiry by civil process at Saarbruck concerning the alleged miraculous appearing of the Virgin, it was shown that a seal of the event was ordered to be engraved before the children saw the Virgin, and one of these “innocent” eye-witnesses was proved to be acquainted with all sorts of wickedness. What will be done to perpetrators of such “pious frauds”? —A reformer named Makrakis has risen in the Greek Church at Athens, and is just now causing considerable commotion. He disavows the authority of Bishops and Synods, and rejects the worship of saints and all fasts. The schools which he had opened with his own means have been closed by order of the Government, and several sympathizing clergymen sent to distant monasteries. It is thought the movement has made too much headway for suppression.