p. 47 | Religious Notes

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 26, 1882

Religious Notes.

—Rev. Dr. Hotchkiss, Baptist, formerly Professor of Biblical Literature in Rochester University, died on the 4th inst.

—By vote of the faculty, the Revised New Testament will hereafter be used in the religious exercises of Chicago Theological Seminary.

—The Boston University, Methodist, has just come into possession of $2,000,000, which was bequeathed to it ten years ago by a wealthy citizen of Boston.

—A recent religious census taken in Prussia shows that that country contains 17,645,462 Protestants, 9,205,136 Catholics, 363,790 Jews, 42,518 Dissenters, and 22,006 persons professing no religion.

—A religious census taken in Dundee, Scotland, shows that even in Scotland the average church attendance is not very high. Out of a population of 142,000, only 30,000 attended any place of worship.

—B. F. Jacobs of Chicago, has completed twenty-five years as Sunday-school Superintendent. He has had under his care 70,000 scholars. Of these there are five foreign missionaries, fifty ministers, and fifty Sunday-school Superintendents.

—The N. Y. Independent says that the Baptists all baptized only by sprinkling and pouring previous to 1641. And it entitles this, “the Independent’s discovery.” A very appropriate name. When will it take another voyage?

—An active worker of the Y. M. C. A., in speaking of the calls upon that Association for assistance, says that those who apply are invariably non-church-goers, and that in several years' experience he has never known a regular attendant at church to solicit alms.

—The Rev. J. M. Wagor, a Methodist minister in Eagle Bridge, New York, has refused to accept the proceeds of a ball which a Society in the village proposed to give for the liquidation of the church debt, on the ground that the church emphatically denounces dancing.

—The Christian at Work says: “The Texas Methodist Conference statistics show over eight hundred accessions, and at the same time an actual decrease of membership—a fair illustration of the loose and untrustworthy way in which church statistics are made up.”

—The South Congregational Sunday-school of New Britain, Conn., pays the Superintendent a regular salary, and he devotes his whole time to the interests of the school, visiting families, looking after absent scholars, etc. It is the largest Protestant Sunday-school in the State, and numbers about 1,000 members.

—A writer in favor of Sunday observance says that “it is not wise to base the entire Sabbath argument upon the fourth commandment of the decalogue.” He is not the only First-day advocate who holds that opinion. The surest argument, if not the wisest, is found in the Catholic Catechism. The fourth commandment, however, is good enough for those who do not wish to “be turned aside unto fables.”

—A division has taken place in the denomination known as Dunkards. A few years ago a party sprung up among them, who desired them to lay aside some of the old forms, in regard to dress, etc., and to advance education. A conference was recently held at Arcanum, Ohio, for a final settlement of the question. Fourteen hundred delegates were said to have been present. The debate was long and animated. A vote showed that the majority of those present were “Progressionalists,” who withdrew from the denomination.