Religious Notes | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 20, 1882

Religious Notes.

—The Michigan Legislature, having considered the question, has decided not to tax churches.

—The adult white population of Texas is 750,000, and 250,000 of these are communicants of some church.

—In 1853 the native Christians in China numbered 351; in 1863, 1,974; in 1868, 5,743; in 1872, 7,960; in 1877, 13,035; in 1881, 19,660.

—When religious papers copy a joke that is going the rounds of the press, in which reference is made to the twentieth chapter of Hebrews, what inference may be drawn?

—It is believed that the number of copies of the Bible in circulation has increased from 5,000,000, at the commencement of the present century, to 148,000,000 copies at the present time.

—Dean Stanley once said, “If a man has not read ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ he should go and read it at once, and if he has read it a hundred times, he should go and read it for the hundred and first time.”

—Within fifty years the number of mission stations has increased from 502 to 5,765, and the number of ordained missionaries has increased from 656 to 6,696, with 33,856 assistants, against 1,236 fifty years ago.

—The New York Evening Post sent a circular note to various clergyman, requesting them to express their opinion upon the question of opening museums or libraries on Sunday. Of twenty-three responses, eighteen were against, and five in favor of Sunday opening.

—The Christian Advocate gives this sound advice: “When a layman exhibits genuine zeal and capacity for usefulness, do not persuade him that he ought to get a license to preach. The very sort of men needed now are layman who have the mind of Christ and love his work.”

—The Christian at Work says: “About the two silliest questions the Average Christian can discuss are: Is the decalogue binding on Christians? and, Shall we recognize our friends in Heaven?” We agree with it. No thinking person would question matters that are made so plain in the Bible as to seem almost self-evident.

—There are now about 900 Wesleyan churches in the Fiji Islands, and 1,400 schools. Of a population of about 120,000, over 100,000 are reckoned as regular attendants at the churches. Idolatry is scarcely known, and cannibalism, for which these islands were so famous fifty years ago, has been voluntarily abandoned save by a single tribe.

—A book on the Sabbath has been recently published, in which the author proves (?) that the earth was brought into existence on Monday, Sept. 23, of the year 1. We have not read the book, but if he does not also prove (?), before the close of the volume, that so much time has been lost that no one can tell whether the day now called Saturday, is Monday or Friday, the author is more consistent than most first-day writers.

—It is stated that a movement is on foot among some of the more important Sunday-schools in favor of abolishing the old custom of bestowing Christmas presents on the children of the school, and substituting the practice of bringing presents by these children, to be donated to the less favored children of poor and distant mission fields. We know of schools that have pursued this course, with the most satisfactory results. It is well to give the children a chance to learn that it is “more blessed to give than to receive.”

—In execrable taste Rev. Thomas Harrison, the revivalist, advertises in the Western Christian Advocate, of Cincinnati, the history of his life and other books. We might pass the advertisement by unnoticed, but that it contains his likeness, with the words, “THE BOY PREACHER,” in flaming capitals overhead. “Boy preacher,” indeed!—he is a man of twenty-five or thirty:—how long does that first childhood last, we should like to know? If Mr. Harrison proposes going on with his revival work we advise him to drop a method which more fittingly suits “Yours-for-health, Lydia E. Pinkham,” than a minister of the gospel.—Christian at Work.