RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 661, 24 October 1884, Page 5

RELIGIOUS.

THE OLD TESTAMENT REVISION. The Athenaeum states that the Old Testament Company of Revisers has finished its labors. The preface has been finally revised and approved. As the work has to be submitted to Convocation before its issue to the public, it is not very likely to be published before next Easter. A dinner was given ou the 19th ult., by Dr. Ginsburg to celebrate the conclusion of the revision. There were present the Bishop of Winchester, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the Dean of Peterborough, Mr Bensley, Dr. Chance, Mr Cheyne, Principal Douglas, Prof. Driver, Prof. Stanley Deathes, Prof. Lumby, and Mr Alois Wright. Lord Shaftsbury and Lord Aberdeen were also present. During the course of the revision, two have resigned and ten have died out of twenty-seven members of the Old Testament Company originally appointed by Convocation.

There are quite a number of excellent people who live in constant fear that this country is in terrible danger from the attacks of infidelity on the one hand or Roman Catholicism on the other. It would repay them, and perhaps calm their nerves, to collate recently collected statistics as to religious progress and development. In .the year 1800 the total population of the United States was 5,305,925. Of these there were— Protestants, 1,277,052; Roman Catholics, 100,000; unclassified, 3,928,873. In ISSO, out of a total population of 23,191,876, there were Protestants, 12,723,15 S ; Roman Catholics, 1,614,000; unclassified, 5,851,718. In 1870, out of a population of 35,535,371, the Protestants numbered 24,041,456 ; Roman Catholics, 4,600,000; not classified, 9,916,885. And in the year ISBO, out of a total population which had swelled to 50,152,866, there were 36,031,974 Protestants ; 6,367,000 Roman Catholics; not classified, 7,753,892. Taking the percentage to the population, the figures are 1800, Protestants 24, Roman Catholics 2, unclassified 74; 1850, Protestants 54|, Roman Catholics 7, unclassified 3SJ ; 1870, Protestants 63, Roman Catholics 12, unclassified'4s ; 1880, Protestants 71i, RoRoman Catholics I2J; unclassified 16£. The most devout and earnest Protestants will find little ground for alarm in these figures.—Boston Traveller, U.S. The parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields was the scene of considerable excitement on the afternoon of a recent Sunday. The members of an extensive temperance society styling themselves * The Sons of Phoenix entirely disturbed the accustomed propriety of the Sunday afternoon. Arrangements were made for a special service in the parish church at four o'clock ; but it was a quarter to five o’clock before the serried ranks appeared, marching along the Strand with the hoarse clamor of brass bands, and agraudarray of banners and other gala insignia of official importance. The parish church was crowded from end to end, and from gallery to gallery, when an appropriate address on temperance was given by the rev. vicar. At the same time an open-air service in the precincts.of the churchyard was conducted by the senior curate, the Rev. Richard Isherwcod, who, with his wife (the authoress of the interesting book lately published under the title of “ Central London ”) are both zealous champions of total abstinence principles, and in addition to these twofold services, another large party formed an oversowing meeting in Trafalgar Square, where' a series of lay addresses were delivered by members of the association. It is to be feared that many of these “ Sons of Phoenix” must have travelled far beyond the legitimate limits of a “Sabbath day's journey.”