RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 764, 22 October 1886, Page 6

RELIGIOUS.

Fiji has in its population 102.000 adherents of Methodism, 10,000 of Romanism, and not one of heathenism. The Bey of Tunis ha 3 given a choice site of land, worth £I3OO, to a small Protestant congregation there, on which they intend to build a church. A large congregation is said to have listened attentively to a sermon delivered lately at St. Martin’s, N. B , by J. E. Bell, a 12-year-old son of a Baptist preacher. One of the native converts to Christianity at Uganda, Africa, ha 3 been burned to death because he ventured, as a favorite page, to remonstrate with the King for killing Bishop Hannington. The statistics of Presbyterian missions for the report of 1888, show the total number of communicants in the mission churches to be 20,294. This shows a gain during the last decade of nearly 1361- per cent. The Methodists of . the West Indies are celebrating their centennial. Dr. Coke, with three missionaries, landed at St. John’s, Antigua, December 25, 1776, and established the first Wesleyan Mission in the West Indies. The agitation in Central and Northern Europe in favor of better observance of the Lord’s day is gaining in breadth and depth. In Alsace Lorraine two petitions in favor of the reform have lately been circulated. The first one, originating in Roman Catholic circles, has already 140,545 names, but many on this monster petition are Protestants. The second petition was started by the Protestant Pastoral Conference at Strasburg, and has now 6567 subscribers. In Paris the ‘ Society for the better Observance of Sunday ’ recently offered prizes for the best essay on the observance of the day. The Methodist denomination is said to build a church a day. The Baptists do as much. Probably not less than £1,250,009 a year are expended for churches.. The notable thing about this expenditure is.that it is not made at all for selfish individual purposes, but wholly for the benefit of the public. They tell of a clergyman in Lynn, Mass., who hired out to a church at a nominal salary of 4000dols, agreeing privately to make the church a present of lOOOdola of it. A congregation in Connecticut heard of the 4000dol preacher, thonght he must be extra good, offered him 4500d01s and got him.

Then the Lynn people understood why he pretended his salary was 4000dols. The Year Book of the Young Mens Christian Associations shows that there, are ninety association buildings in the United States and Canada, and that the net value of association property aggregates 5,040,178 dols. Three hundred and. sixty-five associations own libraries of 272,624 volumes, worth 293,168d01s ; 444 reading-rooms, with a total daily average attendance of 22,537 are reported. One hundred and thirty-one associations report gymnasiums and .other means of physical culture, such as rowing, baseball and outing clubs, bowling alleys, &c., and 592 report 666 Bible classes, with an aggregate average attendance of 7340. Four hundred aud eighty-seven men are devoting their whole time to the work as general secretaries, librarians, and gymnasium instructors. There are 1066 associations in this country, including the college, railroad, German, colored, and Indian branches. The annual current expenses of these thousand societies amount to over SOO.OOOdoIs.