RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 767, 12 November 1886, Page 6

RELIGIOUS.

LONDON AND NEW YORK CHARITIES.

A recent return of the churches and charities in New York shows that there are 489 churches, chapels, and missions of all kinds in the city of New York, with accommodation for 375,000 persons. There are in in New York upwards of 300 religious and charitable societies, and it is estimated that these societies receive and disburse annually 4,000,000 dollars. In London there are 1000 charitable institutions, with an aggregate income of £4,000,000, or five times that of the New York charities.

The city authorities of Lyons, France, have resolved to rid themselves of all religious emblems as “ relics of a degrading superstition.” The Jewish community in Alexandria has commenced the erection of a magnificent building on a large plot of ground adjoining

the synagogue of the Prophet Elijah. In> this building, when completed,will be located a number of benevolent institutions.

According to the official report of the General of the Jesuits,, lately issued, this order is now three hundred and fifty years old, has furnished 248 saints, 1500 martyrs, 13 popes, 60 cardinals, 4000 archbishops, 6000 authors, and now numbers 2500 missionaries.

The Roman Catholic Mission House recently founded in the former Benedictine Monastery, at Reichenbach, in Bavaria, has had a very rapid growth. The number of pupils has increased from seven to thirty, and applications are so numerous that those only are admitted who will bring their own means of subsistence.

The Rev Mr Connor has been expelled from his home and his work in Irbid in Hanran, east of the Jordan, by orders sent to the Kai-ma-kam of the district from Damascus. He was personally insulted by the populace, though of this he had no complaint to make, but he was ordered to leave and is now prevented from returning to his field of labor. Mr Connor is a missionary of the Church Missionary Society in London. Reports of an authoritative character have been received of the persecution of the Roman Catholic Church in some parts of Russia. At Lublin, in Russian Poland, the Dominican Monastery has been closed and three of the monks have been sent into the interior. The other monks were removed at night, so as to avoid any conflict with the excited populace. The only charge made against them was an excess of zeal for their faith. The presumption is that political agitation or conspiracy was suspected. The Weekly Register of London says on the subject of certain unfounded rumors concerning the Papal choir :. Since we went to press we have the word of a member of the Sacred College in Rome that neither women nor boys are to take part in the choir of the Sistine. Although nothing has been done, it is not improbable that a school of choristers, such as existed, in the time of Palestrius, may one day be formed again ; but the exclusion of women will remain an inviolable rule.

The School of Religious Science established some time since in Paris, under Government patronage, seems not to be a success. Lectures according to the' plan were to be delivered by prominent men connected with both Roman Catholic and Protestant theological academies; The object was to liberalise the minds of the rising generation of teachers, and it was hoped and believed that it would be a great success. It appears that only some sixty students have inscribed their names. Prof. Sabatier, a distinguished Protestant divine, has commenced his course of lectures with only sixteen students, and of these fourteen are of his own faculty of theology.