RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 769, 26 November 1886, Page 6

RELIGIOUS.

EXTRAORDINARY PERFORMANCE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONSThe Parliamentary correspondent of the Liverpool Courier writes :— ‘ An unwonted performance startled the throng of strangers, mostly country cousins, who were waiting the other evening for admission to the lobby and the strangers’ galleries. A couple of gentlemen in clerical costume had sent in their cards, and in a trice half a dozen members of the Irish Parliamentary party came rushing out in breathless haste. The moment they recognised the two clerics, the half dozen senators, with one accord and as if in a mesmeric fit, rushed towards the holy men and fell upon their knees. The benignant clerics solemnly approached, and each successively holding out his right hand submitted it in turn to the prostrate members of Parliament, who performed tremendous osculatory operations upon the big jewel worn upon clerical fingers. After which, trembling with fear and adoration, they respectively rose to their feet and resumed the “godlike stature.” The spectators were startled if not awestruck, the detectives began to look anxiously around, and the stolid but obliging constables in uniform were pestered with questions as to what it could all mean. There was someone on the spot who was able to satisfy curiosity by

explaining that one of the clerics was a Roman Catholic archbishop and the other a bishop from Ireland, and that the performance just engaged in by the Parnellite members was the prescribed method of saluting a; prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. Inside the lobby the ceremony was repeated by successive batches of Nationalist members, who were hurried out to do homage to the distinguished visitors. It was repeated in the tea-room, in the corridors, and in Palace Yard, and for several hours remarkable genuflections prevailed all over the place. General regret was expressed that Mr Gladstone was not there to take part in the demonstration, hut a consoling assurance was given by a Nationalist member of a matter-of-fact turn of mind that in an Irish Parliament the incident would be no novelty. It would be a matter of every day occurrence.’

The mission work of the Presbyterians of Canada in the island of Formosa, interrupted bv the late war between France and China, has been resumed with greater energy than ever.

More thau £16,500 has been collected to erect a new church in the city of Jerusalem, where there is an orphanage under the care of the Lutheran Church. Congregational church singing was much commended by Liszt. ‘ There ought to be congregational practice,’ he said ; * the effect of a whole congregation singing together is magnificent.’ Buddhism in Japan has been virtually disestablished since 1874. While there were 393,087 Buddhist temples in 1714, there are now’ but 57,824. Fewnew temples are built, and many are going to ruin. The English Wesleyans are giving the subject of ‘ village Methodism ’ the most thorough investigation and discussion. There h»3 been for a number of years a growing conviction that the connection was losing its hold in the small villages where once it won its grandest victories. The first Congo baptism is reported by the English Baptist missionaries. Mr Comber writes : ‘ We carried out, for the first time in Congo, the ordinance of believers’ baptism, the subject being my boy, William Mantu Parkinson. It was an impressive service. Several hymns were sung, and a few words spoken on following and serving Christ. . It was the seminary for Foreign Missions in Paris (Roman Catholic) which furnished the majority of the priests who were slain In the persecution of the Christians in China, and w’hich also furnished the recruits to fill the lines broken thereby. This Missionary Seminary, the largest in the whole Catholic Church, labors also in Burmah, Siam and the islands around Eastern Asia, and at present controls 800 European missionaries in those countries, chiefly French-

men. _ , . The Paris Missionary Bernier lately visited the Gambier Islands, where the Jesuits have had a mission under French protection since 1834, and reports affairs as in a deplorable condition. The population of 2000 has dwindled down to 400. The church, built to accommodate 1500-people, stands empty. The children are diseased. The cause of the trouble is liquor. The men spend four months of the year in pearl fishing, then drink up their earnings, and have to get along as best they can, moneyless and idle, for the rest of the year.