RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 770, 3 December 1886, Page 6

RELIGIOUS.

EXCESSIVE TAXATION. A country parson, writing to the Essex Chronicle, gives the following extract from' the balance-sheet of his ‘benefice. 5 Dr.— Gross income, £396. Cr.—Poor rates, £4B 9s 8d ; land tax, £3O 7s 6d ; house duty, £1 6s 3d ; highway rate, £6 ; income tax, £ll 6s 6d ; tenths, &c., £1 4s 6d ; total deductions, £IOB 12s sd. The writer asks— 4 Is anyone in any other profession taxed like this in proportion ?’ This very much bears out what we said last week as to the amount which an incumbent is mulcted being nearly six shillings in the pound. —Church Review.

The Protestant religious meetings in Paris were attended by 450,000 people, and Rev. Dr. Beard, pastor of the American church in Paris, says that the Protestant outlook for the future is a most encouraging one. / A dozen years ago missionaries were driven out of Zeitan, and the women of the town were among the most ignorant and servile to be found in Turkey. Now, every house is open to Bible readers, both Protestant and Arminian, and the girls who perform this service are Zeitun girls who have been educated at Marash and elsewhere.

An Anti-Atheistical Society has been organised among the young men cf the French universities, founded on the broadest basis, so as to include Catholics and Protestants, and intended to withstand such, influences as that which a few weeks ago gave a' grand celebration to the memory of Dideret, who was lauded chiefly because he denied the existence of God. At the recent International Congress of the Salvation Army, held in London, it was stated that there are 1552 corps and 3602 officers. Twenty-eight thousand and two hundred weekly and 1,466,400 yearly services are held. The newspaper of the army is printed , in nineteen different languages, and the Salvation banner waves in nineteen different countries and colonies. The Rev. Robert Chambers of Erzrum, Turkey, says : ‘I have given up all hope of seeing a self-supporting church in any of our villages during the reign of Turk. There is hope in the towns, where merchants always succeed in gaining a little, and where we find larger and more compact populations to work among. It is a fact also that the more enterprising and successful villagers are almost certain to move into town and become merchants. We are, therefore, trying to make arrangements to push work iu the towns. 5 A little semi-monthly paper called Missionary News from Bulgaria is now printed at Samokoy, Bulgaria, on a new rotary power press" just received from Boston, the gift of friends of Miss E. M. Stone, in Chelsea. The Rev. William W. Sleeper, and Miss Stone, who are conducting the evangelical school at that point, intend to add to the printing office a carpenter shop, a shoe shop, and perhaps a bookbindery, so as to give the Bulgarian hoys an industrial training. This is practical missionary work that cannot be too highly commended. It is

beginning at the right end. It teaches the boys a trade, and helps them tro become useful to themselves and others, and thus work their way upward. When the missionaries devote more of their time and effort to this form of instruction, they will be likely to get larger, speedier, and more satisfactory returns.—-Troy Times. The Vicar of Baydoti, in East Wiltshire, England, is being boycotted by the Tories for having committed the high crime and ) misdemeanor ot supporting the Liberal candidate in 1885. The Tory farmers forbid their laborers to go to his church, and they refuse to subscribe to his schools. Not content with this, some Tory roughs broke into his church Whilst he was recently away for his holiday, and scraped and whitewashed the pulpit which had recently been painted. The Protestants in Italy now number some 300 churches and mission stations, and it is estimated that 10;000 members have been con.erted from Romanism. Near Coblentz is; the church of Sfc. Ckstor, and this church they are now bedecking withevergreens, for it is this month one thousand years old, and fifty years to spare. The Jewish population of Jerusalem i 3 constantly increasing, and now numbers 18,000. This is the largest number that, has lived in the sacred city at one time since the destruction by Titus in 70 a.dx A fearful disaster occurred at the Pilgrimage Church at Radna, in Hungary recently. About a thousand persons were assembled in the church, where Mass was being celebrated, when by some accident the hangings on one of the side altars caught fire. Cries were immediately raised of 4 The church is on fire !’ and everyone-sprang up, a wild rush being made for the doors. Many of those in the galleries, in their fright, leapt down into the body of the church, falling on the heads of the struggling mass below. In the fearful stampede that ensued several hundred persons were more or less seriously injjured, and thirteen- killed outright.