RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 771, 10 December 1886, Page 6

RELIGIOUS.

SABBATH OBSERVANCE IN THE UNITED STATES. The Pensylvania Railroad haabeeu quietly making some experiments to ascertain whether it would pay for a big railroad company to remember the Lord’s Day. A good many excursion trains and some regular passenger trains have been discontinued. All the freight trains except those carrying live stock and perishable goods have been ordered off from eight o’clock on Saturday night until midnight on Sunday, and all repairing- on Sunday has been stopped. The result has proved so satisfactory that the directors are now arranging to make these experimental charges permanent and to ex. tend them. That a largo corporation like the Pensylvania Railroad should should have been willing to try the experiment of Bunday observance, after years of violation of that day, is a most hopeful sign of the development in moral tone. That after trying the experiment it has found the result so satisfactory that the change, is to be extended and made permanent, was not unlocked for by those who had examined "this siitjeet in its physioal and social as well as •moral"bearings. Such a fact as this is one <of those practical arguments that are wholly ■unanswerable.—Montreal Church Guardian..

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTIONS IN ITALY.

A "somewhat remarkable account has, says Evangelical Christendom, come to the public notice in connection with the Episcopal Methodist Church at Venosa. It has b >sn established about three years, and has been doing a good work, pushing on the efforts for evangelisation as far as its forces, spiritual -and 'temporal, have permitted. However, a severe trial has overtaken it. In one month two of its members have been assassinated.; and although these cruel deaths have been, Indeed, only too terrible, they are not *the««nly trials which have besot this young congregation. The increased virulence Of ‘the Romish persecution (for genuine persecution there is, in spite of the law guaranteeing full liberty of conscience and worship) causes the members to go about in fear of their lives. Calumny and hectoring seem to be the order of-the day. Surely these things should be looked into and remedied. Italy, we know,doves fair play. The officials responsible for’law and order in the place need, it seems to us, to have their minds stirred up by way of remembrance.

The use <jf unfermented wine for sacramental purposes is 'forbidden under an order -adopted by the Provincial Synodf{Episcopal) ct Montreal. It was held that the physical effect of wine taken in communion could not be injurious, and that it would be * monstrous ’to -suppose that such use of Wine should be the cause <ef sin. A correspondent of the (Christian Union, writing from ’England, says that -usually there is on,the communion table in Non-con-formist churches one -cup tied with a blue ■ribbon. This is for -those -communicants who Object to using -any but unfermented vriane. He says that another general custom •'is to suspend any communicant from .communion privileges, who, in 'business, fails to pay 20-Sh's>llings to the pound until investigation vindicates his honesty. Anglican missionaries in the diacese df Maritzburg, South Africa, elaim that the great sin of the Kaffirs is idleness. What work is done falls on the shoulders of the women, and they den’fc work three months out of the twelve. When the people are not off to a beer-drinking, they are stretched out in the sun, idling their time away. They don’t, it seems, like to go to church. any better than they like to work. Sometimes the impatient missionary will have to wait for his congregation more than an hour, even after a mesasnger has been sent for them.

The number of individuals belonging to the several ranks of secular clergy in Russia amounts to 84,974. They are apportioned as follows: 1418 archpriests, 34,375 ordinary priests, 6810 deacons, ,and 42,371 choristers. To these must be added 6040 persons, of whom 1519 are ordained, who live in religious seclusion, Notwithstanding

the largeness of these figures, the. want of; priests is much felt, especially in Siberia and the frontier governments, where it has been found necessary of late to consecrate to ' the altar seminarists who had not completed 1 their course of study, and also to recruit' the ranks of the clergy with students from: purely lay institutions. The first expert-; ments in this latter direction are stated to have resulted most satisfactorily. These i secular priests are what are known as : * white ’ priests, in contradistinction to the ‘ black ’ priests, or monks, who are notpermitted to marry. The white priests are what we in this country should call parish clergy. They are allowed t© marry, but this liberty carries with it a disqualification, for they are considered inferior to the -celibate order, and are consequently not eligible for promotion to bishoprics, &c.— Rock.