RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 878, 28 December 1888, Page 7

RELIGIOUS.

In 1840 the number of professing German Methodists was 824 ; in 1850, 7970 ; in 1860, 21,677 ; 1870, 30,827 ; 1880, 43.229, and in 1887, 52,886. The number of Protestant agents now em ■ ployed in missions to the Jews is about two hundred aud sixty. Fully one-half are connected with the London Society. It ia shown by returns lately published that there are still in France 900 sohools in the hands of the Christian Brothers, which must be laicized before October 30, 1891. ! The North China Methodist Episcopal Mission has extended it line of mission stations east of Peking to Sahn' Hai Kuan, a city which will probably be of great mili. tary and commercial importance in the new China of the near future. It is not generally known that there is a prayer-meotiug in connection with the Brit, iah House of Commons. In tho room of the deputy assistant sergeant-at-arms a prayermeeting is held weekly during the time the House is in session. No similar service is held in connection with the House of Lords. For tho first timo in English historjr there are four cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church resident in England. These are Cardinal Mauning, Archbishop of Westminster; Cardinal Howard, now lying ill at Norfolk House ; Cardinal Newman, Cardinal Lavegerie, Archbishop of • Carthage and Primate of all Africa, and Cardinal Moran, Archbisl\op of Sydney and Metropolitan of Australia. The Rev. James Johnstou, Secretary of the London Missionary Conference, has published a summary of Roman Catholic missions, drawn from a Catholic authority, the Missiones Catholioce for ISB6. The summary gives a total of 2,742,961 adherents in the various quarters of the globo, nearly half the number being reported for India; 7561 churches and chapels, 2822 European missionaries, 752 native missionaries, and 4504 elementary schools, with 110,742 scholars. For Africa and its islands 210,000 adherents are reported, with 200 churches and chapels and 417 European missionaries.