RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 896, 3 May 1889, Page 7

RELIGIOUS.

The Presbyterian mission in Brazil is twenty-nine years old. There are fifty churches and thirty-two ministers, twelve of whom are natives. During his forty-three years of orphanage work George Muller of Bristol, England, has received nearly £2,000,000 in voluntary contributions The Pope, observes the Pall Mall Gazette, never allows a fire to be lit in any of the eight rooms of the Vatican which he inhabits. His Holiness’ habits are so simple that he does not even require a dining-room but take» his meals either iu his bedroom or in the library. Professor Delitzsch of Leipsic is pushing the work for the conversion of the Jews. In nine of the German universities he is starting a movement for missionary effort among the Jewa, and already more than three hundred students havs enrolled themselves as members of a special school for training to this end. The English Baptist Year-Book for the British Isles states that there are now 2,770 churohes, an increase of 57 in three years; 3,745 chapels, increase, 91; 1,221,823 chapel seats, increase, 40,839 ; members 324,498, in. crease, 8,559; Sunday-school teachers,4B,977, decrease, 465 ; Sunday-school scholars, 482,167, increase, 9,437, local preachers, 4,138, increase, 135 ; pastors in charge, 1,835, decrease, 2S. A STRANGE MISTAKE IN THE REVISED VERSION. The Paris Morning News calls attention to a strange mistake in the Revised Version of the Old Testament. A curious thing about it is that it is a reproduction of a similar mistake in the version which is generally received. It occurs in 2 Chron. xxii. 1. There Ahaziah is described as, at the age of forty-two, having succeeded his father, who died at the age of forty, Seeing that another, and a perfectly possible, account of the same circumstance is given in 2 Kings viii. 26, it is surprising that the obvious error should have escaped correction. According to the Book of Kings, Abaziah’s real age at his accession was only twenty-two. At the time of Ahaziah’s birth, therefore, his father was eighteen—a fair age for a Syrian father of a firsfchorn. This particular error is older than the art of printing. It dates back to some ancient Hebrew copy of the Book of Chronicles. It is reproduced in the Douai Version of the Old Testament. PERE HYACINTHE AND HIS WORK. The work which Pere Hyacinths is doing in Franco for his countrymen is of the most serious importance. He would dam up the freshet of infidelity and restrain its destructive force. With an eloquence surpassed only by that of Bossuet, and a delicacy of rhetoric almost equal to that of Massillon, he lacks only the opportunity to make a strong inpression on the mind as well as the heart of his age. He is now cabined, cribbed, confined by the indifference—or, better, the injustice—of the Government and the very natural bub still unfair prejudice of the church which was once proud of his fame and influence. Pere Ryacinthe should have a church large enough to give scope to his popularity. With an edifice of suitable size and in a suitable location—Franco could easily spare him one of the numerous chnrches of Paris—he would be materially assisted in * i

one of the most remarkable and interesting experiments of the time.—New York Herald. BE YOUR OWN ALMO SER. If you would make the most of the means you design for charity, distribute them yourBelf. Your executors may waste them, or fail to carry out your purpose. No one can compass the end in view so well or with so little waste, as yourself. And then, the satisfaction of seeing the work done with your mortal eyes ! Wills are often made in haste. The man has come to the end and must act, without the oppertunity for review and revision. If he had assumed the task personally, he would have planned more wisely. In this matter such men as Daniel Hand, Vanderbilt, and Williamson are setting a good example to other benefactors. Do your own giving ; and, to be sure of the opportunity, do it now ! —Zion Herald.