RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 932, 10 January 1890, Page 7

RELIGIOUS.

THE RELIGIONS OF AN AUSTRALIAN COLONY. The colony of Victoria seems to be remarkably rich in diverse religions. According to ths elaborate statistical Register just issued by the Colonial Government, there are 150 different sects and denominations in a population of a million, not to mention persons ‘unspecified,’ or of ‘no religion,’ or who objected to state their religious belief. The list is a curious one, and it seems to show that there is a good religious, anti-religious, and irreligious zeal in Australia. It includes some forty Protestant sects, besides the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians and the Methodists, about two hundred thousand Roman Catholics, and a few members of the Greek Chnrch. There are four Sandemanians, seven Second Adventists, one representative of the Sankeyites, the Robinsonians, the Huguenots, the Waldenses, the Reformed Church of Holland, the Millerites, the Walkerites, the Borrowites, and the Memnonites. Among those who do not belong; to any re-, cognised religious community are Pantheists, Theosophists, Saved Sinners, and Humanitarians. One gentleman and his wife returned themselves as ‘Silent Admirers,’ another couple are Fatalists, four other persons call themselveß Students of Philosophy, and six people candidly and snceinctly described their religion in the census papers as

A BUDDHIST TEMPLE IN PARIS. A Buddhist temple is to be opened in Paris. The rites are to be performed by nine bonzes. The special branch of Buddhism represented by the new pagoda is that which prevails in Annam and Tonquin. The number of Buddhists now in Paris is three hundred, including of course, the strong contingent at the Exhibition, near which the temple is situated. The service will be performed privately, hut visitors will be admitted to the building and allowed to inspect the idols and paintings. The latter have been executed by a native artist, and represent the whole symbolism of the religion of Buddha. M. Gustave Damoutier, the Government official who tabes charge of the Annam and Tonquin sections of the French protectorate at the Exhibition, has promised to present the idols and other appurtenances of the temple to the Guimet Museum after the close of the Exhibition. The bonzes are now in the Annamite village, where they are treated by the natives with every outward show of reverence. In a day or two they'will live at the pagoda and follow a kind of monastio rule.—Daily Chronicle.

In one of the London churches woman who have received the benefit of choir rehearsals are seated in twos and threes throughout the congregation to guide the singing, which is joined in much more readily for the presence of these assured leaders. A movement is on foot in St. Petersburg for observing Sunday as it is understood in the United States and Great Britain, It is

said that 1200 St Petersburg merchants have already declared themselves willing to keep their places of business closed on the first day of the week. Along the valley of the Nile, from Alexandria to the first cataract, are 79 mission stations and 70 Sabbath schools, numbering 4017 scholars, while the day and boarding schools have over 5200 pupils. There has been an increasing demand for Bibles, 6651 having been sold the lost year, with 8933 volumes of religious literature and 17,179 educational books. The Norwegian Lutherans in the interior of Madagascar in ISS4 baptised 1521 persons and received 21 Roman Catholics and 62 Independents and Friends into their congregations, making the entire number of their members now 6446. They have 1678 candidates for baptism, an average attendaDep on worship of 35,000 persons, 30,000 children in the schools, and 636 native preachers and teachers, five of whom are ordained. They have also on the West Coast 50 baptised reported during the year, and 600 or 800 attendants at church with three native teachers.