ECCLESIASTICAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1895, 16 March 1888, Page 34

ECCLESIASTICAL NOTES.

Baptists are the only Protestants who have the privilege of carrying on missions in Russia with the sanction of the Government, but they are not allowed to baptise members of the Greek Church. There are in Russia 31 Baptist churches, 41 pastors and evangelists, 82 Sunday schools, and 12,371 church members ; 850 were baptised last year. The National churches of Russia are identical in doctrine with the orthodox Greek Church. The Russian Church dates from 992, when Prince Vladimir the Great and his people accepted Christianity. The Russians properly so called belong to the Slavonic race, itself a division of the great Aryan family. Mr Gladstone has written to the editor of the "Nonconformist Musical Journal" as follows:— "Ever since the time of St. Augustine— l might perhaps say of St. Paul —the power of music in assisting Christian devotion has been upon record, and great schools of Christian musicians have attested and confirmed the union of the art with worship. I sincerely hope your journal may advance this purpose in the churches of the Nonconformists, joining you in the further hope that skill and science may always continue to be the handmaids of devotion, and may never bo used to overshadow it."

A curious experiment — a Catholic version of the Gospels in modern French — has just been put a stop to. Some months ago M. Henri Lasserre, a fervent Catholic, published a French translation of the Gospels from the Vulgate, and received many compliments from Catholic prelates and journals. He also published an amended editon, which benefited by certain criticisms. Both editions, however, have been placed on the Index, and M. Lasserre will suppress the book. It is stated that in his translation M. Lasserre "smoothed away and toned down whatever he found in it repugnant to the fastidious."

Universal charity and benevolence were salient features in the character of the late Catholic Primate of Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh, Dr McGettigan. In Ulster, the supposed stronghold of religious intolerance, the two heads of the Prptesfcant and Catholic Churches in Ireland lived side by side in peace and friendship. On the occasion of Dr McGettigan's funeral, recently, the Protestant Primate and Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Kcox, with Dean Chadwick, walked in the procession of mourners to the grave, adjacent to the burial ground of the poor, where, at his dying request, Archbishop McGettigan was buried. Most of the leading Protestant gentry, together with all the Catholic gentry of the neighbourhood, was present. A seasonable example of peace and good-will amongst all men !