THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2265, 29 July 1897, Page 62

THE RELIGIOUS WORLD.

• . • The -wife of the Rev. R. Taylor, the well- | known Wesleyan minister, died at Ashburton on ] the 20th. • . * Mr E. T. Hoo!ey will shortly be confirmed by the Bishop of Southwell at the parish church of Riswell, Derbyshire. • . • The Rep. Dr Iklagee, of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, has presented to the board of the Irish "Mission a valuable library of missionary works. • . • The seventy-fifth anniversary of the establishment of Wesleyan Methodism in Parramatfca, New South Wales, is to be celebrated on the Bth and 15th of August, and duriDg the intervening week. • . • A statue is to be erected in Boston to Dr Charming, the famous American Unitarian preacher, a sum of £6000 having been left by a Mr John Foster for that purpose. • . • Mr E. T. Hooley, among other accomplishments, is a musician, and he played recently at the dedication of a new organ he had presented to one of the churches on his estate. • . • The last hymn sung by Professor Drummond shortly before his death was, " I'm not ashamed to own my Lord, or to defend His cause," &c, which he sang through. • . • The Orthodox Russian Synod, unmoved by the visit of the Archbishop of York, is reported to have issued a manifesto endorsing the Papal decision against the validity of Anglican orders. '.• The "self-denial" week collections of the Salvation Army in Great Britain and Ireland amounted to £25,000, Though only six months have elapsed since the last such occasion, the sum is the largest on record. • . ' According to Sir Bryan O'Loghlen. there are now in Australia from 2500 to 3000 nuns and " sisters " of the Roman Catholic Churcb, who are engaged in educating the young and relieving the poor and afflicted. ' . • Mits Dudley, of Morpeth, formerly a mission teacher in India, is proceeding to Fiji in connection with the Wesleyan Mission to labour among the '3000 coolie women on the plantations there, and in whose interests mission work has been carried on for years past. ' . * Dr Thornton, Bishop of Ballarat, and Dr Riley, Bishop of Perth, were among the visitors at a reception given recently by the Hon. T. A. Brassey at Normanhurst Court, in Sussex, Lord Biassey'a English country seat. * . * La Semaine Religieuse de Paris says that in consequence of the fire at the Cathedral Fair I the Cardinal Archbishop has forbidden children I to carry lighted candles in processions at their first communion. The candles will still be carried, but will not bs lighted. * . * A provincial journal recommends Professor Mudd, F.L.8., who is giving evangelistic I addresses in Victoria, " if he wishes to pass for an educated public speaker,'*' to " give the 1 aspirate its proper place, and also sound the ; seventh letter of the alphabet in words termiI natiDg with ' ing.' " * . * The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Hobarfc, Dr Murphy, has recently completed his I eighty-second year, having been born on the morning of the day on which the Battle of ! Waterloo was fought. He entered the priestI hood during the first year of the Queen's reign, [ and at the age of 31 he was consecrated a bishop, arriving in Hobarfc in 1866. • . • "We say trade follows the flag,' bat it is a prior postulate that commerce follows the cross. The life that now is owes an enormous debt to the intrepid-and devoted teachers of the things concerning the life that is to come." — Rev. Hume Robertson, of Castlemaine. • . • It has been the policy of the Roman Church for more than half a century to increase by every means in her power her authority over her clergy. She has aimed at making them, in the strictest sense of the 'term, a service, with the traditions, the devotion, and the esprit de corps which properly belong to a service. — Spectator. • . • Dr Amory H. Bradford has remarked that there are in Boston (America) at the present time more Buddhists than there are Christians in any city throughout India. The Buddhist missionaries, ie says, have recently made more converts in America than all the Christian missionary organisations are making in India. * * . * The death is announced, at the age of 81, of Dr John M'Tavish, of Inverness, who was ordained in 1844, and spent most of his early years in Canada, where he did aoble work. He was afterwards minister of the East Free Church, Inverness, from 1876 to 1892, when he retired from the charge. * . • There is an interesting report in the Argus of a late date of an interview with Arohdeacon Hales, of Launceston, Tasmania, the only survivor of the three ordaiued clergymen who came to Victoria in 1847 with Bishop Perry. His connection with Australia, however, goes farther back than that year, as he was in Sydney 73 years ago, and 18 months later in Tasmania for five years with his father, who held a military commission. . * The Most Reverend Father Sophronios, Greek Patriarch, of Alexandria, is the oldest prelate in the world. He was born at Constantinople in Fftbruary 1792, and is, therefore, now over 105 years old. For 95 years he has been engaged in religious work, and has held the highest offices in the Orthodox Greek Church. He is still sturdy and vigorous. • . ' There are 214 Congregational ministers in Australasia, of whom 57 are in New South Wales and 55 in Victoria. Congregationalism in New South Wales has not made much material progress recently, the last country church having been formed in 1886, and the last metropolitan one in 1892. The last five years have been stationary. * . *Dr Russell Conwell, previously reporter, colonel, special correspondent, lawyer, and orator, took charge at last of a mission in Philadelphia, where he has been very successful. When he began his work the attendance at the weekly prayer meeting was 27 ; now hundreds are present. His average Sunday congregation is 4000, and he presides over 6000 students in a college which he has founded. During the last 10 years he has baptised nearly 3000 perfons. • . * General Booth, writing on courtship and marriage in the War Cry, maintains that " a woman has a thousand times more freedom and opportunity for fighting for God and winning souls when single than the can hare if married." He pronounces " wos to early courtships," and gives his own experience of " calf lore " as an awful warning. • . • The Christian Knowledge Society will issue, simultaneously with editions in Munich and New York, a book entitled "The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as Illustrated by the Monuments." It consists of a protest against the modern school of Old Testament criticism, and has been translated from the German of Di Fritz Hommel, Professor of the Semitic Languages in the University of Munich. • . • The Rev. Dr Clifford, before leaviog Auct land on Saturday for Rotorua en route foi Napier, was (our correspondent wires), pre ! sented by the committee of the Auckland : [ District Baptist Aesociatio"h with a handsoHH : I escritoire of New Zealand woods, as a souvenii of bis visit to Auckland. Owing to the post

ponement of the Aorangi's departure he is in hopes of getting as far south as Dunedin, which ho much desires to see, aa also put of the province of O^ago. • . • Mr Alex. Dod, missionary to the Chinese, left on Monday by the Monowai for Victoria, where he hope 3 to secure the services of * trained Chinese catechist to take his place in Dunedin while absent on the proposed inspection of Chinese mission work in the United States of America, and in South China. He expects to return from Victoria in about six weeks, and has engaged Mr Daniel Lem (from the West Coast) to occupy in the meantime the preacher's place in the looal mission church. • . ' The president of the Theosophical Society (Colonel H. S. Olcott) will arrive in this colony on a lecturing tour at the end of next month, landing at the Bluff and speaking in the larger towns on bis way north. The colonel, with Madame Blavatsky, founded the society, and has been its continuous president, sticking to the helm through all the storms that have beaten upon the unique, not to s»y peculiar, organisation of which he is the head. He should have some strange tales to tell. j • . • The Rev. Dr Stropg, of the Australian ! Churcb, Melbourne, during a short stay in Sydney, on bis way to Newcastle, was interviewed by a representative of the Daily Telegraph, and. gave his opinions on recent tocial reforms or projected! reforms in Victoria. ' Rsferring to' his church, he said :—": — " It is simply an unsectftrian church. We have-no fixed creed. Oar bonds are the spirit of religion and practical Christianity, as we believe* in the development of doctrine, and that theology, like all other sciences, is progressive. We think the other Protestant churches are moving in the same direction, and we shall be very glad if we are eventually swallowed up in a larger move- j ment." , , < • . ' In all parts of Europe, except Austria. ; the Roman Catholic clergy are largely of 1 peasant extraction. They owe such social im- : portance as they possess entirely to the fact that they are priests. Even as it is, this does not always ensure them much consideration. The notices of the cures which we meet with in French novels — notices which are the more likely to be accurate as they are for the most ; part quite incidental — usually represent the country priest as an embarrassed dependant of the great, house of the village, tolerated as a sort of necessary encumbrance, because the I family must hear mass and go to the sacrameats. — Spectator. • . • The Rev. Isaac Harding (the oldest We«- j leyanminister in Australia), whose death at Brisbane was announced by us last week, is stated by : the Manawatu Times as having been well known and highly respected not only in the Australian colonies but throughout New Zealand. Of unusual mental caps city and extensive reading, he was also a contributor to some of the leading magazines and reviews in England, and his "Letters from JJuole John," written from Auckland and Dunedin, appeared in the London Times, and did invaluable service to this colony and its intending colonists in the early days. His name is still remembered with affection and respect in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, - and Wanganui. _ • . • The remarkable difference in favour of attaining lives over those of non-abstainers which has characterised the yearly returns of the United Kingdom Temperance Insurance Company for a quarter of a century has been again exhibited. DuriDg last year, in the non-abstaining section, the actual death claims were 356, or 46 fewer than the expectancy. In the temperance section the actual death claims were 246, or 118 fewer than the expectancy. In other words, if the death rate of the abstainers had been the same as of the non-abstainers, instead of 246 there would have been 320 deaths, or 74 more. While if the death rate of the nonabstainers had been the same as of the abstainers, there would have been 84 fewer deaths.— British Medical Journal. • . • The Commonwealth, quoting from an American religious journal, gives as the result of personal investigation into 100 individual cases the following answer to the query, "Why don'tmen go to church ? " : — Four men alleged that they did not believe in a future state ; six had been "churched to death," as they expressed it, when young ; 14 others had no Sunday in which to attend church or anywhere else. Of these one had a Sunday off work every month, another had alternate Sundays, a third had but 30 hours off in a month, and 11 others (all railway men) were so destitute of Sunday leisure that one of them had had no Sunday of his own for two years. In the 100 were two livery stable-keepers, who stated that Sundays were spent in labour, ministering to the pleasures of others ; four delivery-cart drivers were so engaged in delivering goods to ."good Christians '? till 1 a.m. on Sundays that they had no time ; 14 were careless, and stayed away because others did ; and 37 factory and mill workers were so drives and exhausted during the week that they could only recoup themselves on Sundays from their excessive toil. Twenty other* had " done with churches on account of what they saw of church-goers," and similar excuses were offered by the 18 others. • . • A movement (sayß the St. Petersburg correspondent of the Daily News) is at present in 'progress among the Roman Catholic priests of Poland which is likely to lead to important results. A large group of the local priests have instituted a crusade against the celibacy of their own order. Their views are expounded and advocated in a book rececntly published in Russia at Warsaw, and they seem likely to receive the support of a large body of influential Russian opinion ; for the movement; if successful, will lead in any case to the isolation of the Polish Church in some degree from the rest of the Catholic organisation, and thereby promote the cause of Imperialism in Poland. It is thought possible that the Papacy may be brought to recognise the marriages of the priests, for there is precedent for such recognition, otherwise the result of the change would be the separation of the Polish Church, and its establishment as an independent body after the model of the churches of Utrecht and Baden. One of the gravest arguments in favour of the change is that a large number of the priests have contracted illicit unions, to the scandal and detriment of their flock. • . • The question of the different degrees, if not of rcve-ence at all events of dignity, signified by the prefixes "Reverend" "Very Reverend," and " Right Reverend," has long been a vexed one north of the Tweed. The moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland ! has now, however, declared ex cathedra who are " Very Reverend," as distinguished from those who are merely " Reverend," while as to "Right Reverend" there is, it appears, only 1 one north of the Tweed. It has long bean the , custom for ex-moderators of the General ■ Assembly to style themselves or be styled " Very Reverend," but their right to this amount of reverence has often baen disputed, ■ and so, when in an "act" of the General : Assembly an ex-moderator was referred to as . "the Very Reverend Dr James M'Gregor," I there was no great surprise when the prefix was i challenged and an appeal made to the chair. : 1 Thereupon the moderator, who this yeat • happens to fee one of the best authorities in the

Church of Scotland on questions of ecclesiastical law and procedure, gave judgment. Moderators of presbyteries are reverend ; moderators of synods are very reverend ; and the moderator of the General Assembly is right reverend. "And what is he after that?" breathlessly queried a reverend member of the Assembly, v tor the moderator only holds office for one year. "Plain Mr" was the laconic response. And so the poor ex-moderators, of whom there is a long line, will have perforce to give up all claim to " very reverend " dignity ; indeed, they are •'reverend " even only on sufferance. GAMANI'S KEPLY TO ATHEISTS.' To those who see in the existence of the world the effect of chance a curious argument was opposed by Galiani. " One day," said he, "at Naples, a man took six dice in a dice-box and bet that he would throw six 'sixes. He succeeded at the first throw. I said to myself ' Such a thing is possible.' He did it a seoond time. I said the came thing. He put the dice back into the box three, four, five times, and always threw six sixes. 'Sangue di Bicoo!' I cried ; ' the dice are loaded ! ' And so they were. Philosophers ! when I consider the everrenewed order of nature, her immutable laws, her revolutions, always constant in- an infinite Variety, this single chance, of a world such aa we see it returning unceasingly notwithstanding a hundred million other chances oLpossible ' perturbation and destruction, I cty out : 'Of • truth, nature - is loaded I' " — L'lllustration Europeenne (Brussela).