Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1876 — RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.

—Mr. Moody says that a minister who preaches a long sermon is like a fisherman who leaves“his big net in the water until all the fish get out; and that prayermeetings are killed by stiffness, stereotyped phrases and long prayer. —Hereafter applicants for positions in the Boston public schools will have to pass a thorough examination in all branches taught in the grade of school in wliich they are to work, and a diploma will be awarded for that grade; and in cases of actual or prospective promotion, the candidate will have to pass another examination for the higher grade. —The National Baptist complains that out of (he 025 Baptist associations, 359, or more than one-third, have made no returns for the “ Year Book” of 1876. The associations heard from report 87,874 baptisms during 1875. Estimating for the others, the National Baptist makes the whole number of baptisms for the year 100,000. The total membership of the Baptist churches is set down at 1,815,800, an increase from last year .of 54,129. —Easter will fall this year on the 16th rather than on the 9th of April, because Easter-Day is regulated not by a solar, but by a lunar cycle—the cycie that regulates the Golden Number. Now, by a solar calculation a day always begins at midnight; but by lunar calculation it begins at noon. If, therefore, the Paschal moon falls on a Saturday after 12 m., it is counted as falling on Sunday, and then Easter-Day is, under the rule in the Prayer-Book, the Sunday lollowing. This is what happens in the present year. The Paschal full moon falls on Saturday, April 8, at 2:43 p. m. It is therefore counted as falling on Sunday, April 9, and Easter-Day is the Sunday following—t'. e.. April 16. It may be added that should--moon fall on Mare)r2l before 12 m., that full moon (counted as falling on March 20) would not regulate Easter-Day, but the one following. This happened in 1819. —Sunday Citizen. —The West has closely, copied New England in educational matters, and has erected expensive school buildings and made large appropriations for maintaining them. But there are many -complaints against them. A Cincinnati paper characterizes the public schools as “excessively expensive and top-heavy.” Another paper says: “ They are beooming so topheavy with efforts to make them what they ought not to be that the/ are destined to tumble over, or rather, to tumble back to the original standards and method.” A Chicago journal regards ihe high-schools in this way: “The free high-school has givfin us lawyers, clerks, bookkeepers and bankers instead of proficient artisans. It has added to callings that could be dispensed with without great detriment to the public, and taken young men from occupations that are of great use to the world. It is often said that in our free school system * the rich educate the poor;' but so far as most pupils in high-schools are concerned the uoor educate the rich.”—W- Y. Tribune.