Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1876 — RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.

—The colored Cat hoi led of Washington have the finest Catholic church in that city. —With a population of 04,000, Toronto had last year an average attendance of 5,386 in the schools. —Connecticut has five colleges and dis tinct professional schools, 1,538 ungraded district schools, 201 graded schools, 85 high schools, 2(1 academies and 21!) private schools. —The public schools of Brooklyn require for their support $639*000, exclusive of the State appropriation of $261,441. The account for teachers’ salaries will next year amount to over $700,000. —The next annual meeting of the Young Men’s Christian Association of the United States and Canada will be held at Toronto, Canada. July 12-16, In Shaftesbury Hall. A Urge attendance of delegates is expected. —The annual Convention of the Southern Baptists wks held in Richmond May 11-15. The receipts of the Board of Foreign Missions during the year were reported as $51,425, those of the Board of Home Missions as $16,000. —A young lady assistant in one ot the Boston schools was sick, one day recently, and a substitute was sent in. There had not I een a single case of corporal punishment in her room for six months, but the substitute used the rod not less than six times before recess in the morning. —The English NewTestamentßevision Committee have struck out as spurious the last seven verses of the last chapter of St. Mark. They have also struck out, as being a false interpolation, a verse in one of the Epistles which is frequently quoted as a proof of the existence of the Trinity. —Rev. Dr. C. H. Fowler, the President of the Northwestern University at Evanston, 111., has been elected to the editorship of the New York Christian Advocate by the Methodist General Conference. This indicates that the institution at Evanston will have to find a new President.

—Under the provisions of a new act of the Massachusetts Legislature, School Committees shall direct what books shall be used, and shall prescribe as far as is practicable the course of studies and exercises in the schools. A. change of book may be madeffiy a two-thirds vote of the whole committee, provided notice of such proposed change has been made at a previous meeting of the Board; and if any change is thus made, each pupil then belonging to the public schools requiring ingthe substituted book, shall be furnished by the school committee at the expense of the town or city. —At the Methodist preacher’s meeting, in New York lately, the Rev. Sir. Bowditch, on behalf of the committee appointed so investigate the subject of providing unfermented wine for sacramental use, reported that good unfermented wine, which will keep for any length of time, can be made as follows: “Take any kind of ripe grapes and boil with a small quantity of water until reduced to a pulp; strain through fine muslin, and to every gallon of juice thus obtained add from three to four pounds of common sugar; then boil the juice over again, and pour while hot into air-tight jars or bottles, which must be kept closely sealed. The wine will begin to ferment in a few days if exposed to the air. The cost of this wine is about $1 per gallon.” —The London. Missionary Chronicle says that of the South .African tribes, the Hottentots are surprisingly hard to convert to Christianity, and ready to backslide. The Kaffirs are greatly superior, intellectually and physically, yet they have-held out for fifty yearsagainst Christian influences. There is scarcely- a genuine convert among them, their resentful, warlike natures being a bar to sympathy with the missionaries’ teachings. Redoubled efforts are . being made in their behalf. The Sulus are equally unapproachable. The Bechuanas, comprising the other and much the largest race in South Africa, are mild and tractable. They take to Christianity readily, the Christian Sabbath is generally observed in their territory, and they are giving up their nomadic habits to become cultivators of the soil.