Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1887 — RELIGEOUS NOTFS. [ARTICLE]

RELIGEOUS NOTFS.

Ruskin: Though you may have known clever men who were indolent, you never knew a great man who was so; and when I hear a young man spoken of as giving promise of great genius, the first question I ask about him is, Does he work? ! The Baptist Examiner thinks that the influence of Scotch 'Presbyterianism and of Boston Unitarianism was seen when the crew of the Thistle went to church and the crew of the Volunteer worked their beautiful yacht down the bay and back. Oonsul general Cardwell, of Cairo, Egypt, iQ a report to the Department of State, calls special attention to the successful labors of American missionaries in the valley of the Nile. Nearly 6,000 native pupils are in attendance at the schools that they have established. A. D. T. Whitney: It is almost always'when things are all blocked up and impossible that a happening comes. It has to. A dead-lock cannot last, any more than a vacuum. If you are sure you are looking and ready, that is all you need. God is turning the world round all the time. One of our exchanges says that when Mr. Moody was in London a number of young men were commissioned to follow up the converts to see that they remained true to their professions. They did so. Two of the committee were at the Bible school and they said they got the names of 45,000 converts made in London. Edinburgh is the great stronghold of Presbyterianism in Scotland, and for that matter, in the world. Of its 181 churches, 124 are Presbyterian. Philadelphia leads in this country, having seventy-four churches to 847,000 inhabitants, and New York comes next, with forty-nine churches and ’21,391 communicants. Bishop Fallows: There is such a thing as talking away all sens - of feeling, and the talker, amid his expressions of abject sorrow for past sins,is in truth gratifying his vanity by making himself the hero of his foul story. The outstanding wicked man, when reclaimed by God’s mercy, ought to walk softly and. speak mildly... The Roman Catholic Church has fortyfive Indian schools scattered over the country from Florida to Alaska. Dakota has the lien’s share, there being fourteen in that Territory. New Mexico has eleven, Wisconsin five, Alaska two, and California, Nevada, Oregon, Kansas, and Florida one each. Of these’ schools thirty-five supply board and clothing as well as instruction. The aggregate attendance is nearly 4,000. Most of the teachers are German and French. Borne years ago a Christian man . planted a vineyard in California and went largely into the business of making pure wine. His neighbors did bo, too, and pretty soon, so runs the story, he saw an increase of drunkenness in his neighborhood. He was troubled, and the more he thought the more he was convinced that he was doing wrong to make wine. So he pulled no his vines and burned them, and in their place put vines whose grapes make raisins;, and now he is prospering as never before. The Christian Witness, which is on the '-round and knows the circumstances says: “Rev. W. F. Davis, who has been put in jail for preaching on Boston Common without a permit, preached there again on the 2d inst.., having just got out of jail on probation. It is said that he will be sentenced now'on the two counts upon which he was convicted. He does not seem to get much sympathy from anybody, people thinking that he is determined to make a martyr out of'himself. Self-made martyrd are not popular.” The Moravian: Some persons nowadays are seeking to effect good by trying to analyze the reasons why God, in specific cases does, and other cases does not, answer prayer. They practically argue in such a way as to lead to the conclusion that answered praye’’ comes as a reward of meritorious •fisking. Such speculation is both erroneous and dan-' gerous. It is ours simply to pray in faith, and to leave the results to the j wisdom and goodness of God. Prayer’s < power and effects cannot be reasoned out. Dr. Pierson well says: "I have \ made up my mind that there are some things in the mind of God that 1 cannot get into mine. Hence Ido not attempt to reconcile the two revealed truths—that God is unchangeable and that prayer changes him.” Burdette: If the stern old Puritan Sabbath, with its subduing, saddening effects wrought out sueh joyous natures as Beecher’s and gave to the world such a beautifull blending of tenderness and trength, laughter and tears, heart deep pathos and sunny humor as Oliver Wendell Holmes, let us have another century of Puritan Sabbath. Up to date the Sunday, of the beer garden has failed to bring forth a Holmes or a Beecher. It has evolved a Johann Most and an August Spies, but somehow that kind; of a product does not seem to be quite up to the old Puritan mark. If it is up to the mark of to-day, then heaven save the mark. When you run up the bunting to-morrow, remember that it was the steady-going old Puritan Sabbath that hatched the Fourth of July.' “The day we celebrate,” dearly beloved, wasn’t born in a Chicago beer dive on a Sunday afternoon; not by a jug fall.