Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1890 — RELIGIOUS NOTES. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS NOTES.

The United Society of Christian Endeavor has a membership of 485,000, Illinois Methodists are arranging to celebrate their centennial in 1893. The number of confirmations in the Church of England last year was 220,000 against 144,000 in 1876. A dealer in old sermons at London advertises 4,000 manuscript sermons in job lots at a very low price per hundred. Those that are written in a large, bold, clear hand bring a higher price. The Salvation Army has property in various countries to the amount of $3,250,000. More than one-half of this is credited to Great Britain. In the United States the value of its property is less than $35,000. A unique but eloquent tribute was paid in the Baptist church at Milo, Me,, upon the recent celebration of its semi-centennial, in the declaration that “few churches have had so little trouble with their choirs as this.” It is stated that the Church of England has raised and expended over £35,000,000 on church building, repairing. etc., during the twenty-five years ending with 1884. The church I spends a million dollars yearly on these objects. A new society has come into existence lately whose aim is of more moderate proportions than its name. It is called the Congregational League of Proportionate Givers,, andthe simply requisite for membership is the purpose to set fixed proportion of one’s income for religious and benevo- , lent objects and to induce others to do the same. The Methodists are trying to unite the various branches of that denomination at work in China, and a committee appointed at the Shanghai Conference has just reported a plan of union looking toward the adoption of common rules regarding church membership, a common course of study for native preacher-, a common hymnbook and periodical, and one name for the entire church. It is said of Dr. Kerr, a medical missionary of the Presbyterian board at Canton, that he has in thirty-six years treated over 520,000 patients, ' aud has prepared twenty-seven medical and surgical works. He has ' trained over one hundred medical as- ' sistants, chiefly Chinese. China now possesses 114 hospitals and dispensaries, at which, in 1889, more than 348,'OOO patients received treatment, j The Christian Leader, Universalist, . commenting with disapproval upon the common tendency on the part of ; Christians to get on with unbelievers Iby conceding most of their position, ' and to win the friendship of the world by being as much like it as possible, says: “If we should be completely successful in this, what would result? We should have shortened the distance between the church and the world, not by bringing the world up, | but by letting the church down. We should not have diminished unbelief or irreligion; we should have given , them a little better standing in society. ■ Religion can make a wiser use of her ample mantle than to wrap it around men and women who neither respect her claims nor love her character.”