Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1875 — RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.

—At present about 20,000 children in the schools of New York are studying German. —There are * thirty-eight agricultural colleges in this country, employing alto•gether 889 professors and assistants, and instructing 3,917 students. —lt is stated that 20,000 Alaska Indians living along the coast are asking for ministers and teachers, and offer to build churches and school-houses at their own expense. —The Presbyterian Synod of North Carolina has, in forty-seven years, increased from forty-five to ninety-four ministers, from 112 to 206 churches and from 6,052 to 15,453 communicants. —Bishop M’Tyeire enforces the importance of reverence in the Sundayschool with the remark of Mme. Necker: “ Religion will never assume its most sacred aspect to young people unless the very teaching of it is a mode of worship.” —A class of fifty-nine colored adults were confirmed by Bishop Gross, in St. Benedict’s Catholic Church, Savannah, Ga., and six colored women received the white veil at the hands of the Bishop at the same time. They become Sisters of St. Joseph’s. —There are 400 religious journals in the United States. The Methodists have 47, the largest number; then come the Catholics, who number 41; the Baptists, 35; the Presbyterians, 29; the Episcopalians, 21; Lutherans, 14; German Reformed, 14; Jews, 9, and Congregationalists, 8.

—The contributions of Lafayette Avenue Church, Brooklyn, for religious and benevolent objects during the last fifteen years have amounted to $233,900. For sustaining their own church they have raised $264,500. Two other church organizations have gone out from them within the same period. —The Methodists of Chicago and vicinity have purchased a tract of land on the lake shore, north of the city, for the purpose of relocating their camp-grounds from Desplaines. The grounds are expected to be for the Northwest what Sea Cliff and Ocean Grove are to New York, and what Martha’s Vineyard is to New England. —The revival at San Francisco still progresses with unabated interest. More than 1,500 names have been subscribed to the covenant, many. of them young men just entering active life. At a recent converts, meeting 500 were present and took part. In addition to the regular church services out-door meetings are frequently held; jails and other public institutions are visited, and the whole city seems moved. —The whole number of children in the public schools of New Hampshire in 1874 was about 69,178. The average number was 47,275. There is a decrease since 1850 of about 10,000 in the whole number. The amount of money raised by taxation for the support of schools in the State in 1874 was more than double that raised at the former date. The annual reports seem to show that children are taken from school at an earlier age than formerly, and that this evil is increasing year by year. —The matter of making the eldership rotary in the Presbyterian Church, instead of a life-service, may be considered as settled. The Presbyterians are sending their answers overwhelmingly in favor of it. Already many of the churches have arranged their elderships on the rotary plan, and it has been found to work well. The old plan had its merits, but was open to the objection that elders would in the course of time become so aged as to be little better than monuments of services performed in past years.