Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 July 1875 — RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.

—Virginia lias just made an apportionment of public school funds amounting to seventy-five cents for each member of'the school population. —The Harvard examinations for women concluded a few days since. There were eight applicants, three of whom passed last year and applied this year for advanced standing. —The California Shite Teachers’ Association have adopted a resolution in favor of the abolition of the offices of State Superintendent and of County Superintendent, on the ground that they cost more than they are worth. —The income of the Wesleyan Missionary Society in England is much larger than ever before, and decidedly Jarger than any Christian society in -the world. For the present year it amounted to £185,000 sterling, about $925,000. That of the Established Church Alissipnary Society was upward of £175,000. —Rev. AV. James, Presiding Elder in the United Brethren Church iu one of the districts in Kansas, says that in the bounds of his work ope of the preachers, for waut of bread, takes but oue meal a day, and another could not attend his quarterly meeting for, die want of shoes. The question of bread is very serious among them, as the grasshoppers have destroyed, everything. —The* Southern Presbyterian General Assembly, which met at St. Louis, resolved, to purge its records of all reference to politics. The resolution is thus worded: “ That a committee be appointed to review the records of our church courts, and to eliminate therefrom everything which would give it such (i. <?., a secular) tinge; and that we here resolve and declare that we are and intend to be a non-secular and non-po-litical church.” —The contributions to the AVoman’s Board of Alissions in the Presbyterian Church in 1871 were $7,000; in 1872, $27,000; in 1873, $64,000; in 1874, $87,000; in 1875, $96,000; thus showing a steady increase since its Organization amounting to one-fifth of the entire annual receipts of the Foreign Board. The success of the Woman’s Board is not the munificence of a few, hut in gathering up the mites from the many.

—A little fact lias recently brought to light the extreme poverty of many of the country ministers of England. The Christian World , the most widely circulated of the English religious papers, expressed the apprehension that many of them were utterly unable to purchase “even one new book of real value,” and received letters from 260 confirming its statement. It has started a plan for supplying some of the country ministers with ten dollars’ worth of hooks each. —The Xlnites Fratmm , or Church of the. United Brethren, after an existence of 400 years, reveals no decay of vitality. The latest statistics for America show that the number of communicants has doubled since 1855. It lias now 15,308 members. ? Thc whole number of members in all the world is 98,227, to which is to"be added 80,000 persons connected with the State churches of Europe who attend Moravian ministrations. It has always been a part of the plan of the Brethren to form societies within the churches lor Christian edification. 'This body is the only one in Protestantism which is strictly ecumenical, although the leading churches iu the United States are, through their missions, rapidly taking on this character.