Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1875 — RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.

—Rev. Edward Cridge, of Victoria, British Columbia, accepts the office of Missionary Bishop in the Reformed Episcopal Church, to which he was elected at the General Council of Chicago. —The average contributions per member for foreign missions in the Presbyterian Church were, in -1870, about eightyseven cents. In 1875 they appear to be but seventy-eight cents, a falling off of nine cents per head. There are 116 churches in St. Louis, owned by fourteen religious sects, with a total valuation of $2,939,770. Of this amount only $274,640 are taxable, the rest being represented by property in actual use for religious worship. —Gail Hamilton comes out in the Independent dealing with “ corporal punishment in schools,” and advocating it, but only on the condition that the teacher by whom it is administered be a man picked from 10,000 —one who has “ sympathy and sense, and never gives way to passion.” —The Interior, of Chicago, after quoting an account of a New England city where a careful canvass showed that fourfifths ofthe families attend church, adds that its own examination shows that half the people of an Illinois town of 10,000 inhabitants are regular church attendants. It thinks the erv that the masses are not reached by the Gospel is overdone. —The various annual conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church meeting this fall elect delegates to the General Conference of next May. Several of these bodies have passed resolutions asking for lay delegations in the annual conferences as well as in the General Conference, and in favor of making the office of Presiding Elder elective. The elders are now’ appointed by the Bishops. It is worthy of note, as showing the conservative attitude of laymen, that the Michigan Lay Electoral Conference, at its recent session, rejected resolutions favoring lay delegations iu the annual conferences. In Sumner County, Kan., watermelons are considered dear at two for a nickel.