Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1875 — RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.

—Three years is the average term of Congregational pastors in Connecticut! —Rev. Dr. Speer, CorrespondingSecretaiy of the Presbyterian Board of Education, has resigned his office to return to missionary duties in China. •—The Southern Baptist missionaries have just held a camjvmeeting among the Seminolcs. There were seventeen tents on the ground, interesting services were held and ofle Seminole convert secured. —Tire Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut Conferences of the Christian -Connection have been consolidated into one, under the name of the Rhode Island and Massachusetts Christian Conference. —The CiMgrtjfutionalist states that the demand is growing for preaching rsther than for sermons, and there is * wide difference between the two. Seminaries in struct in sermonizing, but only Christian experience qualifies to preach. —ln Savannah, Ca.. the desire for « peaceful and qniet Sabbath is *o genera! that all business is suspended on that day and not a door is open to invite trade. Onethird of the white population is composed of Roman Catholics and .lews, who con form strictly to the public sentiment on this subject. —A pew branch of Methodism has been organized in Northern New Jersey under the title of “The United Methodist Church.' - The members hold their doctrine of immersion and discard a discipline and all creed save the New Testament. The new organization at present numbers about eighty nu mbers, who are scattered over a large field. —There are 520 vacant churches in the Southern Presbyterian Church. There are 203 preachers who are either superannuated or are professors, teachers, or otherwise without charge. The whole number of churches is 1,797, and the whole number of preachers, including licentiates, 1.084. Consequently 881 preachers do about all the pastoral work done for the entire church. —The statistics of Nevada M. E. Conference show: Probationers, GO;full members, 495; local preachers, 15; total, 570. Baptisms, adults, 41; infants, 4; total, 45. Churches, 11; value, $60,000; parsonages, 16-. value, $17,500. Sabbath-schools, 19; officers and teachers, 148; scholars, 953 ; claims for ministerial support, $14,035; mbsionary collections, $304-50; church extension * $104.75, and for Episcopal fund, $29.75. —The Presbyterian Ministerial Association of Pittsburgh has expressed itself very strongly upon the publication of Sunday newspapers. It denounces the -selling and buying of such papers as an unlawful traffic, and calls upon Christian people to discountenance their circulation. The resolutions adopted by the association were to be read by the Presbyterian ministers to their congregations “ with indorsing and corroborative remarks.”