Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 December 1875 — RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.

—The Rev. Dr. Hall is opposed to having separate church services for children, but he thinks that every sermon should have a certain regard to their capacities and needs. —The Indian Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church is SIO,OOO in debt. The receipts of the commission have been larger this year than last year. Its indebtedness has been caused bv the growth of its w'ork. —The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Alissions reports a deficit on , Nov. 1 of $226,000. The deficit on Oct. 1 was $195,000. During October the receipts fell $4,000 short of the contributions of the same montll last year. —Rev. J. M. Jameson, formerly a Methodist minister of Ohio, writes that he is stationed among the Banock and Shoshone Indians, in Idaho. The tribes number 1,500, and know nothing of God or a future state. They say he is the first person who ever spoke to them on these subjects. —Sixteen Presbyterian Presbyteries have voted in favor of synodical representation in the General Assemblies, and seven for the old method of delegates from the presbyteries. The sixteen presbyteries contain 524 ministers and 58,988 members, and the seven have 184 ministers and 24,009 members. —The Welsh Presbyterian missionaries in India recently succeeded in’eonverting the heir apparent to the Chieftain of Cherra, named Borsingh. The Raja died, and the heathen Khasias say Borsingh is disqualified as his successor, being a Christian ; he lias therefore appealed to the Indian Government, and the decision is awaited with extreme anxiety. —Church property is taxed in California, and this exception to the general rule among the States wqi§ brought about by the heathen. It was found that the Chinese availed of the exemption of church property to evade taxation on their josshouses, which are very numerous, and mainly merely opium-smokers’ resorts; and to prevent this it was found necessary to make general the taxation of all real estate used for religious purposes. —Archdeacon Denison said, nqt long since, that in his own church he never preached, or allowed his curates to preach, more than ten minutes,. He has been outstripped in brevity by the Rev. G. Brewln, of Worthy, who numbered Mr. Disraeli among his congregation on a recent Sunday, but who cannot be charged with having wasted much of the right honorable gentleman’s valuable time, for bis sermon was over in sevfcn minutes!