Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1875 — RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.

—St. Paul has 2,503 children in the public and 2,349 in private schools. More than 1,600 of the children go to the Catholic schools. .—The Russian missionaries in Siberia report the conversion to the Greek faith of four Buddhist lamas during the month of August. —About 1,400 young men from the United States are now pursuing their studies at the universities and colleges of Germany. —The Baptist Society of Virginia City has made an appeal to the churches for. help. Its members have been greatly-im-poverished by the recent fire. —A bill withdrawing all aid from denominational schools and making educa-tion-compulsory passed the Parliament of Queensland, Australia, recently. —According to the report of the Commissioner of Education the benefactions last year for educational purposes amounted to $6,053,304, against $11,226,977 in 1873. , —The Methodist ministers of St. John, N. 8., have decided to omit reading from the pulpit numerous notices of lectures, entertainments, etc., which they are constantly called upon to advertise. —The Anglican Church Missionary Society has appropriated $25,000 to establish a mission among Chief Mtesa’s people in Africa in addition to the $50,000 given for that purpose by a London gentleman. —Fall River makes the smallest appropriation for educational purposes of any city in Massachusetts—only $9.86 per child—and Springfield the greatest—s 24.64 per child. Boston’s rate is $23.31, Lowell $19.83, Worcester $17.58,’ New Bedford $15.83. —The statistics of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States in 1875 show that it has 57 Bishops, 3 Bishopselect, 3,122 priests and deacons, 222,095 communicants, 235,943 Sundav-school pupils, and contributions to the amount of $6,899,305. —The Rev. Drs. Nicolls and Brookes, two of 'the most prominent Presbyterians in St. Louis, h&ve, with the design of reaching the masses on Sabbath evenings and preaching to them'the Gospel, rented De Bar s Opera-House in that city for the ensuing season. —Any woman in Minnesota who is twenty-one years old is eligible to any school-office and can vote for school-of-ficers or on any measure relating to public education. These privileges have been conferred by the adoption of a constitutional amendment at the late election. —Arkansas expects to raise $400,000 this year for educational purposes. The General Assembly adopted recently a memorial to Congress asking that the balance of the public lands in the State, amounting to 8,000,000 acres, be given to the State to form a permanent educational fund. —According to the Boston Pilot there were in 1825, fifty years ago, one Roman < Catholic pries! in Maine; one in Massa,* chusetts, and one in New Hampshirewith eight churches. There are now in New England, according to this authority, one Archbishop, five Bishops, 441 priests, 432 churches, and a Catholic population of nearly 1,000,000.