Notes of News | AdventAI

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · March 18, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 12

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Notes of News.

—Japan is to have two locomotives from Pittsburg, Pa.

—The Zulu war cost the British government £5,138,000.

—The famine in Persia still continues, and urgent appeals for help are made.

—If the Jesuits are driven out of France, they propose to take refuge in Spain.

—Twenty-one railroads run into Chicago, on which 272 trains arrive and leave daily.

—It is now said that Bismarck has no thought of resigning the Chancellorship of Germany.

—By a recent rise of the Vistula River, 30 villages were flooded, and some of them destroyed.

—The committee in charge of river and harbor appropriations has granted Chicago $125,000.

—On the 8th of March, the import duties collected at the Chicago custom-house amounted to nearly $28,000.

—A party of 100 Chinese, driven from San Francisco by the “hoodlums,” recently arrived in New York City.

—In Glasgow, Scotland, on the 5th inst., 16 persons were killed and several severely injured by a boiler explosion.

—The Iowa Legislature is considering a bill to abolish the custom of “treating,” and to make it a punishable offense.

—The Presbyterians are making very encouraging progress in Mexico. In a single Mexican State 3,000 converts are reported.

—During 1879, the English Wesleyans expended over $1,900,000 in completing chapels, schools, ministers’ houses, and organs.

—Some of the Catholic priests of New York are trying the intimidation-plan to keep the children from attending the public schools.

—The American Bible Society has decided to establish an agency in Persia, and Rev. Wm. L. Whipple has been appointed to take charge of it.

—A convention to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Wycliffe translation of the Bible is to be held at Trenton, N. J., some time in September next.

—The news from Afghanistan is, that Mohammed Jan is again recruiting forces. He has several thousand followers, and the number is rapidly increasing.

—The gas works attached to an iron foundry in St. Petersburg, Russia, exploded on the 12th inst., and the foundry with three large buildings was destroyed.

—A great fire occurred at the weaving works in Moscow, Russia, on the 8th inst. The entire building was destroyed; 24 persons were burned to death, and 29 injured.

—The Baptists are the pioneer missionaries of Liberia, Africa. They organized their first church in 1821, and they now have 22 churches, with 1,600 communicants.

—Many of the religious newspapers are seeking to make capital for Sunday-observance out of the Tay-bridge disaster, pronouncing it a judgment for the running of Sunday trains.

—According to the official report, the sustentation fund of the Free Church of Scotland shows an actual decrease in contributions of $30,000, as compared with the contributions two years ago.

—The Primate of Ireland and one of his bishops have recently sent large contributions as Peter’s Pence to Pope Leo. And Ireland is starving. No wonder the news comes from Rome instead of Dublin.

—The American Missionary Board has received nearly $20,000 more for the first four months of the present financial year, ending Jan. 1, than for the corresponding period during the past three years.

—On the 8th of March, the bark Elbana, from Newport, Wales, to St. John, N. B., was wrecked, and the captain and 7 men were drowned. Another wreck, that of the British ship Isabella, is reported, with a loss of 7 men.

—The creditors of Archbishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, want the church property, for which much of their money was spent, sold to liquidate their claims. This measure the Catholic clergy of that city have formally expressed their determination to resist.

—All but two of the Protestant ministers of Worcester, Mass., and one Catholic priest, unite in a paper suggesting that no funerals be held on the Sabbath (Sunday), except in cases of absolute necessity; that when they are held, publicity and display should be avoided; and that there should be no public exposure of the body.

—The Congregationalist states that the last appeal of the Evangelical Alliance to the Austrian government in behalf of religious liberty has been so far successful that the government concedes the right of the missionary of the American Board at Prague to maintain public religious services in his house, and to hold public meetings in the halls under certain restrictions.

—New York proposes to follow the example of some of the large English cities, and start coffee-houses to counteract the influence of the liquor-saloons. Practical business men have taken hold of the enterprise. The design is to provide pleasant refreshment-rooms, with recreation in the form of simple games, and to furnish newspapers, magazines, etc., that the rooms may be as attractive as the saloons and bar-rooms.

—Evidently there are two sides to the Chinese question. The Advance says: “An American Methodist missionary in China, Rev. Nathan Lites, was lately set upon by a mob, and severely beaten. So fierce were the ‘hoodlums’ of Yenping-foo that they would have drowned the good man had not the magistrate of the district opportunely come to his rescue. So it seems there are ‘Kearneyites’ on both sides of the Pacific.”

—San Francisco, Cal., is in trouble over the labor question. The sand-lot orators are making war on the Chinese laborer. Secret meetings are held, and the lives of those who employ Chinamen are freely threatened. The Christian Weekly says, “The daily bulletins from San Francisco read like those from Paris during the Reign of Terror.” Revolutionary demonstrations have been carried so far that Kearney has been arrested for incendiary language.

—The London Standard, the organ of the British Ministry, declares editorially that Great Britain must watch, and, if need be, resist the claim of this country to a preponderating influence over the Panama canal, when constructed; also that England can no more allow the preponderating influence of another power to be imposed upon her trade at Panama than at Suez. But President Hayes has spoken in favor of the Monroe doctrine, and Count de Lesseps has expressed himself as favorable to it.

—A short time ago, we mentioned, in our news department, the pope’s encyclical claiming the right of the ecclesiastical power to exclusive jurisdiction over marriage and divorce. The Italian government is now contesting this claim; and the subject of divorce, pro and con, is being warmly debated. One paper maintains that the tendency to divorce is a sign of advanced corruption, and that the true remedy is the restoration of the Christian marriage and the re-establishment of the family on the basis of Christian law. On all sides the battle is being waged with energy and warmth, and this is the moral and intellectual question of the hour.

—The many items in the news departments of the various papers showing that public attention is being called to a stricter observance of Sunday, indicate the progress of the Sabbath controversy, and give us some idea of the spirit that actuates the religionists of the day. Such items as the following from The Christian Weekly are not infrequent; indeed there are several of that tenor in its issue of March 11. It says: “The trustees of the St. Louis Law Library, which has for some time been opened during certain hours on Sunday, decided recently to close it on that day. So much dissatisfaction was expressed at their decision that the question was submitted to the Library Association, who sustained their action by a vote of 53 to 44.”