Earlier text: Religion and MannersForm or Heart?
By M. K. W.
[A few days since a friend handed us a small tract with the above title, written by the Rev. J. C. Ryle, B. A., and printed in London in 1863. Although written in England and having direct reference to the formality of the Church of England, no one can fail to see its application to the religion of our country at the present day. We bespeak a careful reading for the extracts given below. M. K. W.] Reader: The question which heads this page deserves your serious attention at any time. I take it for granted that you have some religion. You are not an infidel. You profess and call yourself a Christian. Well, is your Christianity formal or spiritual? Is religion with you a matter of form, or a matter of the heart? The question deserves especial notice in this age of the church and world. Never since the Lord Jesus Christ left the earth, was there so much formality and false profession, as there is at the present day. Now, if ever, we ought to examine ourselves, and search our religion, that we may know of what sort it is. I know no better way of unfolding the subject than by turning to a plain passage of the Word of God. Let us hear what St. Paul says about it. He lays down the following great principles in his Epistle to the Romans: “He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” Rom. 2: 28, 29. Three most instructive lessons appear to me to stand out on the face of that passage. Let us hear what they are:— 1. We learn that formal religion is not religion, and a formal Christian is not a Christian in God’s sight. 2. We learn that the heart is the seat of true religion, and that the true Christian is the Christian in heart. 3. We learn that true religion must never expect to be popular. It will not have the praise of men, but of God. When a man is a Christian in name only, and not in reality; in outward things only, and not in his inward feelings; in profession only, and not in practice; when his Christianity, in short, is a mere matter of form, or fashion, or custom, without any influence on his heart or life,—in such a case as this the man has what I call a “formal religion.” He possesses indeed the form, or husk, or skin of religion, but he does not possess its substance or its power. Look, for example, at those thousands of people whose whole religion seems to consist in keeping religious ceremonies and ordinances. They attend regularly on public worship. They go regularly to the Lord’s table. But they never get any further. They know nothing of experimental Christianity. They are not familiar with the Scriptures. They take no delight in reading them. They do not separate themselves from the ways of the world. They draw no distinction between godliness and ungodliness in their friendships, or matrimonial alliances. They care little or nothing about the distinctive doctrines of the gospel. They appear utterly indifferent as to what they hear preached. You may be in their company for weeks, and never hear or see anything on a week day to show that they are not moral infidels or respectable deists. What can be said about these people? They are Christians undoubtedly, by profession; and yet there is neither heart nor life in their Christianity. There is but one thing to be said about them. —They are formal Christians. Their religion is a form. Two hundred years have passed away, since a Puritan divine said, “Formality, formality, formality is the great sin of England at this day, under which the land groans. There is more light than there was, but less life; more shadow, but less substance; more profession, but less sanctification.” There are places of worship at this very day, where all the outward things of religion are done to perfection. The building is beautiful. The service is beautiful. The singing is beautiful. The forms of devotion are beautiful. There is everything to gratify the senses. Eye, and ear, and natural sentimentality are all pleased. But all this time God is not pleased. One thing is lacking, and the want of that one thing spoils all. What is that one thing? It is heart! God sees under all this fair outward show, the form of religion put in the place of the substance; and when he sees that, he is displeased. He sees nothing with an eye of favor in the building, the service, the priest, or the people, if he does not see converted, renewed, broken, penitent hearts. Bowed heads, bended knees, loud amens, crossed hands, faces turned to the east, all, all are nothing in God’s sight without right hearts. I come now to the last thing which I proposed to consider. I said that true religion must never expect to be popular. It will not have the praise of man, but of God. Reader, I dare not turn away from this part of my religion, however painful it may be. Anxious as I am to commend heart-religion to every one, I will not try to conceal what heart-religion entails. I will not gain a recruit for my Master’s army under false pretenses. I will not promise anything which the Scriptures do not warrant. The words of St. Paul are clear and unmistakable. Heart-religion is a religion “whose praise is not of men, but of God.” God’s truth and scriptural Christianity are never really popular. They never have been. They never will be as long as the world stands. No one can calmly consider what human nature is, as described in the Bible, and reasonably expect anything else. As long as man is what he is, the majority of mankind will always like a religion of form far better than a religion of heart. Formal religion just suits an unenlightened conscience. Some religion a man will have. Atheism and downright infidelity, as a general rule, are never very popular. But a man must have a religion which does not require much—trouble his heart much—interfere with his sins much. Formal Christianity satisfies him. It seems the very thing that he wants. Formal religion gratifies the secret self-righteousness of man. We are all of us more or less Pharisees. We all naturally cling to the idea, that the way to be saved is to do so many things, and go through so many religious observances, and that at last we shall get to Heaven. Formalism meets us here. It seems to show us a way by which we can make our own peace with God. God will proclaim his approval of heart-religion before the assembled world at the last day. He will command his angels to gather together his saints, from every part of the globe, into one glorious company. He will raise the dead and change the living, and place them at the right hand of his beloved Son’s throne. Then all that have served Christ with the heart shall hear him say, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Look forward, finally, and hope for the coming of the Lord. Your best things are yet to come. The second coming of Christ will soon be here. The time of temptation will soon be past and gone. The judgment and reward of the saints shall soon make amends for all. Rest in the hope of that day. Work, watch, and look forward. One thing at any rate that day will make abundantly clear. It will show that there was never an hour in our lives in which we gave our hearts too thoroughly to Christ. D. M. CANRIGHT
By Dudley Marvin Canright
THE fourth commandment plainly enjoins the keeping of the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord. The majority of professors are keeping the first day instead of the seventh. But God has nowhere said plainly that we need not longer keep the seventh day, but must keep the first. Sunday-keepers therefore are found sadly in want of some scripture by which to justify themselves. In lack of better testimony, they think they find at least a sufficiently plain permission to keep Sunday, in Rom. 14: 5: “One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” “That is,” say they, “Sabbatarians regard Saturday above the other days of the week; Sunday-keepers esteem Sunday above the other days of the week. Now ‘let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.’ If the seventh-day man thinks he is right, well. If the first-day man honestly thinks the first day is right, it is just as well. No matter what day you keep, if you only keep one day in seven.” Now supposing this to be true, would it be just as well to keep no day at all, but work all the time? Would they fellowship him as a Christian who would disregard both Sunday, Saturday, and every other day? Oh, no. We must keep some day. But if the text proves anything about the Sabbath, it proves that you need keep no day at all! Read it again. “One man esteemeth one day above another.” Oh, yes, that is just what I believe,” says the Sunday-keeper. But again: “Another esteemeth EVERY DAY ALIKE.” Here is a man who works on Sunday, Saturday, and every other day. He esteems every day alike, and works every day. Is that all right? Certainly it must be, for Paul says of them, “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” Thus the Sunday-keeper in his endeavors to destroy the seventh-day Sabbath, has unwittingly destroyed Sunday also! Hence, we now have no Sabbath at all. Those who claim that there is any holy day to be kept, should know better than to quote this text as applying to the Sabbath. WHEN the Bible reveals a day of Judgment, it reveals what the human mind of itself perceives to be a necessity. The idea of a judgment after death is no more biblical than it is classical. Every people under heaven who have reached any considerable mental expansion, who have advanced far enough to study at all the problems of moral responsibility, of justice and equity, have had their theory of a judgment. In Persia, in Hindostan, in India, among the Egyptians, in the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, in the teachings of the Druids, and in the picturesque faith of the poor Saxon-hunted Indian, among every race and tribe, the idea of a judgment, a day of supreme and final allotment of the good and the bad, has been prevalent. The Bible assertion of a Judgment day, instead, therefore, of doing violence to human feelings, as some say, is in exact harmony with them; it is only the divine and authoritative announcement of what the universal consciousness of the race had instinctively conceived must be a fact; and every person at all intelligent and candid yields the free, unforced assent of his intellect to the statement of the Scriptures, that “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”— Golden Rule. God Loves the Cheerful Giver
God loves the cheerful giver. The Richest Man in our Parish.
The richest man in our parish was the squire. He dwelt in a great house on the hill that overlooked, with its broad white face, the whole of the village below, with its sistering cottages and neat farmers’ houses, his, and seemed to say proudly, as it looked down, “I have my eyes on you all, and intend to keep you in order.” And in truth, a great many eyes it had, with its rows of high windows brightly reflecting the summer sun, from early morning till evening, when not infrequently the last flush in the west left a glowing as with red fire. When strangers looked up at the great house, and inquired about it, the people of our parish used to tell them with some awe what treasures of grand furniture, and pictures, and choice specimens of art, the squire had collected in his many handsome rooms; what was the worth of one picture alone, that he had received thousands of pounds for, and the number of others that were beautiful enough, and valuable enough, to have adorned a palace. They were very proud to be able to say so rich a man belonged to them, and lived among them, and to point out his crimp-lined and curtained pew at church, and the great tombstone that stood behind the churchyard, recording the names of his ancestors, and testifying, as well as it could, to his own riches. I suppose the squire knew the homage that was paid to him, and liked it, and was proud of his turn, not of his neighbors, but of himself and of the wealth he possessed. When he rode abroad, he met with bows and greetings from rich and poor, everybody made way for him, everybody courted him. A man who had so much money, and so much land, and fine furniture, and pictures, and statues, and gardens, was not to be pushed in a corner and thought little of, and he knew it, as he went along the lanes and roads on his thoroughbreds, and nodded to this man, and “good-morninged” that, with some degree of condescension. He knew that he was courted, and admired, and deferred to, because of his riches, and was quite satisfied that it should be so. He did not wish to be thought ill-natured, so he gave, every year, a treat to his workpeople, and sent money, and coal, and blankets to the poor at Christmas, but he thought little more about them. They were poor, and he was rich; those two words, “poor” and “rich,” indicated a great difference, and he was quite well pleased there should be such a difference. One summer morning, he was taking a ride through the woods that skirted one side of his estate. It was very hot, and in the lanes the sun and the flies teased both himself and his horse, so when they turned in beneath the shadow of the oaks and beeches, it was a great relief to both. The squire gave Dandy the rein, and went along softly. He was soon thinking of other things than oaks and beeches. Perhaps the glitter of the sunshine here and there, as it lay upon a cluster of trembling leaves, or turned to richer red the tall heads of the willow herb beside his path, suggested the crimson draperies and gilded ornaments of his home, for he was thinking of a sight he had seen there only the day before; when there had been at the birthday of his eldest son a grand gathering of friends, and a feast such as a rich man makes to the rich, with dainties, and spices, and wines, served in gold, and silver, and rarest china, in the utmost profusion, and with the greatest display. He remembered the hilarity of the guests, the healths drank, the speeches made, the compliments so freely given and taken; and with some pride he remembered, too, it had been said, that within the memory of man, no one had given so grand a feast in the parish as he had done that day. Dandy’s feet fell softly, and made little noise on the soft carpet of grass and last year’s leaves, that covered and hid the stout roots of the oaks. It was no wonder, then, that presently the squire heard a gentle sound not far away. He became aware that some other human being than himself was in the wood, and checking his horse, he listened a moment, as words, half prayer, half praise, met his ears. “Who can be praying here?” he asked himself, and as the voice was near, he pushed aside a bough or two, and stretched his head, till he could see into a little shady hollow, not far from the roadside, and discovered the strange wood-guest. Ah! it was only an old man, a pauper, or next door to one, whom he had frequently seen before, breaking stones by the highway. But what was the deaf old man about? “Praying!” With his eyes shut, and his head uplifted, and his hat just taken off, held in his toil-swollen fingers, while before him was spread out his dinner—a piece of dry bread, part of a small loaf, and a can of water by his side—bread and water, nothing else; but the old man was thanking God for it, and was content. More than content. An expression of happy praise was on his uplifted face. Such an expression the squire had not seen on any face at his own loaded table for many years. And he was thanking God for bread and water, and was happy! The old man was a sincere Christian. The richest man in the parish did not understand how, when the soul loves God, the least mercies from his hands are felt to be priceless blessings; how bread and water, with a thankful heart, are sweeter to the taste than any food without it; and he felt humiliated. What right had that old man to thank God for bread and water, when he never thanked him for all his great possessions? The woods closed in on him again, he left the stonebreaker behind, and his face soon assumed its usual self-satisfied expression. But during that morning’s ride, again and again returned to him the picture he had seen in the green hollow, of the man who had thanked God for bread and water, and the thought of his own great riches did not give him quite its usual satisfaction. Had those riches ever made him as happy as that old man looked to be over his poor meal? He was obliged to confess to himself that they had not, and it was to him a sad confession. His pride was sorely touched, and his heart disquieted, and the farther he rode, the more he felt a sense of discomfort and discontent, that was strangely new to him. Presently the bright sun became overcast, great clouds gathered, and the woods looked dark and gloomy. Dandy walked along untroubled by nervous fears and fancies, but an influence came over the squire for which he could not account. A strange sinking was at his heart, and an impression of coming calamity. Then a voice struck his inward ear, a voice not of this world, one of those voices God sends sometimes to be heard for our good and guidance, and the words it uttered were terrible to him. That voice spoke to him clearly and distinctly, “This night the richest man in the parish will die.” Strange and fearful were these words. He did not look round to know whence they proceeded; he knew it was an inward and spiritual voice that spoke, and he believed what it said. With a shudder he remembered the parable of the rich man in the Gospel, to whom had come the same terrible warning—“This night thy soul shall be required of thee.” “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? and what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” were words that haunted him now, and a cold perspiration covered him from head to foot. He felt that he had been an unwise merchant, who had exchanged his soul for very little. Unable at length to bear his own reflections, he galloped home. There he arrived in a state of great agitation, and alarmed his wife and family by sending at once for a physician. To all inquiries he gave the answer that he was about to die, and must prepare for it. In vain they tried to persuade him that his health was as good as ever, that he was only the subject of a nervous fancy. The physician arrived, and laughed at his fears, but he heeded neither ridicule nor entreaties. Death was not a thing to be laughed or entreated away, and to death he was doomed. What did it signify what the world said about it? He must make ready for it. His solicitor was called in, and his worldly affairs settled. Wife and children were all provided for, houses and lands were portioned out to his beloved ones, then he had nothing to do but prepare himself for the great change; that, however, he found impossible. In great perturbation of mind he awaited the coming of his great enemy, Death. When night drew on, his fears increased; every time the great hall clock sounded the hour he shuddered, not knowing if he might ever hear it again. The physician and lawyer remained with him at his request, but they could not bring calm to his agitated mind. They could only listen to what he said, as to the ravings of a madman, for mad they judged him to be. Hour after hour went by, and the richest man in the parish, lying in his splendid bed, expecting Death every moment, found how poor he had become, and of how little real use all his vast possessions were to him now. Midnight passed away, early morning came, light dawned upon the hills. A faint color came into the sky, and with it color once more stole back into the cheeks of the squire, and hope returned to his heart. Death had not arrived as he had feared; he was still living. The night was passed, the morning was come, and the prophecy of the mysterious voice was not accomplished. His family gathered about him, and with smiles congratulated him, advising him to take his rest, now the danger was past. But how could he rest after such a night, such an upturning of all the cherished thoughts and aims of his life, such a revelation of the poverty of riches? He chose rather to walk abroad, and with thoughtful face and slow steps proceeded towards the village . There he heard that Death had indeed been a visitor in one house during the night, but instead of appearing in his own grand mansion, he had entered the poorest cottage in the place—the old stone-breaker had died during the night. With a still more thoughtful face he returned home, for his heart smote him. He remembered the old man’s simple dinner; he saw again the uplifted face, on which God’s sunshine rested in a double sense; he heard again the words of his thankful prayer, and his own laugh of derision, and he was again humiliated, but this time to better purpose. His wife met him at the threshold of his house, with a smiling face, glad to see him once more, “clothed and in his right mind,” for she, too, had feared for his reason. She accompanied him in, and then, when seated at his side, gently chided him for his last night’s fears, and what she called “superstitious fancies.” “I hope now,” she added, “you are quite satisfied that there was no truth in what that mysterious voice told you. The night is past, and you are alive, and as well as ever.” “True, my dear,” he replied, “the night is past, and I am alive and well. But nevertheless the richest man in the parish has died. If you will take the trouble to inquire in the village, you will find it is so.” “How is that?” she asked, and as she spoke she looked round somewhat proudly, as though a rival to her grandeur had appeared, “Who can be richer here than yourself?” “The man who can say to God, ‘Whom have I in Heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.’ I cannot say that, for I have desired many things and persons besides God, and almost all things more than God. But there was a poor stone-breaker alive yesterday, who in possessing God possessed all things. I call him poor after the manner of the world, but he was really rich—an heir of the kingdom of heaven. Last night I was shown his riches and my poverty. People will tell you he is dead, and I dare say that he did not leave a shilling to pay for his burial; but he was the richest man in the parish.” What Are You Going to Do, Brother?
[The following hymn was sung by Mr. Sankey at one of Mr. Moody's meetings in Chicago, in such touching tones as visibly affected many in the congregation. The Methodist says: "The hymn has been blessed to many young men, and we hope some who read it—some who are drones in God's bee-hive—will carefully ponder the question it asks:"] Oh, what are you going to do, brother,
Say, what are you going to do?
You have thought of some useful labor,
But what is the end in view?
You are fresh from the home of your boyhood,
And just in the bloom of youth;
Have you tasted the sparkling waters
That flow from the fountain of truth?
Is your heart in the Saviour's keeping?
Remember he died for you. Chorus.—Then what are you going to do, brother?
Say, what are you going to do? Will you honor His cause and His kingdom,
Wherever your faith may be,
And stand as a bright example,
That others your Lord may see?
Are you willing to work for Jesus,
And readily the cross to bear?
Are you willing to meet reproaches,
The friends of the world to spare?
Your lot may perhaps be humble,
But God has a work for you. Oh, what are you going to do, brother?
The morning of youth is past;
And vigor and strength and manhood,
My brother, are yours at last.
You are rising in worldly prospects,
And prospered in worldly things,
Your path of duty He's favored
And smiles of happiness brings.
O, prove that your heart is grateful,
The Lord has a work for you. Oh, what are you going to do, brother?
Your sun at its noon is high;
It shines in Meridian splendor,
And rides through a cloudless sky.
You are holding high position,
Of honor, of trust, and of fame;
Are you willing to give the glory
And praise to your Saviour's name?
The regions that sit in darkness
Are stretching their arms to you. Oh, what are you going to do, brother?
The twilight approaches now;
Already your locks are silvered,
And winter is on your brow.
Your talents, your time and your riches,
To Jesus, the Master, give;
Then ask if the world about you
Is better because you lived.
You are nearing the brink of Jordan,
But yet there is work to do. Brother Jonathan commenced business in 1776, with thirteen States, and 815,615 square miles of territory, which was occupied by about 3,000,000 of civilized human beings. He has now a family of 43,000,000, who occupy thirty-nine States and seven Territories, which embrace over 3,000,000 of square miles. He has 65,000 miles of railroads, more than sufficient to reach twice and a half round the globe. The value of his annual agricultural productions is $2,500,000, and his gold mines are capable of producing $70,000,000 a year. He has more than 1,000 cotton factories, 580 daily newspapers, 4,300 weeklies, 625 monthly productions. He has also many other things too numerous and too notorious to mention in this small space. We can sing away our cares easier than we can reason them away. The birds are the earliest to sing in the morning; the birds are more without care than anything else I know of. Sing in the evening. Singing is the last thing that robins do. When they have done their daily work—when they have flown their last flight, and picked up their last morsel of food, and cleansed their bills on a napkin of a bough, then on a top twig, they sing one song of praise. I know they sleep sweeter for it. They dream music; for sometimes in the night they break forth singing, and stop suddenly after the first note, startled by their own voice. Oh, that we might sing evening and morning, and let song touch song all the way through. As BEFORE swift ships there is a hill of water and a corresponding one glides along behind, so always before us is a mountain which we hope to climb, and behind us is still a deep valley out of which we have ascended. “Chez moi,” says the Frenchman; “Home,” say we. There is a home idea about our home, that the Frenchman knows not of. There is a sanctity about the American home, that the “chez moi” cannot reach. Everybody who can, ought to have a home. Everybody who has a home ought to make it as pleasant, as delightful a home, as his circumstances will admit of. Nobody has a right to have a dismal home, a sour home, a damp home, an illiterate home, or an unventilated home, unless a grim weight of untoward circumstances pressing on him, forbid him. As our society is constituted, our home must be in a house. The house is not the home, for there is many a house which is not a home at all; but it is a part of it. There are some people who will never make themselves at home in any house whatever. Restless groaners, dissatisfied croakers, worrying grumblers, peevish mischief-makers, unreasonable fault-finders, who never were pleased with any of their surroundings, and never will be; on these homeless souls the blessings of a home are thrown away. They see only home sorrows, and know nothing of the home joys. Their only congenial abiding place would be an Asylum for the Indigent Homeless. Perchance some weary creature may, one day, leave in his will a bequest for the founding of such an institution. It should be an immense establishment. Considering how cheap light and air are, it is wonderful how little of these useful elements finds its way into some of our house-homes. If light were to be purchased, at so much a shine; if air could be breathed only at a fixed rate per lung-full; or if either or both of these necessaries to our comfortable existence were taxed by legal enactment, it would seem iniquitous and oppressive. Queer as it may seem, there are houses, erected by builders who would seem never to have drawn a full breath in their lives, so sedulously have they taken pains to close every cranny in their edifices against the circulation of the air which should be freely admitted. Rooms which, when doors and windows are closed, are air-tight; in which the family sit for hours upon a stretch, breathing over and over, hour after hour, the air which has been inhaled, and exhaled, and which, having done its work, should be suffered to find an exit into the street, that it may go about its business and be purified, making way as it goes, for more and more to come in and administer to the comfort and nourishment of the half asphyxiated family. As if it were not enough to exclude the air, we stint ourselves to the most meager quantity of light on which it is possible to grope our way around the premises. The close shutters, the shades, rolling against them the minor and more elaborate curtains of lace or of silken or woolen fabric, repel the intrusion of the sunshine which would fade our carpets and render shabby the varnish on our furniture. The parlor, sacred from the entrance of juvenile foot to tread its costly carpet, for chubby fingers to soil its wonders of carved piano or marvelously decorated etagere; reserved by the family, who cheat themselves out of its use, for the sole use of its guests, who care but little for them, and for whose visits they care as little. With darkened rays of light feebly oozing the apartment scarcely enough for the guests to avoid breaking his bones over articles of furniture, strangely enough distributed with elaborate random over and across the floor, as stumbling-blocks in the path of the wayfarer. With musty odor ascending from the cellar, that dark, damp hole in the ground, dug to furnish the family with miasma enough to last them during their natural lives and perhaps to hurry them off to the grave before their time. Such a house is a constant memento mori. The sepulchral cellar, with its perfume as if of the cemetery, is enough to permeate every thought and action of each member of the household with a damp gloom and a dismal foreboding of coming wretchedness. The rumble in the street of the wheels of a passing cart, is enough to suggest to the inmates the coming of the hearse, to drive them away to a hardly less congenial place. It is not only from the houses of the degraded and intemperate that the absence of air and light is to be mourned; even some of our finest mansions are built with a reckless disregard of the value of these two necessary elements of health and happiness. Pale, nervous, weary mothers, and flabby little children who only half enjoy their lives, are an inevitable consequence of a neglect of duty and privilege in this respect. Make the house a home. Throw open the shutters and let the sunshine fade the carpets rather than blanch your children's faces by its absence. Fling wide open every door and window in the house, at some time during every day in the year, and let the fresh air blow through, even if it makes you so cold that the whole family have to engage in a merry exercise at calisthenics, to keep themselves warm. Purify the damp cellar, and purge the whole house of that funeral air. And let the words of good cheer be on every tongue. Then, with sound minds and loving hearts, in healthy bodies, you may enjoy what everybody ought to have, A REAL HOME.—Sel. RELIGIOUS NEWS AND NOTES.
—Of the 802 churches of London, 240 are free. —Fifty thousand Russian Mennonites have determined to emigrate to the United States; 14,000 go to Kansas in the spring. —Father Kernan, the oldest Catholic priest in America, died at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, last week Monday, aged ninety-eight. —There is a Bible in the library of the University of Goettingen written on two thousand four hundred and seventy-six palm leaves. —In Calcutta eight hundred women are regularly taught in their zenanas, homes, by the ladies of the Woman’s Union Missionary Society. —The population of Ireland, by a recent computation, is 5,500,000. Of these about 1,300,000 are Protestants, and 4,200,000 Roman Catholics. —There are now 70,000 pupils in the South who are being taught by former pupils of the schools established by the American Missionary Association. —Rev. J. W. David, an American missionary, writing from Lagos, Central Africa, says that he has found a little group of converts who have remained faithful during thirteen years, in which time they have had no pastor or teacher among them. They sent messengers a ten days’ journey to plead for the help of a missionary. —Yale Seminary has invited Rev. R. W. Dale, of Birmingham, England, to fill the chair of the Lyman Beecher Lectureship on Preaching next year. Mr. Dale is one of the leading preachers among the English Congregationalists, and has of late been giving a series of addresses in different parts of England in favor of the separation of Church and State. As an author, he is known widely through his recent work on the Atonement. —A most remarkable awakening is experienced among the Jews in Northern Africa. Rev. Mr. Benoel, writing from Oran, Algeria, says that he has never known so great was their interest to understand the Christian faith that they crowded the place of worship, both Jews and Jewesses and even rabbis were among the number, and after an hour and a half service reluctantly left the place. The writer regards it as the most marvelous awakening among the Jews since the day of Pentecost. —“We shall not flee to France to escape partisanship,” says the Christian Union. “The Republicans, incensed by the persecutions of Republican newspapers, passed in the House of Deputies a motion in favor of abrogating the law under which they were persecuted. The Premier thereupon told them that he had been deprived of all power to prosecute anti-Republican journals, whereat, aghast at their blunder, they reconsidered the vote and adopted a motion leaving the law in force provisionally. What is liberty worth if it does not allow the majority to shut the mouths of the minority.” —A young lady who claims to be the daughter of the late Cardinal Antonelli, is stirring the Vatican by threats to sue for a share in her father’s estate. Roman celibacy does not bar priests from fatherhood—especially cardinals. We clip the foregoing paragraph from an Eastern exchange. In Roman Catholic countries in which Protestantism has no appreciable influence, the priests live in open adultery and do not lose caste in the Church. Travelers, a few years ago, assured us that in Mexico it was the custom for the padre (priest) to have his mujer (woman) and to raise a family of children, and the people thought it quite proper. But a lawful marriage with the mother of the priest’s children would have subjected him to exclusion and the anathemas of the Church.—Cal. Christian Advocate.