Religious.

Clutha Leader, Volume II, Issue 91, 6 April 1876, Page 6

Religious.

A Russian paper "announces that a belief in the approaching end of the world has seized on the Cossacks ofthe •Jon. Many, especially aged people, are giving* up worldly affairs, wearing a shroud, arid ordering their coffins. On every road are seen men repairing to Moscow to be consecrated priests, in order that the smallest village may have its own priest and church. The authorities are passive, hoping tbat the movement will die out of its own accord.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Shrewsbury (Dr Brown), in the course of an address in the newly-formed Catholic Total Abstinence League at Birkenhead, said that the- Roman Catholic Church had very properly : condemned Good Templarism, because it was void of Christianity. Though marry persons connected with the Good Templars might not be aware ofit, they w*ere* associated with deism and infidelity, and"" that being so, he (the Bishop) could not countenance societies of this sort. The Bishop is a fool.

An auction was held at Exeter lately for the sale of the nclvowson and right of presentation to the rectory of Charles, near Barnsgate, North Devon. The present rector, the auctioneer said, was 77 years old. There were only 350 inhabitants. The tithe rent-charge was £270 per annum, and with the glebe of 150 acres and -the rectory house, was estimated to be worth at least £450 a year. Not only, he, added, was the population small, but there were no very poor people, so that there were not likely to be heavy demands for chai'ity. Mr *E. Bates, M.P. for Plymouth, started the bidding at 1000 guineas. The bidding reached £1200, when there was a halt, and the auctioneer announced the reserve price to be £1600, Eventually the hammer fell at £IGOS.

The Universalists of New York and Brooklyn have for two or three weeks been holding what they call revival meetings. Sermons have been preached almost every nig*ht, and there, have been attempts made to increase the interests in Universalist Churches. The meetings have not been successful, and for the plain reason that they teach the people to believe that they will all finally be saved. Though the restorationists admit there may be some dark passages of suffering before the soul of the wicked man finally gets into life, the bad man is willing to risk the interven-ing-discomforts, as he is assured that the finality will be a condition of happiness. He falls back upon the saving, "All is well that ends well."

The dedication of the first church erected in Rome for Italian Protestants in that city took place on Christmas Day. American and Methodist in origin, it I'eceives hearty support from evangelicals ot every denomination Its communicants amount to ninety. Ahoufc three hundred persons were present at the opening- services. The sermon was preached by the Rev. Theophilus Gay. Tn the evening- there was a reunion of all evangelical residents in Rome, presided over by the Rev. Dr. Vernon, pastor of the church. The speakers at the evening; service included the Rev. Messrs Piggott, Weitzecker, Cocorda, and Conti. Conferences were held on the following- day, and during 1 the proceedings a congratulatory telegram was received from the Free Church of Florence. Mr Joseph Darker, who was formerly well known in England as a Secularist lecturer, died at Omaha, Nebraska, on the 15th September last. A few days before his death he made a final arrangement of his affuirs, and called his eldest son, his lawyer, and one of his trustees to his bedside, and said, " I feel that I am approaching* my end, and desire that you shall receive my last words and be witness to them. I wish you to witness that I am in my right mind, and fully understand what J have just been doing ; and dying, that I die in the firm and full belief in Jpsus Christ, and in the faith and love of His religion as revealed in His life and worlcs ? as described in the New Testament ;■ and that I have an abiding. faith in the love of God, as God is revealed to us by His. son Jesus Christ, and I die trusting in God's love and meroy-, and in full faith of a future and. better life." ■ The Ultromontanes seem to have still ; a hankering* for the auto dafe (says the 'Times' correspondent). Madame Gasparin,the well-known Protestant writer, haying presented 'a copy of her late husband's work, " Les Ecoles dv Doute et les Ecoles de.la Foi," to the popular ■library of Boussenois, in the Cote dOr, has received tlie following extraordinary letter from " its director, M. de Geroal :— " We cannot thank you too much ; on this occasion. ;M/de,Gasparin's works and ; those of the Frakklin Press are most useful to us. This very morning* we made the finest fire ever seen with all these works. - How pleasant, now the mornings are chilly, to warm : one's . fingers ' with M. de G'asparin's books 1 ! ' T^hey burn - splendidly^ : Once niore ; thanks,- Madame. Geneva ! paper, especially^', de Gasparin's; has done us q, great service, and we hope to ! warm ourselves again V.itlf his books. Mean While, pray accept: our warmest compliments." [Jesuits sometimes speak the truth, and even without designing

it shew themselves in their true colors.] . There is a great row in the religious world (says a London correspondent) in consoquonce of the misdoings, of a certain Pearsal Smith, an American revivalist, who has been "showing the cloven foot it Brighton and elsewhere. Mr Smith is one of a party lately on the increase, wh6 believe that a believer in the Great Master of mankind can' never sin, at least that lie can never ultimately " fall away froni grace," and' no matter what he does, it will not be accounted to him for bin.' This is the great Woodhull docteine, ancl the Beechcr system has a strong taint ofit. It seems this rascally Philadelphian was caught in the act of preaching immorality to a young lady's boarding-school at Brighton — a regular case of Mrs Tickletoby over again. And the worst of it is that his backers tried to make eucuses for him and get him out ofthe scrape. I suppose they did not like to own themselves in the wrong, and so s-gptjJeeper in the mire. " The higher spiritual life" these fellows call "thr*,, ft** plan for the improvement of the youi '"/ girls of the period, and it is feared thai/ a good deal of harm has been done. Mr Spnrgeon, Dr Bonar, the Rev. G. T. Fox (brother of your erstwhile Premier), and Canon Bell, have ali been writing on the subject. It will make people a little more careful of Yankee saints for the future.