Religious.

Clutha Leader, Volume III, Issue 143, 6 April 1877, Page 3

Religious.

The Evangelical Alliance have lately taken steps for the realistic. n of a wish of -the Kraperor of -Germany ;to hold their next annual meeting in Berlin. -

R. H. Ranney,' an atheist, has been burried in Boston with peculiar services Mr Abbott, of the : Index, read seiecions from " Thoughts oorn r Antoninus'."

The Church Association. haye r appointed a special committee tb' inquire ■ by. > whose, and ' what . authority^' ;Hy inns ancient and modern," have been bound up with the Prayer Book for the uee oi the army and navy. - ' .

It .was on. the 9th of. March, 1543, that .by an Act of Parliament permission was given the English, .people to read the Bible. The Act declared that ".it shall be lawful- to all men to read the Bible and Testament in the mother tongue." ■ "

It is said that Lord Eburv is about

to join the Free; Church of 'England, .which has been established in London under the direction of the Rev. EdwardCridge, late Dean of British Columbia, who has been consecrated a bishop by American prelates and Bishop Price. His Lordship has given LSO to the Free Church Extension Fund.

The Rev. Canon Ctfllis, D.D., Vicar of St rat ford-- on- A von, has lately, issued an order, affectino' the Sunday services, to which the choir offered determined opposition, and have struck. The congregation, siding with the .. choristers,

are giving up their sittings in a body. The stipend of the clergyman mainly depends upon the pew-rents, but he shows no disposition to give way.

The >exec\itive' of the English Sunday Closing .Association, encouraged by .the majority of. fifty-seven in favour of Irish Sunday closing. last session of Parliament, has resolved upon" a vigorous petitioning 1 campaign, seeking the aid of all temperance organisations and Christian Churches. A canvass of householders ,in the two hundred towns and villages in England show over 385,000" in favour ot, and only 52,000 against Snnday closing.

The . last new thing 1 in the way of Ritualism is described as a " religious order for laymen of the Catholic Church of England. ' It seems to be a monastery for Anglican Ritualists who are disposed to give up their time to missionary . work, and attached to it is a " Second Order," consisting of laymen engager! in business, who undertake to give all their leisure to'- the same kind of work. The association is located at Vauxhall, and has a " superior " and a " clerical director."

The Empress Eugenic has had an interview with the Pope, which lasted for an hour and a half. - The Prince Imperial was afterwards . admitted, and, tog-ether with the TSmpress, conversed with his Holiness for another half-hour. It is said that the Empress no sooner saw the Pope than she -fell on her knees and wept bitterly, till, after some minutes, yielding* to the Pope's entreaties, she .ponnitted herself to be raised by Cardinal Bonaparte and thi Prince Imperial, and dried her tears.

The work of the Rev. Mr M All, in Paris, and who is about .to open a nineteenth place, of meeting therß, shows how splendid a field Paris is -for the spread ot evangelical truth. The halls where these meetings take .place are always filled. In the Faubourg- St. Antoine, one of the worst of Paris, 450 workmen come twice a week regularly, and listen with d(*e]) attention to speakers who are sometimes rather dull, as Mr MAll cannot always provide his 36 meetings, held every week, with the most appropriate speakers.

Lord Craighill presided at the annual meeting 1 of the Glasgow Young Men's Christian ..Association held recently, and in the course of a lengthened address enlarged upon the necessity of each person having a religious creed ; for, he said, if religion was to be a religion which was to constitute not merely a religion of the heart bub of the 'head — it was necessary that a man should realise certain truths ; in short, that he must have a creed, whatever were the articles contained in it.

Few persons have any adequate idea of- the extensive part the women of America are hearing in mission work. The following statement of the amounts raised by the five principal American Women's Foreign Missionary Societies will therefore be read with interest :— The Woman's Union Missionary Society of the United States, between their organisation in 1860 and' April, 187(3, 'raised £78,725. The Womaifs Board of" the '(Congregational) American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, organised in -1869, raised, up to 1876, £82,927.: The- Women' Foreign -Missionary -Society of tho Methodist Episcopal '"Church; organised in 186.9, raised,, up to . February, 1876. £63,896." ' The' Woman's Board of the Presbyterian ■_. Missionary Society, organised in 1870, raised, up ,to February, 1876/ £63,367. The women of the Baptist Union their society in 1871, and, ; up to January, 1876, have raised £23,800. The total number of missionaries on : the •foreign field now supported by American women is 287;

A correspondent writes that 'the preserit -state" of Jerusalem..' -shows, : on a small -scale, what. 'that ,;pf Turkey in Europe would be ' : if (iussia /occupied Bulgaria : : — " In the Holy City it is the

tolerant "protection "of ihe Turkish soldiers, as peace officers, which al<v c holds, back the rival Churches from coming to blows, and protects the Jews ; for the common hatred of a Jew by these ■ rival "Christians;, is' not .smaller than that of each other. A Jew guide whom ,[ .employed there said he was sure t6 be killed if 'he were to go into the church of. the Ifoly .Sepulchre ; and his unmistakable terror when I urged fi'im to' enter. with me" showed that h« was in . earnest.- ; The ...Kussians have, under guise of a convent, built a fortress nut?ide the walls' of J^rus'ai'em, and this commands, the cny. .When the " Sick Man" dies, t,heir fortress gives the Russians powerover Jerusalem, and then woe betide their livul Christians and th • Jews !

THE MELBOUIINI3=PUBLTCANS AND THE

SUN.DAY TRAFFIC

. Tt is rumoured _ everywhere that the publicans are tired of playing at keeping the law. 1 - Since -no- one' feels at all aggripved by their exertions, the vigilance co,mmi(.tees are to watch.no more, and we are given ' to understand that in a Sunday or two all things- will be as they have been. fronr the .beginning. The front doors will be shut and the ?idc doors opened os- heretofore, and thirsty souls will be invited to enter, notwithstanding 1 " " the present tyrannical law." We shall, watch with interest the course the -executive will take when that paradisaic state of things is realised, for if they do not step in with vigour to curb the insolence of the law breakers, and do efficiently, the work which the publicans so insultingly volunteered to do for them, we think the people in this country will have a grievance in their hands, callling for a prompt and thorough remedy. Here is a law proposed and earned as a Government measure, • and accepted by all- parties, save the publicans' advocates ; a, law, :too, only six weeks old, and so beyond all possi- ; bility. of rep roach. as obsolete ; and yet we hear those whom it was meant. to restrain openly declaring that they will not keep it! If under these circumstances the police are not forced, or rather allowed, to do their duty, there will be- no alternative but to acknowledge that with one class of criminals at least the officers entrusted with the enforcement of the law are in open and manifest collusion. That would be an almost unexampled evil ; but while we hear a great deal of warning against passing laws too high for the people, we look in vain for any protest against the demoralisation which an official failure to enforce laws already carried into effect by amateurs, would bring with it. "If any negligence be shown,

the police authorities should be at once called to account for it.. Neither they

nor the magistrates have anything' whatever to do with the character of the law. Their duty is to see that it is, complied with, -and if they neglect Ih.eir duty, the people of this country must see to it that they are not foiled hy a small official set, who receive their inspiration from some newspapers. — Southern Cross. APOSTOLIC SUCCnSRTON. There is a cm-ions significance in tihe fact that in the same daily newspaper we find this week a letter from Bishop Moorhouse upholding' the doctrine of " apostolic- succession," and the following- letter from Brisbane : — " In consequence of the inadequacy of the support, tendered to the general church fund, Bishop Hale tendered his resignation, but withdrew it for twelve months at the request of the Bishop of .Sydney." If Bishop Moorhouse would, 'for a little while, quietly meditate on what is implied in that statement,- he will soon see, if he is the wise man we are willing to suppose him to be, that "he has far more urgent work here thi'-s in discussing in the columns of a newspaper barren dogmas that have no reference whatever to the circumstances in which he and his ■church : have to .live and -labour. 1 There is, we venture to .say, to most men of- the world something incongruous and anachronistic "in'endeavouring* to 'establish such a doctrine as that I off " apostolical succession" by a letter in the secular columns o : f a morning newspaper,. . It is more, to the point to say that the controversy :-is utterly fruit-' less, and,- 'however it may end by the Bishop vanquishing his antagonists, .it must 'leave the .practical case precisely as it was. ' The criterion of a standing • or. falling.: church., is not, we may well be assured, its .sharing or not sharing , in this apostolic succession, but its conformity to the wants and conditions Vi the sphere in 'which it has to work. It is not many months since Bishop Flfile : entered on the duties of his diocese with as much seal and energy as Bishop Moorhouse has more recently brought ' to bear upon his. . Any advantage , which the '"succession" vindicated for nim may have afforded he possessed.But the result is a public admission of failure and _ disappointment. Bishop, , Hale, finds, himself , nnable/to command "the pecuniary support he considers indispensable for his work, and conse- , queritly wishes, to resign -it. -Tf' the Bishop of Melbourne can turn,. his attention from, controversies as empty and s barren as ; the east wind arid apply -his whole; attention and effort to. the practical conditions, of his work, he will either save himself the pain and disappointment of such a failure, or, if he unhappily: were unable to; avert such a ; result, he would have at least the consciousness that it was due to no fault of his. — Australasian,