RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1091, 1 April 1911, Page 9

RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY.

CHURCH OF ENCLAND. A YEAR'S VOLUNTARY OFFERINGS The Secretary of S.P.C.K.Jias issued the Annual Summary of the Voluntary Offerings of the Church of England for the year ended Easter, 1910. I. Funds contributed to Central and Diocesan Societies and Institutions, and administered by their executives: — £ s.d. Bishops' Funds for Church Extension ... 157,885 15 5 Church Building Societies 78,267 11 9 Universities' and Public Schools' Missions and Women's Settlements 30,743 2 11 Missions to Soldiers and Sailors 84,671 14.10 Church Defence and Reform and. Circulation of Literature Agencies 39,526 9 '0 Temperance and- Kescuo Work. ....... 58,502.13 0 General Home Mission Societies 352,298 1 4 Foreign Mission Societies, Missionary Colleges, Studentship Associations, etc 873,724 9 11 Educational work 85,665 8 6 Tho clergy (educational and charitable .assistance) 302,645 13 5 Philanthropic work ...... 658,005 15 8 Total 2,721,936:15 9 11. Funds raised by Church Collections or parochial machinery: administered for parochial purposes alone. < £ s.d. For tho parochial clergy 852,207 15 8 For elementarv education -199,468 IS 3 For rjeneral parochial purposes 3,839,140 1 4 Total 5,190,316 15 3 Summary. £, s.d. I.—For General purposes 2,721,936 15 9 II. —For parochial purposes 5,190,816 15 3 7,912,753 11 0

DICKEN'fi BIRTHDAY.

SERVICE IN GLASGOW CATHEDRAL. A service in commemoration of the birthday of Charles Dickons was held on Sunday night (February I' 2) juicier the auspices of the Glasgow Dickens Society in Glasgow Cathedral. _ There was a largo congregation, including Mr. John D. Parker and Mr. George Eyre Todd, vice-presidents of the Dickons Societv; the Rev. Professor Donnoy, esBailie Gray, and Mr. V. A. Callender, secretary of the society. The service was conducted .by the Rev. Professor Milligan, and the lessons were read by Principal Sir Donald MaeAlister, Glasgow University. Included in the sorviqc was a hymn by Dickens, "Hear my prayer, 0 Heavenly Father." The Rev. Principal Gcorgo Adam Smith, Aberdeen University, preached the sermon. He referred to some criticism, of Dickens by Lord Shaftesbury, who had likened tho novelist to the pagan Naaman. That was a very inadequate comparison. There was much loose talk about the "natural Christianity", which pervaded, tho. works of Dickens,' and. whkW wa'3'"ihte'ndcd by I the. epithet "natural" to mean that his Christianity was something instinctive and vague, as contrasted with that which was drawn from the revealed AVord of God, and was more articulate-, doctrinal and orthodox. He (Principal (Smith) would use tho same epithet with another accent. Dickens's Christianity was "natural" because it was not learned in any of tho official schools of Christianity, but sprang from an original experience of suffering for tho sins of the world and tho consequent sense of oneness with ail sufferers. Tho faitli of Dickens was far more definite, far nearer tho evangelical orthodoxy of his day, and far more explicitly confessed in the very phrases of that orthodoxy than many remembered, who weremisled, ho supposed, by ■ his revolt against some forms of.that orthodoxy and by his scathing exposure of-hypo-critical professors of it.

PAN-BAPTIST CONCRESS. A NEW ZEALAND REPRESENTATIVE.

The "British Weekly" of February 10 states: The Rev. R. S. Gray, for the past eight years pastor of the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church, Christchurch, New Zealand, and for six years of that period the energetic and efficient secretary of the Baptist Union of New Zealand, is due to arrivo in London about .March "0. Mr. Gray has been appointed to represent the Baptists of the Dominion at the Pan-Baptist Congress at Philadelphia in July. \Vhilo in America Mr. Gray will make a special study of the prohibition movement, which lie has championed in his. own land. It was hoped that-he might be able to visit the nussion stations established by the. New Zealand Baptists in East Bengal, but this part of the projected tour lias had to be cut out. He will pass through Palestine and tho Continent on his way to London.

DEATH OF PROFESSOR J. E. HENRY.

Tho death is announced of the Rev. John Edgar Henry, D.D., Professor of Church History and Pastoral Theology in Magcc College, Londonderry. Dr. Henry, who had reached his 70th year, died suddenly on .Monday morning, February f.13, while crossing the- River Foyle in a ferry steamer. He had been for many years one.of the leaders of tho Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland. His father was an Irish minister, the Rev. John Henry, of Leitrim, County Down. He studied at the old Queen's University, graduating through Queen's College, Belfast. From 18H5 to 1882 he was the chief Presbyterian minister to the congregations of second Ardstraw and then of Canterbury. For eight years ho was pastor of tho important congregation of second Derry. In 1902, Dr. Henry was elected moderator to the General Assembly, He was one of tho most distinguished professors of Magcc College, to which ho removed in 1890. As a temperance and social worker he was in tho forefront, and was also well known as a speaker on Unionist platforms. His writings include sermons, lectures, and theological articles. , DR. HARNACK AND THE KINC, Dr. Adolf Harnack's recent visit to Loudon was short and hurried. He arrived on Saturday night, February ■!, and lie loft for Berlin on Monday evening, February (>. On the Sunday he and Dr. Spiccker were introduced to the King at Buckingham Palace by tho Archbishop' of Canterbury. The King assured the German delegates that lie considered it his duty to follow in his father's footsteps as a peacemaker, and consequently would support every endeavour to promote peace and goodwill among ths nations. Deforo their audience the Primate., the great German scholar, and Dr. Spiecker worshipped with tho Royal Family in the Palace Chapel. .One of the hymns was

of our Life and God of our Salvation," anil its closing line, "(irant pence on earth, and, after wo have striven, peace in Thy heaven," seemed peculiarly appropriate to the poanc errand which brought tho two distinguished Germans, to England.-The Primato told tho meeting at which Dr. Harnack spoke on Monday that "nothing could have, been more cordial and nothing; could havo been more hearty and nothing could havo been more reciprocal than the welcome they received at tlic King's hands," OBITUARY, TWO DISTINGUISHED ROMAN ' CATHOLICS. "Catholics in India and Catholics in the United Stales aro both at once called on ta lament the loss of venerable and beloved prelates—Archbishop Colgan, of Madras, and Archbishop Ryan, of Philadelphia," says tho "Tablet" of February 18. "The Most Reverend Joseph Colgan was the oldest bishop in tho British Empire. Horn 86 years ago in County Wostinoath, ho was* ordained at Maynooth at tho age of 21, anil," as" a priest in the Madras Vicariate, began his connection with India more than'a dozen years before the Mutiny.. In Madras,' ho was successively Principal of St. Mary's' College, Army Chaplain, and Vicar-Apostolic; and when Leo XIII established tlic Indian hierarchy in 18SC, he becauic first Archbishop of Madras. ' The, Archbishop, was one of the ten prelates in the British Empire holding the Papal dignity of Assistant at the Pontifical Throne. He is succeeded is the see of' Madras by his Coadjutor, Bishop Aeleon." "Archbishop'Ryan, of Philadelphia, was a native of Ireland, and like his famous colleague, Archbishop Ireland (to whom he ranked only second in reputation as an orator) lie served as a chaplain during tho Civil War. His gift as a preacher, enhanced by a noblo delivery,' worn displayed during a visit to Rome is 186S, when, at thoinvitation of Pius IX, ho gave the English Lenten Lectures in tho Piazza del Popolo. On another occasion, Archbishop Ryan's voice reached Leo XIII: to whom ho was the hearer.of a Jubilee present from President Cleveland in': 1887. • The rift was a copy of the Constitution of the United States—and, in proseitting it, ' Archbishop Ryan addressed tho Holy Father as follows: —'While your Holiness receives tho expression of the respect of the kingly governments of the world, receivo also tho tribute of a free and independent people—a, people naturally brave, generous, and just, whose futiiro is likely to vie with the past of any nation in the history of our race. In your Holiness's admirable Encyclical, "Iminortale Dei," you truly state that the. Church is wedded to no particular form of government. Your favourite theologian,. St. Thomas Aquinas, has written true and beautiful things concerning Republicanism... In our American, Republic the Catholic Church is left perfectly free to act out her mission to the human race, free by constitutional guarantees.' "

DR. PATON'S WORK.

A REMARKABLE SOCIAL REFORMER. "Dr. John Brown Pa ton, distinguished by his long and noble record in social and philanthropic work," as the "Manchester Guardian" says, "has died at his homo in Nottingham. Ho was born on December 7, 1830, and was Principal of tho Nottingham Congregational College for Ministers from 1863 to 1898." _-,-"• "It. is, difficult to . say whether Dr. Paton'SvaS iiio l rb'' I rcinarkablo for' his intellectual or his moral qualities," writes "One Who Knew Him," in tho "Guardian." "Dedicated as he was to the Christian ministry, his studies were of course mainly in theology, and 'in that subject were ,very wiiie. A -definite Liberal and Nonconformist, 'bo maintained a sympathetic understanding of tho philosophical position,, not only, of the Anglican, but of the; Roman Church, appreciating even where he condemned. Standing in all important points by his orthodox creed, ho could in the sanjc way appreciate the aspirations of modern unorthodox views/oven where ho ■repudiated them as not truly liberal. In these things his scholarship'and his philosophical reading kept him firm, while his wide moral sympathies preserved him from narrowness. "Dr. Paton believed profoundly that' a largo part of-the work of the' Christian Church lay in tho prompt reform of social conditions. It was the growing pressure of these convictions which led him so largely in his later life to devote his great powers.to the schemes of social beneficence—legislative as well as voluntary—by which ho became best known. But these schemes ramo not from tho impulse of sympathy alone, but from a deep religious and philosophical conviction that theology and personal religion were alike vain if they did not load up to energetic practical efforts at reform. In a word, his'philanthropy, was as deeply religious as his religion was humane." "Dr. Paton's versatility was extraordinary," says the "Times." "The variety of his interests may bo judged from a list of the societies and movements with which he identified himself. He founded the National Home Reading Union, the Recreative Evening-Schools Association, the Social Institutes Union, and the English Land Colonisation Society, now the Co-cperativc Small Holders' Association, and of all these he, was honorary secretary. Ho was one of the founders of tho University Extension- movement. Ho founded the Boys' Life Brigade and tho Girls' Life Brigade, and the Brigades of Service, for young men and young women. He was chairman of the Cfiristian Union for Social Service, with its training colony for unemployables, its system of 'Christian Brothers,' and its school homes for epileptic children. He was one of the moving spirits in the formation of the. British Institute of Social Service, president of the Co-operative Holidays Association, chairman of the Vagrant Children's Protection Committee.' and a vice-president of tho British and Foreign Bible Society."

DEATH OF A BISHOP.

The first Bishop of Western Massachusetts, the Might Pvov. Alexander Hamilton Vinton, D.D., LL.D., died early on Wednesday, morning. January 18, in the fifty-ninth year of his ape and tho ninth year of his episcopate after a week's illness of pneumonia, Ho was a son of .General David Hammond Vinton, of tho United States Army, and a nephew of two distinguished priests of the American Church, Dr. Francis Vinton, of New York, and Dr. Alexander Hamilton Vinton, of Boston. Ho was educated at St. Stephen's College and tho General Theological Seminary ■ and ordained 'in 1877 by the Bishop of Connecticut (Dr. John Williams). After a rectorship in Philadelphia, ho was elected in 1884 rector of All Saints' Church, Worcester, in succession to tho late Dr. W. 1!. Huntington. On tho division of tho Diocese of Massachusetts, which had been conterminous with tho State, ho was chosen tyshop' of' ilio now diocoso.of Western Massachusetts, .was consecrated April-22, 1002, and took up his residence in Springfield. His work as Bishop was faithful and energetic, and the dioceso will long boar its impress. —"The Guardian."