RELIGION IN AMERICA.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1595, 23 September 1882, Page 4

RELIGION IN AMERICA.

It is curious to notice that the old Puritan Church—the Congregationalists, or as they used to be called in England, the Independents—is steadily declining in membership. They have evidently not only lost proportionally to the whole country—which might be explained by the enormous Catholic emigration—but have even failed to keep their hold on the old American stock, either in New England or elsewhere. In 1881, the number of churches was 3804, and the total membership was 381,697—a gain of 59 churches, but a decrease of 2,635 members as compared with 1880. The gain in the number of Welsh congregations were .absorbed, but this only makes the decline in membership more startling. And stranger still, of the membership no less than two-thirds were women, the figures being 128,060 men and 251,822 women. This is enough to make Miles Standish and Cotton Mather, and some of the other Puritan worthies, turn in their grave. Religious leadership now lies in this country unquestionably between the Methodists and the Roman Catholics. The Episcopalians arc growing constantly stronger, but not so fast as the two named, and the ether Protestant sects split up steadily into smaller fragments, while the great army of indiffci ents and freethinkers grow.s more rapidly than all the others combined. The American people will be in the end a very different nation, beyond all doubt, from that chosen baud of the saints dreamed of by the English refugees.

Mrs Ramsbotham and the Egyptian Difficulty. —She knows all about it, and has got the names so correctly. 'The idea,' she exclaimed, 'of a person called Toothache Pasha ! Of course he'd give trouble. I should have had him stopped at once." In Berlin, Germany's capital, there is a negro colony numbering sixty individuals. It is composed of Americans of African descent and native-born Moors. All of them are doing -\\ ell as servants, and many of them have masteied the German language. Three are married to German women. Among the colonists are the late Bayard Taylors and Bancroft Davis's body servants. "Argus" states that at the V.R.C. Steeplechase meeting the bookmakers had not to wear the pasteboard badge upon the arm, but were told to place the badge in a conspicious portion of the body, a request which was cheerfully complied with by nearly every registered member of the ring. Three detectives and two policeman were in attendance to look after interlopers, and in future the welshing division is to be carefully watched. The members of Committee deserve the thanks of ti.e public for taking this action, which, however, should be extended to the hill, where many visitors are robbed at every meeting. " The "Times" of May 29th contained the following curious and painful announcement : "On February 25th, drowned olf the Cape of Good Hope, during somnambulism, in the imaginary, but gallant attempt to save life, John Rodd Child, lieutenant of H.M. ship Espiegle, bc^ cd and lamented by all who knew him." It seems that Lieutenant Child, in an unusually vivid dream, in whHi was recalled what is not an uncommon incident of his vocation, responded promptly to the. ideal cry of "A man overboaid,"and rushing on deck while still asleep and still dreaming, sprang into the sea to save. a.s he supposed, even at the peril of his own lite, his drowning shipmate. Ax inch of rain falling on an acre of land would weigh more than 100 tons. There, ate (M 0 acres in a mile, so that an inch of lain on a square mile, would, if collected, weigh over 64,000 tons. The area of England, Wales, and Scotland is 89,643 square miles. Assuming the whole of this surface to be covered with snow to the depth of one foot, and that a foot, of snow is equal to one inch of rain, the amazing icsult follows that there must hays been discharged from the heavens 5,737,122,000 tons of water. Referring to the recent attempt by O'Farrell to assassinate Archbishop Goold, the Oatholu Advocnti' states that O'Farrcll's father bequeathed varioussums to Catholic institutions, and £300 as a personal gift to the Airhlnshop, who received a cheque for the aggregate sum of £1100 in 1854 from the son, who was one of the executors of his father's will. In 1863 O'Farrell fled from Victoria to escape his creditors. Whilst awaiting a favorable opportunity to tret away he applied to the Rev Dr Goold for permission to conceal himself in St. Fianeis' Presbytery. The request was refused, and this refusal turned O'Farrell who previously had acknowledged himself to be under obligations to Dr Goold, into bitter enmity. Subsequently G'Fairell wiote from Cali- • fornia, demanding that the £1100 should be refunded, with interest, alleging that the estate had proved insolvent. He persisted in this demand, and Archbishop Qtbld eventually forwardf-d to him a cheque for £300, the amount of the bequest in his favor. The other bequests he had hauded over long previously, and they could not be refunded. Subsequently O'Farrell returned to Melbourne, and Archbishop Goold gave him 'a-further sum of £520 to enable him to make a fresh start in life. „ O'Farrell has made use of those payments to prove that I)r. Go'old admitted debt, and sued for the rw,hsl,e amount, with 28 years'interest.