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CHURCH MATTERS.
Of the French assembly, nineteen
members are Protestants.
A Seminole Indian has a Sund iy-
school of 700 members under his
charge.
Tiikue are one cardinal, ten arch
bishops, fifty-six bishops and 5,074
priests in the United States.
Of the expatriated German Jesuits,
eighty-four have gone to settle down
in Asia, and twenty in Africa.
The English company of Bible re
visers have carried the revision ot the
New Testament as far as Galatians.
Rev. Benjamin Seifferth, senior
bishop of the Moravian church, died
recently in the eightieth year of his
age.
Bishop Green, of the Protestant
Episcopal diocese of Mississippi, ha3
asked for the election of an assistant
bishop.
The Universalists of New York have
thus far raised over $20,000 for the
purpose of erecting a church of that
faith in the city.
Archbishop Purcell, of Cincin
nati, now seventy-six years old, will
next May celebrate the jubilee of his
admission to the priesthood.
The proposition has been made in
the Protestant Episcopal church to
erect a centennial monument in Fair-
mount park to Bishop White.
Dr. Manly, president of George
town college, is to write a series of ar
ticles for the Examiner and Chronicle
on “ The First Baptists of the South.’
The suit for the possession of Lo
gan’s chapel, in Blount county, Tenn.,
has been decided in favor of the Meth
odist Church South, and the Northern
church will not appeal.
Tiie Young Men’s Christian associ
ation of Boston have tendered the use
of their hall to the Young Men’s Chris
tian Union (Unitarian) until their new
building is ready for occupancy.
A Methodist church in a certain
towi in New Jersey, carrying on re
vival meetings, advertised after this
style : “ Free seats, free Gospel, free
salvation. New Christians made and
old Christians mended every night,
etc., etc.”
Philip Phillips, the “ Singing
Pilgrim,” is holding, in association
with Dr. Thorburn, revival meetings
in Calcutta. The largest theater m
the city—the Corinthian—was filled
with 2*000 persons at a Sunday even
ing service.
The Waltham, Mass., churches
hold a monthly union prayer-meeting.
At a late meeting the Congregational-
ist, Universalist, Methodist and Unita
rian churches were represented by their
pastors, with lay members of these and
other churches.
Prof. Schem, one of the liest of
American writers on statistics, esti
mates the number of thi population of
the globe under the government of
Christian rulers to be 685,459,411, and
the number under' the uou-christian
rulers at 711,382,589.
The Turks have permitted the
Christians to put up bells on the church
of the Holy Sepulchre. Jerusalem,
where the sound of a church bell has
not been heard since the last cruside,
the Mahamiuuuuns having a supersti
tious fear of “ the church going bell.”
The congregation of St. Paul’s Epis
copal parish at Marquette, Mich, a
city of 6,000 inhabitants, have built a
church which will accommodate 600
people, at n cost of 858,000, without
fairs or festivals, and without one dol
lar from outside the city, and without
any aid from non-Episcopalians.
A Mexican paper publishes the fol
lowing statistics of Protestantism in
Mexico: “Thereare 125 Protestant
congregations, 11 churches, 99 hallsof
worship—$139,000 is the probable
value cf church property—28 free day-
schools, 28 night-schools, 2 orphan
ages, 2 theological seminaries, 6 presses
employed in the publication of reli
gious literature, 6 religious periodicals,
122 agents employed, $100,000 spent
this year in carrying out the work.”
THEstrongholds of Catholicism in this
country are in northern states. Mas
sachusetts has more Roman Catholic
sittings—139,405—than the twelve
southern slates of Alabama, Arkansas,
Deiaware, Florida, Georgia, North
and South Carolina, Virginia and
West Virginia, Tennessee, Texas and
Mississippi, which have 105,365 Ro
man Catholic sittings. Massachusetts
and New York have a Roman Catho
lic population of 401,110. The state
of Illinois has more Catholic sittings
than twelve southern states.
The Vatican.
The word is often used, but there
are many who do not understand its
import. The term refers to a collec
tion of buildings, on one of the seven
hills of Rome, which covers a space of
1,200 feet in length, and 1,000 feet in
breadth. It is built ou the spot once
occupied by the garden of the cruel
Nero. It owes its origin to the Bishop
of Rome, who, in the early part of
the sixth century, erected an humble
residence on its site. About the year
1160, Pope Eugenius rebuilt it on a
magnificent scale. Innocent II., a
few years afterward, gave it up'as a
lodging to Peter II., King of Arragon
In 1305, Clement V., at the instiga
tion of the King of France, removed
the papal see from Rome to Avingnon,
when the Vatican remained in a con
dition of obscurity and negelect for
more than seventy years. But soon
after the return of the pontifical
court to Rome, an event which had
been so earnestly prayed for by poor
Petrarch, and which finally took place
in 1376, the Vatican was put into a
state of repair, again enlarged, and it
was thenceforward considered as the
regular palace and residence of the
popes, who, one after the other, added
fresh buildings to it, and gradually en
riched it .with antiquities, statues, pic
tures, and books, until it became the
richest depository in the world. The
library of the Vatican was com
menced 1,400 years ago. It contains
30,000 manuscripts, among which are
some by Pliny, St. Charles Boromeo,
and many Hebrew, Syrian, Arabian,
and Armenian Bibles. The whole of
the immense buildings composing the
Vatican are filled with statues found
beneath the ruins of ancient Rome;
with paintings by the masters, and
with curious medals and antiquties of
almost every description. When it is
known that there have been exhumed
more than 70,000 statues from the
ruined temples and palaces of Rome,
the reader can form some idea of the
Vatican.
A Curious Snake.—David W. Cart
wright, a trapper well known in the
west, and a man whose word may be
implicitly trusted, states in his late
work on “Western Wild Animals,”
that he once discovered a two-headed
snake in the vicinity of Humboldt river.
The creature was diminutive in size,
measuring only sixteen inches in length
and was “atone end about like a lead
pencil, the ether end being larger.”
The heads terminated the two extrem
ities—that at the tail being smaller
than the one at the opposite end.
They were both perfectly developed,
and seemed to share the leadership be
tween them, for the snake was able to
crawl equally well with either end fore
most. The reptile had been fatally
wounded by a party in advance of him,
just before Mr. Cartwright found it
—therefore he had not much opportu
nity to experiment with it; yet he
states that “if a stick was put in front
of either head, it (the 3nake) would
hack away ffom it.”
Enlisting as a Soldier of Christ.
Mr. Moody, the evangelist, in one
of his sermons in the Hippodrome, il
lustrated his subject as follows: One
day I was walking through the streets
of York in England. I saw a little
way ahead a soldier coming toward
me*. He had the red uniform ou of
the infantry—the dress of the army. I
knew at once when I saw him that hc-
was a soldier. When lie came near
me I stopped him. I said: V My good
man, if you have no objections I would
like to ask you a fowjquestions.” ,, Cer
tainly, sir,” said he. “Well, then, I
would like to know how you first be
came a soldier.” “ Yes, sir, I will tell
you. You see, sir, I wanted to be
come a soldier, and the recruiting offi
cer was in our town, and I went to
him and told him that I wanted to en
list. Well, sir, he'said ‘all right,’
and the first thing he did, sir, he took
an English shilling out of his pocket,
sir, and put it into my hand. The
very moment, sir, a recruiting sergeant
puts a shilling into your hand, sir, you
are a soldier.” I said to myself:
“That is the very illustration I want.”
That man was a free man at one time
—he could go here and there : do just
what he liked ; but the moment the
shilling was put into his hand he was
subject to the rules of war, and Queen
Victoria could send him anywhere and
make him obey the rules and regula
tions of the army. He is a soldier the
very minute he takes the shilling. He
has not got to wait to put on the uni
form. And when you ask me how a
man may become converted, at once, I
answer, just the same as that man be
came a soldier. The citizen becomes
a soldier in a minute, and from being
a freeman becomes subject to the com
mands of others. The moment you
take Christ into your heart, that mo
ment your name is written in the roll
of heaven. You are enlisted a soldier
of Christ, and you cannot then do as
J ’ou choose, blit you must do what he
ays down. Don’t you see then how
you can become a Christian at once, my
friends? It is very plain. Don’t go
out of this hall to-day, then, and say
you can’t see it. I don’t see howl can
make it any plainer. Though you ac
cept Christ, yet you are a sinner still,
but a saved sinner. There is a great
deal of difference between the two—
between a saved and an unsaved sin
ner. I have been a saved sinner my
self for twenty-one years. You ask
me if I don’t sin. \ es, I do, but I
hate sin. For twenty-one years I have
been a soldier—a poor and unworthy
soldier—but still a soldier. Twenty-
one years ago this month I took, as*I
may say, the English shilling; I en
listed in the array of Christ, and he
has been ever since ray life, my Lord,
my all. Now dear friends, won’t you
have him ? “ As many as received him
He gave power to become the sons of
God.” Oh! just say you will receive
Him,then.
Something About Evergreens.
Evergreens, says the Agriculturist,
are very useful for their timber, their
cheerfulness in winter, and especially
for the fact that as wind-breaks they
are as effective in winter as in summer.
They are less planted than thev would
be were there not a general idea that
thev are difficult to manage. For gen
eral utility we place first the white
pine, a native which is always beauti
ful, grows with fair rapidity, and its
wood is more generally useful than
that of any other tree; the supply is
annually diminishing, while the price
is increasing. The next most desira
ble species of pino for the planter is
the Scotch pine. This makes itself
quite at home in this country, and
adapts itself to great a variety of soil.
Its wood is about as valuable as that
of the white. Norway spruce is the
most generally planted evergreen in
this country. It is one of the best for
screens, as it is hardy and suited to
nearly all situations; its wood in
Europe occupies the same place that
white pine does in this country. Ar
bor vitae is a native species, also
valued for screens; it is more dense
than the Norway spruce, and is of
rather slower growth. The wood,
incorrectly called white cedar, is dura
ble, Red cedar was at one time high
ly praised as a desirable evergreen,
hut its popularity has waned, and it is
at present justly regarded as inferior
to those we have named.
Us8 and Abuse of the Mind.
In the course of a lecture recently
delivered in New York city, Dr. Ham
mond, after speaking of the different
kinds of nervous tissue and the brains
of animals, said that the faculties
of the mind were divisible into percep
tion, intellect, emotion and will. It
was dangerous to health to over-exert
the mind by the use of any of these
faculties to a considerable extent.
However, he had never seen a man
who was injured by too much percep
tion, and very few were injured by too
much-intellectual labor. A majority
of the cases of brain troubles were
caused by emotions. Severe intellect
ual labor was less injurious than strong
emotions. More injury was produced
by the anxiety of a man who antici
pated possible trouble than by the real
trouble. Every experiment showed
that the brain was the organ of the
mind. There was a continual con
sumption of brain substance going on.
When persons thought, they burned
the brain, and the ashes, phosphate of
ammonia, were taken up by the blood
and given off’ through the secretions.
By carefully estimating the amount of
these ashes, one could tell approxi
mately the amount of intellectual la
bor. There was nothing more inju
rious than too much anxiety. In
such cases the appetite failed and
the brain was consumed faster than
the tissue could be supplied from the
food. Some try to get relief by drink
ing whisky, but it was a very bad
way; it simply postponed the trouble.
No organ in the body was as strong as
the brain. If a man slept six or eight
hours, he could work as hard as he
wished to, within reason, the rest of
the twenty-four. The mind should
never be too concentrated on one sub
ject. Persons should always have well
selected intellectual amusements.
Bathing.
The human organism, by virtue of
its peculiar constitution, necessitates
bathing as one of the conditions for
health. The skin is one of the chief
depurating organs of the body, upon
which is thrown out a considerable
amount of fluid and solid matters iu
health and in disease, which require to
lie removed ; and this is best done by
bathing. Hence, bathing for cleanli
ness is an important consideration in
all cases, and we believe it is the only
justsfiable object with persons in
health. What else can lie the object,
if one is already well ? Bathing for
cleanliness thus implies pure, soft
water, of a neutral temperament, and
continued just long enough to accom
plish this object. The water is to be
pure because it is a better cleanser; it
is to be sort, because hard or salt wa
ter irritates and injures the skin; it is
to be of a neutral temperature, say
ninety degrees, neither not nor cold,
but simply pleasant, because every
thing in the way of shock or disturb
ance of the nervous system is to be
avoided; it may continue two or three
minutes, the whole body being im
mersed, because a shorter time would
not »>e sufficiently cloansing, and a
longer time would be relaxing.
Joaquin Miller tells of a man
whom his friends thought must lie, lie-
cause there wasn’t truth enough in the
world to keep him talkiug as much as
he did.