The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1898-09-24

luSS, cap, a nanQkefcnlef, some fru1t
or confectionery. AS prize for every
, scholar would be too expensive,
| species of lottery was instituted, and the
fortunate, or unfortunate, one got the
prize. The successor of this pastor di-
continued the practice, and Immediately
the children began to inquire are we
not to have our prizes Perhaps at
| Christmas time, but not every Sunday
was the reply. Then we won't come
| to Sunday school, they SAID, and the
following Sunday not one of the forty
children appeared.
eve go on to Venice. Work was be-
gun here in 1916, and probably over $2o,-
600 have here been spent. We have no
church property. A fine house is rent
Ell for $500 year. A recent pastor told
us he found $50 names ON the church
register, but has seen only two of their
owners in church. The minutes OF 1898
| reported fourteen members and two pro-
! bationers. The congregation varies from
five to twenty-five. When the presiding
elder was to make his quarterly visit the
pastor used to ask the minister of an
other denomination to send his congre-
! cation up to our service, SO as to make
the presiding elder think that we have a
large audience in Venice. We told this
| to one of our preachers in conference
Oh said he, there are two or three
other pastors that do that way An
other pastor went out into the streets
cent apiece.
I'VE once asked the pastor of GER
| tain church why he did not correct the
| rectors and report only the actual men,
bers found. He replied that that would
not please certain authorities. We ask
| ed the pastor of our church at Ponte-
dera how many of his fifty members
gave evidence of conversion. He count
ed them upon his fingers and replied,
| four or five.'
l. In Faenza the average attendance is
reported at twenty-five; DR.. Stackpole
says that for three years it has been
near three. In Rome the Boys Insti-
tute," from which great things We're to
be expected, reported eighty pupils 1t
really has eight. of whom three were
expelled for stealing. A theological
school was established, to make some
show toward training a native ministry.
DR.. Stackpole gives list of the STU
dents, sketching briefly the character
and career Of each, and makes them out
to be as sorry lot of rogues and ras-
calls as could be found in life or litera-
| ture. Such are the results given devout
American contributors for the more
than 100000 expended on the Italy mis-
sion before Dr.. Stockpole wrote. Note
worthy finally, are the words on the
free schools"
| I'VE are convinced that free schools
in Italy will be of no benefit to us.
There are good public schools in all
| places of Importance, and we can not
compete with them. We cry out in
America against the policy of the Roman
Catholics in removing their children
from the public to their ecclesiastical
schools, yet in Italy we are trying to in
augurate the same policy
Says the English Wesleyan Mission
airy Society in it's periodical, Work and
Workers in the Missionary Field" for
1897:
But what about the work of evangel-
lzation in Italy as carried on by our
own church OF by agencies akin to ours?
Nowhere are large and striking results
reported. All evangelical workers are
conscious of the unfavorable condition
OF the time, and of the number and
strength of the opposing forces; but
there is no lessening of the ardor no d.
minishing of the agency on the part of
any of the churches" One of the tri-
umphs of human speech is the art with
which the missionary reporter optimis-
tically diverts attention from glaring
picture Of barrenness, futility and fraud
Work and Workers" goes on TO say
about the people of Italy: "They show
no approach to Professionalism. Their
hope is emphatically in the church, and
il their zeal for a revival of religion led
them into anything of which the author
tiles disapproved they would at once
abandon it, and, as loyal Catholics, sub
nit to rule"
In the same periodical what does a
Weselyn missionary in Spain give us,
as offsets to "the dark sides of the pic
ture' of his depressing account of the
lack of Protestant progress, as "bright
sides, both moral and religious?" with
many there is a simple and sincere faith
in the Catholic dogmas, faith born of
hereditary prejudice and pride l do
not say that the clergy does not endea-
vor in its own way to oppose the general
dissolution by its working mems clubs
by society against blasphemy, for ex-
ample, and by circulating good popular
literature-in some cases even reprint
ing our evangelical tracts
Finally, from France the Rev. NJ.
| Caffeine, president of the French con-
| ference, reports in Work and Workers."
THE general position OF affairs is I'M
changed. A good deal of faithful work
has been done with the result Simn1v Of