The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. THURSDAY, FEBUARY 23, 1899. THE CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 8, 23 February 1899, Page 17

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. THURSDAY, FEBUARY 23, 1899. THE CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES.

RUTH and strong feeling may wed and live together— for a time-— on tolerably good terms. But as a matter of fact the union is seldom a happy one. Certain press and platform enthusiasts in Great Britain and America furnish melancholy instances in point. They see the horns and tail and cloven hooves of Pope and Jesuit peeping around every corner and out of every nook and cranny of public and social life, and find it necessary to organise and maintain great associations — such as the Protestant Alliance in England, the A.P.A. in the United States, and the Orange Society everywhere— to protsct the world at large from being devoured by the giant Blunderbore of ' Romanist aggression.' Now and then they get a hold of the public ear. And then arise sundry philosophers of the great school of Pooh-pooh, who set about proving that the supposed ogre is— like the cadaverous Irish waiter of the story — in reality dead, but too lazy to shut its eyes, and merely waiting a decent interment. Such was, in effect, the attitude taken up in the cooked statistics of l)n. Horton and Rev. Iln.u Price Hrcjins. Experienced people will, a pilot /hesitate to accept either the hysterical visions of the scared enthusiasts, or the pygmy images seen by the Pooh-poohs by looking through the wrong end of a telescope. ♦ * # The American correspondent of the Dunedin Ernnnq Star has tried his 'prentice hand at the work of minimising, to some extent, the proud position of pre-eminence attained by the Catholic Church in the Great Republic. The matter has been dealt with in a correspondence which appears elsewhere in this issue, and to which the attention of onr readers is directed. The growth of the Catholic Church in the United States is one of the most conspicuous facts of the later history of North America. From half-a-million out of a total population of 1;!, 000,000 in ],s:)o, it has grown to probably 12,»>00.0oo out of over (;,"),Oou,ouo at the present time— comprising within its pale, acioiding to Mr. Ri.xi: Baciie, about one-third of the total church-goers of the United States. This increase is due not to immigration alone, but to annexation of Catholic territories Mich as Florida. Texas, and California, to concisions, and to the multiplying of families. The Hou I). C\ukou, AVkk.hi 1 , of the National Bureau of Statistics, is reported to ha\e declared that the marvellous increase in Catholicism in the country is laigely due to comersions and to the excess of the birth-rate o\er the death-rate. This latter result he ascribes to the inculcation of right principles of morality through the agency of the confessional. I * * * The Xfir Yml, Hi inhl of August 2, LsO 1— referred to in the correspondence published elsewhere— sa\s that 'the Catholic Church in the United States is a body of yinantie proportions. Its churches are scattered throughout the length and breadth of the land. The old Xew England of the Puritans is now the Now England of the Catholics.' In the Eilnihunih Rrricn- for April, ls'.K), Mr. Boi>i,i;y w rites :—: — In no part vi the United States has the growth of the Roman Catholic Church been &o remarkable as in Ni-w England, where, till after the Revolution, lingered the spirit which in the previous century had applauded the Puritan Governor Endicott. when he cut from the British Hag- the St. George's Cross 'as a Popish symbol savouring of supt rstition, and not to be countenanced by Christian men.' The descendants of the Puritans hau- arrested their own de\elopment by a limitation of family. The liish and French Canadians are possessing the land, rich in the Bible blessing of happiness promised to the man whose quiver is full. Is there not something in the nature of the prophetic] in the words which the old New England Congregational

Minister, Rev. Joshua Hopewell, spoke to Sam Slick long ago ? < Sam,' said he, ' we're agoin' to have an established Church ; it may be a very good Church, and it is a great deal better than many we have ; but still it ain't the Church of the Pilgrim Fathers.' < What Church, minister ? ' said bam 'Why, said the minister, 'the Roman Catholic Church. Before long it will be the established Church of the United States.' An established Church will, we trust, never be an accomplished fact in the United States. None the less, the far-seeing old Congregalionalist had a wondrous insight into the growth of that Church— how, from a small sect in a small corner of the land, it grew, in Bodley's words, into one of the most powerful and most democratic religious communities which the world has ever seen, and which is fated to leave a mark on the history of Christendom. J