A RECORD OF PROGRESS.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14836, 29 November 1913, Page 16

A RECORD OF PROGRESS.

In St. Joseph's Temperance Hall, Clones, on October sth the Eight Rev. Dr. Gunn, Bishop of Natchez, Mississippi, delivered a most interesting lecture on the subject of "The Now World and the Old." His Lordship, in tho course of his address, referring to religious statistics in the United States, said that of the 90,000,000 of people there, there were 50,000,000 who, according to tho census, were not affiliated with any religious denominations, so that as an American writer said not very long ago, thero were more pagans in America than in Japan. Tho Catholics in tho United States numbered between 17 and 18 millions, and were the strongest unit of 175 different varieties of religion under the Stars and Stripes. In the days of George Washington there were one bishop, 30 priests, and 30,000 Catholics. Now, 135 years afterwards, there were three cardinals, 14 archbishops, 100 bishops, and 17,500 priests. The number of conversions to the Catholic Church from amongst the higher classes was at the rate of about-140,000 in the year. In Washington's . day there was one Catholic for every 121 American citizens. To-day there was one Catholic for every six.