SPECIAL NOTICE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 10, 6 March 1902, Page 15

SPECIAL NOTICE.

The Rev. Father Cleary leaves for his trip to Europe on next Monday morning, going by the express to the Blnff. Correspondents are notified that all letters addressed to him by name will be treated as bis private correspondence and will be forwarded to his Home address. All communications intended for publication should be addressed to ' The E'iitor,' aud not by name to any niemb> rof the staff. A competent stuff (if writers will be engaged on the papi-r during the Rev Father Clcaiy's absence, and arrangements have been made for a supply of editorial and other articles from bis pen till his return.

Church is, both absolutely and by comparison with other creeds, moving forward as if shod with the shoes of swiftness. Some two years ago an attempt was made in a prominent New Zealand daily paper to minimise the significance of the growth and position of the Catholic Church in the homeland of Uncle Sam. It failed. Such failures add to the piquancy of life. As was the case with ' the genial showman,' ' heavy figgerin ' was not a berthrite' of the well-meaniDg writer who made the attempt. He serenely lumped together twenty-two sorts of Lutherans, seventeen varieties of Methodists, thirteen stripes of Baptists, twelve kinds of Presbyterians, and an endless number of brands of other rival denominations, labelled them ' the Protestant Church,' and set them triumphantly over against the one, solid, and undivided Catholic corporate body. It was only by adopting this or some equally unfair and misleading basis of comparison that it was possible to conceal the fact that the Catholic Church in the United States comes easily first in numerical strength and that any other single religious body falls hopelessly behind it.

Estimates for the year 1901 have just been published. They, too, tell a tale of unrivalled progress. They were compiled by the Rev. Dr. H. K. Carroll, a non-Catholic clergyman, who was in charge of the religious statistics of the United States census of 1890. In order to establish something approaching as nearly as practicable to a common ground of comparison, Dr. Carroll gives the number of ' communicants ' in the case of the Catholic Church and of 'members' in the case of other creeds. The numerical strength of communicants and members and their growth during 1901 is shown in the following table :—: — Religious Body. Membership etc., Growth, 6 J at present. 1901. Catholic 9,158,741 ... .:. 468,803 Protestant Kpitcopal ... 750,799 31,341 Disciples of Christ ... 1,179,541 29,559 Southern Baptist ... 1,674,108 26,112 African Methodist ... 698,354 22,892 Colored Baptist 1,590,802 18,146 Methodist North 2,762,691 16,500 Presbyterian North ... 999,815 16,382 Christian Scientist ... 48,930 13,980 Lutheran General Synod 204.0118 4,500 Congregationalist ... 634,835 3,475 Baptist North 1,005,613 3,039 Dr. Carroll's figures give a total membership of all Churches in the United States, at the close of 1901, as 28,0y0,637. • This represents,' says the New York Freeman's Journal, ' a gain of 730,027, or 2" 67 per cent., or greater than the gain in population, 2*lß per cent., the annual increase in population from 1890 to 1900.* In relative, as well as in absolute, numerical increase the Catholic body easily led the way. The Protestant Episcopal Church came next with an increase of four per cent.

Here is another interesting table prepared and published by Dr. Carroll, showing the number of communicants and members and the rank of the various denominations in 1890 and 1901 :— Religious Body. Rank. Communi- Rank. Comunicants. cants. 1901 1901 1890 1890 Roman Catholic 1 0,138,7-11 1 6 231,417 Methodist Episcopal 2 2,7(i2 291 2 2,240,354 Regular Baptist, South 3 1,0(54,108 4 l^SoioOO Regular Baptist, cold 4 1,610,801 3 1,348,989 Meth-Episc, South 5 1.477,180 5 1,209,976 Disciples of Christ 6 1.179,541 8 641,051 Regular Baptist, North 7 1,003,613 6 800,450 Presbyterian, North 8 999,815 7 788,221 Prot. Episcopal 9 750,799 9 532,051 African Methodist 10 698,354 11 452,725 Congregationalist 11 631,835 10 512,771 Lutheran Synod, Con. 12 566,375 12 357,153 African Meth., Zion 13 537,337 13 349,7H8 Lutheran Gen. Council 14 316,5(53 14 324,847 Latter Day Saints 15 300,000 19 344,532 Reformed German 16 248,929 15 204,108 United Brethren 17 240,007 16 202,474 Presbyterian, South 18 227,991 18 179,721 Colored Methodist 19 204,972 20 129,384 Lutheran Gen. Synod 20 204,098 17 187,432

As far back as 1890, Dr. Ellenwood (a Protestant writer) said in the Missionary Review that ' from IbOO to to 1850 the population of the country increased nine-fold • the membership of all Evangelistic Churches twenty-seven told ; the Roman Catholic sixty-three fold. From 1850 to 1880 the population increased 116 per cent., the communicants of Protestant churches 185 per cent., and the Roman Catholics 294 per cent.' Tables given by Mulhall in his ,£!S? y v « gress paper showed thafc <in forfc y years (18501890) the Roman churches [in tbe United States! multiplied seven-fold and the church property thirteen-foid, while Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians showed a much lower rate of progress.' Some time ago we showed that the full numerical strength of the Catholic body in the United States must stand between 12,000,000 and 15,000,000. In some great cities half the population is Catholic. Catholics, for instance, constitute about the half of San Francisco s population of 342,752 souls. In New York city (according to the Catholic Directory figures for 1900} there are 1,852,000 Catholics— at least fifty per cent, of the population— and in the 'old city' 825,000. An estimate made by a prominent architect in 1899 showed that there were at that time in course of construction in the New York ecclesiastical province churches, chapels, convents, schools, and hospitals which, when completed, would involve an expenditure of £2 000,000. Dean Hole, in his Little Tour in Ammca (published in 1895) speaks of the deep impression S^,. 011 ,,, mind b - y fche omni Present activity of the Catholic Church in America. After dwelling on the 'enthusiastic zeal' of the United States Catholics, he continues .- 'Not only are their buildings the most beautifulthere is no church in New York to compare with the cathedral ot bt. Patrick— but they are used more frequently for their sacred purposes than any other places of worship ' This statement is fully borne out by Rene Bache, whose elaborate figures, published a few years ago, show that oneu^a ?\ th Z church -g° el< s of the United States are children of the Catholic Church. As far back as 1890 Dr Ellenwood, a Protestant writer, described the Catholic Church in America, in the course of an article in the Missionary Review, as a ' strong-stranded, hard-twisted agency which no one can ignore.' And Rev. Dr. Layman Abbott (a 1 uritan of tbe Puritans) said a few years ago in the Nor/h American Review : < The most stalwart anti-Romanist in his calmer and more candid moments, can hardly question that, were the Roman Catholic Church abolished by instantaneous decree, its priests banished and churches closed, and the restraining influence of that form of the Christian religion taken away from its adherents, the disaster to American communities would be simply awful in its proportions, if not irretrievable in its results.' Catholics in these young countries can look with high hopefulness to their own future when they contemplate the marvellous advance which, in little more than a hundred years, has placed the Catholic Church in the United States absolutely without a rival in point of numbers, in rapidity of growth, in church attendance, in material prosperity, and, above all, in spiritual advancement and in its marvellous energy in doing all manner of good. &