The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1908. AMERICA'S MIGHTIEST GROWTH

New Zealand Tablet, Issue 3, 6 August 1908, Page 21

The New Zealand Tablet THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1908. AMERICA'S MIGHTIEST GROWTH

N a few clays .nior,e -New Zealand will, . at Auckland, greet America in its visiting fleet.: . ' -Sir, you are very welcome, to our' house.' For a young country tike ours, there is arj*lnspit;ation in the visit of the grey' leviathans which.reprc- - sent the wondrous progress and'the sturdy strength of a'nation whosVseparate history as an indepen-

dent State funs back to only a brief century a"nd a quarter. Its rise and growth represent, perhaps, the most marvellous development of colonisation and material progress that this grey old world- has /ever seen. But great as, has been its material progress, greater still Has been the expansion of the Catholic Church within its borders. At the dawn of America's independence, Catholics ' were only a ' little over the ' hundredth part of the population. - Now they probably number some fifteen millions — or nearly one sixth— and if we include her foreign possessions, they represent about a fourth of the entire population that lives under the Stars and Stripes. Dr.^ Ellen wood, a Protestant writer, said in the Missionary Review, in the. early "part of 1890 : ' From 1800 to 1.850 thcgggulation of the country increased nine-fold, the ; membership of, all Evangelical Churches twenty-seven fold, the 1 Roman Catholic sixty-three fold. From 1850 to 1880 the population increased -116 per cent, the communicants pi Protestant Churches 18$ pel- cent.* and 'the Roman Catholic 294 per cent.' The same writer states that ' there is a greater increase of Catholic population by, natural "generation. y Since 1896 the relative expansion of the Catholic Church in the

United States 'has been even niorc rapid, and it r has long been, numerically, by far the greatest religious body in that country..

- ' But far- greater, however, than her increase in what we may call her bodily growth has been her progress "in the spiritual life, as shown by her zeal in the cause of religious education, in charity, and in all good works. Herein she stands apart, serene, incomparable, and unrivalled. Some .years ago the Chicago organ of the Methodist Church said in this connection :

. . ' The Roman Catholic -Church is growing in all lands because it manifests its interest in the poor. "One of the most -lovely things in it is its perpetual and universal care for the poor,- the ' sick, the deserted, the hopeless, \the t .ten-times-over destitute. That Church sends to leper-settlements its priests, some of whom become lepers. That is being " all things to all men " with emphasis. That Church ministers to the .plague-stricken. . It aids to steady the discontented. That Church is therefore filled to the doors by people who throng its temples and stand up in icvery foot of space when the pews are filled. When strikes .paralyse labor in manufacturing, districts, that Church sends it.s .agents to aid in solving the conflict, and one of its strong points .at this hour is in its growing agency and influence among -discontented, striking, and menacing workmen. • He who is looking for proofs that Romanism is growing in power in this Republic is mistaken if he confines himself to Rome's increasing political schemes. Nothing promises more for that wise Church than its hold upon the minds of men, women, and children,' who heJieve that capitalists lose human tenderness in proportion as their riches increase.'

In IS9B, Mr. 15.en6 Bache — a well-known American journalist rind grandson of Benjamin Franklin — calculated that ' nearly onethird of the church-goers in the United States are Roman Catholics ; considerably more than one-fifth are Methodists ; more than one-sixth are Baptists ; one church-goer in sixteen is a Presbyterian, and one in seventeen is a Lutheran.' In his Little Tour in America (London, 1895) the noted Anglican writer, Dean Hole, dwells with amazement on the ' enthusiastic zeal ' of the Catholics of the United States. 'Not only, 1 he continues, 'are their buildings the most beautiful — there is no church in New York to compare with the Cathedral of St. Patrick — but they are used more frequently for their sacred purposes than any other places of worship.' We may conclude by referring to an article which appeared in the Edinburgh Reviexv for April, 1890, which stated that even then the Catholic Church in the United States was ' one of the most powerful and most democratic religious communities which the world has ever seen, and which is fated to leave a lasting mark on the history of Christendom.'