our great cities, could not take
place without there being a gradual accumulation of experience, slow,
indeed, but therefore the more sure about individual Catholics, and what
they really are in character, and, whether or not, they can be trusted in
the concerns and intercourse of life; and I fancy that Protestants,
spontaneously, and before setting about to form a judgment, have found
them to be men whom they could be drawn to like and to love quite as much
as their fellow-Protestants--to be human beings in whom they could be
interested and sympathize with, and interchange good offices with, before
the question of religion came into consideration."

The increase in the number of Catholics and of Catholic institutions in
Great Britain, has kept pace with the growth of friendly sentiments in
their regard. That island, "the mother of nations," appears to be destined
to unite by means of her ever spreading language, the immense family of
mankind. For what end and purpose none can tell. The hidden ways of Divine
Providence are known to God alone. We may, nevertheless, in view of
certain well-known facts, presume to draw the veil of mystery aside, and
discover so far the secret of God's mercy. In Pius the Ninth's time the
number of Catholics has been doubled in Great Britain, as well as in the
United States of America, Canada, Australia, remote India and the Cape of
Good Hope.

At the time of the election of Pius IX., there were in England and
Scotland eight hundred and twenty Catholic priests. There are now two
thousand and eighty-eight.(12) The number of churches and chapels had
grown from six hundred and twenty-six to one thousand three hundred and
fifteen. Within the last twenty years religious houses for men had
increased from twenty-one to seventy-three, and convents for religious
sisters, from ninety-seven to two hundred and thirty-nine. Catholic
schools and colleges had more than doubled their number, being now one
thousand three hundred, whilst a little over twenty years ago it was five
hundred.

In the British colonies, generally, including British America, Australia,
India, and the West Indies, there were, in 1855, no more than forty-four
Episcopal Sees, several of which owed their erection to Pius IX. By the
year 1876, the solicitude of the same venerable Pontiff had raised to
eighty-eight, the number of archbishops and bishops who exercised the
duties of their sacred office, throughout the Colonial Empire of G