preachers. Baron Macaulay writes: "We often hear it said that
the world is constantly becoming more and more enlightened, and that the
enlightenment must be favorable to Protestantism and unfavorable to
Catholicism. We wish that we could think so. But we see great reason to
doubt whether this is a well-founded expectation. We see that during the
last two hundred and fifty years the human mind has been in the highest
degree active; that it has made great advances in every branch of natural
philosophy; that it has produced innumerable inventions, tending to
promote the convenience of life; that medicine, surgery, chemistry,
engineering, have been very greatly improved; that government, police and
law, have been improved, though not to so great an extent as the physical
sciences. Yet we see that during these two hundred and fifty years
Protestantism has made no conquests worth speaking of. Nay, we believe
that as far as there has been change, that change has been in favor of the
Church of Rome. We cannot, therefore, feel confident that the progress of
knowledge will necessarily be fatal to a system which has, to say the
least, stood its ground in spite of the immense progress made by the human
race in knowledge since the time of Queen Elizabeth." If, then,
Protestantism, as regards increase and development, has been at a
stand-still for the last two(13) hundred and fifty years, whilst it is
admitted on all hands that Catholicism has been growing rapidly, it is
not, surely, unreasonable to claim that the increase of Catholics keeps
pace with that of Protestants. The claim, however, must be waived, as it
would give a greater expansion to the Catholic Church than Catholics can
suppose it is entitled to. If the number of Catholics had doubled within
the last five-and-thirty or forty years, as that of Protestants is alleged
by the learned statisticians to have done, they would now count five
hundred and nine million three hundred thousand. Behm and Wagner estimate
them at two hundred and seventy million.

Judging by the facts alluded to, this estimate is certainly below the
mark, and we shall still be considered as determining for a low figure
when we reckon the Catholic population of the whole world at three hundred
million.

The heathen masses are still the most numerous. But, if the statement
recently made by the Secretary of the Chinese Legation, at Washington, may
be relied on, they are not overwhelmingly so. This stateme