apel at
Hampstead; the Dominicans' Church, Haverstock Hill; the Passionist
Church, Highgate; the Augustinians' Church, Hoxton; the Sacred Heart,
Holloway; St. John the Evangelist, Islington; the Italian Church, Hatton
Wall; the Carmelite Church, Kensington; the church in Kentish Town; the
church at Kilburn; Our Lady and St. Joseph, Kingsland; the new French
Church, Leicester Square; the Rosary, Marylebone Road; St. Francis,
Notting Hill; St. Charles, Ogle Street; the Polish Chapel, Gower Street;
St. Mary's, Poplar; the Holy Family, Saffron Hill; St. Anne's,
Spitalfields; Our Lady's, St John's Wood; St. Vincent de Paul, Stratford;
the English Martyrs, Tower Hill; Our Lady of Grace, Turnham Green; St.
Mary's, Horseferry Road, Westminster; and SS. Peter and Edward, Palace
Street, Westminster--in all forty churches or chapels in thirty years
(without counting many private chapels or convents, &c.), or fifty
chapels, where thirty years ago there were but ten. And it should be
borne in mind that of the new churches many, such as the Oratory,
Commercial Road, Farm Street, Islington, the Italian Church, Bayswater,
Brook Green, St. John's Wood, and others, are of a size and beauty which
thirty years ago would have been deemed a folly even to hope for. There
are now as many masses said at the Oratory, Bayswater, and Farm Street,
as thirty years ago there were in all the chapels in London, so great has
been the increase of priests in London since 1839. On the south side of
the water, in the diocese of Southwark, the change for the better is even
more manifest than in that of Westminster; but, the congregation being
poorer, the churches are also smaller. In what is now the diocese of
Westminster, there were, in 1839 (writes the same correspondent), about
seventy priests, and of these but two were regulars--Jesuits--who lived
almost as private individuals in the Marylebone Road. There are now a
hundred and thirty secular priests--fifteen Oratorians, sixteen Oblates
of St. Charles, sixteen Jesuits, ten Marist Fathers, seven Oblates of
Mary, six Carmelites, six Dominican Fathers (besides as many more not yet
ordained), six Passionists (in addition to ten or twelve not yet
ordained), five Servite Fathers, five Fathers of the Society of Missions
(Italians), five Augustinians, two Franciscans, and three Fathers of
Charity--in all, between regulars, seculars, and priests not attached to
any particular mission, there are two hundred and