eir
energetic existence in the world to the Catholic Church.

Such is the power and such is the influence of Catholicity. Yet I do not
pretend that our Catholic population is perfect, or that in them you
will find no shortcomings, nothing to be censured or regretted.
Certainly in our cities and large towns may be found, I am sorry to say,
many so-called liberal or _nominal_ Catholics, who are no credit to
their religion, to the land of their birth, or to that of their
adoption. Subjected at home, as they were, to the restraints imposed by
Protestant or quasi-Protestant governments, they feel, on coming here,
that they are loosed from all restraints, and forgetting the obedience
they owe to their pastors, to the prelates whom the Holy Ghost has
placed over them, they become insubordinate, and live more as
non-Catholics than as Catholics. The children of these are, to a great
extent, shamefully neglected, and suffered to grow up without the
simplest moral and religious instruction, and to become recruits to our
vicious population, our rowdies and our criminals. This is certainly to
be deplored, but can easily be explained without prejudice to the
influence of Catholicity, by adverting to the condition to which those
individuals were reduced before coming here; to their disappointments
and discouragements in a strange land; to their exposure to new and
unlooked-for temptations; to the fact that they were by no means the
best of Catholics even in their native countries; to their poverty,
destitution, ignorance, insufficient culture, and a certain natural
shiftlessness and recklessness, and to our _great lack of schools,
churches, and priests_. The proportion, however, that these bear to our
whole Catholic population, is far less than is commonly supposed, and
they are not so habitually depraved as they appear, for they seldom or
never consult appearances, and have little skill in concealing their
vices. As low and degraded as this class of our Catholic population may
be, they never are so low or so vicious as the corresponding class of
non-Catholics in every nation. A non-Catholic vicious class is always
worse than it appears; a Catholic vicious class is less bad. In the
worst there is always some germ that, with proper care, may be nursed
into life, that may blossom and bear fruit. Yet, if we look at the
Catholic population as it is, and is every year becoming, we cannot but
be struck with its marvellous energy and progres