ment. This is true, no doubt, as regards any augmentation of the
church through conversions from Protestantism, and the impetus given by
the movement towards Catholic union. "It is scarcely possible," says the
Rev. Monsignore Capel, "to find a family in England that will not own that
one of its members, or, at least, some acquaintance, has relations with
the Catholic church, or observes some of the practices of that church,
whether it be adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, auricular confession,
devotion to the Blessed Virgin, or veneration of the saints. This movement
is of such powerful proportions, and possesses such vitality of action,
that no power on earth, no persecution on the part of Protestantism, the
government or the press, is able to suppress it. Catholics would never
have been able, themselves alone, to realize what is now accomplished by a
section of the established Anglican church. The members of this party, by
their discourses in the pulpit, have familiarized the public mind with
expressions which Catholics never could have spread among the English
people to the same extent, such as altar and sacrifice, priest and
priesthood, high mass, sacrament, penance, confession, &c. The movement
has produced this result. Many persons have become seriously religious,
who had been in the habit of considering that the service of God was only
a fitting employment for Sunday. In fine, the spirit of God which breathed
on the waters at the commencement is now passing over the British nation
and impelling it towards Catholic truth."

Not a few of those who were once distinguished ministers of the Anglican
church are now officiating, with great acceptance, as Catholic priests. Of
the 264 priests of the diocese of Westminster, there are 40 who were
members of the official or law church. There passed not a week, M. Capel
assures us, that he did not receive four or five Ritualists into the
communion of the Catholic church. This was no fruit of his labor and
ability, he modestly as well as truly declares. They were persons with
whom he had no relations whatsoever, until they came to him, their minds
made up, and expressed that serious determination which is so
characteristic of them.

The publications of the celebrated statesman, Mr. Gladstone, although they
have not won for him reputation as a theologian, have, nevertheless,
promoted the cause of Catholic theology. The opinions of so eminent a man
were naturally subjects of ge