l it is of promise, how accordant with the
sentiments of the noblest minds in every part of the world. It gives us
the leading place among the nations which are moving along rising ways
to higher and freer life. To turn to the Catholic Church in America; all
observers remark its great development here, the rapid increase in the
number of its adherents, its growth in wealth and influence, the firm
yet gentle hand with which it brings heterogeneous populations under the
control of a common faith and discipline, the ease with which it adapts
itself to new conditions and organizes itself in every part of the
country. It is not a little thing, in spite of unfriendly public opinion
and of great and numerous obstacles, in spite of the burden which high
achievements impose and of the lack of easy and supple movement which
gathering years imply, to enter new fields, to bend one's self to
unaccustomed work, and to struggle for the right to live in the midst of
a generation heedless of the good, and mindful only of the evil which
has been associated with one's life. This is what the Catholic Church in
America has had to do, and has done with a success which recalls the
memory of the spread of Christianity through the Roman Empire. It
counts its members here by millions, while a hundred years ago it
counted them by thousands; and its priests, churches, schools, and
institutions of charity it reckons by the thousand, while then they
could be counted hardly by tens. Public opinion which was then hostile
is no longer so in the same degree. Prejudice has not indeed ceased to
exist; for where there is question of religion, of society, of politics,
even the fairest minds fail to see things as they are, and the
multitude, it may be supposed, will never become impartial; but the
tendency of our life and of the age is opposed to bigotry, and as we
lose faith in the justice and efficacy of persecution, we perceive more
clearly that true religion can neither be defended nor propagated by
violence and intolerance, by appeals to sectarian bitterness and
national hatred. By none is this more sincerely acknowledged, or more
deeply felt, than by the Catholics of the United States.

The special significance of our American Catholic history is not found
in the phases of our life which attract attention, and are a common
theme for declamation; but it lies in the fact that our example proves
that the Church can thrive where it is neither protected nor