86 PERILS.— liOMANiSM. 



in the United States are not necessarily the gains of 

 Protestantism. When a man, born in the Eoman Cath- 

 olic Church, loses confidence in the only faith of which 

 he has any knowledge, instead of examining Protestant- 

 ism he probably sinks into skepticism, which is even 

 worse than superstition. Romanism is chiefly responsi- 

 ble for German and French infidelity. For, when a 

 mind to which thought and free inquiry have been for- 

 bidden as a crime attains its intellectual majority, the 

 largeness of liberty is not enough ; it reacts into license 

 and excess. Skepticism and infidelity are the legitimate 

 children of unreasoning and superstitious credulity, and 

 the grandchildren of Rome. Apostate Romanists are 

 swelling our most dangerous classes. Unaccustomed to 

 think for themselves, and having thrown off authority, 

 they become the easy victims of the wildest and most 

 dangerous propagandists. 



But, notwithstanding the great losses sustained by 

 Romanism in the United States, ^ it is growing with 

 great rapidity. No one knows what the present Roman 

 Catholic population is, and estimates vary widely. 2 

 Cardinal Gibbons at the Baltimore Congress in 1889 

 placed it at 9,000,000. Many Roman Catholic writers 

 tliink it is larger. Bishop Hogan, of Missouri, estimates 

 it at 13,000,000. But this is wild. No doubt the figures 

 of "Sadlier's Catholic Directory" (1890) are large 

 enough. This gives the Romanist population as 8,277,- 

 039. These figures are probably as reliable as earlier 

 ones from the same source, and, therefore, serve as a 

 basis for comparison to estimate the rate of growth. 



In 1800 the Roman Catholic population was 100,000. 

 There was then in the United States one Romanist to 

 every 53 of the whole population ; in 1850, one to 14.3; in 

 1870, one to 8.3; in 1880, one to 7.7; in 1890, one to 7.5. 

 Thus it appears that, wonderful as the growth of our 



^ According to Roman Catholic authorities, the members they have lost 

 here, together with their descendants, now number upwards of ten millions 

 — considerably more than the present Romanist population. 



2 A recent Census Bulletin gives the R. C. Church in the United States 

 6,2.50,045 members, excluding children undpr nine years. 



