482 THE BRITISH ISLES. 



Act ameliorating the position of the Roman Catholics had even been passed, their 

 numbers did not increase, and remained ahnost stationary till about the middle 

 of the present century, when the <i:reat inHux of Irish immigrants caused it to spring 

 up by a sudden bound. The Irish immigration altogether swamped the older 

 English Roman Catholics, who had survived the period of prosecution, and our 

 map (p. 481) shows very distinctly that they are most numerous in those counties in 

 which the Irish element is most strongly represented. The "Ritualistic" movement 

 in the xVno-lican Church may have brought a few converrs to the Church of Rome, but 

 a somewhat careful inquiry into the religious statistics of Great Britain enables us 

 to state with coutidence that the increase in the number of Roman Catholics is 

 more than accounted for by Irish immigration, that there have been none of 

 those wholesale conversions of Protestants which are occasionally talked about, and 

 that since the decrease of Irish immigration there has likewise been a decrease 

 in the proportion of Roman Catholics. At all events, they increase no 



longer. 



Relio-ious zeal is very great amongst Englishmen, and still greater amongst 

 Scotchmen. This religious fervour of the British Islanders manifests itself 

 in the enormous sums which are annually collected by voluntary agencies 

 for building and endowing churches and chapels, printing Bibles and tracts, 

 and sending missionaries into every quarter of the world. Ethnically this 

 zeal for reli'^ious propaganda, exhibited at all times, is a remarkable pheno- 

 menon. Julius CoDsar stated, and modern researches have confirmed his 

 opinion,* that it was from Great Britain the Druid missionaries spread all 

 over Gaul with the intent of converting the natives. Subsequently, when the 

 ancient gods had been overthrown by Christianity, it was again by British 

 missionaries that the new faith was carried into the woods of Germania, and 

 the sacred oaks hewn down. Nearly all the numerous Protestant sects which 

 have sprung into existence since the Reformation are plants of British growth, 

 disseminated from England and Scotland into other parts of the Christian world. 

 Xor is there any country at the present day which supports a greater number 

 of missionaries in heathen lands, or expends larger sums upon religious 

 objects, t 



England, whose travellers, missionaries, and merchants have invaded every 

 quarter of the globe, has become the great colonial power of the world, holding 

 sway over one-fifth of the total population of the globe, and equal in extent to all the 



• D'Arbois de Jubainville ; Ernest Desjardin's " Description de la Gaule Romaine," ii. 

 t Population of the British Islands according to religious belief (an estimate for 1880): — 



