masses.

greviously have morals been debauched, pauperism, insanity and crime augmented, and moral progress retarded by these exotic The problem of city evangelization has been inconceivably enhanced in difficulty, and its solution indefinitely postponed, by this continual addition of these radical socialistic pauper and criminal classes, as too many of them have been. Under such circumstances it has become a grave question, Can OLD WORLD SUBJECTS BE TRANSFORMED INTO NEW WORLD CITIZENS?

Our cities, more than any other part of the country, have received large installments of foreign radicalism. The communistic, anarchistic and other radical revolutionary theories, assailing government, social order, and religion, have been promulgated in the largest centres of our population. The spirit of atheism is in the air. It comes largely from the Old World. It steams up from the slums. It organizes in leagues. It has its presses. Large batches. of organs of atheism and socialism are published in New York and Chicago. They proclaim anarchy as a scheme of freedom; and freedom is a popular word. Inflammable edicts issue from the atheistic press, outspoken, defiant, steeped in the spirit of denial, frothing with venom, and so shocking with rage that our blood chills as we read them. They are disseminated with a dead-inearnest zeal and diligence. These are the worst classes of our foreign born populations.

"Fourteen or fifteen centuries ago," said a writer in the Congregationalist, "our British ancestry asked the Anglo-Saxons to help them in their struggles against the Picts and Scots. The Saxons complied with their request, but after the enemy had been defeated, remained to hold sway over the Britons." Are we not repeating the old experiment? Our Western cities are rapidly becoming Germanized and our New England cities Irishized. We are being dominated by those who have been invited to share in, not to overturn, our beneficent institutions. The aggressive radicalism of our adopted German citizens has already projected crises in more than one of our great cities, and Boston and some other New England cities are shuddering over their dubious prospects.

VII. PERIL FROM ROMANISM.

The most prominent antagonism to our religious life comes in an organized form, dominated and directed by a foreign pontiff, who

assumes to include educational, social, religious and political matters within the scope of his administration.

Romanism has concentrated her adherents in the cities. Take out these elements, and carry us back to the condition in 1850, and how different the city problem! The multiplication of large and imposing churches and other ecclesiastical edifices, by the Roman Catholic Church, has greatly impressed the public and excited alarm in some quarters. Exaggerated random statements in regard to their numbers are often paraded before the public. No exact data exist to tell the numerical strength of Roman Catholic adherents in the cities. The most satisfactory statistics are those of their churches and priests, as given in their Year Books.

Taking the "Fifty Principal Cities," and covering the period from 1850 to 1886, we find:

Comparing with the total population of these cities, we find :

1850, One church for 14,221 inhabitants. One priest for 7,295 inhabitants.

Here is a gain upon the population, in the number of the priests, down to 1880, the latest date for which we have the population of the cities for comparison. There is a gain in the number of the churches down to 1870, since which date they slightly failed to keep pace with the population, there being forty-four more inhabitants to one church in 1880 than in 1870. An examination of the preceding table will justify the inference that the actual increase of both the churches and the priests, from 1880 to 1886, has been relatively less than in the previous decades. From 1880 to 1886, in twenty-five of the principal cities the Roman Catholics gained only fourteen churches. In the other twenty-five cities they gained 135 churches. From all these facts, it seems that they have passed the period of their most rapid numerical growth in the large cities, as can also be shown to be the case in the country at large.

Considering the large foreign increment in the population of the

cities, and that fully three-fifths has been originally from Roman Catholic stock, the fact that they increased their churches in the whole fifty cities in thirty years only 506, an average of ten in each, or one-third of a church a year in each city is not very remarkable. As to the size of their church edifices, the number of worshipers, and the number of different services on each Sunday, we have no data. We know, however, from common observation, that they have several services every Sunday which is also true of most Protestant churches, and that their audiences are larger, as a whole, than those of Protestant churches. And yet it is true that very many of their people are becoming accustomed to absent themselves from public worship, except on two or three Sabbaths each year, as it is true also of too many Protestants.

In this necessarily brief statement we should not overlook the very close, detailed and effective organization of its forces which the Roman Catholic Church is making, with a view to supplementing the decline of its former large gains by immigration. Its religious brotherhoods and sisterhoods, its educational and charitable institutions, are widely organized, and nowhere so effectively exert their power as in the cities. A brief summary for four cities, not at all exceptional in the list, will serve to impress us with what they are doing.

They report for the city of Baltimore fifteen conventional houses of sisters, besides six monasteries, or residences of brotherhoods, seventeen charitable institutions (orphanages, refuges, hospitals, etc.), with about 2,000 inmates, twenty-seven parochial schools with 7,000 pupils, a theological seminary with 220 students, and one Jesuit college with 129 students.

In the city of Boston are six convents, thirteen charitable institutions with 3,365 inmates and 9,809 out-door patients, fourteen parish schools with 5,885 pupils, and a Jesuit college with 300 students of all grades.

In Cincinnati they report ten charitable institutions, with 2,668 inmates, twenty-four parochial schools with 10,675 pupils, fourteen religious communities (convents, monasteries or residences), with 664 brothers, sisters, novices, etc., one Jesuit college with 300 students, one college of the Congregation of the Holy Cross with 200 students, and a gymnasium or classical school for young men aspiring to the priesthood, with fifty students.

In Chicago are reported forty-seven convents and other religious

communities of men and women, with over 600 brothers and sisters, fourteen charitable institutions, sixty parochial schools with 28,051 pupils, and one Jesuit college with 274 students, besides several seminaries.

Similar exhibits of Romanism might be given of almost all the large cities. They indicate that Romanism expects to stay among us, is shrewdly planning to take care of its people, to gather and attach to Rome, orphans, foundlings, etc., and to win the favor of the general public by its hospitals, industrial schools and dispensaries.

Nor should the increase of Roman Catholic churches be regarded as an unmixed evil. In some respects it is an encouraging indication. Without these religious agencies, how could our foreign masses be held in check and controlled, especially in times of panic and other provocations to violence. The argument might be extended further.

Nevertheless, we believe that Protestantism would do these masses more good than Romanism, if we could have access to them. More than that, we believe that the Roman Catholic Church is inimical to the best progress of society, and in direct antagonism to the . historic religion of the nation-the religion of the Holy Scriptures. We can, therefore, by no means relinquish the cities to their control, but must regard the entire population of the cities as comprised in our commission to preach the Gospel to every

creature.

It is an important inquiry, How have the evangelical Protestant churches represented in this Alliance competed with Romanism. and with the population in these "Fifty Principal Cities"?

It is a matter of regret that only a few denominations publish their statistics in such a form that they are available for comparisons covering a period of forty years, in these fifty cities. We are confined to the following: The Presbyterians, embracing the Old School and the New School while separated, and the Southern General Assembly since its secession in 1861; the Methodist Episcopal and the Methodist Episcopal South; the Congregationalists; and the Reformed (late Dutch) Church. For the sake of convenience, we will call these six denominations. The statistics show, in 1850, 3,680 inhabitants of all classes to one church. In 1880, 5,375; in 1850, 2,686 inhabitants to one minister. In 1880, 3,551 inhabitants, a steady falling behind the population in both items. Since 1880,

however, these churches and ministers increased more rapidly than in previous periods.

As compared with the Roman Catholics, while the latter gained largely upon the population, yet they started from a very small basis in 1850. From 1850 to 1886 the Roman Catholic increase was 655 churches, and that of the aforementioned denominations was 1,057 churches.

But this comparison does not do justice to the evangelical Protestant denominations. Turning to the directories of seven large cities, to which I have had convenient access, viz.: Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Providence, Boston, Cincinnati and Chicago we find in 1886 1,027 evangelical churches, in addition to those of the six denominations mentioned in the former calculation, which, when combined with those of the six denominations, show one evangelical church in 2,102 inhabitants in these seven large cities, and one Roman Catholic church in 12,552 inhabitants, calculated on the population in 1880 in the same cities, or, relatively to the population, six times as many evangelical Protestant churches as Roman Catholic. We doubt not the whole fifty cities would give a still more favorable showing for our churches.

Thus far I have spoken of the average number of churches in the whole population. If I should pause here my work would be faulty, overlooking the destitute localities or sections in many of the large cities, owing in the older cities to the migration of the population to the newer portions and the suburbs, transferring the churches with them. Many old churches, after a long struggle to maintain an existence, have been closed, and been converted to secular uses. Thus large masses of people are left unprovided for. Typical facts will be cited which can be paralleled in most of the older cities.

The Interior says that in Chicago there is a district containing 50,000 people, with Sunday-school accommodations for only 2,000; that it is full of theatres, saloons and gambling dens; that in one year 7,200 boys and girls are arrested for petty crimes; that the churches do not care for that district; they are looking after the avenues.

An authority says that in New York City there is a section containing 50,000 inhabitants, 25,000 of whom are non-Roman Catholics, with only one chapel, having accommodations for 400 people, and 287 liquor saloons; while some other sections of the city have a congestion of churches.