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Show NEW ENGLAND WILL '..BECOME CATHOLIC What Two Protestant Divines Say The Rapid Growth of Catholic Churches Boston Provides for foreign-Born Catholics. At a meeting of Evangel b nl preachers recently he'd in Boston. Dr. Kintieh. who is of German j parentage, among other things, said: j ''Xew England is being transformed and th J people are being changed. Even on the Cape, the j native population is disappearing. In their places j are newcomers. Most of these are Portuguese and Catholics. , Fall Kiver. Lawrence. New lle.lford. Ware and Spencer you will find full of French people, who are about all Catholics. All along the Connecticut river the Polo arc coming in. They worship at, the same altar. We ; i-e no hmaer Pr-tcstanr Pr-tcstanr in Xew Kngland. as p-r cent ' the pc-i pc-i pie are foreigners, or ihe children of foreign-born I people; yet I would rather iive in ' Massachusetts than it) Carolina or Colorado, where the native elements ele-ments largely predominates."' Dr. Emrich emphas-I emphas-I ized the good that the Roman Cotholic cliurch has been doing, and said that the scholars in ihe paro-chiaTschofds paro-chiaTschofds in Worchester .-bowed as keen a senso of the highest ideals a- any children. The iiext speaker was the -on of President Eliot of Harvard college. His ph a was unitv. lie tells why he could not become a Catholic, and that though an admirer of Catholic music, and many beautiful souls he finds in her community, yet he is sorry to see Xew England becoming Catholic. "I cannot worship like the Roman Catholic, because be-cause 1 am for nine generations a Xew Englandcr." said he, "yet I cannot forget that it is the church j that, has nor. allowed the devil to have all the good I music, and I can remember that it has hern the re- S fuge of many refined and beautilul souls. Bccau- I appreciate the best that is iu it. I cannot look calmly on when the Roman Catholic church takes possesion of Xew England." Dr. Eliot then indulged in-dulged in a brief account of an investigation marie of twenty Xew England towns as to their religious administration. The striking elements were the growth of the Roman Catholic church, the increasN of the population, and the misery and folly of the Protestant divisions in them. He then' exhorted the gathering to do everything in its pover to bring about a union of the different Protestant denominations. denom-inations. "We' must do our part to increase fellowship fellow-ship and unity between the Protestant rlemonina-tions, rlemonina-tions, he said. Commenting on the above remarks, the Boston Republic dwells on the growth of ihe Catholic church, and tho provisions that are made, in the way of churches for all foreigners. It says: "Most of our readers have probably seen the above statements reported in the daily press, but we cannot help repeating them because of the important im-portant bearing that truths of this kind must have, upon the Catholic community. Anyone who has taken pains to make an investigation of the church conditions of Xew England during the past ten years must have come to the same conclusion as the reverend gentlemen quoted above. "While th tremendous increase in the membership of the Catholic Cath-olic church among the men and women of Irish blood has been noted for years, little appreciation has been had of the tremendous increase in the attendance 'at the Catholic churches due to the men and women of French, Italian, Polish and other foreign bloods, who have come in large numbers to this sectiou of the country the past, dozen years. Hardly a month passses by which does not witness the dedication in some part of Xew England of a Catholic church, and a goodly number of these have been erected by the French Catholic peopl. In Boston we havo at the present time three largo Catholic Italian parishes, while a half-dou other parishes have from two hundred to a thousand communicants of Italian blood. Numerous Polish churches have been erected in Xew England the past five years, while thousands of Syrians. Armenians Ar-menians and Lithuanians attend different Catholic parishes in vari6us parts of Xew England. Tho unionism in Protestant denominations which Dr. Eliot proposes will not change things because no matter how much the different Protestant elements may attempt to get together, they cannot hop? to compete in numbers with the Catholic churches in future X'ew England. While it may be possible for the Baptists, Methodists. Congregationalisms aud other Protestant sects to abate their differences and meet on common ground in order to have num-erically num-erically respectable congregations in many places in Xew England, the effect will not be a lasting one. Editor Bok of the Ladies' Home Journal, a few months ago emphasized the fact that Protestant young men had ceased going to services, and h did not think that any inducement could be devised that would bring them back. Aside, from the increase in-crease that is bound to come to the Catholic churcli through immigration, the greater increase is bound to come through the larger birth-rate that charac- 4 terizes communities where foreign bloods are in the ascendency. To repeat a situation which we think is typical of the entire city: Last year in Ward Six there was one birth to every twenty-one of the population, while in Ward Eleven there was one birth to every seventy-eight. It does not re- -quire a mathematician to figure what the popula- ! tion of Boston will be twenty-five years from now when this comparison is made. The Catholic church vas never stronger before in the world than it is I at the present time, and the futurr? has never looked ! as promising as it does at the present time. There- fore, there is no reason to assume that any great defection will occur among itsfcnembers during the f next quarter of a century. If this be so, it is in- I cumbent upon the men of foreign bloods, whose an- I cestry does not, like Dr. Eliot's, date back nine gen- I orations, to bestir themselves into a consideration I of the responsibility that rests upon their shoulders as to the future of Xew England. "Xew England blood has made the United States," is a saying that is frequently heard, and with a great deal of truth. ; f From the day the Pilgrims landed in ItL'O until j the present time the men of this part of the couu- try have been foremost in everything that has tend- I f ?' $ ! ' '"ed to the development of American institution?. In peace or war, in education or business, in all ; the different realms of national activity, Xew Eng- land's sons have been in the forefront and the his tory of the country on its every page bears fitting ' ; testimony to their worth and their deeds. Will the fctory be the same fifty years from now? We hope so, and we have no doubt that it will be so; but ' it cannot be accomplished by the present and next generation utilizing their time in star-gazing and sitting idly by while the procession moves on. Xa-ture Xa-ture has bountifully blessed every part of our country with riches in soil far more abundantly than she has Xew England. You can put the spade in any part of the virgin soil of the United States west of Xew England and nature will respond with immemnse acreages of wheat, corn and oats, or cereal products of some kind, while you cannot uncover un-cover a foot of earth with the pick without the eye br ing dazzled with jnincral products of every kind and description. The natural wealth of the southern south-ern and southwestern states this ycar'in cereal products pro-ducts and cotton will easily amount to more than a billion dollars, while Xew England's sterile soil will yield the merest pittance. The money of the capitalist. goes where certain returns are assured and where the dividends come with the least resistance, and the most solid foundation in futures. fut-ures. It is far more apt to go into southern cotton mills, with the raw material at the doors and less hostile labor legislation than it is here in Xew England. Those and many other things must be taken into in-to consideration by the men and women of the Catholic church when figuring on Xew England's future. There is not enough of the old Xew Eng-' land blood to go around if this was found to be necessary, and we do not think that it is, and the Xew England of twenty-five years from now will be made or unmade by the school-boys' and schoolgirls school-girls of today, seventy-five per cent of whom came from stock born on the other side of the water. If ih"e boys and girls lake advantage of the oppor-j oppor-j n.nilies that lie at their door, Xew England's fut- m1" V. iuit with Harvard college, with its splendid endowment, running into millions every year (the best educational institution in the world today), the Institute of Technology, which has sent into the world the best technically-trained men: Yale college, ihe Clark Institute at Worches-ter, Worches-ter, the Conservatory of Music at Boston, Boston collpg-e. Holy Cross college. Brown University, Bad-el Bad-el iffo college, Dartsmouth college, Wellesley college, col-lege, Bowdoin college, Williams college, the Manual Art Training school, and the thousand and one other colleges and high schools, the best in the world's history, right in the heart of the great. Catholic population, open to the boys and girls and young men and young women of today, whose fault will it be if ihe Xew England of twenty-five years from now Catholic to the core as it will be will not lead the world in everything that pertains to i! the business as well as in the humanitarian point of view t The men who came from the other side have given splendid results, considering their equip-I equip-I ment. "What will their sons and daughters do? I It i on their shoulders the responsibility rests, and 1 bave faith that with the proper direction and I the right kind of leadership result will follow. The men of no race and the people of no faith have 1 ever enjoyed a better opportunity. Let us have capable captains and we cannot fail. Leadership I is what we want and what we must have. i - A |