The Progress of the Church in the United States [pp. 1-19]

TTIM
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL I. L, NO. 1.-APRIL, 1865.
From Le Correspondant.
THE PROGRESS OF THE CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES.
BY E. RAMEUR.
[THE following article will no doubt
be interesting to our readers, not only
for its intrinsic merit and its store of
valuable information, but also as a
record of the impressions made upon
an intelligent foreign Catholic, during
a visit to this country. As might have
been expected, the author has not escaped some errors in his historical and
statistical statements-most of which
we have noted in their appropriate
places. It will also be observed that
while exaggerating the importance of
the early French settlements in the
development of Catholicism in the
United States, he has not given the Irish
immigrants as much credit as they deserve. But despite these faults, which
are such as a Frenchman might readily
commit, the article will amply repay
reading.-ED. CATHOLIC WORLD.]
AFTER the Spaniards had discovered
the New World, and While they were
fighting against the Pag,an civilization
of the southern portions of the continent, the French made the first [permanent] European settlement on the
shores of America. They founded
Port Royal, in Acadia, in 1604, and
from that time their missionaries began to go forth among the savages of
the North. It was not until 1620 that
the first colony of English Puritans
landed in Massachusetts, and it then
seemed not improbable that Catholicism was destined to be the dominant
religion of the New World; but subsequent Anglo-Saxon immigration and
political vicissitudes so changed matters, that by the end of the last century one might well have believed
that Protestantism was finally' and
completely established throughout
North America. God, however, prepares his ways according to his own
good pleasure; and he knows how to
bring about secret and unforeseen
changes, which set at naught all the
calculations of man. The weakness
and internal disorders of the Catholic
nations, in the eighteenth century, retarded only for a moment the progress
of the Catholic Church; and Providence, combining the despised efforts
of those who seemed weak with the
faults of those who seemed strong,
confounded the superficial judgments
of philosophers, and prepared the way
for a speedy religious transformation,
of America.
This transformation is going on ix
our own times with a vigor whick
seems to increase every year. The