In many respects the rapid growth of the Catholic Church in the United States is the most remarkable spiritual phenomenon since apostolic times. The adequate account of that astonishing achievement has yet to be written ; but I can flash a light upon it by saying that in a little over a hundred years Catholic America has increased its dioceses from one to a hundred, and its membership from practically nothing to twenty millions of souls.

I have been staggered by what I have seen, for though I have generally small faith in the efficacy of efficiency, I was profoundly impressed by the kind of organization I found established. Catholic high schools were familiar enough ; but Catholic colleges managed by nuns were portents. Yet there are a very great number of these, and their success may be estimated from the fact that the Sacred Heart Order alone has produced in the late Louise Imogen Guiney the best woman poet America can claim, and in Agnes Repplier the best American essayist since the passing of the great New England literary group.

Moreover, the practical spirituality of American Catholicism is proved by the huge crowds flocking to the Sacraments week by week. And while the methods of a New York parish may strike an easy-going Englishman as a trifle bureaucratic, they no doubt are necessary to a people accustomed to clockwork regularity.