of French churches seems to confirm the statement, that French women remain faithful. There is another test of fidelity which raises a serious doubt on that point. The Church of Rome is known by all its votaries to condemn neo-Malthusian practices under pain of mortal sin; they are universally and habitually employed by French women. The unusual state of its population, and the curious fact that there are in France only some 200,000 women with more than six children, throws much light on the Catholicism of France. In Germany, Rome is making progress; so also in the United States, to some extent. In Spain and Italy its influence is a mere ghost of its former power; Socialism, Liberalism, and Freemasonry, careless scepticism and erotic licence, as in France, are daily enfeebling it.
In former ages it compensated home losses by missionary conquests; its actual paltry missionary profits are little more than financial transactions. I have spoken with missionaries from every one of the great fields, and they all confirm the opinion. On public platforms, of course, they deliver set speeches, at the end of which a collection is made; but in the genial atmosphere of the sitting-room afterwards they unbend, and unequivocally represent ‘conversions’ of natives as money matters.
The future we leave to more acute observers and more experienced speculators. The Church of Rome,
