They are not stocks
and stones; they are actually, though slowly, moved by them; the old
hatred of the Church--you may find it expressed in the working man's
papers of fifty years ago--is dying out rapidly in our great towns;
the brawling is better, even the drinking is diminishing. And there is
another--perhaps an unexpected--result. Not only are the poor turning
to the Church which befriends them, the Church which they used to
deride, but the clergy are turning to the poor; there are many for
whom the condition of the people is above all other earthly
considerations. If that great conflict--long predicted--of capital and
labour ever takes place, it is safe to prophecy that the Church will
not desert the poor.
Apart from the Church what machinery is at work? First, because there
are so many Catholics in the place, one must think of them. It is,
however, difficult to ascertain the Catholic agencies at work among
these people. The people are told that they must go to mass; Roman
Catholic sisters give dinners to children; there is the Roman League
of the Cross--a temperance association; I think that the Catholics are
in great measure left to the charities of the Anglicans, so long as
these do not try to convert the Romans.
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