"The victory will be, not to those religious beliefs which most closely correspond to certain requirements of the abstract intellect, but to those which give rise, in practice, to a mode of life that is simple, natural, unselfish, and adequately prolific—in other words, to a mode of life that works, that is Lebensfähig." [41]
As things are, the original Protestant stock of America is being swamped by the growth of the Catholic, the Jewish, and the Negro population. Moreover, the United States is faced by the grave problem of a rapidly increasing coloured race. Despite this fact the American Malthusians are now demanding that a National Bureau should be established to disseminate information regarding contraceptives throughout their country! And what of the other reformers? They also are very busy. They have already abolished those cheering beverages from grapes and grain, or rather they have made alcohol one of the surreptitious privileges of the rich. They are seeking to enforce the Sabbath as a day of absolute rest, not for the glory of God but in order that tired wage-slaves may have their strength renewed for another week of toil in the factories and the mills. Again, they would uproot from the homely earth that pleasant weed whose leaves have made slaves of millions since the days of Sir Walter Raleigh. All these things would they do. There are some things the reformers have not done, and these things are recounted by an American writer, Dr. Anthony M. Benedik:
"The divorce peril, the race-suicide evil, the greed for ill-gotten gold, things like these the reformers touch not. And these things it is which harm the soul. Abolishing the use of alcoholic drinks and of tobacco, putting the blue laws into effect, suppressing all rough sports, may make a cleaner, more sanitary, more hygienic, a quieter world. And yet there keep recurring to mind those words of the Master of mankind, 'What doth it profit a man if he gain the world and suffer the loss of his soul?' What worthy exchange can a man make for his soul?" [42]
On the other hand, it is good to read that the Governor of New York has recently signed a bill making it a misdemeanour for landlords to refuse to rent apartments to families in which there are children. In that State children thus regain equal rights with dogs, cats, and canaries. Is it too much to ask of the House of Commons that they should pass a similar law? We shall see.
The dangers of birth control were apparent to that great American, Theodore
Roosevelt, when he said:
"The greatest of all curses is the curse of sterility, and the severest of all condemnations should be that visited upon wilful sterility. The first essential in any civilisation is that the man and the woman shall be the father and the mother of healthy children, so that the race shall increase and not decrease." [43]
Section 4. THE SAME RESULTS IN ENGLAND
On a smaller scale the position is the same in England and Wales, where Catholicism has probably checked to some extent the general decline of the birth-rate. In 1919 there were only six towns in England [44] with a birth-rate of over 25 per 1,000, these being St. Helens (25.6), Gateshead (25.9), South Shields (26.9), Sunderland (27.1), Tynemouth (25.9), and Middlesbrough (26.7). Now in these towns the Catholic element is very strong. During the same year in the four registration counties in which these towns are situated, a larger proportion of marriages were celebrated according to the rites of the Church of Rome than in the other counties of England and Wales. [45] The actual proportion of Catholic marriages per 1,000 of all marriages in these four counties was: Lancashire 116, Durham 99, Northumberland 92, and the North Riding of Yorkshire 92. That gives a fair index of the strength of the Catholic population. Again in 1919 we find that Preston, a textile town, has a birth-rate of 17.1, whereas two other textile towns, Bradford and Halifax, have rates of 13.4 and 13.1 respectively: and there can be little doubt that the relative superiority of Preston is mainly owing to her large Catholic population.
The actual birth-rate amongst Catholics in England may be estimated from information contained in The Catholic Directory for 1914. As that work gives the Catholic population and the number of infant baptisms during the previous year in each diocese of Great Britain, and as Catholic children are always baptized soon after birth, it is possible to estimate the birth-rate of the Catholic population. Working on these figures Professor Meyrick Booth [46] has published the following table: