[Footnote 60: This includes also Catholic schools and colleges. The estimate is too small, however, and another gives 206,000 as the number going to school.]
There can be no doubt that the people of New York, possessing means, are a very liberal and philanthropic class. That there is still remaining a great deal of "evangelical" religious zeal and activity is also manifest. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the influence of the old, orthodox Protestant tradition has remarkably diminished, and that the minority of nominal Protestants have lapsed into a state of indifference to positive Christianity. We doubt if 25,000 men can be found in the city who sincerely profess to believe the tenets common to what are called the "evangelical" churches; and of these but a small fraction adhere intelligently to the distinctive doctrines of any one sect; e.g., the Protestant Episcopal, or Presbyterian. The remainder have a general belief in the truth of Protestant Christianity, more or less vague, with a great disposition to consider positive doctrines as matters of indifference. Outside the communion list of the different churches, we believe the general sentiment to be, among the educated, that Christianity is a very useful, moral institution, containing substantially all the truth which can be known respecting ultra-mundane things, but without any final authority over the reason, and completely subject to the criticism of science. Among the uneducated, we believe that negative unbelief, and a supine indifference to everything beside material interests, prevails. We will not attempt to assign causes or reasons for it; but the fact is evident. A vast mass of the population is completely outside of the influence of any religious body, or any class of religious teachers professing to expound revealed truths concerning God and the future life. Moreover, the traditional belief in revealed truths is much weaker in the young and rising generation, even of those brought up under positive religious instruction, than it is in the present adult generation. There appears to be no tangible, palpable reason for thinking that Protestant Christianity, under any form, is in a condition to revive its former sway; to keep what it retains, or to recover what it has lost. The mere lack of church accommodation will not account for this, and if at once this lack were remedied, it would not change it materially. For, in those places which are furnished with a superabundance of churches, the same undermining of religious belief is going on. The fact that the most respectable Protestant publishers make no scruple of republishing the works of such writers as Renan and Colenso, and that these books are read with such avidity, indicates the way the current is setting.
What the result of all this will be, is a matter for very serious consideration. Our political, civil, and moral order is founded on Christianity. The old Christian tradition has been the principle of the interior life of the nation. Take away positive Christian belief, and the moral principles which are universally acknowledged are still only a residuum of the old religion. The spirit of Christianity survives partly in civilization as its vital principle. How long a certain political and social order may continue after faith has died out, we cannot say. We cannot but think, however, that a disintegrating principle begins to work as soon as religious belief begins to die out. There is nothing, therefore, more destructive to the temporal well-being of men, than the spread of sceptical and infidel principles. Merely from this point of view, therefore, the decay of religious belief and earnestness ought to be deplored as the greatest of evils, and one for which no advance in physical science or material prosperity can compensate. What the moral fruits already produced by this decay are, and what the prospects are for the future in this direction, we leave our readers to gather from the perusal of the secular papers; and it may be estimated from the cry of alarm which is from time to time forced from them, as new and startling developments of the progress in vice and criminality are made.
We turn our attention now to the Catholic population of the city, and the religious institutions under the control of the Catholic Church.
The Catholic population is variously estimated at from 300,000 to 400,000. As no census has been taken, all estimates must be merely approximate. One way in which an estimate may be made, is by taking the returns of the census giving the total population of foreign birth, and getting the proportion of Catholics to non-Catholics among the various nationalities. Some probable estimate of the native-born Catholics must then be made and added to the number of foreign-born. In 1860 the number of inhabitants of foreign birth was 383,717, out of a total of 813,669. If we suppose that the foreign-born population has increased to 460,000, it seems not improbable that the Catholic proportion of it, with the home-born Catholics added, will reach the total of 400,000.
Another basis of calculation is the ratio of baptisms to the whole population. A register is kept with the utmost exactness in each parish, and the result transmitted once a year to the chancery, where it is entered in the diocesan record. We are furnished, therefore, with an authentic census of births from Catholic parents each year, and if the exact multiplier could be ascertained by which to multiply this number, we should reach a certain result. It can only be conjectured, however, with more or less probability, and varies in different localities remarkably according to the character of the population. The baptisms for one year are 18,000. Multiply the number by 33, as is usually done in making the estimates of the general census, and you have 594,000. This number is too large, however. If we take 20, it gives us 360,000; 25, 450,000. We do not profess to come any nearer than this to an estimate of the actual Catholic population. The two conjectural calculations, compared with each other, appear to settle the point that it is, as we have already stated, between 300,000 and 400,000.
The number of churches is 32, or one to from 10,000 to 12,000 people; and the number of priests 93, or one to about 4,000 people. In the lower section, embracing the first seven wards, there are five churches: St. Peter's in the Third ward, St. James's in the Fourth, St. Andrew's and Transfiguration in the Sixth, and St. Teresa's in the Seventh. These churches furnish nearly three times as much accommodation as the Protestant churches in the same district. It must be remembered that the capacity of a Catholic church includes standing room as well as sittings, and must be multiplied by the number of masses. A church which will hold, when crowded, 2,000 persons, and where four masses are celebrated, will accommodate 8,000 on one Sunday; and, considering the causes which keep many from attending church regularly, 12,000 different individuals who attend regularly or occasionally. One of these churches, St. Teresa's, is a very fine building of stone, which was purchased about four years ago from the Presbyterians, and was called in former times the Rutgers street Presbyterian church. No Catholic church in the lower part of the city has ever been closed, or moved up town, with the exception of St. Vincent de Paul's.
The middle district has nine churches: St. Alphonsus' in the Eighth ward (German and English), St. Joseph's in the Ninth, St Bridget's in the Eleventh, St. Mary's in the Thirteenth, St. Patrick's in the Fourteenth, St. Ann's in the Fifteenth, Holy Redeemer (German), St. Nicholas's (German), Nativity, in the Seventeenth.