The latter half of this century may, with some propriety, be called an epoch of celebrations, commemorations and jubilees. Many of these are trivial in character and restricted in territory; others are full of meaning, cheering and ennobling to those who participate in them and to many who come within their influence. The celebration to-day is one worthy of a Christian people, commemorating a work wrought in God's name and for His honor, and fruitful of untold religious blessings to a devout congregation. The Church in the United States can, with justice and without a blush, hold up to the gaze of the world the record of her first days, humble and insignificant though they be; for, reversing the tablet, an exhibition of a century's work, partakes of the marvellous,--of the miraculous. Relatively, the accomplishments of the Church in particular localities are as astounding and wondrous as in dioceses, or in the whole country. The beginnings of religion were the humblest conceivable. The priest to whose care was entrusted a territory now covered by one or more dioceses, journeyed from hamlet to hamlet and from house to house, wherever a child of the Church might have his home, to administer the consolation and the helps of the sacraments, and preach the word of life. His altar was a rough board or a table; his vestments and all needed for the mass were carried in a sack on his back, when no conveyance could be had. The conveyance might be an ox cart, a farm wagon, or a stage. It was such in all cases as the country in its days of poverty and simplicity afforded. The heart of the priest was gladdened when he was able to bring the blessings of religion to children of the Church who, few in number and greatly scattered, still held tenaciously to the old teachings and prayers; as it was saddened when one of the faithful pointed out the homes of others who had apostatized, or who, blushing in their ignorance under the contumely heaped on their fellow-religionists, concealed God's gift of faith. These fallings-away from religion are not unknown to-day. We may pity the weakness of the unfaithful in those early times; there is no reason to extend pity to the apostates of these days. In September, 1836, Dr. England, Bishop of Charleston, addressed a long communication to the Society of the Propagation of the Faith at Lyons in relation to the condition and progress of the Catholic Church in the United States. In this document the thoughtful and observant Bishop details the heavy losses the Church has suffered and is still suffering, and assigns the causes therefor with a straightforwardness and boldness eminently characteristic. He does not hesitate to assert that more than two-thirds of Catholic emigrants and their descendants had ceased to profess the Catholic religion, and of these most had united with some of the Protestant denominations. The causes he gives may be briefly summarised as follows:--