(M33) For three hundred years the Catholics of Holland were sorely tried by persecution. Until the time of the Concordat of 1827, they were governed by archpriests, whose superior or prefect resided at the Hague. When Holland was separated from Belgium, the king of the former country wisely resolved to act as a constitutional monarch. He was considerate as regarded his Catholic subjects. His successor, William II., to whom in 1840 he resigned the crown, treated them with still greater benevolence. He sought an understanding with the Holy See, and gave effect to the Concordat of 1827. Vicars-apostolic, invested with the episcopal character, were now the chief pastors of the church of Holland. The king also sanctioned the establishment of several religious communities, among the rest the Society of Jesuits and the Liguorians. These arrangements were joyfully accepted by the Catholics of Holland, and paved the way for greater developments. These worthy people were, for a long time, believed to be few in number, and scarcely more than nominally Catholics. Relieved, at length, from the pressure of persecution, they astonished the world, not only by their numbers, but also, and even more, by their zeal in the cause of religion. According to the census of 1840, they were nearly one-half of the entire population of Holland. Total population, 2,860,450; Protestants, 1,700,275; Catholics, 1,100,616. The remainder was made up of Jews and other dissenters. Thus were the Catholics of Holland as eleven to seventeen. Since that time they have not ceased to increase. Nor have they lost the high character which induced Pius IX., in 1853, to restore, the king concurring, their long-lost hierarchy. An archbishopric, Utrecht, and four episcopal sees were established—Harlem, Herzogenbosch, or Bois le Due, Breda and Roermonde. This wise and necessary measure was followed by an outburst of wrath on the side of the anti-Catholic party. But in Holland, as in England, it soon subsided, and left only the impression that Protestants and other non-Catholic people claim an exclusive right to religious liberty. Pius IX. never ceased to entertain a high opinion of the good Catholics of Holland. “Ah!” said he to visitors from that country, “could we ever forget that these single-minded, loyal, patient Hollanders formed the majority of our soldiers, who were not native Italians, at Castelfidardo and Mentana.”