In our frequent walks, Frank Baker and myself usually, by a tacit consent, took the direction of some Catholic church. Baltimore surpasses every other large town in the United States, except perhaps St. Louis, in the relative number, and in the dignified, imposing style of its Catholic churches and religious institutions. {26} It is a very picturesque and beautiful city in itself, and one of its most striking features is the exterior show of Catholicity which it presents, from the conspicuous position of the numerous Catholic edifices which are distributed through the principal parts of the town; often crowning the summits of some of the high eminences with which it abounds, so that they are distinctly visible in all directions, and their bells resound loudly for a great distance. Some of the Protestant churches also, haying our ecclesiastical style of architecture, and being even surmounted by the cross, fall into the picture as accessories, and add to the impression which a stranger taking a _coup-d'oeil_ of the city would receive. The Cathedral, a truly grand building, though built in the Moresco style, and suggesting the idea of a great mosque in an oriental city, which had been converted by some conquering crusader into a Christian temple, with its great dome and two towers, each of which is surmounted by a gilded cross, queens it majestically over the whole city. It has the finest possible situation, on very high ground, with a spacious enclosure around it, and a modest, but very appropriate archiepiscopal residence in the rear of the sanctuary, fronting on Charles street, the principal street of the court end of the town, a little below the chaste and graceful monument of white marble erected to the memory of Washington. Near by, the Redemptorist Church and Convent of St. Alphonsus, the Convent of the Christian Brothers, the large and beautiful Convent and garden of the Visitation Nuns, the Sisters' Orphan Asylum, and the little chapel and religious house of the colored Sisters of Providence, are clustered together within a very moderate area of territory. Taking the Cathedral as a point of departure, you have at the distance of about half a mile, in the most densely peopled part of the town, St. Mary's Church, and the Seminary of St. Sulpice, with its extensive gardens of many acres in extent. More toward the suburbs, there are the Lazarist Church of the Immaculate Conception, and the large Sisters' Hospital of Mount Hope, with its extensive grounds. {27} In an opposite direction, not far from the Cathedral, is Loyola College, to which adjoins the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius; beyond these, St. John's, and still further, near the borders of the town, the quaint and interesting St. James's Church of the Redemptorists, with a German Convent of religious ladies. In another direction, St. Vincent de Paul's is seen, with its high massive tower, and in the same quarter of the town, the