There has never been a finer field open to missions than the one which is found in the Catholic population of the United States, and seldom has there existed a greater need of them. The missions of St. Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, and his companions, were confined to villages, hamlets, and outlying districts, remote from episcopal cities and large towns. In his rules he directs his children to labor in places of this sort, because in Italy the most neglected and necessitous part of the people is only to be found there. In this country it was not so. The great need for missions lay in cities and large towns, where dense masses of Catholics were gathered, and where churches, clergy, and religious organizations of all kinds, were inadequate to the spiritual wants of the people. {123} A large part of the missionary work which has been accomplished has been, therefore, among those dense masses of the people in our largest churches and congregations, penetrating to the lowest strata, and bringing to bear a powerful religious influence upon the most uninstructed and negligent classes of the people. Some idea of the extent of this work may be gained from the fact that the missions given by the corps which F. Bernard organized, during seven years, from 1851 to 1858, were eighty-six in number, with an aggregate of 166,000 communions. They have been carried on on a similar scale, since that time, by the new Congregation of St. Paul, and by members of several older religious societies; so that, in the last seven years, the number of persons who have participated in the benefits of missions is, probably, nearly double the figures given above. There were other missions also given, during the first period, besides those enumerated, especially among Germans. It is, therefore, speaking within bounds to estimate the number of persons who have received the sacraments on missions, since 1851, at 500,000.