engaged in parochial duties is the most pressing need, and in no other way can the spiritual wants of the people be adequately provided for. It will be long, however, before the bishops will be able, even by the most strenuous exertions, to make the number of churches and clergymen keep pace with the increase of the population. Meanwhile, this lack of the ordinary means of grace cannot be supplied except by missions; and even where these means are amply provided, the subsidiary and extraordinary labors of societies of priests devoted to special apostolic works are necessary, in order to give their full efficacy to the ministrations of the ordinary pastors. Besides our great towns, and their dense mass of Catholic population, there is another extensive field of missionary work, which has of late years been successfully cultivated, and which invites still further cultivation with a promise of a rich harvest. {128} I refer to the numerous new parishes found in the smaller cities and country towns and villages. Here a new phase of Catholic life and growth has commenced. The population is becoming settled and permanent. Catholics are making their way upward, acquiring real and personal property, blending with the body of their fellow-citizens, educating their children, and to a certain extent themselves belong to the second generation of Catholic emigrants from Europe, having been born and married in this country. In many instances, one pastor has two or more of these parishes to take care of. His time and thoughts are taken up with church-building and a multitude of other necessary duties. The country around is sprinkled over with Catholics, who have no resident priest among them. There is a vast amount of work to be done in instructing, confirming in the faith, bringing under religious and moral influence, and establishing in solid piety and morality, this interesting and hopeful class of Catholics. Nowhere have the missions been so complete and satisfactory as in parishes of this kind. The whole body of the people living in the place where the church is, can attend the sermons and receive the sacraments. Besides these, those living several miles away flock to the church as regularly as if they lived in the same street; and even from a great distance, numbers, who are usually deprived of the religious advantages of the Church, perhaps even have grown up without making their first communion, seize the opportunity with eagerness to come to the mission and remain for a few days, until they can be prepared to receive the sacraments of life. In Massachusetts alone, where congregations of this kind abound, the number of communions given in the Paulist Missions of the last five years, without counting those given in Boston, amounts to twenty-five thousand five hundred and thirty, on seventeen distinct missions, giving an average of one thousand three hundred and twenty-five to each congregation. These figures