The far West, only a few years ago, was a great wilderness, with only a few French posts scattered here and there in the Indian forest, like little islands in the midst of a great ocean. Now it is divided into several states, and counts millions of inhabitants. In this rapid transformation, Catholicism has not remained behind. Many dioceses have been established, and the quickness of their growth has already placed this group in the second rank so far as regards numerical importance, while all goes to show that Catholicism is destined here to preponderate greatly over all other denominations. The states of Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota contained, in 1860, 4,575,000 souls, of whom 890,000, or 19 per cent., were Catholics. This is as large a proportion as we find in the central group. It is, moreover, rapidly rising, and only one thing is necessary to make these states before long the principal seats of Catholicism in the Union--that is, an adequate supply of priests. It is of the utmost importance that the demand for missionaries in these diocese be supplied at whatever cost. The principal causes of this remarkable increase are, first, the crowds of immigrants attracted by the great extent of fertile land thrown open to settlers; and, secondly, the fact that the Catholic immigrants on their arrival clustered, so to speak, around the old French settlements, where the missionaries still maintained the discipline and worship of the Church. At first, therefore, it was easy to direct this great influx of people, since they naturally tended toward the pre-existing centres of faith. The consequence was that the Church lost by apostacies fewer members than one might have supposed, and fewer than were lost in other places. But now the daily augmenting crowds of immigrants are dispersing themselves through less solitary regions. They are coming under more direct and various influences; and hence the necessity for increasing the number of churches and parish priests becomes daily more and more urgent. At the same time, the means at the disposal of the bishops become daily less and less adequate for supplying this want, especially since the people of the country, new and unsettled as they are, and absorbed in material cares, furnish but few candidates for the priesthood. Here we see a glorious field for the far-reaching benevolence of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Nowhere, we believe, will the sending forth of pious and devoted priests produce fruits comparable to those of which the past gives promise to the future in this part of the United States. We spoke just now of the old French colonies, and our readers will perhaps be surprised that we should have made so much account of those poor little villages, which numbered hardly more than from 500 to 1,500 souls each when the Yankees began to come into the country. Nevertheless, we have not exaggerated their importance. It is not only