Interesting Statistics Indeed.
By Editor
THE Plenary Council at Baltimore caused to be collected what the Christian Union calls "a very interesting array of statistics, disclosing the relative growth of the various religious denominations in the United States during the last twenty-five years." By looking at the statistics as printed in the Union, we find that they pertain to only eleven of the religious denominations. And we find that whereas the total population of this country twenty-five years ago was 31,000,000, yet 28,808,000 of these were embraced in these eleven denominations, leaving only 2,192,000 worldlings, to say nothing at all about all of the other denominations. And whereas now the total population of the country is 55,000,000, yet 49,850,000 of these are embraced by these same eleven denominations, which leaves only 5,150,000 to be made up of worldlings, and all the other denominations together. In other words, twenty-five years ago there was less than one in fourteen, and now there is less than one in ten, of the entire population of the United States who are not religionists!! Yes, statistics are very interesting, especially Catholic statistics; there are such large returns of fiction from such small investment of fact.