13 The late celebrated preacher, Dr. Cumming, also admitted the
expansive power which is characteristic of the Catholic Church. And
in doing so, he bore witness to its actual growth in his time. In a
lecture delivered at Brentford, England, in 1860, he said: “He would
do the priests of the Church of Rome the justice to say that a more
earnest, energetic, a more industrious body he did not know in any
portion of our church; they were laboring incessantly for what they
believed to be the truth, and he would that he could say without
success, but he was sorry to say _with great success_. He saw going
over to the Church of Rome a section of the nobility and many
ministers of our church. These were well instructed, and ought to
have known better. In England, account for it as they could, it had
made progress to such an extent, during the last twenty years, that
it had doubled its churches and doubled its priests.”—Lecture at
Brentford. England, 1860.
14 Discourse delivered in the Church of St. Peter _ad vincula_, 1st
June, 1877, by the Bishop of Poitiers.
_ 15 La Captivite de Pie IX. par Alexander de St. Albin. Paris_, 1878.
Pages 513 and 514.
16 That _was_ the Pantheon, or temple of all the Gods. It is now the
Church called _St. Mary of the Martyrs_ (_Sæ Mariæ ad Martyres_).
17 Their purpose is sufficiently manifest. But the calumny did not
avail them. Pius the Ninth’s last illness was of such a character as
to render impossible congestion of the brain. He possessed to the
end his mental faculties. And when the power of speech failed, he
was still able to express his thoughts, which were clear and
distinct, by looks and gestures.