Bishop Kemper gives the following information on this subject, in a
recent appeal to the European Churches.
"Under a canon of the Protestant Episcopal Church, passed in the
year 1835, I was consecrated a missionary Bishop for Indiana and
Missouri, to which were afterwards added Wisconsin, Iowa, and the
country beyond the Mississippi, extending southward to latitude 36 deg.
30', northward to the British possessions, and westward to the
Pacific Ocean. This region contains a million of square miles, a
million and a quarter of white and negro inhabitants, and numerous
Indian tribes amounting in population to not less than three hundred
thousand souls. I proceeded forthwith to my field of labour, and
found many members of our Catholic and Apostolic Church straying
from her fold through the want of pastors. Romanism, heresy, schism,
infidelity, paganism, and a new religion--known as Mormonism,
extensively pervading the land; and not more than six or seven
clergymen of our church scattered at wide intervals over this
prodigious surface. I also found that about thirty thousand
emigrants from Europe annually settled within my jurisdiction, a
large proportion of whom were members of the Reformed Churches of
Great Britain, Germany, Prussia, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, in
addition to a vast influx of settlers from the eastern parts of the
United States, and British America."
Speaking of the Roman Catholics, the Bishop says,
"Within the bounds of my mission, where I have (1841) but
twenty-three fellow-labourers, they have three bishops, and one
hundred and six priests. They annually receive large funds from
Vienna, Lyons, &c., by which they are enabled to erect splendid
cathedrals, extensive colleges, large convents, and substantial
stone churches. In St. Louis alone they have a large cathedral,
which cost, it is said, eighty thousand dollars, to which, beside
the bishop, there are attached four clergymen, who preach and
catechise every Sunday in English, French, and German. They have
also four chapels, and a splendid church, as yet unfinished, one
hundred and twenty feet in length, and eighty in width. The present
position of their diocese of St. Louis is as follows:--fifty-six
churches, nine churches building, sixty other stations,
seventy-three clergymen, two ecclesiastical seminaries, two colleges
for young men, one academy for boys, ten female convents, ten
academies for young ladies, four schools, and eight charitable
institutions."