16.36, in Limburg it is 15.28, in Friesland it is only 11.21, but the
fact remains that in the two Catholic provinces the natural increase is
16.17 and 18.15, while in the non-Catholic province of Friesland it is
13.15. Further, no one can doubt that in such densely populated
districts as North and South Holland and Gelderland the Catholics, who
number more than 25 per cent, of the inhabitants, exercise a
perceptible influence in raising the birth figures for the whole
kingdom. The results would be very different if the entire country
adopted Neo-Malthusian principles." [39]


Section 3. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

As was proved by the census of religions in 1906, the United States of
America is becoming a great stronghold of the Faith. In Massachusetts the
Catholic Church numbered 1,100,000 members, whereas the total membership
of all the Protestant Churches was 450,000. In Illinois there were about
300,000 Methodists and 1,000,000 Catholics. There were 2,300,000 Catholics
in the State of New York, and about 300,000 Methodists, while no other
Protestant Church numbered more than 200,000. The New England States, once
the home of American Puritanism, are now great centres of Catholicism.

Professor Meyrick Booth [40] explains this remarkable change as being due
to two causes: (1) The influx of large numbers of European Catholics, who
cling tenaciously to their religion; (2) the greater fertility of these
stocks as compared with the native population. Moreover, he has tabulated
the following statistics:

TABLE IV