William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

[124] words, nobody dreams of asking an American suitor to renounce his creed in order to obtain a woman's hand. An upper class now reigns in Monterey county, over which the priests and Jesuits have no control. Young ladies look for English mates, aware that English husbands will draw them to another Church. In other counties, Rome is weaker than she is in Monterey. Stockton and Sacramento are as strictly Evangelical as Pittsburg and Cincinnati. Oakland and San Francisco rival Brooklyn and New York. Even Santa Clara has ceased to be a Catholic town. Where Rome was lately all in all, she shows to-day no more than a broken sceptre and a scattered power.

At most the Roman Church retains a foothold in a section of the country here and there. These sections lie exposed, and she is still without a native army to repel attack. Her posts are garrisoned by foreign troops. Here is her weakness and her misery. Who drove her Orders into exile? Not her enemies, but her sons; the infants she had nursed, the pupils she had taught. Who gave her leave to bring these Orders back? Her enemies, not her sons; the very enemies who resent her policy, and resist her march.