rivalry for the ultimate growth of the Franciscan Order. A further complication arises from the fact that there is a third body claiming to be the original children of St. Francis—the bearded Franciscans or Capuchins.
Whatever may be the merits of their warmly-contested claims the Franciscan Order is largely represented by them in England. The Jesuit Society is still more numerous; the Benedictine, Dominican, Carmelite, and Carthusian Orders are also well represented, together with the minor congregations—Passionists, Marists, Redemptorists, Oblates, Servites, &c., and the infinite variety of orders and congregations of women. In the following pages I shall give such items of interest concerning them (and the Church of Rome at large) as may have fallen under my experience. As the narrative follows, for the sake of convenience, the course of the writer’s own life, it is necessary to commence with the means of recruiting the religious orders and the clergy in general.
