The Board of Health struggled against this superstition, and addressed a circular to the Catholic clergy, imploring them to recommend vaccination; but, though two or three complied with this request, the great majority were either silent or openly hostile.

The Oblate Fathers, whose church was situated in the very heart of the infected district, continued to denounce vaccination; the faithful were exhorted to rely on devotional exercises of various sorts; under the sanction of the hierarchy a great procession was ordered with a solemn appeal to the Virgin, and the use of the rosary was carefully specified.
Meantime, the disease, which had nearly died out among the Protestants, raged with ever-increasing virulence among the Catholics; and, the truth becoming more and more clear, even to the most devout, proper measures were at last enforced and the plague was stayed, though not until there had been a fearful waste of life among these simple-hearted believers, and germs of scepticism planted in the hearts of their children which will bear fruit for generations to come.( 325) (325) For the opposition of concientious men to vaccination in England, see Baron, Life of Jenner, as above; also vol.ii, p.

43; also Dun's Life of Simpson, London, 1873, pp.

248, 249; also Works of Sir J.Y.
Simpson, vol.ii.For a multitude of statistics ahowing the diminution of smallpox after the introduction of vaccination, see Russell, p.
380.

For the striking record in London for 1890, see an article in the Edinburgh review for January, 1891.