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think that a state of mind existed in the Protestant community favorable to such a view of the general subject as is presented in his `Letters to a Protestant Friend,' printed in Ebensburg by Thomas Foley, in 1820. As to the work Mr. Johnston speaks of as `An Appeal to the Protestant Public,' I presume it grew out of the controversy spoken of above. I do not particularly recollect it - of the other two, I have copies.
"In his `Letters to a Protestant Friend,' in the preface, Dr. G. speaks of `My Address to the Protestant Public,' which is possibly the same spoken of by Mr. Johnston. It may have been contained in his communication to the Gazette, and not separately published.
"The late Moses McLean, of Harrisburg, no mean critic in literary matters, once observed to the writer of these remarks: "If Dr. Gallitzin had resided in Italy, or even it Europe, when he published the two works (spoken of above) he would have been made a Cardinal.'"
That Father Gallitzin was right in his opinion that a state of mind favorable to the views expressed in "Letters to a Protestant Friend" existed in the Protestant community is evidenced by the fact that so many non-Catholics applied to him for instructions for admission into the Catholic Church that he was obliged to publish a notice in the Cambria Gazette in 1820, that on a certain Sunday in June of that year he would receive them into "the Holy Roman Catholic Church with the rites and ceremonies" of that Church.
So great was the demand for "Defence of Catholic Principles" that the first edition having been exhausted, the work was republished in 1834, by Canan & Scott, publishers of The Ebensburg Sky.
A copy of this edition having descended to the writer, was being by him preserved as a precious heirloom from his parents. He loaned this copy to a relative to read, and when, after a reasonable time, he suggested to the borrower that it was about time for its return the latter replied: "It is lost; but you ought to be glad, for it made a convert."
Father Gallitzin's Financial Embarrassment.
By reason of the cutting off of income from his father's estate by the Russian government on account of his having become a Roman Catholic, and the further deprivation
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