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society. The plan suggested by Bishop Rese, except for some minor mod- ifications, was followed and the constitution of the new Ludwig J11issions- verein received royal approval on December 12, 1838. Membership was restricted to residents of Bavaria. The ten-member group pattern and the weekly kreuzer donation were adopted as basic. The collection plan of the Austrian Society, rather than that of the French was adopted, and more closely supervised by the government than was the Austrian S t i ft u n g . Two-thirds of the alms collected were to be used for the missions in America and Asia, and one-third was to be set aside for the Franciscan guardians of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The total for this latter purpose, however, was not to exceed 6,000 gulden ( $2400) a year. The Ludwig iJ1issionsverein, although possessing the same Christian aims differed from the other two societies in that it was purely secular. The people who constituted the membership, however, were not satisfied with its secular character and longed for the spiritual benefits derived from prayer and the spiritual treasures conferred by the Pope upon members of the other two societies. The King yielded reluctantly and !;anctioned the application to Rome for indulgences similar to those granted to the other alms societies. The statutes were, therefore, modified to provide that members be required to say daily the usual "Our Father" and "Hail Mary" in honor of St. Francis Xavier. During the early years, the Central Council of the Ludwig J11issions- verein adopted the practice of distributing the alms through the French Society, which, in effect, made the Bavarian organization an agency of the Lyons Council. Protests that the French Society was unfair in the allocation of moneys, though unsubstantiated, caused the King to order in July, 1844, that all the alms be sent directly to the beneficiaries by the Central Council. In the period 1838-1917, ending with the outbreak of World War I, the alms sent to America by the Bavarian Ludwig Missi<msverein was in excess of $886,500. "The Church in the United States," writes Roemer, "was the principal beneficiary of these alms for many years." Gradually the needs of the German Catholics in America became less pressing. The pagan missions of Asia and Africa came to claim much more attention. "In consequence, the American alms grew less."u The Alms to the United States and Texas. A summary of the con-
ISRoemer, oj. cit., 61.
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