Since this paper first appeared in 1840, women have struggled to find new ways to attest their faith and mission When the journalist and social investigator Henry Mayhew wrote about the “religion of the street Irish” in 1840s London, he gave a prominent place to the “zeal” of a Catholic woman who “contrived to have in her sitting room a sanctuary to pray before every night and morning”. Describing her home, Mayhew contrasted its rude furnishings with “the only decent table, covered with a new piece of varnished cloth” on which stood a print of “our Saviour” and the coloured engraving of the “blessed Lady”, which she never passed without curtseying to. Although women may be acknowledged to have been the backbone of th