Why Can't Modern Atheists be This Thankful to the Church?

I was just going through some very old archived newspaper articles (from the 1800s), and found this one from New Zealand. The article reports a tribute by an atheist to the Catholic Church. I think he sets a good example for modern-day atheists.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 36, 26 December 1884, Page 13

An Atheist's Tribute to the Church
After the dedication of a Catholic hospital in Dayton, Ohio, on the 15th inst., a Dr. Reeve, an infidel and an atheist, delivered an address, in which he said:-

I congratulate the Church, under whose auspices, and by whose efforts, this institution has been founded. It is the Church which claims our attention and consideration in the highest degree in several important respects. In age it surpasses all other human institutions. Beginning back at the time when history and fable mingle together its existence has continued unbroken while change and decay have touched and swept away everything else. Cities have grown up from hamlets, enjoyed long periods of properity, and have dwindled to insignificance during her life-time; the boundaries of kingdoms and empires have swept backward and forward over wide areas, dynasties have arisen and fallen, while throughout the territory in which these changes have taken place, the worship of the altar has been for the same ritual, and by the priests of the same Church. Her domain spreads from Greenland and Labrador to Patagonia, and from east to west around the world. But wide-spread as she is, her efforts do not cease; old as she is, no symptoms of decrepitude have manifested themselves. She is sending out her missionaries, active, devoted, self-sacrificing as ever, in all directions. She is building churches, schools, and hospitals on all sides of us, and it is safe to say that to-day her numbers exceeds those of all other Christian Churches together.

But it is not these greater characteristics of the Catholic Church that concern us here. It is her activity, her untiring energy in regard to institutions for the amelioration of human misery. Wherever the crosses of her churches are seen there are to be found hospitals for the sick and asylums for the orphan. Under her fostering care are found such institutions in every city of our land and wherever civilization extends. This, too, is matter of public note, open to the observation of all. I would rather speak of that less obtrusive, but never-wearying attention to the sick, which does not attract so much the public eye, but whcih every physician observes in the practice of his calling. Wherever there is is disease and suffering in the household, there comes the Sister with good counsel and efficient aid; wherever there is a dying man a priest is at his bedside; when a woman is in peril he comes, whatever the hour of the night, not only to administer the rights of his religion, but to cheer and reanimate the pain-racked patient, to strengthen teh hand of the doctor as he performs some critical operation. It is the unobtrusive, silent, constant, never-tiring, universal service of the Catholic Church that extorts the praise of men of no religion and challenges the admiration of the world.

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Wow, that is quite a work of praise, especially coming from an atheist. I doubt the pope could do a better job. Although this man had no religion, he could still objectively see the good work that the Catholic Church does in the world, and continues to do to this day. He praises it above all other institutions. I think he is a good model for modern-day atheists.