A Call from the West

Who has not heard the call of the West? Like the blast of the hunter's horn in the silent forest, its thrilling and inviting sound has awakened the echoes throughout the land. Springing from the granite heart of our mighty Rockies, that call comes through their valleys, is heard over the "Great Divide" and whispers its way to the foothills. Soft as the evening breeze, strong as the howling blizzard, we hear it across the prairie, gathering as it were, on its triumphal march to the East, something of the immensity of the plains and freshness of the lakes.

In the din of our manufacturing cities, in the quietness of our towns and villages, by the rivers and winding bays of our Maritime Provinces, along the peaceful shores of the St. Lawrence, the call of the West has been heard.

Its alluring sound has cast a spell upon our youth, the hope of the country. Faces flushed with the bright hues of life's dawn, eyes sparkling with the fires of early youth, instinctively turn to the West. From all points of Eastern Canada young men and young women are leaving for that mysterious land of brilliant promise and great possibilities.

The Call of the West! All Canada is eager to hear its message. Has not the merchant his ear to the ground, listening to the throbbing of the growing harvest on our Western prairies? He knows that in the furrows of that rich loam lie the wealth and prosperity of the country at large. The Eastern manufacturer anxiously scans the daily paper to be posted on crop conditions in the West. They regulate to a great extent the activities and output of his plant. And when college and university days are over, where does the young professional man turn his eyes? To the West. Westward, with the sun, he travels; its fiery course is an invitation to and a harbinger of his bright career.

The Call of the West! Across the ocean it has gone and awakened the dormant energies of old European nations. Settlers of every race and creed have rushed to our shores, like the waves of "the heaving and hurrying tide."

The attraction of the Canadian West has become general, at home and abroad. Nothing can stop this onward march to the land of promise. A new Canada is being created beyond the Great Lakes.

A very small fraction of the Western fertile soil is under cultivation and already the phenomenal yield has prompted the nations at large to call the Prairie Provinces "the granary of the world." Already in Canada the industrial, commercial, and to a great extent, the political world hinges on the Western crop. It is the great source of Canada's national wealth. For, the prodigious resources of our mines and forests, and the annual yield of our harvest are the two poles upon which revolves the credit of our country abroad. But the growing value of the West to the economic and national life of Canada is a mere shadow of its increasing importance in the religious world. Above the hum of the binders and loud clatter of the threshing machines, above the sharp voice of the shrieking steel rail, counting, as it were, one by one, the freighted cars on their way to the Eastern ports, above the clamor of commerce and industry, ring out the voices of immortal souls. The West, for the Church of God also is the land of great possibilities and brilliant promise. The waving sea of its wheat fields calls to mind the words of the Master: "Lift up your eyes and see the countries ready for the harvest. . . . The harvest is great indeed but the labourers are few. . . ."

On his return from a visit to our Canadian West Cardinal Bourne, in the course of conversation, spoke of Canada with almost exclusive reference to the Western Provinces. Some one remarked to him, "Your Grace is referring to conditions in the West?" "Yes, the West, the West is Canada!" he replied.

No one can over-estimate the importance of the West from a Catholic standpoint. It is a new empire that is being formed beyond the Lakes, an empire with tremendous and perennial resources, with ambitious ideals and progressive policies, with forward-looking people and youthful leaders. There the ultra-conservatism of the East has been brushed aside and space made for a new democracy. The question of paramount importance for us is: "What will be the condition of the Church in that coming part of Canada? What share will She have in the solving of the social, educational and economic problems of that new domain?"

Every Catholic should be interested in this vital issue. The call of the West for a Catholic is the call of the Church, the call of a Mother to a loyal son. She has a right to a hearty response from every Catholic throughout our broad Dominion. It is, therefore, a duty of conscience for every son of the Church in Canada to come to the assistance of his mother, to take her honor to heart. At the present hour this duty is most imperative, this obligation most pressing. There is nothing in the wide sphere of our Catholic social duties so immediate in its urgency or so far reaching in its consequences. The Church depends on the loyalty of her children.

To bring this call of our Western missions to the attention of every individual Catholic, to make every soul a co-operator in the extension of God's kingdom in Canada, to develop that sense of responsibility which makes one consider the Church's business his own business, to rally our disbanded forces, to unite our sporadic efforts around the great work of the "Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada"—such is the object of these few pages. To place facts before the reader, and suggest remedies; to sound the call of the West, loud and sonorous as the bugle pealing a great "reveille," strong and clear as the trumpet blast that stirs the blood; to prompt a timely and generous response in the East, by uniting the Church of Canada in a crusade of prayers and sacrifices for our Western Missions: this is our aim and hopeful ambition.

The Call of the Catholic Church in the West

The call of the Church in the West is a cry for help. Great indeed are the pressing needs of the Western Church, for numerous and various are the difficulties with which Catholics have to contend on the prairie and in the small towns.

The first barrier to surmount is distance. The very layout of the country is to a great extent a hindrance to the efficient working of a parish. The survey of the land has been made from a strictly economic point of view. Large farms,—vast wheat fields—were the final object of the survey. The social, educational, and religious phases of the situation are in the background. This renders church and school problems particularly difficult to solve, as was outlined in Dr. Foght's report of the educational survey in the Province of Saskatchewan (1918). This difficulty—let us not forget—will persist for years to come in Western Canada. According to competent authorities wheat growing, being essentially a large unit undertaking, demands extensive farming. This statement is very important, for its consequences in Church organization are far-reaching.

The planless settling of the Catholic homesteaders here and there on the prairie, has also created for the Church one of its greatest difficulties. Living often 30, 40 and 50 miles from a Catholic chapel, these settlers drift away from the authority, teaching and sacraments of the Church. To form self-supporting parishes in the sparsely settled districts is often an impossibility.

To this barrier of immense distances are added for long months, unfavourable climatic conditions. The very severe cold, the high winds which have such a sweep on the boundless prairies, the terrific blizzards of the long winter months, will always remain great obstacles to an intense Catholic life in rural parishes. Many Sundays, from December to March, it is a real impossibility for those who live at any distance to go to Church.

And who are those who have settled on our Western plains? This is not the place to discuss the immigration policies of the past. We are dealing with facts. We have the most cosmopolitan population one could imagine. The most divergent factors go to make up the racial composition of our western population. We know of a city parish that counted 16 different nationalities within its boundaries. During the first and second generation, during what we would call the period of Canadianization of these various national elements, the Church has to face a most difficult and complex situation.

Diversity of nations means variety of ideals, differences of customs and traditions. The disassociation from former relations and the sudden transfer to new conditions of life, have proved to be such a shock to many settlers that they fail to readjust their lives to the arising needs. "Separated from the influences of his early life the immigrant is apt to suffer from disintegrating reaction amid the perplexing distractions, difficulties and dangers of his new environment. Frequently it happens that old associations are destroyed and there is no substitution of the best standards in the new environment. A vacuum is created which invites the inrush of destructive influences." How many foreigners have been lost to the Church because the teachings of their Faith were no longer handed down to them, wrapped up, we would say, in the folds of their national customs and celebrations! The oriental and southern mind is more particularly susceptible to the influence of this national tinge with which religion itself comes to them.

The fusion of so many ethnical groups and their adaptation to new surroundings are the result of a very delicate and slow process, especially in rural communities. "You cannot play with human chemicals any more than with real ones. You have to know something of chemistry," said Winston Churchill. Thousands of foreigners have been lost to the faith because many of our own, clergy and laity, did not know the first elements of "human chemistry." The great leakage from the Church in the West is among Catholic immigrants. Unscrupulous proselytisers on the specious plea of "Canadianization" have weaned them from the faith of their fathers. This nefarious process is still at work, especially in the Ruthenian settlements.

The number of languages complicates still more this ethnical problem. Not hearing the Catholic doctrine in his own language and crippled by that instinctive shyness and extreme reserve which seem to grasp him as he steps on our shores, the foreigner often loses contact with the Church. Like a transplanted shrub in an uncongenial soil, he languishes for years in his faith and its practices.

The very atmosphere of the West is another great cause of defections among the faithful. You must live for some years "out West" to appreciate the full meaning of this statement.

Moral atmosphere is to the soul what air is to the lungs; it is health and life. Two elements constitute that factor which plays such a vital part in our religious life—tradition and environment. Tradition links the past to the present and gives to the soul a certain stability amidst the fluctuations of life. It is made up of details if you wish, but, like the tossing buoy, these details betray where the anchor is hidden. This absence of the past has a great influence on our Western Church. People hailing from all points of Eastern Canada, of the United States and of Europe, have not yet formed religious traditions which are to the Catholic life of the family and of the parish what roots are to a tree.

And what environments surround our scattered settlers on the prairie? Only those who have come in close relation with the lonely homesteader can understand how much he is debarred from the influence of Catholic life. Very often not even a chapel is to be found for miles and miles. A chapel, no matter how humble it may be, is in the religious world of a community like the mother-cell; in it life is concentrated; from it emanates activity. Mass is now often said in a private house, a public hall or a school house. Children who have not known the beauty and the warmth of Catholic worship will hardly appreciate its lessons.

Moreover, social relations often bring our Western Catholics in very frequent contact with the different Protestant churches and their tremendous activities. Mixed marriages are the outcome of these circumstances. God alone knows how many of our Catholic boys and girls have been lost to the faith through "mixed marriages" and marriages outside of the Church.

* * * * * *

These various obstacles, geographical (distance and climate), ethnical (race and language), religious (absence of Catholic tradition and surroundings), are the ever open crevices through which a tremendous leakage has been draining the vitality of the Church in Western Canada. So the call of the West is like the frantic S.O.S. on the high seas, that snaps from the masts of a ship in danger. It is the cry of thousands of Catholics sinking into the sea of unbelief and irreligion. In the wreckage there is still a gleam of hope. Great numbers yet cling to a remnant of the old faith of their fathers; it will keep them afloat until helping hands come to their rescue.

The Call of the Church in the West is a call of distress. Has the
Church in the East heard it? What is its response?

The Response of the East

Has the Church at large in the East heard the call of the West? Has that cry of distress gone through the ranks of our Catholics like the shrill blast of the bugle call? Has it awakened our Catholics from their torpid lethargy and quickened their sense of responsibility? Has the call been answered, or has it gone out like a cry in the wilderness, lost in the noise of our busy world, stifled by the clamour of other voices, smothered under other diocesan and parochial claims?

In the Church of Canada there have always been generous and noble souls for whom the missions of the West have had a mysterious attraction. Who can read without emotion of the heroic deeds of the first Jesuits who followed the explorers and courreurs-des-bois in their perilous adventures? What tribute of admiration and gratitude do we not owe to the Oblate missionaries who lived and died with the wandering children of the plains, who have kept the fires of Faith burning, from the banks of the Red River to the Pacific Coast, from the winding shores of the Missouri and Mississippi to the everlasting snows of the Arctic. Their lives of heroism furnish a bright splash on the rather drab and bleak landscape of what was known as the Northwest Territories. The Church of Canada will ever remain indebted to these noble pioneers of the cross, apostolic bishops and priests of the first hour; their saintly lives are forever emblazoned on the pages of Canadian history; the western trails murmur their names in gratitude and the children of the prairie still bless their memory by the dying fires of their camps.

Indeed the Province of Quebec for years sent her money to help the struggling schools of Manitoba. The Catholic Church of Canada has pledged itself in the Plenary Council of Quebec to help the Ruthenian cause; the Catholic Church Extension Society of late years is enlisting the sympathies of Eastern Catholics for our Western missions. With the help of their motherhouses our various sisterhoods have dotted the West with convents, schools, hospitals and charitable institutions. We all recognize the beauty and the heroism of their Catholic charity and apostolic zeal. Notwithstanding these noble efforts, can we safely state that the Church of Eastern Canada, as a whole, is deeply interested in the Catholic welfare of the West? Have we kept pace with the changing conditions the last decade has brought throughout our Western Canada? No. And this is our national sin. The Church as a whole, has not awakened to its responsibility. As individuals, as parishes, as dioceses, Catholics here and there have nobly done their duty. As a body, as a living Church of Canada, we have failed to help the struggling West as we should have done. We have not thrown all the energies of our great living, organizing Church into this missionary work. The Catholics of our Eastern Provinces are not yet united in one great, generous effort to protect and spread the Kingdom of God in their own fair Dominion. The call of the Church in the West has not been heard.

Never has the importance of the West loomed up before the public mind as it has since the beginning of the war. To realize this you have only to remark its growing influence in our political life. It cannot be otherwise; the possibilities of the West are so great and so numerous. Immense virgin prairies are still waiting for the plough. After the war, during the period of reconstruction, necessarily so pregnant of great events, the producing powers of our agricultural West will be tremendous. This is, therefore, a trying period for the Church in the West. Beyond the waving wheat of the prairie we should contemplate the ripening harvest of souls. Like a growing youth, the Church in Western Canada needs more than ever, help and support from the Mother Church of the East. This assistance in the present stage of the Western Church is a pressing duty of conscience, not only for the individual Catholic, but particularly for the Church as a whole, in Eastern Canada.

This duty is a duty of the hour, a duty most serious, most imperative. How can it be accomplished? By the united action of the Eastern dioceses of Canada.

Each diocese is a constituted unity in itself, but not for itself alone. Like each particular organism in the human system, it exists for the benefit of the whole. The Catholicity of the Church implies this idea of solidarity whereby the strong help the weak and the rich come to the rescue of the poor. Never, perhaps, has the Church suffered so much from the wasting of energies. The torrent, if not directed, spends its energy on itself; turned into the mill race, every drop counts.

One of the great lessons the war has given to the world is the absolute necessity of centralized effort and the advisability of central organization rather than multiplying organizations. We are living in an age of efficiency through co-operation.

Fas est ab hoste doceri.—The lesson coming from our separated brethren should strike home. One has to go West to see the feverish activities of the different denominations in that new field. Ask the mission organizers of the various non-Catholic bodies how much money comes from the East to support the struggling Protestant churches of the West; visit their immense printing establishments which are producing and distributing the literature you will find on the table of the lonely Western settler; study these organizations which are supplying field secretaries, teachers, social workers to our foreign Catholic settlements, then you will begin to understand this word of Pius X.: "The strength of the enemy lies in the apathy of the good." The mass of evidence, which can be had by the simple reading of the non-Catholic missionary reports, as to their activities in Western Canada, is nothing short of staggering. What examples! What lessons! Should they not turn our apathetic Catholics into enthusiastic apostles, stir them into watchfulness and action? And what could we not do with more unity of action?

Two conditions make united action possible—uniform plan and authoritative leadership. It would be rather preposterous on our part to attempt to formulate what we could call a plan of campaign for our Western apostles. We wish only to submit a few suggestions which may help to group our scattered energies and bring rescue to the Church, particularly in the unorganized districts of Western Canada.

To readjust our methods to conditions as we find them means efficiency with the least waste of energy. Therefore, we claim that a "survey" of membership and conditions of the Catholic Church in unorganized districts is an absolute necessity. It is the only logical basis for true knowledge of conditions and for development. This "survey" will bring us into immediate contact with the fallen-away Catholics. As it is now, are we not too often waiting for the fallen-away to come to us? If the survey has proved essential in the solving of educational and social problems, why should it not commend itself in religious matters? Proselytizers—especially the English Biblical Society, with headquarters at Toronto and Winnipeg, have the survey of the West down to a science. Their map room in the Bible House of Winnipeg is a perfect religious topography of Western Canada. We are firm believers in what we would call the "Catholicization" of modern methods that have proved beneficial to any cause. "Without this survey and the grasp which it yields of the relative proportion of things, a vast waste of matter and energy alike is inevitable."

This Catholic survey of unorganized districts may appear to some as "a dream," a desk-policy of apostleship—as too modern, etc.[2] The only answer I can give are the facts and figures of the American Catholic Church Extension, whose work along similar lines proves their efficiency and high value.

The specific and ultimate object of the survey would be to keep Catholics who live out of the radius of parish life, in constant touch with the Church, its teaching, its sacraments and its authority. The mailing of Catholic literature pamphlets, devotional and controversial, and newspapers, the teaching of catechism by correspondence, as is practised in certain districts of Minnesota, the selection of teachers for foreign districts and of boys for higher education, the establishment of a central Catholic Bureau of information in each Province, which could serve as a clearing house and centre of Catholic activities, and other means of apostleship, these would be the natural consequences of the survey. Who cannot see what a help this would be to our scattered Catholics? A great help to keep the faith among the scattered home-steaders.

The service of an auto-chapel would bring them also, at least once a year, the benefit of the sacraments and the blessing of the priests' visit. For, let us not forget it, one family now lost to the Church means several families in the coming generation. This absence of contact with the Church has been for our scattered English-speaking Catholics especially, one of the great causes of the loss of faith.

And what about our mission to non-Catholics? We have the truth; are we doing enough, not only to keep it among our own, but to spread it among others? Are we aggressive enough? And still I hear the Master say: "And other sheep I have that are not of this fold; them also I must bring and they shall hear my voice and there shall be one fold and shepherd" (Jo. X, 16). We must bring them back; they shall hear our voice. . . . On the strength of that command and of that promise should our policy not be more saintly aggressive? What an immense field awaits the zeal of true apostles! Nowhere more than in the West has absolute disintegration set in among the different denominations. The universal desire for Church Union is, in our mind, the best proof of our statement. The most elementary principles of Christianity, of a supernatural religion, have lost their grasp on the mind of the average Protestant Westerner. Nominally, he belongs to a denomination, in reality he belongs to none. And what are we doing to give them the faith?

A uniform plan of action, once adopted, requires for execution, an authoritative leadership, if desired results are expected. In the Church of God the Bishops are our authoritative leaders—Posuit Episcopos regere Ecclesiam Dei. In the ordinary life of the Church this authority in matters spiritual is delegated to and operates through the parish priests. The parish is with the diocese, the established unit of religious organization. For the work in unorganized districts, which is here the special subject of our attention, could there not be in each Province or in each diocese, four or five "Free Lances?" [3] Let them be diocesan missionaries, priests chosen by the Bishops because of their special fitness for this great work. They would be to the Church what the R.N.W. Mounted Police have been to the Northwest Territories, or what the itinerant preachers are to certain denominations in sparsely settled districts. Their mission would be to visit, preach, baptize, say Mass in the distant districts not visited by a parish priest. They would be the advance-guard of the Church throughout the land. During the winter months they could continue their work by attending to districts within reach of a railway. The religious Orders,—and they alone can more easily supply reserves and train subjects for this special work—the religious Orders surely will be able to enter into this field of missionary activity, at the same time protecting their subjects with the safeguards of the Rule as also of paternal vigilance and guidance. An itinerant "regional clergy" radiating from a centre where they are fortified by the advantages of common life, is one of the Bishop of Northampton's remedial suggestions among possible "new methods devised to meet new needs." This suggestion is to be found in his Lenten Pastoral of 1920.

The Church in the East, through the Catholic Church Extension Society, would gladly, if well informed on the matter, furnish the financial aid for the support of these "free lances"—and their apostolic activities. The Catholic Truth Society would gladly, contribute all the literature needed to spread the truth and to keep the fires of faith burning on our prairies. Grouping forces, co-ordination of efforts, is what we need most in Canada. In the rank and file of the Catholic laity treasures of enthusiasm, latent powers of energy go to waste because there is no leader to awaken and direct them. The policy of the Catholic Church Extension is to act on these long unspoken desires, to loosen the pent-up energies of the Catholic heart throughout the land.

The Specific Object of the Catholic Church Extension Society

Through its press, literature, auxiliary societies and various other
activities, this apostolic society is ever trying to quicken among
Catholics a profound sense of responsibility to the Church Universal.
The welfare of our Western missions depends on how the Church in the
East understands and shoulders its obligation.

By financial aid we do not only mean donations and contributions, here and there, from wealthy Catholics. What we have in view is the financial assistance of the Church in the East, as a whole, as a corporate body. Every Catholic in Canada must become more or less interested in "Home Missions" and be willing to do "his little bit." As the small fibrous roots are the feeders and strength of the tree, so also the small and continued donations of all Catholics in the East will be the support of our missions in the West. In the various Protestant denominations, for every dollar given to support of the local church another dollar goes to the "Home Mission Fund." At the last general Methodist Conference (Hamilton, 1918) that Church pledged eight million dollars ($8,000,000.00) for their missions in the next five years. With the enormous sums these various religious bodies receive from the East they support the non-Catholic institutions of higher education to be found in all cities of Western Canada, they distribute free of charge tons of literature throughout the prairie, they defray the expenses of their social workers, field secretaries, etc. Among the Catholics of hundreds of parishes does not the prevailing policy seem to be: "Charity begins at home"—and we may add, often ends there. When one has paid his pew-rent and his dues, bought a few tickets for a sacred concert or bazaar, thrown on the collection plate each Sunday a few coppers or a small piece of silver, he thinks he has accomplished all his duty to the Church. The vision of too many Catholics does not go beyond the boundaries of their parish or their diocese. Circumscribed in their views, they remain illiberal in their sympathies.

Floyd Keeler, a neo-convert to the Catholic Faith, made recently this most instructive statement. "Perhaps the greatest problem which the convert is the most surprised to find existing in the Catholic Church, is the problem why the average American Catholic is so supremely selfsatisfied and seems to have so little thought for the propagation of the Faith which he professes. Coming from a body which has had for many years a well-organized system of missionary propaganda and which, in spite of its many and grave doctrinal difficulties, is fairly well permeated with missionary spirit, it is a shock to find that within the Fold so little attention is paid to what really ought to be the very breath of life to its people, the Extension of the Kingdom of God on earth, the carrying out of our "Lord's Last Will and Testament." To find Catholics whose ideals are bound up within their own parishes, who possess no sort of vision of the world beyond, still lying "in darkness and in the shadow of death" and no concern over its redemption, is a phenomenon which is hard to explain."

"It distresses us more than we can tell to find those who are nourished at the breasts of the Bride of Christ, callous to Her charms, unmindful of Her privileges, thoughtlessly and grudgingly rendering their minimum of service, for we realize how Christ is thus being 'wounded in the house of His friends' and His Bride made to lose Her comeliness in the sight of men. But the Catholic press and the Catholic pulpit, fired with the zeal of this new apostolate can, and we believe will solve the problem."—("America," March 13, 1920.)

Our parishes and dioceses will never suffer from an increased zeal in the broader interests of the Universal Church.[4] There can be no conflict of interests in the Church of God, if seen from the proper point of view,—the glory of God and the salvation of souls. "It is because we have need of men and means at home that I am convinced we ought to send both men and means abroad. In exact proportion as we freely give what we have freely received will our works at home prosper and the zeal and number of our priests be multiplied. This is the test and the measure of Catholic life among us. The missionary spirit is the condition of the growth, and, if Faith is to extend at home it must be by our aiding to carry it abroad" (Card. Manning). Was it not while he was building the Cathedral of Westminster, that Card. Vaughn founded the "Mission Society?"

This missionary spirit has also a bearing on the spiritual welfare of the flock in which it is fostered. For those who would object that giving money to our Western Church is "carrying coals to Newcastle," we would state that the West now needs more the help of the East than at any other time. The organized parishes are indeed beginning to be self-supporting; but the work we have outlined in these pages, if it is to be done, has to be supported by the Catholics of Canada at large.

The spiritual aids will be the prayers, Masses, sacrifices of all kind offered for our Home Missions. Nothing strengthens faith and stimulates genuine piety, as prayers and sacrifices for the great cause of our missions. They are so disinterested, they reveal true love for our Blessed Lord.

Only a chosen few are called to go into the field at home and afar and reap the ripening harvest. But all are commanded by the Master to pray the Father for harvesters. This sublime apostleship of prayer is the privilege and duty of every Christian. Is there anything more instructive and more pathetic than the invitation of the Saviour to co-operate with Him in this great work of the Redemption. "And seeing the multitudes he had compassion on them: because they were distressed and lying like sheep that have no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples: the harvest indeed is great but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he send labourers into the harvest." (Math. IX, 36, 37, 38.)

The Divine Master cannot but hear the prayer asking Him to send "labourers to the ripening harvest." And could we give better proof of devotion to Church and Country?

Great is the seriousness of the present hour, tremendous the task that confronts us after the war. Never has any generation in history been so freighted with the responsibilities of the future as ours is, marching home from the battlefields of Europe. We are living in stirring and changeful times. Nowhere in the Dominion of Canada will the period of reconstruction have more far-reaching effects than in the West. The after-war problems will meet there with rapid and very often radical solutions. To understand this issue that faces our country, to grasp it in all its breadth and fulness, should we not broaden our vision, readjust it, we would say, to the new scale of changing conditions? Only then will we be able to marshal our forces and throw the weight of Catholic principles into the solving of the social, economic and religious problems of the hour. "The Church cannot remain an isolated factor in the nation. The Catholic Church possesses spiritual and moral resources which are at the command of the nation in every great crisis. The message to the nation to forget local boundaries and provincialism is a message likewise to the Catholic Church. Parochial, diocesan and provincial limits must be forgotten in the face of the greater tasks which burden our collective religious resources." (Card. Gibbons.) Let us give to the people that broad, Catholic vision of our present duty to our country and to our Church. The broader the outlook, the deeper the insight. The measure of their vision will be the measure of their action. No leader can meet with success without a certain receptivity to work upon. This receptivity is formed by spreading ideas, by an educational propaganda.

It may take time before the vision struggles into consciousness and wins its way to the dominance of the mind. What we need is a systematized, continuous effort that will gradually crystalize that vision into a definite workable project. A flourish of trumpets and blaze of Catholic zeal, as we are accustomed to witness on the occasion of some special sermon and appeal by a missionary, will only prompt an act of passing generosity.

The special object of the Catholic Church Extension Society is to awaken the collective consciousness of the Catholic population and to give to Catholics that vision of their social responsibility and religious solidarity and to keep it, by its organization, in a healthy condition. It realizes that co-operation from the Church at large will exist and maintain itself only if preceded, accompanied and upheld by a strong and vigilant Catholic public opinion. In return public opinion, once created in the ranks of our Catholic laity, will make the Extension Society a live-wire, a dynamic force of the Church in Canada. Let us not forget, vision—and public opinion is the vision of the multitude—is the first and primary of constructive forces.

To have Catholic action we must first create a Catholic mind.

A publicity campaign, followed by a dominion-wide drive for funds, would be now in order. The spirit of giving and of giving for great causes is in the air. A campaign of that nature—we have seen it often during the war,—is in itself an education. It spreads information and arouses the sense of duty.

From the clearness, breadth and depth of that vision will spring the conquering spirit of united action. Forgetting then our lingual and racial differences that have created in the past among us so many unfortunate misunderstandings and have weakened our forces before the enemy, we will rise to the level of our faith, to the creative powers of true Catholicity.

The "Call of the West" has been heard. It comes to you with the burning problems of the present . . . praesentia tangens . . . and the vision of brilliant promises and heavy responsibilities of the future . . . furtra prospiciens.

WHAT IS YOUR ANSWER?

[1] This Chapter formed the matter of a series of articles published in the "Catholic Register" of Toronto. The Catholic Church Extension Society republished them in pamphlet form with the following introduction by Archbishop McNeil.

"The author of this pamphlet has lived in the West and has felt—I was going to say—the need of Catholic co-operation, but that falls short of the reality. Co-operation among Catholics is more than a means to a missionary end. It is an essential part of Catholic life. Boundaries of jurisdiction are conveniences and means to an end. In the first centuries of the Christian era it was centres rather than circumferences that marked divisions of work and of jurisdiction; but, in any case, administrative divisions were never intended to be divisions of brotherhood. In places where we are well established we are inclined to look upon Christian brotherhood in an abstract way. In the West they feel it as a necessity of Catholic life, not only as a source of financial help, but as brotherhood in sympathy, interest, and mutual helpfulness. The West can help the East by its growing influence, and Catholics in the West can do their part in defence of Catholic ideals and Catholic institutions. The more we do for them the more they can do for us. Father Daly describes the Call of the West, and it is fittingly through Catholic Extension that the call is now made and will be answered."

[2] "The Universe" the great Catholic Weekly of England, had in its editorial notes the following remarks on this suggestion of ours:

A "DESK-POLICY" OF APOSTLESHIP

The Catholic Church in Canada possesses a Home Missionary problem of the extent of which we can scarcely form an idea. In making his appeal from the West to the East of the vast Dominion, Father Daly, C.S.S.R., who has just issued a pamphlet on the subject through the Church Extension Press, Toronto, brings out some salient truths on the subject of co-operation and organization which Catholics all the world over can well take to heart and apply to themselves. "Two conditions (he says) made united action possible—uniform plan and authoritative leadership. To readjust our methods to conditions as we find them means efficiency with the least waste of energy, and acting on this principle Father Daly advocates a 'survey' of membership and conditions of the Catholic Church in unorganized districts as the one means of getting at lapsed Catholics. 'Too often,' he observes, 'we are waiting for the fallen away to come to us.' This is true indeed. Protestant proselytizers in the west of Canada have the whole 'survey' scheme worked out on a scientific basis. Father Daly is more willing to learn from them. "I am a firm believer," he writes, "in what I would call the Catholicization of modern methods that have proved beneficial in any cause." The problem of unorganized districts and of a scattered Catholic population in our own case is, of course, minute compared with that of Canada; but it is there, and sufficiently in evidence to justify the Redemptorist Father's "desk-policy of apostleship." There is no reason, in short, why the interorganization of the members of the most perfect organization in the world should be committed to a kind of spiritual rule of thumb."

[3] The following letter prompted by the reading of this very article was received by the President of the Church Extension, dated, March 14, 1919, at a point of Saskatchewan we know quite well; it is illustrative of conditions prevailing in many districts of our Great West:

Very Reverend and dear Father,—

I have just read your article in the Febr., 15 issue and I am so pleased with your suggestion for relieving the situation for scattered Catholics throughout the West that I must write my appreciation. I am sure that very few people in the East realize what a veritable necessity those Free Lances you spoke of are to so many Western people, or what a God-send those auto-chapels would be. Western homesteaders do not stray far from home for two very good reasons, lack of transportation facilities and lack of funds.

We live 12 miles from the church, that is my own family. The others live thirty-five and fifty miles away and up to this year we have had nothing but a waggon to travel in, and now those that live farthest away have still only a waggon. So you will understand that we have not made more than necessary trips or not many more. And I wonder if my brothers would make those, were it not for my mothers insistence. They are surrounded by such bad influences. It's not that it is a sectarian influence, but rather a total lack of religion altogether. The only things that matter greatly are the material things of this world. To confess yourself religious, especially Catholic, is to confess yourself old fashioned and to cause people to smile. You know that is harder to combat than bigoted opposition. Your plan to send out pamphlets would be appreciated by many—But above all we need the personal touch of a priest. We need it as our crops need rain, etc. . . .

[4] As an illustration of what in a simple and unostentatious way can be done by any parish in the mission cause the editor of the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith (N.Y.) refers to an invitation extended to him to attend a Christmas sale. It took place in a parish of the Brooklyn diocese on Dec. 3, 1919, the feast of St. Francis Xavier, patron of the mission cause. Thanks mainly to the efforts of an energetic lady, but with the consent and patronage of the pastor, a Xavirian Mission Circle had been formed. Within eighteen months after its organization the newly found circle had paid off a $500.00 mortgage for a heavily burdened priest in the South, had adopted eight abandoned children of the Chinese Missions, had sent 1,000 Mass intentions, was supporting seven catechists in Africa, India, and China, was educating a Chinese seminarian, had given 150 volumes to the parochial library of a bigoted section in the South, and was able then to place upon exhibition a number of sacred vessels that were to be forwarded as gifts to poor priests. "And did all these activities not interfere with your parochial work?" Mgr. Freri asked the pastor. "Not in the least"—was the answer—"My collections have never been larger." "EVEN PROTESTANTISM FINDS THAT HOME COLLECTIONS ARE IN DIRECT PROPORTION TO THE MISSION GIFTS."