To focus the Catholic mind of the nation on the great problems which the West with its scattered population has forced upon our attention, has been the object we have consistently pursued through the pages of this book. For it is a fact of every day experience that problems are only solved by those who know them, who understand their full meaning, and grasp their vital importance.

Our sole endeavour has been to point out the controlling forces, the spiritual issues that lurk behind these problems.  In debatable matters we always have tried to find that higher level which lies undisturbed by the cross-currents of opinions.  Naturally there are conclusions we draw or forms of action we propose which may not find favour with everyone.  There are so many angles of vision from which moral problems can be viewed.  But we will say with Cardinal Newman “nothing would be done at all if a man waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault with it.”  Were we, in our insistency on certain topics and suggestions, accused of undue repetition, the importance of the subject and our eager desire of immediate action would be our only excuse and defence.

The Western spiritual harvest is indeed great and now ready for the reapers.  Never in our mind has a period in the history of the Church in Canada been more fraught with greater problems than the present one which the sudden increase of the West has created.  The vastness of their proportion and their far-reaching consequences involve to a great extent the future of the Church in these new Provinces and, consequently, in the Dominion at large.  Moreover this immense harvest is now white and calls for the reapers.  To-morrow will be too late, for, there comes a critical stage in the maturing harvest, when the labours of past months and the most bright prospects melt away in an hour.  If therefore action is not immediate, irreparable, we contend, will be the loss to the Church in the West.  Only by a prompt and united action will the stern and burning realities of the present be converted into the bright visions that our Faith has a right to expect.

The harvesters are few.  But were the Church at this critical hour able to count on all the spiritual forces that lie dormant in the souls of her children in Canada, the history of the future in the West would be different from that of the past.  As in times of emergency, the conscription of Catholic forces is the supreme duty of the hour.  It is the duty of our leaders to affect by a definite policy the “indeterminate masses,” just as it is the duty of each individual of the masses to shoulder his share of responsibility by an active co-operation. Without a definite workable policy of united action, and the awakened consciousness of the Catholic masses at large, throughout the Dominion, the Catholic problems in Western Canada will not be solved.