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.