This educational policy of the Church Extension appeals to the Catholic mind and tells it something it desires to know.  It awakens that latent Catholicity which Baptism has given us and on which the narrow limitations of time and space have no claim.  This education of our Catholic laity in the value and necessity of the missionary spirit, in the perfect knowledge and true appreciation of its character in the Church of God, is the end and result of the Extension policy.  To make that spirit the inspiring, guiding and testing power of Catholic life, is the definite aim of its educational work, of its publicity campaign.  When our laity will have absorbed the lesson, it will be ready for action.  This knowledge will awaken our sense of responsibility and prompt our sympathetic support.  This leads us to say a word on the Society’s policy of action.

2. Policy of Action.—­Vision resolves itself into action.  When the mind sees deep and clear, the heart feels warm and generous, the will acts promptly and decisively.  As the spark leaps bright and sharp from the silent battery, ignites the fuel and drives the piston, so will a broad vision give a generous impulse to action.  You readily see the value of an educational policy, and its intimate connection with that of action.

Action to be efficient and lasting must be organized.  Grouping of forces, co-ordination of efforts, are what we need most in the Church of Canada.  In the rank and file of the laity, hidden treasures of enthusiasm, latent powers of energy go to waste, because there is no leader to awaken them, or if aroused, no organization to direct them.  The policy of the Catholic Extension is to bring to vigorous activity these long slumbering desires, to give an effective vent to the pent up energies of the Catholic heart, to group all Catholic missionary work for the conservation and propagation of the Faith in our mission districts.

Have we not been working too much as separate units?  Has not our zeal been limited by the boundaries of our parishes and dioceses?  What activities have been absorbed by side-issues, while the great cause of the Church at large should have occupied our attention!  We were deliberating . . . and the West was being lost to us!  The time has come to rally around the Church in our mission fields and prove ourselves worthy of our name—­“Christian” and our surname—­“Catholic.”  The policy, therefore, of the Extension is to enlist the organized effort of every parish, of every diocese in a great missionary movement, and to throw the weight of the Catholic influence of the East into the immense field of our Western missions.  It is not for the promotion of any project, for the benefit of any particular section of the Church in Canada, that the Extension Society exists.  True genuine Catholicity is the only inspiration of its activities.