Experience and reason prove that an organization destined to affect the masses and hold its grip on them, will not live and thrive only on an occasional appeal or a printed message.  These are indeed of great value, particularly the insistently repeated message in print.  We are great believers in the force of a persistent, regular and frequent circularization.  But, in our humble estimation, there is something more essential in the matter under consideration, and that is the human contact and continued influence of a “field-organizer.”  An extensive organization without this factor will not be efficient, will not last.  As Floyd Keeler wrote in “America” (July 10, 1920):  “It is the personal equation between the organizer and the various units of the Society that counts. . . .  The masses are accustomed to think in concrete terms. . . .  Long distance appeals and those made to total strangers do not produce permanent results.”  This influence of the field-organizer is so great that we may safely state that the life of a society fluctuates with the various impulses it receives from him.  He is the very heart which gives health and vigor to its organism.

Here lies the secret of the mission-organizations in the Protestant Churches, to which, of late, we have referred so frequently in our Catholic papers, under the heading of:  “Fas est ab hoste doceri.” . . .  Every denomination has its field-organizers entirely consecrated to mission activities among its people.  Financial results tell to what extent they are effective in their work.

We have also among our own missionary societies, examples that illustrate the point we wish to emphasize.  Since when has the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, in the dioceses of New York and Boston, leaped into prominence, and headed by generous contributions the list of the whole world?  How did that change come about?  Where is the secret of this success?  The establishment of permanent diocesan organizers is the answer.  What they have done, why could we not do? “Quod isti—­cur non et nos?”

Never, we claim, will the missionary potentialities that lie dormant in Canadian Catholicism, be actuated to bear its message of spiritual light, heat and power to the Church at large, until we establish in the field at various points, secretaries or organizers, whose life-work will be to call into play, to systematize the mission forces of the Church in Canada.  If on the contrary, as in the past, we content ourselves with an occasional appeal for missions, a collection now and then, a spasmodic effort here and there, a subscription to a Catholic paper or missionary magazine, the work for Home and Foreign missions will remain exterior to the corporate life of the Church, will not be woven into its very fibre to permeate its activities.  As shadows on the wall, they will suggest rather than reveal the possibilities of our missionary effort.  The great and pressing call of the White Shepherd of the Vatican will go unheard.  If there is a response that comes from Canada, it will not be from the Church at large.