and the explanation of meagre results.  “An enormous amount of energy,” said Father Benson,—­and he had the experience,—­“has been expended uselessly in the past, assaulting positions that are no longer held, and by lack of appreciation of present conditions.”  In this age of loose thinking and of rapid dissemination of ideas, aggressiveness, supported by active propaganda, characterizes every world-wide movement in government, industry, science and religion.  Every doctrine, every theory comes into the open and makes a strong bid for our hearing, for our following.  Why should not the true doctrine of Christ assume this new shining armour of sane aggressiveness, come more into the open, and throw down the gauntlet to unbelief and indifference everywhere rampant and openly defiant?  For, if conviction is the father of devotion, if our belief in the mastery of ideas is genuine, we cannot help but be aggressive.  Needless to say we are not asking for vulgar aggressiveness, we are not asking for cheap sneers and attacks on the ignorance and the illogical position of others.  By aggressiveness, we mean coming out in defence of truth which it is our privilege and responsibility to possess.  Never have times been more inviting for an aggressive Catholicism.  The great war has been for Protestantism the acid test.  The result is for the Anglican and Evangelical Churches a complete failure,[2] and, as the soldiers said “a wash-out.”  They have lost their grip on the masses who are rapidly slipping into a religious chaos.  The universal disintegration of creeds, strangely combined with a secret thirst for truth and unity now sweeps the English-speaking world.  Are not these portentous events that manifest, as “The stirring of the waters,” the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Our policy of aggressiveness, if it be true and resolute, will find expression in an intelligent, active and persevering propaganda.  Propaganda is the dissemination of ideas, with the view of giving them a strong foothold in the mind.  The gradual development of the message it carries and the recurrence of its lessons at stated intervals are the principal factors of this great force.  To be efficient and successful our propaganda among our non-Catholic brethren will assume two distinct forms:  The open and the silent form.

The silent propaganda is the spreading of Catholic ideas through the contact of our every day life with those who are not of our own Faith.  Willingly or unwillingly we are bound to leave an impression of our belief in the business and social circles into which our life is cast.  Our silence and abstention alone often militate against the Church.  Let then the purity and spirituality of our lives, the honesty of our commercial relations, the sanctity of our home, bear witness to the sacredness of our religion and to the seriousness of its teachings.

A true Catholic life is in itself a living antithesis of the prevalent neo-pagan ideals, and stands as the best proof of our Faith’s sincerity and of the depth of its conviction.  “If life is the test of thought rather than thought the test of life,” wrote Van Dyke, “we should be able to get light on the real worth of a man’s ideals by looking at the shape they would give to human existence if they were faithfully applied.”  For, as Cromwell said, “The mind is the man.”