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tholic, so also should the possibilities of her future destinies in our country and throughout the world, preoccupy his thoughts and affections in the present.

We now understand what the Church Extensions' claim means for the missions of Canada. The intention of the Society, as we may readily see, is not to limit our zeal to any national issue, but rather, to develop more easily the missionary spirit and direct its first effort to the welfare of our own countrymen by the consideration of our own wants.

The history of Catholic nations justifies this statement; their zeal for the propagation of the faith will explain their rise and downfall in the eyes of the Church. Ireland is a classical illustration of this point. Poor, persecuted, downtrodden, the land of the Gael still remains the seminary of the world's apostles. The foreign missions always appealed to the Irish people and "the limits of the earth have heard the voice" of its zealous missionaries. Does not France, notwithstanding the persecution of the Church by its government, still remain the great missionary country of the world? She sends more missionaries and gives more monetary aid to the "Propagation of the Faith" than any other Catholic nation. England's return to Catholicism is most promising, for her converts of yesterday are already in the field afar. The awakening of that same apostolic spirit in the Church of the United States is the most convincing sign of the great strides Catholicity is making in that land of Liberty.

This unwritten law which prevails throughout the history of Catholic nations and expresses so forcibly and so persistently the doctrinal principle of which we spoke, justifies the claims of the Catholic Extension and gives strength to its appeal.

A few decades ago Western Canada was but a bleak, lifeless plain, extending from the Great Lakes to the foothills of the Rockies, dotted here and there with the Indian wigwam, the roving herds of buffaloes, the solitary chapel of the Catholic missionary, and the lonely posts of the Hudson Bay fur-traders. Suddenly under the magic steel of the plough, that immense waste of land woke up from its age-long slumber. The desolate prairie became within a few years the greatest granary of the world. The Indian trail gave place to transcontinental highways, to those "long, long, and winding," steel trails that have led the youth of our Country and the exiles of Europe "into the lands of their dreams." These trans-Canada roads have conquered distances and linked the Atlantic to the Pacific. They may well be considered as the arteries of our Dominion; through them indeed flows rapid and warm the blood of our national life and in them one can hear, as it were, the pulsations of its great and noble heart. The transcontinental lines are responsible for the birth and phenomenal growth of our Prairie Provinces.

What are the conditions of the Church in these new and promising Provinces? It is not the time, nor is it the place to discuss errors or absence of policy that have crippled the Church's work and growth in that period of rapid transformation. We take facts as they are now. The Church in Western Canada to hold its ground, to extend its work and develop its institutions, has an absolute need of the help of the East. The barrier of immense distances to which are added, for long months, unfavorable climatic conditions; diversity of nationality, variety of racial ideals, differences of language, customs and traditions; absence of Catholic traditions and a prevailing atmosphere of unbelief and irreligion; such are, in a few words, the tremendous obstacles against which the Western Church in its infancy has to contend.

This vision of distress, the Extension wishes to place before every Catholic in Canada; this call for help, it wishes him to hear.

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.

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.

Great is the need of money, but greater still the need of men. The principal work of the Extension is to foster, develop and bring to fruition missionary vocations for the West. Burses are founded to assist young men in their studies, and in a few years, it is the hope of the Extension to be able to send to every diocese of the West zealous harvesters for the harvest that is awaiting them beyond the Lakes. Could we be invited to share a more noble task than to contribute to the education of the heralds of the Gospel, of the ambassadors of Christ to that Western Kingdom of ours?

Let us conclude.

The appeal that comes to the Church of Canada from the Catholic Extension is straightforward. It needs no apology. It stands its ground on its own merits. It is not--let us never forget it--an appeal to our charity. It is a pressing call to accomplish a sacred duty, a timely warning not to neglect it. And indeed, active co-operation in the work of Extension is, we repeat, an unfaltering belief in the reality of our Catholicism. It knits our soul to the very soul of the Church, our heart to Her heart.

Strengthened by these highest motives of Catholic Solidarity and Christian Charity we should give joyfully and generously. Let us levy a tax on our income, no matter how small it may be, remembering the fiduciary character of our earthly possessions. Let us give our time and our services to this noble Cause. Let us give lovingly and willingly our children to the great harvest, if it be God's will to call them to His service. But above all let us pray that the Kingdom of Jesus Christ may come in our beloved Country through the Extension of His divine Church.

This chapter formed the substance of a Sermon preached on "Extension Sunday" in St. Finnan's Cathedral, Alexandria, Ont.

PRO ARIS ET FOCIS

Militancy is the characteristic feature of God's Church on earth. New dangers, fresh struggles await Her at every turn of the road in Her onward march to eternity. Assailed from within by her own children, attacked from without by bitter enemies, she is ever working out through the frailties of human nature her sublime destiny. Not of this world, but passing through it, She has necessarily to suffer from the inherent weakness of her children. It is the human side of the divine Church. Those who would be scandalized at this ever renascent warfare against the Catholic Church, in all times and in all countries, should remember that this hall-mark of true Christianity is the fulfillment of Christ's promise and the realization of his prophecy.

In this great firing line of the Church militant every Catholic has his place. His marked duty is to make the divine triumph over the human in his individual life and through it--no matter how limited his circle of influence may be--in the great life of the Church and in society at large. He should make his own the various problems confronting the Church in his country and help, within the sphere of his activities, to offer a happy solution.

Two great problems now face the Church in Canada, and tax to the utmost the wisdom of its leaders: The race problem and the Ruthenian problem. In many centres the former has weakened the principle of authority and paralyzed our efforts of co-operation; the latter means a tremendous leakage through which the Church, particularly in Western Canada, is losing every day an important and vital factor.

The race problem has always existed and will always exist in the Church of God. This problem is imbedded in human nature. It plunges its roots into the very depths of the human heart. Language is the tap-root which gives life and vigor to its various manifestations. Language is indeed the best expression and highest manifestation of the race. The race problem therefore is generally complicated with the language problem.

The problem to which I would draw again the attention of our Catholics throughout the land is one that has been frequently of late placed before the Catholic public. But as its aspects are ever changing and its importance growing, I would wish to throw light on some new factors at play in this momentous issue.

Immigration has brought to the Church of Canada many serious and knotty problems. Among these stands first and foremost the Ruthenian question. Only those who have followed the various developments of this perplexing problem and are fully aware of the unceasing activities of the various Protestant denominations among Catholic foreigners, grasp their meaning and understand their importance to the Church. The average Catholic, we are sorry to say, is not awakened to the reality of this live issue and fails therefore to meet his responsibilities.

Over 250,000 Catholic Ruthenians, of the Greek rite, have settled in Canada within the past decade or so. They are scattered throughout the length and breadth of our immense Dominion. You will find them in the very heart of our large industrial centres, from Sydney to Vancouver, and in compact groups on our Western prairies. The vast majority of these Ruthenians belong to the Catholic Church and are our brethren in the Faith. To protect them against unscrupulous proselytizers, to help them to keep the faith in the trying period of their acclimatization to our Canadian national life, in a word, to make the Church of Canada assume the proper responsibility which Catholic solidarity imposes on all her children in regard to this new factor of Catholicity in our country, . . . this is the Ruthenian problem as it presents itself to us with its various aspects and critical issues. Problems of the moral and religious order are of a very complex nature. Principles remain but circumstances change with the fancies of imagination, the impulse of passion, the whims of the will. This explains how, in the great and everlasting war between right and wrong, truth and error, the line of battle is ever shifting, the methods of attack ever changing. Various therefore have been the phases of the problem under discussion. But, we presume, they may all be related to two periods: the period of settlement and the period of assimilation.

When a few years ago our shores were heavily invaded by the rising tide of an intense immigration from the British Isles and Continental Europe, the Church had to face conditions heretofore unknown. Without doubt, the most complex in its elements, the most serious in its consequences, was the Ruthenian issue. It was a case of providing for the spiritual wants of over a quarter of a million souls. The dearth of priests, the difference of rite, the difficulty of language, and the great number of Ruthenians, created for the Church an almost insurmountable barrier which nothing short of a miracle could otherthrow . This sudden and large influx of Catholics belonging to the Greek rite, into a Country where the Latin Church alone prevailed, constitutes a fact that has never been seen before in the history of the Church. Thousands and thousands of these Greek Catholics were scattered through the prairies; roaming flocks without shepherds, a prey to ravening wolves. Heresy, schism, atheism, socialism and anarchy openly joined hands to rob these poor people of the only treasure they had brought with them from the old-land,--their Catholic Faith. Presbyterian ministers were seen to celebrate among them "bogus masses"; schismatic emissaries tried to bribe them with "Moscovite money"; fake bishops were imposing sacrilegious hands on out-laws and perverts; traitors from among their ranks, like Judas, bartered away their faith for a few pieces of silver; a subsidized press,--"The Canadian Farmer" and "The Ranok"--was ever at work, playing on their patriotism and exploiting their racial feelings, to cover with ridicule their faith and pious traditions. The public school became in the hands of the enemy the most powerful weapon. Government itself, through its various officials, often went out of its way to thwart the efforts of our missionaries.

Let us hope that the Church in Canada will keep sacred the memory of these harvesters of the first hour. The Catholics owe them a debt of gratitude. We sincerely hope that the history of their heroic efforts will not be lost and that the first to appreciate them will be the coming Ruthenian generation. Father Delaere, C.SS.R.--who has laboured among the Ruthenians in Western Canada for the last twenty years will one day give us, we sincerely hope, the history of the settlement and struggles of his adopted people.

Little by little the Ruthenian Church in Canada is emerging from its first chaotic state. The visit of Mgr. Septeski to Canada, the appointment of the Very Reverend N. Budka as Bishop of all the Ruthenians in Canada, marked a turning-point in their history. Authority is, in the Church of God, the only great vital centre from which proceed true order and permanent development. The war, it is true, complicated the Ruthenian issue. We all know what difficulties the Ruthenian Bishop had to face during this trying period, under what dark clouds of ungrounded suspicion he lived. But the most painful feature of this long and cruel ordeal was the absence of sympathy and the lack of co-operation in those from whom, as a Catholic Bishop, he had a right to expect them.

The period of settlement has passed, and already a young "CANADIAN" generation has sprung up sturdy, thrifty, progressive from the transplanted Ruthenian stock. The numerous children of that prolific race are gradually passing from the home into the schools and from the schools into the community life of the country. This Slavic race is striking deep roots in Canadian soil, particularly in our Western Provinces. The loss of faith has been heavy, we believe, especially in our large cities. Naturally, allowance must be made for the drift-wood which always follows the tide of immigration. In our rural centres, be it said to the praise of that simple-minded people, and to the confusion of the enemies of their faith, the great majority have kept their allegiance to the Church of their baptism. But, where the "bogus mass," the false priests and "Moscovite money" have failed, the neutralizing process of a so-called "Canadianization" may succeed. The flank envelopment has often a greater success than the frontal attack. This leads us to dwell on another phase of the Ruthenian problem.

This organized opinion and co-ordinated action of the "churches" against the CHURCH should give to all Catholics food for thought. To be indifferent would be criminal. We can say with Augustine Birrell: "It is obviously not a wise policy to be totally indifferent to what other people are thinking about--simply because our own thoughts are running in another direction."

This diagnosis of the Ruthenian problem should suggest practical lines for individual and group action. It would be preposterous on our part were we to assume an attitude of destructive criticism without having a remedy to propose. But what we have in mind is to suggest means whereby the Church as a whole, and the laity in particular, will come to the help of a few heroic, struggling missionaries and to the rescue of their Ruthenian flock.

The Ruthenian people in Canada are now going through their assimilation period. In another generation or so they will be, at least they should be, all full-fledged Canadian citizens. This "land of opportunity" that has adopted them has a right to see them all become good citizens, as ready to shoulder their share of the common burden as they were to receive the benefits of our liberties.

In our large industrial centres their transformation is rapid. The stranger is swallowed up in the vortical suction of the city and is soon carried away in the maelstrom of its strenuous life. He rapidly loses his identity; only the strong individual will survive, bearing the features of his race. In our rural settlements where the foreigner has established colonies, the assimilation is slow and gradual. The change affects the community and, through it, the individual. But in all cases this transformation is a necessity, and necessity should be a deciding factor.

If this process of assimilation, we contend, is not surrounded with Catholic influence, if it is not carried on by Catholic agents--and is left only to those who see in the faith of the Ruthenian, a "relic of the Middle-Ages," an obstacle to Canadian citizenship--the danger to the faith of our Ruthenian people is greater than in the days of open attack. This method of neutral proselytism is more insidious, and in the long run, more telling. We know perfectly well that if the Canadian Ruthenian is "to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar" he must first "give to God what belongs to God."

It is therefore our bounden duty to help our Ruthenian brethren to swing into the main stream of our national existence; and there is no reason why our religious duties and patriotic endeavors should work at cross purposes. In fact, if in the present crisis, the two are not merged into one, there will be a distinct loss to the Catholic Church in Canada. Have we not waited long enough for the immigrants to come to us? We contented ourselves with giving them as often as possible a priest of their language; and have left to others, to neutral and, most often, openly anti-Catholic agencies the duty of initiating them to Canadian life. The American Bishops have understood this necessity, and with what marvellous foresight and wonderful organization have they thrown into the work of reconstruction the whole weight of the Catholic Church! Their joint letter--the most timely and most luminous pronouncement on the labour problem,--their general meeting in Washington, the constitutions of the Catholic National Board with its various departments, all go to prove that they grasped the signs of the times and have readjusted the sails of the Ship of Peter in America to the new winds that are sweeping over the world. We should never forget indeed that the Church of God is not of this world but is in this world. To strip ourselves of crippling "formalism" and to bring the Church nearer the realities of the times, is, in Byron's words, making "realities real." Is it not indeed time to broaden our apostolate and give more scope to the laity? If the non-Catholic denominations are able to find young men and women who consent to live among our foreigners as teachers, social workers, field secretaries, lay missionaries and catechists, surely we should be able to find the same among our own to protect the faithful against apostasy. We must remember that the Ruthenians who have come to this country belong, generally speaking, to that class for whom even existence was a problem in their native land. They are the very ones who have been protected in their faith by language, tradition, customs and all that goes to make up the mental atmosphere of the uneducated mass. When that atmosphere disappears these poor people are exposed to all pernicious influences. We are therefore responsible to the Church to build around them the protective wall of Catholic life. The initiation to their Canadian life should not be at the price of their Catholic life.

This is the situation. What can be done? Naturally, to quote Lord Morley: "A settlement of foolscap sheet, independent of facts, of local circumstances and feeling, and passion, and finance, and other appurtenances of human nature" . . . will lead nowhere. To do effective work along the lines suggested in this chapter we must take facts and circumstances as they are, and work into them the idea, and then work the idea into the people. The LANGUAGE, the SCHOOL, the COMMUNITY LIFE are the THREE GREAT FACTORS that the enemies of the Ruthenian's faith unscrupulously exploit in their nefarious work. We must meet the enemy on this common ground and beat him with his own weapons.

The theory of compelling a nation to learn a certain language as if it were the only vehicle of the "Great Message of Christ" or of waiting until the people know the missionary's own language . . . is not Catholic. The Church of Christ is not a nationalistic Church. No one has to deny his race nor to give up his language to become or to remain Her faithful child.

But, facts are facts and one must face them and take from them one's bearings. They stand as the tossing buoy on the drifting waters of our ordinary life. To ignore them often spells disaster. Now, the fact of paramount importance is that the English language is fast gaining ground among the Ruthenians. The recent school laws , the anti-foreign feeling that has held the country in its grip during the war, the violent campaign of a certain element, the general drift of the various annual conventions, the studied plan of action of Provincial Governments, the eagerness of the Ruthenian rising generation to know English, and above all the unbounded zeal of non-Catholic denominations who make the learning of English the trump card of their game, these are facts, and have to be reckoned with. The sooner our Ruthenians are made to grasp these conditions, the better will they be equipped for the struggle of Canadian life and for the preservation of their Catholic faith. Is it not time, therefore, for some English-speaking priests to go out among the Ruthenians and share the work with those valiant missionaries who, the great majority at least, are strangers to our country, and who have learned the language, embraced the rite and for the last twenty years have been doing our work for us? Their presence is a stimulating lesson and an abiding reproach. A dozen or so of young English-speaking priests would be a great boon to the Ruthenian mission, particularly in the West with its present mentality.

Who has not followed with pride the launching of the great educational programme of the Knights of Columbus, particularly their nation-wide scheme of supplementary schools for the explanation of the "American Constitution" to foreigners? It is an open challenge to radicalism. To educate a citizen in the chart that governs his country, in the right use of his franchise, is an act of real patriotism and real Catholicism. Picture to yourself the results of the Ruthenian vote on an issue in which the Church is involved. Eventually time will bring such issues.

We would say to our laity what the editor of the 'Columbiad' wrote in the October number: "The vista of the glory of service that opens before the mind musing on the power for good within our grip is sublime. To each the image rises. An army, a host of faces keen with knowledge, calm with contentment, eager with honest ambition looks up. Men, women, boys, girls--humanity gazes at the beholder. The eye does not glimpse the last face, far out beyond the faint horizon of the panorama. . . . The vista is unending."

Our conclusion is obvious. The Ruthenian Question stands to-day as a religious problem to solve and a national duty to fulfill. Church and Country present a united and pressing claim for our co-operation. This appeal to the two strongest feelings of the human heart should awaken patriotic sympathies and quicken Catholic conscience into action. The issue is serious and far reaching in its consequences. Only organized opinion with united and determined action can successfully meet it.

This chapter was the matter of a series of articles in the "North West Review," of Winnipeg. The Editor prefaced them with the following remarks, to give emphasis to the importance of this Problem:

"We wish to draw the attention of our readers to a series of authoritative articles now appearing in the Northwest Review on 'The Ruthenian Problem.'

"The writer is one of our foremost educationalists and knows his subject thoroughly. Furthermore his manuscript has passed through the hands of Bishop Budka and other members of the Hierarchy of the West who have given it their warm approval.

"It is, we think, very essential that the Catholics of this country should thoroughly understand the problem before them, so that when called upon to perform their duty in the matter they may be able to act promptly, wholeheartedly and with conviction.

"Our thanks are due to the author, 'Miles Christi' for having put before us such a clear presentation of the problem which sooner or later we shall be called upon to solve.

"The matter is one that to a very large extent concerns the laity and we think it should be thoroughly discussed in every council of Knights of Columbus throughout Canada. In districts where this society is not organized, any other existing Catholic societies might very appropriately co-ordinate in this good work.

"The question is also one of national as well as Catholic moment and so entitled to its due share of any 'forward movements' now anticipated."

Judge Buffington, of Pennsylvania, gave a lecture lately on "Americanization." From it we cull the following paragraph on the foreign language question:--

"The solution is not in the abolition of foreign languages in this country. I have heard loyal patriots who found English twisting their tongues, and Bolshevism has come from the lips of those of New England culture like Foster. This country has not only been remiss in failing to teach the foreigner but in teaching the native. I believe in the English tongue and in the amalgamation resulting from common speech, but we do not accomplish our aims by destroying other languages."

In a recent report of the Department of Education of the Province of Saskatchewan, of 177 schools in Ruthenian settlements only 28 have engaged teachers holding provisional certificates or permits; all the others are fully normal-trained and perfectly qualified. In many school districts salaries range between ,000 and ,500. The Ruthenians are among those who pay the best salaries to teachers.

WHY? WHAT? WHO?

No one can read the Encyclical letter which His Holiness has recently addressed to the Catholic Church on the Propagation of the Faith throughout the world, without being deeply moved by the yearnings of the apostolic heart of our Common Father, and vividly impressed by the lessons that come from his inspired and timely message to each and every one of us.

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