d
boundless confidence, the Church, pointing to the Western plains,
repeats to us all the divine challenge. "Do not you say there are yet
four months and then the harvest cometh? Behold I say to you lift up
your eyes and see the countries for they are white already to the
harvest." (Jo. iv, 35.)

Before parting with you, kind reader, may we make ours this pressing
invitation of the Master. Yes, the immense West is "white already to
the harvest." There stand as immense fields of ripening wheat, the
Catholic youth of Eastern Canada, the sturdy and thrifty Catholic
settlers of the British Isles and continental Europe. There the rising
generation of Catholic children, like the tender green blades of the
future harvest, is springing into manhood. Staring us in the face,
their eyes in our eyes, the children of foreign parentage wonder what
account we will make of their faith, what protection we will offer it.
They are the new Canadians, the nation of to-morrow.

To focus the Catholic mind of the nation on the great problems which
the West with its scattered population has forced upon our attention,
has been the object we have consistently pursued through the pages of
this book. _For it is a fact of every day experience that problems are
only solved by those who know them, who understand their full meaning,
and grasp their vital importance_.

Our sole endeavour has been to point out the controlling forces, the
spiritual issues that lurk behind these problems. In debatable matters
we always have tried to find that higher level which lies undisturbed
by the cross-currents of opinions. Naturally there are conclusions we
draw or forms of action we propose which may not find favour with
everyone. There are so many angles of vision from which moral problems
can be viewed. But we will say with Cardinal Newman "nothing would be
done at all if a man waited until he could do it so well that no one
could find fault with it." Were we, in our insistency on certain
topics and suggestions, accused of undue repetition, the importance of
the subject and our eager desire of immediate action would be our only
excuse and defence.

The Western spiritual harvest is indeed great and now ready for the
reapers. Never in our mind has a period in the history of the Church
in Canada been more fraught with greater problems than the present one
which the sudden increase of the West has created. The vastness of
their proportion and their