harmonious, logical connections. At
the present day we possess a unified complex of sociological teachings,
brought together in a system, which rests against the supernatural,
which measures up to the problems of our age, which, absorbing
everything, takes unto itself all that is true in modern science and is
proven by experience, and thus is prepared to oppose successfully a
positivistic, materialistic and anti-Christian sociology."

Yes, we possess the true solution of modern problems and . . . what are
we doing to give it to the world, to the community in which we live?
Why, the very fabric of social order is questioned, our working men are
absorbing everywhere the most subversive doctrines; the relations
between capital and labor are strained to a breaking-point; our
industrial system is controlled by economic theories divorced from
ethics, whereby the worker is a mere producer; the State-monopoly is
gradually spreading its influences as huge tentacles, around our most
sacred liberties; the equilibrium between liberty and authority--these
two poles of Christian civilization--is being displaced; . . . and what
are the activities of the Catholic body, as a whole, in Canada, to stem
the rising tide? A sermon, now and then, on Socialism or on the rights
and duties of labour, will not solve the problems and extinguish the
volcano upon which we are peacefully living. In our cities, the
housing problem, which involves to a great extent, the moral life of
the masses, is acute; the white slave traffic has established its
haunts and commercialized vice; the moving picture-show has become
everywhere the most popular educational factor: at its school the young
generation, eyes riveted on the flickering screen, is drinking in the
alluring lessons of free love, divorce and every anti-Christian
doctrine; our ports will soon see a new tide of immigration invade our
shores; the non-catholic denominations are crumbling away under the
very weight of their destructive and disintegrating principle of
private judgment; we are surrounded with pagans to whom the
supernatural religion of Christianity is but a name or a memory; from
our great West comes the urgent cry for help, for men and money; the
Church Extension, as the watchman in the night is crying out to our
uninterested Catholics--"the day is coming, the night is
coming"--meaning that the faint streak on the eastern horizon may be
the last rays of a dying day or the first blush