Now, we may ask, what has given to Catholic France, Catholic Belgium, Catholic England, these eminent leaders who in public and social life, are by their fearless courage and ceaseless action, the very personification of Catholicism? It is without doubt their Catholic Congresses. There, the contact with the great problems of the day gave them the vision of things before unseen, made them emerge from the common mass, and marked them as leaders. There, they learned to think just, broad and deep. The great Congresses of Catholic Germany brought Windthorst to the foreground and made him the leader of the greatest Catholic organization. What the Congresses have done for Catholic Germany, Belgium, France and England, they will also do for Canada. They will give us true leaders, men of clear vision, of indomitable and fearless will, of patient and persevering action. For _mistaken leadership is still a greater calamity than the absence of it_. The Plenary Council of Quebec urges the Catholics of Canada to meet in Congress: "_Qui quidem in talium caetuum frequentia liberius poterunt et validius sui nominis professionem sustinere, hostiles impetus propulsare_." In the mind of the great Pope Leo XIII, whose words are here quoted, "a Congress is the most powerful offensive and defensive weapon." Quebec Plenary Council--No. 441, d. * * * * * * We may then conclude with a French writer: "_A Congress is a sacrament of unity_." It will visualize to the modern pagan for whom unity of doctrine means nothing, the tremendous powers, the living influences that flow from that same unity on the world. And for the Catholics at large it will now answer to a widespread, deep-seated longing for a more effective national Catholic unity of action. Yes, at all times, a Congress is a necessity for united action; but in the troubled periods we now face, after the war, it becomes a factor of supreme interest and of the most vital importance. * * * * * * _Reconstruction_ is the world's watch-word as nations rise from the ruins a long protracted and universal war has accumulated around them. The period of reconstruction, more than that of the war, will test our national fibre. The problems we face are in extent, in character, in complexity greater than at any other period of history. The strain will be greater, for the conflict is being lifted to a higher plane, that of ideas. And ideas are the supreme realities, the dynamic forces that rule the world, the fulcrum that shifts the axis of the world's civilization.