' 
 
 I i ' ' 
 
 j 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 LAWKENCE ANP HIS INDIAN CANOE MAN,
 
 THE 
 
 KING'S MESSENGER; 
 
 OR, 
 
 LAWRENCE TEMPLE'S PROBATION. 
 
 torg of (EattaMatt JLitt. 
 
 BY 
 
 W. H. WITHROW, D.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "VALERIA, THE MARTYR OF TUB CATACOMBS," "BARBARA HECK, 
 "NEVILLE TRCEMAN," ETC. 
 
 SEVENTH EDITION. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 WILLIAM BRIGGS, 
 
 WESLEY BUILDINGS. 
 
 MONTREAL: C. W. COATES. HALIFAX: S. F. HUESTIS. 
 
 1897.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 fTlHE following Story is an attempt to depict, from 
 personal observation, phases of Canadian life with 
 which the writer is somewhat familiar with what 
 success others must decide. If it shall inspire in our 
 readers a stronger love of that noble coupt.ry, and a 
 desire to live for its moral and religious progress, it 
 will not have been written in vain. It is especially 
 hoped that the religious lessons which it is designed 
 to teach may lead its readers to a fuller consecration 
 of all their powers and ficnlties to the glory of God 
 and the welfare of their fellow-mp.n. 
 
 W. H. W.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 TWO PARTINGS 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 AN UNEXPECTED FRIEND . . 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 ON THE RIVER 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 THE LUMBER CAMP .... 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 A SABBATH IN THE CAMP . . . 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 THE OXFORD SCHOLAR ... . . 
 
 PAGB 
 
 1 
 
 . 12 
 
 . 21 
 
 . 29 
 
 . 36
 
 X C'VJVZ'WJ'A'. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PA OR 
 
 WAYSIDE SOWING. 45 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE LUMBER CAMP IN WINTER 51 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 THE BEECH WOODS CAMP-MEETING . . . .59 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 FINDING THE FOLD . . . . , . .66 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 THE MAIDEN SERMON ....... 73 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE LUMBER CAMP 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH WOLVES . . . . .84 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 WEST WIND AND RED FAWN 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 THE " TIMBER JAM " 98 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 "THE WORM OF NILUS STINGS NOT so" . . .104
 
 CONTENTS. X i 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 *OB 
 
 RAFTING 107 
 
 CHAPTER XVIIT. 
 "HOME AGAIN" Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OLYMPIC DAYS AND COLLEGE HALLS . . . .116 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 ON THE THRESHOLD 124 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 IN THE FIELD 133 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 WITH THE FLOCK 142 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 A BACKWOODS OASIS 150 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 THE FOREST FIRE FIGHTING THE FLAMES . . .158 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 PERIL AND RESCUE THE GUIDING STAR . . .164 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 THE ACCOLADE 170
 
 " A GENTLE knight was pricking on the plaine, 
 
 And on his brest a bloodie crosse he bore, 
 The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, 
 For Whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore, 
 And dead, as living, ever Him ador'd : 
 Upon his shield the like was also scor'd, 
 For soveraine hope, which in His helpe he had. 
 Right, faithful, true he was in deed and word ; 
 But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad ; 
 Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad." 
 
 SPENSER Faerie Queene.
 
 THE KING'S MESSENGER; 
 
 OB, 
 
 LAWKENCE TEMPLE'S PEOBATION.* 
 A STORY OF CANADIAN LIFK 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TWO PAKTINGS. 
 
 " The parting word must still be spoken, 
 Though the anguished heart be broken 
 But in yonder bright forever 
 Pain and parting can come never." 
 
 son ' w can 
 
 " You will have brother Tom and the girls, 
 mother ; and you know it is better that I should go." 
 
 * The writer of this story, illustrative of Canadian life and 
 character, deems it right to say that, with scarce an exception, 
 every incident therein recorded has come under his own experi- 
 ence or observation, or has been certified by credible testimony. 
 In the dialect conversations almost every word and phrase have 
 been repeatedly noted by himself as occurring in Canadian com- 
 munities. For obvious reasons persons and places are presented 
 under pseudonyms which in some cases will reveal as much as 
 they conceal.
 
 2 TEE RING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 " Yes, ray boy ; but that does not make it any 
 easier to lose you. You seemed almost to fill your 
 father's place. You grow more like him every day." 
 
 " Well, that is not much of a compliment to his 
 beauty, mother dear." 
 
 " Handsome is that handsome does, my boy. I am 
 sure that God's smile and your father's blessing will 
 follow you wherever you go, for no son was ever kinder 
 to his mother." 
 
 " I should be unworthy of the name I bear if I did 
 not do all I could for the best mother in the world. 
 But Tom is now old enough to look after the out-of- 
 door work, and Mary, the trustees have promised me, 
 shall have my school, and Nellie will help you in the 
 house. I shall earn lots of money, mother, and be 
 able to spare some for you and save enough for a few 
 terms at college." 
 
 " It was your father's dying wish, my boy, and 
 though it is like tearing out a piece of my heart to 
 have you go, yet I will not oppose it. We shall get 
 along nicely, I trust, without your help, although we 
 shall miss you very much ; but I fear you will suffer 
 in those dreadful woods, and so far away too. It was 
 your father's prayer for years, my son, that you 
 might become ' THE KING'S MESSENGEK,' as he used to 
 call it, and I am sure I have no loftier ambition than to 
 see you a faithful preacher as your father was." 
 
 " If God should call me, mother, to that holy work, 
 I am sure He will open a way for me. But now my 
 duty clearly is to earn all I can and learn all I can." 
 
 " God bless you, my boy ; " and the voice trembled 
 a little as it spoke. "You were my first-born, and 
 you are the child of many prayers. The fondest hopes 
 of a father passed into the skies were centred upon 
 you. I feel sure that you will not disappoint them." 
 
 " Amen ! " was the response, deeply and solemnly 
 uttered as if it were a dedication, and after a pause 
 the speaker continued, " Mother, I want you to give
 
 TWO PARTINGS. 3 
 
 me father's Bible, the one he kept upon his study 
 table. As I read the notes and references in his own 
 writing, it seems as though he were speaking to me 
 from the silent page." 
 
 " You shall have it, my boy ; and may it be as a 
 spell to keep you in the hour of temptation and trial." 
 
 " It will, mother, I am sure. I have only to read 
 my father's Bible, and to think of my father's prayers, 
 to be strengthened to endure any trial and to withstand 
 any temptation." 
 
 Conversing in such a strain this mother and son 
 sat long in the quiet dusk that gradually filled the 
 little room. The after-glow of the sunset gleamed 
 softly in the west, and as they sat side by side in the 
 fading light they strikingly recalled the beautiful 
 picture by Ary SchefFer of Monica and Augustine, that 
 holy mother and heroic son whose memory has come 
 down to us through fifteen centuries. On the face of 
 this Canadian mother, though thin and wan and worn 
 with care and marked with sorrow, was a look of 
 unutterable peace. The deep calm brown eyes, which 
 were not unused to tears, looked into the glowing west 
 as though the heavens opened to her gaze. A rapt 
 expression beamed upon her countenance as though 
 she held communion with the loved and lost, whose 
 feet, which had kept time with hers in the march 
 of life, now walked the golden streets of the New 
 Jerusalem. At such an hour as this 
 
 " very near seem the pearly gates, 
 
 And sweetly the harpings fall, 
 And the soul is restless to soar away, 
 And longs for the angel's call." 
 
 The pure white brow seemed the home of holy thoughts, 
 and the soft hair, streaked with silver threads, was 
 brushed smoothly back beneath the pathetic widow's 
 cap. The face of the boy was lighted up with an eager 
 enthusiasm. The firm-set mouth indicated indomitable 
 energy. The fire of youth sparkled in his eye, but a
 
 4 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 peculiar manly tenderness softened his countenance as 
 he looked upon his mother. For a time they sat to- 
 gether in silence ; then, withdrawing her gaze from the 
 sky, in which the evening star was now brightly 
 beaming, the mother turned a look of unspeakable 
 affection on her boy and fervently kissed his forehead, 
 with the admonition that he had better retire, as he 
 had to be up betimes in the morning to start upon his 
 journey, which both felt to be one of the most momen- 
 tous events in his history. 
 
 Mary Temple was the widow of John Temple, a 
 faithful Methodist minister, about twelve months 
 deceased. In consequence of the long journeys, 
 exposure to inclement weather, and the privation of 
 comforts in the humble homes of the settlers among 
 whom for years he had zealously laboured, his health, 
 never robust, gave way. On one of his extensive 
 rounds of preaching and visitation he was put to sleep 
 in a cold and damp room a not uncommon event with 
 a pioneer preacher. Before he reached home he was 
 in a violent fever. On partial convalescence he again 
 resumed his work, only to be permanently laid aside. 
 It was the great grief of his life to give up his life- 
 work. As with hectic flush on his cheek and inter- 
 rupted by a racking cough he " stated his case " before 
 his brethren at the Conference, his emotions almost 
 overcame him ; but with the unquestioning faith of a 
 Christian he bowed to the will of (rod. 
 
 He retired to Thornville, a village on the banks of 
 the noble St. Lawrence, where he had invested his 
 meagre savings in a few acres of land. It had been 
 his tirst circuit. Here he had wooed and won and 
 wedded the noble wife who had been such a faithful 
 helpmate during the years of his itinerant toil never 
 flinching from trial, never repining at privation, ever 
 cheering and supporting his own somewhat despondent 
 spirit by her buoyancy of soul, her cheerful courage, 
 her saintly piety, and her unfaltering faith.
 
 TWO PARTINGS. S 
 
 As John Temple wrung, with an eager and feverish 
 pressure but with speechless lips, the hands of his old 
 companions in toil and travel as he left the Conference, 
 few expected that they would ever see him again in 
 the flesh. Yet for two years longer he survived, 
 devoting himself chiefly to the education of his four 
 children, and, with the help of his boys, to the culti- 
 vation of his few acres, too small to be called a farm, 
 and rather large for a garden. As health permitted 
 he preached in the neighbourhood, and always with 
 great acceptance, for his character was beloved and 
 revered, although his abilities were not brilliant and 
 he was no longer in his prime. 
 
 The chief dependence of this family of six was the 
 annual grant from the Superannuated Fund of their 
 Church. The amount was not much less than three 
 hundred dollars in all, but to those who had almost 
 nothing else it was of inestimable value. Without its 
 aid they would have suffered from abject poverty. 
 Sometimes the expected grant all too small at best - 
 was subject to a considerable reduction. Then there 
 was keen disappointment, but no complaining. The 
 wife's faded dress was turned and worn over again. 
 The threadbare coat was made to do longer service. 
 With patient,- loving industry the father's cast-off 
 clothes were cut down and made over for the boys, the 
 mother's for the girls. The coveted new book a 
 rarely purchased luxury, although the "invalid was a 
 man of studious tastes was altogether dispensed 
 with. 
 
 But growing, healthy, active boys and girls must 
 have boots and shoes ; their clothing, unlike that of 
 the Israelites during their wanderings in the Wilder- 
 ness, would " wax old " and wear out ; and they were 
 blessed with appetites of keenest zest. The energy 
 and skill of the wise and loving house-mother were 
 therefore taxed to the utmost to make ends meet ; and 
 though she often had an anxious heart, she always
 
 6 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 wore a cheerful face, and no murmurings or repinings 
 escaped her patient lips. The children were brought 
 up in habits of thrift, economy, and self-denial, which 
 are worth more than a fortune ; and a spirit of mutual 
 helpfulness was fostered which made even poverty a 
 blessing. 
 
 Still, the flour sometimes got low in the barrel, and 
 the little stock of money very small in the purse, and 
 sometimes it altogether failed. At such times the 
 mother remained longer than usual in the little 
 chamber, on whose table lay the well-used Bible, 
 which was the daily food of her spiritual life ; 
 "Wesley's Hymns," with which, singing as she 
 worked, she beguiled her daily household tasks ; 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the Lives of Mrs. 
 Fletcher, Hester Ann Rogers, and other religious 
 biographies and devotional works with which she 
 occupied her scanty leisure. She always came out of 
 this chamber with a deepened serenity upon her 
 countenance ; sometimes there were marks of tears 
 on her face, but more often it shone with a holy light, 
 as if, like Moses, she had been talking with God face 
 to face. 
 
 Although the family was sometimes reduced to the 
 last loaf and the last dollar, it never suffered actual 
 want. In some unforeseen Avay their more pressing 
 necessities were met. Sometimes a bag of flour, or of 
 potatoes, or a ham was left at nightfall in the porch ; 
 and more than once a five-dollar bill came in a letter 
 without any name attached. Evidently among the 
 sick pastor's friends were some who 
 
 "Did good by stealth, and blushed to find it fame." 
 
 These anonymous gifts were accepted without any 
 sense of humiliation, as if they came direct from God 
 Himself. While they formed slight ground of depen- 
 dence, they fostered the faith of the inmates of the 
 little cottage. Kindly neighbours, too, in that generous
 
 TWO PARTINGS. 1 
 
 spirit which pervades almost all Canadian rural 
 communities, after the first snow-fall made a "bee," 
 and, with much shouting and " haw-geeing," hauled 
 a great pile of logs into the yard for fuel. Many of 
 these, however, were of such huge proportions as to 
 employ most of the spare energies of the boys during 
 the winter to reduce them to a usable size, thus 
 developing at once their muscles and their industrial 
 habits. At Christmas and New Year, too, more 
 than one fat goose or turkey found its way in some 
 mysterious manner to the minister's larder. 
 
 At one time, indeed, the faith of the heroic wife was 
 sorely tried. For months her husband's health had 
 been rapidly failing. At length he was confined 
 entitely to bed, suffering much, and requiring constant 
 medical attendance. The extra comforts his condition 
 required had used up all the money available. The 
 winter came on early and severe. Every resource but 
 prayer was exhausted ; and with increased fervour 
 the faithful wife addressed herself to the Throne of 
 Grace. When things seemed at their uttermost 
 extremity relief came. In the dusk of one bleak 
 evening a waggon drove up to the back-door of the 
 humble cottage, loaded with an abundant supply of 
 meat, flour, vegetables, a web of cloth to make dresses 
 for the ^irls and their mother, and a sufficient 
 quantity of stouter material for the boys. A kind 
 note expressed the sympathies of the neighbours for 
 the sick minister, accompanied by the sum of twenty 
 dollars in money and a receipt in full of the doctor's 
 and druggist's account. The good doctor was evidently 
 the moving spirit in the generous and thoughtful 
 donation. It was not the first time that he had 
 ministered to the necessities of those of his patients 
 who were poor in this world's goods. Like a chestnut 
 burr, beneath a rugged exterior he concealed a sweet 
 and mellow- heart. 
 
 It would have more than compensated the kind
 
 8 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 donors of these gifts if they could have seen the rapt 
 expression of gratitude on the face of the worn and 
 weary wife, and heard the invalid faintly falter out 
 the words of Holy Writ : " I have been young, and 
 now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous 
 forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." 
 
 At length the last scene came. The sick man sank 
 lower and lower till he could scarce articulate. 
 Although leaving his wife and children almost with- 
 out a dollar in the world, his mind seemed undisturbed 
 by doubt or anxiety on their behalf. 
 
 " Be careful for nothing," he whispered in the ear 
 of his sorrow-stricken wife, who sat by his bedside : 
 " but in every thing by prayer and supplication with 
 thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto 
 God."^ 
 
 Again, she heard him softly whispering to himself 
 the blessed promises, " Leave thy fatherless children, 
 I will preserve them alive ; and let thy widows trust 
 in Me;" "In Thee the fatherless findeth mercy;" 
 and, " A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the 
 widows, is God in His holy habitation." 
 
 " 0, wife I " he whispered, when he saw her beside 
 him, " God never shows His fatherliness so much as 
 when He promises to be a Husband of the widow and 
 a Father of the fatherless. I leave you and the dear 
 children in His hands. He will do more and better 
 for you than you can either ask or think. Cast all 
 your care on Him. ' Trust in the Lord, and do good ; 
 so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt 
 be fed.' " 
 
 The weeping children he called to his side, and, 
 placing his weak hands on their heads, gave them his 
 blessing. He bade them love their mother, love their 
 Saviour, and prepare to meet him their father in 
 heaven. 
 
 " Lawrence, my boy," he whispered, gazing with a 
 look of ineffable affection on the face of his first-born,
 
 TWO PARTINGS. 9 
 
 " you are consecrated from your birth. If God calls 
 you to walk in my footsteps, He will be all to you 
 that He has been to me. My dying prayer is that 
 you may be the King's Messenger to dying men 
 that our house may never want a man to stand before 
 the Lord." 
 
 "It won't be long," he whispered after a pause, 
 " till we shall all be gathered home. I know, I feel 
 certain," he continued in the full assurance of. faith, 
 " that not one shall be left behind that we shall all 
 be bound up in the bundle of life, an unbroken family 
 in heaven. ( Bless the Lord, my soul, and- forget 
 
 not all ' " but the remainder of the doxology was 
 
 uttered in heaven. His face grew radiant, he half 
 rose from his pillow, 
 
 " Sweet was the light of his eyes, but it suddenly sank into 
 
 darkness, 
 As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement." 
 
 He fell back on the arm of his weeping wife. On 
 his countenance rested a look of ineffable peace, as if 
 he had indeed seen the King in His beauty and the 
 land that is very far off. He was not, for God had 
 taken him. 
 
 That parting scene Lawrence Temple never forgot. 
 Often in dreams he lived that hour over again, and as 
 he woke from sleep he seemed to feel his father's hand 
 laid in blessing on his head, and to hear his father's 
 voice summoning him to be the King's messenger to 
 dying men. A sense of responsibility rested upon him. 
 He became almost a father to his brother and sisters, 
 and to his widowed mother more than a son. 
 
 Never were the benefits of Christian sympathy more 
 marked than in the kind and generous assistance of 
 the neighbours on the death of the minister. The 
 income of the widow from the Superannuated Fund 
 was a good deal lessened, but loving hearts and kind 
 hands provided for the immediate wants of the family.
 
 10 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 For Lawrence was procured the village school, of which 
 he proved a highly successful teacher. His mother, 
 whose courageous soul had sustained her husband 
 during his long illness, now seemed to lean on the 
 brave heart and strong will of her first-born. A look 
 of manly gravity settled on his countenance, but a 
 chivalric deference, an almost lover-like tenderness, 
 marked his every act and word toward his mother. 
 
 While he taught others in the school, an unquench- 
 able thirst for knowledge possessed his own soul. He 
 nourished the project in his mind of going to college, 
 although there seemed no possibility of the accomplish- 
 ment of his desire. He found, however, that he could 
 earn more by the labour of his hands than by the 
 labour of his brain. He therefore, with the consent 
 of the school trustees, transferred his office of teacher 
 to his sister Mary, two years younger thau himself, 
 whom he had diligently " coached " for the duties of 
 the office. Through the interest of a friend of his 
 father's at Montreal, he procured the promise of a 
 place in a " crew " of lumbermen operating on the 
 upper waters of the Ottawa. Our story opens on the 
 eve of his departure. His little hand-valise was 
 already packed. It contained, beside his slender 
 stock of under-clothing, every stitch of which was 
 enfibred with a mother's love, his father's Bible and 
 Greek Testament, a Latin Psalter, and his mother's 
 copy of " Wesley's Hymns." His sister Mary had 
 given him her favourite and almost her only book 
 of poetry, a tiny copy of Keble's " Christian Year." 
 His brother Tom gave him a handsome knife, earned 
 by running errands after school hours for the village 
 store. And little Nellie, the curly-headed pet of the 
 household, had netted for him a purse, which was 
 more than sufficiently large for his slender stock of 
 money only a few shillings with which he was 
 leaving home to win his fortune in the world. The 
 love-gifts of the poor, often procured with much self-
 
 TWO PARTINGS. 11 
 
 denial and sacrifice, may be intrinsically of little 
 worth, but they convey a world of affection, which the 
 easily-purchased presents of the rich cannot always 
 express. 
 
 The household were up early in the morning. The 
 coffee, prepared by the mother's loving hands, never 
 had a richer aroma, nor the wheaten cakes a finer 
 Bavour. The girls tried to disguise their feelings by 
 sundry admonitions to their brother concerning the 
 fascinations of some Indian Minnehaha, whose subtile 
 wiles they seemed to fear ; and Tom exhorted him to 
 be sure and bring him home a bearskin rug. The 
 mother said little, but wistfully watched through 
 gathering tears the face of her son as he ostentatiously 
 seemed to be eagerly eating the breakfast for which he 
 had, in truth, little appetite. At length the stage horn 
 blew and the lumbering vehicle rattled up to the door. 
 Hurried leave-taking followed except a lingering 
 embrace between mother and son and he was soon 
 whirled away from their midst. The mother that day 
 remained longer than usual in her chamber, and when 
 she came out the mark of secret tears was on her 
 face.
 
 CHAPTEE IT. 
 
 AS UNEXPECTED FRIEND. 
 
 " Thir.e own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not." 
 Prov. xxvii. 10. 
 
 OUR young knight was now fairly in the saddle, 
 metaphorically, that is, and in quest of for- 
 tune. His prospects were 'not very brilliant ; but he 
 had a brave heart and a noble purpose within, two 
 things that will take a man anywhere and enable him 
 to do anything. They are akin to the faith that will 
 remove mountains. He had first a long and weary 
 stage ride to the town of Ottawa (it was before the 
 time of railways in that part of Canada of which we 
 write). At the close of the second day the stage toiled 
 slowly up the long hill on which the town is situated, 
 threw off its mail bags at the post-office, and drew up 
 at a noisy tavern, before which creaked and groaned in 
 the wind a swinging sign bearing the effigy of the 
 Sheaf and Crown. The place reeked with tobacco 
 smoke and the fumes of liquor, and loud and profane 
 talking filled the air. Lawrence tried to close his 
 senses to the vile sights and sounds and smells, and 
 modestly asked for supper and a bed. 
 
 " What'll you have to drink ? " asked the red-faced 
 bar-tender of whom he made the inquiry, expectorating
 
 WHEN THE STEW WAS READY, THE COOK BLEW A TIN HOKN. PcKje
 
 AN UNEXPECTED FRIEND. 13 
 
 a discharge of tobacco juice into the huge spittoon in 
 the .middle of the floor. 
 
 " Thank you, I don't drink," replied Lawrence. 
 
 "0! you won't take nuthin', won't }er? You're 
 one of the pious sort, I 'low," answered the bar-tender, 
 with a contemptuous sneer on his vulgar face ; and turn- 
 ing away to mix drinks for two burly fellows in red 
 flannel shirts, he tossed his thumb over his shoulder 
 to indicate the way to the dining-room. 
 
 Lawrence sat down at a table covered with a crumpled 
 and gravy-stained cloth, supporting a rickety cruet 
 and some chipped and cracked dishes, when a bold- 
 faced girl, with great gilt earrings and with a stare 
 that made him blush to the tips of his ears, asked him 
 what he would have. Unused to ordering his meals, 
 he modestly replied that he would take whatever was 
 convenient. With an ill-bred giggle she brought him 
 a meal which only his keen hunger enabled him to 
 eat. Presently the red-shirted fellows came from the 
 bar-room and familiarly ordered their supper. From 
 their rough talk Lawrence discovered that they were 
 lumberers on their way, like himself, to the lumber 
 camps. He made some casual inquiry as to the dis- 
 tance to the Mattawa River, on which the camp to 
 which he was bound was situated. 
 
 "A matter of two hundred miles or so," replied one 
 of the men. 
 
 " Be you goin' thar, stranger ? " asked the other. 
 
 Lawrence replied that, he was, when he of the red 
 shirt continued, in an accent that indicated that he was 
 from the forests of Maine, 
 
 " Wai now, want ter know I Be you clerkin' it ? " 
 
 Our hero replied that he was going as either axeman 
 or teamster, with both of which employments he said 
 he was familiar. Indeed he had acquired considerable 
 dexterity in both at home. 
 
 " What on 'arth be the like o' ye going to do up 
 thar ? " exclaimed the man, as he stared at the thin
 
 14 THE SING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 white hands and slender, well-dressed person of the 
 boy. 
 
 " 0, I'll make my way as others have done before 
 me," said Lawrence. 
 
 " Wai, ye've got pluck, any way ; and thet's all a 
 man wants to get on enywheers, so fer's I see," said 
 the good-natured fellow, as Lawrence bowed politely 
 and rose from the table. 
 
 "Gentlemanly sort o' coot, isn't he?" continued 
 the lumberman sotto wee to his comrade. 
 
 "He'll soon git enough of the camp, or I'm mis- 
 taken," answered that worthy ; which remark, over- 
 heard by Lawrence, did not prove particularly inspirit- 
 ing. 
 
 In order to escape the unsavoury odours and uncon- 
 genial company of the bar, which seemed to be the 
 only public sitting-room in the house, Lawrence retired 
 to the small, close, and stuffy chamber assigned him. 
 Opening the window for fresh air, he saw in the dis- 
 tance, gleaming in the moonlight, the shining reaches 
 of the river. 
 
 " There lies my destiny," he said to himself, as he 
 gazed up the majestic stream which seemed to beckon 
 him onward to the mysterious unknown regions beyond. 
 He thought of the brave explorer Champlain, who, 
 first of white men, had traversed that gleaming track 
 and penetrated the far recesses of the Canadian wilder- 
 ness ; and of Brebeuf, and Lalemant, and Davost, and 
 Daniel, the intrepid Jesuit missionaries who, two hun- 
 dred years before, for the love of souls, had toiled up 
 the tortuous stream, sleeping on the bare rock, carrying 
 their burdens over the frequent and rugged portages, 
 till they reached their far-off Indian mission on the 
 shores of the " Sweet Water Sea," as they called the 
 vast and billowy expanse of Lake Huron. There three 
 of these four had suffered a cruel martyrdom ; rejoicing 
 that they were counted worthy to confess Christ among 
 the heathen and to glorify God by their sufferings and
 
 AN UNEXPECTED FRIEND. 15 
 
 death. The memory of the faith and patience of these 
 early Canadian martyrs, although of an alien race and 
 creed, eubraved the heart of this Canadian youth, two 
 centuries after their death, to pursue the path of duty 
 in the face of whatever obstacles might rise. 
 
 Then his eye fell upon the evening star, beaming 
 with a lambent flame low down in the sky, still warm 
 with the after-glow of the departed sun, and gentler 
 thoughts rose within his breast. Only two nights 
 before he had gazed upon it by his mother's side. 
 She was probably gazing on it now, and, he was certain, 
 thinking of him and praying for him. The steady 
 glow of the star seemed like the light of his mother's 
 eyes beaming in blessing upon him, and in the sense 
 of spiritual communion with home and the loved ones 
 there, he forgot his squalid surroundings and their con- 
 trast with the sweet, clean comforts of his mother's 
 roof. Praying to his Father Who seeth in secret, he 
 felt that he was not alone, for God was with him. 
 
 "Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not." 
 Prov. xxvii. 10. 
 
 With the "earliest dawn Lawrence was abroad to 
 breathe the fresh air, and to learn where he could find 
 the " crew " of lumbermen he was about to join. Just 
 as the sun rose, he reached the cliff known as Govern- 
 ment Hill, now crowned by the stately and many- 
 turreted Parliament Buildings of the Dominion of 
 Canada. As the sun rose grandly over the far-rolling 
 Laurentiau hills, it turned the river into gleaming gold. 
 Beneath the cliff, shagged with ancient woods from top 
 to base, sparkled and dimpled the eddies of the rapid 
 stream. Acres of timber rafts were moored in the cove, 
 and in the still morning air the thin blue smoke of the 
 camp fires rose where the raftsmen were preparing 
 their morning meal. 
 
 While he gazed in admiration on the scene, he 
 became aware of a grizzled, sun-browned man, with a
 
 16 THE KIN6FS MESSENGER. 
 
 kindly grey eye, and dressed in a sort of half- sailor 
 garb, standing beside him. 
 
 " Kinder nice, that 'ere, ain't it now ? " said the 
 stranger. 
 
 " It is, indeed, very beautiful," replied Lawrence. 
 
 " I've lived on this river, man an' boy, well nigh 
 on to fifty years, an' I hain't got tired on it yet. It 
 don't never wear out, ye see. It's new every mornin', 
 an' renewed every evenin', like all the rest of the 
 Good Bein's blessin's." 
 
 Encouraged by the kindly look and pious tone of the 
 old man, Lawrence asked him if he knew where Har- 
 grave's crew of lumbermen were camped (this was the 
 name of his employer). 
 
 " Hargrave's crew ! I should think I'd oughter. I 
 supplies 'em most o' their campin' outfit. Ye see that 
 smoke," he said, pointing to the spray rising from the 
 Chaudiere Falls ; " well, that's the Big Kittle. Jist 
 around the p'int beyond that ye'll find Hargrave's 
 camp. They break up and go up stream to-day. You 
 jist ask for Mike Callaghan at the bridge there, an' 
 he'll tell you exactly the way." 
 
 Lawrence took out his note-book to write down the 
 name, when a piece of paper fluttered to the ground. 
 The old man stooped to pick it up, and was handing 
 it to Lawrence when he exclaimed, 
 
 " What's this ? A class-ticket, as I'm alive ! Where 
 did ye get this, boy ? Are ye a Methodis' ? " abruptly 
 asked the old man. 
 
 " Yes, I am a Methodist," said Lawrence, " and 
 I got this from James Turner, our minister at Thorn- 
 ville." 
 
 " Turner ! I know'd him," exclaimed our ancient 
 mariner ; " was on this circuit once. I must know 
 your name, lad." 
 
 Willing to humour his strange companion, Lawrence 
 mentioned his name, the utterance of which produced 
 a remarkable effect. With a quick motion the old
 
 AN UNEXPECTED FRIEND. 17 
 
 man grasped him firmly by the shoulder and peered 
 earnestly into his face, and then exclaimed, " Well-a- 
 day ! an' to think I didn't know ye ! " 
 
 " I see nothing very remarkable in that," replied 
 Lawrence, " since you never saw me before." 
 
 " Don't be so sure o' that, my boy ; I know'd ye 
 afore ye know'd yerself, and well I know'd yer father, 
 too. I see his looks in your very face. How is he, 
 anyway ? " rattled on the old sailor. 
 
 " He is dead these twelve months," said Lawrence, 
 with a gush of sympathy towards the man who had 
 known his father. 
 
 " Dead, is it ? " exclaimed the stranger in a tone of 
 mingled astonishment and grief. " An' old Jimmie 
 Daily left, who could be so much better spared. Well, 
 a good man is gone to his reward rest his soul ! " 
 Mr. Daily, although now a Methodist, in moments of 
 excitement occasionally used expressions with which he 
 was familiar while yet a Roman Catholic. 
 
 How long since you knew my father ? " asked 
 Lawrence, now deeply interested. 
 
 "Knew him, is it? It's well nigh twenty years 
 agone," he answered. " Many's the time I ferried him 
 across the river down at Metcalfs appointment the 
 ould log church, do ye mind ? An' the ways he used 
 to talk to me ! I was a sinful man in those days, God 
 forgive me, but I never forgot thim words ; an' he 
 made me promise to go to the praichin', an' I kep' my 
 word, but I soon wished I hadn't, for he made me feel 
 my sins that bad that I couldn't slape, an' I tuk to 
 the drink harder nor ever, an' I got the horrors, an' he 
 watched with me like a brother, an' tuk me to his own 
 house to keep me from the tavern, an' prayed an' 
 wrasled with me till I got my soul convarted. Halle- 
 lujah I 
 
 ' O happy day, that fixed my choice ! * 
 
 So ye're a son of John Timple, God bless ye ; an' yer 
 
 2
 
 18 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 mother, is she livin' ? If ever there was a saint, it was 
 that woman. An' where are ye stoppin' ? " 
 
 " At the Sheaf and Crown," replied Lawrence ; and 
 he briefly told of his father's illness and his mother's 
 welfare. 
 
 " At the Sheaf and Crown, is it ? " the garrulous old 
 man went on. Well, ye'll stop there no longer. It's 
 no place for the likes o' ye. A proud man will be 
 Jimmie Daily to entertain the son of his best friend, 
 John Timple. Come home to breakfast with me." 
 
 Nothing loath to leave the tavern, Lawrence cheer- 
 fully accepted the warm-hearted hospitality of his 
 Irish friend. The old man was a widower, but his two 
 daughters, bright-eyed but bashful girls, had a clean 
 and appetizing breakfast ready, to which Lawrence did 
 ample justice. 
 
 " An' what way are ye goin' now, if I may make 
 so bould ? " asked Mr. Daily towards the close of the 
 meal. 
 
 " To the River Mattawa, with Hargrave's crew," 
 quietly answered Lawrence. 
 
 " To the Mattawa ! " exclaimed the kind host in 
 amazement, dropping his knife and fork and staring 
 at his guest with open-mouthed astonishment. " Och, 
 it's jokin' an ould man ye are. But it'll be gunniu' 
 or fishin' ye're afther ? " 
 
 His astonishment deepened as Lawrence avowed his 
 purpose to go as a lumberman, at the same time hint- 
 ing that it was only a temporary expedient for a 
 special purpose. At length he went on : 
 
 " That's not the kind o' work for John Timple's son, 
 that I nursed when he was a baby. An' ye don't 
 look over strong, naythur. But ye've got yer father's 
 sperit. Nothin' ever did beat that man. No matter 
 what roads or weather, I never know'd him to miss 
 an app'intment, an' the roads wuz powerful bad some- 
 times. But I won't say ye nay. I'm sure Providence 
 will direct ye. But come here, my boy," he said,
 
 AN UNEXPECTED FRIEND. 19 
 
 rising from the table and leading the way into the 
 little store which was his chief source of livelihood. 
 
 It was an odd miscellaneous assortment of articles 
 that almost filled the little apartment. Three sides of 
 the room were appropriated respectively to groceries, 
 dry goods, and hardware. But this distinction was 
 not rigidly maintained, and sundry articles would not 
 come under any of these heads, as, for instance, Bibles, 
 hymn-books, school-books and stationery, a case of 
 patent medicines, and oils, paints, and brushes. The 
 windows occupying the fourth side were filled with 
 specimens of the different kinds of goods on the 
 shelves. From the ceiling hung steel traps, log- 
 chains, snowshoes, moccasins, and iron-studded boots 
 for raftsmen. Cant-hooks, axes, whips, harness, row- 
 locks, trolling-lines, fish-hooks, rope, cordage, codfish, 
 molasses, sugar, tea, coffee, mess-pork and mess-beef, 
 pea-jackets, sou'-westers, oil-cloth pilot-coats, thick 
 guernseys, blankets, mits, fur caps, mufflers almost 
 every thing one could think of, or that lumbermen 
 could want, from a grindstone to a needle, from a 
 herring to a barrel of flour, from linen thread to 
 hawsers, from handkerchiefs to sail-cloth, was repre- 
 sented in this " general store." 
 
 Selecting two stout guernsey shirts, a pair of 
 moccasins and a pair of boots, a blanket and a pair of 
 buckskin mits, Mr. Daily quietly made them up in a 
 parcel, saying, " Ye'll find the need of thini before 
 the winter is over." 
 
 In vain Lawrence remonstrated, and protested that 
 he could not afford to buy, and did not want to acccept 
 as a gift, these valuable articles. 
 
 " Is it sell the likes o' thini to yer father's son ye'd 
 have me ? " exclaimed the generous-hearted creature 
 in affected indignation. "Not if I knows it. It's 
 more than this I owe the memory of John Timple, 
 or to any that bear his name." 
 
 He then conducted his young protege, in whom he
 
 20 
 
 THE KING'S MESSENGER, 
 
 seemed to take paternal pride, to the camp which was 
 the rendezvous of Hargrave's brigade. The " crew," 
 as it was called, was busy with the final bustle of 
 embarking on their six or eight months' plunge into 
 the wilderness. There was no time for many words. 
 Commending Lawrence to the foreman or " boss " of 
 the brigade, as the " son of a dear ould friend," the 
 old man gave his hand a wring like the grip of a vice, 
 with the valediction 
 
 " God bless ye ; my boy ; and all the saints protect 
 ye."
 
 FRENCH VILLAGE, ON THE 
 OTTAWA.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE RIVER. 
 
 M Via 1'bon vent I 
 Via 1'joli vent ! 
 V'Ja 1'bon vent ! 
 Ma mie m'appelle 1 
 
 Via 1'bon veat ! 
 Via 1'joli vent ! 
 Via 1'bon vent I 
 Ma mie m'attend I " * 
 
 IT was a picturesque scene that met the eyes of 
 Lawrence when he had time to look around him. 
 The broad river was flashing and eddying in the bright 
 sunlight, rushing on to the Chaudifere Falls, like a 
 strong will bent on a desperate resolve. This brilliant 
 picture was framed by a dark background of pines 
 a fringe of shivering aspens near the water in some 
 places trailing their branches in the current like 
 Naiads bathing their tresses in the waves. Moored in 
 a little cove were a number of stout bateaux, and 
 several birch bark canoes were drawn up upon the 
 shore. Nearly a hundred men, with much shouting 
 and gesticulation, were loading the bateaux with 
 
 * For this refrain, the burden of a popular voyageurs* chorus, 
 we are indebted to our friend, W. Kirby, Esq., the author of 
 that remarkably clever Canadian story, " The Chien d'Or."
 
 22 THE EING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 barrels of mess-pork and mess-beef, flour, sugar, and 
 molasses ; boxes of tea and tobacco ; bales of blankets, 
 and all the almost countless necessaries of a lumber 
 camp. The lumbermen were sun-tanned, stalwart 
 fellows, many of whom were French Canadian, and the 
 others of different nationalities, including three or 
 four Indians. Almost all wore red-flannel shirts, and 
 many had a scarlet sash around the waist and a red 
 woven cap or fez upon their heads. 
 
 A camp-fire was blazing brightly on the beach, at 
 which a grimy-looking cook, with a short and dirty 
 tobacco-pipe in his mouth, was preparing dinner in 
 sundry smoke-blackened vessels. When the stew of 
 meat and vegetables was ready, he blew a tin horn, 
 and the captains of the several messes received their 
 shares in large tin vessels. These distributed in tin 
 dishes to the men of their messes their portion of 
 meat in due season. Strong green tea, without milk, 
 was the only leverage furnished. 
 
 In an incredibly short time dinner was despatched, 
 and almost every man produced a tobacco-pipe, and 
 was soon smoking away like a small furnace. The 
 last loads were hurried on board the bateaux. The 
 oars were manned, and with a cheer the several crews 
 rowed their boats up the stream, hugging the shore as 
 closely as possible in order to avoid the strength of 
 the current. The canoes were launched and went 
 dancing over the waves, the " boss " and the Indians 
 going ahead to select and prepare the camping ground. 
 
 Lawrence took his place at the oar in one of the 
 bateaux, and rowed lustily with the rest of the crew. 
 He greatly enjoyed his novel experience. He had a 
 keen eye for the picturesque, and now he found much 
 to employ it. The flood of golden light on the broad 
 bosom of the river, the vivid green of the foliage on 
 the shore, the bronzed faces, often full of character, 
 and the stalwart forms of his red-shirted companions, 
 the brown bateaux and the snowy sails, which were
 
 ON THE RIVER. 23 
 
 spread to catch the light freeze which helped them 
 along these made up a picture that, transferred to 
 canvas, would have won an artist fame and fortune. 
 
 He cordially cultivated the acquaintance of his fellow- 
 oarsman, a good-natured Frenchman, clad in a strange 
 blending of civilized and savage attire. He wore buck- 
 skin leggings, fringed after the Indian style, bead- 
 worked moccasins, a red sash, red shirt, and red 
 night-cap or fez. Around his forehead was a band of 
 wampum, or Indian beadwork, set off by a heron's 
 plume, dyed red. In his belt, in a leathern scabbard, 
 was a sharp and glittering scalping-knife, which, 
 however, he used for no more deadly purpose than 
 cutting his meat and tobacco. On one finger he wore 
 a solid gold ring, and in his ears small earrings of the 
 same material. A silver cross and a scapular of the 
 Virgin might be seen on his bronzed breast through 
 the open bosom of his shirt. 
 
 Jean Baptiste la Tour, such was his name, was a 
 characteristic example of the wyageurs and coureurs 
 du bois who, ever since the settlement of Canada by 
 the French, had found the fascinations of the wild 
 forest life too strong to permit them to remain in the 
 precincts of civilization or engage in any steady 
 agricultural labour. Lawrence found him very chatty, 
 and as he could speak a little English and Lawrence 
 a little book French, they got on very well together. 
 
 Baptiste had wandered all over the great North and 
 North- West, as far as Fort Churchill on Hudson's Bay 
 and up the Saskatchewan to near the foot of the Rocky 
 Mountains. He had been employed by the Hudson's 
 Bay Company in the varied avocations of trapper, 
 voyageur, and guide ; but on one of his trips from Fort 
 William, on Lake Superior, down the Ottawa to 
 Montreal, with a convoy of furs, he had fallen a victim 
 to the fascinations of a bright-eyed Indian girl at 
 Caughnawaga. He had now a bark wigwam and 
 squaw and two papooses at that village, and confined
 
 24 THE KING^S MESSENGER. 
 
 his wanderings within a limit of some four hundred 
 miles, instead of two thousand as before. 
 
 He was full of vivacity, very polite in his way, some- 
 what choleric and hasty when crossed, and a rather 
 boastful talker, He was very proud of his aristocratic 
 ancestry. He claimed descent from the Chevalier de 
 la Tour, Governor of Acadie in the seventeenth century, 
 and favoured Lawrence with highly romantic traditions 
 of the beauty and valour and fidelity to her husband's 
 chequered fortunes of the heroic Madame de la Tour, 
 narrating how she held the fort at the mouth of the 
 St. John against threefold odds. The relationship 
 claimed was not improbable, for some of the best blood 
 of France, that of the Montforts and Montmorencis, 
 flowed in the veins of semi-savage wanderers in the 
 woods or dwellers in Indian wigwams. 
 
 Towards evening the brigades of boats swept into 
 a little cove, where, behind a narrow beach, the dense 
 foliage rose like a castle wall. A little streamlet 
 shily trickled down, making timid music over its 
 pebbles. In an open space the camp-fires were soon 
 blazing brightly, the splendid black and brown bass, 
 caught by trolling in the river, were soon broiling on 
 the coals, and never lordly feast at a king's table was 
 enjoyed with keener zest than the frugal repast of these 
 hardy lumbermen. 
 
 It was soon dark, for the season was September, and, 
 in the light of the camp-fires, the lounging figures 
 smoking their short pipes, and some, we are sorry to 
 say, playing cards, looked like a group of bandits in 
 one of Salvator Rosa's paintings. The trees overhead 
 gleamed in the firelight like fretted silver, and through 
 the rifts the holy stars looked down like sentinels in 
 mail of burnished steel keeping ward upon the walls 
 of heaven. 
 
 Leaving the uncongenial company, Lawrence plunged 
 into the caves of darkness of the grand old forest, 
 which lifted on pillared colonnades its interlaced and
 
 ON THE RIVER. 25 
 
 fretted roof, more stately and awe-inspiring in the 
 gloom than any minster aisle. There, with thoughts 
 of home and God and heaven, he strengthened his 
 heart for the duties and the trials of his new life. 
 
 On returning to the camp he gratefully accepted 
 the invitation of the foreman to share his tent, and 
 soon, lying on a bear-skin rug spread upon a bed of 
 fragrant spruce boughs, was fast asleep. The rest of 
 the crew threw themselves down in their blankets with 
 their feet to the fire, and slept beneath the open canopy 
 of heaven. 
 
 With the dawn the camp was astir. Breakfast was 
 promptly despatched, and as the sun rose, turning the 
 waters into gleaming gold, the little flotilla again 
 glided on its way. So passed day after day. Lawrence 
 was often weary in back and arms and legs with 
 rowing, and his hands were severely blistered; but 
 the ever-changing panorama of beauty was a perpetual 
 delight. Sometimes, as they approached a rapid in 
 the river, the sturdy boatmen would spring into the 
 water and push and drag the bateaux against the 
 foaming current. When the rapid was too strong to 
 be overcome in this way, the boats were lightened and 
 pushed up with poles, and dragged with ropes. The 
 bales and boxes, supported on the broad backs of the 
 men by a band going around their foreheads, were 
 carried over the portage to the calm water beyond. 
 
 The light-hearted Frenchmen beguiled their labour 
 by boat songs having a rattling chorus like that which 
 heads this chapter, in which all joined. The favourite 
 song was that of the king's sou who went a-hunting 
 with his silver gun, with its strange reiteration and 
 stirring chorus, which made every rower spring to 
 his oar with renewed vivacity and vigour. 
 
 The following will be a sufficient specimen of this 
 national boat song of French Canada : 
 
 "Derrikre chez nous y-a-t-un titang, 
 Eu roulant ma boule.
 
 26 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 Trois beaux canards s'en vont baignant, 
 
 Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant, 
 En roulant ma boule roulant, 
 
 En roulant ma boule. 
 Trois beaux canards s'en vont baignant, 
 
 En roulant ma boule. 
 Le fils du roi s'en va chassant, 
 
 Rouli, etc. 
 
 Le fils du roi s'en va chassant, 
 
 En roulant ma boule, 
 Avec son grand fusil d'argent, 
 
 Rouli, etc. 
 Avec son grand fusil d'argent, 
 
 En roulant ma boule. 
 Visa le noir, tua le blanc, 
 
 Rouli, etc. 
 Visa le noir, tua le blunc, 
 
 En roulant ma boule. 
 O fils du roi, tu es me'chant, 
 
 Rouli, etc." 
 
 So it goes on for thirteen verses, but of its simple 
 melody the voyageurs never tire. Baptiste led the 
 refrain, with infinite gusto, in a rich tenor voice, and 
 the whole company, English and French, joined in 
 the chorus, waking the echoes of the forest aisles and 
 feathery crags as they passed. On all our Canadian 
 streams, from the grand and gloomy Saguenay to the 
 far Saskatchewan, this song has been chanted for over 
 two hundred years. It is, therefore, as a relic of a 
 phase of national life fast passing away, not unworthy 
 of a place in this chronicle.
 
 JEAN BAPTISTE, THE LIGHT-HEARTED 
 FRENCHMAN.
 
 AMONG THE PINES.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE LUMBER CAMP. 
 
 " A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the 
 thick trees." Psalm Ixxiv. o. 
 
 " How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke 1 " 
 
 GRAY'S Elegy. 
 
 AT length the little flotilla reached the Mattawa 
 river. A heavy boom of floating logs chained 
 together was moored across its mouth to intercept 
 timber coming down its stream. An opening was 
 made in this, and, proceeding a short distance, the 
 brigade reached at last its destination. A camp had 
 occupied the ground the previous season, and the 
 buildings were still standing, although one had been 
 partially unroofed by a summer storm. 
 
 The camp consisted of three buildings forming three 
 sides of a hollow square, the fourth side being open, 
 with a warm sunny southern exposure, toward the river. 
 To the right was a strongly-built storehouse for keep- 
 ing the flour, pork, tea, sugar, and other supplies required 
 for a hundred men for half a year. To the left were 
 the stables for the ten or twelve teams which were 
 daily expected to arrive by a trail along the river side 
 through the forest. 
 
 The third side of the square was occupied by "the
 
 30 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 shanty " or boarding-house for the men. Instead of 
 being, as its name might imply, a frail structure, it 
 was a large, strongly-built log-house. The openings 
 between the logs were filled with moss and clay. The 
 windows were very few and small. For this there 
 were three reasons larger openings would weaken the 
 structure of the house, and let in more cold, and 
 glass was a rather scarce commodity on the Mattawa. 
 
 The whole interior was one large room. The most 
 conspicuous object was a huge log fireplace or plat- 
 form, like an ancient altar, in the centre of the floor. 
 It was covered with earth and blackened embers, and 
 was surrounded by a protecting border of cobble stones. 
 Immediately over it an opening in the roof gave vent 
 to the smoke, although in dull weather much of it 
 lingered among the rafters, which fact gave them a 
 rather sombre appearance. Around the wall were rude 
 " bunks " or berths like those in a ship, for the ac- 
 commodation of the shantymen. A few exceedingly 
 solid-looking benches, tables, and shelves, made with 
 backwoodsman skill with no other instrument than 
 an axe and auger, was all the furniture visible. Some 
 wooden pegs were driven in the wall to support the 
 guns, powder-horns, shot-pouches, and extra clothing 
 of the men. Over the doorway was fastened a large 
 deer's head with branching antlers. The house was 
 warm and comfortable, but with nothing like privacy 
 for the men. 
 
 The other buildings were similarly constructed and 
 roofed with logs split and partially hollowed out. 
 During the fine weather the cooking was done at a 
 camp-fire in the courtyard, but in winter at the huge 
 hearth in the shanty. A large log hollowed into a 
 trough caught rain water, while for culinary purposes 
 a spring near at hand sufficed. 
 
 On the walls of the stable were stretched out, dried 
 by the sun, stained by the weather and torn by the 
 wind, the skins of several polecats, weasels, and other
 
 THE LUMBER CAMP. 31 
 
 vermin, evidence of the prowess of the stable boys and 
 a warning of the fate which awaited all similar 
 depredators -just as the Danish pirates, when cap- 
 tured by the Saxons, were flayed and their skins nailed 
 to the church doors, as a symbol of the stern justice 
 meted out in the days of the Heptarchy. 
 
 A couple of hardy Scotch squatters had cleared a 
 patch of ground near the camp, and raised a crop of 
 oats, and cured a quantity of wild meadow hay, for 
 which they got a good price from the lumber company. 
 
 The deserted camp was soon in a bustle of activity, 
 and the abandoned buildings were promptly re- 
 occupied. The stores were safely housed and pad- 
 locked. Each man stowed away his " kit " under his 
 berth or on a shelf or peg above it. Axes were 
 sharpened on a large grindstone, and when necessary 
 fitted with new helves, and every one was prepared for 
 a winter campaign against the serried array of forest 
 veterans. Such are the general arrangements adopted 
 for carrying out the great national industry of Canada 
 an industry in which more capital is employed than 
 in any other branch of business, and from which a 
 greater annual revenue is derived. 
 
 The day after the arrival of the lumber crew at the 
 camp, Lawrence was told off with a " gang " of men 
 to proceed a short distance up the stream and begin 
 the work of felling trees. The air was cool and 
 bracing, and fragrant with pine balm. The stately 
 trunks rose like a pillared colonnade, " each fit to be 
 the mast of some high admiral." The pine needles 
 made an elastic carpet under foot, and the bright 
 sunlight streamed down through the openings of the 
 forest, flecking the ground with patches of gold. 
 
 Soon the assigned limit was reached, and the 
 stalwart axe-men each selected his antagonist in this 
 life-and-death duel with the ancient monarchs of the 
 forest. The scanty brushwood was cleared. The axes 
 gleamed brightly in the air The measured strokes
 
 32 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 fell thick and fast, awaking strange echoes in the 
 dim and distant forest aisles. The white chips flew 
 through the air, and ghastly wounds gaped in the 
 trunks of the ancient pines. Now a venerable forest 
 chief shivered through all his branches, swayed foi 
 a moment in incertitude, like blind Ajax fighting with 
 his unseen foe, then, with a shuddering groan, tot- 
 tered and reeled, crashing down, shaking the earth 
 and air in his fall. As he lay there, a prostrate giant 
 that had wrestled with the storms of a hundred 
 winters, felled by the hand of man in a single hour, 
 the act seemed like murder. As Lawrence stood with 
 his foot on the fallen trunk of his first tree, but a 
 moment before standing grand and majestic and lordly 
 as a king's son, like Saul among the prophets, he 
 seemed guilty of sacrilege of slaying the Lord's 
 anointed. He followed in fancy its fate : 
 
 *' Mid shouts and cheers 
 The jaded steers, 
 Panting beneath the goad, 
 Drag down the weary winding road 
 Those captive kings so straight and tall, 
 To be shorn of their streaming hair, 
 And, naked and bare, 
 To feel the stress and the strain 
 Of the wind and the reeling main, 
 Whose roar 
 
 Would remind them for evermore 
 Of their native forests they should not see again." 
 
 But after a time his conscience became seared and 
 callous to this tree murder, and as he swung his 
 glittering axe through the air and it bit deep into the 
 very heart of some grand old pine, stoical beneath his 
 blows as a forest sachem under the knife of his enemy, 
 a stern joy filled his soul, as he felt that he with that 
 tiny weapon was more than a match for the towering 
 son of Anak. It realized the fairy tales of his boy- 
 hood, and he played the role of Jack the Giant-killer 
 over again.
 
 LOADING UP THE LOGS
 
 HAULING LOGS ON THE ICE.
 
 THE LUMBER CAMP. 33 
 
 The fallen trees were cut into logs of suitable 
 length by huge saws worked by a couple of brawny 
 sawyers. When the snow fell, these were drawn to 
 the river side by sturdy teams of oxen. The logs 
 were loaded on the sleds by being rolled up an 
 inclined plane formed by a pair of "skids." A 
 stout chain was attached to the sled and passed around 
 the log, and a pair of oxen tugged at the other end of 
 the chain till the unwieldy mass, sometimes weigh- 
 ing nearly a ton, was hauled on to the sled. Thi 
 heavy work, as may be supposed, is not without 
 danger ; and sometimes serious accidents occur, when 
 only the rude surgery of the foreman or " boss " is 
 available. 
 
 But although Lawrence, like a strong-limbed warrior, 
 thus " drank the joy of battle with his peers," he often 
 also felt the warrior's fatigue, and sometimes the 
 warrior's peril and wounds. One day a tree in falling 
 struck the projecting branch of another and dashed it 
 to the ground in dangerous proximity to his person, 
 and a portion of it, rebounding, gave him a severe 
 blow on the leg. And at night as he laid his weary 
 limbs and aching joints upon the fragrant hemlock 
 boughs of his berth, his hot and blistered hands often 
 kept him awake, and he contrasted, not without a 
 pang, the quiet and neatness of his little attic chamber 
 beneath his mother's roof with the uncongenial sur- 
 roundings by which he was environed. The frugal yet 
 clean and appetizing fare of his mother's table, with 
 its snowy cloth and dainty dishes, and, above all, her 
 saintly presence beaming with a sacred influence like 
 the seraphic smile of Murillo's Madonna, were remem- 
 bered with a longing akin to that of the Israelites in 
 the desert for the fleshpots of Egypt, as he partook of 
 his mess of pork and beans or Irish stew, and drank 
 out of his tin pannikin his strong green tea, un- 
 flavoured with milk. Hunger, however, gave a zest to 
 his appetite, and the monotonous fare of the camp was 
 
 3
 
 34 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 sometimes varied by the killing of a deer or the 
 snaring of a covey of partridges. 
 
 Lawrence was not without spiritual contests also as 
 well as conflicts with the giants of the forest, and the 
 former were the more desperate and deadly of the two. 
 To live a godly life amid all these godless men for 
 so far as he knew none of them had any personal 
 experience of religion was no slight task. To confess 
 Christ humbly and modestly, yet boldly and firmly, 
 amid his unfavourable surroundings taxed his Christian 
 resolution. 
 
 It was not long before he had an opportunity of 
 bearing the reproach of Christ. To a lad of his retir- 
 ing and sensitive disposition it was quite an ordeal to 
 observe his religious devotions at night and morning 
 amid the smoking and foolish, and often profane, 
 talking and jesting of nearly a hundred rude and 
 boisterous men. On the journey up the river he had 
 sought the solitude of the forest for his devotions. 
 He could still have done so in the camp, but he 
 thought that it would be an act of moral cowardice to 
 conceal his habit of prayer. He therefore from the 
 very first night read a chapter in his father's Bible, 
 and knelt quietly beside his " bunk " to pray to his 
 Father in heaven. This act had a salutary effect on 
 those near him. Most of them either ceased their 
 conversation or subdued their voices to a lower key. 
 Those who would do neither moved away, as if re- 
 proached by his act. Indeed, some of the Roman 
 Catholic lumbermen began to imitate his conduct, a 
 few openly, and others turning to the wall and fur- 
 tively crossing themselves before they retired to rest. 
 The quiet dignity without haughty reserve, and the 
 uniform politeness and kindness of the young man, had 
 won the respect or good nature of most of the motley 
 forest community. 
 
 One night a rough Irish teamster, Dennis O'Neal by 
 name, came into the shanty in a decidedly ill humour.
 
 THE LUMBER CAMP. 35 
 
 He had been breaking in a yoke of young steers that 
 the foreman had bought from the Scotch squatter an 
 employment not calculated to mollify a temper some- 
 what irascible at the best of times. He grumbled 
 over his supper and quarrelled with the cook. As he 
 caught sight of Lawrence kneeling at his bedside, he 
 seemed to consider him a fitting object on which to 
 vent his ill-humour. Picking up a musk rat which 
 one of the Indians had killed and was going to cook 
 for his private gratification, O'Neal hurled it at the 
 head of Lawrence with the objurgation, 
 
 " Get up, ye spalpeen. What for are ye makin' 
 yerself so much betther than the rest av us ? It's 
 some runaway 'prentice ye are, for all yer foine manners, 
 bad luck to ye ! " 
 
 Though struck fairly on the side of the face by the 
 noisome missile, Lawrence made no reply, but bowed 
 his head still lower and lifted up his heart more fer- 
 vently to God. 
 
 " D'ye hear me, ye concated gossoon ? " cried O'Neal 
 in a rage ; and he was about to hurl his heavy boot at 
 the boy. 
 
 " Let be le gargon," exclaimed Baptiste la Tour, who 
 had taken a fancy to Lawrence, arresting the hand of 
 the irate O'Neal. " What for you no pray votre self? 
 Sure you much need." 
 
 "Why don't he pray right then?" said O'Neal, 
 adopting the usual plea for persecution a difference 
 of religious creed. " Where's his ' Hail, Mary ' ? " 
 
 " Indian pray to Grand Manitou," replied the philo- 
 sophical Frenchman, who seems to have been tinc- 
 tured with a rationalistic spirit ; " Catholique pray to 
 Sainte Marie; Protestant pray to Marie's Son: all 
 good. Let be le garcon." 
 
 "That's so," "Let the boy alone," "Go to bed, 
 Dennis," echoed several of the shantymenj and seeing 
 that his treatment of Lawrence was unpopular, O'Neal 
 slunk off growling to his bunk.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A SABBATH IN THE CAMP. 
 
 " O day most calm, most bright, 
 The fruit of this, the next world's bud, 
 The endorsement of supreme delight, 
 Writ by a Friend and with .His blood ; 
 The couch of time, care's balm and bny : 
 The week were dark, but for thy light : 
 
 Thy torch doth show the way." 
 
 GEOBGE HERBERT. 
 
 BY general consent Lawrence suffered no more overt 
 persecution for his practice of prayer. He was, 
 however, made the object of many little annoyances by 
 O'Neal, who cherished a petty spite towards him, and 
 by others who felt reproved by his quiet yet open 
 confession of Christ, and who resented his superiority 
 of manner and character. For instance, he sometimes 
 found salt furtively introduced into his tea, instead of 
 sugar, or a handful of beechnuts placed in his bed, 
 their sharp angles not being promotive of sound slum- 
 ber. Sometimes, too, his axe would mysteriously be 
 blunted or mislaid, and other articles would disappear 
 for a time or, indeed, altogether. As he exhibited no 
 spirit of resentment, however, much less of retaliation, 
 as seemed to be expected, and was always cheerful and 
 obliging, these one-sided jokes, at which nobod} r 
 laughed, lost their charm to their perpetrators, and 
 were discontinued. It takes two to make a quarrel,
 
 A SABBATH IN THE CAMP. 37 
 
 and there was no use in annoying a man who never 
 seemed to be annoyed. 
 
 Lawrence found opportunities also of disarming 
 prejudice and winning favour by his helpful and cordial 
 disposition. One day O'Neal was in real difficulty 
 and some peril from his steers, which under his domi- 
 neering mode of management had proved refractory, 
 and had severely crushed their driver between the 
 clumsy cart, in which he was hauling hay from the 
 meadow stacks to the barn, and a huge stump which 
 stood in the rough bush road. Lawrence ran to his 
 assistance. With a few kind words he pacified the 
 enraged animals, and extricated Dennis from his 
 danger. As he was a good deal bruised, Lawrence 
 hastily threw off' most of the load, helped the injured 
 man into the cart, and drove him slowly to the shanty, 
 and, with the assistance of Baptiste, carried him to his 
 bunk. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, a day which often seemed 
 the most tedious of the week in the camp. Lawrence 
 sorely missed the Sabbath services to which he had 
 been accustomed, and was greatly distressed at the 
 desecration of the holy day, of which he was the 
 involuntary witness. Many of the men lay in their 
 berths or bunks, or lounged about the shanty, unkempt 
 and half-dressed, a good part of the day. Some wan- 
 dered in the woods with dog and gun. Others fished, 
 bathed, or paddled in the river in their bark canoes. 
 In the evening most of them talked, smoked, played 
 cards, or mended their clothes in the shanty. Lawrence 
 was wont to retire to the woods with his Bible and 
 hymn-book, and hold a Sabbath service by himself in 
 the leafy temple of Nature. In the evening he used 
 to seek a quiet corner, not only on Sunday but on 
 week-nights when not too tired, and slowly and with 
 much difficulty he spelt his way through the Gospel 
 of St. John in his father's Greek Testament. 
 
 On this Sunday, however, instead of going out he
 
 38 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 remained in the shanty and prepared some toast and 
 tea for O'Neal, who, unable to rise, lay tossing and 
 moaning impatiently in his rude bed. 
 
 " It's very kind av ye, shure," said the sick man, 
 "afther the ways I've trated ye, it is." 
 
 " 0, never mind that ! " said Lawrence. " You won't 
 do it again, I'm sure." 
 
 " Troth an' I won't. True for ye, boy ! It's ashamed 
 av meself ye make me, entirely." 
 
 " Would you like me to read to you a bit ? " asked 
 Lawrence. 
 
 " 'Deed ye may if ye loike. I'm no great hand at 
 the readin', but I'll listen as quiet as a dumb cratur, 
 if it plazes ye." 
 
 G-ladly accepting this not very gracious permission, 
 Lawrence brought his Bible, and after thinking what 
 would be least likely to offend the prejudices of the 
 rather choleric patient, he read the beautiful hymn of 
 the Virgin, " My soul doth magnify the Lord." He 
 then read the story of the marriage at Cana of Galilee, 
 with its account of the reverence paid by Mary to her 
 Divine Son. 
 
 " Is that the Blessed Vargin ye're readin' about ? " 
 asked O'Neal with some interest. 
 
 " Yes," said Lawrence. 
 
 " Shure, she was the good woman," replied his 
 patient in a sort of expostulatory tone. 
 
 " Certainly," continued the reader, " the ' blessed 
 among women ' the Bible calls her." 
 
 " Does it now ? the Protestant Bible?" asked Dennis 
 with eagerness. "An' is that it ye're readin' ? Shure 
 they tould me it was a bad book. Read me some 
 more av it, if ye plaze." 
 
 Lawrence read him the touching story of Calvary, 
 and then repeated the beautiful Stabat Mater, that 
 hymn of ages with its sweet refrain, 
 
 " Mary stood the cross beside."
 
 A SABBATII IN THE CAMP. 89 
 
 Strange that that hymn of the Umbrian monk 
 should be repeated six hundred years after his death 
 in a lumber shanty in the backwoods of Canada. 
 
 Lawrence then repeated Wesley's beautiful hymn : 
 
 " Come, ye weary sinners, come, 
 
 All who groan beneath your load, 
 Jesus calls His wanderers home, 
 
 Hasten to your pardoning God. 
 Come, ye guilty spirits, oppressed. 
 
 Answer to the Saviour's call : 
 * Come, and 1 will give you rest : 
 
 Come, and I will save you all.' * 
 
 As he recited slowly and with much feeling the 
 last verse : 
 
 u Burdened with a world of grief, 
 
 Burdened with our sinful load, 
 Burdened with this unbelief, 
 
 Burdened with the wrath of God } 
 Lo ! we come to Thee for ease, 
 
 True and gracious as Thou art ; 
 Now our groaning soul release, 
 
 Write forgiveness on our heart," 
 
 a tear trickled down the bronzed face of the sick man, 
 the first that he had shed for years, and his features 
 twitched convulsively as he said, 
 
 " True for ye. Burdened enough I've been, and far 
 enough I've wandered. If the Blessed Vargin 'ud 
 only look on a poor wretch, p'r'aps I might repint 
 afther all." 
 
 Gently and lovingly Lawrence urged him to look 
 from the Virgin to her Divine Son for the forgiveness 
 of sins and spiritual succour that He alone can impart. 
 
 As he was about to leave the sick man, he laid his 
 hand on his fevered brow and asked him kindly if he 
 felt better. 
 
 " It's powerful wake I am," said the grateful fellow, 
 " but, thanks to yer kindness, I'm cruel aisy." 
 
 Taking this rather contradictory statement as it 
 was meant, Lawrence retired to his secret oratory in
 
 40 
 
 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 the woods to thank God that he had been enabled to 
 overcome evil with good. As he walked in the dim 
 forest aisles in the flush of the departing day, he felt 
 that in the rude lumber shanty he had been able to 
 serve God no less acceptably than if he had worshipped 
 beneath cathedral dome. In seeking to do good unto 
 others his own soul had Lcuu benefited and blessed.
 
 BACKWOODS CANADIAN SAWMILL.
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 THE OXFOKD SCHOLAR. 
 
 ** A Clerke ther was of Oxenf orde also, 
 That unto logike hadde long ygo, 
 As lene was his hors as is a rake, 
 And he was not right fat I undertake ; 
 But looked holwe, and thereto soberly. 
 Ful thredbare was his overest courtepy, 
 But all be that he was a philosophre, 
 Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre." 
 
 CHAUCER Canterbury Tales. 
 
 evening Lawrence sat reading his Greek 
 -L Testament by the light of a tallow dip fixed in 
 a tin sconce on the wall so as better to illumine the 
 room. Except to those in its immediate proximity it 
 seemed indeed 
 
 " No light, but rather darkness visible." 
 
 Laying down his book for a moment, he rose to give 
 a drink of water to his friend for such he now was 
 Dennis O'Neal. 
 
 When he returned he found that one of a group of 
 men who had been shuffling a pack of greasy cards 
 was looking over his book. He was a tall, dark, 
 morose, sinister-looking man, with iron-grey hair and
 
 42 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 an unkempt grisly beard, and was smoking a short 
 black pipe. 
 
 " Do you tell me you can read that ? " he asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 " Not much, I am sorry to say," replied Lawrence, 
 reaching for his book, for he began to fear that he was 
 about to be made the victim of another stupid 
 "practical joke," which is generally only as much of 
 a joke to its victim as stoning was to the poor frogs 
 in the fable. 
 
 Matt Evans, for by that name the man was known, 
 returned the book, and soon, throwing down his cards, 
 carne and sat down on the edge of the bunk beside 
 Lawrence. 
 
 " Where did you get that book ? " he asked. 
 
 " It was my father's," said Lawrence, feeling a 
 little anxious about his treasure. " It was almost his 
 last gift." 
 
 " Was he a clergyman ? " asked Evans. 
 
 " He was a Methodist minister," was the reply. 
 
 " A Methodist minister ! Do they read Greek ? " 
 exclaimed Evans in a tone of surpiise. " I thought 
 they were a set of illiterate nomads, prowling around 
 the country." 
 
 " Many of them do," said Lawrence, with quiet 
 dignity, "and some of them read Hebrew also. My 
 father taught himself." 
 
 " It's many a year since I read any. Let's see if I 
 have forgotten it all," said Evans. 
 
 " Where did you learn it ? " asked Lawrence, hand- 
 ing him the Testament. 
 
 " Where they know how to teach it, my boy at 
 Oxford. I don't look like it, I suppose, but I once 
 studied at old Brasenose. One of my class-mates 
 became a bishop and sits in his lawn in the House of 
 Lords, and another of them is a lord of the Admiralty 
 and lives in Belgravia. Curse him ! When I asked 
 him to give me a berth in the dockyard, he had the
 
 THE OXFORD SCHOLAR. 43 
 
 impertinence to tell me that his duty to his country 
 wouldn't allow him, and he turned me off with a 
 guinea, the beggarly fellow, he did." 
 
 Lawrence said nothing, but he thought that very 
 probably the Admiralty lord had good reasons for his 
 conduct, and that he had been very generous as well. 
 
 " The more fool I. I've nobody to blame but my- 
 self for being here," went on the remorseful man. 
 " But drink and dice and bad company would drag a 
 bishop down to a beast to say nothing of a reckless 
 wretch like me. I have a brother who owns as fine an 
 estate as any in Dorset. ! he's a highly respect- 
 able man" this was uttered with a bitter ironical 
 emphasis " only drinks the very best port and sherry, 
 while I had to put up with London gin or vile whisky. 
 I couldn't abide his everlasting homilies, so I took ship 
 to Quebec, and shook off the dust of my feet against 
 them." 
 
 " Do your friends know you are in this country ? " 
 asked Lawrence, not seeing the relevancy of the quota- 
 tion with which this speech closed. 
 
 " No, indeed, and I'll take good care that they shan't. 
 They think I am dead. Best so ; and I am dead to 
 them. No one would recognise in the seedy Matt 
 Evans the fashionable man-about-town who used to 
 lounge in the windows of the Pall Mall Club." 
 
 " Is that not your name ? " asked, a little timidly, 
 the innocent boy, who had slight knowledge of the 
 wickedness and woe of the great world, and who 
 looked with an infinite pity on this man so highly 
 favoured with fortune and culture, almost as a sinless 
 soul might look upon a ruined archangel, mighty 
 though fallen. 
 
 " No, my boy, no one shall know that ; my secret 
 shall die with me. But I rather like you. You are 
 different from this herd around me here. Can I help 
 you any in your Greek ? I find I haven't forgotten 
 it all yet." '
 
 44 TUE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 Lawrence wondered to hear him speak thus of the 
 men with whom he associated in all their coarse 
 pleasures, and who, at least, had not fallen from the 
 same height as he had ; but, hoping to interest him in 
 some intellectual employment that might recall his 
 better days, he said, 
 
 " I can't find the root of rj\dov" 
 
 " ! that's irregular. Look for ep%o^at. That 
 used to be quite a catch, that. Lots of these things in 
 Greek. Did you ever hear of the bishop who devoted 
 his whole life to verbs in /JLI, and on his death- bed 
 wished he had confined himself exclusively to the 
 middle voice ? Our old don at Brasenose wrote a big 
 book on only the dative case. Those accents, too, are 
 perplexing till you get the hang of them. If I had 
 spent as much time learning English and common 
 sense, as I have over the accents and Greek mythology, 
 I should have been a wiser and a better man." 
 
 From this time he took quite an interest in Lawrence, 
 and gave him a good deal of help in his difficulties 
 with his Greek text. It was the first practical use, 
 said this Oxford scholar, of which his Greek had ever 
 been to him.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WAYSIDE SOWING. 
 
 * Sow in the morn thy seed, 
 
 At eve hold not thy hand , 
 To doubt and fear give thou no heed, 
 Broad-cast it o'er the land. 
 
 Beside all waters sow ; 
 
 The highway furrows stock ; 
 Drop it where thorns and thist es g ~ow ', 
 
 Scatter it on the rock. 
 
 Thou know'st not which may thrive, 
 
 The late or early sown ; 
 Grace keeps the precious germs- alive, 
 
 When and wherever strewn. 
 
 Thou canst not toil in vain : 
 
 Cold, heat, and moist, and dry, 
 Shall foster and mature the grain 
 
 For garners in the sky." 
 
 JAMES MONTGOMERY. 
 
 " CAY, Lawrence, have ye any other name ? " asked 
 
 O Dennis one day as he lay in his berth. 
 
 " Of course I have," said Lawrence. " Why do you 
 ask?" 
 
 " Because I niver beared ye called anythin' else." 
 The shanty men do not often bestow on each other 
 more than one appellation. 
 
 tl What is it, any way ? " he continued.
 
 46 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 " Temple," was the reply. 
 
 " Timple ! Tiinple Lawrence. Well, that's a quare 
 name, now." 
 
 " No, Lawrence Temple," said his friend, smiling' 
 at the national propensity to put the cart before the 
 horse. 
 
 " ! I thought Lawrence was the other name. 
 And what for did they call you such an outlandish 
 name as that?" 
 
 " I was born on the shores of the St. Lawrence. So 
 they called me after the grand old river, and after a 
 good old saint." 
 
 " Are ye named after a saint, and ye a Protestant ? 
 Well, now, isn't that quare ? An' how did ye get 
 your other name ? " 
 
 " My father's name was Temple. How else would I 
 get it ? " 
 
 " Av course, I didn't think o' that," said the slow- 
 witted Dennis. After a pause he went on. " Did ye 
 iver know a praicher o' the name o' Timple? " 
 
 " My father was a preacher," said Lawrence, won- 
 dering if here was another link with that father's 
 memory. 
 
 " Where did yer father praich ? " asked Dennis. 
 
 " ! he preached all over from the Ottawa to 
 the Bay of Quinte," was the rather indefinite reply. 
 
 " Did he now ? " exclaimed Dennis, in open-mouthed 
 amazement. " Why, he must have been a bishop, or 
 a canon, or some big gun or other in the Church. 
 Wasn't he ? " 
 
 "No," said Lawrence, "he was a plain Methodist 
 minister," 
 
 " Why, the man I know'd was a Methodist too," 
 continued the somewhat bewildered Irishman. "An' 
 he used to praich at the Locks, near Kingston, ye know. 
 There wuz a lot of men workin' at the canal tin- 
 Eideau canal, d'ye mind? And this praicher used 
 to come there ivery two weeks. An' I worked wid
 
 WAYSIDE SOWING 47 
 
 Squire Holton, an Englishman. Och, an' the good 
 farmer he wuz ! Ou'y to see the prathies and the oats 
 he raised. An' this praicher allus corned to his house, 
 d'ye mind ? An' I used to take care av his horse, for 
 he allus rode on horseback, exceptin' when he walked ; 
 an' then he didn't, av coorse. An' he was the dacint 
 gintleman, if he wor a Protestant. Au' I mind he 
 allus corned to the stable, no matter how cowld or 
 wet he wuz an' sometimes he wuz powerful wet, 
 ridin' through the bad roads, an' the roads wuz bad, 
 shure enough, in the spring and fall. 
 
 "Well, as I wuz sayin', he allus corned to the 
 stable to see his horse rubbed down and fed an' it's 
 himself knew how to curry a horse be-yutiful, for all he 
 wuz a rale gintleman. * The marciful man is marciful 
 to his baste, Dennis,' he'd say. An' though he niver 
 gave me saxpince to drink his honour's health, though 
 it's meself often gave him the hint that it wouldn't 
 come amiss, yet many's the time he gave what's 
 betther : he gave me hapes o' good advice. 'Deed if 
 I had followed it I'd be a betther man the day. An' 
 one day, he says, says he, in his pleasant way, ye mind, 
 ' Dinnis,' says he, ' my health's all right, an' the 
 best dhrink for yere health is jist cowld wather.' It 
 was his little joke, ye know. 
 
 "But I thought I'd be even wid him, an' I up and 
 towld him what Father O'Brady, the praste, said to 
 the tavern-kaper, that ' I just tuk a wee drap for my 
 stomach sake, like Timothy,' ye mind. But didn't he 
 get the joke on me? 'Yere name's not Timothy,' 
 says he, 'an' there's nuthm' the matther wid yere 
 stomach, by the way ye made the prathies disappear 
 at dinner.' An' well he knew, for he sat right 
 forniust me at the table, ye see. More by token it 
 'ud be a long time in the ould coonthry afore I'd sit 
 down at the table wid a parson all in black only he 
 wasn't in black but in butternut, but he had the 
 white choker any way : an' a rale clergyman he was,
 
 18 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 too, as much as Father 0' Brady or any o' thira, if he 
 wuz a Protestant. 
 
 " When I was a poor dhrunken body, an' no man 
 cared for my sowl, he talked to me like a father, he 
 did, though he worn't as ould as meself. An' he tuk 
 me one day into the hay mow 'twas jist as he was 
 laving the sarcuit, as they called it an' he made me 
 knale down wid him on a truss o' hay. An' he knaled 
 down beside me, an' he prayed for me for me that 
 niver prayed for meself, an' he cried over me, an' he 
 made me promise to quit the dhrink. An' I did for a 
 whole year, I did. Ohone I I wisht I had quit it for 
 ever ! I think I see him yet, wid the tears a-rinnin' 
 down his cheeks, and him a-talkin' to the Almighty 
 as if he saw Him face to face. Blessed Vargin ! it's 
 himself I see forninst me I " 
 
 The illusion was not unnatural, for Lawrence was 
 very like his father. He had let Dennis run on in his 
 garrulous way, knowing by experience that to inter- 
 rupt him or to try to bring him to the point was like 
 trying to guide an Irish pig to market by a cord 
 fastened to its leg, only to make its wanderings still 
 more erratic. He had listened with deep interest, and 
 his sympathies were so aroused by the progress of the 
 story that the tears stood in his eyes. 
 
 " It was my own dear father, Dennis," he said 
 solemnly. 
 
 " Yere fayther ! " exclaimed Dennis, the conviction 
 of the fact bursting upon his mind like a flash. " An' 
 so it was, blessin's on him, an' on ye too. I might 
 have know'd it, ef it worn't for my born stupidity. 
 Shure the saints haven't forgot me intirely to give me 
 two such friends. They've got their hooks into me 
 shure. An' to think that I trated the son of his river- 
 ence, Parson Timple, as I trated ye I I'm shure the 
 divil must have his hooks into me, too, an a'tween 'em 
 both I don't know which way they'll drag me, to 
 heaven or hell. wretched man that I am who
 
 WAYSIDE SOWING. 49 
 
 shall save me from meself ? " And he threw himself 
 in a paroxysm of impassioned grief on his bed, uncon- 
 scious that he had echoed the cry of the great Apostle 
 of the Gentiles, which has been the cry of awakened 
 sonls, struggling with their heart of unbelief, through 
 the ages, and shall be to the end of time. 
 
 Lawrence kindly pointed him to the only Refuge of 
 sinners, trusting in Whom the Apostle Paul was able 
 to change his cry of anguish into the doxology of joy, 
 " I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
 
 A few days after, Dennis said to his friend, 
 
 " What wuz the name of that Saint ye wor called 
 afther, Mr. Lawrence, dear ? " 
 
 " Why, Saint Lawrence, of course, who else should 
 it be ? " was the reply. 
 
 " Wuz it now ? But av coorse it wuz, if I had only 
 thought. Wuz he an Irish Saint, now? " 
 
 " No, he was a Roman. You never heard his story, 
 I suppose?" 
 
 " No, nor his name, nayther." 
 
 " W T ell, he was one of the seven archdeacons of the 
 Church at Rome when it was a pagan city, sixteen 
 hundred years ago. The Christians were bitterly per- 
 secuted by a heathen Emperor whose name was 
 Valerian. And Lawrence, who had charge of the pro- 
 perty of the Church, its silver vessels and the like, 
 thought it no harm to sell them to feed the poor 
 starving, persecuted Christians." 
 
 " Nayther it was, I'm shure I " interjected 
 Dennis. 
 
 " One day," continued the narrator of the ancient 
 legend, " the Emperor sent a.soldier to Lawrence to 
 command him to give up the treasures of the Church. 
 And he took the soldier to a room where were a lot of 
 the old and sick and poor people whom he had 
 rescued, and he said, ' These are the treasures of the 
 Church.' And the soldier wouldn't believe but that 
 he had gold hidden somewhere, and dragged him 
 
 4
 
 50 THE KIX&S MESSENGER. 
 
 before the Emperor, and he was cruelly scourged, and, 
 they say, broiled to death upon a gridiron." 
 
 " Och ! murther, now, wasn't that the cruel thing, 
 to do ? " exclaimed the sympathetic listener ; " and 
 was he a Catholic ? " 
 
 " He was a Catholic, as all good Christians are 
 Catholics," said the namesake of the Saint, who would 
 not relinquish to any section of the Church that grand 
 old title of the Church Universal. 
 
 " But ye said he was a Roman," exclaimed Dennis, 
 triumphantly, "so he must have been a Roman 
 Catholic, and that is the best sort I'm thinkin'. 
 Shure ye read me yerself the other night Saint Paul's 
 'pistle to Romans. Did he iver write one to the 
 Methodists, now ? " 
 
 Lawrence was compelled to admit that he had not ; 
 but he explained that the Methodist Church had only 
 been in existence for about a hundred years. 
 
 " And how long since Paul wrote his 'pistle to the 
 Romans ? " asked Dennis eagerly, full of controversial 
 zeal for the honour of his Church. 
 
 " Nearly eighteen hundred years," replied Lawrence. 
 
 "An' is the Catholic Church seventeen hundred 
 years oulder than the Methodis' ? Well, I'm thinkin' 
 I'll jist wait till yours catches up to mine afore I'll 
 jine it." 
 
 Lawrence, more anxious to have the man become a 
 Christian than to have him become a Methodist, 
 waived further argument, knowing that the breath of 
 controversy often withers the tender flowers of religious 
 feeling in the soul.
 
 LOGGING IN THE LUMBER CAMP.
 
 THE BURDEN BEARER. 
 
 INDIANS FISHING THROUGH THE ICE.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE LUMBER CAMP IN WINTEB 
 
 " All night the snow came down, all night, 
 Silent and soft and silvery white ; 
 Gently robing in spotless folds 
 Town and tower and treeless wolds ; 
 On homes of the living, and graves of the de 1 1. 
 Where each sleeper lies in his narrow bed ; 
 On the city's roofs, on the marts of trade, 
 On rustic hamlet and forest glade. 
 
 When the morn arose, all bright and fair, 
 A wondrous vision gleamed through the air ; 
 The world, transfigured and glorified, 
 Shone like the blessed and holy Bride 
 The fair new earth, made free from sin, 
 All pure without and pure within, 
 Arrayed in robes of spotless white 
 For the Heavenly Bridegroom in glory dight." 
 
 WlTHBOW. 
 
 THAT beautiful season, the Canadian autumn, 
 passed rapidly by. The air was warm and 
 sunny and exhilarating by day, though cool by night. 
 The fringe of hardwood trees along the river's bank, 
 touched by the early frost as if by an enchanter's 
 wand, was changed to golden and scarlet and crimson, 
 of countless shades, and, in the transmitted sunlight, 
 gleamed with hues of vivid brilliancy. The forest
 
 52 THE KINO'S MESSENGER. 
 
 looked like Joseph in his coat of many colours, or 
 like a medieval herald, the vaunt-courier of the winter, 
 with his tabard emblazoned with gules and gold. 
 
 Then the autumnal gusts careered like wild bandits 
 through the woods, and wrestled with the gorgeous- 
 foliaged trees, and despoiled them of their gold, and 
 left them stripped naked and bare to shiver in the 
 wintry blast. In their wild and prodigal glee they 
 whirled the stolen gold in lavish largess through the 
 air, and tossed it contemptuously aside to accumulate 
 in drifts in the forest aisles, and in dark eddies by the 
 river side. Then the gloomy sky lowered, and the 
 sad rains wept, and the winds, as if stricken with 
 remorse, wailed a requiem for the dead and perished 
 flowers. 
 
 But there came a short season of reprieve before 
 stern winter asserted his sway. A soft golden haze, 
 like the aureole round the head of a saint in Tinto- 
 retto's pictures, filled the air. The sun swung lower 
 and lower in the sky, and viewed the earth with a 
 pallid gleam. But the glory of the sunsets increased, 
 and the delicate intricacy of the leafless trees was 
 relieved against the glowing western sky, like a coral 
 grove bathing its branches in a crimson sea. 
 
 Clouds of wild pigeons winged their way in wheel- 
 ing squadrons through the air, at times almost darken- 
 ing the sun. The wedge-shaped fleets of wild geese 
 steered ever southward, and their strange wild clang 
 fell from the clouds by night like the voice of spirits 
 from the sky. The melancholy cry of the loons and 
 solitary divers was heard, and long whirring flights of 
 wild ducks rose from the water in the dim and misty 
 dawn to continue their journey from the lonely nor- 
 thern lakes and far-off shores of Hudson's Bay to the 
 genial southern marshes and meres, piloted by that 
 unerring Guide Who feedeth the young ravens when 
 they cry, and giveth to the beasts of the earth their 
 portion of meat in due season.
 
 THE LUMBER CAMP IN WINTER. 53 
 
 The squirrels had laid up their winter store of 
 acorns and beech nuts, and could be seen whisking 
 their bushy tails around the bare trunks of the trees. 
 The partridges drummed in the woods, and the quail 
 piped in the open glades. The profusion of feathered 
 game gave quite a flavour of luxury to the meals of 
 the shantymen, and was a temptation that few 
 resisted to spend the hours of Sunday beating the 
 woods or lurking on the shore for partridge or duck. 
 
 One morning, however, late in November, a strange 
 stillness seemed to have fallen on the camp. Not a 
 sound floated to the ear. A deep, muffled silence 
 brooded over all things. When Lawrence rose and 
 flung open the door of the shanty, the outer world 
 seemed transfigured. The whole earth was clothed 
 in robes of spotless white, " so as no fuller on earth 
 can white them," like a bride adorned for her husband. 
 Each twig and tree was wreathed with " ermine too 
 dear for an earl." The stables and sheds were roofed 
 as with marble of finest Carrara, carved into curving 
 drifts with fine sharp ridges by the delicate chiseling 
 of the wind. A spell seemed brooding over all, 
 
 " Silence, silence everywhere 
 On the earth and on the air ; " 
 
 and out of the infinite bosoui of the sky the feathery 
 silence continued to float down. 
 
 But, alas ! earth's brightest beauty fades, its fairest 
 loveliness is oftentimes defiled. Soon the trampling 
 of teamsters, and horses, and lumber men besmirched 
 and befouled the exquisite whiteness of the snow. 
 But the untrodden forest aisles, and the broad ice- 
 covered river, and the distant hills retained their 
 virgin purity all winter long. 
 
 The lumbering operations were carried on with 
 increased vigour during the winter season. War was 
 waged with redoubled zeal upon the forest veterans, 
 which, wrapping their dark secrets in their breasts,
 
 64 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 and hoary with their covering of snow, looked vener- 
 able as Angelo's marble-limbed Hebrew seers. When 
 beneath repeated blows of the axe, like giants stung 
 to death by gnats, they tottered and fell, the feathery 
 flakes flew high in air, and the hnge trunks were half 
 buried in the drifts. Then, sawn into logs or trimmed 
 into spars, they were dragged with much shouting 
 and commotion by the straining teams to the river 
 brink, or out on its frozen surface, as shown in the 
 engraving preceding Chapter IV., to be carried down by 
 the spring freshets towards their distant destination. 
 
 One night, when the snow lay deep upon the 
 ground and a biting frost made the logs of the shanty 
 crack with a report like a pistol shot, quite an 
 adventure occurred in the camp. It was long after 
 midnight, and the weary lumbermen were in their 
 deepest sleep. The fire had smouldered low upon 
 the hearth, and had become a bed of still burning 
 embers. Suddenly there was heard a tremendous 
 commotion as of scratching and clawing on the roof, 
 then a heavy thud on the hearth as from some falling 
 body. This was immediately followed by a deep 
 growl that startled out of sleep everybody not already 
 awake. A smell of singed hair filled the shanty. A 
 large black object was dimly seen in the faint light 
 rolling on the hearth, frantically scattering the red- 
 hot coals with its paws. Presently the strange object 
 rolled off the elevated hearth and ran furiously round 
 the large room, and finally attempted to climb one 
 of the bunks. The occupant of the latter, a profane 
 man, and a bully among his comrades, was at heart 
 an arrant coward as bullies always are. He thought 
 that his last hour had arrived, and that the arch- 
 enemy of mankind had come for his victim, and 
 roared lustily for help. Lawrence, whose bunk was 
 near, although the fellow had been foremost in the 
 persecution of himself, ran to his assistance. 
 
 Leaning against the wall was a cant-hook, an
 
 THE LUMBER CAMP IN WINTER. 55 
 
 instrument much used by lumbermen for rolling 
 logs. It consists of a stout wooden lever, near the 
 end of which is attached by a swivel a strong curved 
 iron bar with a hook at its extremity. Seizing this, 
 Lawrence flung it over the bear's head, for bear it was, 
 and held him pinned to the ground by means of the 
 hook. His friend O'Neal now ran up with a gun 
 which he had hastily snatched from the rack above 
 his bunk. Placing the muzzle close to the bear's 
 head, he pulled the trigger, expecting to see the animal 
 roll over on the floor. The cap snapped, but no flash 
 followed. 
 
 " Och, murther," exclaimed Dennis, " it's not 
 loaded at all, shure I Didn't I draw the charge last 
 night, not expecting a visit from a bear before morn- 
 ing?" 
 
 Here Bruin, finding the constraint of his position 
 irksome, made a violent struggle and burst away from 
 Lawrence. He went careering round the shanty among 
 the half-dressed men, upsetting benches and tables, 
 snapping and snarling all the while, vigorously be- 
 laboured by the shantymen with clubs, crowbars, and 
 sled-stakes. At last he was driven to bay in a corner. 
 A gun was brought to bear upon him. He received 
 its discharge with a growl, and was soon despatched 
 with an axe. 
 
 It was found in the morning that, attracted probably 
 by the smell of the bacon that had been cooked for 
 supper, whose savoury odours still filled the shanty, 
 he had climbed on the roof by means of a "lean-to " 
 reaching near the ground. The crust of snow near 
 the central opening breaking under his weight, he was 
 precipitated, greatly to his own consternation, as well 
 as that of the inmates of the shanty, plump into the 
 middle of the hearth. His fat carcass made, however, 
 some amends for his unwelcome intrusion, and many 
 a laugh the shantymen enjoyed over the tender bear- 
 steaks as they recounted the adventures of the night.
 
 56 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 To Lawrence, by universal assent, was awarded the 
 skin, which proved a comfortable addition to his bed, 
 as well as enabling him to fulfil the parting injunction 
 of his brother Tom. 
 
 Poor Dennis did not soon hear the last of his exploit 
 in shooting the bear with an empty gun, but he good- 
 naturedly replied, 
 
 " Shure, who expected to see a baste like that come 
 in the door through the roof without so much as l By 
 yer lave ? ' or even knockin' ? " 
 
 The pluck and coolness and daring exhibited by 
 Lawrence on this occasion found him much favour in 
 the eyes of the motley community of shantymen, as 
 physical courage always will, even with those who had 
 not appreciated the far nobler quality of his previous 
 exhibitions of moral daring. They saw that the 
 " gentleman," as they had resentfully called him, on 
 account of his quiet personal dignity, was no milksop, 
 at all events, and his boldness in the hour of confusion 
 and danger was contrasted with the craven fear of the 
 bully and pugilist of the camp. 
 
 " The Chevalier de la Tour," exclaimed Baptiste, 
 " could not have been braver." 
 
 " He was quite a Cceur-de-Lion," chimed in Matt 
 Evans. 
 
 " What's that? " asked one of the men. 
 
 " It means he haf de heart of a lion," said 
 Baptiste. 
 
 " 'E got the 'eart of the bear any'ow," remarked a 
 burly Yorkshireman, not seeing the force of the meta- 
 phor, " and uncommon good heatin' it were." 
 
 During the cold weather the men no longer wandered 
 in the woods on Sunday, but lounged around the camp, 
 some firing at a mark, others snowballing or indulg- 
 ing in rude horse play. Dennis O'Neal had com- 
 pletely abandoned his Sabbath-breaking practices, and 
 Lawrence read the Bible to him and some others whom 
 he invited to join him. A few loungingly assented and
 
 THE LUMBER CAMP IN WINTER. 57 
 
 listened indifferently for a while, and then sauntered 
 away. It might be called a Bible class, only Lawrence 
 answered all the questions, and he had the only Bible 
 in the class. Dennis laboriously endeavoured to learn 
 to read the large type advertisements of an old copy of 
 the Quebec Chronicle. He said it was harder work 
 than chopping. And so it looked, to see him crouched 
 with contracted brow and pursed-up mouth over the 
 paper, following the letters with his clumsy fingers. 
 
 One Sunday he said to Lawrence, " Couldn't ye tip 
 us a bit of a sarmint, my boy ? Ye seem a chip o' the 
 ould block, an' ye ought to have praicher's timber in 
 ye, if ye're a son o' yer fayther." 
 
 Lawrence was somewhat startled at this suggestion, 
 but he modestly disavowed any ability to teach, much 
 less preach to, his fellow-labourers. 
 
 " Here we are all livin' like a lot o' haythens, and 
 sorra a bit o' difference betune Sunday and Monday, 
 except that the men smoke and swear and play cards 
 more. Shure can't ye talk to us all, as ye talked to me, 
 out o' the Good Book, d'ye mind, that time I was 
 hurted?" 
 
 A great qualm came over Lawrence's soul at these 
 words. He promised to give an answer before night. 
 He then went out into the wintry woods to think and 
 pray over the matter. The spruces and pines stretched 
 out their snow-laden arms as if waving benedictions 
 upon him.* 
 
 " Into the blithe and breathing air, 
 
 Into the solemn wood, 
 Solemn and silent everywhere t 
 
 * See this idea beautifully expressed in Longfellow's sonnet 
 on The Benediction of the Trees. 
 
 * Not only tongues of the apostles teach 
 
 Lessons of love and light, but these expanding 
 
 And sheltering boughs with all their leaves implore, 
 And say in language clear as human speech, 
 The peace of God that passeth understanding 
 Be and abide with you for ever more.' "
 
 58 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 Nature with folded hands seemed there 
 Kneeling at her evening prayer, 
 As one in prayer he stood." 
 
 He had endeavoured conscientiously to discharge 
 every duty, and believed himself willing, as he had 
 told his mother, if God and trie Church called him, and 
 Providence opened his way, to preach the Gospel. But 
 he had thought that such a call must come in a regular 
 way through the ordinary channel through a vote of 
 the quarterly meeting putting his name on the circuit 
 plan as exhorter and local preacher. 
 
 But here, by the mouth of this illiterate Irishman, 
 among rude men and far from Christian sympathy 
 could this be a call from God to bear this heavy cross ? 
 He knelt in the snow and prayed with such sense- 
 absorbing earnestness that he did not feel the biting- 
 wind blowing on his bare forehead. He rose from his 
 knees with the resolve that he would be willing to do 
 God's will, whatever it might be, but still without the 
 conviction that this was the will of God for him. 
 The doubt was to be solved for him sooner than he 
 thought.
 
 ,; JBwamS!l 
 
 SHOOTING A RAPID ON THE MATTAWA.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BEECH WOODS CAMP-MEETING. 
 
 "The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
 To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, 
 And spread the roof above them, ere he framed 
 The lofty vault, to gather and roll back 
 The sound of anthems : in the darkling wood, 
 Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down, 
 And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
 And supplication." 
 
 BRYANT Forest Hymn. 
 
 WHEN he reached the shanty Lawrence found that 
 Dennis, with characteristic impulsiveness, had 
 interpreted his promise in the sense that he himself 
 had wished, and had announced that Lawrence would 
 preach that night. The announcement was received 
 with an amount of criticism which convinced the 
 generous-hearted Irishman that few of the company 
 shared his enthusiastic feelings on the subject. Matt 
 Evans volunteered to read the Church service, on the 
 ground of having been an Oxford scholar, who " might 
 now have been in holy orders if he hadn't been 
 rusticated from old Brasenose." 
 
 There were, however, two difficulties in the way. In 
 the first place the audience did Dot seem to appreciate
 
 60 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 his offer, some of them, with a rude backwoods sense 
 of the fitness of things, threatening, if he attempted 
 such a mockery of religion, to give him an opportunity 
 of preaching from a rail pulpit, meaning thereby that 
 they would give him a gratuitous ride on that uncom- 
 fortable species of steed. The second difficulty was 
 still harder to surmount : there was no Book of 
 Common Prayer in the camp, and no one, not even 
 this Oxford scholar, on whose education the resources 
 of the great university of the Established Church, with 
 its host of clerical professors and vast endowment?, 
 had been exhausted, knew more than fragments' y 
 snatches of the order of prayer. 
 
 When Lawrence entered the shanty, therefore, he 
 was met by Dennis with the startling information that 
 he must preach to them, and that his congregation 
 was all ready. Indeed, nearly half of the company 
 present, most of them in the expectation of having 
 some fun at the expense of the boy, as they called him, 
 had gathered in one end of the large room and were 
 lounging on benches or tables or reclining in the bunks. 
 It was a rough-looking group red-shirted almost to a 
 man, bepatched, unshaven, and almost as shaggy and 
 unkempt in appearance as the bear which had so 
 unceremoniously entered the camp a few nights before. 
 A couple of Indians stood in the background, silent 
 and stoical, smoking their pipes. In other parts of 
 the room were men playing cards, talking or smoking, 
 one making an axe helve, another repairing a snow- 
 shoe, and a third cleaning a gun. 
 
 Lawrence had never studied rhetoric, but he began 
 with a good rhetorical stroke. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said, "I n<wer attempted to 
 preach in my life, and I don't think I could if I tried ; 
 but, if you wish it, I will be happy to read you a 
 sermon a great deal better than any I could make." 
 
 The modesty of the lad pleased the fellows, but 
 especially the complimentary title by which he
 
 THE BEECH WOODS CAMP-MEETING. 61 
 
 addressed them. He had called them gentlemen, 
 rough and ragged as they were, and they felt that 
 they must not belie the character he had given them. 
 There was, therefore, a murmur of applause, and he 
 went to bring from his little kit his Bible, hymn-book, 
 and an odd volume of Wesley's Works containing half- 
 a-dozen of his sermons. He opened by accident at the 
 hymn, or was it accident? it seemed so strikingly 
 appropriate to the soul-wants of his audience, 
 
 " O all that pass by, To Jesus draw near ; 
 He utters a cry, Ye sinners, give ear ! 
 From hell to retrieve you He spreads out His hands ; 
 Now, now to receive you He graciously stands. 
 
 " If any man thirst And happy would be, 
 The vilest and worst May come unto Me ; 
 May drink of My Spirit, Excepted is none, 
 Lay claim to My merit, And take for his own." 
 
 The hymn was sung to a fervid lilting tune, and 
 before it was finished everybody in the group was 
 singing, and several from the other end of the room 
 had joined the company. 
 
 Lawrence then said simply, " Let us pray," and, 
 kneeling down, he fervently uttered the common needs 
 of all human souls to the common Saviour of mankind. 
 He seemed to forget where he was, and talked with 
 God, not as to a Being afar off in the sky, but as to 
 One near at hand, Who would hear and answer his 
 petition. 
 
 Then they sang again, and Lawrence quietly read 
 Mr. Wesley's grand sermon on Salvation by Faith. 
 When he had got through, Evans, who during one of 
 the intervals of singing had examined the book, said, 
 
 " It's all right, boys. That's sound doctrine. That 
 old don was a clergyman of the Church of England, 
 and a Fellow of Oxford University, and he must have 
 been a pretty good scholar to have been that. See, 
 here he is, gown and bands and all the rest of it," and 
 he held up the historic portrait that has been familiar
 
 62 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 to successive generations of Methodists throughout the 
 world. 
 
 " He mought ha' ben a great scholard," said Jim 
 Dowler, a raw Canadian youth, " but he talks jist as 
 plain as Parson Turner, the Methody preacher, up to 
 our village, and he never wuz to no 'varsity 'xcept 
 Backwoods College, as I knows on." 
 
 " What for is a man a scholard," asked Dennis 
 O'Neal, very naturally, " unless to make hard things 
 plain to unlarned folk ? " 
 
 " Wai, I've seed college-larnt men that talked as if 
 they'd swallered the dictionary an' it didn't agree with 
 'em 'twas so hard to get the hang o' their lingo," 
 said our Canadian lad, who evidently had not acquired 
 his vernacular from the dictionary. 
 
 " Did you know Mr. Turner ? " asked Lawrence. 
 
 " Wai, yaas," said Dowler. " Ther wuzn't many 
 folks in our parts as didn't know Mm. Mighty peart 
 preacher, he wuz, I 'low. Had a great pertracted 
 meeting up to Brian's Corners, and Jirn Collins and 
 Jack Scoresby, they fit to see which on 'em 'd go hum 
 with Samantha Cummins, old widder Cummins' darter. 
 An' 'tworn't three nights 'fore both on 'em got con- 
 varted, they did, an' 'stead 'o fightin' 'bout Samantha 
 Cummins they wouldn't nuther on 'em go with her 
 'cause she wore artificials and went to dancin' school. 
 Did you know him ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Lawrence, "he was on the Thornville 
 Circuit last year." 
 
 " Blest if these Methodists ain't everywhere," said 
 Evans. 
 
 " Wai, yaas," said Jim, " I've bin whar ye couldn't 
 see no housen in five miles, 'way up the Otonabee 
 River. Thar's whar I first seed Parson Turner: com'd 
 all the way from the Bay o' Quinty, roads so bad 
 couldn't ride, had to walk good part o' the way. I've 
 know'd people walk five miles bar'foot to hear 'im 
 preach, and bring their own candles, too ; an' he never
 
 THE BEECH WOODS CAMP-llEETING. 63 
 
 wuz to no college, nuther," lie concluded triumphantly, 
 as though he thought having been to college was in 
 some respect a disqualification for ministerial work. 
 
 " Let us 'ave some more de musique," said Baptiste, 
 whose fine tenor voice was heard to advantage in the 
 singing, " or I vill 'ave to gif vous de ' Roulant ma 
 boule.' " 
 
 Lawrence now gave out in succession several of 
 Charles Wesley's matchless lyrics, whose warmth of 
 sentiment, vivid imagery, and hearty music strangely 
 captivated the taste of these rude men. In this 
 pleasant and profitable manner a portion of each 
 Sunday and sometimes of a week evening was spent in 
 the lumber camp. 
 
 As the stock of sermons in his precious volume 
 became nearly exhausted Lawrence felt a good deal 
 exercised in mind as to what he should do when he 
 had gone through them all. This feeling was increased 
 by the remark volunteered one Sunday by Dennis : 
 
 " That readin' 's all very well when ye can't get 
 anythin' betther; but couldn't ye jist tip us a sarmint 
 o' yer own, wunst in a while by way of a change ? " 
 
 " Yaas," said Dowler. "It don't seem to come hum 
 to a feller like what it doos when ye speak it right 
 outen your head, ye know. I see a college-larnt feller 
 couldn't preach a sarmin no ways without his writin' 
 afore 'im. Couldn't even say his prayers 'cept he read 
 'em outen a book. Guess he'd found it a hard sight 
 preachin' at the camp-meeting at the Beech Woods, 
 on the Otonabee Circuit. Old Elder Case wuz thar, 
 his white hair a-streamin' in the wind while he exhorted 
 the sinners powerful hand to exhort, he wuz an' a 
 half-a-dozen prayin' at wunst, an' as many more 
 shoutin' l Halleluyer ! ' and l Hosanner ! ' an' p'r'aps a 
 dozen fellers laughin', mockin', an' crackin' their whips 
 among the trees. Takes a pretty peart preacher to 
 keep his head in a meetin' like that. 
 
 " But Elder Case, he kep' 'em well in hand. He'd
 
 64 THE KINO'S MESSENGER. 
 
 run a camp-ineetin' jes as easy as I'd drive a yoke o* 
 breachy steers, an' I don't know but a great sight 
 easier. I see him wunst when Jim Crowther and 
 them fellers from Cavan, ' Cavan Blazers,' they used 
 to call 'em, an' pretty rough fellers they wuz, swore 
 they'dbreak up the camp-meetin'. Well, Jim Crowther, 
 he wuz the ringleader, an' he was a-cuss-in' an' a- 
 swearin', an' he says, ' Wait, boys, till I give the word, 
 an' then make a rush for the stand, an' we'll clar the 
 ranch o' 'em white-chokered fellers.' An' the old Elder, 
 he kep' his eye on 'em, an' he jes' kep' on a-prayin' ; 
 an' he ast the Lord to smite them that troubled Izrel, 
 and Jim Orowther, he began to tremble, an' soon he 
 fell right down, an' the Elder came an' prayed for 'im 
 an' talked with 'im, an', what d'ye think ? that Jim 
 Crowther that used to bully the hull neighbourhood, 
 he got convarted, an' he used to pray an' sing hymns 
 as loud in meetin' as ever he swore an' sang songs at 
 the old Dog an' Gun tavern at Slocum's Corners." 
 
 " Oui, oui," said Baptiste La Tour, '' ze preaching 
 all vere well, but me like ze muzique." 
 
 " Ye'd oughter heered the singin' at the Beech 
 Woods camp-meetin'," continued Dowler, to whom his 
 experience on that occasion had been one of the chief 
 events of his life. " When the meetin' got so noisy 
 he couldn't exhort no longer, then old Elder Case, he'd 
 sing, an' a powerful sweet singer he wuz, too. An' 
 ther wuz a band o' Christian Injuns used to come to the 
 meetin', an' it wus the touchin'est thing to hear those 
 poor creeters a-singin' couldn't tell a word they said, 
 ye know ; but the tunes wuz the same, an' their 
 voices wuz that sweet well, I never heered nuthin' 
 like it. 
 
 " Mighty solemn the singin' wuz, too, sometimes ; 
 made yer feel wuss nor the preachin'. I 'member one 
 night there'd ben a dreffle powerful sarmin by a tall, 
 dark man, Elder Metcalf wuz his name. P'r'aps 
 some on ye know'd 'im. It Vd e'en a-most make
 
 THE BEECH WOODS CAMP- MEETING. 65 
 
 yer hair stan' on end to listen to 'im. Then they sung 
 in a wailin' sort o' tune, 
 
 ' O, there'll be mournin', mournin', mournin', inournin', 
 O, there'll be mournin' at the Jedgment-seat o' Christ ! ' 
 
 " I never felt so bad as I did that night. I wanted 
 as much as could be to go forrad to the penitent 
 bench ; but Bill Slocum he wouldn't, an' he made me 
 come away, an' the road through the woods wuz awful 
 dark, black as a wolfs jaws ; wuzn't nohouseu for two 
 miles, an' far behind us the bright lights wuz a-shinin' 
 in the trees ; it seemed like heaven a-rnost, an' we 
 seemed in the outer darkness, where there's a wailin' 
 an' guashin' o' teeth, an' we could hear, a-sinkin' 
 an' a-swellin' in the distance, as the night wind blowed 
 an' moaned like evil sperits through the tops o' the 
 pines, them awful words o' that hymn, 
 
 " ' O, there'll be mournin' at the Jedgment-seat o' Christ 1 ' 
 
 " I niver wuz so skeart in all my born days. But 
 Bill Slocum, he coaxed me inter the tavern, an' he 
 drinked, an' he made me drink, an' I got drunk for the 
 first time in my life. It 'pears ever since then that 
 preachin' don't have no effect on me ; got past feelin', 
 kinder, I 'low. Many's the time I've wisht I'd gone to 
 the penitent bench that night. But now I'm afeared 
 it's too late, even if I had a chance;" and the poor 
 boy heaved a deep and troubled sigh. 
 
 Lawrence tried to encourage the poor fellow with 
 the promises of Scripture, but nothing seemed to give 
 him so much comfort as singing the hymn, 
 
 " Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, 
 
 Weak and wounded, sick and sore ; 
 Jesus ready stands to save you, 
 Full of pity, love, and power." 
 
 " That's one o' the hymns they used to sing at camp- 
 meetiii'," said Dowler. " It 'ud be nice now ef I 
 could only b'lieve that 'ar. Wish to goodness I could, 
 but 'pears I can't b'lieve in nuthin' no more." 
 
 5
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FINDING THE FOLD. 
 
 " There were ninety and nine that safely lay 
 
 In the shelter of the fold ; 
 And one was out on the hills away, 
 
 Far off from the .gates of gold ; 
 Away on the mountains wild and bare 
 Away from the tender Shepherd's care. 
 
 ' Lord, Thou hast here the ninety and nine 
 
 Are they not enough for Thee ? ' 
 But the Shepherd made answer, ' This of Mine 
 
 Has wandered away from Me ; 
 And, although the road be rough and steep, 
 I go to the desert to find My sheep. ' 
 
 And all through the mountains thunder-riven, 
 
 And up from the rocky steep, 
 There rose a cry to the gates of heaven, 
 
 ' Rejoice, I have found My sheep ! ' 
 And angels echoed around the throne. 
 ' Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own 1 ' " 
 
 Miss CLEPHANE. 
 
 T AWRENCE took the poor lad outside of the lumber 
 JJ shanty, and walking beneath the frosty stars he 
 talked to him out of his own experience the surest 
 way of gaining access to a barred and bolted heart, and 
 of meeting the difficulties of a sincere and seeking 
 soul. Still the cloud of darkness seemed to brood over 
 the mind of this poor raw lad, who was yet dimly con- 
 scious of the dep immortal need of his nature the
 
 FINDING THE FOLD. 67 
 
 hunger and thirst of his soul. Lawrence, about, to 
 bid him good-night, shook him warmly by the hand 
 and promised to pray for him. 
 
 " Will yernow? that's very kind o' yer, what's such 
 a scholard to pray fur a poor, ign'rant feller like me ; 
 'pears to me it's time I wuz prayin' fur myself." 
 
 " Do," said Lawrence. " 'If any man lack wisdom, 
 let him ask of God.' He will guide and teach you 
 and bring you out all right, if you will only ask in 
 the name of Jesus and trust in Him." 
 
 " But I don't know no prayers," said the poor 
 fellow, " ain't said none since I wuz a little chap at 
 my mother's knee, long ago I kin remember." 
 
 " But you remember the Lord's Prayer, don't you? " 
 said Lawrence, in a sympathizing tone. 
 
 " 1 don't know," said the poor fellow ; " what is it 
 like ? " 
 
 Almost appalled at such deplorable ignorance in a 
 Christian land, Lawrer.ee repeated that Litany of the 
 Ages in which are voiced the wants of God's great 
 family of suffering and sorrowing humanity. 
 
 " Seems to me I have heered that afore, at meetin', 
 or somewheres. But I ain't a boss hand at rememberin'. 
 It doos sound nice, though : ' Our Father ' that means 
 everybody's father, don't it? no matter how poor or 
 ign'rant or ragged, don't it? "Well, I ain't never had 
 no father 'cept to cuss and swear at mother and me, 
 and p'r'aps to beat us when he wuz drunk. I guess 
 God must be somethin' like what mother wuz. She 
 wuz amazin' good, I tell yer. I've know'd her, when 
 there wuzn't bread enough for Martha an' me, to stint 
 herself an' pretend to eat, and give it nearly all to us. 
 An' when father wuz bangin' things around, I've 
 know'd her to run between us an' him when he wuz 
 goin' to beat us, jest like a hen kiverin' her chickens 
 when a hawk wuz arter them." 
 
 Happy he who rises to his highest conceptions of 
 the love of God from its sublimest earthly type the
 
 68 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 unwearying, utterly self-sacrificing love of a mother 
 for her babes. 
 
 Deeply touched at the simple pathos of the poor lad's 
 memories of his neglected childhood, Lawrence replied, 
 " Yes, that's just like God. ' As one whom his mother 
 comforteth, so will I comfort you,' He says ; and * as a 
 hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,' so Jesus 
 said He would gather His human creatures, if they 
 would only let Him." 
 
 " Did He, now ? Why, I allers wuz afeard o' God, 
 an' wanted to hide away from Him, ye know. Yet 
 many's the time, when I've been a-huntin' in the 
 woods, Pve felt that lonely I didn't know what to do. 
 An' it wuzn't company like Bill Slocum I wanted, 
 but some one like mother, only stronger, some one 
 that could help me keep away from the taverns. Au r 
 when I've seed the wood-pigeons in their nests a- 
 creuslirf under the wings of the old bird, I jest wisht 
 I could creep somcwheres and be jest as safe an' as 
 happy as they wuz. But then I'd go back to the 
 tavern an' play cards with Bill Slocum, an' arterwards 
 I'd feel wuss than ever." 
 
 " My brother," said Lawrence, solemnly, " God was 
 calling you to Himself; His Spirit was striving 
 with yours ; He was saying, ' Son, give Me thy 
 heart.' " 
 
 u An' 'stead o' listenin' to Him and obeyin' Him 1 
 listened to the devil, and minded him, and took to 
 drink, although I know'd it killed my mother, and 
 ruined my father. 0, what an awful sinner I've 
 been! D'ye think God 'ud forgive me after all?" 
 asked this awakened soul with deep agitation of 
 feeling, and with an eager, imploring look in his eyes. 
 
 " Yes, my brother, I am sure of it," replied Law- 
 rence, with a quiet confidence that greatly reassured 
 his faltering heart, bowed down beneath the weight of 
 sins, now felt for the first time. " I am sure of it, for 
 God, for Christ's sake, forgave me."
 
 FINDING THE FOLD. 69 
 
 " But you never wuz such a sinner! as I am," objected 
 this despondent soul. 
 
 " Yes," said the minister's son, born and nurturec 
 in the very lap of piety, " I never drank nor swore, it 
 is true ; but, with brighter light and clearer knowledge, 
 I long resisted God, and was thus, I believe in my 
 heart of hearts, a greater sinner in His sight than you. 
 But no matter how great nor how many your sins may 
 have been, still the love of G-od and the blood of Jesus 
 Christ can outweigh them all." 
 
 " I think I understand what yon mean," said Dowler. 
 " I remember wunst when I wuz quite a little chap, 
 mother left me to take care of Martha, while she went 
 to milk the cows in the fur medder. An' she told me 
 not to go into the woods for fear I'd get lost. An' 
 when we wuz a-playin', I see such a purty butterfly, 
 all purple and black and gold, an' I ran after it and 
 Martha ran after me ; an' when we came to the woods 
 we saw such lots of flowers, the blue gentian and 
 yellow golden rod, an' one splendid cardinal flower, 
 they call it. An' we wandered on and on, and all at 
 wunst we didn't know where we wuz at all. An' little 
 Martha began to cry, an' I got so hungry, an' it got 
 dark, an' we knew there wuz wolves in the woods, for 
 we had often heerd them a-howlin' at night. But I 
 felt wust of all 'cause mother'd come home an' find us 
 gone, when she told us to stay. 
 
 " Well, Martha, she clean tuckered out, and couldn't 
 go no furder, an' fell right down on the dried leaves. 
 An' I sot down beside her, an' we waited there, 0, it 
 seemed like all night ! an' Martha went asleep, but I 
 wuz afear'd to shut my eyes for fear the wolves 'ud 
 come and eat us. It wuz awful dark, I tell yer ; and 
 the wind wuz a-moanin' in the tops o' the pines so 
 skeary-like. Bime-by I heard a shoutin' an' hollerin' 
 in the woods, an' horns a-blowin', an' men a-beatin' 
 the brush as if they wuz huntin' patridges. 
 
 " But I wouldn't leave little Martha for fear 1
 
 70 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 couldn't find her again, an' when one of the men coni'd 
 near I shouted as loud as I could, an' the man runn'd 
 to us with a great flarin' torch in his hand. An' who 
 should it be but father ! an' he hugged us and danced 
 and shouted I never see him so glad in all my life. 
 An' he took Martha in his arms, and the men all com'd 
 where we wuz, an'we went home together. An' there 
 wuz mother on her knees a-reading of the Bible, an' 
 she jest jumped up and didn't say nothin', but hugged 
 us to her buzzum, the tears a-runnin' down her face 
 like rain. Father went off to the tavern to treat the 
 men ; an' nex' mornin' mother went into her bedroom 
 with Martha and me, an' knelt down an' thanked God 
 we'd been saved from the wolves. An' she asked me 
 if I didn't think I ought to be punished for takin' 
 little Martha into the woods ? And I said ' I know'd 
 I should.' An' she kissed me, an' cried, an' gave me 
 a good whippin', an' I never cried a bit, though it hurt 
 awful, 'cause I didn't want mother to feel any wuss 
 than she did. D'ye suppose I didn't know mother 
 loved me all the time, an' d'ye think I went to them 
 woods again? No, sir-ree, an' it wuzn't the whippin' 
 kep' me, neither. I didn't want to make mother cry 
 again." 
 
 " It is just so with God," said Lawrence, who had 
 not interrupted this long reminiscence. " No mother 
 is so glad to rescue her child from death as He is to 
 welcome wandering sinners who return to Him. Though 
 He hates their sins, He loves their souls. And that 
 they might be saved, and at the same time their sins 
 not go unpunished, He gave His Son to suffer in our 
 room and stead, and Jesus bare our sins in His own 
 body on the cross." 
 
 " Yes, I heerd that afore, but I never seemed to 
 understand it, like. But those awful sins, that 
 drinkin', an' swearin', an' profanin' the name of that 
 Good Bern' that's been a-lovin' me all the time ; 0, 
 how I hate them ! an' God bein' my helper, I won't
 
 FINDING THE FOLD. 71 
 
 never do them again. But that won't make amends 
 for the past ! " 
 
 Patiently and lovingly Lawrence explained to this 
 untutored soul the way of salvation by faith in Jesus. 
 Retiring into the shadow of the trees, they knelt 
 down in the snow beneath the silent stars, and 
 wrestled with God in prayer. Lawrence used, as the 
 language of his petition for this struggling soul, that cry 
 of a penitent heart, the fifty-first Psalm, to every clause 
 of which the sin-convinced suppliant groaned assent. 
 As Lawrence uttered the verse, " Create in me a clean 
 heart, G-od, and renew a right spirit within me," the 
 other sprang to his feet with the shout, " I've got it ! 
 Halleluyer ! I've got it." As he afterward explained, 
 when able to express his feelings more calmly, while 
 he knelt with fast-closed eyes in the snow, his whole 
 soul concentrated in prayer, he seemed to behold, by 
 the eye of his mind, the Lord Jesus hanging bleeding, 
 interceding, on the cross. As He gazed, with a look 
 of infinite compassion in His eyes, He seemed to utter 
 in a tone of tenderest love, " Son, be of good cheer, thy 
 sins be forgiven thee," and instantly a tide of light 
 and peace and joy seemed to flood the earnest seeker's 
 soul. He grasped the hand of Lawrence and shook it 
 with vehemence, while tears of gladness flowed down 
 his cheeks. 
 
 His sympathizing friend gave vent to his feelings in 
 that grand exultant strain of Charles Wesley's : 
 
 " My Jesus to know, 
 
 And feel His blood flow, 
 Tis life everlasting, 'tis heaven below.' 
 
 In this glad doxology the young convert joined, and 
 the long-drawn shadowy forest aisles rang with the 
 music of the strain, while angels in heaven struck 
 their harps in a more rapturoue measure as they re- 
 joiced over the conversion of a soul, the return to the
 
 72 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 Father's house of a prodigal, long lost, now found 
 again, once dead, but now alive. 
 
 As they twain walked together to the lumber-camp, 
 all nature seemed transfigured. The silvery moon- 
 light glistened on the snow like the glorified garments 
 of the saints in heaven. The stars seemed to throb 
 with sympathy and to burn with a tenderer and more 
 lambent light. The snow-laden branches of the spruces 
 seemed stretched in benediction over their heads, and 
 the whisper of the night-wind among the pines seemed 
 to breathe a blessing as it passed. Even the prosaic 
 lumber shanty, with its squalid surroundings, seemed 
 ennobled and dignified, and in some sense rendered 
 awful, as being the arena in which immortal beings 
 were working out their eternal destiny.
 
 I * 
 
 > 
 
 MfB
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE MAIDEN SERMON. 
 
 * In doctrine uncorrupt, in language plain, 
 And plain in manner ; decent, solemn, cbastfe, 
 And natural in gesture ; much impressed 
 Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, 
 And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds 
 May feel it too ; affectionate in look, 
 And tender in address, as well becomes 
 &. messenger of grace to guilty men.'' 
 
 COWPEE The Ta.tlt. 
 
 T AWRENCE was greatly cheered and enbraved 
 JJ by this trophy of Divine grace vouchsafed to his 
 humble eiforts. He no longer therefore hesitated to 
 take up the cross of trying to preach Christ to his 
 fellow-men. On the following Sunday evening, accord- 
 ingly, a tolerably numerous group were gathered in 
 the shanty to hear his maiden sermon. Some were 
 indifferent, some critical, and some sympathetic, for 
 the lad was liked in the camp. His face had a rapt 
 expression as he came in from his forest oratory, 
 whither he had retired to seek strength from God in 
 prayer. 
 
 He wished to talk to those hard-handed, toiling 
 men, in such a manner as to enlist their interest and 
 sympathy. He therefore selected as his text that 
 Scripture in which the kingdom of heaven is likened 
 to a householder who went into the market-place to
 
 74 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 hire labourers. He gave out the exceedingly appro- 
 priate hymn 
 
 *' Are there not in the labourer's day 
 Twelve hours, in which he safely may 
 His calling's work pursue 1 " 
 
 He had the attention of his humble audience at 
 once. And, what is more, he kept it to the end. He 
 spoke to these, his fellow- workmen in his daily toils, 
 in a manly, simple, straightforward manner. He 
 made no attempt at eloquence, an attempt that is 
 almost certain to defeat its object. Like Mark 
 Antony, he only spoke right on what they themselves 
 did know, and completely carried with him the con- 
 victions of their judgment and the assent of their 
 wills ; and this, we take it, is the true object of the 
 highest kind of eloquence. 
 
 He spoke to them of life as the day of their work in 
 God's world, of His claims upon their love and labour, 
 of the grand opportunities and glorious reward He 
 offered them. And as he gazed upon that company 
 of strong and stalwart, although uncouth and unculti- 
 vated men, he beheld not merely the rough red-shirted 
 lumber-men, but the candidates for an immortality of 
 weal or woe, who should in a few short years stand 
 with himself before the judgment seat of Christ to 
 receive the wage of their labour the " Come, ye 
 blessed," that should welcome them to the joys of 
 heaven, or the " Depart, ye cursed," that should banish 
 them to the doom of the lost. On this subject he 
 held strong, clear, intense convictions. The thought 
 fired his soul. It gave a burning vehemence to his 
 words, a pleading earnestness to his tones, a yearning 
 tenderness to his countenance, and made his eyes 
 glisten with unshed tears. He spoke out of a full 
 heart and as a " dying man to dying men." 
 
 His rude auditors listened with more and more ab- 
 sorbed interest. Presently one ceased to whittle the
 
 THE MAIDEN SERJMOX. 75 
 
 stick he held in his hand, another unconsciously let 
 his pipe which he held in his mouth go out, another 
 let the tobacco that he was cutting fall on the floor. 
 Now sundry ejaculations of approval were heard, as, 
 "That's so," "True for ye,' v "You bet," and still 
 stronger expressions than these. But they caused no 
 feeling of interruption or incongruity any more than 
 the " Amen " or " Hallelujah " of a Methodist camp- 
 meeting. 
 
 After an urgent appeal to accept the service and 
 salvation of Christ, Lawrence gave out the hymn 
 
 " Ye thirsty for God, To Jesus give ear, 
 And take, through His blood, A power to draw Dear ; 
 His kind invitation, Ye sinners, embrace, 
 Accepting salvation, Salvation by grace." 
 
 He was fond of those long lilting tunes, which had a 
 measured cadence in their swell like that of an ocean 
 wave. The hymn was sung with a right good will, 
 and after a fervent prayer Lawrence disappeared from 
 their midst. He sought the dim recesses of the forest, 
 and falling on his knees gave vent to his feelings in a 
 gush of tears tears of holy joy that he had been per- 
 mitted to preach the glorious Message of the King, 
 the Gospel of salvation to his fellow-men. 
 
 Every Sunday evening for the rest of the season 
 was similarly employed. Even the most reckless 
 voted that it was " better than playin' cards, an' didn't 
 rile the temper so much either ; though it did mak' 
 'em feel kinder bad sometimes, an' no mistake." 
 
 Jim Dowler, with the characteristic enthusiasm of a 
 young convert, enjoyed these services immensely. 
 
 " That's the sort o' preachin' I like," he would say. 
 " None o' yer readin' outen a book. Mr. Wesley's 
 sermonts may be all very good, but 1 like to look 
 inter a man's eyes when he's a-talkin' ; now this 
 preachin' makes a body's soul feel good all the way 
 down to his boots."
 
 76 
 
 THE KINO'S MESSENGER. 
 
 " Guess all the soul you've got's in your boots," 
 sneered the Oxford scholar, who among other accom- 
 plishments had acquired at that great seat of learning 
 an accent of scepticism and a tendency toward pun- 
 ning. " That kind of talk," he graciously admitted, 
 " is not bad for a lumberman, and may do for the 
 backwoods, but it would never do for old Brasenose." 
 
 " Who is ould Brasenose, any way ? " inquired our 
 friend Dennis O'Neal, who was greatly puzzled by 
 Evans' frequent references to his alma mater. " Ould 
 brazenhead he desarves to be called, if that prachin' 
 wouldn't suit him."
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE LUMBER CAMP. 
 
 " Shepherds at the grange, 
 
 Where the Babe was born, 
 Sang with many a change 
 Christmas carols until morn. 
 Let us by the fire 
 Even higher 
 Sing them till the night expire. 
 
 Carol, carol, Christians, 
 
 Carol joyfully, 
 Carol for the coming 
 
 Of Christ's Nativity ; 
 And pray a gladsome Christmas 
 
 For all good Christian men ; 
 Carol, carol', Christians, 
 
 For Christmas come again. 
 Carol, carol." 
 
 A SLIGHT break in the monotony of the winter was 
 made by the festivities of Christmas and New Year. 
 The French cook, Antoine La Croix, exhausted his 
 professional skill in preparing a sumptuous dinner, 
 and, truth to tell, the material elements of a sub- 
 stantial feast were not wanting. A pair of superb 
 svild turkeys graced each end of the long table which 
 was erected for the occasion. A haunch of venison 
 had the place of honour in the middle. A ham of 
 Lawrence's bear, which had been kept frozen in the
 
 ?8 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 snow, was boiled in the soup kettle. Beavers' tails 
 procured from the Indians, wild ducks, a few of 
 which still lingered, and wild pigeons also garnished 
 the board. Dennis regretted, however, that the 
 modicum of potatoes was so meagre, and Yorkshire 
 John availed himself of his national privilege of 
 grumbling at the absence of the " roast beef of hold 
 Hengland." He was mollified, however, by the 
 appearance of a plum-pudding of magnificent dimen- 
 sions, which was turned out of the flour bag in which 
 it was boiled into a huge wooden platter, deftly 
 shaped with an axe for its reception. He found fresh 
 cause of complaint, nevertheless, in the circumstance 
 that the short allowance of " plums " was supple- 
 mented by a quantity of cranberries from the neigh- 
 bouring marsh. 
 
 " What for do ye call them plums anyway when 
 they're only raisins aftber all ? " queried Dennis. 
 " Shure even a blunderin' Irishman like me knows 
 betther nor that." 
 
 Out of deference to Lawrence, who had become 
 recognised as a sort of domestic chaplain, he was 
 requested by the " boss " of the shanty to say grace at 
 this first meal to which the company had sat down 
 together. 
 
 '' Stop," exclaimed Evans, " I'll give you the 
 Christmas chant they sing at Old Brasenose ; " and 
 he roared out the ancient stave : 
 
 " The Boar's head in hand bear I, 
 Bedecked with bays and rosemarye ; 
 And I pray you, my masters, be merrie, 
 
 Quot etstis in convivio, 
 
 Caput apri defero, 
 
 Reddeiis laudes Domino." 
 
 " Where's yere boar's head ? " interrupted Dennis. 
 " Whativer langwidge is that ye're spaking ? It 
 sounds like Father O'Brady sayin' mass, an' if it's the 
 howly Roman tongue it's not tit for the likes o' ye to
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE LUMBER CAMP. 79 
 
 spake it. Come, Lawrence, darlint, don't let the 
 praties be gettin' could, what there is of them. Sing 
 us somethin' we all can understand." 
 
 Thus adjured, Lawrence gave out that metrical 
 grace which has inaugurated so many Methodist 
 festivals : 
 
 " Be present at our table, Lord, 
 Be here and everywhere adored ; 
 These creatures bless, and grant that we 
 May feast in paradise with Thee." 
 
 The valiant trenchermen then fell to work, and did 
 ample justice to Antoine's cookery. His doughnuts 
 and pudding elicited the heartiest commendation. 
 Many a good-natured joke and jest and laugh went 
 round the board literally a board supported upon 
 wooden trestles. Lawrence sat mostly silent, thinking 
 of a little group of loved ones three hundred miles 
 away that he knew were thinking of him as they sat 
 down to their humble Christmas fare. 
 
 When dinner was over, Jean Baptiste, who always 
 embraced an opportunity of exercising his skill, 
 brought out his violin, and after sundry scrapings and 
 tunings accompanied himself while he sang a French 
 Christmas carol, or " Noel," as he called it, in the 
 sweet, w.ild, beautiful refrain of which every one soon 
 joined, even without knowing the meaning of the 
 words. 
 
 Yorkshire John seemed to think the reputation of 
 his country were gone if he could not cap the French- 
 man's " outlandish ditty," as he called it, with an 
 honest English stave. 
 
 "Ah!" he grumbled out with a sigh at the 
 remembrance, "hold York's the place where they 
 knaw hoo to ke-ap Christmas. Hoo the chimes 'ud 
 ring oot oor the woald, an' the waissail bowl 'ud go 
 roond, an' the waits 'ud sing ! Would ye loike to 'ear 
 it ? " and without waiting for an answer he rumbled 
 out of his capacious chest the ancient carol :
 
 80 . * THE KIN&S MESSENGER. 
 
 " God rest you, merrie gentlemen 
 
 Let nothing you dismay, 
 For Jesus Christ, our Saviour, 
 
 Was born on Christinas Day, 
 To save us all from Satan's thrall, 
 
 Whose souls had gone astray. 
 
 Chorus. God bless the master of this house, 
 God bless the mistress too, 
 And all the little children 
 That round the table go." 
 
 " Oi thinks Oi 'ears 'em noo," interrupted Long Tom 
 of Lancashire. " Anoother one they used to sing in 
 the West coontree was this ; " and he trolled out the 
 following : 
 
 " As Joseph was a-walking, he heard an angel sing, 
 ' This night shall be born our Heavenly King ; 
 He neither shall be born in housen nor in hall, 
 K or in the place of Paradise, but in an ox's stall. 
 
 " ' He neither shall be clothed in piirple nor in pall, 
 But in fair linen as were babies all ; 
 He neither shall be rocked in silver nor in gold 
 But in a wooden cradle, that rocks upon the mould.' " 
 
 " Yon moindsme," said Penryth Pengelly, a Cornish 
 miner, who had been brought out to prospect for 
 copper, a bootless task for him, " o' the toirne" when 
 Oi wor a lad an' used to go a-Chris'masin', *<m' good 
 yaale an' cakes we used to getten too, an' one o' the 
 carols the fisher lads doon in oor parts at St. Ivea 
 and yon ways used to sing was this : 
 
 " I saw three ships come sailing in, 
 
 On Christmas D j, on Christmas Day, 
 I saw three ships come sailing in, 
 On Christmas Day in the morning. 
 
 "And what was in those ships all three, 
 
 On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day ? 
 Our Saviour Christ and His Ladie, 
 On Christmas Day in the morning. 
 
 " And all the bells on earth shall ring, 
 
 On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE LUMBER CAMP. 81 
 
 And all the angels in heaven shall sing 
 On Christmas Day in the morning." 
 
 " We didn't have thim haythin carolin's in ould 
 Wicklow," said Dennis. " But we wint to chapel at 
 midnight loike dacint Christians, an' moighty purty it 
 luked, I tell yees, to see the altar all pranked wid 
 flowers, an' the stall, an' the oxen, an' the Howly 
 Vargin, an' the Blessed Babe an' St. Joseph, all as 
 nat'rel as life. An' it's mesilf was one of the altar 
 boys, no less, that used to help Father O'Shaughnessy. 
 An' I 'member he had moighty hard work to tache 
 me the office for Christmas Eve. What's this it was 
 now ? " he continued, scratching his head, screwing up 
 his mouth, and squinting with one eye at the roof. 
 " 'Bade an' it's all claue gone but this bit : 
 
 " ' Adeste fideles, Iseti, triumphantes, 
 Venite, venite, in Bethlehem.' 
 
 Though what 'twas all about I know'd no more than 
 the Blessed Babe in the manger. 
 
 " They tell a cur'us thing in thim parts. I niver 
 saw it mesilf, though I often watched, but Father 
 O'Shaughnessy, he was the parish praste of Inniskerry, 
 d'ye moind, he said it was so ; an' so it had to be so 
 even if it wuzzen't so. I'd belave his word against my 
 own eyesight, any day. D'ye think I'd be settin' my 
 eyes against the praste's tongue that talks Latin loike 
 a book? Not I, indade! I've lamed my manners 
 betther." 
 
 " What is it, any way?" "Out with it, man," "What's 
 your story ? " interrupted several of his impatient 
 auditors. 
 
 " Well, his riverince declar'd," said Dennis solemnly, 
 " that when he went to the stable to get his pony late 
 on Christinas Eve to come to the sarvice, that, the 
 baste was down on his knees and the cows and the 
 donkey all a-payin' obaysince to the Blessed Babe in 
 the manger at Bethlehem." 
 
 6
 
 82 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 " I suppose they were asleep," remarked the scepti- 
 cal Matt Evans. 
 
 " Slapin', is it ye say, ye unbelavin' heretic?" re- 
 torted Dennis, who had not yet shaken off his native 
 superstition, with a most contemptuous sneer at the 
 bare suggestion. " P'raps ye'd say the praste was 
 slapin' whin he saw on the flure all around his 
 Ian them a bright light just like the glory round the 
 head o' the Vargin ? " 
 
 " Shouldn't wonder," said Evans, giving a rational- 
 istic explanation of the phenomenon. " Does not the 
 immortal William say that then 
 
 ' The bird of dawning singeth all night long, 
 No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, 
 So hallowed and so gracious is the time ' 1 " 
 
 " Is it William of Orange he manes ? " asked Dennis 
 in a loud whisper as he nudged Lawrence. " It's him 
 these Cavan fellows call Immortial." 
 
 Evans proposed to give, in contrast to the vulgar 
 folk-songs to which they had been listening, the 
 classic legend of " Good King Wenceslas " as they 
 used to sing it at Brasenose. To his surprise, however, 
 it fell as flat as the chant of the " Boar's Head." 
 
 "When I lived up to Kingston," here remarked 
 Jim Dowler, who had hitherto kept silence, " I went 
 a few Sundays to the Methodis' Sunday school there. 
 I wuz a canal boy ridin' a hoss on the towpath then, 
 and oftens I wuz that tired I went asleep on the boss's 
 back. Well, one Chris'mas time the teacher larned 
 us some verses. 'Twas the only thing I could larn. 
 'Stonishin' how these things do stick to yer wuss nor 
 burdocks in a boss's mane. Can't get rid on 'em no 
 ways. I ain't much of ajidge o' po'try, but I thought 
 they wuz rale purty then, when I didn't know their 
 hull meanin' ; mi' now that I doos, I think they're 
 purtier still." And he sang the sweet old hymn : 
 
 ' ' Hark ! the herald angels sing- 
 Glory to the new-born King,
 
 CHRISTMAS AT THE LUMBER CAMP. 83 
 
 ' Peace on earth, and mercy mild ; 
 God and sinners reconciled.' " 
 
 Lawrence took advantage of the opportunity to say 
 a few kindly and seasonable words about God's great 
 Christmas gift to man, and the duty of living to His 
 glory and in good-will to one another. 
 
 After dinner there were out-of-door games la crosse, 
 which they learned from a band of Indians camping 
 near ; snow-shoeing, the trips and falls accompanying 
 which occasioned much merriment ; snow-balling, 
 shooting at a mark, and the like. The day passed 
 very pleasantly, and, as a result of the absence of 
 intoxicating liquor from the camp, without any of those 
 degrading scenes of drunkenness which too often con- 
 vert a Christian festival into the semblance of a heathen 
 bacchanalian orgy. 
 
 New Year's Day had no very special celebration. 
 On New Year's Eve, however, Lawrence held a sort of 
 watch-night prayer meeting with a number of the 
 more seriously inclined shantymen. The more boisterous 
 members of the camp went out of doors to welcome 
 the New Year with cheers and the firing of guns. 
 Those that remained were more impressed by the 
 solemn silence in which the death of the Old and 
 advent of the New Year were awaited than even by the 
 spoken prayers. It seemed as though the trickling of 
 the golden sands of time was heard amid the hush, as 
 God's hand turned the great glass of eternity in which. 
 the years are but as hours and the days as moments.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH WOLVES. 
 
 " Fearfully fares 
 The Fenris-wolf 
 Over the fields of men, 
 , When he is loosed." 
 
 THE YOUNGER EDDA The Lay of Iluzlion, 
 
 THE remainder of the winter passed rapidly away in 
 the daily routine of labour. In the month of 
 March, when the snow lay deep upon the ground, 
 Lawrence was despatched hy the '' boss " lumberman 
 to Ottawa, a distance of some two hundred miles, to 
 report to the agent of the Company the quantity of 
 timber that had been got out, and to bring back from 
 the bank a sum of money to pay oif a number of the 
 lumbermen. Several of these were about to take up 
 land in the new townships which had been recently 
 laid out on the Upper Ottawa, and as Lawrence had 
 won the confidence of the Company, he was commis- 
 sioned to bring back the money required for making 
 the payments. Owing to a prejudice on the part 
 of the men against paper money, he was directed to 
 procure gold and silver. He was to ride as far as the 
 town of Pembroke, about half way, and, leaving his 
 horse there to rest ? was to go on to Ottawa in the stage.
 
 ::-.;V,^ 
 
 DOG TRAIN AND INDIAN RUNNER.
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH WOLVES. 85 
 
 He selected for the journey the best animal in the 
 stable a tall, gaunt, sinewy mare, of rather ungainly 
 figure, but with an immense amount of go in her. 
 
 He reached Ottawa safely, posted to his mother and 
 sisters a bulky epistle on which he had spent several 
 evenings, and transacted his business satisfactorily. 
 A couple of evenings were spent very pleasantly with 
 his friend, Mr. Daily, who was overjoyed to hear of his 
 welfare. 
 
 " I knowed that blood would tell," that person 
 asseverated, " and that the son of John Temple would 
 come out all right." 
 
 Having drawn the money from the bank, chiefly in 
 English sovereigns and Mexican dollars, Lawrence set 
 out on his return journey. At Pembroke he mounted 
 again his faithful steed for his ride of over a hundred 
 miles to the camp. The silver he carried in two 
 leathern bags in the holsters of the saddle, and the 
 gold in a belt around his waist. He also carried for 
 defence one of the newly-invented Colt's revolvers. 
 
 The weather was bitterly cold, but the exercise of 
 riding kept him quite warm. The entire winter had 
 been one of unprecedented severity. The snow fell 
 early and deep, and remained all through the season. 
 Deer were exceedingly numerous, even near the settle- 
 ments ; and at the camp furnished no inconsiderable 
 portion of the food of the men, varied by an occasional 
 relish of bear's meat. 
 
 Toward the close of the second day he was approach- 
 ing the end of his journey, and indulging in a pleasant 
 anticipation of the feast of venison he should enjoy, 
 and of the refreshing slumber on the fragrant pine- 
 boughs, earned by continued exercise in the open air. 
 The moon was near the full, but partially obscured by 
 light and fleecy clouds. 
 
 He was approaching a slight clearing when he 
 observed two long lithe animals spring out of the 
 woods towards his horse. He thought they were a
 
 8fi THE KINGS MESSENGER. 
 
 couple of those large shaggy deerhounds which are 
 sometimes employed near the lumber camps for hunt- 
 in cariboo, great powerful animals with immense 
 length of limb and depth of chest, and looked around 
 forthe appearance of the hunter, who, he thought, 
 could not be far off. He was surprised, however, not 
 to hear the deep-mouthed bay characteristic of these 
 hounds, but instead a guttural snarl which, neverthe- 
 less, appeared to affect the mare in a most unaccount- 
 able manner. A shiver seemed to convulse her frame, 
 and shaking herself together she started off on a long 
 swinging trot, which soon broke into a gallop that got 
 over the ground amazingly fast. 
 
 But her best speed could not outstrip that of the 
 creatures which bounded in long leaps by her side, 
 occasionally springing at her hams, their white teeth 
 glistening in the moonlight, and snapping when they 
 closed like a steel-trap. When he caught the first 
 glimpse of the fiery flashing of their eyes, there came 
 the blood-curdling revelation that these were no hounds, 
 but hungry wolves, that bore him such sinister com- 
 pany. All the dread hunters' tales of lone trappers 
 lost in the woods, and their gnawed bones discovered in 
 the spring beside their steel-traps, flashed through his 
 mind like a thought of horror. 
 
 His only safety he knew was in the speed of his 
 mare, and she was handicapped in this race for life 
 with about five-and-twenty pounds of silver in each 
 holster. Seeing that she was evidently flagging under 
 this tremendous pace, he resolved to abandon the 
 money. " Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will 
 he give for his life; " so he dropped both bags on the 
 road. To his surprise the animals stopped as if they 
 had been highwaymen seeking only his money and not 
 his life. He could hear them snarling over the stout 
 leather bags, but, lightened of her load, the mare sprang 
 forward in a splendid hand gallop that covered the 
 ground in gallant stvle.
 
 AN ADVENTURE WITH WOLVES, 87 
 
 He was beginning to hope that he had fairly dis- 
 tanced the brutes, when their horrid yelp and melan- 
 choly long-drawn howl grew stronger on the wind, and 
 soon they were again abreast of the mare. 
 
 He now threw down his thick leather gauntlets with 
 the hope of delaying them, but it only caused a deten- 
 tion of a few minutes while they greedily devoured 
 them. He was rapidly nearing the camp ; if he could 
 keep them at bay for twenty or thirty minutes more, 
 he . would be safe. As a last resort he drew his 
 revolver, scarce hoping in his headlong pace to hit the 
 bounding, leaping objects by his side. Moreover, they 
 had both hitherto kept on the left side of the mare, 
 which lessened his chance as a marksman. The mare, 
 too, who was exceedingly nervous, could never stand 
 fire ; and if he should miss and in the movement be 
 dismounted, he knew that in five minutes the maw of 
 those ravenous beasts would be his grave. 
 
 One of the brutes now made a spring for the mare's 
 throat, but, failing to grasp it, fell on the right side of 
 the animal. Gathering himself up, he bounded in 
 front of her, and made a dash at the rider, catching and 
 clinging to the mare's right shoulder. The white foam 
 fell from his mouth and flecked his dark and shaggy 
 breast. Lawrence could feel his hot breath on his 
 naked hand. The fiendish glare of those eyes he 
 never in all his life forgot. It haunted him for years 
 in midnight slumbers, from which he awoke trembling 
 and bathed in the cold perspiration of terror. He 
 could easily have believed the weird stories of lycan- 
 thropy, in which Satanic agency was feigned to have 
 changed men for their crimes into were-wolves 
 ravenous creatures who added human or fiendish 
 passion and malignancy of hate to the bestial appetite 
 for human flesh. If ever there was murder in a glance, 
 it was in that of those demon-eyes that glared into those 
 of Lawrence, and which seemed actually to blaze with a 
 baleful greenish light a flame of inextinguishable rage.
 
 88 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 Lawrence felt that the supreme moment had come. 
 One or other of them must die. In five minutes more 
 he would be safe in the camp, or else be a mangled 
 corpse. He lifted up his heart in prayer to God, and 
 then felt strangely calm and collected. The muzzle of 
 his revolver almost touched the brute's nose. He 
 pulled the trigger. A flash, a crash, the green eyes 
 blazed with tenfold fury, the huge form fell heavily 
 to the ground, and in the same moment the mare 
 reared almost upright, nearly unseating her rider and 
 shaking his pistol from his hand, and then plunging 
 forward rapidly covered the road in her flight. 
 
 As Lawrence had expected, the other famishing 
 beast remained to devour its fellow." He galloped into 
 the camp, almost fell from his mare, which stood with 
 a look of human gladness in her eyes, and staggered to 
 the rude log shanty, where the blazing fire and song 
 and story beguiled the winter night, scarce able to 
 narrate his peril and escape. After light refreshment, 
 for he had lost all relish for food, he went to bed, to 
 start up often through the night under the glare of 
 those terrible eyes, and to renew the horror he had 
 undergone. 
 
 In the morning, returning with a number of the men 
 to look for the money, he found the feet, tail, muzzle, 
 and scalp of the slain wolf in the midst of a patch of 
 gory snow, also the skull and part of the larger bones, 
 but gnawed and split in order to get at the marrow. 
 And such, thought Lawrence, would have been his fate 
 but for the merciful Providence by which he was 
 preserved. They found also, some distance back, the 
 straps and buckles of the money bag, and the silver 
 coins scattered on the ground and partially covered by 
 the snow.
 
 \VKST AVINI) IX WAR PAINT.
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 WEST WIND AND RED FAWN. 
 
 ** Then the Black- Robe chief, the prophet 
 Told his message to the people, 
 Told the purport of his mission, 
 Told them of the Virgin Mary, 
 And her blessed Son, the Saviour ; 
 How in distant lands and ages 
 He had lived on earth as we do ; 
 How He fasted, prayed, and laboured ; 
 How the Jews, the tribe accursed, 
 Mocked Him, scourged Him, crucified Him ; 
 How He rose from where they laid Him 
 Walked again with His disciples, 
 And ascended into heaven." 
 
 LONGFELLOW Hiawatha. 
 
 the close of the winter, when the length- 
 ened days and warmer radiance of the sun caused 
 the sap to stir beneath the bark of the trees, like 
 the returning pulse of life in a body restored from 
 suspended animation, a band of Indians pitched their 
 camp in a belt of sugar maples that grew alongside the 
 banks of the Mattawa. They soon stripped great sheets 
 of bark from the white-skinned birches, leaving the gap- 
 ing wounds bleeding and raw, like some half-flayed crea- 
 tures of the woods. Birchen vessels were soon sewn 
 together by the deft fingers of the squaws. Deep in- 
 cisions were made in the trunks of the maples with 
 a hatchet, and the escaping sap was collected in the
 
 90 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 troughs. The kettles were swung, and the process of 
 sugar-making was soon in full operation. 
 
 Lawrence found his way together with Jim Do.vler 
 to the camp one Sunday afternoon, impelled by an 
 ardent desire to tell these poor wanderers of the woods 
 of a fairer land than the fabled hunting-grounds of 
 their fathers in the spirit-world of the great All- 
 Father of the red and the white alike, the true Great 
 Spirit who will have men to worship Him in spirit 
 and in truth. They expected to find the Indians 
 engaged at their usual work boiling sugar, making 
 snow-shoes, and the like taking no note of the Chris- 
 tian Sabbath. To their surprise they found everything 
 quiet in the camp, the only exception being two little 
 Indian lads with their dog digging out a badger from 
 under the root of an old hemlock. 
 
 They approached the largest wigwam, a conical 
 structure of birch bark stretched over tent poles, and 
 drew aside the blanket that covered the opening which 
 served as a door. A fire smouldered in the midst, its 
 pungent smoke slowly escaping out of the opening at 
 the peak of the wigwam. Crouched or squatted on 
 mats or on bear or deer skins, were a number of 
 Indians and squaws, young and old, with some 
 children. 
 
 Through the smoke, at the further side of the wig- 
 wam, Lawrence saw the chief, a venerable old man 
 with strongly marked features which looked as if 
 carved in mahogany or cast in bronze. His iron- 
 grey hair was bound by a wampum fillet about his 
 brow. He wore a blanket coat, deer-skin leggings, 
 fringed with beads, and moccasins. On his breast 
 was a silver medal which Lawrence had never seen 
 before. Most of the squaws sat with their bright- 
 coloured shawls drawn over their heads, and wore gilt 
 or glass beads around their necks. A tame raven 
 hopped about and eyed the intruders with a grave and 
 somewhat supercilious air. He gave a loud croak, as if
 
 WEST WIND AND RED FAWN. 91 
 
 to call attention to their presence, of which no one had 
 yet taken any notice. An Indian near the door made 
 room for them beside him, and motioned to them to 
 sit down. They did so in silence, wondering what this 
 strange conclave meant. 
 
 The old chief had on his knees a large leather- 
 boun<J book the last thing Lawrence expected to 
 find in an Indian wigwam and was apparently read- 
 ing from its pages. In a deep, guttural, yet not 
 unmusical tone he went on, his voice rising and 
 falling like the voice of the wind among the pines. 
 Once or twice Lawrence thought he caught the words 
 " Gitcke Manitou" the Indian name for the Great 
 Spirit or God, but he was not sure. At length, to his 
 surprise and delight he recognised the familiar names 
 "Jesus," and " Mary," and "Martha," and "Lazarus." 
 This, then, was an Indian translation of the New 
 Testament, of the existence of which Lawrence had 
 never dreamed, and this must be a band of Christian 
 Indians, and the venerable chief was reading the 
 touching story of the resurrection of Lazarus. 
 
 When he had done reading, the old man looked 
 significantly at one of the younger squaws, who there- 
 upon began to sing a sweet, low, plaintive strain, in 
 which she was joined by all present. 
 
 Lawrence did not, of course, understand the words, 
 but the tune was the familiar " Old Hundred." 
 
 ' That's the Doxology," said Dowler, who had often 
 heard it at camp-meeting, and they joined, in English, 
 in singing that anthem of praise which ascends to the 
 God and Father of us all from every land and ic 
 almost every tongue. 
 
 The old man then rose, and kneeling reverently, as 
 did all the company, prayed devoutly, concluding 
 with an earnest " Amen," in which his white visitors 
 heartily joined. 
 
 When they rose, the chief with a frank smile gave 
 his truests the usual salutation, " Bo' jou'," a corrup-
 
 92 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 tion of the French " Bon jour," which has passed into 
 the Indian language a striking illustration, as are 
 the French names of lake and river all over the 
 continent, of the widespread influence of those intrepid 
 explorers and pioneers. Kewaydin or West-wind, 
 such was the chief's name, made room for Lawrence 
 and Dowler on the rug beside him, and courteously 
 offered them a curiously carved pipe of tobacco with 
 a red stone bowl and ornamented with brilliantly 
 dyed heron's and woodpecker's feathers. Lawrence 
 politely declined the honour, having, from respect to 
 his father's example and his mother's well-understood 
 wishes, never learned to use the vile weed. Dowler, 
 however, accepted it, and was soon vigorously puffing 
 away. 
 
 Lawrence picked up the Bible, which bore, he saw, 
 the imprint of that noble institution, the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society, whose various versions of the 
 Word of God are found alike in the Indian wigwam, 
 the Kaffir's kraal, the Hindoo bazaar or bungalow, 
 the Tartar's wandering tent, and the Esquimaux stone 
 cabin, and which speaks to the tribes of men the 
 unsearchable wisdom of God in almost all of the 
 babbling tongues of earth. 
 
 "Where did you get this?" asked Lawrence in 
 wondering tones. 
 
 " That," said the old man, who spoke English with 
 tolerable facility, "was the parting gift of the best 
 friend that Kewaydin, and many another poor Injun, 
 ever had good old Elder Case God bless him ! " 
 
 " Did you know Elder Case ? " exclaimed Dowler. 
 " I've heared him at the Beechwoods Camp-meet- 
 in'." 
 
 "When I forget him I'll forget to breathe," said 
 the old man fervently. " I owe him everything. He 
 found me a poor miserable pagan, a-drinkin' fire- 
 water, and beatin' the conjurer's drum and sacrificin' 
 the white dog, and he made me what I am."
 
 WEST WIND AND RED FAWN. 93 
 
 Lawrence was overjoyed to meet this unexpected 
 result of Methodist labour in an Indian wigwam. 
 They talked together long and lovingly of the zealous 
 apostle to the Indian tribes of Canada, and Lawrence 
 ventured on a few practical reflections on the story of 
 the raising of Lazarus, which had been the subject of 
 the reading, and on the glorious inspirations it im- 
 parted. These were translated by the chief, and the 
 company manifested their approval by sundry ejacula- 
 tions and comments in their own language. 
 
 " Whar did ye git this ? " inquired Dowler, laying 
 his finger on the silver medal that decorated the 
 chief's broad breast. 
 
 "That," said the old man, his eagle eye flashing 
 proudly, "was fastened on my breast in full 
 parade before all the red-coats by Major-General 
 Sir Isaac Brock. See, that is King George's head. 
 I always wear it on Sundays. It 'minds me of old 
 times." , 
 
 "Tell us all about it," said Dowler eagerly. 
 " My father fit with Brock at Queenston Heights, 
 an' arterwards got wounded at Lundy's Lane." 
 
 "Did he?" said the chief. "Well, I don't talk 
 much of these things, but I don't mind telling the 
 son of an old soldier. I entered Fort Detroit side 
 by side with General Brock. It was for that I 
 got the medal. Nine weeks after, I saw him fall 
 at the Big Rapids (Queenston Heights). I helped 
 to carry his body down the hill to the old house, 
 where it lay that great warrior just like Indian's 
 dead papoose. I stood beside his grave and helped 
 to fire the last volley over his body. But I helped 
 to avenge his death, as we drove the 'Merican 
 blue-coats over the cliff," with sudden energy ex- 
 claimed the veteran brave. 
 
 But with a tone of compunction he continued, " God 
 forgive me, it was in my pagan days, when I seemed 
 to thirst for blood. It was dreadful to see blue-coats
 
 94 THE EINffS MESSENGER. 
 
 and red-coats struggling together lite catamounts, and 
 to see the 'Merican militia rolling down the rocks, torn 
 by the jagged spruces, and some of them struggling in 
 the boiling eddies of the river. One man was just 
 going to shoot a British captain when I flung my toma- 
 hawk right in his face. He went crashing over the 
 bank, clutching at the spruce boughs, an' he looked 
 right into my eyes with such a dying agony it's thirty 
 years ago, but I often see it still when I close my eyes 
 at night, and sometimes even when I try to pray. I 
 used to gloat on it in my heathen days, but ever since 
 Elder Case taught me of the Blessed Lord who prayed 
 for His murderers and said, ' Love your enemies,' I 
 have wished I could ask that man's forgiveness before 
 I meet him at the last great review day when all the 
 soldiers and braves English, 'Mericans, and Injuns 
 must stand before the great Captain, the Lord Jesus. 
 He may have had little papooses and a white squaw 
 who wept for him just as mine would weep for me. 
 But, thank God, I saved other lives that day. My 
 braves were mad with slaughter, just as if they were 
 drunk with fire-water ; but when the victory was fairly 
 won I dragged them off the prisoners they were going 
 to scalp, though it was like tearing an eagle from a 
 heron he has struck, or the dogs off the haunches of 
 a deer. This killing seems to come natural to the 
 pagan Injun of the woods, but for white men and 
 Christians it seems strange work." 
 
 "Yet ther' wuz Chris'u men that fit thar," inter- 
 rupted Dowler. " I hear'd father tell on a Methodis' 
 preacher a local, ye" know, not a reg'lar who used 
 to preach an' pray an' sing like thunder in bar- 
 racks ; an' he fit like a tiger when the guns was a- 
 rattlin', an' kep' on praying all the time. Yet he wuz 
 gentle as a lamb arter the fight, and used to nuss 
 the wounded even the 'Merikers, too, jist as lovin' 
 an' tender as a woman." 
 
 In answer to the inquiry of Lawrence if the Christian
 
 WEST WIXD AND RED FAWN. 9b 
 
 converts among the Indians received much opposition 
 from their pagan relatives, the old chief told the follow- 
 ing story : 
 
 " Did you notice that girl with the great scar on her 
 forehead that sat yonder ? " pointing to near the door, 
 where had sat an Indian maiden lithe and graceful as 
 one of the mountain birches, with eyes as deep and 
 dark as a forest lake. " Well, she's Big Bear's daugh- 
 ter. He had a streak o' luck winter before last and 
 had two big moose to spare. So he hitched up the 
 dogs and drove down the river on the ice with them 
 and some otter and mink furs to Oka, where the 
 priests have a seminary and a convent. Mere Marie 
 at the convent was buying some mink skins, and 
 asked him if he wouldn't let his pretty daughter, 
 Red Fawn, come and work in the kitchen, and she'd 
 teach her to cook and sew. He wanted to please the 
 nuns, so he let her go. 
 
 " Well, the nuns taught her to say the Ave and 
 Credo and to dress the altar of the Virgin. I know 
 their ways, I've lived among the Catholics. Very 
 loving the nuns are when they like, and the poor girl 
 never had any kindness showed her before. So they 
 taught her the catechism, then the priest wanted her 
 to be baptized. They get lots of Injun girls that 
 way, mighty cunning them priests are, beat even an 
 Injun for that. And they called her Marguerite des 
 Anges, which means in the French language ' Pearl 
 of the Angels.' And they gave her a pretty gilt 
 crucifix to wear on her neck. 
 
 " Well, next fall Big Bear was camping down the 
 river, and he went to see Marguerite. He met her 
 in the woods gathering the late autumn flowers to 
 dress the altar. She'd grow'd so tall an' handsome 
 he was quite proud of her. 
 
 "'Come back, Ahduk, an' share my lodge,' he 
 said ; but she said she couldn't leave the kind good 
 nuns.
 
 96 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 " ' You must leave these Christian dogs,' he shouted, 
 ' or the wily Black-robes will make you a woman 
 worshipper like themselves.' 
 
 " ' Nay, father, I like not the wild hunter's life,' 
 said Marguerite, and crossing herself, she went on : ' I 
 have already vowed to live the handmaid of Christ and 
 His blessed Mother, whom, father I I beseech you 
 blaspheme not.' 
 
 " What ! a daughter of mine become a sister of those 
 pale-faced nuns ! ' he cried. l Why did I leave you 
 among them ? I might have known they would teach 
 you to despise the gods of your father.' 
 
 " ' But those be no gods, father,' she replied, ' but 
 evil spirits, says the priest, beguiling the souls of men 
 to perdition.' 
 
 u ' Good enough gods for your old father,' he passion- 
 ately answered, ' and good enough they must be for 
 his stubborn child, Know, girl, I have promised that 
 when the next snow comes, you shall keep the lodge- 
 fire of Black Snake, the bravest warrior of our tribe.' 
 
 " * Nay, father,' exclaimed the girl with a shudder, 
 ' that can never be : I shrink when I see his glittering 
 eye and gliding step, as though he were indeed a 
 poisonous snake.' 
 
 " ' It shall be. girl,' he thundered. ' Big Bear has 
 said it, and the word of Big Bear was never broken.' 
 
 " ' Father, it cannot be,' said the brave girl ; ' I 
 will die first ; ' and in her firm-pressed lips and flashing 
 eye Big Bear saw that she had all his own determination 
 in her slender frame. 
 
 " ' Then die you shall if you obey not my command,' 
 he hissed. Snatching the cross from her neck, he 
 stamped it beneath his feet, exclaiming, ' The accursed 
 medicine-charm, you love it, do you? then you shall 
 wear it in your flesh ; ' and seizing his scalping knife he 
 gashed the sign of the cross upon her forehead, and 
 dragged her off bleeding and fainting to his wigwam. 
 
 "A few weeks after, before the wound was well
 
 WEST WIND AND RED FAWN. 37 
 
 healed, when he wanted to give her to that scoundrel. 
 Black Snake, she fled through the wintry snow to our 
 camp and besought my protection, and my protection 
 she shall have as if she were my own daughter they 
 are all dead now so long as this gun can shoot game 
 in the woods," he ended, pointing to his trusty fowling- 
 piece. 
 
 " Is she still a Catholic ? " asked Lawrence, who 
 had been a deeply interested listener to this tragic 
 recital. 
 
 " She has mostly forgotten the Aces and Paters 
 that she didn't understand," replied Kewaydin, " but, 
 instead, she sings in our own tongue the sweet hymns, 
 
 1 When I survey the wondrous cross,' 
 ' There is a fountain filled with blood,' 
 
 and many others. And one day when I was reading 
 in the Good Book the words of Paul, ' I bear in my 
 body the marks of the Lord Jesus,' she smiled and 
 laid her finger on the cross-shaped scar on her forehead, 
 and said, ' I, too, bear His sign in my flesh.' And she 
 is so good and gentle and patient I sometimes think 
 she is like the saints spoken of in the Revelation, who 
 have come out of great tribulation, and have been sealed 
 with the seal of God in their foreheads."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 THE "TIMBER JAM." 
 
 " Now suddenly the waters boil and leap, 
 On either side the foamy spray is cast, 
 Hoarse Genii through the shouting rapid swtep, 
 And pilot us unharmed adown the hissing stei'p, 
 Again the troubled deep heaps surge on surge, 
 And howling billows sweep the waters dark, 
 Stunning the ear with their stentorian dirge. 
 That loudens as they strike the rock's resisting verge. 
 SAXGSTER The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay. 
 
 A T last the spring came to the lumber-camp. The 
 1-L days grew long and bright and warm. The ice on 
 the river became sodden and water-logged, or broke up 
 into great cakes beneath the rising water. The snow on 
 the upland rapidly melted away, and the utmost energy 
 was employed in getting down the logs to the river 
 before it entirely disappeared. The harsh voice of the 
 blue jay was heard screaming in the forest, and its 
 bright form was seen flitting about in the sunlight. 
 The blithe note of the robin rang through the air. A 
 green flush crept over the trees, and then suddenly 
 they burgeoned out into tender leafage. The catkins 
 of the birch and maple showered down upon the ground. 
 A warm south wind blew, bringing on its wings a 
 ocpioua rain. The river rose several feet in a single
 
 THE "TIMBER JAM." 99 
 
 night. One timber boom above the camp broke with 
 the strain upon it, and thousands of logs went racing 
 and rushing, like maddened herds of sea-horses, down 
 the stream. Happily the heavy boom below held firm, 
 and they were all retained. 
 
 About a mile above the camp was a steep and heavy 
 rapid of many rods in length. Above it a large 
 " drive " of logs had been collected. It was a grand 
 and exciting sight to see them shooting the rapids 
 As they glided out of the placid water above, they 
 were drawn gradually into the swifter rash of the river. 
 They approached a ledge where, in unbroken glassy 
 current, the stream poured over the rock. In they 
 rushed, and, tilting quickly up on end, made a plunge 
 like a diver into the seething gulf below. After what 
 seemed to the spectator several minutes' submergence, 
 they rose with a bound partially above the surges, 
 struggling " like some strong swimmer in his agony " 
 with the stormy waves. Now they rush full tilt 
 against an iron rock that, mid stream, challenges their 
 right to pass, and are hurled aside, shuddering, bruised, 
 and shattered from the encounter. Some are broken 
 in twain. Others are shivered into splinters. Others 
 glide by unscathed. 
 
 Now one lodges in a narrow channel. Another 
 strikes and throws it athwart the stream. Then 
 another and another, and still others in quick succes- 
 sion, lodge, and a formidable "jam" is formed. Now 
 a huop log careers along like a bolt from a catapult. 
 It will surely sweep away the obstacle. With a tre- 
 mendous thud, like the blow of a battering-ram, it 
 strikes the mass, which quivers, grinds, groans, and 
 apparently yields a moment, but is faster jammed than 
 ever. The water rapidly rises and boils and eddies 
 with tenfold rage. 
 
 The " drivers " above have managed to throw a log 
 across the entrance to the rapid to prevent a further 
 run, and now set deliberately about loosening the
 
 100 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 "jam." With cant-hooks, pike-poles, levers, axes, 
 and ropes, they try to roll, pry, chop, or haul out of 
 the way the logs which are jammed together in a seem- 
 ingly inextricable mass. The work has a terribly 
 perilous look. The jam may at any moment give way, 
 carrying everything before it with resistless force. 
 Yet these men, who appear almost like midgets as 
 compared with its immense mass, swarm over it, pull- 
 ing, tugging, shoving, and shouting with the utmost 
 coolness and daring. Like amphibious animals, they 
 wade into the rushing, ice-cold water, and clamber 
 over the slippery logs. 
 
 Now an obstructive " stick," as these huge logs are 
 called, is set free. The jam creaks and groans and 
 gives a shove, and the men scamper to the shore. But 
 no ; it again lodges apparently as fast as ever. At 
 work the men go again, when, lo ! a single well- 
 directed blow of an axe relieves the whole jam, exerting 
 a pressure of hundreds of tons. It is sauve qui pent. 
 Each man springs to escape. The whole mass goes 
 crashing, grinding, groaning over the ledge. 
 
 Is everybody safe ? No, Evans has almost got to 
 the shore when he is caught by the heel of his iron- 
 studded boot between two grinding logs. Another 
 moment and he will be swept or dragged down to 
 destruction. Lawrence, not without imminent personal 
 risk, springs forward and catches hold of his out- 
 stretched hands. Dowler throws his arms around 
 Lawrence's body, and bracing himself against a rock 
 they all give a simultaneous pull, and the imprisoned 
 foot is freed. And well it is so, for at that moment the 
 whole wrack goes rushing by. The entire occurrence 
 has taken only a few seconds. These lumbermen need 
 to have a quick eye, firm nerves, and strong thews and 
 sinews, for their lives seem often to hang on a hair. 
 
 But what is that lithe and active figure dancing 
 down the rapids on a single log, at the tail of the jam ? 
 It is surely no one else than Baptiste la Tour. How
 
 102 THE KINO'S MESSENGER. 
 
 lie got there DO one knows. He hardly knows himself. 
 But there he is, gliding down with arrowy swiftness on 
 a log that is spinning round under his feet with extra- 
 ordinary rapidity. With the skill of an acrobat or 
 rope-dancer he preserves his balance, by keeping his 
 feet, arms, legs, and whole body in constant motion, 
 the spikes in his boots preventing his slipping. So 
 long as the log is in deep water and keeps clear of 
 rocks and other logs, he is comparatively safe. 
 
 But see ! he will surely run upon that jutting crag ! 
 Nearer and nearer he approaches ; now for a crash and 
 a dangerous leap ! But no ! he veers off, the strong 
 back- wash 'of the water preventing-the collision. Now 
 the log plunges partly beneath the waves, but by 
 vigorous struggles he keeps his place on its slippery 
 surface. Now his log runs full tilt against another. 
 The shock of the collision shakes him from his feet ; 
 he staggers and slips into the water, but in a moment 
 he is out and on his unmanageable steed again. 
 
 As he glides out into the smooth water below the 
 rapids, a ringing cheer goes up from his comrades, who 
 had been watching with eager eyes his perilous ride. 
 They had not cheered when the jam gave way, ending 
 their two hours' strenuous effort. But at Baptiste's 
 safety irrepressibly their shouts burst forth. With the 
 characteristic grace of his countrymen, he returned the 
 cheer by a polite bow, and seizing a floating handspike 
 that had been carried down with the wrack, he paddled 
 toward the shore. As he neared it, he sprang from 
 log to log till he stood on solid ground. Shaking 
 himself like a Newfoundland dog, he strode up the 
 bank to receive the congratulations of his comrades. 
 
 " That's wuss than breakin' in the breachiest hoss 1 
 ever see," was the comment of Jim Dowler, who spoke 
 from experience of the latter performance. 
 
 " I'd as soon go sailin' on a broomstick wid a witch, 
 through the air," said Dennis O'Neal, who spoke as if 
 he had tried that mode of travelling.
 
 THE "TIMBER JAM." 
 
 103 
 
 " It's better than being caught like an otter in a 
 trap, as I was," said Evans. " I'm like Achilles." he 
 went on, recalling the classic lore he learned at Brase- 
 nose, " vulnerable in my heel. But there, I'm sorry 
 to say, the resemblance ends, so far as I can see ;" and 
 he laughed a hard, bitter, scornful laugh against him- 
 sel
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 "THE WORM OF NILUS STINGS NOT so." 
 
 "At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." 
 Prov. xxiii. 32. 
 
 " This is an aspic's trail" SHAKESPEARE : Ant. and Cleop. 
 
 " Death's harbingers lie latent in the draught, 
 And in the flowers that wreath the sparkling bowl 
 Fell adders hiss and poisonous serpents roll." PRIOB. 
 
 T AWRENCE pitied from the bottom of his heart 
 iJ this solitary, cynical, broken-spirited man, who had 
 jiade shipwreck of such fair prospects, and wasted 
 .such golden opportunities, and had sown such a crop 
 of bitter memories, whose melancholy harvest he must 
 now reap. He therefore took an opportunity of quietly 
 conversing with him and endeavouring to inspire hope 
 in his hopeless heart. He referred especially to the 
 good Providence, by which he had been rescued from 
 imminent peril, as a reason why he should endeavour 
 to live a nobler life, and devote his gifts and attain- 
 ments to the service of God. 
 
 " It is very kind of you to care for a poor forlorn, 
 wretch whom nobody else cares for ; but it's no use, ] 
 tell you," said Evans. " I know all you would say, 
 and I know it's all true ; but it's too late too late ; "
 
 CHAMPLAIN STREET IN QUEBEC.
 
 "THE WORM OF NIL US STJJCGS NOT SO" 105 
 
 and he gave a heavy sigh. " I've had to make ship- 
 wreck of all that a mau should hold dear to be what I 
 am. There was a noble woman loved me once, and I 
 hoped to call her wife, but even her holy influence had 
 not power to keep me from the wine cup." And his 
 features twitched convulsively, and his eyes, though 
 tearless, wore a look of hopeless agony. 
 
 " Do you see that log ? " he asked, pointing to a 
 bruised and battered trunk drifting helplessly down 
 the rapids. " Well, I am that log, battered and 
 bruised with knocking about in the world,, drifting 
 without hope on the stream of chance. Nothing on 
 earth can stop me or help me. It's too late, I teljj 
 you," he repeated, with an impatient and almost 
 angry gesture. . 
 
 u It is never too late, my brother," said Lawrence, 
 laying his hand affectionately on his arm. "It is 
 never too late, if you will but put your trust in God 
 and look to Him for help." 
 
 " It is, for me," said Evans, dejectedly. " Young 
 man, you don't know the overmastering appetite that 
 drives me to drink, as the devil drove the swine into 
 the sea. Here I can't get it, so I keep pretty straight, 
 though an unsatiable craving gnaws at my vitals all 
 the time. But when I go down to Quebec with the 
 raft we are building, I can no more withstand the 
 temptations of the scores of taverns in Champlain 
 Street and Rue des Matelots than that log can help 
 going over those falls ; " and as he pointed, it disap- 
 peared with a plunge in the foam. 
 
 " AVhy, the very smell of the liquor coming out of 
 those low shebeens," he went on, " burns up all my 
 resolutions, as flax is shrivelled in the flames, and I 
 go to my fate like an ox to the slaughter. Even while 
 I think of it the thirst kindles like a tiger's that has 
 tasted blood. You see those boiling rapids? Well, 
 if there was liquor on the other side, I'd go through 
 them to get it."
 
 106 TIIE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 "0, don't talk so dreadfully ! " exclaimed Lawrence, 
 with a shudder. " It is wicked. Try to give it up. 
 Ask God to help you." 
 
 " Do you suppose I haven't tried and vowed and 
 prayed ? " asked Evans, bitterly. " God only kiiows 
 how I've tried. But 
 
 ' The limed soul that struggles to get free 
 Is but the more engaged,' 
 
 as the immortal Shakespeare has it ; and liquor is the 
 devil's birdlime, by which he catches more souls than 
 by anything else. Young man ! " he said, solemnly, 
 grasping Lawrence by the hand, " I'm on my way to 
 hell, and I can't stop ; but for God's sake, for your 
 friends' sake, for your soul's sake, I adjure you, never 
 touch the first glass. Would to God, I never had ;" 
 and he buried his face in his hands. 
 
 " I never have, I never will," said Lawrence. " My 
 father taught me when a boy to vow eternal hatred to 
 it, as Hannibal did against the enemies of his 
 country." 
 
 " Your father was a wise man," said Evans, raising 
 his head, " and my father was a , but I'll not up- 
 braid his memory. Yet, when I was a child, he used 
 to have me brought in after dinner, and set me on his 
 knee, and let me sip his wine, and showed me off to his 
 guests, he was so proud of me. He lived to be 
 ashamed enough of me," he added, bitterly. 
 
 " And my mother one of the kindest of mothers, 
 but what mistaken kindness ! when I was* studying, 
 used to bring me up wine and cake, and kiss me good- 
 night. I think I see her yet ! And, God ! I broke 
 her heart, and brought down my father's grey hairs 
 with sorrow to the grave." And he shuddered through 
 all his frame with a convulsive groan, as he again 
 buried his face in his hands. 
 
 Lawrence wept tears of sympathy for this unhappy 
 man, but in the presence of this bitter sorrow, this 
 appalling past and hopeless futurej he was dumb.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 RAFTING. 
 
 a The brain grows dizzy with the whirl and hiss 
 Of the fast-crowding billows as they roll, 
 Like struggling demons, to the vexed abyss, 
 Lashing the tortured crags with wild demoniac blis." 
 
 SANGSTEB. 
 
 glorious summertide had come. The leafy 
 luxuriance of June robed all the forest in richest 
 verdure. Triliums and sweet wild violets filled the 
 woods with beauty and fragrance. The river had 
 fallen to its normal height, and most of the logs had 
 been run down to join thousands of others on the 
 mighty flood of the Ottawa. Each bore the brand of 
 its owner, and they floated on together, to be arrested 
 by the huge boom, and there sorted out to their several 
 owners. The long spars and square timber intended 
 for exportation were made up into " drams," as they 
 are called. These consist of a number of "sticks" of 
 pine, oak, elm, or ash, lashed side-by-side. They are 
 kept together by means of " traverses " or cross pieces, 
 to which the " sticks " are bound by stout withes of 
 ironwood or hickory, made supple by being first soaked 
 in water and then twisted in a machine and wound 
 around an axle, by which means the fibres are crushed 
 and rendered pliable. The "drama" are made just
 
 108 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 wide enough to run through the timber slides. On 
 the long, smooth reaches of the river they are fastened 
 together so as to make a large raft, which is impelled 
 on its way by the force of the current, assisted by huge 
 oars, and, when the wind is favourable, by sails. In 
 running the rapids, or going through the slides, the 
 raft is again separated into its constituent " drams." 
 
 By the end of June all was ready for the final 
 breaking up of the camp. Many of the men had 
 already gone ; some to take up land, others to drive 
 the teams through the forest trail. The last meal was 
 prepared, the personal kit of each man was packed and 
 piled on a raised platform on the raft, and the whole 
 covered with a tarpaulin. On the " Cabin Dram " was 
 built the cook's shanty, with its stores of pork, bread, 
 and biscuit. The raft was loosed from its moorings, 
 and, with a cheer from the men, glided down the 
 stream and out into the Ottawa. It was steered by 
 huge " sweeps " or oars, about twelve yards long. 
 Baptiste and the Indians assumed command of the oars 
 and piloted the raft. 
 
 The crew, with but one exception, seemed delighted 
 at the prospect of returning to the precincts of civiliza- 
 tion, though to many of them that meant squandering 
 their hard-earned wages in prodigal dissipation and 
 riot. That exception was Matt Evans, who wore the 
 air of a doomed man going to his death. 
 
 " I know," he said to Lawrence, " that in a week 
 after we reach Quebec I shall be a drunken vagabond, 
 and not draw a sober breath while my money lasts. I 
 think I'll ship on a two years' whaling voyage. I 
 won't be waylaid by taverns at every turn among the 
 icebergs." 
 
 Lawrence was full of eager longing to reach home. 
 He was to leave the raft at Ottawa. Most of the others 
 were to accompany it to Quebec. 
 
 The voyage down the river was uneventful, but not 
 monotonous. The weather was glorious. The bright
 
 A 
 
 jjl.
 
 110 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 sunlight and pure air seemed to exhilarate like wine. 
 The raftsmen danced and capered and sang " En roulant 
 ma boule," and 
 
 "Ah ! que 1'hiver est long ! 
 Dans les chan tiers nous hivernerons 1 " 
 
 Baptiste meanwhile furnishing the music with his 
 violin. 
 
 Lawrence enjoyed running the rapids exceedingly, 
 although it was not devoid of a spice of danger. With 
 the increasing swiftness of the current the water 
 assumes a glazed or oily appearance. Objects on the 
 shore fly backward more rapidly. The oars at bow and 
 stern are more heavily manned. Right ahead are seen 
 the white seething " boilers " of the rapids. With a 
 rush the dram springs forward and plunges into the 
 breakers, which roar like sea monsters for their prey. 
 The waves break over in snowy foam. The shock 
 knocks half the men off their feet. They catch hold of 
 the traverse to avoid being washed overboard. The 
 dram shudders throughout all its timbers, and the 
 withes grcan and creak as if they would burst asunder 
 under the strain. The brown rocks gleam through 
 the waves as they flash past. Soon the dram glides 
 out into smooth water. The white crested billows race 
 behind like horrid monsters of Scylla, gnashing their 
 teeth in rage at the escape of their prey. 
 
 The great cauldron of the Chaudiere, in which the 
 strongest dram would be broken like matchwood, was 
 passed by means of the government timber slides 
 long sloping canals, with timber sides and bottoms, 
 down which the drams glide with immense rapidity. 
 Sometimes they jam with a fearful collision. But 
 such accidents are rare. 
 
 This is the way in which Canada's great timber 
 harvest seeks the sea. At Quebec the rafts are 
 broken up, and the "sticks" are hauled through 
 timber ports in the bows of the vessels that shall 
 bear them to the markets of the Old World.
 
 MAKING THE RAFTS.
 
 TIMBER SHIP LEAVING QUEBEC,
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 "HOME AGAIN." 
 
 " Where er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
 My heart, untravelled, ever turns to thee." 
 
 GOLDSMITH. 
 
 AT Ottawa, Lawrence took leave, not without much 
 emotion, of his winter comrades and friends, for 
 such, with scarce an exception, they had become. He 
 wrung Evans long and warmly by the hand, and 
 adjured him to avoid the taverns at Quebec. 
 
 Evans shook his hand and said, " I guess the only 
 safe place for me is at the North Pole, or somewhere 
 else which the liquor has not reached, and such places 
 are hard to find." 
 
 O'Neal took both Lawrence's hands in his own and 
 shook them, while the tears ran down his face. 
 " Never fear," he said, " I've drinked my last sup av 
 whisky, an' I'll go an' see the Methody pracher as soon 
 as I get to Quebec, an' put meself under his care. 
 I feel as wake as an unweaned child, not able to walk 
 alone," which, to one who noted his huge bulk and 
 interpreted him literally, would seem a rather astound- 
 ing statement. 
 
 Lawrence received his winter's wages from the 
 agent of the lumber company at Ottawa, and found 
 himself the possessor of more money than he had 
 ever owned in his life. He felt an honest, manly
 
 112 ' THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 pride in the fact that it was earned, every dollar, by 
 his own hands. He kn?w what hard toil it cost, and 
 he determined to make it go as far as possible in 
 carrying out his cherished purpose. The free gift of 
 three times the amount would have been a less valu- 
 able possession, without the lessons of thrift, economy, 
 and self-denial that to well-balanced minds hard- 
 earned money brings. 
 
 At the camp, on account of his superior education, 
 Evans had been employed much of his time as clerk, 
 accountant, and keeper of the stores. After his acci- 
 dent at the " timber jam," which proved more serious 
 than it seemed at first, Lawrence relieved him of 
 those duties, and had, from his trustworthy character 
 and obliging manner, discharged them greatly to the 
 satisfaction of the foreman and of the entire camp. 
 
 Mr. Mclntyre, the company's agent, to whom his 
 fidelity and skill had been reported, offered him for 
 three years the post of clerk, which would relieve him 
 of much of the hard work of the camp, with the 
 promise of a hundred dollars increase of salary each 
 year, and the chance of further promotion at the 
 expiration of that time. 
 
 " I am much obliged, Mr. Mclntyre," replied 
 Lawrence, " but I cannot accept the situation." 
 
 " Hae ye ony thing else in view, lad ? " asked the 
 kind-hearted Scotchman. 
 
 With some hesitancy Lawrence told him his pur- 
 pose to use his hard-earned money to pay his way for 
 a time at college. 
 
 " Vera guid ; I was twa winters at auld Mareschal 
 rnyseP. But what then? Ye'll be gangin' into the 
 law or pheesic belike ; and enj'yin' genteel starvation 
 instead o' earnin' an honest leeviu' in business." 
 
 Lawrence modestly explained his further hope of 
 preaching the Gospel. 
 
 "An' what'll ye get for that, gin I may speer?" 
 asked the agent. 
 
 " Perhaps a hundred dollars a year for four years,"
 
 "HOME AGAIN." 113 
 
 replied Lawrence, " and then three or four nundred 
 more." 
 
 " An' here I offer as much as that at the vera start, 
 and before four years double as much." 
 
 " If you were to offer me ten times as much, I dare 
 not take it," said Lawrence firmly, yet respectfully. 
 " I feel bound as by a promise to the dead, a duty to 
 the living, and an obligation to my Maker." 
 
 " In that case there's nae mair to be said," replied 
 Mr. Mclntyre. " If ye're boun' to starve, ye're gaun 
 to do it on high preenciples, I see. I'll no say ye're 
 no richt. Faur ye weel, an' guid luck to ye ; " and he 
 shook him warmly by the hand. 
 
 At the truly " general " store of Father Daily 
 Lawrence bought a new suit for himself, stuff for a 
 dress for his mother, and some bright ribbons for 
 little Nell. In spite of himself, he got a very good 
 bargain out of Mr. Daily, who gave him a very 
 unbusiness-like discount. At the village bookstore 
 he bought Robinson Crusoe for Tom a book he had 
 long been wanting and a copy of Mrs. Hemans' 
 Poems for his sister Mary. 
 
 In order to enjoy for a day longer the company of 
 Jim Dowler, to whom he felt his soul knit by tender 
 ties, he took passage in a barge on the Rideau Canal. 
 The little cabin was a mere box " where ye cudn't 
 swing a cat," as Jim remarked. " But then, nobody 
 wants to," he added, " an' so as we can doable up at 
 night, what's the odds ? " 
 
 While the barge was going through the locks, the 
 two friends strolled along the bank of the canal, 
 Lawrence giving much good counsel, and Jim thank- 
 fully drinking it in. 
 
 " I used to think that nobody cared for Jim Dowler's 
 
 soul, but now I know better, an' I'll try, God helpin' 
 
 me, to save it, for yer sake an' my sainted mother's, 
 
 who's an angel in heaven, an' for my own sake." 
 
 At night, they had literally to " double up," so 
 
 8
 
 114 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 " cabined, cribbed, confined " were they in the berths 
 of the barge. Next morning they parted, Lawrence 
 taking the stage for North ville. His emotions, as he 
 drew near home, we shall not attempt to describe. It 
 was after dark when he arrived. His coming was not 
 expected, for no letters could be sent from the Mattawa. 
 
 He walked rapidly up the garden path, intending to 
 surprise the inmates ; but the love-quickened ear of 
 his mother recognised his footstep, and with the cry 
 of delight, " That's Lawrence 1 " she rushed to the door, 
 scattering spools, thimble, and work on the carpet, 
 a homemade one of rags. A moment more and the 
 brave boy was in his mother's arms, and a long, loving 
 embrace, holy as any ever known on earth, was his. 
 His sister Mary claimed her turn, then little Nell and 
 Tom, who varied the performance by dancing around 
 the floor with delight, and then returning to hug and 
 kiss their brother again. 
 
 " Thank God to be home again, mother dear," he 
 said. " I want to embrace you all at once," and he 
 tried to fold them all in his long, strong arms. 
 
 " God bless you, my son ; your mother's prayers are 
 answered at last." 
 
 " How handsome Mary has grown ! " said Lawrence, 
 after all inquiries as to each other's welfare were over. 
 " Why, Mary, you're almost as handsome as mother." 
 
 " Thank you, Lawrence dear; that's the highest com- 
 pliment you could pay me," said the affectionate girl. 
 
 " And these children, how they've grown ! " he went 
 on, folding one in each arm. And a very pretty group 
 they made, the great bronzed fellow, the two fair 
 children, and the loving mother and sister hanging on 
 his shoulder and stroking his hair. 
 
 '* But we must give you more substantial welcome 
 than this," said the housewifely mother, and soon the 
 snowy cloth was laid, and furnished with white bread, 
 Bweet butter, and rich strawberries and cream "A 
 feast fit for a king," Lawrence declared. While he
 
 AGAIN:* 115 
 
 did ample justice to this dainty purveying, Tom brought 
 his slate to show how he could do long division, and 
 Nelly her Christmas Sunday-school prize, and Mary 
 her elegant gold watch, "so useful at school, you 
 know," she said, a present for playing the organ in 
 church ; and the mother brought well, she had 
 nothing to bring but the great mother- love beaming 
 in her rich dark eyes, with which she feasted proudly 
 on her boy, and he basked in their light with a feeling 
 of infinite content. 
 
 Then the presents were distributed, amid great glee 
 and fresh caresses amongst the rest, a pair of em- 
 broidered moccasins from Red Fawn for his mother, 
 and tiny bark baskets of maple sugar for the children. 
 But the bearskin rug made the greatest sensation of 
 all, and the story of Bruin's capture had to be told 
 with all its details, the mother's cheek paling, and 
 Tom's eyes flashing from time to time at the crisis of 
 the tale. The wolf adventure Lawrence did not tell 
 for some time after. 
 
 Great gladness filled their hearts that night as 
 Lawrence read his favourite psalm, the hundred and 
 seventh : " give thanks unto the Lord, for He is 
 good; for His mercy endureth for ever," with its 
 exultant refrain, " that men would praise the Lord 
 for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the 
 children of men ! " And sound was his sleep and sweet 
 his dreams as he sank into his pillowy nest in his 
 little attic chamber, for which he had so often longed 
 as he lay upon the spruce boughs in the lumber shanty 
 on the Mattawa. As he lay in the dreamy borderland 
 between sleeping and waking, he was aware of a 
 saintly face bending over him, and a mother's kiss 
 falling lightly as a rose leaf on his forehead, and a 
 mother's tear, not of sorrow, but of joy, dropping on 
 his cheek, and he seemed to be again a little child in 
 his crib, watched over by a mother's love, and his soul 
 was filled with a great content.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OLYMPIC DAYS AND COLLEGE HALLS. 
 
 " 1 passed beside the reverend walls 
 In which of old I wore the gown ; 
 I roved at random through the town, 
 And saw the tumult of the halls." 
 
 TENNYSON : In Memoriam. 
 
 * For him was lever han. at his beddes head, 
 Twenty bokes clothed in black and red. 
 Of Aristotle and his philosophic. 
 Than robes riche, or fidel, or sautrie : 
 Of studie took he most cure and hede. 
 Not a word spake he more than was nede ; 
 Souning in moral vertue was his speche ; 
 And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche." 
 
 CHAUCER : Canterbury Tales, 
 
 peaceful episode in his life Lawrence regarded 
 -I but as the arbour on the Hill Difficulty, in which 
 he might rest for a while to brace his energies for 
 future toil. He resolved, therefore, that its delights 
 should not enervate his soul. He wrote accordingly 
 the very next day to the Rev. Dr. Fellows, the Pre- 
 sident of Burghroyal College, asking for the " course 
 of study " and such advice as he might be able to 
 give. Meanwhile, he hunted up among his father's 
 books those that he thought would be useful, and 
 applied himself with renewed zeal to his Greek Testa- 
 ment and grammar. He won golden opinions from 
 the Northville farmers by going into the haying and
 
 OLYMPIC DAYS AND COLLEGE HALLS. 117 
 
 harvest fields and earning honest wage for honest 
 work. 
 
 In a few days came a kind letter from Dr. Fellows, 
 giving the desired information, and some wise counsel, 
 not unmixed with the Attic salt of wit. Lawrence 
 had learned to do what he did with his might the 
 best lesson that any young man can learn the key 
 that will unlock all difficulties and open every avenue 
 to success. He therefore worked hard at his books 
 and in the field, with sweat of brain and sweat of 
 brow, till the time approached to leave home . for 
 college. This parting was 'a comparatively easy task ; 
 for, could he not write home every week ? and return 
 at Christmas, or in a single day, if need were ? 
 
 The Burghroyal College is the mental Mecca of 
 many an ambitious Canadian youth the objective 
 point to which, like Lawrence Temple, they struggle 
 through many difficulties. It has been the Alma 
 Mater, tender and beloved, which has nourished and 
 brought up many sons, who in all parts of our broad 
 Dominion rise up and call her blessed. As Lawrence 
 approached this venerable seat of learning venerable 
 in its dignity and high character, as well as, for a young 
 country, venerable in point of age his heart beat high 
 with hope. He had reached the goal of long months, 
 almost years, of struggle the starting-place, also, 
 in a new race for knowledge and wider range for use- 
 fulness. 
 
 As he approached the town, the setting sun shone 
 brightly on the conspicuous cupola of the college, 
 which beamed like a star of promise in the heavens, 
 beckoning him onward, as it seemed to him, to a higher 
 plane of being. As he ascended the massive stone 
 steps and passed beneath the lofty and pillared portico 
 of the building, he felt like a Greek neophyte entering 
 the temple of Pallas Athene. 
 
 The following day he presented himself to Dr. 
 Dwight, who had charge of the domestic and moral
 
 118 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 government of the institution, as Dr. Fellows had of 
 its literary department, He was a man to arrest 
 attention anywhere tall, straight as a Norway pine, 
 with clear-cut features, expressive of great promptness 
 and energy of character, and with an alertness of 
 manner and action that seemed to belong to a younger 
 man than he appeared to be. Lawrence felt a little 
 awed as he stood in his presence, but the Doctor 
 frankly held out his hand and said, 
 
 "Ah, Temple, I'm glad to see you; I heard you 
 were coming." He always seemed somehow to hear 
 everything and to know everything pertaining to the 
 college. 
 
 The doctor looked sharply at him for a moment 
 with those keen eyes that seemed to read his very 
 thoughts. 
 
 " I knew your father, Temple, and respected him 
 highly," he continued ; " you are like him in person : 
 I can wish nothing better for you than to be like him 
 in character." 
 
 These words made Lawrence thrill with pleasure, 
 and he resolved more firmly than ever to be worthy of 
 that father's memory and reputation. 
 
 The Doctor then inquired kindly as to the young 
 student's plans and purposes, in which he evinced a 
 fatherly sympathy and interest. 
 
 " Where have you been during the year ? " he 
 asked in his alert manner. 
 
 Lawrence briefly recounted his adventures on the 
 Mattawa. 
 
 "Good! I admire your pluck," said the Doctor: 
 " I congratulate you on having to depend on yourself. 
 It is worth more than a fortune to you. Hew your 
 way for yourself here, as you did among the big trees 
 on the Mattawa, and it will develop a strength of 
 character that will carry you anywhere and enable you 
 to do anything. It is well for a man to bear the 
 yoke in his youth. It will give him the shoulders
 
 OLYMPIC DAYS AND COLLEGE HALLS. 119 
 
 and strength of Atlas. Steward, show Mr. Temple 
 to his room, please ; " and turning to that functionary, 
 he designated the apartment which Lawrence was to 
 occupy. 
 
 " What a general he would make ! " thought Lawrence 
 as he left the Doctor's presence ; " I could follow that 
 man any where." He already felt the inspiration of his 
 character. " But I would like to be sure that I was 
 always right," he further reflected, as he remembered 
 the keen scrutiny of that commanding glance. 
 
 His room was a pleasant apartment, affording a 
 magnificent view over the broad lake and the pretty 
 town in which the college was situated. A bed, table, 
 chairs, and washstand constituted its simple furniture; 
 but when his books were unpacked and placed on 
 shelves, their familiar faces made it look quite home- 
 like. 
 
 Soon after, he called on Dr. Fellows for advice in 
 his studies, and was very courteously received. The 
 Doctor was a very noticeable sort of man, who some- 
 how put Lawrence in mind of pictures he had seen of 
 Andrea Dandolo, one of the doges of Venice in the days 
 of her mediaeval prime. He had the same lofty brow, 
 handsome face, clear olive complexion, quick insight 
 of glance, and general scholarly air. In his brief con- 
 versation with Lawrence, he seemed equally at home 
 in ancient and in modern lore, in poetry and philosophy. 
 He impressed the young student as his ideal of a 
 scholar though learned, simple and unaffected ; his 
 words, though weighted with wisdom, flashing often- 
 times with wit, like a robe of rich texture bejewelled 
 with sparkling gems. 
 
 In the great dining-room, filled with eager, active, 
 hungry youth, for college boys have most portentous 
 appetites, Lawrence felt more lonely than even amid 
 the forest solitudes of the Mattawa. One is often 
 never so much alone as in a crowd. It was a severe 
 ordeal to his retiring disposition to encounter the in-
 
 320 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 quiring glances and sometimes critical stare of so many 
 young men, all of whom, he thought, knew so much 
 more than himself. The acquaintance formed with his 
 'table companions somewhat reassured him, by showing 
 that they were very much like ordinary mortals, that 
 human nature even in college halls differs not very 
 greatly from human nature in a lumber camp. 
 
 Nothing so breaks the ice of formality as a good 
 laugh, and this experience Lawrence enjoyed at his 
 first college meal. It was the usage for the whole 
 company to wait for the slowest eater to finish his 
 meal sometimes a little impatiently, for college boys 
 are too apt to bolt their food and hurry back to ball 
 or cricket. On this occasion an unlucky individual, 
 who was " slow but sure," kept the tables waiting an 
 undue time. As he finished his dessert, the wag of 
 the college, who was sitting near him, a tall, shambling, 
 awkward-looking fellow with ill-fitting clothes, but 
 with a merry twinkle in his eye that made him a 
 general favourite, assuming a dignified, forensic air, 
 slightly accommodating to the occasion the memorable 
 reply of Pitt to Horace Walpole, asked, " Is the gentle- 
 man done ? Is he quite done ? He has been voracious 
 from beginning to end." 
 
 It was not very much of a joke, but Lawrence found 
 it impossible to avoid joining in the laugh which it 
 caused. 
 
 It was not long before he also had experience of the 
 supreme disdain and lofty, supercilious airs with which 
 certain gentlemen of the sophomore year regarded the 
 newly admitted freshmen, assuming far more dignity 
 than the graduating class. He felt greatly abashed 
 at this, till he discovered that their knowledge was not 
 quite so encyclopaedic as they thought, although they 
 seemed to know so much more than the professors 
 themselves. Some of the city lads, too, put on some- 
 what extensive airs on account of the more dandified 
 cut of their coats as compared with their country cousins'
 
 OLYMPIC DAYS AND COLLEGE HALLS. 121 
 
 But a college class-room is a great leveller. No- 
 where are windbags more easily pricked, or do they 
 more suddenly collapse. A professor is no respecter 
 of persons. Money gives no monopoly of brains, and 
 the poor students, for the most part, win the prizes by 
 virtue of the energy of character developed by the very 
 effort they have to make to gain an education. 
 
 In the Greek class one day, one of these dainty 
 gentlemen was most effectually taken down. Professor 
 .Nelson, a mild-mannered gentleman, who sat quietly 
 behind his gold glasses and seemed to take little note 
 of aught but the text book before him but those who 
 attempted to take any liberties would find out their mis- 
 take called on Mr. Adolphus Fitztomkyns to recite. 
 That gentleman started, hesitated, stopped, and 
 fumbled his gold chain, amid the sustained silence of 
 the Professor. 
 
 At length, " I do not know what ^\atca is from," he 
 said. 
 
 " It is from eXavvet" said the Professor. 
 
 Another pause. " I don't know what part it is," 
 said the embarrassed youth. 
 
 " The perfect," replied Dr. Nelson, without the least 
 accent of asperity in his tone. 
 
 Another long pause of awful solemnity, in which the 
 beaded sweat stood on the youth's forehead. At last 
 in desperation he made the honest confession, "I know 
 nothing about it," and sat down. 
 
 Not a word was uttered, but the unhappy lad felt 
 the unspoken reproach more keenly than the sternest 
 reproof. 
 
 Professor Rexton, however, who had an utter abhor- 
 rence of sham, seemed to take a special delight in 
 displacing fools from their pedestal of conceit. His 
 department, too, that of mathematics, supplied some- 
 times salient opportunities of doing this. There was 
 no room for imperfect recitations or illogical reasoning 
 there. The habits of rigid accuracy acquired by this
 
 122 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 means were invaluable in their result. The lofty prin- 
 ciples of mathematics and their sublime applications 
 in astronomy were a keen delight to Lawrence/ 
 
 His greatest pleasure, however, was to wander 
 through the woods or by the shore of the lake, with its 
 remarkable geological outcrop, with Professor Wash- 
 burn, the young and enthusiastic instructor in natural 
 science. Breaking off twigs from the trees as he 
 walked, the latter would point out the beautiful mor- 
 phology of the leaves, and their wonderful phyllotaxis 
 the mathematical exactness with which they are 
 arranged in spirals around their stem. Or, knocking 
 an encrinite or coral out of the corniferous rock, he 
 would discourse luminously of the bygone geologic 
 ages. Then he would advance to the constitution and 
 genesis of the universe, and, rising from Nature up to 
 Nature's God, would reason on the lofty themes of 
 
 " Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute," 
 
 and the glorious truths of atonement and redemption. 
 
 Lawrence seemed to himself to drink in knowledge 
 at every pore to acquire it by all his senses. He 
 seemed to feel new faculties developing within, as the 
 dull chrysalis may feel the wings of Psyche forming 
 under its coat. In the Btirghroyal College, learning 
 was not divorced from religion, nor science made the 
 handmaid of scepticism. All the resources of know- 
 ledge were brought to the illustration and corroboration 
 of God's revealed truth ; and every effort was made 
 to cultivate in the young men a manly rational piety 
 which would enable its possessors to give a reason for 
 the hope that was in them. 
 
 The influence of our colleges on the future of our 
 country is of incalculable importance. They will 
 either curse it with scepticism or bless it with piety. 
 In those college halls are assembled, at the most 
 impressible and formative period in their history, the 
 most eager, active, energetic, and ambitious young men
 
 OLYMPIC DAYS AND COLLEGE HALLS. 123 
 
 of our country, the future legislators, judges, lawyers, 
 physicians, professors, editors, teachers, and preachers 
 of the future. Upon what they shall be depends the 
 destiny of our country. 
 
 If the majority of them become materialistic sceptics, 
 denying the God Who made them, the. Lord Who bought 
 them, and the spiritual nature with which He endowed 
 them, the age shall be a coarse, vulgar, venal, and 
 sensual one. Knowledge shall be a bane, not a bless- 
 ing a power indeed, but for evil, not for good. If, on 
 the contrary, they be men of faith in God and His 
 Word, of high-souled principles and of spiritual 
 instincts, then shall they guide the age as a skilful 
 rider guides his steed up the heights of progress to a 
 higher plane of being, a wider range of thought, a 
 purer moral atmosphere, and a nobler type of life.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ON THE THRESHOLD. 
 
 LAWRENCE found his religious advantages and 
 helps much greater than he had anticipated, if we 
 may judge from the following extract from a letter, 
 which about this time he wrote home : 
 
 "I am agreeably disappointed in more than one 
 respect with the college, and especially with the 
 religious atmosphere which seems to pervade the 
 institution. I thought the reverse would be the case, 
 from the stories that Tom Brown, who was rusticated 
 two years ago, used to tell us about the pranks that 
 he and his chums used to play on the religious students 
 knocking down the blackboards and putting out the 
 lights at their prayer-meetings, locking them in their 
 rooms, and then stopping up the chimneys so as to 
 smoke them out. 
 
 " Tom Potter, my classmate, and a first-rate fellow, 
 says these are all traditions of the prehistoric age. 
 Nobody here knows anything about them ; and that 
 story about taking the cow up the stairway and 
 fastening her to the bell-rope, which she is said to 
 have kept tolling all night, I believe is a sheer fabri- 
 cation of Brown's. I cannot find any foundation for 
 it in fact. 
 
 " The professors are very kind more like friends
 
 ON THE THRESHOLD. 125 
 
 than teachers. I thought I would have more per- 
 secution to encounter from the wild collegians than 1 
 had among the lumbermen on the Mattawa. But I 
 have had none at all, but, on the contrary, much 
 sympathy from religious students and much help from 
 the professors. Dr. Nelson has a Bible Class every 
 week, and brings all his classic lore to the explanation 
 of the Scriptures. Then I read the Greek Testament 
 with him, and have begun Hebrew. Dear Doctor 
 Whitcombe is almost like a father. He introduced 
 me very kindly to the class, and they all rose to receive 
 me. And he bows so politely to each student as they 
 enter the class-room. He is a wonderful old philo- 
 sopher a sort of Friar Bacon among his retorts and 
 alembics. He talks as familiarly about molecules and 
 atoms as if he had been handling them all his life. 
 
 " I see almost as little of the fair sex here as at the 
 Mattawa. Good old Mrs. McDonnell, the matron, is 
 the only one I have spoken to. She is a stately old 
 lady, but a kind, motherly soul. She came to see 
 me when I was confined to my room with a cold. I 
 am a regular hermit. ' I bury myself in my books, and ' 
 I'll not finish the quotation ; Mary may look for it 
 in Tennyson's Maud, if she likes. 
 
 " We have grand meetings on Saturday night the 
 students by themselves though sometimes some of 
 the professors look in. Then we have such singing.' 
 There are several young preachers here the finest set 
 of young fellows you ever saw and instead of college 
 life killing their piety, as old Squire Jones says it will, 
 it seems to kindle it into a brighter flame. So many 
 burning embers together make a hot fire. One of 
 them, James Thompson, is my class-leader a dear, 
 good soul. The tears will stream down his cheeks 
 when he is talking to us. 
 
 " The Greeks, when they were very fortunate, used 
 to sacrifice to Nemesis, to deprecate her anger. If I 
 were a Greek, I might do so too, for trulv the lines
 
 126 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 have fallen to me in very pleasant places. But I will 
 fear no evil in the future, but give thanks to God for 
 His great goodness. 
 
 " Ever your loving 
 
 " LAWRENCE." 
 
 Lawrence did not encounter much persecution, it is 
 true, hut he was not without sundry petty annoyances. 
 
 " Where did you learn to swing your axe so scientifi- 
 cally ? " asked a dandified city youth who was always 
 grumbling at the rule which required the students to 
 cut their own fuel. 
 
 "Where they understand the science, in a lumber 
 camp on the Mattawa," said Lawrence, civilly. 
 
 "The Mattawa! where's that?" asked his inter- 
 locutor, whose knowledge of the geography of his 
 own country was rather at fault. 
 
 Lawrence good-naturedly explained. 
 
 " So you're a common lumberman ! " sneered the 
 ill-bred rowdy for such he was, despite his fine clothes. 
 " What right Jiave the like of you to come to college 
 among gentlemen ? I suppose it's to pay your board 
 you ring the bell at six o'clock on winter mornings." 
 
 "Precisely so," replied Lawrence, calmly, "and 
 I am not ashamed of it either. Poverty is no crime, 
 but rude insolence is," he added, with some asperity. 
 * He felt stung by the impertinence from one who wore 
 the garb and claimed the character of a gentleman. 
 But no bully is more brutal than your aristocratic 
 bully. He felt vexed at himself for letting such a 
 creature have power to sting his feelings. He 
 
 " Scorned to be scorned by one that he scorned," 
 
 but he remembered the words of Byron, "The kick 
 of an ass will give pain to one to whom its most 
 exquisite braying will give no pleasure." 
 
 " Temple," said Dr. Dwight, one day, in his brisk 
 manner, " I wish you would take charge of that boy,
 
 ON THE THRESHOLD. 127 
 
 young Elliot. I forewarn you, he is a little wasp. 
 Nobody else will room with him, but I think you can. 
 I believe you will do him good, and I am sure he will 
 do you good. ' Let patience have her perfect work,' 
 you know ! " 
 
 " I'll try, sir," said Lawrence, flattered by the good 
 opinion expressed, but not very confident of success. 
 
 The little urchin had gone the round of the rooms 
 of all the older students, and worn out their patience 
 in succession. He deliberately set himself, like a 
 young monkey, by all kinds of mischievous pranks, to 
 exhaust the patience of Lawrence. But that com- 
 modity might in this case be fitly represented by 
 the unknown quantity x. It seemed literally inex- 
 haustible. 
 
 The poor boy was a "mitherless bairn," brought up 
 among hirelings, and he had consequently grown up 
 into a petty tyrant. Lawrence pitied and yearned 
 over the lad, and secretly prayed for him. He helped 
 him in his algebra and Latin exercises, gave him 
 pence to buy marbles, brought him fruit from the 
 country, and, in fact, overcame his ill temper with 
 kindness. Before long he had no more ardent cham- 
 pion than the young scapegrace, as he was considered, 
 Tom Elliot. He would letch and carry for Lawrence 
 like a dog, and demonstrated the grand fact that under 
 the warmth of human lovingkindness the iciest nature 
 will melt the sternest clod will blossom with beauty 
 and affection. 
 
 Lawrence was anxious to do some good in the com- 
 munity in which he lived ; so he organized a syste- 
 matic tract distribution from house to house in the 
 town, omitting none. He was generally very favour- 
 ably received, especially among the poor fishermen, 
 and felt great pleasure in his work and in the oppor- 
 tunity of speaking a word for the Master to some 
 toil-worn woman or disheartened man, and of gathering 
 the little children into his class in Sunday school.
 
 128 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 One surly fellow, however, passionately tore his tract 
 in two and lit his pipe with it, saying : 
 
 " Look-a-here, mister, I don't want none o' yer trac's 
 about yer, except those you make right straight away 
 from this house. Ef ye come round yer agin', I'll set 
 that dog on to ye," pointing to an ugly bulldog. 
 " He can fight any thin' his heft in the country, an' 
 he'll tear ye wuss nor I tore yer trac'. So make tracks 
 now. Clear ! vamose ! I tell ye." 
 
 Lawrence bade him a polite good-morning and 
 passed on. 
 
 More disheartening, however, was the stony, gorgo- 
 nizing stare and the icy politeness that he encountered 
 from a fine lady at a grand house in the " swell" part 
 of the town. Resolved, however, not to be deterred 
 from his duty, he called again at both houses on the 
 next Sunday. 
 
 " You here agin ! " said his burly antagonist. " What 
 did I tell yer ? Well, ye're grit, I must say. May yer 
 leave a trac' ? I s'pose ther's no denyin' yer. Give 
 it to the 'ooman thar;" and Lawrence gladly left a 
 message of consolation to the poor draggled-looking 
 creature in the cabin. 
 
 At the grand house the stare was less stony, and 
 the ice somewhat thawed. In the course of time it 
 melted entirely away, and the stare relaxed into a 
 smile. 
 
 The quarterly meeting of the Burghroyal Church, 
 of which Lawrence proved an active member, soon 
 placed him on the local preachers' plan, and he had 
 frequent opportunity of exercising his gifts and graces 
 in preaching at numerous outposts of Methodism in 
 the beautifully undulating and rich farming country 
 in the vicinity of the town. Such evidence of success, 
 adaptation, and Divine call to this work did he mani- 
 fest, that he was unanimously recommended by the 
 ^oard to be taken on trial as a Methodist preacher. 
 
 Though he would gladly have remained longer at
 
 ON THE THRESHOLD. 129 
 
 college, the demand for young men to enter opening 
 doors of usefulness in the newer parts of the country, 
 his own burning zeal to work for the Master, and the 
 inadequacy of his purse to defray college expenses, 
 without being a burden to loved ones at home one 
 which they would gladly bear, but which Lawrence 
 would not suffer to be imposed all these conspired 
 to make it desirable that he should go out into the 
 work, if accepted, immediately after the following 
 Conference. 
 
 The last night of the session had arrived, the exami- 
 nations were ended, and the busy scenes of the Con- 
 vocation week were over. The latter was quite a 
 brilliant and, to Lawrence, a novel occasion. The 
 Faculty, wearing their professorial robes, with the dis- 
 tinguished visitors, filled the dais. The gownsmen 
 and spectators thronged the floor the ladies raining 
 sweet influence from their eyes on the young aspirants 
 for fame. The Latin oration, the Greek ode, the 
 English valedictory were all given with great eclat. 
 Dr. Fellows, looking like a Venetian Doge in his robes 
 of state, had conferred the degrees on the Baccalaurei 
 and Magistri Artium. Each on bended knee placed 
 his hands, pressed palm to palm, between those of the 
 President, in pledge of fealty to his alma mater, and 
 received the investiture of his Bachelor's or Master's 
 hood, like a youthful knight of olden time being girded 
 with his sword for chivalric devoir for the right against 
 the wrong. 
 
 Lawrence would gladly have pursued, like a young 
 athlete, this classic cursus, but, at the claims of what 
 he considered to be a higher duty, he was content to 
 forego it. Nevertheless, he declared that he would 
 not take a thousand dollars more money than he 
 had ever seen, poor fellow for what he had already 
 learned. And he was right. He had, at least, laid 
 the foundation for building thereon the goodly struc- 
 ture of a sound and comprehensive education which 
 
 9
 
 130 TUE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 is the work of a lifetime, always advancing, never 
 completed. 
 
 On this last night Lawrence walked beneath the 
 trees in the moonlight and the starlight, with his 
 room-mate and devoted chum, Tom Elliot, exchanging 
 vows of mutual affection and pledges of eternal friend- 
 ship. The old college was brilliantly lighted up. A 
 band of music was discoursing classic strains on the 
 lawn. A supper of an unusually festive character 
 was spread in the ample dining-room. Exchanges 
 of cards and farewells were taking place. A tinge of 
 pensive melancholy blended with the joyousness of 
 the occasion. golden time, when youths, trained 
 by literary culture and Christian influences, stand on 
 the threshold of life looking back on the bright and 
 happy boyhood that is passed, looking forward to the 
 duties and joys of manhood that are before them 
 eager to 
 
 " Drink delight of battle with their peers " 
 
 in the conflict of life into which, like gallant knights 
 fresh from the accolade, they long to rush. 
 
 The next day they were all scattered far and wide, 
 and the college halls, so lately vocal with the din of 
 eager, happy voices, were silent almost as the ruins 
 of Nineveh. 
 
 Lawrence abode quietly at home, awaiting trust- 
 fully the decision of Conference as to his future 
 destiny. He accepted his three weeks' furlough, like 
 a soldier on the eve of a campaign. To his mother 
 it was a great delight to have him home again. The 
 Augustine and Monica communings were renewed, 
 and a proud joy was it for that happy mother to walk 
 to church leaning on her son's strong arm, and to 
 listen to his voice as he occupied the pulpit in the 
 place of the minister who was absent at Conference. 
 It carried her back to the early days of her marriage 
 he looked so like his father in his youth and if she
 
 ON THE THRESHOLD. 131 
 
 closed her eyes, she could hardly resist the illusion 
 that it was that voice, so long silent, that she heard. 
 
 The kindly neighbours, at the close of the service, 
 greeted them both with great warmth. 
 
 " A peart boy that o' yourn," said old Squire Jones 
 to the widow. " I'm powerful glad to see that college 
 larnin' hasn't spilt him. He's jes' as plain-talkin' as 
 his father afore him, that never see'd the inside of a 
 college. A chip o' the old block, he is ; got rale 
 preacher's timber into him, an' no mistake." 
 
 During the week carne a letter from Mr. Turner, 
 his " Chairman," stating that he had been duty 
 received by the Conference and appointed to a mission 
 in the Muskoka region, then newly opened to settle- 
 ment. " It's a rather rough region," wrote Mr. 
 Turner, " but it's not worse than many a circuit your 
 father had, and I knew that his son would not shrink 
 from the task." 
 
 "When I gave myself to the Methodist Church," 
 was Lawrence's comment to his mother, " I gave my- 
 self to it for life, not to pick and choose for myself, 
 but to go wherever the voice of the Church, which to 
 me is the voice of G-od, sends me. I can go out like 
 Abraham, not knowing whither I go, but knowing 
 that God will go with me and prepare my way before 
 me." 
 
 " That is the way I married your father, Lawrence," 
 said his mother, pressing her lips to his forehead, 
 "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer; and, 
 amid all our trials, I never for a moment had cause 
 to regret it. The God of your father will be also your 
 God, my son." 
 
 During the few days that remained before his 
 departure, the brave mother kept up her heart in 
 his presence, though she often retired to her little 
 chamber to pray, and sometimes to weep to weep 
 mingled tears of joy and regret of joy that the vow 
 of consecration at his birth was fulfilled, that she was
 
 132 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 permitted to give him to the holiest work on earth 
 of natural regret at losing such a sou. She followed 
 him about with wistful eyes, which were sometimes 
 filled with tears. But her time was fully occupied in 
 finishing a set of shirts for her boy, at which his sister 
 Mary diligently helped. Even the irrepressible Tom 
 and frolicsome Nelly seemed as if they never could do 
 enough for him. 
 
 As he parted from his mother in the porch, he 
 whispered, " Remember me, dear mother, at the throne 
 of grace, especially on Sunday morning. I shall go 
 to my appointments more full of faith if I know that 
 you are praying for me." 
 
 " I will, my son. I always did for your father, and 
 he said it helped him. God bless you, my boy ; " and 
 she kissed him good-bye. As he departed with the 
 seal of that mother's kiss upon his brow, and the 
 peace and joy of God in his heart, he felt that life's 
 highest and holiest ambition was reached that he 
 was indeed the " King's Messenger," and that he 
 went forth a herald of salvation, an ambassador of 
 God, to declare to perishing men the glorious tidings 
 of the Gospel of His grace.
 
 SAWMILL IN THE FOREST.
 
 ON THE HEAD WATERS OF THE SEVERN.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 IN THE FIELD. 
 
 ' flow beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that 
 bringeth good tidings 1 " ISA. lii. 7. 
 
 4 Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield. 
 
 Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ; 
 How jocund did they drive their teams a-field ! 
 How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! 
 
 *' Let not ambition mock their useful toil, 
 
 Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; 
 Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
 The short and simple annals of the poor." 
 
 GRAY Megg. 
 
 LAWRENCE took the steamer to Toronto, in which 
 city he spent a day. The wide streets, the moving 
 multitudes, the number and elegance of the churches, 
 were to him a novel spectacle, bringing a stronger 
 sense of the bigness of the world than even the wilder- 
 ness of the Mattawa. While making his frugal pur- 
 chases of books at the Wesleyan Book Room, in whose 
 purlieu the preachers most do congregate, and which 
 contained more volumes than he had ever seen before, 
 the minister of one of the city churches claimed him 
 as a lawful prize, and carried him off to share his 
 hosmtality and preach in the evening.
 
 134 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 The next day he proceeded by railway to Barrie, 
 raid thence by steamer again to the pretty village of 
 Orillia. Here he took the stage for Muskoka. He 
 had an ominous initiation into his work. The road 
 was of frightful ruggedness. The old earth showed 
 her bones in a huge out-crop of primeval granite, with 
 scarcely soil enough to decently cover her nakedness. 
 Lawrence had to cling to his seat as the rough strong 
 stage climbed the rugged ridges and rattled down the 
 other side, like a landsman in a ship on a stormy sea. 
 At last, in descending a steep hill, the horses could no 
 longer hold back, and the stage, rattling to the bottom, 
 came to grief against a huge stone. There was nothing 
 for it but to walk to his destination, some half-dozen 
 miles further, carrying his valise in his hand. The 
 road became less rugged, but the heat was excessive, 
 and the black-flies and mosquitoes were a perfect plague. 
 
 " Be you the noo preacher ? " asked an honest-faced, 
 sunburnt, tan-freckled man, as Lawrence wearily 
 trudged up to the post-office, store, and principal 
 building generally of the little village of Centreville 
 though it was not very apparent of what it was the 
 centre. The speaker was dressed in grey homespun 
 trousers, which looked very warm for the season, a 
 grey flannel shirt, coarse boots, and a broad-brimmed 
 straw hat, with ample means for ventilation in its 
 crown. A fringe of sandy hair surrounded his broad, 
 honest face, as he beamed welcome on the new-comer. 
 
 " Oi'm the circuit stooard," he went on, when 
 Lawrence owned the soft impeachment; "jes' come 
 along with me. We wuz expectin' of yer. Jes' let 
 me have yer baggage. I see the black-flies 'a' been 
 givin' yer a Muskoka welcome," calling Lawrence's 
 attention to the fact that the blood was streaming 
 down his neck from their bites a circumstance of 
 which he had not been aware. Soon, however, he 
 was very painfully reminded of it, for the bites began 
 to swell and to become exceedingly inflamed.
 
 IN THE FIELD. 135 
 
 " They allers do take to strangers,*' said the circuit 
 official. " Ye'll hev to get some ile and smear your 
 face with it fish ile's the best." 
 
 " Are they so bad as that ? " inquired Lawrence in 
 some trepidation, for he had a constitutional aversion 
 to the touch of any kind of oil. 
 
 " Well, they do say they killed a man out north 
 here; but I guess that wuz a kind o' drawin' a long 
 bow. Somethin' like the story 'bout our muskeeters. 
 Yer know, they say many on 'em will weigh a pound." 
 
 " They don't say how many, though," said Lawrence, 
 who saw through the joke. 
 
 " Yer'll do for Muskoka, I reckon, if yer allers as 
 cute as that," said the steward admiringly. " We 
 want a pretty peart man in here, I till yer. A'most 
 anybody '11 do for outside, but it takes a man to get 
 along in here, it doos." 
 
 " Excuse me, Mr. Steward ; I have not the pleasure 
 of knowing your name yet," stiid Lawrence. 
 
 " Hophni Perkins, at yer sarvice," replied that 
 functionary with a galvanic attempt at a bow. 
 
 " Hophni I what a singular name. I never heard 
 it out of the Bible before." 
 
 " Well, yer see," explained Mr. Perkins, "father and 
 mother, they wuz old fashioned Methodis' out to the 
 front, and they wuz great on Scriptooral names. So 
 they called my twin brother Phinehas he lives jes' 
 over the swale yonder and they had to call me 
 Hophni, to keep up the balance, I s'pose. They 
 mought a' chosen more respectabler namesakes for 
 us, though. Hows'ever, that don't make no odds. 
 It's somethin' like original sin, I 'low. A man ain't 
 j edged fer the name he bears, an' I won't be punished 
 fer Hophni's sins, but fer my own, unless they is 
 washed away in the blood o' the Lamb. An', praise 
 the Lord, mine is. I've got' the assurance every day. 
 But here we are," he continued, as they reached a 
 small lofr cabin standing near the roadside. The
 
 136 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 chimney was built of sticks and clay, but the evening 
 meal was being cooked out-of-doors, gipsy-fashion, as 
 was the general custom in hot weather. 
 
 "Jerushy, here's the noo preacher," he said to a 
 toil-worn, weary-looking woman in a woolsey petti- 
 coat and linen upper-garment of no distinctive name. 
 
 "Yer welcome, shure," she said, rising from the 
 frying-pan where she was cooking a savoury meal, a 
 kindly smile illuminating her plain features. 
 
 " Yer to make this yer home till quarterly meetin'," 
 said Mr. Perkins, " then they'll arrange where yer to 
 go. It'll be month about, I guess, beginnin' at 
 Brother Phin's over there. We call him that fer 
 short, yer know. Yer may find some places better'n 
 this, but yer'll find more wuss. Set down, set down. 
 Yer must be hungry. Jerushy, what have yer got? 
 Where's the childer ? " 
 
 " Tom caught some bass in the lake," said that 
 woman of few words, but of kind heart and acts. The 
 children, brown as young Indians and timid as fawns, 
 were hiding around the corner of the house, recon- 
 noitring the new-comer, but the attractions of the 
 supper brought them one by one to the table. As 
 this was the new preacher's first meal, a tablecloth, 
 clean but coarse, was spread a luxury not always 
 thought necessary on subsequent occasions. The fish 
 was delicious. The same could hardly be said of the 
 chips of pork floating in a sea of fat. The butter and 
 milk were fresh and rich, but the tea was not of the 
 finest aroma. The wild strawberries and cream, how- 
 ever, were " fit for a king," said Lawrence. 
 
 After prayers with this kind family, hospitable to 
 the extent of their means and a king could be no 
 more Lawrence was shown to his sleeping apart- 
 ment. It was a loft under the roof, to which access 
 was had by means of a rude ladder in the corner. 
 
 " We go to roost with the fowls, and get up with 
 the fowls here," said Mr. Perkins.
 
 IN THE FIELD. 137 
 
 "Look out fer yer head," he added, just after 
 Lawrence had brought that important part in contact 
 with the low rafter. A faint light came through a 
 small four-pane window, which was open for ventila- 
 tion. The furniture of the loft consisted of a flock 
 bed, a spinning-wheel, a quantity of wool which had 
 a strong greasy smell, tied up in a blanket, and a 
 quantity of last year's corn in the cob, lying on the 
 floor. 
 
 Lawrence slept the sleep of youth, of peace of mind 
 and of a weary body. He woke early, but found that 
 the household were stirring before him. For want of 
 other means of making his ablutions, he washed in a 
 tin basin set on the end of the large trough out of 
 doors, although it was raining slightly, and dried his 
 hands and face on a roller towel behind the door. 
 Having forgotten to provide himself with a comb and 
 brush, which useful articles he procured on his first 
 visit to the store, he tried to arrange his dishevelled 
 locks with a lead-pencil not, however, with a very 
 high degree of success. Looking-glass, that luxury 
 of civilization, there was none, except a small disc not 
 much larger than a watch hanging on the wall, before 
 which Mr. Perkins performed his weekly shaving 
 operation. To get a view of his broad face in its 
 small surface, he was obliged to twist his features as 
 though he were making faces for a wager, and to 
 squint sideways in a manner that threatened per- 
 manent strabismus. Notwithstanding these efforts, 
 or perhaps in consequence of them, he sometimes 
 nicked his features in a manner by no means orna- 
 mental, especially as he employed as a styptic a film 
 of cobweb which contrasted strongly with his ruddy 
 countenance and snowy but unstarched expansive shirt 
 collar. 
 
 Next day Mr. Perkins accompanied Lawrence 
 " cross lots " to introduce him to Jeremiah Hawkins, 
 or " Jerry Hawkins " as he was generally called, the
 
 138 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 class-leader of the Ceutreville appointment. They 
 found him ploughing in a field with a lean horse and 
 a cow yoked together. He was a little meagre old 
 man with bright eyes like a ferret. 
 
 " Brother Hawkins, this is the noo preacher," said 
 Mr. Perkins, making the introduction with the very 
 essence of true politeness, though without some of its 
 outward forms. 
 
 The old man took from his head a well-worn musk- 
 rat fur cap, in places rubbed bare, which, notwith- 
 standing the intense heat of the weather, he wore, and 
 pulling his iron-grey forelock made what might be 
 described as a strongly-accented bow. 
 
 " Put on your cap, Father Hawkins," said Lawrence, 
 warmly shaking his hand. " I never like an old man 
 to uncover to me. I feel that I ought rather to take 
 off my hat to him." 
 
 " An' thoo be the noo praicher, bless the Lord ! " 
 said Father Hawkins, leaning against his plough 
 handle. " Oi wor afeared the Conference wouldn' 
 send us none we'me raised so little for the last. But 
 we'me did what we'me could, didn't us, Hophni ? " 
 
 " Yes, but the times wuz bad. We'll do better to 
 year," said that hopeful individual. 
 
 " ! the Conference will not throw you over be- 
 cause you're poor," said Lawrence cheerily. " And 
 the Missionary Board will do what they can. That's 
 #hat the Missionary Society is for, to help those that 
 can't help themselves." 
 
 " It would al-to break we're hearts to have no 
 praichin' nor ordinances, wouldn't it, Hophni ? " said 
 the old man. 
 
 "That it would," said Mr. Perkins. "When I 
 com'd in here, an' my little Isaac wuz born, ther 
 wuzn't no preacher to baptize him, an' when he died 
 ther wuzn't none within forty miles to bury him. An' 
 my Jerushy, she took on so 'cause the poor child had 
 never been christened. She wuz Piscopalian, yer
 
 IN THE FIELD. 139 
 
 know, an they makes great account o' that. But we 
 digged a grave in the corner o' the lot. An' Father 
 Hawkins here, he said a prayer an' exhorted a Lit over 
 the little coffin, an' then we carried him out an' 
 buried him ; an' I believe the angels watch his sleep 
 jes' as much as though it wuz in ever so consecrated 
 groun'." 
 
 " Not a doubt of it," said Lawrence, " their angels 
 do always behold the face of our Father in heaven." 
 
 " You're from Devonshire," he continued to Father 
 Hawkins, knowing that one can always draw people 
 out by speaking of their native place. 
 
 " Yes. Be thoo ? " said the old man brightening 
 up. " But thoo hast na getten they speach." 
 
 " No," said Lawrence, with a patriotic emotion, "I'm 
 from a better place, I'm a Canadian." 
 
 " Na, na, lad, thoo canst na be frae a better place, 
 though we'me na runnin' doon Canada. But thoo've 
 never seen they green lanes of Devon, an' they 
 orchards, an' they hop-fields, an' they rich lush pastur', 
 an' they Devonshire cream. Hav' 'em, Hophni ? " 
 and the old man sighed as he contrasted the rich cul- 
 ture of that garden county of the old land with the 
 raw newness of the rocky region to which in his old 
 age he was transplanted, like one of the hop vines of 
 his native shire, torn up by the roots and planted on 
 a rock. 
 
 " Canada's not such a bad place to be born in after 
 all," said Mr. Perkins. 
 
 " The best in the world," interjected Lawrence. 
 
 "When father com'd to York township, on the 
 front, fifty year agone, there wuz no roads no more'n 
 here. An' the mud wuz that bad cattle got mired 
 every spring. An' now we'll soon have the rail- 
 road an' steamboats an' the market brought to our 
 very doors." 
 
 Father Hawkins proceeded to give Lawrence a list 
 of the names and residences of the members of the
 
 140 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 Centreville class, which he kept in his head, uecause, 
 poor man, he couldn't " read writing, or reading either 
 for that matter." It was for this purpose, indeed, that 
 the latter called upon him. 
 
 There was old " Widdah Beddoes " up the river ; 
 and her son and his wife, they lived on the lake road ; 
 and Squire Hill, "kep' the store and Pos' Office;" 
 and Brother Jones, the local preacher, lived above the 
 Big Falls. 
 
 " Good fishin' up thar ef yer that ways inclined," 
 remarked Mr. Perkins. 
 
 Lawrence admitted that he was not much of a 
 sportsman. 
 
 " No more ain't I," replied his host. " Fishin' only 
 fit for boys. Men's time's too precious. 1 kin arn 
 more in a day on the farm than I could catch fish in 
 a week. It may do for city gents who can afford to 
 come out yer with all their fancy tackle an' catch fish 
 that cost 'em 'bout four dollars a-piece ; but a man as 
 works for his Hvin' can't aiford it." 
 
 We imagine that our forest philosopher spoke with 
 a good deal of truth. 
 
 "Thoo kin 'ave ma boaat for visitin' they foaks up 
 t' river an' along t' lake : an' fer the upper 'pintment, 
 Squire Hill '11 lend thoo his rneer, when her's no 
 woakin'. But fer the rest, Oi suspect thoo'll 'ave 
 to use shanks' meer, as we'me used to call it in oor 
 parts." 
 
 This good old man had been selected for the impor- 
 tant office of class-leader and guiding souls to heaven, 
 it was evident, not for his wealth or social influence 
 or learning, but on account of his possession of the 
 highest and most essential qualification his sincere 
 and fervid piety. Although he could not read a word, 
 his mind was stored with Scripture and with Wesley's 
 hymns. In class he would bring out of his treasury 
 things new and old, exhorting, warning, encouraging, 
 reproving, in the spirit of meekness and love. And
 
 BACKWOODS POST OFFICE. 
 
 LOADINO LOOS.
 
 IN THE FIELD. 141 
 
 he would pray with such fervour that all hearts 
 were first melted and then kindled to a glow of holy 
 zeal. 
 
 " Two men I honour," says Carlyle we quote from 
 memory " and no third. First, the man that with 
 earth-made implement conquers the earth and makes 
 her man's. Venerable to me is the hard hand, crooked 
 and coarse. Thou art in the path of duty, my brother, 
 be out of it who may. Thou art toiling for the alto- 
 gether indispensable, for daily bread. 
 
 " Another man I honour," he continues, " and still 
 more highly him who toils for the spiritually indis- 
 pensable, for the bread of life. Unspeakably touching 
 is it when both these dignities are united ; when he 
 who is toiling outwardly for the lowest of men's wants 
 is toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer know I 
 nothing than such a peasant-saint, could such now 
 anywhere be met with." 
 
 Such, we make bold to assert, are many of the 
 humble, toiling class-leaders and local preachers of 
 the Methodist Church, who imitate in their daily walk 
 the Blessed Life which was lived in Galilee, amid 
 
 " Those holy fields, 
 
 Over whose acres walked those blessed feet 
 Which eighteen hundred years ajo were nailed 
 Fur our advantage to the bititr cross."
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 WITH THE FLOCK. 
 
 " Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that 
 weep." ROMANS xii. 15. 
 
 " I must go forth into the town, 
 To visit beds of pain and death, 
 Of restless limbs, and quivering breath, 
 And sorrowing hearts, and patient eyes 
 That see, through tears, the sun go duwn, 
 But nevermore shall see it rise. 
 The poor in body and estate, 
 The sick and the disconsolate, 
 Must not on man's convenience wait." 
 
 LONGFELLOW Golden Legend. 
 
 LAWRENCE went right among the people sym- 
 pathizing with their sorrows, rejoicing in their 
 simple joys ; sitting with the harvesters as they 
 partook of their frugal meal beneath the beech trees' 
 shade ; walking with the ploughman as he turned 
 the furrows in the field ; talking with the blacksmith 
 at his forge ; sitting with the shoemaker in his little 
 stall j snatching a word with the stable-boy at the 
 inn ; taking some fish, caught with his own hands, 
 to old Widow Beddoes ; and reading the Bible and 
 Wesley's hymns to old blind Father Maynard. 
 
 One of his most difficult tasks was answering the
 
 WITH THE FLOCK. 14H 
 
 catechism of questions which Father Hawkins' shrewd, 
 intelligent wife Peggy asked him every week concern- 
 ing what was going on all over the world. An alert, 
 brisk old body she was, with a cheek like a peach, an 
 eye like a sloe, a frame that seemed made of steel 
 springs that never got tired and never wore out, and a 
 tongue but here all comparison fails us. And her 
 mind was as active as her body. The Christian 
 Guardian made its weekly visit to their cabin, for, 
 though Father Hawkins could not read, his wife could, 
 and that to better purpose than many who read more. 
 Like a window opened out of a prison into the great, 
 busy, bustling world was the weekly visit of that 
 speculum of the world's and Church's progress the 
 much-prized household friend. 
 
 Could weary, hard-worked editors but know the joy, 
 the deep delight, the food for the insatiable craving for 
 knowledge felt by many who have no other means of 
 gratifying it than the weekly paper, that they have 
 the happiness to impart, they would feel a compensa- 
 tion for all the sweat of brain that they have under- 
 gone. 
 
 There were no churches as yet on the Centreville 
 mission. The preaching was in school-houses, barns, 
 or the shanties of the settlers. The congregations 
 came from near and far, mostly on foot, a few on 
 horseback, and sometimes a family in a lumber 
 waggon no other vehicle could stand the rocks and 
 corduroy roads. The school-house at Ceutreville was 
 always crowded one would wonder where all the 
 people came from. The women, in all sorts of toilets, 
 frequently with straw hats or poke bonnets, sat on 
 one side. The men, often in their shirt sleeves, on 
 the other. The hard, backless seats were a prophylactic 
 against sleep, and happy was he who got one next the 
 wall where he could support his weary spine. The 
 ycung men and boys hung around the door, discussing 
 the points of the few horses that drove up, and cluster-
 
 144 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 ing around outside the open windows as the singing 
 began. 
 
 It was an excellent school in which to learn ex- 
 tempore preaching. There was no desk to support 
 notes or manuscript, and unless the speaker could 
 keep the attention of his audience, those about the 
 windows would stroll off to the woods, and sometimes 
 even those inside of the door. 
 
 The preacher was also obliged to learn self-possession. 
 He must not be put out by trifles. A commotion 
 among the horses that took half of the men outside, 
 or a little disagreement among the dogs under the 
 seats that could not be settled till both belligerents 
 were kicked out, must not disturb him. Nor must 
 the presence of a dozen children, more or less, some 
 of them of a very tender age. Two or three wandering 
 about the floor, occasionally climbing on the preacher's 
 platform, and as many crying at once, must not throw 
 him off his mental balance. In this school many a 
 Methodist preacher has learned the art of sacred 
 oratory. It is better than putting pebbles in one's 
 mouth and haranguing the ocean waves after the 
 Demosthenic example. 
 
 The singing was an important feature at these 
 services. At Centreville, Brother Orton, a tall man 
 with a large nose, a small mouth, a weak, irresolute 
 chin, and glassy eyes, but with a sweet and powerful 
 voice, led the singing. He was assisted by Squire Hill, 
 a man of intensely florid complexion indeed, of 
 almost a brick-dust colour with a black tie wound 
 around his neck almost to the point of strangulation, 
 who pitched the tunes on a high-keyed flute, which he 
 carried in a green baize uag. As he manipulated this 
 instrument, which seemed to require an immense 
 quantity of wind, the good brother seemed at times in 
 danger of apoplexy, so red in the face did he become. 
 
 Yet there was nothing grotesque or indecorous in 
 these services. Indeed, the spectacle was one of great
 
 WITH THE FJ OCK. 145 
 
 moral sublimity. Here were a number of toil-worn 
 men and women, bowed down by daily labour and 
 worldly care, wresting a living with much difficulty 
 from a rugged, if in parts a fertile, soil. But for these 
 elevating, ennobling, spiritual services, which lifted 
 their thoughts above the things of earth and time, and 
 set them on things in heaven and eternal, they would 
 sink into utter materialism, almost like the oxen that 
 they drove. But now, through these religious influences, 
 they were raised to the dignity of men, and, in many 
 cases, to the fellowship of saints. Such has been, and 
 such is still, the mission of Methodism in many parts 
 of our country. 
 
 The week-night preachings, at " early candle-light," 
 in schools or private houses, were much less formal 
 than the Sunday services. Men and women came in 
 their working clothes, the former sometimes barefoot, 
 the latter with a shawl over their heads. Several 
 brought lanterns or pine knots by which to find their 
 way home through the woods. Others brought candles 
 inserted in the half of a potato or turnip or in the neck 
 of a bottle the latter kind of candlestick was so 
 precious as to be rather rare. 
 
 Full of pathos were the humble -rustic funerals, 
 which always called forth the deepest sympathy of that 
 simple rural community. One took place not long 
 after Lawrence arrived. It was that of a poor widow, 
 the mother of a number of young children. Her great 
 concern in her last hours was for them, and she prayed 
 God with great earnestness to be a Father to her 
 fatherless and motherless babes. Lawrence begged 
 her to lay aside her apprehensions, and although not 
 knowing how it would be accomplished, yet full of 
 faith that some way woul:! be found, he promised her 
 that he would see them cared for. With that promise, 
 as a pillow under her dying head, and the hope of 
 meeting them in a better world in her heart, the loving 
 mother seemed to die content. 
 
 10
 
 146 THJS KIN&S MESSENGER. 
 
 The neighbours, poor as they were, were very kind. 
 Father Hawkins, rich in faith, if poor in this world's 
 goods, took two of the children. 
 
 " Peggy an' Oi be lonesome by times when us thinks 
 of oor oan pretty bairns buried long years sin' in the 
 green churchyard o' Chumleigh, in dear old Devon. 
 They'll be like gran'childer to us in oor old age in this 
 strange land. An' the good Lord, that never forsook 
 us yet, '11 send us food ; " and the old man wiped a 
 tear from his eyes, as if longing for the better country, 
 even the heavenly. 
 
 " Our house is purty full o' childer," said cheery 
 Hophni Perkins, " like a press bnstin' out with noo 
 wine, as the Scriptur' says ; but I guess we can take 
 one o' these poor little motherless creeturs. Can't us, 
 mother? " 
 
 " Course we can," said his wife Jertisha, her great 
 motherly heart already enfolding the little orphan in 
 its wealth of love. 
 
 " Motherliest woman that I ever see," said Hophni 
 proudly. " She nusses all the sick lambs, an' raises 
 chickens that ther own mother gives up. Even the 
 calves an' pigs thrives better under her than anybody 
 else. Powerful smart woman she is." 
 
 So the poor children all found homes among these 
 humble but brave-sou led people. Even the baby was 
 adopted by a young mother who had just lost her own 
 " pretty little Izrel ; " and, " Who knows but the Lord 
 has sent me this in his stead ? " she devoutly said. 
 
 On the day of the funeral, although it was the height 
 of the wheat harvest, the whole neighbourhood as- 
 sembled from near and far to pay their last sad tribute 
 of respect to the mother of the children thus adopted. 
 After reading the Scriptures and prayer amid the 
 solemn hush that always falls upon a house in which 
 lies the unburied dead, the plain black-stained coffin, 
 amid the sobs of the children, was carried to a rough 
 waggon and borne to the school-house, which was near
 
 WITH THE -FLOCK. 147 
 
 the little " God's Acre " already set apart as the 
 seed-plot of the sowing for the harvest of the resurrec- 
 tion morn. 
 
 In the seats near the desk .sat the motherless 
 children, the younger ones with a look of wondering 
 curiosity on their faces, and other relatives of the 
 deceased. It was touching to notice their attempts 
 to provide symbols of bereavement the faded and 
 threadbare mourning dress, the meagre black ribbon, 
 and the little wisps of crape. 
 
 In the solemn presence of the dead, Lawrence faith- 
 fully addressed the living on the momentous lesson of 
 the occasion a lesson which, in this simple commu- 
 nity, had not lost its force through frequency and 
 familiarity. As. he prayed for the bereaved ones at 
 the close of his sermon and for the orphaned children, 
 hearty amens went up from many lips, and, we doubt 
 not, from every heart. 
 
 The relatives of the departed then approached the 
 open coffin to take their last long lingering farewell 
 of the beloved form that they should see no more. 
 Serene and peaceful was now that toil-worn face with 
 the holy calm which comes when GTod giveth His 
 beloved sleep a beam of sunlight, glinting through 
 the window, lighting it up as with the halo of a saint. 
 The thin and wnsted hands that had ceased from their 
 labour for ever, were folded on the pulseless breast, 
 and held in their cold death-clasp a cluster of ripe 
 wheat ears and blue-eyed flax flowers symbols of the 
 resurrection unto everlasting life. 
 
 " All was ended now, the hope and the fear and the sorrow, 
 All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing." 
 
 Life's weary wheels at last stood still. 
 
 As the children's kisses fell on the pale cold lips of 
 the unanswering clay, their heartrending sobs filled 
 the room, and many a mother wept in sympathy, and 
 even hoary-headed men furtively wiped the tears from
 
 148 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 their eyes. Lawrence, though accustomed to restrain 
 his feelings, fairly broke down, and sobbed his sorrow 
 with those motherless children. 
 
 Little Mary, three years old, uncomprehending the 
 awful mystery of death, broke the silence with the 
 artless question, " Why don't mother wake up ? She 
 always did when I touched her face. Won't she wake 
 any more ? " 
 
 And the baby, in the arms of its new mother, 
 laughed and crowed, as unconscious of its loss as the 
 humming-birds, flitting like winged jewels in the sun- 
 light without. 
 
 Slowly, tenderly, reverently, devout men bore the 
 dead to her burial, lifting the coffin as softly as if 
 they feared to awake the sleeper within. As they 
 walked to the little graveyard, not far off, the rustic 
 congregation followed, reverently singing those words 
 of holy consolation : 
 
 " Hear what the voice from heaven proclaims 
 
 For all the pious dead ! 
 Sweet is the savour of their names, 
 And soft their dying bed.' 
 
 As Lawrence for the first time read the sublime 
 burial service of our Church, hallowed by the pious 
 associations of centuries * of use ill crowded church- 
 yards in the dear old motherland, or by the lonely 
 graves of the English-speaking race throughout the 
 world, a solemn awe came over his soul. At the 
 words, "earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes," 
 as the clods fell with hollow sound on the coffin lid, 
 they seemed like a warning knell to many a heart, 
 and by more than one soul, by the side of that open 
 grave, was the solemn vow recorded to serve God in 
 newness of life to walk as in the shadow of eternity 
 and on the very verge of the other world. 
 
 As the grave was filled up and gently and smoothly 
 sodded over with many a tender pat of the spade, as 
 
 * It is substantially that of King Edward VI. ! s J'rayer Book.
 
 WITH THE FLOCK. 
 
 149 
 
 if to shelter the sleeper from the approaching winter 
 storms, even little Mary seemed to realize the utter- 
 uess of the parting, and wept bitterly for her " dear 
 mamma, covered up in the cold dark ground." 
 
 But the birds sang on, and the flowers bloomed 
 still, and the lengthening shadows crept across the 
 ripened wheat fields, and the great world whirled on 
 as it will still when all of us are folded in its bosom 
 for ever.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 A BACKWOODS OASIS. 
 
 " Wide was his parish, and houses fer asonder, 
 But he ne left nought fnr no rain ne thonder, 
 In sicknese and in mischief to visite 
 The ferrest in his parish, mr.che and lite 
 Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf." 
 
 CHAUCER Canterbury Tale*. 
 
 ONE of Lawrence's week-night appointments was 
 some twenty miles up the shores of the lovely 
 Lakes Muskoka and Rosseau. During the summer 
 he went in Father Hawkins's hoat, and greatly en- 
 joyed the trip. The pure air, bright sky, and swift 
 motion of the boat, bounding over the waves before 
 a brisk breeze, seemed to exhilarate like wine. The 
 picturesque scenery, bold rocky shores, cool-grey 
 lichen-covered crags, and innumerable islets of every 
 size and shape and of surpassing loveliness, gratified 
 his fine taste for beauty of landscape. His welcome 
 from the simple settlers was of the warmest character, 
 although his accommodation was often of the scantiest. 
 Almost everywhere a log schoolhouse was available 
 for worship ; for in this favoured land of ours the 
 schoolmaster and the missionary are the twin pioneers 
 of civilization, and the remotest hamlets have their 
 temple of learning, which is also frequently the temple
 
 j A PICTURESQUE BIT IN 
 
 MUSKOKA.
 
 OLD-TIME CANADIAN GRIST MILL.
 
 A BACKWOODS OASIS. 151 
 
 of God. The veteran hero of the conflicts of early 
 Methodism in Canada for the equal rights and privi- 
 leges which it now enjoys, by giving his ripest years 
 to the upbuilding of a comprehensive common school 
 system, has erected for himself a monument more 
 lasting than brass, and has conferred upon his country 
 a boon more precious than gold. In this remote 
 region the strong pulsations of the vigorous personal 
 influence of DR. RYERSON a name never to be men- 
 tioned in Canada without loving reverence made 
 itself strongly felt in diffusing the elements of that 
 intellectual and moral education which alone can 
 make a nation wise and strong and great. 
 
 Lawrence visited the school on the first day of his 
 visic to Owen's Corners, as the neighbourhood was 
 called, and was warmly greeted by the teacher, an 
 exceedingly intelligent gentleman. On the walls were 
 maps and charts, and all the essential apparatus for 
 conquering that glorious kingdom of knowledge, 
 which, like the kingdom of heaven, is entered only 
 by becoming as a little child.* The key of all know- 
 ledge was placed in each of those little hands. On 
 the seats were a number of bright-eyed, bare-footed 
 boys and girls, as quick-witted as any that will be 
 found in our most favoured cities. Lawrence, at the 
 invitation of the teacher, talked for a few minutes to 
 the " village Hampdens " and, as yet, "mute, in- 
 srlorious Miltons " of the school, in a way that made 
 their eyes flash and sparkle. 
 
 " Now, boys," he said, " I want you to play with all 
 your might when you are at it." Cunning fellow I 
 he knew the way to a boy's heart. He had their ears 
 at once, and they thought him an exceedingly orthodox 
 preacher. 
 
 '* But," he went on, infixing the barbed truth he 
 had so deftly winged, " when you study, I want you to 
 
 * This expression, or one something like it, occurs somewhere in 
 Lord Bacon's writings ; we think in his Instauratio Scicntiarum.
 
 162 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 study with all your might, too ; as if you would bore 
 a hole through the book with your eyes, you know." 
 With this intense figure a lesson was burnt in, as it 
 were, into the minds of these boys a lesson of in- 
 comparable importance for winning the victory in the 
 battle of life. 
 
 Mr. Norris, the teacher, insisted on making Lawrence 
 his guest. His abode was humble, but bore evidence 
 of refinement. Flowers without and within, snowy 
 curtains, spirited pencil and crayon sketches on the 
 wall, and the thousand nameless indications of female 
 taste felt rather than seen made the little cottage 
 seem to Lawrence like an oasis in the wilderness. 
 
 " Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the 
 Lord," said the schoolmaster's kind, motherly wife, 
 when Lawrence was introduced. His daughter, tall, 
 graceful, with soft brown eyes and a wealth of 
 clustering curls, received the stranger with a dignified 
 courtesy that, thought Lawrence, would have become 
 a duchess. Books, comprising the best English 
 classics and poetry, a volume of Corneille and Dante 
 in the original, music, a cabinet organ, and drawing 
 materials, indicated the cultivated tastes of the inmates 
 of that backwoods shanty, as it might almost be 
 called. 
 
 " You must make this your home," said Mrs. Norris, 
 " whenever you are at Owen's Corners," an invitation 
 which Lawrence very gladly accepted. 
 
 " I feel as if you belonged to us," said her hospitable 
 husband. Was it an unconscious prophecy? "My 
 father was a Wesleyan minister in England, and I 
 was an old Woodhouse Grove boy, so that I almost 
 belong to the fraternity myself." 
 
 Very pleasant was the evening talk about Dr. Dixon, 
 Dr. Bunting, Dr. Beaumont, and other great lights of 
 the English pulpit ; of Samuel Budgett, that merchant 
 prince of Methodism, in whose great establishment 
 Mr. Norris had been a confidential clerk; and of
 
 A BACKWOODS OASIS. 153 
 
 boyish pranks and schoolday adventures at, Wood- 
 house Grove. Pleasant was the converse with the 
 hostess about the lovely scenery of the winding Avon 
 and the Mendip Hills ; of the courtly society of those 
 ancient cities, Bath and Wells ; of the strange, sad 
 story of Chatterton, "the marvellous boy;" and of 
 the forged poems, "wroten by the gode prieste Thomas 
 Rowley, of Bristowe." But more pleasant still was 
 the time spent over the cabinet organ with the fair 
 Edith, and in sympathetic converse on music and the 
 recent poetry of Tennyson and Longfellow, which lay 
 upon the table. 
 
 This refined family, apparently buried in the woods, 
 seemed yet content. The father was able to procure 
 farms for his boys an Englishman's ambition, but 
 scarcely possible to gratify in the crowded old country ; 
 and he could bring up and educate his large family more 
 cheaply in Canada than at " home," as he still called 
 the dear old land. He was fond of shooting and fishing, 
 and here he had it of the finest at his door. Home is 
 woman's kingdom, and the house-mother found ample 
 employment therein. And Edith, assisting her father 
 in the school, was saved from the ennui and aching 
 vacuity that curses an idle life ; and developed and 
 strengthened both intellectual and moral character by 
 enthusiastic zeal in teaching and in study. The visits 
 of Lawrence were a mutual pleasure. He was always 
 cordially welcomed, and it may be surmised that he 
 did not neglect to visit regularly his appointment at 
 " The Corners." 
 
 One night at the close of the service in the school- 
 house a sturdy figure strode forward from the shadow, 
 concealed by which it had been unnoticed, and grasped 
 Lawrence warmly by both hands, as if it had laid hold 
 on the handles of a plough. 
 
 " But I be dreadful glad to see ye," exclaimed our 
 old friend Jim Dowler, for it was no other than he, as 
 he vigorously shook Lawrence's hands. " I knowed it
 
 154 THE KING'S MESSEXGER. 
 
 must be you from the description, though they couldn't 
 tell your name. I'd 'a' walked fifty miles to hear ye." 
 
 "However did you get here?" asked Lawrence, 
 warmly returning his greeting. 
 
 " Didn't ye know that I'd tuk up land on the Seguin ? 
 Two hunnerd acres, half of it on the intervale by the 
 river, as good land as ever ye see, an' the rest will 
 make capital stun pastur. An' I've got a house an' 
 wife, an' two cows an' a hoss rid him over to see ye 
 it's only 'bout a dozen miles north of this blazed 
 path most o' the way an' I've got jest the cheekiest 
 young un ye ever did see ; " and with each clause of the 
 enumeration he gave Lawrence a poke in the ribs of a 
 very emphatic character, as he fairly chuckled, like a 
 schoolboy, with delight. " An' I owes it all to you, 
 as I may say." 
 
 " How is that ? " asked Lawrence. 
 
 " Why, I owe to you an' Methodism all I am an' all 
 I've got. Ef you hadn't tuk hold o' me, I'd 'a' been 
 a poor drunken sot hangin' round Slocum's tavern. 
 An' now, bless the Lord, I'm happy as the day is long." 
 And he looked like it, his ruddy countenance beaming 
 with joy. 
 
 " You must come an* see me," he said, " an' give us 
 a preach. They's some Millerites got in thar, an' they 
 kind o' stumbles some folks as ain't got the root o' 
 the matter in 'em. They don't stumble me, hows'ever, 
 though I don't understand all 'bout the number o' the 
 beast, an' the seven heads, an' ten horns, an' all the 
 rest o' it. / don't b'lieve, fer my part, that the world's 
 a-goin' to everlastin' smash, jes' as things is a-gettin' 
 fairly into gear an' good runnin' order. It's gettin' 
 better every day, I b'lieve," said this happy optimist 
 philosopher. " Leastways," he devoutly added, " it's 
 better for me, I know, than afore I know'd you, an' it 
 may be better for every one if they likes." 
 
 Shortly after, Lawrence started to visit Dowler's 
 Neighbourhood, as it was called, He took a bark
 
 A JJACKWOODS OA82S. 163 
 
 canoe, with which, in this land of lakes and streams, 
 one can go almost anywhere, and, after paddling 
 through a couple of lakes and crossing as many port- 
 ages with his light canoe, not more than thirty pounds* 
 weight, on his back, he struck the head-waters of the 
 Seguin. Down the swift current and arrowy rapids of 
 that river he glided, and soon came to a small clearing 
 and log-house. Warmer welcome man never had than 
 he received from his kind host. 
 
 " Mary, here's Brother Temple, as ye've often hearn 
 me tell on my spiritooal father, God bless 'im. Yes, 
 Sir, this is my Mary, as I telPd ye about ; ain't she 
 jes' as handsome as a pictur, now ? An' what d'ye 
 think o' that fer a boy?" rattled on the happy man, 
 as he snatched a chubby baby, like one of Perugino's 
 rosy cherubs, from his cradle a sap trough on rockers, 
 with a pillow in it and tossed it as high as the rafters 
 of the ceiling. 
 
 " We call 'im Lawrence, ye know fer who ; an' who 
 knows but the Lord '11 make a preacher of 'im yet ? 
 He's got voice enough when he cries, hasn't he, 
 mother?" he said, addressing the blushing young 
 matron, who laughed assent. 
 
 While the hired boy was sent to summon the neigh- 
 bours far and near to preaching, " at early candlelight," 
 Lawrence walked over the farm with his host, and 
 admired the growing crops in the tiny clearing. 
 
 "Are you not rather far from market here?" he 
 asked very naturally. " What do you do with your 
 crops ? " 
 
 " What do we do with 'em ? Why, we eat 'em, of 
 course. Got market near enough for that, I 'low. I 
 takes the wheat down in a scow to Beattie's Mill, 
 down the river 'bout eighteen miles, and gets it ground, 
 an' dickers some at the store for tea an' sugar an' boots 
 an' stuff for clothes. Dreffle smart fellows them 
 Beatties is. They runs the hull consarn at the Sound 
 Parry Sound, ye know theirselves jes' about. An'
 
 156 THE KIN GPS MESSENGER. 
 
 they won't 'low no liquor sold in the village, neither 
 Boun' to be a big place, that. Thar wuz a great camp- 
 meetin' down thar, too, an' hunnerds of Injuns the 
 purtiest place ye ever see a reg'lar wall o' rock all 
 around, a'most like the mountains round about Jeru- 
 salem, ye know." 
 
 " You never heard anything of O'Neal or Evans, or 
 any of the lumbermen, I suppose ? " asked Lawrence, 
 as they talked of old times and camp life. 
 
 " Didn't I, though ? " replied Jim. " I wuz into 
 Beattie's store when I wuz down the river with a grist 
 last week, when who should I see thar a-buyin' a sou'- 
 wester an' an oil-clcth pea-jacket, but Dennis O'Neal ! 
 
 " ' Is it meself I am, or am I dramin' ? ' says he. 
 
 "'This is me, anyhow,' says I, an' with that he shuk 
 me fist as if he'd got hold o' the boat's tiller. An' 1 
 walked down to see his vessel the Betsy Jane 
 loadin' at Beattie's mill for Oswego, an' he showed me 
 his Bible, an' he tell'd me he had a Bible-class in the 
 fo'casT every Sunday." 
 
 "That's good news," said Lawrence; "I wish I could 
 know how Evans got on." 
 
 " Small joy ther'd be in that," said Dowler with a 
 sigh. " Dennis, he tell'd me all about it, an' a sad 
 story it is. Soon as he got his wages at Quebec, he 
 got on the biggest kind o' spree, an' drinked an' 
 drinked, as if to make up for the time he'd lost in the 
 camp, when he couldn't get none. An' Dennis, he 
 tried to look after him, but when he wuz drunk 
 he wuz awful 'busive lamed to box at Oxford, ye 
 know don't think he larned much else, tho' an' 
 the crimps and land-sharks got him into one of the 
 low taverns on Champlain Street and robbed him, and 
 then they wuz a-shippin' him as a hand on a vessel 
 bound fer Jamaicy, an' he wuz so drunk that he slipped 
 between the wharf an' the boat; an' the tide wuz 
 rnnnin' fast, an' he got drowuded afore they could get 
 hold of hirn.
 
 A BACKWOODS OASIS. 157 
 
 " Next day the river p'lice got his body on the ebb 
 tide, and the crowner found his right uame sewed inside 
 his vest Fitz de somethin' a mighty aristocratic 
 name an' the port chaplain writ to his folks at some 
 Park or other in Sussex, an' he wuz burried in the 
 strangers' graveyard at the cost o' the city him that 
 wuz a lord's son an' had the chance o' sich good eddi- 
 cation at that old Brasenose he talked on." 
 
 Lawrence felt profoundly sad over the tragic ending 
 of this misspent life. He could not help contrasting 
 its utter shipwreck of all its advantages with the 
 manly usefulness of the humbly born and utterly 
 neglected Jim Dowler. The latter, he learned, in the 
 absence of the circuit preacher at " Dowler's Appoint- 
 ment," sometimes read one of Wesley's sermons, with 
 comments of his owu, the rude vernacular and shrewd 
 sense of which blended without any suggestion of in- 
 congruity in the minds of his hearers with the plain 
 and nervous English of the learned Fellow of Oxford. 
 Thus does Methodism, with marvellous adaptation, 
 employ the humblest as well as the highest abilities 
 for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
 
 CHAPTEK XXIV. 
 
 THE FOREST FIRE FIGHTING THE FLAMES 
 
 "T ris noble ensatnple to his shepe he yaf, 
 That first he wrought and afterwards he taught. 
 Out of the Gospel he the wordes caught." 
 
 CHAUCER Canterbury Talc*. 
 
 AS Lawrence sailed homeward on the lake in thp 
 soft light of a September day, he became aware o* 
 a pungent odour in the air, and soon after of a dense 
 smoke drifting from the land. He thought nothing 
 of it, however, but next morning Mr. Perkins 
 remarked : 
 
 " The fire's a-gettin' nearer ; I wish the wind 'ud 
 change been burnin' in the woods north there 
 better'n a week." 
 
 All day the smoke grew denser, darkening the sun 
 and irritating the eyes. During the night the flames 
 could be seen leaping from tree to tree in the forest 
 that engirdled the little clearing, and running rapidly 
 along the ground in the dry brushwood. The tall 
 pines could be seen burning like gigantic torches in 
 the darkness, and then toppling over with a crash, 
 scattering the sparks in a brilliant shower far and 
 wide, to extend the work of destruction. Great
 
 A STILL SEQUESTERED NOOK.
 
 THE FOREST FIRE. 159 
 
 tongues of flame hissed and crackled like fiery ser- 
 pents enfolding their prey. 
 
 No human effort could avail aught to withstand or 
 avert this fiery plague. Only the good providence of 
 God, by sending rain or turning the wind, could stay 
 its progress. The next day was intensely hot. The 
 earth seemed as iron and the heavens as brass. 
 
 M All in a hot and copper sky 
 
 The bloody sun at noon 
 Right up above the trees did stand, 
 No bigger than the moon." 
 
 It seemed like the terrors that followed the trumpet 
 of the fifth angel in the Apocalypse : " There arose 
 a smoke out of the pit like the smoke of a great 
 furnace ; and the sun and the air were darkened by 
 reason of the smoke of the pit." 
 
 On came the flames, roaring like a hurricane. The 
 heat became unendurable, the smoke almost stifling. 
 The cattle fled to the streams and stood in the deepest 
 pools, sniffing the heated air. The water became 
 gradually warm as it flowed over the heated rock and 
 through the burning woods ; and the fish that were in 
 it floated on the surface in a dead or dying state. 
 Fences were torn down, and broad spaces of earth 
 were turned up by the plough, to break the progress 
 of the deluge of fire before which stacks of hay and 
 straw were licked up like tinder. 
 
 Many of the villagers stored their little valuables, 
 and as much of their grain as they could, in the under- 
 ground roothouses, and banked them up with earth. 
 Many had abandoned everything and fled to the is- 
 lands. Lawrence, with most of the men, remained to 
 fight the flames till the last moment. When com- 
 pelled to fly, they sought the shore, where they had 
 moored a boat as a means of escape at the last 
 moment. But, horror! the lapping of the waves 
 and the fierce wind created by the fire had loosened
 
 160 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 the boat, but insecurely fastened, and it was rapidly 
 drifting away. All hope of escape seemed cut off the 
 men were about to plunge into the water, as preferring 
 death by drowning to death by fire. 
 
 " Let us die like brave men, if die we must," said 
 Lawrence, " trusting in God. He will be with us as 
 He was with His servants in the fiery furnace." 
 
 " Father," cried Tom Perkins, a boy of thirteen, " I 
 know a cave where we can hide." 
 
 " Quick, my son, show us the way," was the eager 
 reply. 
 
 " This way, up the stream a bit near that cedar 
 root. The bears used to live in it ; " and he pointed 
 out a concealed entrance, through which they crawled 
 into a small grotto, caused by a dislocation of the 
 strata. 
 
 " God hath opened for us a cleft in the rock. He 
 will keep us as in the hollow of His hand," said 
 Lawrence, with a feeling of religious exaltation he had 
 never felt in moments of safety. 
 
 On came the flames, roaring louder and louder. 
 The crackling of faggots and falling of trees were like 
 the rattle of musketry and firing of cannon in a battle. 
 The smoke and heat penetrated the grotto. They were 
 almost perishing with thirst. 
 
 " I hear the trickling of water," said Lawrence. " I 
 will try to find it. Lie low on your faces so as not to 
 inhale the smoke. Here is the water," he cried, as he 
 found it ; " now wet your handkerchiefs and tie them 
 over your heads," he said, as he did the same himself ; 
 and they all found the greatest relief therefrom. 
 
 At last the fiery wave seemed to have passed away. 
 They crawled from their refuge to view the desolation 
 the fire had wrought. The ground was still hot and 
 smoking, many of the trees were still burning, and 
 everything was scathed and scarred and blackened 
 with the flames. Perkins's house was burned, but 
 his barn, which he prized more, was. with its con-
 
 FIGHTING THE FLAMES. 161 
 
 tents, spared saved by the adjacent clearing and 
 fallow. 
 
 By a special providence, as it seemed to these 
 simple-minded men. unversed in the sceptical objec- 
 tions to the efficacy of prayer, the wind had veered so 
 as to blow the flames away from the village. This 
 they devoutly attributed to their prayers in the cave. 
 That night a copious rain fell, and further danger was 
 averted. 
 
 Mr. Perkins's neighbours made a "bee" to help 
 him to rebuild his house, and turned out in full force 
 on that important occasion. Lawrence, a fine athletic 
 specimen of muscular Christianity, turned to with a 
 will, and swung his axe and rolled his logs with the 
 best of them, as " to the manner born." He won 
 thereby the profound respect of several of the young 
 men, who were more impressed with his prowess with 
 the axe than by his eloquence in the pulpit. 
 
 Soon a larger and better house than the one 
 destroyed was erected, so that Hophni said " the fire 
 wuz a sort o' blessin' in disguise." He " feared he 
 wuz a-takin' better keer o' his crops and beasts than 
 of his wife and chil'en ; so the Lord jes' gin 'im a hint 
 to make them kind o' comfortable, too." 
 
 Lawrence was very anxious to have a church built 
 at Centreville, the head of the circuit, for the purpose 
 of holding quarterly meetings and the like, as well as 
 to accommodate the growing congregation. Some of 
 the wise men of the village gravely shook their heads, 
 and said it was impossible after the fire. But the 
 zealous young preacher was determined to try. He 
 therefore went round with his subscription book for 
 contributions. These were mostly in " kind " or in 
 labour. 
 
 Squire Hill gave a lot in the village, which did not 
 count for much, as land was plenty, and real estate, 
 even on the front street of Centreville, was not worth 
 much more than that three miles distant. But he 
 
 11
 
 162 THE KIN&S MESSENGER. 
 
 promised, moreover, all the nails, glass, and putt} 7 
 required, which counted for a great deal, as these 
 articles were not in such plenty as land in Muskoka. 
 
 Hophni Perkins gave all the pine wanted for the 
 frame, as a " thank offerin' " to the Lord for sparing 
 his barn and crops, and a liberal subscription besides. 
 His brother Phiuehas, who owned a sawmill on the 
 creek, gave all the sawn lumber required. 
 
 Father Hawkins could not give anything else, so 
 he promised to make the shingles during the winter. 
 The village painter promised to do the painting if the 
 materials were provided, which was soon done by sub- 
 scription. 
 
 A grand " bee " was accordingly made to get out 
 the material. Axemen felled the tallest, straightest 
 trees for sills, frame, plates, joists, rafters, purlines, 
 and all' the appurtenances thereof. 
 
 " It reminds me," said Father Hawkins, u of 
 Hiram and his workmen getting out the timbers for 
 the house of God at Jerusalem." Teams of oxen and 
 horses dragged them to the site of the building. 
 Others drew stone for the foundation, sand for the 
 plaster, and boards to enclose the building. 
 
 Lawrence was the moving spirit of all these activities 
 the wheel within the wheel the mainspring of the 
 whole. He it was who drew the plan, got out the 
 estimates, made all the calculations, and was a whole 
 building committee in himself. Nor was he content 
 with directing. He worked with the strongest and 
 most diligent. He mortised sills and plates, and 
 tenoned studs and beams ; and another great " bee " 
 was made for putting together and raising the frame. 
 
 It was like magic. In the morning the ground was 
 strewn with beams and timbers the disjecta membra 
 of a house. In the evening they were all in their 
 places, and the complete skeleton of the building stood 
 erect in its gaunt proportions, the admiration of not 
 only the village but the entire country-side. Almost,
 
 FIGHTING THE FLAMES. 163 
 
 thought Lawrence, might be applied the words of 
 Milton, descriptive of a structure of far other cha- 
 racter : 
 
 " Anon out of the earth a fabric huge 
 Rose like an exhalation." 
 
 But this was only the bony framework. It had yet 
 to be indued with the flesh and skin, so to speak. 
 Everybody who was skilled in carpentry and iu the 
 bush almost everybody learns to be so skilled gave 
 one, two, or more weeks' work, an'l before winter the 
 church was covered in, and by spring it was nearly 
 finished. Although not of very elaborate architecture 
 it was an object of great complacency to the entire 
 community, and especially lo those who had wrought 
 upon it. Among these were several who had never 
 previously shown any interest in Church matters, but 
 who now became quite zealous in its secular concerns. 
 They soon became more interested, also, in its religious 
 worship, and were brought at last more immediately 
 under the influence of the Gospel. Get a man to give 
 or work for any object, and you have quickened hie 
 interest in that object for ever.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 PERIL AND RESCUE THE GUIDING STAB. 
 
 It comes the beautiful, the free, 
 The crown of all humanity 
 
 In silence and alone 
 
 To seek the elected one." 
 
 LONGFELLOW E 
 
 "A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
 A traveller between life and death ; 
 The reason firm, the temperate will. 
 Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill ; 
 A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
 To warn, to comfort, and command ; 
 And yet a spirit still, and bright 
 With something of an angel light." 
 
 WOBDSWOBTH. 
 
 T AWRENCE did not neglect during the winter to 
 Jj keep up the round of his appointments, far and 
 near, especially, as may be supposed, that at Owen's 
 Corners. On snow-shoes, or on horse-back, or in a 
 rude jumper, how bad soever the weather or the road, 
 he was always at his post. On one occasion when the 
 drifts were so deep that his horse fell down, unable to 
 proceed, he unhitched the out-done animal, left his 
 "jumper" in the snow, and led his horse to the 
 school-house, where a large company were awaiting 
 patiently his confidently expected appearance,
 
 PERIL AND RESCUE. lC.5 
 
 When possible, the frozen lake was chosen as 
 offering a smooth and level road. One night it was 
 towards spring, and a thaw and rain had weakened the 
 ice he was overtaken by night some distance from 
 the landing. As it became dark, he hugged the 
 shore pretty closely in order to avoid getting lost on 
 the ice. At length he saw gleaming in the distance a 
 well-known light. It was that of the room in which 
 the fair Edith Norris sat and read and sewed or 
 sketched. Had he been sufficiently familiar with 
 Shakespeare, he would probably have said with 
 Romeo 
 
 " Tender's the East, and Juliet is my sun ; " 
 
 but he simply thought, "Is that fair creature to be 
 the loadstar of my life ? " 
 
 These pleasant reflections, however, were soon ended. 
 Suddenly, in a moment, his horse disappeared, as 
 utterly as if he had been annihilated. Lawrence 
 sprang instantly from the back of his "jumper," but 
 was immersed in the water up to his waist. He 
 managed to scramble out on to the ice, however, and 
 crept carefully around to the head of his horse, which 
 was struggling in the water. He tried, after the 
 backwoods fashion, to bring the animal to the surface 
 by twisting the " lines "around his neck and then to 
 drag him on to the ice. But the ice kept breaking 
 around the edge as often as he attempted this feat. 
 
 After struggling alone in the dark with the drown- 
 ing horse for some time, he resolved to seek help at 
 the landing, more than a mile off. He first drew the 
 points of the shafts well up on the ice, so as to support 
 the animal, and then started fur the shore. But he 
 had now completely lost his bearings, and he could 
 not form the least idea where the landing was. He 
 eagerly scanned the horizon, but could only see, loom- 
 ing through the darkness, the shadowy outline of the 
 shore. At length, joy ! there, far to the left,
 
 160 THE KINGS MESSENGER. 
 
 gleamed the solitary light which had previously glad- 
 dened his vision. It became his loadstar in peril 
 sooner than he had thought. Would its fair mistress 
 also? He hurried, with sturdy strides, to the shore, 
 the chill wind piercing his wet clothing. Reaching 
 the landing, he entered the village tavern, the nearest 
 house, and cried, " My horse is in the lake. I'll give 
 ten dollars if you'll get him out." 
 
 Four or five sturdy fellows immediately set out 
 with ropes and a lantern. They spread out in skir- 
 mishing order over the lake, so as to sweep as much 
 of its surface as possible. The rising wind blew out 
 the lantern, and much time was lost in relighting it. 
 
 " This way," shouted Lawrence, who had run ahead. 
 The poor animal, struggling hard iu the ice-cold water, 
 heard his voice, and faintly whinnied a reply. Lawrence 
 hurried on, and supported the faithful creature's head 
 till the men came up, when by main force they dragged 
 him out on the ice. The benumbed animal was able 
 to walk to the shore, apparently not much the worse 
 lor his icy immersion. 
 
 " Gentlemen, you have my warmest thanks," said 
 Lawrence, when they were reassembled in the bar- 
 room, and he took out his meagre wallet to divide 
 among them the promised reward. 
 
 " D'ye think we want your money ? not if I know 
 myself and these jolly fellows," said the landlord, a 
 burly, good-hearted man, though engaged in a very 
 nefarious calling. But oftentimes, alas I 
 
 " Evil is wrought by want of thought 
 As well as want of heart." 
 
 " Of course we don't," " Not a cent," " D'ye think 
 we'd resk we're lives for money ? " chorused the 
 entire group. 
 
 One pitiful-looking sot, however, who had boozed 
 by the fire while the others were on the ice, hiccupped 
 out, " Ye moight treat us to summat, noo ye've getten 
 yer 'ors p,p were as good as droonded."
 
 THE GUIDING STAR. 167 
 
 "" Gentlemen," said Lawrence, " it is contrary to 
 my principles to treat ^or be treated to liquor. But I 
 will be obliged, Mr. Landlord, if you will prepare for 
 those gallant men the best coffee supper yon can get 
 up." 
 
 "Hurrah for the preacher I" "He's a brick!" 
 echoed the group, the latter expression being the very 
 quintessence of a backwoods compliment. 
 
 Lawrence had been wet for over an hour, and was 
 shivering with the cold. He forewent his purpose of 
 going to the Norris's hospitable house in his then plight, 
 and asked for a bed at the tavern, at the same time 
 ordering a quart of spirits to be taken up to his room, 
 that he might bathe his benumbed limbs. 
 
 u It's good sometimes externally, gentlemen," he 
 said, " and that is the only way it is good." 
 
 " 'E wants to taak a soop on the sly," said the dis- 
 appointed toper. 
 
 " Landlord," said Lawrence, not deigning to notice 
 the insult, " haven't you some strychnine that you use 
 for killing foxes ? " 
 
 " Yes. What do you want with it ? " he replied, as 
 he brought a small package from the clock case, in , 
 which, for safety, it was hidden. 
 
 " Only this," answered Lawrence, as he poured it all 
 into the vessel containing the spirits. " Now, gentle- 
 men," he went on, " I'm not likely to take any of it ' on 
 the sly,' nor any other way. But its poison is no more 
 deadly now than it was before, only a little quicker 
 in its operation, that is all ; " and he bade them a 
 courteous good-night. 
 
 " He's a trump," said the landlord, " anyway, for all 
 his notions. Pity he's a preacher. What a politician 
 he'd make with that manner of his'n I He's nobody's 
 fool, nuther 'cute as a weasel, he is. If he was only 
 runnin' for parliament now, he'd scoop up the votes 
 at the Corners wholesale." 
 
 So great was that, worthA-'s admiration of his unusual
 
 168 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 guest that he refused next morning to accept anything 
 for his entertainment over night. 
 
 " The men preferred drinks o' whisky all round to 
 any of yer coffee stuff," he said ; "an' I won't ask ye 
 to pay for what's agin yer principles. An' as fer 
 your bed, you're welcome here any time." 
 
 Very warm were the congratulations of the Norris 
 family, who, in consequence of the celerity with which 
 news travels in the country, even without telegraphs 
 or telephones, had already heard of his adventure. 
 
 As Lawrence told the fair Edith that it was the 
 light of her lamp that had been the guiding star that 
 rescued him from the peril in the dark, her eyes were 
 suffused with a sympathetic emotion. A great hope 
 dawned like a brighter star in the young man's soul ; 
 but he strove to put the thought aside as a temptation 
 that might come between him and the great life-work 
 to which he was espoused as to a bride that of 
 the humble and ill-remunerated toil of a Methodist 
 preacher. 
 
 The winter passed rapidly by. Successful revivals 
 had taken place at several of the appointments, and 
 the membership was largely increased. With the 
 spring thaw the roads broke up, and travel was almost 
 impossible. To Lawrence's efforts to reach his appoint- 
 ments might almost be applied the words of Milton 
 descriptive of the progress of a far different character 
 on a far different mission. 
 
 " O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense or rare, 
 With head, hands, wings or feet pursues his way, 
 And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies." 
 
 But still he bated not a jot of energy or hopefulness. 
 As the bright spring weather came and it comes 
 with an almost magical transformation in these 
 northern latitudes the church was approaching com- 
 pletion. Lawrence expected that that venerable, 
 highly-honoured and much-beloved friend of missions,
 
 THE GUIDING STAR. 169 
 
 Dr. Enoch Wood, who has probably opened more 
 churches for the worship of God than any other man 
 in Canada, would conduct the dedication service. But 
 that could not take place till after Conference, and 
 so probably he would not even have the pleasure of 
 witnessing the consecration of the building in whose 
 erection he had toiled so earnestly. 
 
 There is probably no class of men in the world who 
 more completely solve by their life of labour the Vir- 
 gilian riddle : 
 
 " Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves. 
 Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis oves. 
 Sic vos non vobis mellincatis apes. 
 Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves." 
 
 They labour, and another enters into their labours. 
 Yet none are more zealous for the upbuilding of the 
 cause of God than they, even in a neighbourhood which 
 they expect soon to leave, probably never to see it 
 again. In no Church is the unselfish, wide-hearted, 
 comprehensive connexional spirit more grandly deve- 
 loped. Their sympathies are not circumscribed by any 
 local limits. The progress of God's work at Gaspe or 
 Red River, nay, at Fort Simpson, on the Pacific, or 
 in Japan, causes the same thrill of happy emotion as 
 a revival on the adjoining circuit. 
 
 So Lawrence toiled among these people as though 
 he was to live with them all his life, Or rather, he 
 toiled harder, for he felt that whatever he would do 
 among them he must do at once, for he might never 
 have another opportunity. The people were exceed- 
 ingly anxious for his return, and requested his re- 
 appointment. But they could offer him no inducement 
 beyond a hearty welcome, glad co-operation, hard toil 
 and plenty of it, poor fare, and scanty remuneration. 
 But for just such rewards hundreds of brave, great- 
 hearted men are willing to spend and be spent in the 
 most blessed service of the Divine Master.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE ACCOLADE. 
 
 - Christ to the young man said, ' Yet one thin? more; 
 
 IE thou wouldst perfect be, 
 Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor, 
 And come and follow Me.' 
 
 "Within this temple Christ again, unseen, 
 
 Those sacred words hath said, 
 And His invisible hands to-day have been 
 Laid on a young man's head." 
 
 LONGFELLOW Ordination Hymn. 
 
 " blessed Lord ! how much I need 
 Thy light to guide me on my way 1 
 So many hands that, without heed, 
 Still touch Thy wounds and make them bleed! 
 So many feet that, day by day, 
 Still wander from Thy fold astray 1 
 Unless Thou fill me with Thy light, 
 I cannot lead Thy flock aright ; 
 Nor, without Thy support, can bear 
 The burden of so great a care, 
 But am myself a castaway. " 
 
 LONGFELLOW Golden Legend. 
 
 AS the Conference was to be held not far from 
 Northville, Lawrence yielded to the combined 
 inducement of paying a visit to his home and attending 
 as an interested spectator the meetings of that ansrnst
 
 
 CONFERENCE SUNDAY IN CANADA.
 
 TRIPLE FALL, MUSKOKA.
 
 . THE ACCOLADE. 171 
 
 body, which he regarded as entrusted with the most 
 important interests in the world and we are not sure 
 that in this he was very greatly mistaken. 
 
 The home-greeting was of the warmest. There was 
 much to hear and much to tell, notwithstanding that 
 almost weekly letters were exchanged between mother 
 or sisters and the absent one. Mary was blossoming 
 into loveJy womanhood, and proud was Lawrence as 
 she gave him her sisterly greeting among the June 
 roses, herself more blooming-fair than they. The 
 saintly mother looked more saintly still, wan and worn 
 with care and toil, and the streaks of silver were more 
 abundant in her hair. But the same hallowed light 
 was in her eyes, the same calm peace the peace of 
 God that passeth all understanding was on her brow. 
 
 The period of the visit was a continual holiday. It 
 was a short drive to the Conference town, and every day 
 Lawrence took his mother or sister to the sessions of 
 that body. It soon assumed a more important relation 
 to him than he had anticipated. On his arrival he was 
 informed by the chairman of his district that the 
 Stationing Committee had put him down again for 
 Centreville Mission ; and, furthermore, that in view 
 of the remoteness and isolation of the field and his 
 own success and maturity of character, beyond his 
 years here Lawrence blushed and bowed they had 
 resolved to recommend his ordination "for special 
 purposes " that is, in order that he might administer 
 the sacraments and celebrate marriage. 
 
 This was unexpected, almost startling news ; but as 
 he looked into his heart, he found a feeling neither of 
 exultation, nor of shrinking from his increased respon- 
 sibilities, but of acquiescence with the will of God, 
 whatever it might be. The Conference assented to 
 the somewhat unusual proposal on account of the 
 special circumstances of the case ; and Lawrence was 
 directed to present himself with the class of probationers 
 whose reception was to take place on the Friday even-
 
 172 THE KING'S MESSENGER. 
 
 ing, and who were to be ordained OQ the following 
 Sabbath, He sought solitude as much as possible 
 during the interval before these solemn services, that 
 he might commune with his own heart, and afresh 
 dedicate himself to God. 
 
 That important service, to him one of the most 
 solemn of his life, when he, so young, so retiring, so 
 almost morbidly shrinking in his disposition, in the 
 presence of a vast multitude, including some hundreds 
 of ministers, was to make his confession of faith and 
 tell the story of his call to the work of the ministry, at 
 length arrived. At first he had shrunk from the ordeal, 
 but as the time drew nigh he felt strangely calm and 
 sustained by the presence and power of God. His 
 mother and sister, of course, were in the audience, and 
 their magnetic eyes drew the gaze of his and inspired 
 him with their sympathy, till he seemed to forget the 
 presence of all others than they. When called upon, 
 he spoke as simply as in a quiet class-meeting in 
 Muskoka, yet with a suppressed emotion that touched 
 every heart. 
 
 He did not wonder, he said, that he was trying to 
 serve God. He wondered that he was not trying to 
 serve Him better. As he spoke of his early consecra- 
 tion to God, of the hallowed spell of his mother's 
 influence on his young life, in moulding his character, 
 and in leading him to the Saviour, his voice faltered, 
 and many an eye was suffused with tears. But that 
 mother's eyes, into whose depths he gazed, lit up 
 with a starry splendour, seemed to give him control 
 over his emotions. Then he spoke of the moulding 
 influence of the Sabbath-school, of the early strivings 
 of God's Spirit with his soul, of his yielding to His 
 blessed influence. 
 
 As he spoke of his father as the ideal hero of his 
 boyhood, of his brave example, of the white flower of 
 his blameless life, of his triumphant death, and of the 
 promise made to follow in his footsteps as he had been
 
 THE ACCOLADE. 173 
 
 a follower of the Lord Jesus, many of the ministers 
 present, who had known and loved the man, carried 
 away by the fervency of their feelings, cried out, 
 "Hallelujah!" " God bless the lad !" "May the 
 father's mantle rest upon the son I " " Amen ! " 
 " Praise the Lord ! " 
 
 Then he spoke of the great help he had received 
 from his fathers in the ministry, and especially from 
 the professors of the college, his brief season at which 
 was an unfading memory of gladness and perpetual 
 impulse to the culture of all his powers. But when 
 he spoke of the great joy of gathering in the first 
 harvest of souls in his far-off mission, his voice 
 deepened and his form seemed to dilate as he rejoiced 
 before God with the joy of those who bring their 
 sheaves with them. 
 
 When he, with the other probationers, had sat 
 down, he listened with deep emotion and delight to 
 the wise counsels, the fatherly and brotherly utterances 
 of the senior ministers who moved and seconded or 
 supported their reception. The names of some of 
 these had been for years as familiar to his ears as 
 " household words," and he now saw them and heard 
 their voices, and felt that he was welcomed by these 
 veteran warriors, who had borne the brunt of many a 
 conflict with sin and wrong, to the same holy brother- 
 hood to which they belonged a grander knighthood 
 than the mail-clad chivalry of arms. 
 
 But on the Sabbath his emotions were even deeper, 
 as he listened to the solemn charge of the President 
 of the Conference, and was set apart as a being con- 
 secrated to God for ever by the laying on of hands 
 of the presbytery. Never did he so feel how high was 
 the dignity, how weighty the office to which he was 
 called, how precious the treasure committed to his 
 care, and how grave the responsibility which he bore. 
 He therefore, while he almost trembled beneath the 
 vows which he took, put his whole soul into the words
 
 174 THE KINO'S MESSENGER. 
 
 he uttered in answer to the questions of the President, 
 looking up to God for strength to keep these solemn 
 vows. 
 
 As he repeated with the others that sublime hymn 
 of the ages, the Veni, Creator, Spiritus, he realized in 
 his soul the blessed unction from above of the Anoint- 
 ing Spirit and the impartation of His sevenfold gifts. 
 As he received in his hands the Holy Bible which was 
 to be the charter of his authority to preach the Word 
 of God and to administer the sacraments in the con- 
 gregation, he fervently kissed the sacred book, and 
 then pressed it to his heart as his guide and counsellor 
 through life, trusting in whose blessed teachings he 
 hoped at last to go home in triumph to the skies. He 
 grasped it in his hand as the sharp two-edged sword 
 of the Spirit which he was to wield as his battle-brand ; 
 and he cried in his heart, as did David when he grasped 
 the mighty sword of Goliath, " Give it me ; there is 
 none like it." 
 
 During the Conference sessions Lawrence took 
 especial delight in sitting in the gallery of the church 
 with his mother or sister, and listening to the debates. 
 From his chairman, who sometimes joined them, he 
 learned the names of most of the ministers, and some- 
 times sketches of their often remarkable history. 
 They seemed to him like the warriors of a Homeric 
 battle-field; or rather, for that simile degraded their 
 character, they were the plumed heroes of a nobler 
 chivalry than that of the steel-clad warriors of old 
 the true Christian knighthood, 
 
 " Whose glory was redressing human wrong, 
 Who reverenced their conscience as their king, 
 Who spake no slander ; no, nor listened to it ; " 
 
 whose trophies were not garments rolled in blood and 
 brazen helms all battle-stained and dinted, but a 
 world redeemed, regenerated, disenthralled by the 
 mighty manumission of the blood of Christ.
 
 THE ACCOLADE. 175 
 
 At last caine the closing hour of the Conference, 
 and its crowning act, the reading of the stations. 
 The scene rose to the dignity of the morally sublime. 
 The galleries were filled with interested spectators. 
 Every minister was in his place. Several of them 
 were, for the first time, to learn their destiny for the 
 year often involving the sundering of tender ties, a 
 long and tedious journey, and the seeking of a new 
 home among perfect strangers. The President took 
 the chair with unusual gravity of mien. The grand 
 inspiring battle-hymn was sung 
 
 " Soldiers of Christ, arise, 
 And put your armour on." 
 
 A hero-soul looked out of each man's eyes. There 
 was no faltering, no flinching. Each one was ready 
 to accept his fate and go forth 
 
 " Strong in the strength which God supplies 
 Through His Eternal Son." 
 
 The Secretary read with a clear, distinct voice the 
 decrees of the Book of Fate which he held in his 
 hands. Every eye was fixed on the speaker. Every 
 sound was hushed. The very ticking of the clock 
 smote with unusual emphasis upon the ear. As 
 Lawrence heard his name read out for Centreville 
 Mission, he bowed his head upon the rail before him 
 and lifted up his heart to Grod ; and when he raised it, 
 by the glad light in his eyes it might be seen that his 
 prayer had been answered. 
 
 Not a murmur arose, not a protest was heard in all 
 that assembly against the decisions of that day, 
 although they vitally affected these men in their most 
 intimate and personal relations. Has the world ever 
 witnessed a sublimer spectacle ? 
 
 Then they sang again, each man making the words 
 the utterance of his own soul :
 
 176 THE KTNffS MESSENGER. 
 
 " Forth in Thy name, O Lord, I go, 
 
 My daily labour to pursue ; 
 Thee, only Thee, resolved to know 
 In all I think, or speak, or do. 
 
 ' The task Thy wisdom hath assigned, 
 
 O let me cheerfully fulfil ! 
 In all my works Thy presence find, 
 And prove Thy acceptable wilL 
 
 " For Thee delightfully employ 
 
 Whate'er Thy bounteous grace hath given ; 
 And run my course with even joy, 
 
 And closely walk with Thee to heaven." 
 
 With this as their sublime marching song and 
 battle-hymn, they went forth again on their sacred 
 crusade the army of the holy cross against the 
 embattled logious of the prince of the power of the 
 air to know no truce nor respite till the Great 
 Captain of their salvation should say to each warrior, 
 " It is enough ; enter into My joy and sit down on 
 My throne." 
 
 The few days that Lawrence spent at home were 
 days of hallowed enjoyment. But although they were 
 to him like an oasis to a weary traveller, he was eager 
 to be at his field of sacred toil. " I am the King's 
 messenger," he said, when his mother asked him to 
 stay a little longer, " and the King's business requires 
 haste." 
 
 " Go, my son," replied that nobler than Spartan 
 mother. " Had I ten sons, I would give them all to 
 be the messengers of such a King." 
 
 The next day, therefore, Lawrence departed, inspired 
 with fresh zeal and courage, to labour for the glory of 
 God amid the rocks and lakes and wilds of Muskoka. 
 Here, for the present, we must leave him. The story 
 of his trials and his triumphs, of his discouragements 
 and successes, of his varied adventures on various 
 fields of labour, " in the wide waste and in the city 
 lull," and the blending of his fortunes, after many
 
 THE ACCOLADE 
 
 177 
 
 strange and providential vicissitudes, with those of the 
 fair Edith this story may be hereafter told. For the 
 present we bid " Farewell " to oar kind readers, and 
 " Farewell and God-speed " to LAWRENCE TEMPLE. 
 Tub 1 KING'S MESSENGEB. 
 
 Haiell, Watson, and Vinev. Primtere. London and Aylesbury. 
 
 12
 
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