to accidents both foreseen and unexpected. Otherwise, should the principal parts not be contented to follow the body, but change their natural situation, all the parts would be doubly inconvenienced; both because they would not know where to find them when they needed their direction; and because the least offence of the nobler parts being mortal, their hurt would redound not only to themselves, but also to the rest of the body. Moreover, if the general act the soldier, who shall act the captain? how will the corporal and common soldier do? They will all think themselves become equal to their superiors; they will no longer do anything but in their company; and it will be no wonder if disorder slides into all the members, when it has begun at the head. If they be blamed for not knowing how to obey, their excuse will be ready, that they have to do with leaders who know not how to command. Besides, the general hath the same relation to his army, that the first president hath to a parliament. Now, what would you say if the first president should manage the cause, and undertake to plead it, although the advocates acquitted themselves ill? Even domestic government may serve for a rule in this case; the head of a family losing his credit among his servants, when he sets himself to do their work. For whereas almost all the affairs of men depend upon opinion, when the respect which arises from the authority of the superior over his inferiors is once shaken, as it is by the too great familiarity which the society of dangers begets, contempt will be apt to jostle our duty. And the common soldier looks upon his general but as another man, when he sees him partake of the same hardships with him. Upon this account were invented the diadems, sceptres, crowns, and other ornaments of sovereigns and their magistrates; the meanest of which, instructed by experience, are jealous of their authority, which they keep up by separating themselves from the commerce of the vulgar; but lose it as soon as they receive those for companions over whom they are to command.

The fourth (Virtuoso) said—That reward and punishment being the two supports of all our actions (but especially in war, where there is not time to make all the inductions requisite to a good ratiocination), neither of them can be well administered without the presence of the chieftain, who alone can judge of the merit of his soldiers, free from all passions, especially, envy and jealousy, which are found amongst equals: for want of which, both the one and the other sometimes complain with good reason, the meaner of not being seen, and the great persons of not seeing but by the eyes of others. And therefore the presence of the king hath been always of more value than twenty thousand men.

The fifth (debater) said-That in this, as in all other moral questions, it is impossible to give a definitive judgment, because things of this nature depend not upon certain and infallible causes (as natural things do), but upon free causes, which borrow their commendation or blame from the diversity of the circumstances of things, of time, place, persons, and other accidents; which, being infinite, and consequently impossible to be known, have no other rule but that of prudence assisted by experience. So that it cannot be determined absolutely whether the chieftain of an army ought to fight or not, but we must distinguish the different occasions which oblige him thereunto, or not. When he understands himself weaker than his enemy, and sees the courage of his soldiers low, if he cannot avoid giving battle, he must animate his soldiers by his own example; as also when he is obliged by some notable surprisal to lay all at stake; or when he undertakes such great matters, that otherwise he can never accomplish them; as when Alexander conquered the whole world, his father Philip all Greece, and Cæsar the Roman Empire. In every other case, it is imprudence, temerity, and injustice, in a head of an army to esteem his own life no more than that of a common soldier. Yea, it is greater courage to render himself inflexible in the exact and rigorous maintaining of his orders, than to engage himself in fight. In doing which, he notoriously argues his conduct of

weakness, since it hath suffered things to come to so ill a pass, that he is reduced to this extremity of hazarding the loss of his victory, which ordinarily follows the death of the general, and is much more prejudicial to his army than the example is profitable which he gives to those few that are about him, who are not always induced to imitate it: like those empiricks who employ extreme remedies to common diseases, instead of reserving them only for the desperate.

THE SKATER AND THE WOLVES.

[From Wild Scenes and Wild Hunters.'] DURING the winter of 1844, being engaged in the northern part of Maine, I had much leisure to devote to the wild sports of a new country. To none of these was I more passionately addicted than to skating. The deep and sequestered lakes of this state, frozen by the intense cold of a northern winter, present a wide field to the lovers of this pastime. Often would I bind on my skates, and glide away up the glittering river, and wind each mazy streamlet that flowed beneath its fetters on toward the parent ocean, forgetting all the while time and distance in the luxurious sense of the gliding motion-thinking of nothing in the easy flight, but rather dreaming, as I looked through the transparent ice at the long weeds and cresses that nodded in the current beneath, and seemed wrestling with the wave to let them go; or I would follow the track of some fox or otter, and run my skate along the mark he had left with his dragging tail until the trail would enter the woods. Sometimes these excursions were made by moonlight; and it was on one of these occasions that I had a rencontre which even now, with kind faces around me, I cannot recall without a nervous looking-over-myshoulder feeling.

I had left my friend's house one evening just before dusk, with the intention of skating a short distance up the noble Kennebec, which glided directly before the door. The night was beautifully clear. A peerless moon rode through an occasional fleecy cloud, and stars twinkled from the sky and from every frost-covered tree in millions. Your mind would wonder at the light that came glinting from ice and snow-wreath, and incrusted branches, as the eye followed for miles the broad gleam of the Kennebec, that, like a jewelled zone, swept between the mighty forests on its banks. And yet all was still. The cold seemed to have frozen tree, and air, and water, and every living thing that moved. Even the ringing of my skates echoed back from the Moccasin Hill with a startling clearness, and the crackle of the ice as I passed over it in my course seemed to follow the tide of the river with lightning speed.

I had gone up the river nearly two miles, when, coming to a little stream which empties into the larger, I turned into it to explore its course. Fir and hemlock of a cen tury's growth met overhead, and formed an archway radiant with frostwork. All was dark within; but I was young and fearless, and, as I peered into an unbroken forest that reared itself on the borders of the stream, I laughed with very joyousness; my wild hurrah rang through the silent woods, and I stood listening to the echo that reverberated again and again, until all was hushed. Suddenly a sound arose-it seemed to me to come from beneath the ice; it sounded low and tremulous at first, until it ended in one wild yell. I was appalled. Never before had such a noise met my ears. I thought it more than mortal; so fierce, and amidst such an unbroken solitude, it seemed as though a fiend had blown a blast from an infernal trumpet. Presently I heard the twigs on shore crack as though from the tread of some brute animal, and the blood rushed back to my forehead with a bound that made my skin burn, and I felt relieved that I had to contend with things earthly, and not of spiritual nature-my energies returned, and I looked around me for some means of escape.

The moon shone through the opening at the mouth of the creek by which I had entered the forest, and con

sidering this the best means of escape, I darted towards it like an arrow. 'Twas hardly a hundred yards distant, and the swallow could scarcely excel my desperate flight; yet, as I turned my head to the shore, I could see two dark objects dashing through the underbrush at a pace nearly double in speed to my own. By this great speed, and the short yells which they occasionally gave, I knew at once that these were the much-dreaded grey wolves. I had never met with these animals, but, from the description given of them, I had but little pleasure in making their acquaintance. Their untameable fierceness, and the untiring strength which seems part of their nature, render them objects of dread to every benighted traveller.

'With their long gallop, which can tire

The deer-hound's hate, the hunter's ire,'

they pursue their prey-never straying from the track of their victim-and, as the wearied hunter thinks that he has at last outstripped them, he finds that they but waited for the evening to seize their prey, and falls a prize to the tireless animals.

The bushes that skirted the shore flew past with the velocity of lightning, as I dashed on in my flight to pass the narrow opening. The outlet was nearly gained; one second more and I would be comparatively safe, when my pursuers appeared on the bank above me, which here rose to the height of ten feet. There was no time for thought, so I bent my head, and dashed madly forward. The wolves sprang, but, miscalculating my speed, fell behind, while their intended prey glided out upon the river.

Nature turned me towards home. The light flakes of snow spun from the iron of my skates, and I was some distance from my pursuers, when their fierce howl told me I was still their fugitive. I did not look back, I did not feel afraid, or sorry, or glad; one thought of home, of the bright faces awaiting my return, and of their tears if they never should see me, and then every energy of body and mind were exerted for escape. I was perfectly at home on the ice. Many were the days that I spent on my good skates, never thinking that at one time they would be my only means of safety. Every half minute an alternate yelp from my fierce attendants made me but too certain that they were in close pursuit. Nearer, and nearer, and nearer they came; I heard their feet pattering on the ice nearer still, until I could feel their breath and hear their snuffing scent. Every nerve and muscle in my frame was stretched to the utmost tension.

The trees along the shore seemed to dance in an uncertain light, and my brain turned with my own breathless speed, yet still they seemed to hiss forth their breath with a sound truly horrible, when an involuntary motion on my part turned me out of my course.

The wolves, close behind, unable to stop, and as unable to turn on the smooth ice, slipped and fell, still going on far ahead; their tongues were lolling out, their white tusks glaring from their bloody mouths, their dark, shaggy breasts were fleeced with foam, and, as they passed me, their eyes glared, and they howled with fury. The thought flashed on my mind, that by this means I could avoid them, viz., by turning aside whenever they came too near; for they, by the formation of their feet, are unable to run on ice except in a straight line.

I immediately acted upon this plan. The wolves, having regained their feet, sprang directly towards me. The race was renewed for twenty yards up the stream; they were already close on my back, when I glided round and dashed directly past my pursuers. A fierce yell greeted my evolution, and the wolves, slipping upon their haunches, sailed onward, presenting a perfect picture of helplessness and baffled rage. Thus I gained nearly a hundred yards at each turning. This was repeated two or three times, every moment the animals getting more excited and baffled. At one time, by delaying my turning too long, my sanguinary antagonists came so near that they threw the white foam over my dress as they sprang to seize me, and their teeth clashed together like the spring of a fox-trap. Had my skates failed for one instant, had I tripped on a stick,

or caught my foot in a fissure of the ice, the story I am now telling would never have been told.

I thought all the chances over; I knew where they would first take hold of me if I fell; I thought how long it would be before I died, and then there would be a search for the body that would already have its tomb; for oh! how fast man's mind traces out all the dread colours of death's picture, only those who have been near the grim original can tell.

But I soon came opposite the house, and my hounds-I knew their deep voices-roused by the noise, bayed furiously from the kennels. I heard their chains rattle: how I wished they would break them! and then I should have protectors that would be peers to the fiercest denizens of the forest. The wolves, taking the hint conveyed by the dogs, stopped in their mad career, and, after a moment's consideration, turned and fled. I watched them until their forms disappeared over a neighbouring hill, then, taking off my skates, wended my way to the house, with feelings which may be better imagined than described. But even yet I never see a broad sheet of ice in the moonshine, without thinking of that snuffing breath and those fearful things that followed me so closely down the frozen

Kennebec.

THE COMPOSITION OF THE DESERTED VILLAGE. THE Sweetest poem of Goldsmith was composed during a season of severe exertion, amid sorrow and disappointment. Washington Irving was shown the room at Islington where the Deserted Village' was written; its panelled wainscot and Gothic windows imparted an air of antiquity to the place. It is pleasing to reflect how cheeringly those rays of poetic sunshine must have broken upon the gloom and sadness of his fortunes. 'I remember,' says Hibbert, in his 'Philosophy of Apparitions,' 'that, about the age of fourteen, it was a source of great amusement to myself, if I had been viewing any interesting object in the course of the day-such as a romantic ruin, a fine seat, or a review of a body of troops-as soon as evening came on, if I had occasion to go into a dark room, the whole scene was before my eyes, with a brilliancy equal to what it had possessed in daylight, and remained visible for several minutes.' It may have been so with Goldsmith. While he was toiling down the midnight chimes, over the task which was to provide him with bread for the morrow, the remembrance of the rural scenery of his youth returned to his heart, cooling the fever of the spirits, and gilding the dreariness of reality with the beauty of imagination. The ivied castle, the glimmering ruin, the pastoral brook, shone into his eyes. But especially the scenery of home revived before him. There are no pleasures,' he observed, 'sensual or sentimental, which this city does not produce; yet I know not how, I could not be content to reside here for life; there is something so seducing in that spot where we first had existence, that nothing but it can please: whatever vicissitudes we experience in life, however we toil, or wheresoever we wander, our fatigued wishes still recur to home for tranquillity; we long to die in the spot which gave us birth, and in that pleasing expectation find an opiate for every calamity." Such were the affecting sentiments of the Citizen of the World. We can picture to ourselves the glow of joy with which, under the magical guidance of memory and fancy, he escaped from the drudgery of the present into the poetry of the past: the lover's seat arose before him; the leaves of the hawthorn rustled around him; the stream rippled by his feet; the decent church greeted his eyes; the birds sang among the branches; and the shout of playful children just let loose from school sounded in his ears. It was in such an hour of fervour and tenderness that he breathed the pathetic prayer to revisit, after all his wanderings, the dwelling of his childhood; to display his book-learned skill among the wondering villagers; to keep old men at the chimney corner by stories of what he had seen and felt; and at last to close his eyes in the same spot where first they had opened.- Willmott.

CANADA.

BY A CLERGYMAN NOW RESIDENT IN THAT COLONY.
NINTH PAPER.

SOME of the reminiscences of a minister in the backwoods may furnish the reader with a few not uninteresting pages. But, in recording such, one cannot help using the personal pronoun somewhat frequently; more frequently, perhaps, than may be agreeable to the reader, and certainly much oftener than suits the taste of the writer.

I speak the rather on this subject in this publication, because here I am at liberty to write just as plainly as truth requires or permits. This I could not do in a purely religious periodical, although I believe that the interests of the gospel would be better promoted were there more plain speaking in such magazines than there is, and less of that stereotyped, unmeaning, and whining commonplace, which men usually and properly call cant, and which no person with a head on his shoulders, and any brains in it, can ever possibly relish. Sidney Smith was justly censured for his scoffing at good men long ago in the Edinburgh Review; but, however faulty his motives or sentiments may have been, still he did good, when he held up to ridicule the silly affectations in which pious men are too apt to clothe their ideas on religious matters. Christianity needs no such nonsense to support it, and is often injured by the use of it in the eyes of many thoughtful and honest-minded men. It would be well if some modern, with the wit of the reviewer, regulated by sincere piety, were to dissect and scarify some of our missionary reports.

But our missionary literature is not merely faulty because of its tiresome inanity, its interminable flatness; it is further faulty because of the very one-sided picture it generally gives of missionary operations. I do not imagine that the writers tell falsehoods, or deliberately intend to mislead; but, judging from what I have seen in Canada, I suspect that they often give the English reader very in. correct ideas of the real state of the case. And this arises from the peculiarity of their circumstances.

There are two views which may be taken of most subjects-one is from the extreme right, and the other from the extreme left. Neither of these will be absolutely correct, nor will any one be able to say that either of them is absolutely false. Suppose a missionary (and to avoid all personalities, I shall call him the Rev. John Smith) goes to some distant land, under the auspices of some particular section of the church of Christ. Well, then, the Rev. John Smith is naturally anxious to make his labours appear in the best possible light, and views them with the fondness of indulgent parentage. He is anxious to succeed, and to make his efforts appear successful, for his own sake, for that of the body which sent him out, for that of the Divine Master he serves, and for those of all good men who take an interest in the progress of truth. Thus actuated, he places himself almost unconsciously in the most favourable spot of the spiritual landscape, and takes a drawing of that only which he sees from thence. The result is, that the fairest features of the scene alone are depicted. As for the drawbacks in his hopeful struggle, he either does not see them at all, or else passes them by altogether. We have heard of preachers, who, when they wanted a word to finish a sentence, and could not find one, just dropped their voices low, and muttered audibly without articulating anything. Sometimes Mr Smith may do this: he may throw out a sentence or two, which in their obscurity may mean just anything or nothing, and so get over a troublesome subject. When Mr Smith sends a picture home, he draws it while the sun shines. Somebody else might take one in a shower of rain, and the landscape would then look very different.

From what has been said, it will appear that, without in the remotest degree impugning friend Smith's truthfulness, the British public may be to a certain extent misled by him, he being so far misled himself by his position and feelings. Hence, if those to whom he writes would judge correctly on the subject, they must place themselves in

his position, and imagine themselves actuated by his feelings. Their doing so will not lead them to distrust him, but may induce a certain thoughtfulness, a little abatement from the warmth of his colouring, a respectful inquiry as to the correctness of his conclusions or the reasonableness of his anticipations. Especially in foreign countries, properly so called, a man is under peculiar temptations to magnify his exertions, his trials, and his hopes. Remote from civilisation, amidst strange and exciting scenes, he knows that people expect something wonderful from him, and to gratify these expectations, he is often induced to swell his tale out to the utmost limit of fact. Thus Mr Smith narrates all his adventures, his perils, and his hardships, and people read them, without ever thinking for a moment that the self-love which he possesses in common with all other men, may excite his imagination and bias his judgment. Hence they conclude that the reverend gentleman is enduring unparalleled hardships, fancy on their part swelling out his story still further, adding extra streaks of vermilion to the thunder-clouds, and heightening his sorrows and dangers, until, were they to write his story in their own words, the good man himself would scarcely recognise it. A story never loses anything by the telling. Most strange things look stranger at a distance. Thus, the well-dressed, well-paid, well-fed, wellserved agent of a missionary society, who may drive his carriage-and-pair, and keep his servant-man, becomes a 'selfdenying brother,' a spiritual hero, and all but a worshipful martyr.

In Canada there is not so much inducement to spin these evangelical yarns as in some other places. People do not expect so much from us here in the way of wonder, and, there being no demand upon us in the home market for that commodity, comparatively little of it is exported; and the less the better. Still, without the least varnishing, one could tell as wonderful tales about missionary labours here as many which are so often sent from heathen lands. We, too, have our catalogue of trials. They may not be very exciting, but on that account are more worthy of credit. There is little risk of our being made into chops at a cannibal banquet, but it is a fact that we suffer great bodily fatigue, painful exposures to all weathers, discouragement, vexation, and that which many other missionaries know nothing of-the loss of earthly comfort, and often-times grinding poverty.

People at home take but little interest in religious movements in Canada. They fancy that a minister residing in our woods must be very like one who dwells in their own green fields. We preach in English, and to white men, therefore they conclude that we pass through a very similar course with that of our brethren in Britain. In this, however, they are greatly mistaken. Too little attention is paid to the spiritual interests of this colony. I have often thought that the treatment of my brethren here, as compared with that received by those who go among the heathen, is exceedingly unfair. But there seems to be a fashion in these things, and it is not at present fashionable to attend to us. Such conduct is as unkind as thoughtless. Is it reasonable that a missionary in India should be kept like a gentleman, while one in Canada should be kept like a beggar? I have seen a Canadian missionary whose children ran barefoot. I have known others who had only, at times, bread, butter, and tea to live on, and for the latter they required to go in debt. Sympathy to any extent is shown for the brutal Feejee. Why is it that our destitute fellow-countrymen are so scantily provided with the means of grace?

Let a tame Indian be brought to the May meetings in London, and what crowds will run to see his low, cunning, dingy face! If it should be intimated, as has been frequently done, that the tame Indian will trick himself out in all his barbarous finery, and try to look as like a wild beast as possible, then people will endanger their very lives to get a peep at him. They will be transported with the thought of his conversion. They will speak of

the lion being changed into the lamb.' It will never enter into their heads that the savage is flattered by all

this attention, or that he finds himself well rewarded by becoming a convert. He must be sincere. To be sure he must! Albeit he has made a gain of godliness.

Thus are the so-called triumphs of the gospel exhibited with all the clap-trap and tinsel of the showman to an admiring audience, for sixpence a-head. Need we wonder if, amidst charlatanry like this, the infidel should scoff at the Lord of Glory! If tomfoolery of this sort be Christianity, the less we have to do with it the better.

Vary the illustration, and get up a mission to Timbuctoo. Tell the young ladies that the men there want breeches, and that their conversion will be greatly facilitated by their wearing 'inexpressibles,' and you will very soon have a Timbuctoo-missionary-men's-pantaloon-making-young-ladies'-society.' Offer to send out a few devoted men to some place where they are sure to die in a few years, and you will get any amount of money required, without the least difficulty. Propose, in short, to do good to people who have the most distant claim upon you, and who are scarcely distinguishable from the baboons among whom they propagate their species, and you will call out the sympathies of a large class of the Christian people. Plead, on the other hand, the destitution of Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen in the woods of America, and you will too often plead to deaf ears and cold hearts. There is nothing curious, or disgusting, or degraded about them, therefore their souls may remain as black as sin can make them. Your right to the means of grace depends, in the judgment of many people, on the colour of your skin.

Having thus said what I believe to be true as to the manner in which many of my brethren and countrymen are treated by their fellow Christians at home, I shall now proceed to give a few sketches of missionary life in the woods. They will be very rambling ones.

When I first entered on my ministry, I was settled in a township of a very rude character. It lay on either side of a great road connecting two prosperous towns in Upper Canada, and was somewhere about half-way from either. To get out of the woods either way, you had to take a pretty good day's journey. North, south, east, and west, stretched uncut forests, mottled here and there with little specks of clearing. The people who settled there some fifteen years before were from the humblest classes in their respective countries, and any difference found among them resulted rather from national characteristics than from any social inequality. When I knew them, they had made some progress, but were still in a very pristine condition. Everything was new and rude. The people themselves had grown almost as rough as the surrounding trees. Go where you liked, you could fire a shot into the woods. All the houses, barns, and stables were log, and so were the school-houses. Externally they were of the very rudest kind, and the inside corresponded with the exterior. If the parents had grown about as rough as the trees, the children showed an alacrity at sinking, and had grown rougher. I said they had school-houses, and I may add that they had here and there a dominie, but these gentlemen had, in many things, as much need to be taught as their pupils. The only magistrate for a section of country ten miles square was a poor drunkard, who, in addition to his judicial functions, combined in his own proper person the duties of postmaster, captain in the militia, storekeeper, and tavern-keeper. For five months in the year, the great road already alluded to was almost impassable for man or beast, and utterly impassable for any kind of vehicle. The country was a dead flat for many miles round, and the only variety in the landscape was caused by the changes of the seasons. In summer, we looked out upon an interminable forest of green leaves, and in winter we saw an interminable collection of grey trunks and branches. In the spring and fall, the same trees stood dismally in an interminable ocean of mud. At a distance of eight miles apart, were the only two respectable families in the neighbourhood, and I had but limited opportunities of seeing either of them. Besides myself, there were two ministers in the place, the one a

brawny Irishman, belonging to the Methodists, and the other an Episcopalian. There was but one church, and that was my own. This was a plain frame building, with its gable to the road, and the door in the gable.

Such was the place in which I was buried, after having spent my youth in Edinburgh, with a keen relish for social enjoyment, and a fair share of intelligent and respectable society. And oh, reader! it was lonely, horribly lonely. I used to stand and gaze up the road, and then down, and then into the clearance exactly opposite my door. Nothing new ever happened. My neighbour's wife might have an addition to her family, or his hens begin to lay, or his mare cast her foal, or his wheat get 'rusted,' or his potatoes rot, or his cow have twin calves, but these were the most wonderful things that ever happened to break the intolerable monotony. When the stage passed, I used to hurry out to see if any familiar face was in it, and if I caught a glimpse of one, my heart sickened, and I could have wept with bitter sorrow, for all they seemed happier than I was. Occasionally a friend stopped at my home, and I always coaxed him to stay, for his presence broke the fearful sameness; when he left me, I was sadder than before. For months this continued; a gloom as of the grave settled over me, my body wasted, my duties became a burden; even she whose face never changed its sweetness, and whose temper never lost its evenness, added by her very excellence to the sorrows and miseries that seemed to gather over me. Then she was delicate, and as my imbecility crept over me, and I feared that ere long I should sink under it, and be no longer able to care for her, I wrung my hands in agony, and with a burning brain wept before God. But God in his mercy saved me; and since the thick cloud has long passed, I shall hasten away even from the remembrance of it, for although years have now elapsed since then, still I cannot yet venture to look steadily into that gloom.

My duties in this delectable place were tolerably varied. I kept a horse, but never got the length of having a ser vant-man, because I never had money to pay for one. This horse had to be fed morning and night, which was always done; and he should have been cleaned twice a-day, which was seldom done. However, I was the only groom he ever had. In the winter time I chopped my own firewood, and at all seasons was my own message-boy, even to the carrying home of jugs of milk, and cloths full of butter, and legs of mutton. These, and many other occupations of a domestic kind, 'too numerous to mention,' daily engrossed or broke my time, and unfitted me for that more serious application, so necessary to him whose business it is to instruct others. And such is a fair picture of the position of many of my brethren. They are almost all poor, and many of them intensely poor. Their life is a perpetual struggle with difficulty, from which they escape as soon as they can; and, should escape be out of their power, under which they sink into a coarseness, the consciousness of which confirms and accelerates their degradation.

The church above referred to was but little calculated, from its associations or appearance, to call forth one's oratorical powers. Like most frame-houses in new countries, it rested on ten or twelve posts, and left a space of two and a half feet between the floor and the ground, and here, during the hot days, the pigs used to come for shade. Now, except a pig be asleep he cannot lie still, so that my neighbours gave me abundant and most unmusical evidence of their presence. At one time they would begin scratching themselves against the posts, at another time they would quarrel, and then they would grunt and squeak, and fly round about, sometimes during the whole of the service. The sheep, too, used to come about us, and what with their bleating, and the tinkling of their bells, puzzled me sorely to get on with the sermon, and often compelled me to stop, until some urchin would go outside and drive the whole flock away. There were no pews in the church, but their place was supplied by a set of benches, made from beech boards. But these had beer a gift, and were of that class which king David describes as costing nothing. When first made, they were quite un

seasoned, and so could not be planed or improved in any way. Accordingly, pins were wedged into the side with the bark on, and thus, with the flat side uppermost, they were set down for the reception of occupants. At first, I presume, all the four legs touched the floor in the generality of cases, but after a while, when the boards dried, they twisted, and while some of the legs dropped out, others were lifted up into the air, describing every variety of angle, and looking about as unsteady as drunken men, and as comical. Wo betide the innocent who might, in an evil hour, sit down on one of them! Indeed, they were most deceitful benches. I was one day preaching, and on one of those concerns immediately before me there sat an old Englishman, who lived usually on amazingly good terms with himself. Trusting, I suppose, to his skill as a posture-master, he ventured on to the perch, and for a time managed pretty well. But before the sermon was over he fell, like many more, a victim of misplaced confidence. How it happened, I cannot tell; whether it was my eloquence, or something else quite as potent, that threw him off his balance; but suffice to say, suddenly, in the middle of the sermon, away he went with a tremendous crash, amidst the suppressed titter of the whole congregation. Before he rose, the first thing he did was, as is usual in such cases, to look round about him to learn if anybody saw him. At first there was no pulpit, and a table carried there every morning supplied its place. They ultimately got one, but it was only a rude box made from unplaned bosswood boards.

But there were other annoyances besides pigs, sheep, and bad benches. Dogs and children were among the most regular of my hearers. Occasionally the infants would begin to cry. One day, a fellow about eighteen months old, who was still unweaned, informed his mother that he wanted a suck. This the fond parent accordingly proceeded to give him in the most modest way possible. The youth, however, not being able to satisfy his wants, and having no regard for her delicacy, shouted out in wrath, Give me a suck; nobody can't suck that, mammy.' When the children cried very much, the women would sometimes take them out; but at other times they did not take the trouble, and remained where they were, greatly to my annoyance. Occasionally, when the young ones were twelve or fifteen months old, they divided the talking with me, for they used to get down on the floor when their nurses got tired, and there held what was to their parents apparently quite an interesting chat, and to me certainly a very diverting one. But my canine hearers! how shall I describe them? Two or three would get into church together, and seemed so little affected by the place, that they would cock up their tails most ominously, and growi most fiercely, being kept from blows (or bites, if you will have it) only by the whispered abuse of their owners, or by some vague idea that they had better wait until they got outside. Sometimes, again, they were on just as friendly terms with each other, and would stand rubbing noses and wagging tails in the most amicable manner imaginable. At other times they would go to sleep. When they got tired of that, they would get up, and having stretched themselves, would walk round the building, inspecting the feet of the hearers, looking up in their faces, and giving a good-natured wag, when they were bid lie down again. However, I had better say no more about them and their tails, lest the reader should fancy that I am somewhat of a wag myself.

In winter time, as you approached, you found all the men gathered round the door in groups, with pipes in their mouths; indeed, this was their habit both summer and winter. When the weather was cold and the stove was lit, you would see them all, as soon as the service was over, crowd round it, and, slipping a live coal into their never failing pipes, sally forth, puffing vigorously as they journeyed homewards.

The church was my chief preaching station, but I had several others back from the main roads, some miles into the woods. One of these was a Scotch settlement. The people met me in a school-house, for they had no other

place, and this was the most intelligent of all my au diences. This settlement lay several miles back in the woods, and was reached by a road which was no road. Thither I was bound to go in all weathers, fair or foul. The land was in some places very swampy, and one day my horse sank up to his belly, and I had to get off on a log until he could extricate himself. Another day, as he leaped over a hollow, the girth gave way, and I went over his tail, with the saddle between my legs. In cold weather, the ride was most distressing. Then the pools and streams used to freeze, and the poor beast had to break his way through, often cutting his legs as he proceeded. At no season would the road admit of more than a walk, and thus in our intense frosts my knees and heels used to ache and smart, until I often feared they would be frozen. On such occasions, I reached the school-house scarcely able either to speak or stand. Then I drew near to the little red, battered, cracked, rusty, apologetic stove, and thawed myself before I began to preach. Up till the moment of my arrival, all the tobacco pipes had been going, but when I came they were put into their owners' pockets; not, however, until I was asked if I would take a smoke myself. It was sweet in that lone place to hear the songs of Zion sung in the same strains with which my infancy was familiar. An old Scotchman, whose voice had been good until age had thinned it, frequently led; and he used to give us French, or Irish, or Luther's Hymn, or some such glorious old melody. And it was surpassing pleasant thus to listen to the voice of praise ascending in that wild spot to the great I AM. This was a partial fulfilment of the prediction that His name shall be known from the river even unto the ends of the earth.

In an opposite direction lay another settlement, the people of which were miserably poor, with the exception of two Scotch families, who, as usual, did well. With one of them I used to stay on those occasions when I went to that neighbourhood. After the day's work, I could not go home, because of the distance and the generally shocking state of the road. The house in which I usually slept was a large and rude log one. It had an enormous mud fireplace, large enough to hold logs four feet long and fifteen inches in diameter. But there was no ceiling overhead, and the roughly shingled roof, through which the heat escaped in a thousand places, was all that covered your head from the inclemency of the weather. I remember sitting there through one bitter winter's evening until bedtime, which, however, was not needlessly delayed. An enormous fire blazed and roared on the hearth, but so bitter was the night, that, while my face was scorched with the red pile before me, my back was so cold that I had to put on a greatcoat. On getting to bed, the kind-hearted woman of the house came and tucked in the clothes at my back, and piled odds and ends on my feet, to keep me warm; in spite of all, I rose in the morning cold and uncomfortable. In these, the first houses, there is seldom more than one room, which serves for all purposes. The whole family sleep in the same place. One of the beds is usually curtained, and this I always got. Surrounded by a whole host of men, women, and children, I found it at first rather difficult to get into bed at all, but by and by I got used to it, and finally became so adroit at undressing, that I could turn in without being troubled myself or incommoding any one else. Yet it did seem odd to peep out from the curtains, and look, by the light of the fire, at the entire family as they slept away soundly on every side of me.

One winter, my duties called me from home for about a month. I left in January, at which time there is usually a thaw which lasts some eight or ten days. Moreover, as the snow in the upper province is at any time uncertain, and I had to travel a distance of a hundred and eighty miles, I packed up some clothes in a valise, strapped this on the back of my saddle, and started on horseback. In four days I reached my destination, the thaw still conti nuing. I had then to ride about a good deal from place to place. One evening I started to find out the house of a Yankee whom I had to visit. He lived in the woods.