Canadian is not a man
who spends his cash for no worth. That cash represents something for
which he cares almightily in Canadian life. What is it? Frankly I do
not know, but I think it is that the church visualizes Canada's ideal
in a vision. We love and lose and reach forward to the last. Where?
We toil and strive and attain. To what end? Our successes fail, and
our failures succeed. Why? And love lights the daily path. But where
to? Religion helps to visualize the answers to those questions for
Canada.

Another characteristic about religion in Canada, which is very
remarkable in an era of decadence in belief, is that the church is a
man's job. Unless in some of the little semi-deserted hamlets in the
far East, you will find in Canada churches as many men as women. In
the West you will find more men than women. The church is not
relegated to "the dear sisters." Shoulder to shoulder men and women
carry the burden joyfully together, which, perhaps, accounts for the
support the church receives from young men. An episode concerning "the
dear sisters" will long be remembered of one synod in Montreal. A poor
little English curate had come out as a missionary to the Indians of
the Northwest. Such misfits are pitiable, as well as laughable. When
you consider that in some of these northern parishes a man can reach
his different missions only by canoe or dog-train, that the missions
are forty miles apart, that the canoe must run rapids and the dog-train
dare blizzards--an effeminate type of man is more of a tragedy than a
comedy. I think of one mission where the circuit is four hundred miles
and the distance to railroad, doctor, post-office, fifty-five miles.
This little curate had had a hard time, though his mission was an easy
one. When his turn came to report, his face resembled the reflection
on an inverted teaspoon. Hardship had taken all the bounce and laugh
and joy and rebound out of him. The other frontier missionaries grew
restless as he spoke. One magnificent specimen, who had been a gambler
in his unregenerate days, began to shuffle uneasily. When the little
curate whined about the vices of the Indians, this big frontier
missionary pulled off his coat. (He explained to me that it was "a hot
night"; besides it "made him mad to hear the poor Indians damned for
their vices, when white men, who passed as gentlemen, had more.")
Finally, when the little curate appealed to "the dear sisters to raise