er of Life
indeed, and no longer a river of Death and Negation!

For in the countryside, the _paroisse_ of Juchereau de St. Ignace, the
upper part or inky ribbon of the river was frequently called by that
gloomy name; a Saguenay in miniature, icy cold, black, solitary,
silent, River of Death, who shall live in sight of your blackness? Who
may sing aloud at his toil, whether he dig, or plant, or plough, or
trap, or fish? Beautiful though the grand sweep and headlong rush of
the fall, the people of the settlement avoid its sombre majesty and
farms were none and smaller clearings few along the upper St. Ignace.
A quarter of a mile back from the fall lay the village, holding a
cluster of poor houses, a shop or two, a blacksmith's forge, a large
and well-conducted summer hotel patronized for the fishing, a sawmill,
depending for power on the Riviere Bois Clair, a brighter, gayer stream
than the St. Ignace, and lastly a magnificent stone church capable of
containing 1500 people, with a Presbytere attached and quarters for
some Recollet brothers.

Such was and is still, doubtless, with a few modifications, the hamlet
of St. Ignace, fair type of the primitive Lower Canadian settlement,
dominated by the church, its twin spires recalling the towers of Notre
Dame, its tin roof shining like silver, the abode of contented
ignorance and pious conservatism, the home of those who are best
described as a patient peasantry earning a monotonous but steady
livelihood, far removed from all understanding of society or the State
as a whole. With each other, with Nature, and with the Church they had
to do--and thought it enough to keep the peace with all three.

Yet change was in the air, destiny or fate inevitable. The moving on
process or progressive spirit was about to infect the obscure, remote,
ignorant, contented little _paroisse_ of Juchereau de St. Ignace when
one April morning there stood upon the edge of rock nearest the great
fall, still partly frozen into stiff angular masses, two men of
entirely different aspects, tastes, and habits, yet both strongly
agreed upon one essential point, the importance of religion, and, more
particularly, the kind of religion practised and set forth by the
Methodist Church.

The elder was Monsieur Amable Poussette, owner of the sawmill at Bois
Clair and proprietor of the summer hotel, a French Canadian by birth
and descent and in appearance, but in clothes, opinions, and religious
belief a cu