Seeds of Pine

by Emily F. Murphy

"For long years," said a Toronto editor the other day, "this country has produced few outstanding personalities except politicians."

Here spoke the little Canadian. By this country he meant the provinces to the south of the Great Lakes. Think of that! Think of that!

Why, man dear, north of the lakes we have outstanding personalities to burn—and we burn them. And, here and now, let me say that under the northern lights, politicians must, perforce, take a third or even a fourth estate, for always we have to reckon with the missionary priest, the business man, and the real-estate agent, before we begin to consider the politician. Even then, I am not so sure but the editor and the railway boss take precedence of the politician. In this large, airy land, politicians are truly but small fry from small places—inconsequential ephemera, who age in a heart-beat and die.

If I had realized at the start this was to be a chapter on the outstanding personalities among the missionary priests, I would have begun differently. I would have said that the Anglo-Saxon hungers for heroes, but that the heroes were rare—that this was why the raw, ragged wolf-land lying about the Hudson Bay and along the stretches of the Mackenzie River was of deep and peculiar interest, in that it had the distinction of producing crops of heroes and that the breed never seemed to run out.

I would have said that the story of the northern priest is the story of a man with an ideal, or, if you will have it so, with a dream; that the dream is one that disturbs his ease and leads him in perils often.

I would have gone further and shown this boy o' dreams to be at the same time a supreme realist and, without question, one of the highest types of human excellence in the last half-century; that he has the dauntless spirit of the soldier, the enthusiasm of the explorer, the enterprise of the merchant, and the patriotism of the statesman, and all for the sole object of helping humanity. In a word, that he is a special soul and must not be judged as general.

It is to be regretted I did not begin this way, but, to quote the Roman governor who gave judgment concerning the Nazarene: "What I have written, I have written."

... Among the missionary priests of the North there is, to-day, no greater outstanding personality than Bishop Stringer of the diocese of the Mackenzie River.

I used to know him years agone when he was Isaac Stringer, divinity student, a lusty young fellow, lean and clean and strong of wind, who could carry a ball down the field past all antagonists and send it spinning through the goal. When I say he has grown stout since those days, you must not make the deduction that he is under-worked and overfed like other bishops of whom we have heard tell. On the contrary part, north of 53° it is our profligate custom to starve all dignitaries. Indeed, it was only last winter that Bishop Stringer, on his way across the divide from the Mackenzie River to the Yukon, nearly lost his life from starvation. He and his companion, Charles F. Johnson, were lost in a mountain fog and missed the trail. Southern folk who sit in offices and parlours do not grasp the full meaning of this, and I cannot very well explain except to say that Dante had an exceedingly fine insight when he made the Inferno foggy.

For a week, in deep snow and deeper fog, they wandered in and out of Fool's River, the irony of which could not fail to rub them sore. Returning to the Fool's mouth, they spent three days making snow-shoes and cutting up moccasins for webbing. From here they ascended the height of land and crossed three divides before finding an east-flowing river. But again the fog descended and now came the fight for life. On and on they wandered, day after day, scarcely able to see a foot ahead and more than once treading on the verge of a precipice.