Transcription:
3 life of the Mother of Lamartine. These are beautiful things you say about the humble life of our Saviour and about the
trees gathering in the sunshine What you say respecting the littleness of the number who are called to the pure deep communion
of the beautiful all loving nature , is particularly true of the hard working, hard drinking, stolid Canadians in vain is
the glorious chart of God in spread out for them - so many acres chopped is their motto, so they grub away amid the smoke
of magnificent forest trees black as demons material as the sod they move upon - I often think of the Doctors lecture upon
the condition of the different races of men as controlled by physical agencies-, Canada though abounding in the elements of
wealth is too difficult to subdue to permit the first few generations to arrive at any great intellect- ual development, In
my long rambles last summer I did not find a single person who knew anything of botany and but a few who knew the meaning
of the word; and wherein lay the charm that could conduct a man who might as well be gathering mammon, so many miles through
these fastnesses to suffer hunger and exhaustion was with them never to be discovered. Do not these answer well to the person
described by the poet in these lines. A primrose by the river's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, And nothing more - I thank
Dr. Carr for his kind remembrance of me, but still more for the good patience he had with so inapt a scholar. We remember
in a peculiar way those who first give us the story of Redeeming Love from the good-book of revelation, and I shall not forget
the Doctor who first laid before me the great book of Nature, and though I have taken so little from his hand he has at least
shown me where those mines of priceless knowledge lie and how to reach them.