and woodland or hill, mountain or shore, are thereby enchanted. The Maritime region, still vocal with the dreams and discoveries of adventurous spirits; where all pledge and prophecy still linger in the air; where impassioned endeavour, long-patient endurance, faith to break a pathway through to untrod regions with some Ulysses to inspire a faith that it is never too late to seek a newer world--how wonderful is the spell this province weaves around the wanderer! The noble St. Lawrence is a river that fairly fulfils the purposes of a sea, with its kaleidoscopic shore lines, now bold and forbidding, now dreamy and undefined with their fleeting, ethereal beauty; and all the maritime land is pervaded by memories and associations of the brave Cabot who first sighted Nova Scotia on June 24, 1497, the date of the special festa of his native Italy--this festival of San Giovanni, when all Venice is on the Grand Canal in the fleets of gondolas; all Florence illuminated at night, a resplendent spectacle from her surrounding hills and her background of purple amethyst mountains; and when Rome, at night, disports herself in a thousand ways upon the Campagna Mystica. It was a fitting date for Cabot, the Venetian, to discover the new land. Voices unheard by others had called to him; hands, from starry {48} spaces, beckoned and led him on. What was there in the air but "Winged persuasions and veiled destinies," and all the past that came thronging to meet all the future? Cabot, Venetian born, English by adoption, was followed by several other intrepid explorers, and not to insist too much upon chronological order, what a group of wonderful names are associated with all the province of Quebec! Cartier, Champlain, Frontenac; Sir Humphrey Gilbert of the Elizabethan period, whose brave expedition was engulfed by winds and waves and went down in the great deep off Campobello. "Alas, the land-wind failed. And ice-cold grew the night, And never more on sea or shore, Should Sir Humphrey see the light." But the high ideals these heroes brought did not go down nor become extinguished in the storm-tossed waters. "Say not the struggle naught availeth!" The struggle always avails, and leaves humanity better and farther on than the effort finds it. Then, too, came a band of holy women, the Ursuline nuns, and the sacred zeal of the novitiate lent its vital power. What is there not of spiritual nobility, of sublimest self-sacrifice, of thrilling ideals, of a truer life, associated with the early history of Canada? This is all a part of her spellbinding power; it has {49} left its significance on the air, its impress in wave and tree and flower; its exaltation in every heart.