She was not settled by land-seekers. Neither was she peopled by
adventurers seeking gold. The first settlers on the banks of the St.
Lawrence came to plant the Cross and propagate the Faith. True, they
found they could support their missions and extend the Faith by the fur
trade; and their gay adventurers of the fur trade threaded every river
and lake from the St. Lawrence to the Columbia; but, primarily, the
lure that led the French to the St. Lawrence was the lure of a
religious ideal. So of Ontario and the English provinces. Ontario was
first peopled by United Empire Loyalists, who refused to give up their
loyalty to the Crown and left New England and the South, abandoning all
earthly possessions to begin life anew in the backwoods of the Great
Lakes country. The French came pursuing an ideal of religion. The
English came pursuing an ideal of government. We may smile at the
excesses of both devotees--French nuns, who swooned in religious
ecstasy; old English aristocrats, who referred to democracy as "the
black rot plague of the age"; but the fact remains--these colonists
came in unselfish pursuit of ideals; and they gave of their blood and
their brawn and all earthly possessions for those ideals; and it is of
such stuff that the spirit of dauntless nationhood is made. Men who
build temples of their lives for ideals do not cement national mortar
with graft. They build with integrity for eternity, not time. Their
consciousness of an ideal gives them a poise, a concentration, a
stability, a steadiness of purpose, unknown to mad chasers after
wealth. Obstinate, dogged, perhaps tinged with the self-superior
spirit of "I am holier than thou"--they may be; but men who forsake all
for an ideal and pursue it consistently for a century and a half
develop a stamina that enters into the very blood of their race. It is
a common saying even to this day that Quebec is more Catholic than the
Pope, and Ontario more ultra-English than England; and when the
Canadian is twitted with being "colonial" and "crude," his prompt and
almost proud answer is that he "goes in more for athletics than
esthetics." "One makes men. The other may make sissies."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account