In olden times men who had performed deeds of bravery on the battle-field were canonized as saints, and those who had shown daring in other ways were revered as gods. There is a fascination about the stories which come down to us through the long centuries of time, and from the middle ages, and we are accustomed, almost from the cradle, to revere the names of the great ones who have filled the world with the splendour of their exploits in the defence of cities and the protection of fair ladies. In the nursery we learn to lisp the names of stalwart knights and doughty warriors, and the great deeds which they performed, ages and ages ago, live again in the memory of all mankind. And it is well that it should be so. It is well that the splendid actions of the world's great men should be remembered for all time. Who is there who does not feel the blood mantling his cheek when he thinks of a Clive and of a Marlborough? Who can think of a Napier and a Wellington, and not experience for a time a thousand emotions coursing and careering madly through his breast? And Robert Bruce on his little palfrey giving battle to the last of one of England's proudest and sternest knights, in full view of Stirling Castle, the day before the great battle was fought, is a story which every Scottish lad is taught before he is old enough to read. And the lives of such men as Bonaparte, Turenne, Wolfe, the Great Frederic, Von Moltke, and a hundred others, are undying records in the histories of nations, the memory of whose deeds shall last when time shall be no more. In a young country like ours, whose territory has not often felt the hostile tread of invading armies, and whose broad acres are almost wholly unstained with the blood of battles, the heroes we have developed have earned their reputation in another and nobler way. Halifax has had her England, whose name will be remembered as long as ships sail the seas; and in St. John, we have long learned to bless the name of a hero in humble life, honest Tom Sloven. And now from the ashes of the fire two names arise, which in after years, when their owners shall have passed away, will live in the hearts of the people, and leave there an imperishable record. We applaud success, and oftentimes let honest effort and endeavour go unrewarded. We worship the rising sun, and when a man works hard to achieve a certain success and fails, we are apt to pass him by. And though the object, in the instance which we are about to relate, was not successful in the end, let us never forget the deed which was attempted at the imminent risk of the lives of the chief actors. When the story of the fire is told at firesides in the years to come, generations now unborn will listen with blanched cheeks and curdling blood, to the great incident in the conflagration, when a woman perished by the roadside, and two men escaped a dreadful death.