George Bryce

“ No sin, no sorrow, no care, no toil, no fear, no conflict; but purity, peace, delight—their Father's smile, their Saviour's presence, the society of the redeemed and of holy angels, the sight of heavenly beauty, the sounds of heavenly music, the fragrance of celestial flowers, the sweetness of the water of life, the exercises of heavenly devotion, all conspiring to fill their minds with gladness ineffable. The marriage robe without is the emblem of the joyful heart within. ”

“ The young girl spoken of as a pupil seems to have had her youthful mind captivated by the beauty of the site, and indeed nowhere could the love of nature be better cultivated than along the bends of the Red River near St. John's, where groves of majestic trees succeed each other, where the wild flowers flourish in the sheltered nooks and the fire-flies glance among the greenery at the close of day and where for sound we have the whip-poor-will lashing the woods as if impatient of the silence. ”

“ If the wind rose still more, curtains of penetrating snow-crystals rose with it from the ground; then a snowstorm, which always comes from the north, might be expected, announcing itself by a lofty white appearance in the south, the violet colour and close proximity of the mountains, and low-hanging clouds. But still we risk the march forward against the thickening snow, until painful breathing and stiffening limbs warn us to pitch our tent. ”

“ Is it any wonder that we hover about the dark mystery, and find in our researches room for absorbing study, even though we cannot reach absolute certainty? Could you have seen the excitement which prevailed among the half-dozen settlers, I had employed in digging the mound on Rainy River, in August last, when the perfect pottery cup figured below was found, and the wild enthusiasm with which they prosecuted their further work, you would have said it requires no previous training, but simply a successful discovery or two to make any one a zealous mound explorer. ”

“ The tender heart of John Black comes out in his words for his departed friend: "John Pritchard was a man of God. In him we have lost a man of much prayer—of deep humility, and one who knew well how to speak the truth in love, and who in his deportment beautifully mingled the gravity and the cheerfulness of true religion—a gravity without gloom or austerity—a cheerfulness without levity—a mingling or union of qualities which gave him at once the respect of the aged and the confidence of the young. ”

“ It is not only in the deadly horror of battle, and in the pain and anguish of men strong and hearty, done to death by human hands. It is not only in the rotting heap of horses and men, torn to pieces by bullets and shell, and thrust together within huge pits in one red burial blent. It is not only in the helpless widow and her brood of dazed and desolate children weeping over the news that comes from the battlefield, that war become so hideous. It is always, as it was in the time of the Europe-shadowing Napoleon when for twenty years the wheels of industry in Britain were stopped. ”

“ With the earliest dawn of spring the hunters are in motion like bees, and the colony in a state of confusion, from their going to and fro, in order to raise the wind and prepare themselves for the fascinating enjoyments of hunting. It is now that the Company, the farmers, the petty traders are all beset by their incessant and irresistible importunities. The plain mania brings everything else to a stand. One wants a horse, another an axe, a third a cart; they want ammunition, they want clothing, they want provisions ”

“ Lord Selkirk's Colonists never had, as have seen, a bed of roses. Adversity had dodged their steps from the time that they put the first foot forward toward the new world—and Stornoway, Fort Churchill, York Factory, Norway House, Pembina and Fort Douglas start, as we speak of them, a train of bitter memories. Flood and famine, attack and bloodshed, toil and anxiety were the constant atmosphere, in which for a generation they existed. Higher civilization is impossible when the struggle for shelter and bread is too strenuous. ”

“ At length in June a bloody flux began its ravages first among the Indians, and others among the whites; like the great cry in Egypt, 'There was not a house where there was not one dead,' On Red River there was not a smiling face on 'a summer's day.' From June 18th to August 2nd, the deaths averaged seven a day, or three hundred and twenty-one in all, being one out of every sixteen of our population. Of these one-sixth were Indians, two-thirds half-breeds, and the remainder white. ”

“ However much we may deprecate war, and with all its "pomp and circumstance" it is a hateful thing and a blot on our civilization, yet we cannot fail to see that it is a great school for developing character and bringing out many of the brightest virtues of humanity. Ruskin has gone so far as to say, that "all great nations learned their truth of word and strength of thought in war; that they were nourished in war, and wasted by peace; trained by war and betrayed by peace;—in a word, that they were born in war and expired in peace." ”

“ I have trodden the deck and the floes, when the life of earth seemed suspended, its movements, its sounds, its colouring, its companionships; and as I looked on the radiant hemisphere, circling above me as if rendering worship to the unseen Centre of light, I have ejaculated in humility of spirit, ‘Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of him?’ And then I have thought of the kindly world we had left, with its revolving sunshine and shadow ”

“ But the province and its great city, Winnipeg, are the meeting place of the East and West, the pivotal point of the Dominion. The national life of Canada throbs here with a steadier beat and a more normal pulse than it does in any other part of Canada, its dominating Canadian spirit is so hearty and so sprightly, that, it is taking possession of the scores of different nations coming to us and they feel that we are their friends and brothers. ”

“ And, oh, a happy company are all these white-robed ones in their Heavenly Father's home! The sorrows of earth are all left behind, and not even the shadow of evil now obscures the sunshine of their holy joys. ”

“ The Hudson's Bay Company, both in London and Fort Garry, were thoroughly loyal to British institutions; the officers were educated, responsible, and high-minded men; they had acted up to their light in a thoroughly honourable manner, and no mere prejudice, or fancied grievance, or personal dislike would have made them untrue to their trusts. But the government had become decrepit; vacillation and uncertainty characterized every act; had the people been behind them, had they not felt that the people distrusted them, they would have taken action, as it was their duty to do. ”

“ Woe to the unfortunate man who, in a lull of the storm, goes into the open air. He is almost torn to pieces, stifled by the snow-filled air, betrayed into snow-drifts, and yet not daring to open his eyes. Numbed with cold, white as a miller, he returns to the tent. Here he is a subject of horror to his neighbours in the sack, whom he intends robbing of their warmth to thaw himself. The snow-powder blown in upon the opening of the tent door has penetrated through all the clothes, and the skin has to be scraped and any frost-bites that may have set in have to be dispersed by rubbing. ”

“ The appearance of Norway House with its fine site and evidences of trade cheered the Colonists, and the sight of a body of water like Lake Winnipeg, which can be as boisterous as the ocean, brought back the loud resounding sea by whose swishing waves most of the settlers, for all their lives, had been lulled to sleep. It is a great stormy and dangerous lake—Lake Winnipeg. But for boats to creep along its shore with the liberty of landing on its sloping banks in case of need it is safe enough. ”

“ God's finger pointed out the Red River unmistakably as his lifelong sphere.
The founding of a new cause among a people who, for thirty or forty years had been without their own form of faith, was a great work. The church building, the alarming flood which hindered his work, the severe task of supplying, while still alone, the small groups of Presbyterians outside of Kildonan, the anxiety about the spiritual condition and insobriety of so many of the native people about him, cases of discipline which required at the same time firmness and tact—all these filled up the measure of his busy life. ”

“ He revived the memory among the British people of the early voyages to discover a way to the riches of the East, and appealed to the English imagination by picturing the interior of the North American Continent, with its vast meadows, splendid cascades, rich fur-bearing animals, and numberless races of Indians, picturesquely dressed, as opening up a field, if they could be reached, of lucrative trade to the London merchants. ”

“ But soon the bear is again at his heels, and he must throw away cap and waistcoat, by which he gains a little. Now Klentzer sees help approaching—several friends hurrying over the ice. Collecting his last strength, he shouts and runs on. But help seems in vain, for the pursuer hurries too, and he is obliged to take the last thing he has, his shawl, which he throws exactly over the monster’s snout, who, more excited still by renewed shouting, throws it back again contemptuously with a toss of the head, and presses forward upon the defenceless man, who feels his cold black snout touch his hand. ”

“ Lord Selkirk's scheme is dazzling almost beyond belief. A territory is his, purchased out and out, from the Hudson's Bay Company, about four times the area of Scotland, his native land, and the greater part of it fertile, with the finest natural soil in the world, waiting for the farmer to give a return in a single year after his arrival. A territory, not possessed by a foreign people, but under the British flag! A country yet to be the home of millions! It is worth living to be able to plant such a tree, which will shelter and bless future generations of mankind. ”

“ The night is very clear and fine, the face of heaven is smiling amid myriads of twinkling stars; the northern horizon is lit up with the rays of dancing beams of an aurora, while the woods and silent-flowing river are illuminated by our camp fire; our voyageurs are fast asleep upon the ground before us, and not a sound is heard save that of the leaping, crackling flames and the low tone of our own voices as we chat merrily. And now, as my companion reads a chapter in his French pocket Bible, and I pencil down these sketches [Pg 41] of fact and fancy by the light of the burning fagots—but hark! ”

“ The strong room contains the same rows of minutes, the same dusty piles of documents, and the journals of bygone years, but the business of a vast region is still managed there, and the old gentlemen who control the Hudson's Bay Company affairs pass their dividends as comfortably as in years gone by, with, in an occasional year, some restless spirit stirring up the echoes, to be promptly repressed and the current of events to go on as before. ”

“ Drifting snows whirl over it in the winter, and the sea-gulls swarm round it in the summer. The last rays of departing day linger upon its lofty spires; and when the long darkness is past it catches the first gleam of the returning light, and its gilded dome heralds the coming morn. The elements combine to render tribute to its matchless beauty. Its loud voice is wafted to the shore, and the earth rolls it from crag to crag among the echoing hills. ”

“ The only consolation to the contemplative soul, who does not have to portage, is that "The stream is turbulent and unfriendly in the extreme, but in romantic variety, and in natural beauty nothing can exceed this picture." High rocks are seen, beetling over the rapids like towers, and are rent into the most diversified forms, gay with various colored masses, or shaded by overhanging hills—now there is a tranquil pool lying like a sheet of silver—now the dash and foam of a cataract—these are but parts of this picturesque and striking scene. ”

“ The French explorers are a reminiscence of a century and a half ago; the lords of the lakes and forests, with all their wild energy, are gone for ever; the Astorians are no more; no longer do the French Canadian voyageurs make the rivers vocal with their chansons; the pomp and circumstance of the emperor of the fur-traders has been resolved into the ordinary forms of commercial life; and the rude barter of the early trader has passed into the fulfilment of the poet's dream, of the "argosies of magic sails," and the "costly bales" of an increasing commerce. ”

“ Freed from the shackles which it has borne in silence through unnumbered centuries, this new-born child of the ocean rushes with a wild bound into the arms of the parent water, where it is caressed by the surf and nursed into life again ”

“ No one ever loved his friends more strongly, delighted more to sit and spend hour after hour in a social chat, and loved home life more tenderly than he. The house of Sheriff Ross had been his home from the first day of his arrival in Red River Settlement. It was not strange that his heart should incline to Henrietta Ross, one of the tall and handsome daughters found in the numerous family of his Highland host. ”