“ I have sat on blocks of coal in the Pictou mines, wandered through glens of Cape Breton and around Cape North, and driven for a hundred miles under apple blossoms in the Cornwallis and Annapolis valleys. I have seen the glory of our Western mountains, and toiled through passes where the great cedars and Douglas pines of the Pacific slope hid sun and sky at noonday, and I say that, in the four thousand miles that extend between, there is everything that man can desire, and the promise of a mighty future. ”

“ As chief of staff of the brigade which I had the honor to command at the late battle at Hatcher’s Run, you in no small degree contributed to that success which won for our brave troops the encomiums of the generals commanding. To the consciousness of having faithfully discharged your whole duty, which you will carry with you to private life, I desire to add the assurance that you also have the confidence and kindest regards of your old comrades in arms, who still hope, at no very distant period, to welcome you again to the tented field. ”

“ The eyes look at you with the old-time keen, rapid glance; and there is the same kindly note in the voice, which rises and falls with that familiar, soft, measured cadence, which belongs distinctively to those who hail from the Scottish metropolis. For thirty-five years President Wilson has been connected with the University and College of Toronto, and has given to that institution the abundant fruitage of a rich, matured, and industrious life. ”

“ In 1849, when financial ruin stared the country in the face, and Britain, by her oft-repeated neglect, seemed callous to her fate, he, with many others, sorrowfully believed that annexation was inevitable, and with much bitterness of spirit, expressed himself to a friend in England, who had for many years been a public servant in this country: “In view of annexation, I feel, as I suppose a man feels who knows that one of these coming days he is to be led out to the scaffold to be strangled in presence of numerous spectators who come to enjoy the sport, and so feel a good many, I fancy.” ”

“ As the drop of water, slowly and patiently wending its way through the obstacles which men and accidents may throw on its passage; as the impetuous torrent upsetting all obstacles in its mad race, Father Labelle has succeeded in all his enterprises; but then these enterprises were great, they were national, they were undertaken in the interest of religion and for the welfare of the country, and only those who were traitors to their religion and their country were opposed to their execution. ”

“ It need hardly be said that Principal Grant heartily rejoiced over the confederation of the Canadian provinces, or that he has always been a warm supporter of its integrity, and a staunch opponent of every suggestion of dismemberment. He thinks it not all a dream that this young sturdy “Canada of ours” should indeed become the youngest Anglo-Saxon nation, working out for herself an individual character and destiny of her own on the last of the continents where such an experiment is practicable. ”

“ At such a crisis in the history of Quebec education, it is a matter for the deepest congratulation that such a man as Sir William Dawson should be leading the fight of liberty and justice. Canada, indeed, is fortunate in having able, broad-minded, and progressive men at the head of her principal universities. No other circumstance can tell so strongly in the future for the building up of all that is best and lasting in the nation. ”

“ Mercier combines great physical gifts with large magnetic personal influence. His face is of the Napoleonic type, and suggestive of extraordinary mental power and force of character. He looks in every sense of the words a man born to command; but, behind the mask of imperiousness, lies a fund of geniality and good nature which has earned for him the respect of his adversaries and the undying devotion of his friends through good and evil fortune. ”

“ McMaster left Ireland, and on the 9th of August of the same year he came to Toronto. Since then the town of seven thousand people, with only two brick houses in it, has become the flourishing metropolis, with a population of over one hundred thousand, and the social and commercial centre of the leading province of a great dominion. In that time the young immigrant, with his capital of only brains, energy, and good habits, had become one of Canada’s most noted citizens, an object of emulation to all young men, and of gratitude to the many who have been benefited by his practical kindness. ”

“ This glimpse of the extent and grandeur of the national heritage of Canadians—the fit home of a great people—made him still more emphatically a Canadian, and gave him a still stronger impulse and more earnest aim to use all the powers he possessed to aid in moulding the still plastic life of a young nation born to such privileges and responsibilities. ”

“ None but those who know the French Canadian people, how they are attached to their race, some of them cherishing the odd feeling that they are not treated with becoming justice and respect by the other elements of the population, and none but those who dwelt in the province at this time, and witnessed the morbid excitement, the hopes, the fears, the anxiety which prevailed throughout the whole crisis, can have the faintest notion of the gravity of the situation. ”

“ He thinks that the powers of the central government in Canada are greater than they should be, and that the machinery of that government is complicated, cumbrous, ineffective and expensive, to a lamentable degree. If these defects and abuses were removed, and the tariff framed in the interests of the mass of the population instead of as now in the interests of a very small minority, he thinks that the natural advantages of our country would ere long have the effect of largely increasing our wealth, population, and our importance in the eyes of the outside world. ”

“ He inspired, and was to a large extent the author of all the measures adopted to make the place the most prosperous and attractive manufacturing centre, not only in the province of Quebec, but in all Canada, outside of the great commercial cities. In a word, Mr. Coté, by his industry and example, made St. Hyacinthe. The brilliant and fruitful career of this good man furnishes a striking illustration of what can be done by intelligence, industry, good conduct, and love of country. He started out in life without education or pecuniary resource. ”

“ In politics, he is and has always been a Conservative, and does not believe in the principles of the French or American revolutions, nor in the divine right of the people, and he believes that authority ought to come from above and not from below. Mr. Hemming cannot understand the theory of allowing the fools to elect the wise men, nor why a majority should have the right to utterly crush out the minority, and still less why a small minority that happens to hold the balance of power under our constitution, should have the power of controlling the overwhelming majority of the nation. ”

“ Who that has watched, night after night, when home returning, for the “Light in the Window-pane?”, who will not feel its power when he realizes, without any strain of imagination that the hand that placed it there is cold and dead? ”

“ He holds the theory that almost any idiot can be educated, at least, to a certain extent, and that it is the duty of the government, which in Ontario simply means the people, to give the idiot population all the education they are capable of receiving. It is assumed, Dr. Beaton argues, that the province should provide a free education for the children that have the proper use of their faculties of mind and body. How much more urgent and binding is the duty of educating those who have impaired bodily powers and the mere germ of an intellect? ”

“ Athanase, d’Iberville, P.Q., at which the present premier of the province of Quebec, Hon. H. Mercier, also received the rudiments of his education; he has climbed the ladder of fortune until he now stands on the topmost rung of wealth and influence, while still a comparatively young man. But he has not forgotten that he was once a workingman himself. One of the largest employers of labor in the province of Quebec, his workmen and women are more his friends than his employees, and the interest he takes in their comfort and welfare is altogether paternal. ”

“ Valuing only that vital religion which is the root of right feeling and right action in daily life, he has no respect for a “profession” of faith without its fruits. As in the case of political sins, so he denounces social and individual sins with the same fearless freedom, believing that this is one of the preacher’s most solemn duties. He strives not for effect but for effects, and though he not infrequently rises to impassioned appeals, he aims rather at producing permanent conviction than temporary excitement. ”

“ On May 28th, 1609, in company with his Indian allies, he started on the expedition, the immediate results of which were so insignificant—the remote results of which were so momentous. The war-party embarked in canoes, ascended the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Richelieu—then called the River of the Iroquois—and thence up the latter stream to the lake which Champlain then beheld for the first time, and which until that day no European eye had ever looked upon. This picturesque sheet of water was thenceforward called after him, and in its name his own is still perpetuated. ”

“ He has long been dean of the faculty of law in Bishop’s College, Lennoxville, from which college also he holds his doctor’s degree. All his life, Mr. Hall has been a leader of the public enterprises of his native province, his name being regarded as a tower of strength to any organization with which he becomes identified. He not only has the character of a man of spotless honor, but his public spirit, his great business ability, and his capacity for hard work, are guarantees of the success of anything to which he puts his hand. ”

“ But let the Protestant minority permit me to say now, before this immense audience, composed for three-fourths of French Canadians and Catholics, that the National Party will respect and cause to be respected the rights of that minority; that the National Party desires to live in peace and harmony with all races and creeds; and that it intends to render justice to all, even to those who refuse to render it in return.
In private life the premier of Quebec is a charming conversationalist, and one of the most genial of companions. ”

“ Sound discretion, marked ability, and sterling integrity have characterised Hon. Mr. Mowat’s career in each division of his professional and official life. As a lawyer, his talents quickly gained recognition, and, reinforced by his clear judgment and scrupulous conscientiousness, soon won for him a high place in the confidence of the profession and of the court in which he practised. Though not fluent, he was energetic, forcible, and convincing as a pleader. His patience was admirable, his industry untiring, his fertility in resources great. ”

“ It does not fall to the lot of every man to receive an education that will enable him to appreciate the classic beauties of a “Mulvaney” or a “Roberts,” or the chaste imagery of a “Maclean”; nor has nature gifted everyone with the “wild wealth of imagination” (we quote Collins) that would lead him to revel in the love-songs, of a “Caris Sima”; but what Canadian farmer, with a soul large enough to survive the transit to another sphere, would not feel the pathos of the lines that he writes on the death of his ox. ”

“ Senator Wade, vice-president of the United States, said, in speaking of the abolitionists:—“Never in the history of the world did the same number of men perform so great an amount of good for the human race and for their country as the once despised abolitionists, and it is my duty to add that no one of their number submitted to greater privations, perils or sacrifices, or did more in the great and noble work than Alexander Ross.” ”