180 RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



condition is more destitute, whose homes are more 

 squalid, whose means are more uncertain, whose pros- 

 pects are more hopeless, than those of the peasant serfs 

 of the middle ages or the meanest drudges of the mediae- 

 val cities."* How different our Canadian rural life: . 



City clangors are far behind us, 



Dusty streets and noisome air; 



Ruthless toil can no longer bind us, 



Liberty shatters the gyves of care. 



Green are the hills which the clouds float over, 



Mountains of pearl in a sapphire sea; 



Zephyrs are laden with scent of clover 



And rural melodies, blythe and free. 



Herds of cattle in grassy meadows 



Mottling the valleys, recline at ease 



Ruminate dreamily under the shadows 



Cast by the graceful sheltering trees. 



Orchards laden with apples and peaches, 



Fields that are white with the waving grain, 



Bounties of nature and industry teach us 



Lessons that memory long shall retain. 



Here and there by the trees half hidden 



We catch a glimpse of a pleasant home; 



And the thought springs up to the lips unbidden, 



O why should Canada's children roam?f 



And again, we should speak of the improvement pos- 

 sible in farm life. I am asked a question : Should the 

 church undertake to teach agriculture? and a second 

 one: Should the church tell men how to raise better 

 cabbages ? It was my purpose rather to emphasize the 

 better social life. But let us consider. Until the 

 present year this particular branch of the church main- 



* Thorold Rogers, " Six Centuries of Work and Wages," 

 p. 47. 



t Edward Hartley Dewart, " Songs of Life." 



