DWIGHT-WIMAN CLUB. 



49 



the school house where Divine service was being held. 

 We had a simple, manly sermon from Mr. Mackay, a 

 divinity student, who ministered to two small congrega- 

 tions some miles apart. The subject was the nature of 

 the higher life ; the helpfulness of the Christian religion ; 

 its practice not only enabling a man to die easily but to 

 live a better life. Properly understood and adopted, 

 Christ's gospel makes a better farmer, mechanic, trader, 

 because it makes a better man. It was a pleasant 

 afternoon we spent in the sitting room of the hotel, with 

 Miss Laidlaw at the organ and Mrs. Gouldie on the 

 sofa, and a chorus of half a dozen voices singing hymns 

 ancient or modern, or those of the Moody and Sankey 

 collection. And when we parted from the landlady, 

 each one of us was presented with a photograph of 

 Trading Lake House as a souvenir. Mentioning sou- 

 venirs, was there not something else ? Is it a dream ? 

 — an imagining ? 



'• Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams, 

 Unnatural and full of contradictions ; 

 But others of our most romantic schemes 

 Are something more than fictions." 



And there lingers a legend that two fellows, in response 

 to an invitation which was not restricted but general, 

 did indite something in a certain album. One, whose 

 poetry shaped itself, somehow, best in prose, managed, 

 it is affirmed, to write 



" Prettiest girl on Muskoka shore," 



While the other, not being able to produce anything 

 original, scribblfed some words about * a cup o' kindness,' 

 and * Auld Lang Syne ' which rhymes with * fine ' and 

 'dine.' But it is certainly not a fiction that the Club 

 and its guests wrote their names in Miss Laidlaw's 



A. 



