I859-] 



QUEBEC. 



177 



by the choir and organ : . . . there was deep chanting by 

 the men, as in France, relieved by pleasant peals of response 

 from the thousand children. . . . After the service was over, 

 the children set up a pleasant song in two parts. It was the 

 greatest mixture of cheerfulness and solemnity that I have 

 ever seen. A large number of the people stopped praying, 

 waiting for their turn to confess. On going out, the children 

 were tossing each other in the snow in charming fashion. The 

 Catholics have no idea of gloomy Sundays.'' 



He had been invited by the Sons of Temperance to lecture 

 at Quebec. Four of them met him at the station, and he was 

 glad to put his luggage in the sleigh, and to cross on foot that 

 mighty river, there about a mile wide and thirty feet deep, 

 with the torrent waters of perhaps a quarter of North America 

 rolling unperceived beneath him ! He was much interested 

 with the quaint, Frenchified old city, with steep rocks jutting 

 into the streets, beautifully covered with snow and icicles. 

 His friends took him to see the monuments of the battles ; but 

 he " could not like them, in the midst of nature's eternal 

 grandeur and beauty ; paraded, too, over the descendants of the 

 conquered people." There was an eclipse of the moon, and he 

 sallied forth about half-past three, with the thermometer about 

 io° below zero (!), mounting the hill outside the fortifications. 

 " I was surprised to see how much sharper the penumbra was 

 than in our hazy atmosphere. When the obscuration was nearly 

 complete, I attracted the attention of some soldiers who were 

 changing guard to its beauties ; but, before that, I had 

 descended into civilized regions, for fear of being lost in the 

 darkness." Finding no one up at his lodgings, he took refuge 

 in the Catholic Cathedral : a priest let him sit in the sacristy 

 till six, when he attended early Mass; afterwards he enjoyed 

 the glories of the sunrise. He found that the residents did not 

 share his enthusiasm for the marvellous tints : they wanted 

 him to see their country in summer. However, he got a young 

 artist to see their beauties. A friend offered to take him in 

 the afternoon to the Falls of Montmorency, the frozen spray 

 from which forms a huge cone some forty or fifty feet high. A 



