324 



LIFE IN MONTREAL 



[Chap. VII. 



I was very grateful. The relief of lying down to a quiet sleep 

 in an airy room, with open port-hole, at the foot of the stairs, 

 was like an earthly paradise. I have been steadily recovering 

 ever since, and now eat enough to thrive on. It shows how 

 people attend to their own affairs, that only one of my table 

 companions has noticed that I don't eat meat : and it was a 

 week before he observed it." He hid himself in his state-room 

 "a good part of the day, to avoid talk and tobacco;" but 

 " the boys come up, and want me to play with them." He 

 took part in the Sunday services ; and, with a clergyman, had 

 an extra one for the hundreds of steerage passengers (among 

 whom were many Mennonites emigrating to Manitoba to escape 

 conscription). On the last Saturday, " we had a very pleasant 

 ending of the week, in singing hymns, in midships, as we glided 

 quickly through the still waters of the St. Lawrence, phosphor- 

 escent in the wake, with the grand cliffs and distant mountains 

 of the Gaspe peninsula. Quite a congregation closed round 

 us, and it was balmy to the soul." At Montreal, the air was 

 thick with smoke and smuts from the terrible fires round 

 Ottawa, more than a hundred miles away, where the very soil 

 was burnt down to the rocks. His wife had mounted the flag 

 on Brandon Lodge in honour of his arrival. "Without any 

 disparagement to all the dear homes in England, I was and am 

 very thankful indeed to be in our own, here with her." 



With regard to his studies on the voyage, the Gospel and 

 Epistles of John were the portions of Scripture which were most 

 intensely interesting to him. He wrote to a friend who was 

 analyzing the Gospels, that criticism as to the formation of those 

 of Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not much matter to him. "It's 

 all I know of the Lord's outward teaching, and a vast deal more 

 than I can as yet live up to ; therefore there's food enough for 

 me. But pray don't touch John's Gospel, and show that it was 

 not written till the second century : I can't stand that ! " As to 

 Christ's earthly life, he told his sister Susan, " It always seems 

 to me that it was more the seed than the fruit : and that the 

 finest saints are poor creatures compared with what is to 

 be. . . . Harris shows very strongly what huge mistakes the 



