Sty Jolm William Dawson. — Ami. g 
Presbyterian church in Canada on several occasions. He 
loved to worship with this quiet, retired congregation, where 
psalms and hymns were sung without instrumental accom- 
paniment. For many years, he led in the Sunday School, and 
subsequently conducted a most successful class for teachers, 
which was composed of the teachers of the various Protestant 
denominations of Montreal. In every movement that had for 
an object the moral uplifting and bettering of the condi- 
tions of life in the Canadian metropolis his name was invari- 
ably connected, and in season and out of season, he never lost 
an opportunity of giving public expression to his keen sense of 
right and justice. His was a well-spent life, unselfish in all 
its aims and purposes, unsparing in his efforts to advance the 
interests of his fellow citizens and of humanity in general, ex- 
ercising withal, a power and influence for the moral good and 
welfare of all in a high degree. In the language of Socrates, 
regarding a well-spent life, we can truly say of his, 
^^/lakov yap to aW/^vOv, xoa t] £?.-t<^ /j.eyaArj." 
''For noble is the prize and the hope is great." 
As a writer, who sought to present in popular form the 
results of geological science to a larger audience than greeted 
him on the college benches, he was eminently successful. 
Among the most conspicuous of his popular writings in which 
the relations which exist between science and revelation were 
usually made a portion of his theme, the following may be 
mentioned : "The Story of the Earth and Man," "Facts and 
Fancies in Modern Science," Fossil Men and their Modern 
Representatives," "Modern Ideas of Evolution," "The fleet- 
ing Place of Geology and History." 
The many editions through which these various writings 
passed and the ready sale of his writings on both sides of the 
Atlantic, testified to their popularity. Throughout the English 
speaking world his name was a household word, and a letter 
of introduction was a passport in every country in Europe. 
Here is an example of Sir William's writing showing his 
intense love for the 'right' and the 'truth', coupled with a ha- 
tred of the 'wrong' and injustice which needs supernal power 
to remedy. 
"Surely man is the spoiled child of the Creator, allowed 
