which they first made to blossom like the rose.
The rivers and lakes were the only means of communication in those
early times, roads were unknown, and the wayfarer could find his way
through the illimitable forests only by the help of the "blazed" trees
and the course of streams. Social intercourse was infrequent except in
autumn and winter, when the young managed to assemble as they always
will. Love and courtship went on {296} even in this wilderness, though
marriage was uncertain, as the visits of clergymen were very rare in
many places, and magistrates could alone tie the nuptial knot--a very
unsatisfactory performance to the cooler lovers who loved their church,
its ceremonies and traditions, as dearly as they loved their sovereign.
The story of those days of trial has not yet been adequately written;
perhaps it never will be, for few of those pioneers have left records
behind them. As we wander among the old burying grounds of those
founders of Western Canada and New Brunswick, and stand by the gray,
moss-covered tablets, with names effaced by the ravages of years, the
thought will come to us, what interesting stories could be told by
those who are laid beneath the sod, of sorrows and struggles, of hearts
sick with hope deferred, of expectations never realised, of memories of
misfortune and disaster in another land where they bore so much for a
stubborn and unwise king. Yet these grass-covered mounds are not
simply memorials of suffering and privation; each could tell a story of
fidelity to principle, of forgetfulness of self-interest, of devotion
and self-sacrifice--the grandest story that human annals can tell--a
story that should be ever held up to the admiration and emulation of
the young men and women of the present times, who enjoy the fruits of
the labours of those loyal pioneers.

Although no noble monument has yet been raised to the memory of these
founders of new provinces--of English-speaking Canada; although the
majority lie forgotten in old graveyards where the grass has {297}
grown rank, and common flowers alone nod over their resting-places, yet
the names of all are written in imperishable letters in provincial
annals. Those loyalists, including the children of both sexes, who
joined the cause of Great Britain before the Treaty of Peace in 1783,
were allowed the distinction of having after their name the letters U.
E. to preserve the memory of their fidelity to a United Empire. A
Canadian of