"It was a
fake." They claimed that we had laid the stone ourselves. Nor might
they have been so far off the mark as they supposed, for we had a man
with a knife under that platform to make that stone come down if
anything happened that the wire device did not work. You cannot go
back on your King whatever else you do, and to permit any grounds to
exist for supposing that he had not been punctual was unthinkable. But
fortunately for all concerned our subterfuge was unnecessary.

I have omitted so far to state one of the main reasons why the
Institute to our mind was so desirable. That was because no
undenominational work is carried on practically in the whole country.
Religion is tied up in bundles and its energies used to divide rather
than to unite men. No Y.M.C.A. or Y.W.C.A. could exist in the Colony
for that reason. The Boys' Brigade which we had originally started
could not continue, any more than the Boy Scouts can now. Catholic
Cadets, Church Lads Brigade, Methodist Guards, Presbyterian Highland
Brigade--are all names symbolic of the dividing influences of
"religion." In no place of which I know would a Y.M.C.A. be more
desirable; and a large meeting held in the Institute this present
spring decided that in no town anywhere was a Y.W.C.A. more needed.

In another place in this book I have spoken of the problem of alcohol
and fishermen. A man does not need alcohol and is far better without
it. A man who sees two lights when there is only one is not wanted at
the wheel. The people who sell alcohol know that just as well as we
do, but for paltry gain they are unpatriotic enough to barter their
earthly country as well as their heavenly one, and to be branded with
the knowledge that they are cursing men and ruining families. The
filibuster deserves the name no less because he does his destructive
work secretly and slowly, and wears the emblems of respectability
instead of operating in the open with "Long Toms" under the shadow of
the "Jolly Roger."

As a magistrate on this coast I have been obliged more than once to
act as a policeman, and though one hated the ill-feeling which it
stored up, and did not enjoy the evil-speaking to which it gave rise,
I considered that it was really only like lancing a concealed
infection--the ill-feeling and evil-speaking were better tapped and
let out.

On one occasion at one of our Labrador hospitals a beardless youth,
one of the Methodist candidates for college who every year