ity of life is an insistent fact in our existence, and the
inability to do good work for lack of help that is so gladly given
when the reasonableness of the expenditure is presented, makes one
feel guilty if an evening is spent doing nothing. The lecturing is by
far the most uncongenial task which I have been called upon to do in
life, but in a mission like ours, which is not under any special
church, the funds must be raised to a very great extent by voluntary
donations, and in order to secure these friends must be kept informed
of the progress of the work which their gifts are making possible.

For the first seven years of my work I never spent the winters in the
country--nor was it my intention ever to do so. Besides the general
direction of the whole, my work as superintendent has meant the
raising of the necessary funds, and my special charge on the actual
coast has been the hospital ship Strathcona. Naturally, owing to our
frozen winter sea this is only possible during open water. Since 1902
it has been my custom when possible to spend every other winter as
well as every summer in the North. The actual work and life there is a
tremendous rest after the nervous and physical tax of a lecture tour.
At first I used to wonder at the lack of imagination in those who
would greet me, after some long, wearisome hours on the train or in a
crowded lecture hall, with "What a lovely holiday you are having!" Now
this oft-repeated comment only amuses me.

It was just after the first of June when again we found ourselves
heading North for St. Anthony, only once more to be caught in the jaws
of winter. For the heavy Arctic ice blockaded the whole of the eastern
French shore, and we had to be content to be held up in small
ice-bound harbours as we pushed along through the inner edge of the
floe, till strong westerly winds cleared the way.

Having reached St. Anthony and looked into matters there, we once
again ran south to St. John's to inspect the new venture of the
Institute. To help out expenses we towed for the whole four hundred
miles a schooner which had been wrecked on the Labrador coast, having
run on the rocks, and knocked a hole in her bottom. She had a number
of sacks of "hard bread" on board. These had been thrown into the
breach and planking nailed on over them. The bread had swelled up
between the two casings and become so hard again that the vessel
leaked but little; and though the continual dirge of the pumps was