April morning there stood upon the edge of rock nearest the great fall, still partly frozen into stiff angular masses, two men of entirely different aspects, tastes, and habits, yet both strongly agreed upon one essential point, the importance of religion, and, more particularly, the kind of religion practised and set forth by the Methodist Church.

The elder was Monsieur Amable Poussette, owner of the sawmill at Bois Clair and proprietor of the summer hotel, a French Canadian by birth and descent and in appearance, but in clothes, opinions, and religious belief a curious medley of American and Canadian standards. Notwithstanding the variety of his occupations, one of which was supposed to debar him from joining the Methodist Church, he was an ardent member of that community. The younger man was a Methodist preacher, working as yet on the missionary circuit, and to him M. Poussette was holding forth with round black eyes rolling at the landscape and with gestures inimitably French.

"See, now," he was saying, standing perilously near the wet edge of rock, "there is no difficult thing! I own the ground. I give the money. I have it to give. My friend Romeo Desnoyers, of Three Rivers, he shall come at this place, at this point, and build the church. It will be for a great convenience, a great success. My guests, they will attend. I myself will see to that. I shall drive them over."

The younger man smiled faintly. It was necessary at times to restrain M. Poussette. He pulled him back now, but gently, from the slippery rock.

"In the summer—yes, of course, I see that. I see that it is needed then. The rest of the year——"

"The rest of the year! Bigosh—excusez,—I tell you, it is needed all the year round. Look at that big ugly barn full of bad pictures—yes, sir, I went to Mass regular, when I was a boy—petit garçon—well, every one was the same, sure. But now, ah!—excuse me. A seegar? Yes? You will thry one?"

The minister declined, but M. Poussette lit one of a large and overfragrant variety, while he frowned at the fall, rolled his large eyes around again and finally led the way through thick underbrush and across fallen logs to the deeply-rutted highroad where a horse and caleche awaited them. The prospective church builder took a long last look and then said:—

"And you—you shall preach the first sermon. How long does it take to build nice church, nice pretty Methodist church—not like that big stone barn I used to go to Mass in?"

At this the Reverend Joshua Ringfield did more than smile. He threw back his fine head and laughed heartily.

"Oh—Poussette!" he cried; "you're the funniest fellow, the funniest man alive! Ask somebody else how long it takes to build any kind of church—how should I know! But if you're in earnest, and I admire you for it if you are, and I wish there were more like you, I'll come and do the preaching with pleasure. You'll require a bigger man than I am, I'm afraid though."

"No, no," pronounced Poussette with fierce and friendly emphasis, driving away at a reckless pace. "See now, this is it. This is my affair. It will be my church, and my friend, Mister Romeo Desnoyers of Three Rivers, shall build it. Bigosh—excusez; I'll have only friends in it; you're my friend, I am good Methodist since I hear you preach, and Goddam,—well, excusez again, sir, I'll have you and no other. We'll say July, and you will have one, two, three months to get the sermon ready. Get on there, m'rch donc, animal-l-l! I am too long away from my business."

Ringfield, who was right in supposing that his friend and patron had tasted of the "viskey blanc" before starting, refrained from any criticism of the scheme, promising his services merely, should they be required, and that evening saw him depart for the west to attend a course of lectures at a theological college. Before many hours the tumbling, foaming Fall, the lonely river, the Bois Clair settlement and Poussette were almost forgotten. A camping trip with friendly Ontarians succeeded the lectures, then ensued a fortnight of hard reading and preparation for the essay or thesis which his Church demanded from him as token of his standing and progress, he being as yet a probationer, and thus the summer passed by until on the 6th of August a letter reached him from the Lower Province bidding him attend at the opening services of the new Methodist church recently built at St. Ignace through the enterprise and liberality of M. Amable Poussette. The letter, in Canadian French, had an English postscript; "I pay all expense. Me, Amable Poussette, of Juchereau de St. Ignace."

Ringfield put the letter away with a frown. He was busy, in demand, ambitious. Born in one of the Maritime Provinces, he owed all he was to Ontario, and now—Ontario claimed him. Return he might some day to the rapid rivers, the lonely hills, the great forests and the remote villages, but not now. Now, just as he was beginning to fill his place, to feel his power, to live and work, and above all preach, a man among men, a man for men, he resented any interruption in his plan of existence, in his scheme of self-consecration. The big bustling cities of Western Ontario and of the State of Ohio, where some of his holidays had been spent, were very far away from the hamlet of Juchereau de St. Ignace, a mere handful of souls—yes, Souls, and here Ringfield stopped and reconsidered. After all, there was his word, and Poussette, though rough, was not a bad fellow. It would take, say, three or four days out of his last week of recreation, but still, he was engaged, earnestly and sincerely engaged in the work of bringing souls to Christ, and, no small thing, his expenses would be paid. The better counsel, as it seemed, prevailed, and he went east the next night.

Meanwhile the energetic Poussette, mill owner of Bois Clair, rich man and patron of the countryside, had put his plan into execution, and in the space of three months a tract of rocky ground on the north side of the Fall had been cleared and a neat, convenient church erected from the native woods, furnished with benches, a table and chair for the minister, and a harmonium. St. Ignace was quite excited, for the thing seemed pure imbecility to the French, who were to a man true Catholics, but Poussette stoutly asserted his belief that before long conversions to Methodism would be numerous and for the present there were his "guests," a couple of families from Beaulac, the foreman of the mill—voilà un congrégation très distingué! Much, too, would depend upon the choice of a preacher, and Poussette was cherishing the hope that some inducement might be held out to retain Ringfield in their midst.

Of this the younger man was at first ignorant. Impatience at detention in such a place warred with strict conceptions of duty, yet his excellent training in subservience to his Church and a ready gift of oratory assisted him in a decision to do the best he could for the new paroisse, heretofore so distinctively Catholic, of Juchereau de St. Ignace. That M. Poussette's congregation was more distingué than numerous did not for a moment affect the preacher on the warm, rainy Sunday when he stood within sound of the great Fall and read from the forty-seventh chapter of the Prophet Ezekiel. Romeo Desnoyers, thin, keen, professional looking; Poussette and his wife, the latter an anaemic, slightly demented person who spoke no English; Mr. Patrick Maccartie, foreman of the mill, who likewise was ignorant of English, despite his name, and the Methodist contingent from Beaulac were planted along the front seats at markedly wide intervals, for Poussette had erected his church on a most generous scale. Summer visitors of all denominations trickled in out of