away from feminine cackle, to live his life among such peaceful surroundings.

This strange and mysterious character was not a myth, as some would have us believe, but a real live man.

He was John Kelpius, and that he really lived is proved by the notebook that he left and which is still to be seen.

He was born about 1660, the son of a minister, in Denndorf, Transylvania, and like his father, he took up the work of the ministry. He pursued his studies in the University of Tubingen, but in consequence of the French invasion of the Palatinate and Wurtemberg, he changed his mind and pursued his studies at Altorf, in Bavaria. He became, while here, the pupil and friend of Prof. John Jacob Fabricius, who became a prominent representative of the Irenic (peace-loving) school of theology at the University of Helmstedt.

For the next few years Kelpius preached at various points, and about the year 1693 he set sail for America. During his voyage he kept a complete journal in Latin, by which we see that several untoward circumstances attended the voyage. The ship was not out many days when it grounded on a sand bank and was in great peril. The then existing war between England and France made sea travel exceedingly dangerous, but after several weeks of delays in various ports, she set sail and finally reached Phil

THE

adelphia on the 23d of June and proceeded the following day to what is now known as Germantown.

He soon left the party with which he traveled to this country and built his hut on the Wissahickon, where he did not live in a cave as a cave-man, but rather, from all evidences, lived a life of peace, where he pursued his studies and did much writing, but just what he did with his life other than writing, no one can tell, for his writings do not in any way give any clue to his private life.

His writings were all religious treatises, and showed him a scholar of no little learning.

How can we account for the fact that a person so totally averse to the affairs of the world, a pious recluse, an ascetic dreamer like Kelpius, should be such a hermit? Who knows-who can even guess? He, like many others, lived his life in his own peculiar way.

It hardly need be said that the hermit did not descend from the lofty and solitary to higgle about the matter of rents and leases as we must today when dealing with rcalty men.

To know the Wissahickon is to know in a measure the peace, the solitude, and the beauty that John Kelpius must have known in those beautiful hills in a hut on the Wissahickon.

HE Dominion of Canada is undoubtedly destined to play a great part in future world's history. Her territory extends from Atlantic to Placific at the place of their widest separation and reaches from the heart of the North American Continent to the unexplored Arctic seas. She is probably not surpassed by any country in her resources of good things, for she literally and figuratively "flows with milk and honey" in a far greater abundance than any promised land of old. She presents the most golden opportunities to those who have the courage and virility to subdue her forests, till her fertile acres and uncover the treasures of her mountains and her seas. Wonderful possibilities are also being revealed in the development of her water power for the generating of electrical

energy. Her climate is bracing and healthful. The vegetable and animal life is rugged and the true Canadian is a robust type of man.

History.

Canada is a new country. Jacques Cartier planted the cross and the arms of France on her eastern shores in 1534, but her first colony was not established till 1608, when Champlain founded Quebec. After a troubled French régime of one hundred and fifty years this colony was ceded to Great Britain. Little had so far been learned of Canada's resources, for while Jesuit Fathers labored to convert the Indians, and the traders bargained for their furs, other available energy was employed in defending the colony from other Indians and their allies. With the establishment of

British sovereignty the almost continual border raids came to an end, but wars did not cease. In 1775 the Revolutionary armies of New England invaded the country and in 1812 the armies of the United States bore down upon her, but loyally and heroically she successfully defended her integrity and her honor as a British colony. Rebellions in 1837 and 1885, the Fenian raids of 1866 and the Boer war of 18991902

called forth volunteer armies, but never was Canada called to arms on so big a scale as by the Pan-European war begun in 1914. As blessings have followed our wars of the past, "we can but trust that somehow good will be the final goal of ill," so far as the present awful struggle is concerned.

United Empire loyalists to the number of 25,000 came to Canada after the Revolutionary war. Their coming meant new life for the country. The dense forests of Ontario were cleared to make farms, a lumbering industry was developed and towns built. Canals and railways improved transportation facilities. A national policy of tariff protection encouraged the establishment of factories. Immigrants began to come and Canada was given a vision of expansion and prosperity that has inspired enterprise in all directions.

Government.

British rule is marked by a gradual evolution of democratic government. The Quebec act of 1774 gave Canada her first Constitution. It allowed the French people their civil code and guaranteed special rights to the Roman Catholic Church. With the advent of the Protestant United Empire Loyalists new problems arose and the Constitutional act of 1791 divided the country into a French and English Canada. Too much authority was still vested in the Crown. Following the armed revolts of 1837 an act of union was passed in 1840 containing the elements of our present confederation. In 1867 the British North America act, under which Canada is ruled today, became the law. It provides for the union of the provinces-at present nineinto one dominion with a federal government consisting of a governor-general and two houses of parliament and provincial legislatures with a lieutenant-governor and one or two houses of parliament. Each government has executive, legislative and judicial powers within a jurisdiction constitutionally defined, responsible self-rule being the guiding principle. Dominion control is exercised over all matters not spe

cially assigned to the provinces. Judges and courts are independent of political movements.

Life.

The Jack Canuck of our cartoonists may be more of an ideal than a reality. Outside of small eastern sections where life is regrettably provincial, purely Canadian institutions are of too recent establishment to have left a definite stamp on our people. This fact and our very busy life may account for our limitations in the realm of literature and art. We have no leisure class. So far that which is Canadian is of a distinctly virile type. We see this in our mercantile pursuits, our athletics, our politics, and even in our religious life. Canada is honored as a church going nation, a Sunday observing nation, and a nation with sublime respect for law and order. Lynching is unknown with us. Our home life is not corrupted with the divorce evil. Our schools and other institutions are of a high order. The Lutheran Church.

We believe that the Lutheran Church in Canada has not so far received the acknowledgment that her merits deserve. She has been reserved and timid, and insufficiently equipped for her Canadian tasks. She was here early, being established in Nova Scotia in 1752, in Dundas County, Ontario, in 1774, and in York County, Ontario, in 1792. Canada has no truer British heroes than her Lutheran Loyalists, who hold their allegiance to the King more precious than homes or property. They brought their big family Bibles, their Lutheran Catechisms and their Lutheran pastors as well as their Lutheran integrity and honor. Later Lutheran immigrants from Europe and the United States have also been people of the most robust type, seeking the freedom and opportunities that only Canada could give them. Their strength of character and thrift are valuable assets to many a community. We are told there are 400,000 Lutherans in Canada, and yet the power of the Lutheran Church cannot be described in such figures. Widely scattered and hampered by the language question and a lack of Canadian institutions, our people have remained in comparative obscurity. But they have been a wholesome leaven and their days are coming. Within the last decade much has been done. A more aggressive home mission policy, the organization of English congregations, and the establishment of educational institutions in Ontario and the Northwest have placed our Church on a firmer basis.