The number of pilgrims who flock to St. Anne de Beaupré every year in hope of miracles is enormous, the pilgrims coming by thousands daily, in special trains and by specially chartered steamers, from north, south, east, and west. It is a very pleasant trip, especially by steamer from the centres of population along the river; and with the combined attractions of a summer excursion and the hope of temporal or spiritual advantage, the priestly organizers at Quebec have not much difficulty in filling up the ranks of the pilgrims. It would be astonishing, indeed, if some percentage of those afflicted with various ailments were not relieved either during their pilgrimage or soon afterwards. It is scarcely necessary to say, in writing for intelligent Protestant readers, that in no single case is there the slightest proof of the saintly interference to which the blessings are invariably attributed.

In the

alleged cases of cancer, which at first sight are perhaps the most striking of all, there is no convincing evidence that any cancer was present. In the case of many others, such as those who have been cured of rheumatism, sciatica, and other nervous or obscure complaints, the mental elevation accompanying the supreme act of faith, with the effect of excitement on the nerves, may account for everything.

In the case of rescue from shipwreck, and kindred mercies, there is, of course, not a scintilla of evidence that the subjects would have been any less fortunate if the name of St. Anne had been entirely unknown to them. In some instances, too, the evidence quoted by the narrators is

sufficient to convince any unbiased mind that the deliverance was wrought by the most ordinary and mundane of methods. That must be a very innocent person who writes to the shrine giving two instances of what he considers the extinction of fire by the saint. He tells us of a poor woman whose house caught on fire and who ran for help, crying out, "Good St. Anne, save my house!" Finding a man and his wife, she brings them back with her, and they put out the fire, which had not caused much damage, though the house was a wooden one. "Praise be

to St. Anne for her miraculous protection," exclaims the narrator. In the other case, the woman was unable to run for help to her neighbour, for she knew him to be absent. "Earnestly recommending herself to St. Anne, she manages to erect a sort of scaffolding in her garret. and throws a few bucketsful of water, which reach the flames and extinguish them immediately. Thanks be to St. Anne, who is never invoked in vain!"

Dr.

There is much in the reverence paid the relics of St. Anne in which Protestants will not share. Buckley, editor of The Christian Advocate, in his book on faith cure, has shown many nervous and other affections to have been cured by a strong impression on the imagination or by the "expectant attention" of the patients. Their spiritual exaltation and deep religious convictions are of course a great aid in bringing about the relief. Thus are explained many of the remarkable cures at Lourdes, St. Anne de Beaupré and elsewhere.

Matt. xiv. 22.

BY C. FLEMINGTON.

"Lord, it is evening. Must I go

Over the sea, to the other side,' May I not wait till the night is o'er,

And here, at Thy blessed feet, abide, And gather strength for the coming day, And then, in the morning light, away?

Lord, if I must embark to-night,

In this boat of mine so frail and small,
Come Thou with me and I shall feel
Secure, for Thou art Lord of all.
The angry billows Thou canst still,
And raging storms obey Thy will."
"Where is thy courage, trembling one?
Where is thy faith, thou timorous soul?
Canst thou not rest in thy Lord's command,
When storm-clouds gather and billows roll?
He who constrains thee now to depart,

Is able to keep thee, where'er thou art."

66

Lord, it is night. Canst Thou see me now, Out on the sea where Thou bidst me to go! Dost Thou know I am tossing about on the deep, That I prayerfully, patiently toil and row; Wondering oft if I've lost my way,

Straining my eyes for the lingering day?

"Lord, it is night, and I feel afraid; Wildly the tempest rages around, Fiercely the waves dash over the ship,

The thunders crash with an awful sound And lightnings terrible cleave the sky. Master, deliver I perish, I die!

66

Lord, I am losing heart and hope,
Against my own will I fear and fret,
Hast Thou forgotten Thy gracious word?
Surely against me are all things set:
Raging tempest, upheaving wave,
Thickening darkness. Save, Lord, save!

"Lord, it is Thou at Thy coming I feared.
Jesus, forgive me! I doubted Thy love.
Now let me rest in the calm which Thou brought'st;
Joy in the Light Thou hast brought from above.
Fleeth the storm-cloud, still is the sea,

Home draweth nearer: Thou art with me."

Point de Bute, N.B.

young men's work, and I had then
to deplore the fact that, whilst in
every church there could be found a
Ladies' Aid, a Mission Band, a Sew-
ing Circle, a Missionary Society and
many Sunday-school classes for
young women, there was not a
church in the city that could boast
a Man's Aid, and few that could say
that they had even a satisfactory
Sunday-school class for young men.
Now, through pioneer work in
various churches, and the splendid
encouragement of the Methodist
Young Men's Association, there are
no less than seventeen young men's
clubs or associations in this city.

At that time we Methodists were,
and are still, I think, slow to grasp
the need or reach for a solution.
Our Roman Catholic friends had
long seen that to save an old man
was to save an unit, while to save a
young man was to save a multipli-
cation table; and our cousins to the
south of us have for years been com-
bining remedies for a disease that
has fortunately attacked us later
than it has them.

The Brotherhood of St. Andrew is over twenty years old. The Brotherhood of Andrew and Peter is about fifteen years of age. The first is confined to the Church of England; the second is spread over no less than twenty-five denominations and sects in the United States, and numbers its members by the hundreds of thousands. Latterly the St.

Paul's Brotherhood has sprung up amongst our M. E. kinsfolk across the line, and other similar organizations have been begun and operaated successfully.

The distinctive feature of these brotherhoods is the dual rule of prayer and service: prayer for the brotherhood and the spread of Christ's kingdom among service, to make one effort each week to bring some young man to a church service.

men;

The St. Andrew's Brotherhood is

world-wide; that of Andrew and Peter is but little less so. The others referred to are not so well known, but are spreading.

Another type of work for young men is that of the Baraca Bible Class-not unknown in Torontounder whose federation it is said no less than seventy thousand men are enrolled; a flexible organization, making large provision for the social, literary and athletic proclivities of its members, but having as its central feature its Bible class, and within that charmed circle an inner ring of secretly pledged workers striving to bring their fellows into Christian fellowship.

Besides these there are hundreds of Bible classes, literary clubs (more or less under church auspices), and other independent associations whose work, if not entirely spiritual, has always the tendency of lifting up ideals, giving clean companionship, and making the Church a social centre of no small value.

Some of these are well-to-do financially, and have made sickness or accident insurance a feature of their work; others have erected large and substantial club-houses, with gymnasiums and other features, rivalling in importance and certainly surpassing in value the purely social clubs on which they have, to some extent, been modelled.

It may be said, however, that of all of them the really successful ones appear to be those held together, not because of their social or literary advantages only, but those that have held up largely what may be termed generally the spiritual; and this fact cannot but be to us at once a lesson and an inspiration.

During the past four years we in Toronto (and I am not fitted to speak of a wider sphere, although I cannot see why our experience may not be used in every city and town, and possibly in every village and countryside, if the need is

there), we in Toronto, I say, have been passing through an experimental and transitional stage, patterning our organizations on our rather vague knowledge of clubs elsewhere, and fashioning our associations to meet what appear to be local conditions.

We have in Toronto, as I have said, about seventeen societies or clubs in all of which one can see some good and the possibility for much more. We are feeling our way. Some are prospering in whole, others in part only, and the course of others, I am afraid, will be much like that of a humming-top-a good deal of noise at first and a good many spasms at the end. But from them all we are getting a good working model, and this movement or eruption (not irruption) will find its proper level and become solid ground.

And in this the Methodist Young Men's Association, to which I have already referred, is working steadily, heartily, with no little foresight, and is spreading amongst the clubs an enthusiasm, not only of competition in games and debates, but in its whole tendency and movement, a zeal towards something higher, something better than the average young man thinks about and which the Church alone can give.

I have only suggested the need for all this; but if we accept the statement that a third of our population is about twenty-one years of age, and that thirty-three per cent. of the people in Ontario are Methodists, that is one good reason for an intense interest by every pastor and official and member in any movement that our Church can take hold of to increase its usefulness in God's vineyard. The Church is an institution of many methods, and it cannot afford to fail in any one of them.

But we are not going to fail. You and I are now standing at the dawn

of a day that is going to see in Canadian Methodism a movement by which, if rightly guided, with the experience of others to help us, with a material neither too hard nor too dry to mould, we can turn out, long before the sun has reached his zenith, such a man amongst men, of body, brain and beauty of soul, that you and I can say that he has lived in that ideal country whose horizons, as Miss Willard once said, are bounded on the north by sobriety, on the south by gentleness, on the east by integrity and on the west by honesty.

This is the young man's day, in business, in finance, in professional life, and why should not, therefore, the young man come to the front in church life as well?

Art has represented the apostles as old men, but at the time they were chosen they were young men, and they were chosen by a young man.

The Church wants a sound body in a young man as much as any trainer wants it. It wants a sound mind in a young man as much as any teacher or professor can. It

wants

an upright, conscientious man as much as any master or employer can ask. The Church alone supplies the true incentive for all these, and points and leads the way.

If these, then, be objective points, how can you or I frown at any honest effort towards them? If one could dissect the objects of the clubs I have mentioned, they might be considered of a threefold character: the first to attract, the second to interest, the third to uplift. Each of these is worthy of effort for itself alone. Let us understand this. Let us understand that the spiritual is. on occasion, necessarily subservient to the athletic or social or literary. Let us make the necessary sharp distinction in our minds between direct spiritual work and the work of attracting and interesting, though with the former always in view.