Page:George Bryce (1907) Laura Secord A Study in Canadian Patriotism.djvu/12

 To the speaker, born within seventy miles of the Niagara river, it has ever seemed the land of romance, as thoroughly as the Scottish and English border land was to the Percys and Douglases. As a boy it was my joy to visit the monument of the illustrious Brock on Queenston heights, to wander through the graveyard which was the centre of the battle of Lundy's Lane, and to end the ramble by standing transfixed at the sight of the great cataract with its "voice of many waters." In later years the opportunity as a volunteer was afforded me of studying the region of Fort Erie to Niagara on-the-Lake, and of taking part in driving back the invaders of our sacred soil. The memory of dear comrades, men of my own college year whom I saw fall in the fight, will never be effaced.

It is to this region of story and romance, that I would, at your own request, call the attention of the Canadian Club—a society which I understand, exists to keep before us the traditions, achievements, higher interests and brilliant future of our native land.

A WARLIKE ERA

However much we may deprecate war, and with all its "pomp and circumstance" it is a hateful thing and a blot on our civilization, yet we cannot fail to see that it is a great school for developing character and bringing out many of the brightest virtues of humanity. Ruskin has gone so far as to say, that "all great nations learned their truth of word and strength of thought in war; that they were nourished in war, and wasted by peace; trained by war and betrayed by peace;—in a word, that they were born in war and expired in peace."

We agree that hardship, enforced effort, anxiety and fear, danger and even poverty itself may be the environment in which the meaner tendencies of men are corrected, and by which the manly and humane virtues all too rare are cultivated and established.

Our theme to-day, as illustrative of this principle is that of a man and wife, who gained renown nearly a hundred years ago—especially of her, who, while to use the authorized language we call the "weaker vessel," was yet I suspect supreme in her courage, quick vision, and endurance of these twain. These are Laura Ingersoll, and her husband Capt. James Secord.

They were both born under the British flag in the old colonial days, he in New Jersey in 1773, and she in Massachusetts in 1775. That was an important era in which to be born in the old British colonies. The old stargazers used to say that the character of each individual was formed by the star whether auspicious or malign, which was in the ascendant when he or she was