How marvellous it is to look into the seeds of time—­yes, and these may be small as mustard seeds—­which are the smallest of all seeds—­and see the bursting of the husks, the peering out of the plumule, the feeding of the sprout, the struggle through the clods, the fight with frost and hail and broiling sun, and canker worm and blight, the growth of the strengthening stem, and then the leaf and blossoms and fruit!  We say it has survived, it becomes a great tree under whose leaves and under whose branches the fowls of Heaven find shelter.  How passing strange it was to see the seed-thought rise in the mind of Lord Selkirk, that suffering humanity transplanted to another environment might grow out of poverty, into happiness and content.  See his sorrow as he meets with undeserved opposition from rival traders, from slanderous agents, from bitter articles in the press, from Government officials and even police officers who strive to break up his immigrant parties.  Recall the troubles of the Nelson Encampment as they reach him in letters and reports.  Think of the misery of knowing thousands of miles away that his Colonists were starving, were being imprisoned, banished, seduced from their allegiance, and in one notable case that men of honor, education and standing to the number of twenty, were massacred, while he, in St. Mary’s Isle, in Montreal, or in Fort William, fretted his soul because he could not reach them with deliverance.

[Illustration:  Marble bust of Earl of Selkirk, the founder By Chantrey, obtained by author from St. Mary’s Isle, Lord Selkirk’s seat.]

The world looked coldly on and said, “A visionary Scottish nobleman! a dreamer a hundred years before his time!  Is it worth while?” while he himself saw a dream of sunshine when he visited his Colonists on Red River, when he made allocations for their separate homes for them, when he pledged his honor and estate that the settlers might in time be independent, and when he made religious provision for both his Protestant and Catholic settlers, yet think of the unexampled ferocity with which he was attacked upon his return to Upper Canada, in law suits, and illegal processes, so that his estates became heavily encumbered, so that he went to France to pine away and die.  The world failed to see any glamour in him, and carelessly said, what does it profit?  Folly has its reward.

Yet the answer.  Here is Manitoba to-day, it is the fruitage of all that bitter sowing time.  Next year Manitoba will be in the fortieth year of its history.  Its people have seen pain, strife and defeat, they have gone through excitement and anxiety and patient waiting, and at times have almost given up the strife.  But the province and its great city, Winnipeg, are the meeting place of the East and West, the pivotal point of the Dominion.  The national life of Canada throbs here with a steadier beat and a more normal pulse than it does in any other part of Canada, its dominating Canadian spirit is so hearty and so sprightly, that, it is taking possession of the scores of different nations coming to us and they feel that we are their friends and brothers.  This, while it may not be the noisy and blatant type of loyalty is a practical patriotism which is making a united, sane and abiding type of national character.