NERNEY 6

10 In Great Waters

progressive growth in social development. Some-
times he discards the old simply because it is old.
He wants to be always forcing civilization to take
short-cuts to betterment. He has championed a
dozen different short-cuts. All are more or less dis-
carded except the one that happens to be his latest
fancy. Scott he liked until he read Borrow’s de-
scription of him. Now he couldn’t read him.”’

Well, that is just an attempt to summarize that
bush-rancher’s conversation from notes I] made at
the time. It is not given to get you to agree with
his critique, but to help kill that idea you may have
that ‘‘anybody”’ will do to preach to our pioneers.
There are always some in these little settlements
who are quite able to appreciate fully the best our
brainiest men can give them in sermon and con-
versation. Very often the home missionary instead
of preaching will, if he has good sense, find himself
listening and learning.

A peculiarity about this mission is the fact that
to state that you are a preacher counts very little in
your favor in getting acquainted, often indeed it
counts against you. There is no place here for a
preacher who is a bigot, a Pharisee, a formalist, or
uneducated. The travelling ‘‘ Holy Willies,”’ illiter-
ate and impertinent, who come around every year or
so to save the “‘sinful logger’ with a “ bite-or-be-
damned” creed, usually have deservedly rough
going. Once, however, you are accepted as genuine,
and you display a reasonable amount of tact,
courtesy, and charity, the way to their good will is