The first articulate sound an Indian child of the Mackenzie learns to
make is "Mash!" an evident corruption of the French "_Marche_." This is
what Shakespeare meant when he speaks of "a word to throw at a dog." A
brown baby just emerged from the cocoon stage of the moss-bag toddles
with uplifted pole into a bunch of these hungry mongrels and disperses
them with a whack of the stick and the lordly "Mash!" of the superior
animal. For our own part we are "scared stiff," but follow along in the
wake of our infant protector to a wee wooden church which staggers under
the official title, "The Cathedral of St. David."
[Illustration: A Slavi Type from Fort Simpson]
We have had occasion to speak of the splendid service rendered to
Northern and Western Canada by the Hudson's Bay Company and by the Royal
Northwest Mounted Police. A third factor through the years has been
building Empire with these. Are we not as a people too prone to minimise
the great nation-building work performed by the scattered missionaries
in the lone lands beyond the railway? Ostensibly engaged in the work of
saving souls, Canadian missionaries, both Roman and English, have opened
the gates of commerce, prosecuted geographical discovery, tried to
correct social evils, and added materially to our store of exact
science.
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