Well, another year is gone-another volume is added to the number of volumes of the JUVENILE INSTRUCTOR already published. In one month from this date we shall commence the publication of the twenty-third volume of this useful work. We should be sorry to say "good-bye" to any of our young readers whose company we have had during the last year. We have tried to please and profit them, and we hope we have offended none of them.

Next year we believe we may say there is as good a bill of fare as in any previous year. We are going to try the effect of a new and original serial story, which will be continued every month during the year. Other religious magazines have such stories: the children like them, and will have them and read them, and we cannot resist the spirit of the age. We must either find such matter as other people do for the young, and which the young so decidedly relish, or we must lose readers. The story is a trial; if it does not answer it can be abandoned at the end of the year.

We believe also that the other articles promised in our "programme" will be found highly interesting and attractive; and, altogether, we expect a year's work that will be appreciated, and keep up the well-established reputation of the JUVENILE IN

STRUCTOR.

We ask all our friends to lend a helping hand in promoting our circulation, so that the coming year may be the most prosperous we ever had.

London, Dec. 1, 1871.

THE EDITOR.

Our Special Contributors.

WHAT I SAW IN CANADA.-I.

BY THE EDITOR.

"Ir was a pleasant autumn night, and the full lustrous stars of a northern firmament twinkled cheerfully down on the noble current of the St. Lawrence, as Wolfe quietly passed from ship to ship to make his final inspection, and utter his last words of encouragement. In a pure and gifted mind like his the solemn hour could scarcely fail of awakening befitting associations. He spoke of the poet Gray, and the beautiful legacy he had given to the world in his Elegy in a Country Churchyard.' 'I would prefer,' said he, being the author of that poem to the glory of beating the French to-morrow;' and while the cautious dip of the oars into the rippling current alone broke the stillness of the night, he repeated

"About one o'clock in the morning of the 13th (Sept. 1759), the order to advance was given, and the flotilla dropped silently down with the receding tide, Wolfe commanding in person. He still continued his poetical musings, but his eye at the same time was keenly bent on the outline of the dark heights, beneath which he floated past. He recognized at length the appointed spot, and leaped ashore. Meantime, the current had carried a few boats lower down, which had on board the light company of the 78th Highlanders. These were the first troops to land; without a moment's hesitation they scrambled up the face of the wooded precipice, clinging to the roots and branches of trees. Half the ascent was already won, when for the first time the Qui vive?' of the French sentry above was given. 'La France,' promptly answered M'Donald, the Highland captain, with ready self-possession, and the sentinel shouldered his musket and pursued his rounds. In a few minutes, however, the unusual rustling among the trees near at hand alarmed the sentinels, their guard was turned out, and fired one hurried volley at the Highlanders, then, panic-stricken, they turned and fled. By this time another body of troops had pressed up the pathway, and possessed themselves of a four-gun redoubt which commanded it. As day dawned, Wolfe stood with his invincible battalions on the Plains of Abraham, the battle-field which gave a new empire to the Anglo-Saxon race.'

Such is MacMullen's account of the commencement of that brilliant achievement-than which none was ever more glorious to

the British arms—which, before that same day had closed in darkness, virtually gave to England an empire, of which a writer in Fraser's Magazine for November truly says:-"The old, settled, contented, industrious, French-speaking province of Quebec contains more square miles than all France. The English-speaking, energetic province of Ontario counts more square miles than all Great Britain and Ireland. New Brunswick has a greater territory than Belgium and Holland combined. Nova Scotia exceeds all Switzerland. British Colombia surpasses in extent the whole of the North German Confederation, giving in all the South German States to boot. Manitobah, and the newly-acquired far West, are vaster than all Russia in Europe, counting in, and counting twice over, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Faroe, and Iceland." An empire in which provision is made by Nature for the sustentation of one hundred millions of human beings, and an empire of which there can but be one possible alternative destiny-either that it shall continue in close and loyal connection with the nation to whom God has given it, or be annexed to the United States. In the latter case, the whole continent of America, from Florida to the Arctic circle, and from San Francisco to the Straits of Belleisle, will be comprised in a confederacy, in comparison with which all Europe will be a speck on the map of the world, and which, in a political and military point of view, would be able to control the destinies of this planet. Time only can reveal the secret of this destinytime and wise counsels. England has the question in her hands; and as a subject of that old and glorious country, this present writer can but hope that the exploit of those brave old Highlanders in climbing the heights of Quebec on this 13th of September, 1759, and the bravery of the British army on the Plains of Abraham on the same day, may be but the prelude of a long-enduring, close, prosperous, and happy connection with the mother country; yea, as long as time itself endures.

Many years ago, that worthy gentleman, Mr. Lancaster, established a system of teaching in "British schools," which required the pupils to sing" their lessons-a method of instruction which was more agreeable to the learners than the old method of cramming knowledge into the mind, or rather beating it in by the stick or the birch. We that are advanced in years had a hard time of it in our youth. We were expected to know what we had never learnt, and to learn by rote what we had no time or capacity to acquire; and if we failed, we were confronted with the "inexorable logic" of the birch. But when Lancaster, came, relief came, and dulcet sounds, and a general chorus, transported youth to the third heaven of knowledge without much suffering; and we recollect distinctly that the first "elements" of Geography were taught as follows:

Which poem we continued to sing till the fact was firmly fixed in our minds; and amidst all our wanderings, and acquirements, and forgettings, we have never lost this modicum of knowledgethat the world consists of two parts, "land and water, land and water."

But, since this process, we have learnt that there is a contest between these two elements-the land sulkily and obstinately resisting the water, and the water remorselessly and greedily striving to swallow up the land. Had it not been so, these same heights at Quebec would not have had to be climbed by these old Highlanders. The " one single gun" which Wolfe was able to drag up the steep to "the Plains of Abraham" above, would have been accompanied by several batteries. The battle on the following forenoon would have been sooner decided. Wolfe's precious life might have been spared, for he lost it by cheering on his men, and striving to infuse into their hearts his own indomitable courage, that thus without artillery they might do with the musket and the bayonet what is usually done by cannon. "Let no man fire," said he, "till I give the word." And he and his small force stood there to be mown down by the French artillery. Fearful gaps were made in the ranks, but no man fired. Each man shouldered his musket as if on parade. A ball struck Wolfe on the wrist, but, wrapping a handkerchief round it, he retained his place, calling out to his men to stand firm, and "not to fire till I tell you." His men did stand firm, and they did not fire till the French had advanced within forty paces of the British, and then the word of command was given to " fire," the next moment "charge," and in fifteen minutes from the commencement of the action the French forces were panic-stricken and in full retreat! But Wolfe had received another wound, which proved mortal, although he gained a signal victory.

See, then, how the "land and water song, or rather the land and water struggle, affected this battle and this victory. A thousand miles away, up the St. Lawrence, up the lakes Ontario and Erie, up the Huron, up to the salt St. Mary on the Georgian Bay, the contest begins. At Niagara Falls it would seem that the waters had conquered, for they leap over the land a depth of 150 feet, roll down the Niagara river, where for a mile from the Falls they have scooped out a channel to Lewiston, between precipitous banks of nearly the same depth as the Falls, and that through hard rock. At Lewiston there is peace; the descent has been made, a lower level gained, and Lake Ontario receives the outflow from above, bearing it downward to Kingston, to the thousand islands, to Prescott, below which the contest commences again at the Cedar Rapids and others, till we reach Lachine, the most dangerous of them all. Here a foot of good or bad steering determines the life of the ship and the passengers, and so the stream rolls on, past Montreal, past Quebec, where the heights on which the citadel