woman lay dying on a heap of straw in a muddy corner-she was afflicted with hipdisease and the house was tumbling about her ears; the child, new born, had long ago frozen on its mother's breast.

A doctor of the Newfoundland outports was once called to a little white cottage where three children lay sick of diphtheria. He was the family physician; that is to say, the fisherman paid him so much by the year for medical attendance. But the injection of antitoxin is a "surgical operation" and therefore not provided for by the annual fee.

"This," said the doctor, "will cost you two dollars an injection, John."

"Oh, ay, zur," was the ready reply. "I'll pay you, zur. Go on, zur!"

"But you know my rule, John-no pay, no work. I can't break it for you, you know, or I'd have to break it for half the coast."

"Oh, ay! "Tis all right. I wants un

cured. I'll pay you when I sells me fish."

"But you know my rule, John-cash down."

The fisherman had but four dollars-no more; nor could he obtain any more, though the doctor gave him ample time. I am sure that he loved his children dearly, but, unfortunately, he had no more than four dollars; and there was no other doctor for fifty miles up and down the coast.

"Four dollars," said the doctor, "two children. Which ones shall it be, John ?”

Which ones? Why, of course, after all, the doctor had himself to make the choice. John couldn't. So the doctor chose the "handiest ones. The other one died.

99

"Well," said John, unresentfully, the day after the funeral, "I s'pose a doctor haves a right t' be paid for what he does. But," much puzzled, "'tis kind o' queer!"

This is not a work of fiction. These incidents are true. I set them down here

for the purpose of adequately showing the need of such a practitioner as Wilfred T. Grenfell in the sphere in which he now labours. My point is that if in the more settled places, where physicians might be summoned, such neglect and brutality could exist, in what a lamentable condition were the folk of the remoter parts, where even money could not purchase healing! Nor are these true stories designed to reflect upon the regular practitioners of Newfoundland; nor should they create a false impression concerning them. I have known many noble physicians in practice there; indeed, I am persuaded that heroism and devotion are, perhaps, their distinguishing characteristics. God knows, there is little enough gain to be had! God knows, too, that that little is hard earned! These men do their work well and courageously, and as adequately as may be; it is on the coasts beyond that the mission-doctor labours.

W

V

A HELPING HAND

HILE the poor "liveyeres" and
Newfoundland fishermen thus de-

pended upon the mail-boat doctor and their own strange inventions for relief, Wilfred Grenfell, this well-born, Oxford-bred young Englishman, was walking the London hospitals. He was athletic, adventurous, dogged, unsentimental, merry, kind; moreover-and most happily-he was used to the sea, and he loved it. It chanced one night that he strayed into the Tabernacle in East London, where D. L. Moody, the American evangelist, was preaching. When he came out he had resolved to make his religion "practical." There was nothing violent in this no fevered, ill-judged determination to martyr himself at all costs. It was a quiet resolve to make the best of

his life-which he would have done at any rate, I think, for he was a young Englishman of good breeding and the finest impulses. At once he cast about for "some way in which he could satisfy the aspirations of a young medical man, and combine with this a desire for adventure and definite Christian work.”

I had never before met a missionary of that frank type. "Why," I exclaimed to him, off the coast of Labrador, not long ago, "you seem to like this sort of life!"

We were aboard the mission steamer, bound north under full steam and all sail. He had been in feverish haste to reach the northern harbours, where, as he knew, the sick were watching for his coming. The fair wind, the rush of the little steamer on her way, pleased him.

"Oh," said he, somewhat impatiently, "I'm not a martyr."

So he found what he sought. After applying certain revolutionary ideas to Sun