for which the Pilgrim Fathers faced the stormy Atlantic and for which
Washington fought against such odds, has been worked out in fuller
measure and juster proportions in Canada than in the United States.
Canada has helped greatly to emphasize the truth, only yet half
understood by the world, that it makes little difference whether the
chief ruler of a country is called president, king or emperor, or
whether the government is called a monarchy or republic. These are but
incidents. What is important, what is essential,if freedom is to be won
and maintained, is that the people understand their rights and have the
courage to maintain them at any sacrifice. It was the leaven of freedom
working in the lump of the British people that gave the world the Magna
Charta, Montford's rebellion, Cromwell and the Commonwealth, the
Revolution of 1688,and the still greater Revolution of 1776.

This last event broke from the parent stem one of the strong branches
of the Anglo-Saxon family, and gave each an opportunity to work out in
different ways the ideals after which both were striving. And who will
say that the descendants of Cromwellians and Quakers, Nonconformists
and Churchmen, whose ancestors, from force of circumstances or love of
country remained in their island home, are not to-day breathing the air
of freedom as pure and unadulterated as their cousins on the banks of
the Charles or in the valleys of the historic Brandywine. At any rate,
we who live in this northern country, that escaped the cataclysm of
1776, feel that Canada has been no unimportant factor in helping to
work out the great problem of government for and by the consent of the
governed.


CHAPTER V