Empire, the land of the idealists who came to propagate the Faith and
succeeded in exploring three-quarters of the continent, with canoes
pointed ever up-stream in quest of beaver. All the characteristics of
the Old Empire are in Quebec to-day. Quebec is French to the core, not
in loyalty to republican France, but in loyalty to the religious ideals
which the founders brought to the banks of the St. Lawrence three
centuries ago. Church spire, convent walls, religious foundations
occupy the most prominent site in every city and town and hamlet of
Quebec. From Tadousac to Montreal, from Labrador to Maine or New
Hampshire, you can follow the thread of every river in Quebec by the
glitter of the church spires round which nestle the hamlets. No matter
how poor the hamlet, no matter how remote the hills which slope wooded
down to some blue lake, there stand the village church with its cross
on the spire, the whitewashed house of the curé, the whitewashed square
dormer-windowed school.

Outside Quebec City and Montreal, Quebec is the most reposeful region
in all America. What matter wars and rumors of wars to these habitants
living under guidance of the curé, as their ancestors lived two hundred
years ago? They pay their tithes. They attend mass. At birth,
marriage and death--the curé is their guide and friend. He teaches
them in their schools. He advises them in their family affairs. He
counsels them in their business. At times he even dictates their
politics; but when you remember that French is the language spoken,
that primary education is of the slimmest, though all doors are open
for a promising pupil to advance, you wonder whether constant tutelage
of a benevolent church may not be a good thing in a chaotic, confused
and restless age. The habitant lives on his little long narrow strip
of a farm running back from the river front. He fishes a little. He
works on the river and in the lumber camps of the Back Country. He