All  this  will  not  warm  him  from  the  terrible
blast  of  winter,  or  shelter  him  from  the
drenching  rains  of  early  summer.  He  has
many  faults,  some  virtues,  innumerable
wants.  Begin  with  these.  Preach  against
the  first;  cultivate  the  second;  relieve  as
much  as  possible  the  third.  Make  him  a
good  man  before  you  attempt  to  make  him  an
indifferent  Christian.  In  a  word,  do  more
for  his  body ;  and  after  a  bit,  when  you  have
taught  him  to  help  his  wife  in  toil  and  trou-
ble— to  build  a  house  and  to  live  in  it — to
plant  a  few  potatoes  when  the  ground  thaws,
and  to  hoe  them  out  ere  it  hardens  again —
when  you  have  loosed  the  bands  of  starva-
tion, nakedness,  and  hardship  from  the  grasp
in  which  they  now  hold  him,  then  will  come
the  moment  for  your  books  and  your  higher
teaching.  And  in  his  hut,  with  a  well-filled
stomach,  he  will  have  time  to  sift  truth  from
falsehood,  amidst  all  the  isms  and  arians
under  the  guise  of  which  you  come  to  teach
him.     But  just  now  he  is  only  a  proletarian

258


THE  WILD  NORTH  LAND.
