and assistance, and felt revived with the hope that he would hear and help us.  Some of the sick began to recover:  but on the evening of the 31st the Saviour took Abel’s wife, Benigna, home to her blessed rest, and on the following morning, August 1, she was laid in her grave; at seven o’clock in the evening we held a meeting with the Esquimaux, especially with regard to improve the solemn warning given in that harvest the Lord had gathered from this church.  From conversations held with several of the sisters on the 12th, we clearly perceived that the removal of so many of our number had made a deep impression on them, and had brought them to reflect on the necessity of constantly depending on the Saviour, and being ever ready to meet him when he shall come to gather them also into his garner.”

But to their great grief the missionaries discovered that this was not the happy state of all.  When the disease abated they learned with the utmost pain, that some, even of their communicants, in their agony and terror, had had recourse to their old heathenish practices; and what was worse, had endeavoured to appease their consciences by attempting to assimilate them to Old Testament rites imperfectly understood.  They had killed a dog, and cut the ears off many others, that by sprinkling themselves with the blood of the dog they might prevent death from approaching them.  Under the influence of a fanatical delusion, they compared this with the offerings of the Jews, and particularly with the slaying of the Paschal Lamb, and sprinkling the blood on the lintel and posts of the door.  “Our situation we feel very difficult,” complained the anxious missionaries, “as the enemy uses all his ingenuity to blind the poor people, and knows how to employ their fear and distress to harden their hearts, and to prevent them from discerning their sins and repenting.  It appears as if he exerted every power to destroy this little congregation, but we hope that God will shortly bruise Satan under our feet, and not allow his attempts to prosper.”

They found it necessary to exclude several from partaking of the holy supper, and this severity was the blessed mean of soon bringing them to repentance and sorrow for their sins.  Others who had fainted, but not fallen in the day of trial, expressed themselves now convinced of the necessity of watching over their hearts, that they might not be seduced to seek false comfort or unlawful assistance:  they had, during the time of this awful visitation, as well as they could, kept close to Jesus and prayed to him; but they were nevertheless troubled with fearful thoughts—­as that they might all perish, and how sad it would be if their teachers should turn away from them, when there was no one to come to their assistance, and when they could not help themselves.  But they now saw that they had greatly erred in indulging these hard thoughts, for Jesus had delivered them in their necessity.  They felt that they ought to be thankful, but they came far short of that gratitude they owed to him.