The Moravians in Labrador eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 249 pages of information about The Moravians in Labrador.

The Moravians in Labrador eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 249 pages of information about The Moravians in Labrador.

During the voyage, Drachart held a meeting morning and evening, in the cabin, with the young Esquimaux, who seemed to take great pleasure in it, and were highly attentive.  Some of their expressions were remarkable.  “They wished they had such a desire for the Saviour as a child has for its parents”—­“or a man to hunt the rein-deer, and obtain his prey.”—­“They would not cease to think of Jesus’ sufferings and death, but would remember that merciful and generous Saviour who had died from love to them, and learn to know and love him.”  In the evening of the last day of July they cast anchor in the southernmost corner of Esquimaux Bay, and on the following day entered the harbour of Nanangoak, in which lay fourteen European and two women’s boats, and on shore fourty-seven tents were pitched.  Here Mikak and her husband had wished to rejoin their countrymen.  Before they left the ship Drachart reminded them of what he had taught them, and recommended to them every morning when they rose, and every evening before they went to sleep, to think on the Saviour and his sufferings; and exhorted them, when any wicked thoughts should arise in their minds—­theft, adultery, or murder, or any other bad thing they had heard from their youth up from the Angekoks their teachers—­that they should pray to him that he would take them away, adding, “if you thus turn to Jesus and diligently seek to him, then you will no more belong to the heathen, but to the Saviour, who will receive you as his own, and write your names among the faithful.”  Jans Haven accompanied them to their friends, who rejoiced to receive them in safety, and among them Jans found his old acquaintance Seguilliak.  Next day Drachart and Jensen went on shore, when they were immediately surrounded by a great crowd, who took the missionaries under the arm, and shook them by the hands, and then conducted them from tent to tent, where they proclaimed to them the unsearchable riches of Christ.  Mikak invited them into her large tent, and begged they might hold a meeting in it.  Soon upwards of seven hundred Esquimaux were collected within and around it, to whom Drachart, for the first time, preached the gospel, and was heard here, as elsewhere, with the utmost apparent attention.  When he had finished, Mikak and her husband began to testify, in their own simple manner, how the Lord in heaven had become man, and died for their sins.  Supposing that this alluded to their own murders, some of their countrymen appeared startled, and cried out, “Ah! that is true, we are sinners, and old murderers; but we will never more carry concealed knives, either under our arms or under our clothes; and we shall never have bows and arrows hid in our kaiaks, because the Lord in heaven has said, Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed.  If we kill Europeans, as we did three years ago, then we deserve that they should kill us and our countrymen.”  But they seemed likewise alarmed lest the boats they had then taken should

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The Moravians in Labrador from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.