Salvation in a Bar-room.
The services at Victoria were first held on the reservation, and then transferred to a building in the city which had been used as a bar-room. In this building, still bearing the sign of its earlier occupancy, a work of saving grace was begun and carried on, the results of which eternity alone will reveal. It was a service held in this “old bar-room” which was instrumental in opening the way for the Methodist Church to enter those great fields among the Indians of the North—Tsimpsheans, Kit-eks-yens, and Hydahs on Queen Charlotte Islands, Hylt-chuks and the Kling-gets in Alaska, and others—where, in the providence of God, I was afterwards to labor.
On a Sabbath morning in October, ’72, Elizabeth Deex, a chieftess of the Tsimpshean nation, who had left her home at Port Simpson, wandered into the “old bar-room,” and there by the preaching of the Word was brought under deep conviction for sin. At a prayer-meeting held later in her own house she was savingly converted to God, and immediately entered into the work of bringing others to Christ.
That meeting proved to be the beginning of a revival which lasted continuously for nine weeks and resulted in the conversion of upwards of forty natives, among whom were a number of northern people.
It was our great privilege to be with the dear friends for some time in that blessed revival, and when the people were starting north we bade them good-bye, urging them to stand up as witnesses for Jesus, and promising them that, if possible, we would visit them some day.
This was in the month of September, 1873, when, by a strange providence, the way was opened for a visit to my friends at home. And now as they started northward I started eastward, little imagining that I should so soon follow them to their northern home, and remain with them so long—for about the next quarter of a century, indeed.
THE TRANSFORMED BAR-ROOM, VICTORIA.
CHAPTER XXI.
BRITISH COLUMBIA—ITS INTERESTS AND RESOURCES.
“‘Rejoice with trembling,’ may we think of this,
When life’s full cup is with Thy bounty crowned,
That so we be not blinded by our bliss,
Or fall asleep upon ‘enchanted ground.’”
—Barton.
It seems appropriate, in closing this record of my first twelve years of missionary labor, that something should be said concerning the progress made in the Indian work in British Columbia, as well as in the settlement and development of this one-time colony, but now the richest and most wonderful province, from the standpoint of natural resources and marvellous possibilities, in the Dominion of Canada.
It is only a short time since British Columbia was described as “a sea of mountains,” uninhabited and uninhabitable except at long distances; covered with forests, a great part of which were inaccessible; its rivers filled with fish, and its river beds streaked with gold.
The marvellous resources of the country were little dreamed of by Canadians—as the inhabitants of Ontario and Quebec were alone called—when I reached home on this first visit. Speaking to large audiences in the leading cities and towns in the East, of the great cedars and firs, which attain immense proportions, “sometimes towering three hundred feet in the air, and having a base circumference of from thirty to fifty feet”—of whole forests of these magnificent trees that would average one hundred and fifty feet clear of limbs, and five to six feet in diameter—the people appeared incredulous. And when I turned to the subject of fish and told them I had seen in a small stream flowing into the Fraser River the large salmon so numerous that in forcing their way up the stream they had rubbed off their fins and tails, my audience looked at one another. When I went on and told them of having seen a wave come in at Departure Bay, on the east coast of Vancouver Island, and deposit bushels of herring on the shore, the preachers on the platform pulled my coat and said, “Oh, Crosby, that is an awful fish story!” But when I went on and spoke of crossing a little stream in the upper Chilliwack Valley, and of my little pony stepping on some of the beautiful silver salmon that lay thick in the stream, and that they jumped about so violently as to nearly knock the animal off his feet, the people laughed outright, “Oh! Oh! Oh!” and I knew they did not believe me.
To-day, however, the eyes of the financial world are turned towards the profitable investments in British Columbia. An ever-increasing number of companies are establishing great saw-mills, and shipping lumber to all parts of the world. Whereas once the Indian bands alone congregated at the mouths of the great rivers during the fishing season, to gather for their own consumption, now scores of large and magnificently equipped canneries, employing large numbers of men, line the river banks, and are engaged in packing salmon of different varieties as well as other kinds of fish. The mountains in all directions are being prospected for minerals, and fresh discoveries are being made almost every day. Agriculture has advanced with the general advancement of the country, and it is now known that there are millions of acres of land suitable for cultivation which have not yet been settled upon. In the raising of fruit, particularly, the opportunity is almost unlimited, and some day the hillsides and benches which were thought to be worthless will be planted with orchards. In a recent interview, the Hon. R. G. Tatlow, Minister of Finance in the local Government, a gentleman of wide experience and of twenty-six years’ residence in the province, expressed himself as follows:
“I am satisfied that every industry in British Columbia is only in its infancy. We have forests illimitable for lumber, land in millions of acres for agriculture, and the seven thousand miles of shore line are washed by seas teeming with fish.
“The total production of the province for the year ending June, 1906, was over $50,000,000.
“Details of this production should be of public interest. Taking, first, the lumber industry, the value of the lumber cut reached over $6,500,000. The mineral output of the province was $22,461,325, with eleven smelters in operation. Agriculture also advanced in common with other lines of work during the year. The product of provincial farms and orchards reached the sum of $6,500,000.
“There are splendid opportunities for mixed farming in many sections of the province. The best evidence of this is the fact that we exported butter, eggs, poultry and cheese to the value of nearly $2,000,000.
“Horticulture is rapidly coming to the front. It is becoming one of our most important industries. In 1891 the acreage under fruit was 6,500; ten years later it had only reached 7,500, but advancement has since been phenomenal. A year ago there were 22,000 acres cultivated by orchardists and fruit-growers, and I fully believe that by the end of 1906 there will be 40,000 acres used in this manner.
“Fishing, of course, has long been an important item in the commerce of the province, but even this industry shows signs of great expansion. The total values from our fisheries amounted to $7,500,000.
“When one considers these facts, can there be the slightest doubt that the present prosperity will be maintained?”
The future for British Columbia looks very bright, with four transcontinental railways seeking entrance through her unopened valleys and stretches of upland to ports on her magnificent shore line; with a climate unexcelled for variety, from the clear, bracing, dry climate of the interior to the mild, humid climate of the coast; with her abundant resources of timber, minerals, fish, farm and orchard; with the ever-widening market of the Orient, as well as in the great North-West Provinces, for her products, she must speedily take her place as the imperial province of our great Dominion.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE MISSIONARY PROGRESS OF THE YEARS—HOME AGAIN.
“For the road leads home,
Sweet, sweet home!
Oh, who would mind the journey,
When the road leads home?”
—J. M. Gray.
It is less than a short lifetime since, in the year 1864, we received into church membership, at our Nanaimo Mission, Kook-shin (Kicking Foot) and his wife—our first Indian converts. Since then thousands have heard the Gospel, vast numbers of whom have received the truth, and many have lived devoted lives for years, while some have passed away, leaving a bright testimony of a blessed hope of everlasting life.
Many hundreds still live, and prove by their sincerity and devotion, and the zeal with which some of them endeavor to bring others into the light, the reality of their Christian profession.
A glance at their villages will show the change which has taken place, for there is a marked contrast between the old heathen lodges and their new and neat Christian homes.
In 1872-3 we reported 108 Indian members in British Columbia, of whom 18 were at Victoria, 36 at Nanaimo, 4 at New Westminster and 50 at Chilliwack. To-day we have, in our Indian work, 32 churches, 24 mission houses, 12 schools and 4 hospitals. There are 43 workers in the field, evangelists, doctors, nurses, teachers and other agents; and 1,645 members, among some six different nations, speaking numerous dialects. The total missionary givings of these recent converts from heathenism and their workers amounted in 1905-6 to $1,245.60. Out of a total Indian population of 25,000 in British Columbia, we are teaching by the Word about 7,000 people.
What has been accomplished is nothing to what might have been accomplished had the Church always been alive to its duty and privilege, and made haste to enter every open door.
To-day there is urgent need for more laborers in this department of missionary effort. Shall we listen to every other call, and close our ears to the cry of our Indian brothers and sisters, who appeal to us in the name of a common Saviour to help them into a noble Christian manhood and womanhood? Shall we?
A few closing personal references will be permitted. I have written of my promised furlough, and of the road leading me to “Home, sweet home.” Those who have spent years away from home and loved ones will understand the joy with which, after the twelve years of toils and triumphs which I have striven to describe, I once more turned my face to the East. I well knew the greetings which awaited me. But I found more than my beloved mother and brothers and sisters on my return to Ontario. It was during this visit, in the early months of 1874, that I found the faithful wife who did not hesitate to turn her back upon home and friends and the comfortable conditions to which she had been accustomed, and undertake with me the hardships and privations of a pioneer missionary life among the benighted Tsimpshean and other tribes of the far northern regions of our Pacific coast. She is the youngest daughter of the late Rev. John Douse, formerly a well-known figure in Canadian Methodism, and who, more than twenty years ago, went to his reward in the better land. During the next twenty-five years, in which I labored among the Indians, with headquarters at Port Simpson, she was a self-denying sharer in the toils and discouragements and the loneliness of that protracted period of missionary effort, and a delighted witness of the triumphs of the Gospel, as these poor benighted peoples gradually emerged from the darkness of heathenism and became sharers in the blessings of civilization and Christian hope. Of these trials and triumphs, and the wonderful experiences connected with that marvellous work, I hope to have the privilege of writing in another book.