The End Came All Too Soon.
At the last camp-meeting David attended he was feeling quite poorly. For some time he had been sick, for the hard trips he had taken through storm and tempest were having serious effects upon his frail constitution, and yet his zeal had brought him, even under distressing difficulties, to his last camp-meeting. He had fought hard for the Master during these years, and now he was seen to be breaking down in health. One arm had been rendered powerless by a stroke of paralysis. At this camp-meeting of which we have spoken David, as usual, seized an opportunity to tell his experience. A great crowd of Indians and white people were standing near, and David said:
“My friends, you see that little tree,” pointing to a little maple standing near by. “Well, when I first came to camp long ago that tree was a very small tree; now you see how it has grown; it is a strong tree now. It is all the same with David’s heart, it grow every day, it get strong like the tree, but the devil he try me when I come to this camp-meeting; he say, ‘Now, look, you foolish boy, you go among these Indians, you preach and travel around in ice and cold, and do what the missionary want you to do, and you get sick, and be no great man. Now, if you had not done that, if you had stayed home among your people, you had been a chief, a great man, by this time. Now you go away from your people, you preach; you say your people wrong, your people all dark; and now the old medicine men on the Fraser River not like you preach so strong, and they make you sick and poor like you be now.’ But I tell the devil, ‘You go away; Jesus is my Captain, He lead me all right; by-and-bye I not be sick any more; by-and-bye I be in heaven with Jesus; no witch-doctors do me any harm.’” Thus he went on addressing the people, and the power of the blessed Spirit seemed to accompany his words in great measure, and his face shone as with a light from heaven, and he said, “Oh, my friends, me think by-and-bye me not sick; by-and-bye me get to heaven; no sickness up in heaven.” Up went both arms, one of which, through his paralysis, he had not used for a long time, and he shouted out with all his strength, “By-and-bye I shall have wings; I shall fly!” There were shouts of “Praise the Lord,” and “Hallelujah,” all over the camp, and many of the people shed tears of joy. All were touched and deeply moved at this wondrously passionate appeal, and this bright hope for the future, as also the miraculous movement of David’s paralyzed arm. No doubt of his fitness for the glory land, or his bright prospects of reaching it. Indeed, he seemed to all to be living just on the border. The camp-meeting broke up under a holy influence, for one and all felt the power of one who was soon to bid farewell to earth and pass over into the kingdom eternal. After this camp-meeting was over David spent some days visiting his friends in the Chilliwack valley, where he was always welcome, and whose homes he brightened and blessed by his happy experience. Then he returned to Victoria, where he was employed as a native assistant. He gradually grew worse, getting weaker all the time, and finally his spirit fled to the heaven to which he had tried to point the way.
The Chairman, the now sainted Wm. Pollard, was his superintendent, and watched over him to the last. He said David’s death was the most triumphant he had ever witnessed. In a letter dated January 14th, 1873, he said: “The death of David Sallosalton was a sad blow to this mission and to the Indian work in general. He was deservedly popular, and he was pious, eloquent and useful. He was universally beloved and almost idolized by the Indians.”
The late Rev. Cornelius Bryant, then missionary at Sumas, who had known David from his childhood, in referring to his death, paid this tribute to the worth of Indian Missions: “If no other had been saved than David Sallosalton, our Indian brother, whose glowing experience I heard in the church a few months ago, and who is doubtless now a glorified inhabitant of the skies, we had been well rewarded for all missionary effort.” Mr. Pollard wrote the following obituary of him:
“The subject of this notice belonged to the Nanaimo tribe of Indians, and he was born in Nanaimo camp about 1853. His parents were pagan, and David’s early education was pagan. About 1860 our missionaries visited Nanaimo, and the Gospel was introduced among the Indians; this was a new era in David’s history. He when a little boy welcomed the messengers of mercy, and as far as he could comprehend the light he walked in it, but it was not until he was eleven years of age that he was converted. He attended the mission school then conducted by the Rev. T. Crosby, and was the fruit of his pious and earnest ministrations. This zealous missionary discovered in his pupil piety and gifts of more than ordinary promise, and spared no pains to train him to future usefulness. David from the time of his conversion maintained an unblemished character, and labored earnestly and continuously to teach his countrymen the way of life. In September, 1871, he came to Victoria to attend the English school and act as assistant missionary to the Songees Indians. He made great progress in his work, often preaching to them every evening in the week, besides twice on the Sabbath, and the Lord gave him great favor with both the whites and the Indians. Great hopes were entertained that he might long be spared as a missionary to his people. He was not only remarkable for his piety, but had extraordinary natural qualifications for public speaking in his own language. The Rev. Dr. Punshon, who heard him when on a visit to this country, pronounced him one of the greatest natural orators he had ever heard. Last spring his health began to fail, and though everything was done to prolong his valuable life, yet it was evident that consumption was undermining his constitution. The only desire that he seemed to have was to live that he might preach Christ. During his illness he often spoke of heaven, especially as a place where there would be no temptation, no whiskey, no devil. Shortly before his death, when asked what portion of Scripture he wished to have read, he said: ‘Read to me the death of Christ.’ A few minutes before he died a friend quoted the first part of the fourteenth chapter of John. He expressed great joy that Christ had gone to heaven to prepare mansions for his children, and said: ‘In a very short time I shall be in my Father’s house.’ He then closed his eyes, folded his hands, as if intending to pray, and thus fell asleep without a pain or a doubt, on the 29th of October, in the nineteenth year of his age, David Sallosalton, the most perfect Christian we ever knew.”