Up To My Neck in the Sea.
A few days after this I had been preaching to settlers on Salt Spring Island, and while visiting a settler on the east side, a young Indian came rushing into the house crying out, “Mr. Crosby, Mr. Crosby, whiskey, whiskey!” and pointed to the beach, where he said there were some northern Indians selling liquor.
We started down to the shore. I ran some distance above where he said the canoe was, and got down on the beach, where I could now see them bartering away whiskey from their big canoe to parties camped on the shore. I made one straight bolt for them, jumped on board the canoe, and began throwing out their coal oil cans of whiskey. While I was doing this, four big fellows were pushing off their canoe from the shore and carrying me with them out to sea. In a moment I made a plunge for the shore, coming up to my neck in the water, and got to land. We destroyed the whiskey and shouted after the savages that they must stop their unlawful deeds.
My readers may wonder why the missionary took the risks he did, and interfered in matters that may seem to be outside of his regular evangelistic work. It was because he recognized this terrible traffic as the greatest enemy to the work in which he was engaged, and firmly believed that in fighting it he was taking the most practical method of preaching the Gospel to a people who were being destroyed, soul and body, by this trade in strong drink.