The Moravians in Labrador

by Anonymous

"Dearly beloved Brethren and Sisters,—We are now for the third time going among the wild Esquimaux; and in their name we thank you for the assistance you have afforded us in the past year to enable us to declare among these savages the gospel of the sufferings and death of Jesus. We thank the Saviour that he has so illuminated your hearts, that you are as willing to give your wealth, as we are to venture our lives to promote this cause. We now take our leave, and commend ourselves to your love and remembrance before the Saviour. He is indeed near to you, and to us, to help in all our difficulties,—that our courage may not fail, but that we may look to him. It is his cause, and he will support us; on him we hope, and on him we rely; and in his name we venture our lives and all that we have, for he ventured his life for us. When we think of this our hearts are melted, and we fall down at his pierced feet, and exclaim, O! Lord Jesus, the little confidence we have in thee thou hast given us; our goods, our lives, we have from thee. Thou knowest we venture to go through the great deep, through rocks and ice, that thy holy name may be glorified among the Esquimaux. We pray that the angel of thy presence may accompany the ship out and home again; be with our brethren, give them courage to proclaim the tidings of thy love, which was stronger than death—Dear brethren and sisters, the Saviour is present, he certainly hears us when we join together to call upon him for ourselves and others The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God be with you all. Amen."

On the 8th of May they left London in the ship Amity, commanded by Captain Mugford, and on the 9th August reached the place of their destination, after a passage of peril and danger. They had constructed a wooden house while in London, and had been kindly furnished by their friends with household furniture, and a number of implements for enabling them to work in carpentry, in iron, and for gardening.

Immediately upon landing they commenced their operations, by surrounding the spot upon which they had fixed, and to which they gave the name of Nain, with pallisades, and on the 20th of August laid the foundation of their wooden house; they soon found their fortification was unnecessary, as the natives, so far from offering any obstruction, appeared eager to forward the building, which, on the 22d September, was so far finished as to be habitable. As on the former occasion, so on this, the Governor of Newfoundland issued a proclamation in their favour, declaring the missionaries under the immediate protection of the British; and at the same time he conveyed to themselves the strongest assurances of his personal regard for their characters and wishes for their success, as what would so materially tend to tranquillize the country.

Among the excellent regulations adopted by the brethren, one, and not the least important, was, in their transactions with the savages, while they did them every kind office, to offer them nothing which might appear in the shape of a bribe to induce them to embrace their religion: they sometimes built boats for them, and sometimes improved and repaired those they had, and furnished them with iron pots, and arrows and lances for seal hunting, but they always required payment, which the Esquimaux could easily render in whale fins, seals' blubber, or such other articles as their dexterity could procure. Very soon, instruments of European manufacture became so necessary, that the natives were rendered industrious by the desire to possess them, while they enabled them to render that industry doubly advantageous. In this traffic the annual visits of the Society's vessel were important, and the greater part of the barter was carried on through the agent or supercargo.

More than a hundred Esquimaux, during the summer, planted their tents round Nain, to whom the missionaries preached the gospel. Of the manner in which they did this, Drachart tells us in his journal, "My method," says he, "is first to give a short discourse, and then to ask a few plain questions which only require a denial or assent; but they do not always content themselves with this—for instance, if I ask if they, as poor sinners, would wish to come to the Saviour, some would say, Yes! we cannot deny that we are poor sinners, and we begin to reflect upon what we have heard from you about this, and to converse with one another on the subject. Others will boldly reply, No! we will not think of it; and a third sort will confess they do not understand any thing about the matter, but would be glad to know if I had any knives to sell, for they had whale fins. I then pray to the Saviour:—Thou hast in Greenland made many stupid minds to understand, and many cold hearts warm; O do the same here, and bless my weak discourse that I may not be put to shame, for it is indeed thine own cause."

During the winter the natives retired to other places, the nearest of which was many miles distant from Nain; individuals, however, came from time to time to visit the brethren; among these were Mikak, Tuglavina, and Segulliak, and the brethren returned their visits, as far as the deep snow and excessive cold would permit. The friendly reception they met with upon these occasions, and the willingness with which the heathen heard the word, reconciled the missionaries to the filth and inconvenience they had to encounter. Of these the following specimen will enable the reader to form some idea.

About the end of January 1773, the brethren Schneider and Turner visited Mikak in the island Nintok, at the distance of five and a half hours from Nain. They found here two houses, each of which contained twenty persons, the families only separated from each other by skins stretched out between them. Mikak directed the brethren to an apartment in one of these houses, to which, when they retired, they were followed by great numbers of the Esquimaux, who gathered round them, and heard in silence Schneider preach to them the death of the Lord, and sing some verses on the same subjects. They here met with a circumstance which greatly tended to comfort them amid other scenes which weighed heavily on their spirits. In a division of the house where they lodged, they found three widows dwelling together, and one of them informed them that her husband, Anauke, who had died the year before, had said to her, when she was mourning over him in his last illness, "Be not grieved for me,—I am going to heaven, to Jesus who has loved his people so much!" He was one of those who had remained during the summer near Nain, and whose countenance bore strong marks of the thief and the murderer, and had appeared at first to have more than usual savage ferocity in his whole deportment; but it was remarked that, before he left that vicinity, his very countenance had changed, and his behaviour had become gentle; but the missionaries had no decisive proof of his conversion to the Saviour, till they heard, to their joy, this his dying profession of the faith. His countrymen called him the man whom the Saviour had taken to himself. This man, there is every reason to believe, was the first fruits of the mission.

Night is an appropriate time to call on the prince of darkness; and it is observable that among all the heathen, that season has generally been devoted to his service in deeds that shunned the light. In the evening, when the missionaries had laid themselves down to sleep in Mikak's house, they had another confirmation of this remark. There had been a dreadful storm during the day, so that the natives had been prevented from going to seal-catching, they therefore assembled in her house after nightfall, to entreat her, as she was considered a powerful sorceress, to make good weather, bring the seals from the deep, and show the holes in the ice to which they came for air; also where the greatest number of rein-deer were to be found. All the lamps were immediately extinguished, and she began with deep sighs, and groans, and mutterings, to call up Torngak. Sometimes she raised her voice so loud that the whole house rang. At this signal, the people began to sing, and to ask one another, what does Torngak say? At length there was a tremendous crash, as if the whole place had been falling about their ears, produced, as the missionaries supposed, by the stroke of a stick on the extended skins. The sorceress then proceeded to the door, beating with her feet, and uttering strange sounds, at which some of the more sensible among the worshippers could not forbear to express their sense of the ridiculous scene by their laughter. Schneider, who had hitherto been silent, now cried to the enchantress to cease calling upon Torngak, who was an evil spirit, and reigned in darkness, and light the lamps again; but some one replied it was the custom of the country, and proposed they should conclude with a short song, in which all the company joined, after which they separated for their resting places before the lamps could be relighted.

With a heart greatly touched, and eyes full of tears, the missionaries early next morning addressed the inmates of the house upon the true light that is come to enlighten men, and to redeem them from the spirit of darkness. He entreated them with great earnestness to turn to the crucified Jesus, and renounce the evil spirit and his works, and commended them in prayer to the compassionate heart of the Saviour.

Disinterested exertion, not only to prevent themselves from being burdensome to those among whom they labour, but to save as much as possible any unnecessary expense to the churches or societies who send them out, forms an admirable and a prominent feature in all the Moravian missionary brethren. They follow the apostolic example, and minister to their necessities by their own hands, and exhibit a pattern to their infant establishments, not only of industry to procure the means of personal livelihood, but to enable them to assist those improvident heathen by whom they are surrounded, even when their exertions are attended with danger and repaid by insult; and by these means they often acquire an influence over the most savage minds, which it were otherwise difficult to obtain. Of this we have a most remarkable instance which occurred in the beginning of the present year. Having received accounts that a dead whale was found at Comfort Harbour, about seven miles south of Nain, the brethren, Jans Haven, Lister, Morhardt, and Turner, resolved to go thither, accompanied by some Esquimaux, in the hope that, by procuring the blubber and the fins, they might be enabled to contribute somewhat to the support of the mission, while they would assist the starving natives at this season in obtaining a supply of provisions; and at the same time, they would have an opportunity of commending the Saviour to these poor benighted heathen.