The Eskimo formed a large part of Mr. Horden’s charge, and he was much attracted by their gentle contentment amidst their dreary surroundings, and by their teachableness. ‘What should we have been, had we, like them,’ he said, ‘had no Bible to direct us to God?’

Thus speaks the Eskimo, the man who considers himself pre-eminently the ‘man,’ and who has not been taught that God made him, the sun, and the moon, and the stars also:

‘Long, long ago, not long after the creation of the world, there lived a mighty Eskimo, who was a great conjurer; nothing was impossible to him; no other of his profession could stand before him. He found the world too small and insignificant for his powers, so, taking with him his sister and a small fire, he raised himself up into the heavens. Heaping immense quantities of fuel on the fire, he formed the sun, which has continued burning ever since. For a while he and his sister lived together in perfect harmony, but after a time he began to ill-treat her, and his conduct towards her became worse and worse until one day he scorched her face, which was exquisitely beautiful. This was not to be borne, she therefore fled from him, and formed the moon. Her brother is still in chase of her, but although he sometimes gets near her, he will never overtake her. When it is new moon the burnt side of her face is towards us; when full moon the reverse is the case. The stars are the spirits of the dead Eskimo that have fixed themselves in the heavens, and meteors and the aurora are these spirits moving from one place to another whilst visiting their friends.’

CHAPTER VI
SCHOOL WORK

In school work and teaching Mr. Horden took from first to last the keenest interest. After he became bishop he still visited the Moose School daily, whenever he was in residence. In earlier years he had for a time the able assistance of a native master, Mr. Vincent. A small boarding-school had been commenced in 1855 with two children, who were supported through the Coral Missionary Fund.[1] The following year, two more children were taken, and in 1857 the number on the list amounted to eight; to these others were yearly added, supported by friends of the Coral Fund.

Little Susan was one of these. Her unfinished sampler with the needle in it was sent to England. The children’s histories were many of them very sad and pathetic. Some were orphans. The parents of others were disabled, or too sick and suffering to work. One little girl was described as having so wild a look that a portrait of her scarcely resembled that of a human being. Another, after remaining for a time in the school, fell ill with the strange Indian sickness called ‘long thinking,’ a gypsy-like yearning for the wild life of the forest, and she had to be sent back to her widowed father. One boy died early of decline, a complaint to which the Indian is very subject. Another was the child of a father who lay sick and bed-ridden in a most deplorable condition—parts of his body actually rotten. ‘He might’ have been the Lazarus of the parable,’ wrote Mr. Horden. ‘He gets little rest night or day, but, like Lazarus, his mind is stayed on God.’

A few children having thus been gathered together with the certainty of support, Mr. Horden commenced building a school-house. He had from the first assembled the children for daily instruction, but to board and clothe them was impossible without some friendly help, all necessaries at Moose being nearly double the price of the same articles at home. At one time it was quite double. From this we may gather with what delight was hailed, as the season came round, the arrival of the annual ship, bringing to the missionary and his family the stores needed for themselves and their charges for the year to come.

In 1864 very especially, Mr. and Mrs. Horden awaited in eager expectation the ship’s appearance, for not only did they long to know that the wants of the school children and the poor who depended upon them would be supplied, but they were hoping themselves to return in her with their little family for a well-earned rest and change in England, from which country they had then been absent thirteen long years. The three elder children were of an age to need an English education. The little son, a boy of nine or ten, whose principal amusement was to go to the woods with an axe over his shoulder to cut firewood, must, ere it was too late, be weaned from the free life in the forest, and begin to measure his powers of mind and body with other lads of his age and class at home. The wife and mother yearned to see the relatives parted from long ago; the hard-worked man hoped for stimulus and help in the society and sympathy of his brethren and fellow-labourers.

These hopes and yearnings were doomed to disappointment. ‘You know,’ wrote Mr. Horden on January 25, 1865, ‘that it was my intention to be at home this year, and I had expected to have reached England in October or the beginning of November. But August passed and the ship did not arrive, and anxiety increased daily. The 23rd came, the latest day on which the ship had ever been known to appear, and then we began to despond and to say, “No ship this year!” The schooner still remained outside, hoping against hope, until October 7. That same night, in the midst of a most fearful storm, we heard the report of large guns at sea; our excitement was extreme, our hopes revived, and from mouth to mouth passed the joyful exclamation, “The ship’s come! the ship’s come!” We lay down to rest, lightened of a great weight of anxiety, dreaming of absent friends, with a strange pleasant confusion of boxes, storms, ice, guns, and the many other etceteras of the sailing, arrival, and unloading of our ship.