‘This ended, we once more got into our canoe, and in a few hours found ourselves at the little post of New Brunswick. Here were some Indians, but not very many, and with them I spent the day, praying with and teaching them. They are as yet mere infants in the faith, knowing but little; but I would fain hope that much good has been already effected by the preaching of the Gospel. They were very low, but some among them have already been baptized, and are walking consistently. The new trader they have among them is an old friend, who takes deep interest in the spiritual welfare of those who come to him for the purposes of trade.
‘Work done, we once more entered our canoe, passed through Brunswick Lake out into the broad Brunswick branch of the Moose River, and here our real troubles began. It rained heavily for several days. It was bad enough in the canoe, but it was much worse on the portages. Fancy a narrow rough path through the woods, with thick bushes on either side, and the path deep in mud and water. I was much afraid my dear daughter Chrissie would suffer from such exposure, but she bore up cheerfully, and proved herself an expert traveller.
‘When the portages were passed we had 150 miles further to go; but the wind became fair, and we almost flew over the water. On Tuesday morning, July 22, we rounded the head of Moose Island, and our home stood before us. There was a great running and calling, and a hoisting of flags. The guns gave their loud welcome, and the dear ones who had been left behind came out to greet us; and there was joy—deep, oh, how deep and grateful! for God had indeed dealt very graciously with us. Our first evening passed. It has left the impression of a pleasant dream. I cannot record our sayings and doings—our exclamations, our tones of joy and sorrow as we spoke of this friend’s success, or that one’s distress: of this one being born, and that one dying; it was an evening unique in our history. We had no “pemmican,” for we are not in the land of the buffalo; it is an article of food unknown here. Neither had we “salt goose,” a viand which takes the place of the pemmican; we had something better for that evening!
‘I at once set to work; life is too short and precious to waste much of it; and since then every day has been crowded. I sometimes scarcely know what to do first, and yet I find time to sit down and write a line or two to a friend. The way I manage it is this. I get my work of translation forward by devoting to it a few extra hours daily, knowing that a packet time will come, and that it is necessary that every hour of packet week must be given up to writing; the bonds of Christian friendship must not be lightly broken. The translation work is very heavy and trying. This is what I have accomplished since I returned in July: I have revised our Indian hymn-book, adding to it a large number of new hymns. I have translated all the first lessons between the tenth Sunday after Trinity and the first Sunday in Lent, as well as some for many of the holy days. What I wish to accomplish is the Psalter, the first lessons, and the New Testament, to be bound up in one volume. If I go on as I have done, I may get the whole ready in twelve months from this time. I shall give myself no rest until my people have the whole of the Word of God in their hands.’
Thus the good bishop worked on, happy in the conviction that if things were not hurrying onward to perfection, they were at least moving slowly in the right direction—his exertions being helped by his Heavenly Father, to whom he attributed all progress.
CHAPTER XI
A PICNIC AND AN INDIAN DANCE
The year 1874 was an eventful one at Moose; the breaking-up of the ice brought with it a flood, and the bishop and his family had to be fetched in a canoe to the house of the deputy-governor for safety. The moving ice masses tore up the river bank, broke down the fences, snapped trees as if they had been reeds; whilst an incessant roar was kept up as the mile-wide river rushed madly on towards the sea. Crops were backward and sparse that season.
In July the bishop started on his summer visitation tour to Rupert’s House, East Main, and Fort George. Everywhere he was received with open arms; everywhere the services were well attended; at each of the posts visited many were baptized and confirmed.