Seldom in either place do they see any human being, except the members of their own family, and not one of the family can read. In summer they catch salmon and codfish; and in the winter kill seals. And yet they are not heathens or savages. The woman, though rowing, was very neatly dressed, with a necklace, but no other superfluous finery; the man was tidy; both were civil. They presented us with two salmon, all they had in their boat, and promised us finer ones to-morrow. They expressed much pleasure at the prospect of attending the services, and of having their youngest child christened or admitted into the Church. All had been baptized; some at Twillingate, some at Herring Neck, in each case by a clergyman, one by a Methodist preacher, one by a fisherman; but all had been admitted into the Church (at Twillingate, or Herring Neck) except this youngest. They left us about 10.30 P.M., after attending our family prayers in the cabin.
Friday, July 8th. Little Harbour Deep.—Before four o'clock, two of my men, with a boy from shore, went to Grandfather's Cove (Grande-Vache) to invite the families (Randalls) living there to our services. Though so early, one of the families had gone to their fishing ground before our men arrived. The others gladly accepted the invitation. This being the first day of missionary work, or services, on board the Church-ship, I had to instruct my friends, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Tucker, how to arrange and deck the large cabin for the congregation. The day, happily, was very fine, so that we were able to put several of the many packages and boxes on deck.
The congregation, in the morning, consisted of only the two families (Wiseman and Randall) and our captain. In the afternoon (4.30 P.M.), our crew also attended. One girl was hypothetically baptised, and four children received. The elder Johnson said the prayers and baptized; the younger read the lessons. I addressed the little congregation both morning and evening. There is something of both pleasure and pain in these quiet services; pleasure, in hoping that God, in his mercy, may bless some word of exhortation, or some prayer, to the edification of these forsaken ones; pain, in observing how by the people themselves the prayers and lessons seem to be wholly not appreciated, or not understood. Not one could read, several of them had never heard the service before, so they rose up and knelt down as automatons; and would, I doubt not, have been just as ready to kneel at the Psalms as at the Confession, and to sit at either, or both, as when hearing the lessons or sermon. After the service, one man bought a Prayer-book for his daughter, and we gave them several children's books and tracts. I examined the bigger children after the service; one girl, probably ten or twelve years of age, could not repeat the Lord's Prayer or the Creed; a second imperfectly; a third tolerably well. It was, indeed, pitiful; and enough to fill the heart of any pastor, and specially their chief pastor, with sorrow and shame.
After the second service, I accompanied my friends in a boat to the head of the harbour, where it receives a small stream (the drain of some lake, or of the bogs and mosses in the neighbourhood), which winds and creeps between some magnificent mountains. While they were fishing I wandered, climbing over the boulders, along the borders of the stream, to enjoy the solitude and deep silence of the winding valley. The absence of all living creatures, except mosquitoes and dragon-flies, is a striking feature; and the occasional whistle or scream of some sea-bird only renders the prevailing stillness more strange; grateful or painful, according to the disposition and state of mind.
We returned to the ship soon after sunset, frightfully eaten by mosquitoes. The fishers had all had plenty of bites, and realized a new phase of "fly-fishing," but carried home among them one trout only. The mosquitoes had got possession of the Church-ship, and paid us off for invading their solitudes.
Saturday, July 9th. At sea.—We left Little Harbour Deep soon after three o'clock A.M., with a fair wind, which died away outside, and we did not reach our next place of call (Little Coney Arm) till five o'clock P.M. There new delay and difficulty awaited us. We fired two guns, but no person came off, and not a single boat could anywhere be seen. The whole shore seemed deserted. Nevertheless, we discerned houses in the harbour, and stood towards the entrance; but finding the water shoal suddenly, the captain let go the anchor, and sent a boat in, with the mate and three of my companions. They brought word, to my great mortification, that nearly all the inhabitants had gone to fish in other parts of the bay, and that but one old man, with the females and children of three families, remained. Him they brought off to be our pilot. Unfortunately, in getting again under way, we went to leeward of the entrance, and immediately after the wind dropped altogether. The tide then drifted us into Great Coney Arm, and every tack took us farther to leeward. It seemed almost certain we should be carried to the head of the Bight, to spend the Sunday in a solitary place; but by keeping a boat ahead, with four hands, sometimes of the crew, sometimes of the clergy, we maintained our ground until, about eleven o'clock, a breeze sprang up in our favour, and we regained the entrance of the Little Arm, and came to anchor just at midnight, whereby I learnt a lesson of patience and perseverance.
Third Sunday after Trinity, July 10th. Little Coney Arm.—Four families reside in this harbour, two of which are returned in the census as Methodists, the other two Church of England. All the men, however, were absent, except the old man who was brought off to us the previous night; besides him were four women, and some seven or eight children, and a sick man (a Roman Catholic), who had been left by a trader. All, however, in the harbour (except the sick Roman) came on board to both our services, and the women (all) expressed a great desire to have their children admitted into the Church. The Gospel for the Sunday gave me occasion to preach to them and myself on the "Parable of the Lost Sheep;" to myself, to make me ashamed of thinking much of serving or ministering to these two or three in the wilderness; and to them, to make them, and each of them, I trust, more grateful to the good Shepherd who came himself on the same errand on which He sends his ministers to seek for every one that is lost and gone astray, and who assures us there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. The day was as bright and the scene as lovely as could be desired for any Sabbath on earth, and I greatly enjoyed the rest and peace. After tea, we went on shore and visited all the families, and gave medicine to the poor Irishman, and books to the children. I examined the children in the Lord's Prayer and Creed, and found that the child of the Church of England parents (neither of whom could read) was much more perfect than the children of the others, who boasted of their learning and reading; some (ten or twelve years of age) could not say the Lord's prayer. At family prayer, in the evening, I addressed my crew, and explained to them the object of my voyage, and entreated them to co-operate by their example in every place, and warned them against the faults to which I knew them most liable.
Monday, July 11th. Little Coney Arm, at sea, and Bear Cove.—Sailed from Little Coney Arm at four o'clock A.M., wind light, but fair for crossing the bay, and we accordingly passed over to Bear Cove. We found that all the inhabitants (four families) were at home, or on their fishing-grounds, and all professed members of the Church of England, and greatly desirous to be admitted, by baptism or reception as the case might require; and two couples, who had been united by a fisherman, expressed a wish to be duly married. One couple made some difficulty about the fee (having no money), but promised to send the amount (20s.) in money, or fish, to the nearest clergyman, in the fall. The service was to have commenced at five o'clock, but it was with difficulty all were got together and duly arranged at 6.15. We said the Evening Prayers, which I fear must have been parables to these poor people, several of whom had lived here and in the neighbouring coves all their life, and had never before seen a clergyman, or heard the service. After the second lesson, the baptisms had to be performed, and sad and strange were the discoveries made by the question, whether the child or person (for some were fifteen, sixteen, and eighteen years of age) had been baptized or no? Of all it was answered they had been baptized; but some, it appeared, could not tell by whom, some by fishermen, several by a woman,—the only person in the settlement (and she a native) who could read correctly. One woman (married) was baptized, hypothetically, with her infant. Twenty-one in all were admitted, the majority with hypothetical baptism. Both of the women who came to be married had infants in their arms; one of them had three children. Not one person in the whole settlement could read correctly, except the woman before mentioned; her husband (a native of Bay of Islands), a little. He had, however, been employed to marry one of our present couples, which he confessed to me with some shame and confusion of face, saying, "he had picked the words out of the book as well as he could make them out," but he did not baptise, because "that reading was too hard;" in fact, he could scarcely read at all, he left the baptisms therefore to his wife. I addressed the people after the baptisms, trying to make them understand the meaning and purpose of that Sacrament, and again after the prayers, in their obligations as baptized. After this service, Mr. Johnson married the two couples, and I examined the children in their prayers and belief, which I found most of them could repeat more or less correctly, but not one knew a letter of the alphabet. It was considerably after nine o'clock before we could dismiss our visitors, and sorry they seemed to be dismissed as I was to dismiss them. Poor people! the fair faces of the children would have moved the admiration of a Gregory; and the destitute, forsaken condition of all would move the compassion of any one who believed they have souls to be saved; how much more if those souls in any sense were committed to his charge. But what can I do more for them, and, alas! for many others almost equally destitute and forsaken. It is but too probable that never again, either myself, or by others, shall I be able to minister to their wants. To-morrow with the first dawn, the men and boys will be all out on their fishing-grounds, the women busy in their houses, the elder girls nursing the younger children; and I must be on the move to perform a like perfunctory service to others in the same state of ignorance, of whom I believe there are more than two hundred in this bay.
Tuesday, July 12th. At Bear Cove, at sea, at Jackson's Arm, and at Sop's Island.—We warped out of Bear Cove, there being then no wind, at five o'clock A.M., and stood over to Jackson's Cove, on the opposite side of the bay (about nine miles), which we reached by 8.30. It is a capacious and beautiful harbour, easy of approach and entrance. On coming to anchor, I sent on shore immediately, and found that all the men were gone to Sop's Island (about five miles off), except one poor fellow with a diseased hip, to whom I sent some wine and medicine. I proposed to take the only woman left behind, with her children, on board the Church-ship, to join her friends and relations at Sop's Island, to which she gladly assented, and they came on board accordingly. We then weighed anchor again at 12.30, to beat to Sop's Island, which we reached between three and four o'clock. We landed immediately with our poor fisherman's wife, who appeared an intelligent, seriously-disposed person, and she could read. Her children were very wild, hair uncut and uncombed, without shoes and stockings. She had come from the Barred Islands (in the Fogo Mission), and lamented the separation from her Church and clergy. She guided us to the residences and fishing rooms of the different residents and others in Sop's Island, and we appointed a service for them at five o'clock, not, however, expecting to get them together before six o'clock. We commenced at 6.15; seventeen children were received into the Church, and two couples married. We found that the parties whom we had missed at Coney's Arm (as well as those from Jackson's Arm) were in this island, and we sent word to them of our intention to hold service again to-morrow. Here was a repetition of the same melancholy anomalies and irregularities as those of yesterday, except that two or three of the women could read; and a Mr. M——, from St. John's, a small dealer or merchant, who has resided here for several years, has kept up some remembrance of God and his service by reading the Church prayers at a funeral. He resides, however, in the house of a planter, who has brought and lives with a woman from England, in the very neighbourhood of his wife, whom he deserted after she had borne him three children. She (his wife) is still living at Twillingate, and supports herself as a nurse and servant. By the woman he now lives with he has had seven children, most of whom are grown up, and several married. When he saw my vessel with a female on board, he thought his wife was come from Twillingate, and went and hid himself in the woods. Some of his children and grandchildren were among those admitted this day into the Church. After the prayers and two addresses from myself, one in connexion with the baptismal service, and one in place of a sermon, two couples were married. These services were not finished till nearly nine o'clock.
Wednesday, July 13th. Sop's Island, at sea, and at Gold Cove.—I had appointed the service at nine o'clock, being anxious to get forward, if possible, in the afternoon; but it was not till after twelve o'clock that the poor people could arrange their little (to them great) matters, and come with their children properly attired. Some had to go on board a trader lying in the harbour to purchase clothes; several came from a distance against a head wind. Two couples were married before, and two after, the prayers; six children of one of the pairs were admitted into the Church: all had been baptized by lay hands. Two women, neighbours, had each baptized the other's children. After the services, I gave away a number of elementary books for children; three or four Prayer-books, and one Bible were purchased. At two o'clock they all took their departure, with many expressions of pleasure and gratitude. We got away just before a violent north-easter (a wind which always comes, as they say, with the butt end first), which carried us rapidly to Gold Cove, at the head of the bay. It is a snug, well-sheltered place, but the water is deep almost up to the shore; and we moored, for the first time in my experience, to a tree. However, we found bottom at about sixteen fathoms, and plenty of fish upon it. One of my companions jigged nine fine fish in an hour. The others went off to visit the people, who were at some distance, and apprize them, as usual, of our presence and purpose. A more secluded, retired spot could hardly, I think, be found, or more picturesque withal. Wild gooseberries grow on the shore in abundance, and, of course, other fruits, which no hand gathers and no eye sees. Here the people report themselves to have been very successful in their fishery this year. It is the first place where we have heard of success.