Opposition in various quarters arose, and the Norway House Crees preferred to go farther south; and finally seventy families preferred that place, and there they have formed a flourishing additional Mission. Thus the work advanced, although not all along the lines which some of us had marked out. With patient endurance my noble wife and I toiled on. There was room for the exercise of the graces of courage, and hope, and faith, and patience; but a measure of success was ever ours, and we saw signs of progress, and had every now and then some clear and remarkable cases of conversion from the vilest degradation and superstition into a clear and conscious assurance of Heaven’s favour and smile.
One summer there came from the east to visit us a chieftainess with several of her followers. Her husband had been the chief of his people, and when he died she assumed his position, and maintained it well. Her home was several days’ journey away in the interior, but she had heard of the Missionary who had come to live among the Saulteaux and teach them out of the great Book. Was not she a Saulteaux, and had not she a right to know of this new way, about which so much was being said? With these thoughts in her mind she came to see us. When she came to the Mission, we saw very quickly that here was an interesting woman. We had several interviews, and
Mrs Young and myself did all we could to lead this candid, inquiring mind into the right way. Before she left I gave her a sheet of foolscap paper, and a long lead pencil, and showed her how to keep her reckoning as to the Sabbath day. I had, among many other lessons, described the Sabbath as one day in seven for rest and worship; and she had become very much interested, and promised to try to keep it.
As she pushed out in her canoe from our shore, her last importunate request was, that as soon as possible I would visit her and her people in their own land. So many were my engagements that I could not take up this additional one until about the middle of the winter following. When, with a couple of Indian attendants, with our dog-trains, we dashed into her village, great indeed was her joy at seeing us, and very demonstrative was the welcome given. She had put up on a staging outside in the cold a couple of reindeer heads, keeping them there preserved by the frost until I should arrive. Very quickly were they taken down to cook. The hair was singed off, and then they were cut up with an axe into pieces weighing about two pounds each. Soon they were in the pot, boiling for our dinner. I furnished some tea, and while everything was being got ready by a few, the rest of us sat down and talked.
They were indeed anxious for instruction in spiritual things. I read and, through my interpreter, explained truth after truth, to which they gave the most earnest attention. Then we stopped a little while, that we might have dinner. As I and my men were the guests of this chieftainess I did not get out my tin plates, and cups, and knives and forks, but sat down beside her in her wigwam with the rest of the people, completing a circle around the big wooden dish, in which the large pieces of cooked reindeer heads had been thrown. I asked a blessing on the food, and then dinner began. The plan was for each person to help himself or herself to a piece of the meat, holding it in the hand, and using hunting knife or teeth, or both together, to get off the pieces and eat them.
I am sorry to say my lady friend on the right, this chieftainess, had very dirty-looking hands, and long, strong, brilliant teeth. She took her piece of meat, and, turning it over and over in her hands, began tearing and cutting at it in a way that was not very dainty, but extremely otherwise. After biting off a few mouthfuls, she threw it down on the dirty ground of the wigwam before her, and, inserting one of her greasy hands in the bosom of her dress, she pulled out a large piece of soiled paper, and, unfolding it before me, she began in excited tones to tell me how she had kept the tally of the “praying days,” for thus they style the Sabbath. Greatly interested in her story, and in her wild joyous way of describing her efforts to keep her record correct, I stopped eating and looked over her paper, as she talked away. Imagine my great delight to find that through the long months which had passed since I had given her that paper and pencil, she had not once missed her record. This day was Thursday, and thus she had marked it. Her plan had been to make six short marks, and then a longer one for Sunday.
“Missionary,” she said very earnestly, “sometimes it seemed as though I would fail. There were times when the ducks or geese came very near, and I felt like taking my gun and firing. Then I remembered that it was the praying day, and so I only put down the long mark and rested. I have not set a net, or caught a fish, or fired a gun, on the praying day since I heard about it at your house so far away.”
Of course I was delighted at all this, and said some kind words of encouragement. Then we resumed our dinner. I had my piece of meat in one hand, and with the knife in the other was endeavouring to cut off the pieces and eat them. The good woman replaced the precious paper and pencil in her bosom, and then picked up her piece of meat from the dirty ground, and, after turning it over and over in her hands, began with her strong teeth to tear off the large mouthfuls. All at once she stopped eating, and, looking intently at my piece, she said, “Your piece is not a very good one, mine is very fine,” and before I could protest, or say a word, she quickly exchanged the pieces; and from her portion, which she put in my hand, I had to finish my dinner. As what she did is considered an act of great kindness, of course I would not grieve her by showing any annoyance. So I quietly smothered any little squeamishness that might naturally have arisen, and finished my dinner, and then resumed the religious service. Soon after, she became a decided Christian.
The following extracts are from the last letter which I sent to the Mission Rooms, ere, owing to the failure of Mrs Young’s health, we left the land of the Saulteaux for work in the Master’s Vineyard elsewhere. The Mission had now been fully established, a comfortable parsonage built and well furnished. A large school-house had been erected, which answered also for the religious services until the church should be finished. Many had been our trials and hardships, and there had been a great deal of opposition, much of it from places not expected. But to be enabled to send such tidings from such a place, where I had gone as the first Missionary, and among such a wicked and degraded tribe as were these Saulteaux, so different from the more peaceful Crees, caused my heart to rejoice, that He Who had permitted me to go and sow the seed had also given me the honour of seeing some golden sheaves gathered in for the heavenly garner:—