When I first passed through their country, they with tears in their eyes had begged for a Missionary. I had been much moved by their appeals, and had written to the Mission House about them and for them, but all in vain. None had come to labour among them.
For my answer to this old man’s words I translated a copy of my letter, which had been published, and in which I had strongly urged their claims for a Missionary. They all listened attentively to the end, and then the old man sprang up and said, “We all thank you for sending that word, but where is the Missionary?” I was lost for an answer, for I felt that I was being asked by this hungering soul the most important question that can be heard by the Christian Church, to whom God has committed the great work of the world’s evangelisation.
“Where is the Missionary?” The question thrilled me, and I went down before it like the reed before the storm. I could only weep and say, “Lord, have mercy upon me and on the apathetic Christian world.”
That was the hardest question a human being ever asked me. To tell him of a want of men, or a lack of money, to carry the glad tidings of salvation to him and his people, would only have filled his mind with doubts as to the genuineness of the religion enjoyed by a people so numerous and rich as he knew the whites were. So I tried to give them some idea of the world’s population, and the vast number yet unconverted to Christianity. I told him the Churches were at work in many places and among many nations, but that many years would pass away before all the world would be supplied with Missionaries.
“How many winters will pass by before that time comes?” he asked.
“A great many, I fear,” was my answer.
He put his hands through his long hair, once as black as a raven’s wing, but now becoming silvered, and replied: “These white hairs show that I have lived many winters, and am getting old. My countrymen at Red River on the south of us, and here at Norway House on the north of us, have Missionaries, and churches, and schools; and we have none. I do not wish to die until we have a church and a school.”
The story of this old man’s appeal woke up the good people of the Churches, and something was soon done for these Indians. I visited them twice a year by canoe and dog-train, and found them anxious for religious instruction and progress.
At first I sent to live among them my faithful interpreter, Timothy Bear. He worked faithfully and did good service. He was not a strong man physically, and could not stand much exposure. To live in, he had my large leather tent, which was made of the prepared skins of the buffalo. One night a great tornado swept over the country, and Timothy’s tent was carried away, and then the drenching rains fell upon him and his. A severe cold resulted, and when word reached me several weeks after at Norway House, it was that my trusted friend was hopelessly ill, but was still endeavouring to keep at his duties.
So great was my anxiety to go and comfort him that I started