"Such is a brief account of my reception at Metlakahtla. I could not but reflect how different this to the reception I had among the same people in 1857. Then they were all superstitiously afraid of me, and regarded with dread suspicion my every act It was with feelings of fear or contempt they approached me to hear God's word, and when I prayed amongst them I prayed alone, none understood, none responded. Now how things have changed! Love has taken the place of fear, and light the place of darkness, and hundreds are intelligently able and devoutly willing to join me in prayer and praise to Almighty God. To God be all the praise and glory. Amen"
The troubles and difficulties on the coast, which so often added to Mr. Duncan's burdens, were not always the fault of the Indians. As often as not they were due to the recklessness of unscrupulous and drunken white men. In 1872, a party going up to the gold mines on the Skeena River burned an Indian village. This brought the Governor of British Columbia, J. W. Trutch, Esq., up the coast with two ships of war, the "Scout" and the "Boxer." A deputation of Tsimsheans Christians was sent to propitiate the injured tribe, and invite them to meet the Governor at Metlakahtla; and there, as on common ground which both parties could trust, peace was solemnly made, the Government paying six hundred dollars as compensation.
On this occasion the Governor laid the first stone of a new church, upon which Mr. Duncan and the Indians alike had set their hearts, as a visible crown of the work. The ceremony took place on August 6th, in the presence of the whole community and of the officers of the ships. But laying the stone was one thing; building the church was another. The Governor and Captain Cator saw lying on the ground huge timbers to be used in its erection, but how these were to be reared up was not apparent. Very kindly they gave Mr. Duncan a quantity of ropes, blocks, etc., but even then they sailed away in considerable scepticism as to the possibility of unskilled red men raising a large and lofty church. In January, 1874, Mr. Duncan wrote:—
"The massive timbers for framing, which Governor Trutch and Captain Cator, of H. M. S. 'Scout,' saw on the ground last year, and doubted of our ability to raise, are, I am happy to say, now fixed, and fixed well, in their places, and all by Indian labour. Especially am I thankful to report that, though the work is attended with no little danger, particularly to inexperienced hands, as we all are, yet have we hitherto been graciously preserved from all accidents.
"The Indians are delighted with the appearance the building has already assumed, and you may gather from the amount of their contributions (L176) how much they appreciate the work. They propose again subscribing during the coming spring, and I only wish our Christian friends in England could witness the exciting scene of a contributing day, with how much joy the poor people come forward and cast down their blanket or blankets, gun, shirt, or elk skin, upon the general pile 'to help in building the house of God.'"
By the end of that year the church was finished, and on Christmas Day it was opened for the service of God. "We had indeed," wrote Mr. Duncan, "a great struggle to finish it by that time—the tower and spire presenting very difficult and dangerous work for our unskilled hands—yet, by God's protecting care, we completed the work without a single accident. Over seven hundred Indians were present at our opening services. Could it be that this concourse of well-dressed people, in their new and beautiful church, but a few years ago made up the fiendish assemblies at Fort Simpson! Could it be that those voices, now engaged in solemn prayer and thrilling songs of praise to Almighty God, are the very voices I once heard yelling and whooping at heathen orgies on dismal winter nights!"
The progress in building operations and the secular affairs of the settlement generally at this time are succinctly described in an official Report, prepared by Mr. Duncan, and presented to the Minister of the Interior of the Dominion of Canada, in May, 1875. The occasion of this important document being drawn up was the occurrence of some conflict of opinion between the Provincial Government of British Columbia at Victoria and the Dominion Government of Ottawa, respecting the Indian Land Question. The same thorny problems that have so often given trouble in South Africa and New Zealand had presented themselves, and the local authorities at Victoria were anxious that the liberal treatment of the Indians on the coast, which had marked their own dealings with them while the Colony was independent of Canada, should be still pursued now that British Columbia was incorporated in the Dominion Confederation. But even the liberal plans of the Victoria Government had, to a large extent, failed in their object of ameliorating the Indians, and Metlakahtla still remained almost the only example of success upon the coast. To us it is, of course, obvious that the cause of this success was simply its being based on the foundation of Christian teaching and Christian life; and Mr. Duncan made no secret of this in his Report. He gave a description of the Indians as he found them, and a full narrative of the Mission from the first. That part of the Report, however, it is needless to print here. It only recapitulates what we have already told in greater detail. The opening and closing paragraphs we subjoin:—
Report presented by Mr. W. Duncan to the Government of Canada.
"From a copy of statutes which I lately received from the Indian Commissioner, British Columbia, I learn that changes in the management of Indian affairs are about to be inaugurated in that province. It is in anticipation of these changes that I feel prompted to address to you this present letter, my object being to place before you the origin and growth of the Indian settlement at Metlakahtla, and from these facts thus brought out to deduce a policy, or at least certain principles of action, which I am anxious to commend to the Government in the treatment of all the Indian tribes in that part of the Dominion."
[Here follows a history of the Mission.]