"We crossed the Straits of Belle Isle once more, homeward bound. Old Jacques Cartier, searching for an Eldorado, found Labrador, and in disgust called it the 'Land of Cain.' A century and a half afterward Lieutenant Roger Curtis wrote of it as a 'country formed of frightful mountains, and unfruitful valleys, a prodigious heap of barren rock'; and George Cartwright, in his gossipy journal, summed up his impressions after five and twenty years on the coast. He said, 'God created this country last of all, and threw together there the refuse of his materials as of no use to mankind.'
"We have learned at last the vital fact that Nature has set apart her own picture galleries where men may resort if for a time they would forget human contrivances. Such a wilderness is Labrador, a kind of mental and moral sanitarium. The beautiful is but the visible splendor of the true. The enjoyment of a visit to the coast may consist not alone in the impressions of the scenery; there may be added the deeper pleasure of reading out the history of noble landscapes, the sculptured monuments of elemental strife and revolutions of distant ages."
CHAPTER VIII[ToC]
LECTURING AND CRUISING
We had now been coming for some two years to the coast, and the problem was assuming larger proportions than I felt the Society at home ought to be called on to finance. It seemed advisable, therefore, to try and raise money in southern Newfoundland and Canada. So under the wing of the most famous seal and fish killer, Captain Samuel Blandford, I next visited and lectured in St. John's, Harbour Grace, and Carbonear.
The towns in Newfoundland are not large. Its sectarian schools and the strong denominational feeling between the churches so greatly divide the people that united efforts for the Kingdom of God were extremely rare before the war. Even now there is no Y.M.C.A. or Y.W.C.A. in the Colony. The Boys' Brigade, which we initiated our first year, divided as it grew in importance, into the Church Lads Brigade, the Catholic Cadet Corps, and the Methodist Guards.
Dr. Bobardt, my young Australian colleague, and I now decided to cross over to Halifax. We had only a certain amount of money for the venture; it was our first visit to Canada, and we knew no one. We carried credentials, however, from the Marquis of Ripon and other reputable persons. If we had had experience as commercial travellers, this would have been child's play. But our education had been in an English school and university; and when finally we sat at breakfast at the Halifax hotel we felt like fish out of water. Such success as we obtained subsequently I attribute entirely to what then seemed to me my colleague's colonial "cheek." He insisted that we should call on the most prominent persons at once, the Prime Minister, the General in charge of the garrison, the Presidents of the Board of Trade and University, the Governor of the Province, and all the leading clergymen. There have been times when I have hesitated about getting my anchors for sea, when the barometer was falling, the wind in, and a fog-bank on the horizon—but now, years after, I still recall my reluctance to face that ordeal. But like most things, the obstacles were largely in one's own mind, and the kindness which we received left me entirely overwhelmed. Friends formed a regular committee to keep a couple of cots going in our hospital, to collect supplies, and sent us to Montreal with introductions and endorsements. Some of these people have since been lifelong helpers of the Labrador Mission.