After repeated invitations from the Indians of the Fraser River, who spoke the same language as the Nanaimos, and who had heard, through Bros. Robson and White, of my ability to speak to them in their own tongue, I made my way in a canoe across the Gulf of Georgia and up the river to New Westminster, where I found thousands of natives gathered for the celebration of the Queen’s birthday. This gave me the privilege of preaching to hundreds who would not have heard otherwise. One evening fully a thousand people were gathered on a square where two streets crossed, listening eagerly to the message of life, many for the first time, in their own language.
On this occasion I went up the river as far as Mission, calling at Kat-sey, Langley and Whonnock, preaching to the people, who everywhere received me gladly.
The joy of these poor people in hearing the grand old Gospel story, and their earnest pleading for more out of “the Good Book,” fully repaid me for the toils of the trip, and led me to seek an early opportunity to return.
My next visit was made during the time when the country was suffering from a scourge of smallpox. The disease had been brought from ’Frisco, and was rapidly spreading among the Indians. Everyone felt interested in stamping it out. The Government supplied me with a stock of vaccine, and I passed down the coast of Vancouver Island, vaccinating all whom I could reach. Near Saanich I came across a very bad case; one had died, and his body was left on the beach covered with brush, while another poor fellow, a mass of disease, was still alive and sitting on the bank beside a little fire of bark. We asked him how he got along for food and drink. Near him was a little canoe fastened by a long rope, and he told me that when the tide was up his friends would come from their village, about five miles away, and put food in the little canoe and push it towards him. Here the poor fellow stayed until he finally recovered.
The Indians dreaded the smallpox, and not without reason. On one occasion, it is said, there came a thousand Hydahs in their large canoes from Queen Charlotte Islands, and camped in and about Victoria. The smallpox got among these people and spread with great rapidity. Alarmed for the safety of the citizens, the city council met and ordered the northerners to leave immediately. The next day they started up the coast, carrying their dead and dying with them. At Nanaimo they were forbidden to land, and on and on went that awful funeral procession. At every camping place some would die, and they piled up wood and burned them, and then went on. One canoe was found floating in the Gulf, a veritable funeral barge, for everyone was dead on board. Out of that one thousand members of a fine race only one man reached Queen Charlotte Islands alive.
A Medical Missionary.
On my mission of mercy I passed up the Fraser River and vaccinated hundreds of people. Some came to my preaching who might not have done so but for the purpose of being vaccinated. And thus even the smallpox, in some measure, opened the way for the Gospel.
On this trip we went as far as Sumas and Chilliwack. At the latter place, while preaching to a small band of Indians and telling them the old story in their own tongue, the chief Atche-la-lah stepped forward and laid down a dollar and a half.
“Missionary,” said the old man, “we want you to build a church here. You have opened our ears. No one ever told us the good word in our own language before; the other laplates” (priests) “did not talk to us like this.”
This was really the first subscription to the first Protestant church in the Chilliwack Valley, where now there are six Methodist churches for the whites and four for the Indians.