I'ltutojrniih by] The Right Rev. W. Ridley, D.D. SNAPSHOTS FROM . . THE NORTH PACIFIC. LETTERS WRITTEN BY BISHOP RIDLEY, OF CALEDONIA. Edited by ALICE J. JANVRIN. CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.G. 1903 [All Rights Reserved.] // PREFATORY NOTE. THE following Letters were, with a few exceptions, published in the C.M. Intelligencer and the C.M. Gleaner. Thanks are due to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for kindly allowing the use of two or three letters originally addressed to them. The lines at the head of each chapter are taken from poems by Bishop Ridley. A. J. J. 1349426 CONTENTS. Chapter. Page I. INTRODUCTORY 1 II. A SUMMER'S JOURNEY AND A WINTER'S CAMPAIGN 8 III. STORMS FULFILLING His WORD 24 IV. A CRY AND A RESPONSE 39 V. IN JOURNBYINGS OFTEN 51 VI. A TRIUMPH SONG 64 VII. NEW WORK AND OLD ... ... ... ... ... 74 VIII. PERILS BY WATER 87 IX. VISITATION WORK ". 99 X. REGIONS BEYOND 118 XI. AN ABUNDANT ENTRANCE 133 XII. A MEMORIAL MISSION 140 XIII. ENLARGED OPPORTUNITIES 151 XIV. FIRST-FRUITS FROM THE STIKINE RIVEK 163 XV. MORE PERILS IN THE SEA ... 179 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Page The Right Rev. Bishop W. Ridley, D.D. ... ... ... Frontispiece Map of the North Pacific ... ... ... ... ... ... 4 A Scene near Victoria, Vancouver's Island ... ... ... 6 Kitsela's Canon, Skeeua River ... ... ... ... ... 9 A View of Hazelton ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 11 An Encampment on a River Bank ... ... ... ... ... 12 A Medicine-Man ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 13 A Mining Camp ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 18 Chief's Sepulchre at Massett ... ... ... ... ... ... 28 View of Massett ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 3U Mission-house at Massett ... ... ... ... ... ... 32 Two Chiefs 44 Buildings in Metlakatla ... ... .. ... ... ... 45 Indian Girls' Home, Metlakatla ... ... ... ... ... 46 Kwagutl Heathen Women of Rank ... ... ... ... ... 47 Indians Canoeing ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 53 Port Essington, Alert Bay ... ... ... ... ... ... 54 Bishop Ridley at Giatwangak ... ... ... ... ... 59 The Village of Kitkatla 67 Mission-house at Kitkatla ... ... ... ... ... ... 73 Burrard Inlet, showing the " Narrows," Vancouver ... ... 77 A Christian Chief, Kincolith ... ... ... ... ... ... 79 View of Hazelton ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 89 Exterior of a Heathen Chief's House ... 92 The Saw Mill, Aiyansh 99,108 " Grist for the Mill " 109 Interior of the New Church at Aiyansh ... ... ... ... 110 View of Aiyansh ... ; .. ... Ill viii. List of Illustrations. Page White Cross Working Party, Aiyansh 113 lied Cross Open-air Preaching Band, Aiyansh ... ... ... 115 Scholars at Fort Simpson 118 The Stikine River, showing Floating Ice ... ... ... ... 123 The late Mrs. Ridley 133 Mrs. Ridley's Grave 138 Kitkatla, facing North-west ... ... ... ... ... ... 140 Pack Horses Crossing a Bridge over a Tributary of the Stikine River 155 Fort Simpson 163 Telegraph Creek, on the Stikine ... ... ... ... ... 173 The Bishop's Sailing-boat off Metlakatla the Bishop Steering ... 179 New Girls' Home, Rebuilt since the Fire ... ... ... ... 192 Miscellaneous 8,24,39,50,51,63,64,74,87,151,180 Snapshots from the North Pacific* CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. " Roll back the curtain of our night, and shine Till all the world shall see Thy light divine." THE following letters are not in any sense a continuous history of the British Columbia (formerly known as the North Pacific) Mission. Rather, they are snapshots taken at varying intervals, and developed by a skilful hand, so bringing out details of scenery and work with a vividness that is sometimes almost startling. The prevailing thought in the mind of the reader will probably be, that beautiful as are the rushing streams, the gloomy forests, the snow-clad mountains of British Columbia, far more beautiful to the Indians are the 1 feet of those who have taken good tidings and published peace to them. The wilderness and the solitary place have indeed been glad for them, and the desert has rejoice.d and blossomed as the rose. Fifty years ago no attempt had yet been made to reach the Zimshian Indians and other tribes on the north-west coast of the great continent of North America now Christianity is the rule and Paganism the exception. Neat villages, with their churches, schools, and well-ordered homes, testify to the power of the grace of God to civilize as well as to Christianize. Medicine men have laid down their charms and submitted to the Cross of Christ, and hymns of praise resound where once were heard the fearful sounds of the heathen potlach. 2 Snapshots from the North Pacific. The story of the starting of the Mission in consequence of Captain Prevost's appeal on behalf of the Indians in 1856 has been already told in Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission, by Mr. Eugene Stock. Begun by Mr. Duncan, a young layman, in 1857, and continued by him until his secession from the C.M.S. in 1881, it grew with startling rapidity. The first baptism of Indians 'took place in 1861, and in 1863 the Bishop of Columbia admitted fifty-seven adults into the visible Church. The settlement of Metla- katla was established in 1862, and the first sitone of the church was laid in 1873. In 1879 the Diocese of British Columbia was subdivided, and the northern portion became the new Diocese of Caledonia, the Rev. W. Ridley, formerly a missionary in the Punjab, but who had been obliged to resign his work there on account' of health, being consecrated as its first Bishop on July 25th, 1879. This slight sketch of the Mission will prepare the way for the statement written by the Bishop for the Church Mission- ary Gleaner before sailing for his new diocese: " The Diocese of Caledonia stretches from Ca-pe St. James and Dean Channel 52 deg. north latitude to the 60th parallel ; from the Rocky Mountains to the North Pacific Ocean, and also includes the numerous adjacent islands. " The best known place in it is Metlakatla. Our lay missionary, Mr. Duncan, laid the foundation of that Indian settlement in simple faith, and it has become the most pros- perous of its kind. To the 60,000 aborigines of the province the Metlakatla community of Christians is as a star of hope. Before it arose we feared that as a race they were doomed >to extinction. The twenty millions of Indians our forefathers found in North America have dwindled down to two millions. Civilization threatens to blot out inferior races, but on it their disappearance leaves a blot and a crime. Its pioneers drink, violence, and debauchery destroy their few virtues, leaving them more wicked than before, and only less dangerous because less vigorous. I thank God that most of the Indians Introductory. 3 of my diocese, especially the Hydahs, have been so savage as to make the trader's risk greater than his hope of gain. " This section of the people now draws upon our sympathy. A great opportunity is ours. The material prosperity of Metlakatla has aroused in them a spirit of emulation, and shed upon them a gleam of hope. The Christian's heart cries, ' Is there a future for them among the nations ? ' and from Metlakatla comes the answer, ' Yes, only do as you have lovingly done here.' The trial is being made at four other mission stations in my diocese, and success is already visible. The greater the breadth of sea between the islanders and the mainland the better for their future. Their ignorance of the benefits of civilization is a greater good than a knowledge of them, until they are fortified morally and spiritually by the Gospel against its evils. The enterprise of commerce, which we shall be glad of then, is beforehand with us now in bridg- ing over the broadest channels, so that the plague is begun. We must enable the missionary at once to emulate the merchant. The very noblest Indians must be enriched with the pearl of great price, or they will sell themselves to perdition while we tarry." The Bishop made an appeal for a steamer, and it was not very long before he had the joy of knowing that friends in England had come to his help. Before the vessel arrived the Bishop was overtaken by a gale in a small canoe in which ten men were crowded, and wrote afterwards, " How I longed for my steamer ; unless I get one a new Bishop will soon be wanted, for the risk in these frail crafts is tremendous, and a short career the probable consequence." On August 12th, 1880, the little vessel was launched, and was well named the Evangeline, for its errand was to carry the Gospel to the Indians np and down that indented coast and among the many islands. It was not available for river navigation, and even on the sea expense was sometimes saved by the use of a sailing boat. The Bishop was captain and often chief engineer also. Some years later he wrote to the S.P.G., " What would your Committee think could I have Introductory. 6 stepped out of my engine-room into their board-room, wiping my black hands in cotton waste to remove the grease before I could shake hands ? " The description of Metlakatla, written by the Bishop on his arrival there in 1879, shows how it first struck him, both by its natural beauties, and also by the wonderful transfor- mation that had taken place in the twenty-two years of evangelization, and of training in the habits of civilized life: " Metlakatla has not disappointed me. The situation is excellent. There is no spot to compare with it this 1 side of Victoria. During this week the weather has been charming. Frosty nights, but the days mild, as in Cornwall at this sea- son. Numbers of the worn-out old folk have been basking in the sun for hours daily. Squatting in the long grass, they looked the very pictures of contentment. They all gazed on the sea. No wonder if they loved it. Besides being the store-house from which they took their food, it is the chief feature in one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. " We are at the entrance of an estuary that winds about labyrinth-like, until it leads up to a stream more .than twenty miles distant inland. Outside are largo islands, their lofty heads pine-clad, and the same garment reaching to the very waves on all sides. These are God's breakwaters. Inside, wherever the channel widens, there are smaller islands, so disposed as to make it impossible to say what is island and what continent. These are gems in a setting that perfectly reflects the grass and pines fringing the sea's glossy surface, as well as the background of snow-patched mountain. " Yesterday the stillness was reverential, and quite in keeping with Sunday rest. Scores of graceful canoes were drawn above the tide. Not a paddle broke the silence. As Admiral Prevost and I stood in the mission garden we; heard in the distance the howls of a pack of wolves. A flight) of crows, or rooks claiinied a momlent's attention. Besides this nothing disturbed the calm sea, or the still- ness, but the wing of some wild fowl splashing the sea. as 6 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. A Scene near Victoria, Vancouver's Island. Introductory. 7 they rose. Before we turned to the house we were ravished with the splendor r of the sunset. The giant that had run its day's course transformed the scene. He touched every- thing, till sea and fky vied with each other in glorious effects. Tiie snowy peaks to eastward blushed. " Cut, after all, the Sun of Righteousness has produced a far more beautiful transformation in the character of the Indian, and the change is not fleeting. The church bell rings, and, from both wings of the village, well-dressed men, their wives and children, pour out from the cottages, and the two currents meet at the steps of the noble sanctuary their own hands have made, to the honour of God our Saviour. On Saturday I had made a sketch of the village. Mr. Duncan remarked, as the people streamed along, ' Put that stream into your picture.' 'That would never do,' I said; 'nobody would believe it.' Inwardly I exclaimed, ' What hath God wrought ! ' It would be wrong to suppose that the love of God alone impelled them all. All, \vithout reasonable cause to the contrary, are expected to attend the public services. A couple of policemen, as a matter of routine, are in uniform, and this is an indication that loitering during service hours is against proper civil order. This wholesome restraint is possible during these early stages of the corporate life of the community. But history is likely to repeat itself. Heathenism is prostrate, Christianity dominant. Persecution has ceased. The fiery trial is over, so that the baser metal is sure to pass current. At present one strong will is supreme. To resist it, every Indian feels would be as impossible as to stop the tides. This righteous autocracy is as much feared by the ungodly around as it is respected and admired by the faithful. Thus are la,w and Gospel combined with good results/' The Bishop did not then foresee that a time of trial was again approaching the little Christian community, from which, through God's grace, it emerged alter some years with added growth and stability. CHAPTER II. A SUMMER'S JOURNEY AND A WINTER'S CAMPAIGN. " His chief delight is converse with his Lord, To share His work, and win His great reward." E Bishop was not long before K * he began to fulfil his intention of becoming acquainted with the inland tribes of his diocese. In June, 1880, he wrote the following letter, with the title " In Camp on the Skeena River." It will be seen that already the wonderful natural beauties which surrounded him on his journeys were to him a God-given means of strength and uplifting, a beautiful com- An Old Maida Woman. meiitary on the verse, "All things are yours, things present," as well as, " things to come " : " It is refreshing to think of the many well-wishers at home whose prayers are now helping me. The least return I can make them is to tell them what I am doing out here. . The following extract from my journal shall be the preface : " ' Trinity Sunday. A glad, a joyous day. These stately and lovely works of Thy hands praise Thee, O God. We, Thy people, have worshipped Thee. Our prayers Thou hast heard. The morning sacrifice has been offered. Yet the service lingers. My crew of faithful Indians from Metlakatla are without a care. Beside me the fine fellow* A Summer's Jour. ten and a Winter's Campaign. $ are stretched at full length with their hands under their heads and eyes almost closed for the light is strong. So they bask and softly chant over again, in parts, the Venite, re-echoing the harmony that lately rang along this fringe of the forest and rose above the swish of the broad river that stealthily sweeps past our feet. They will be still praising Thee. My heart is thrilled by the harmony of this celebra- tion. All Thy works in grace and Nature praise Thee, O G-od : we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.' "The next extract brings vividly before my mind the varied succession of Sundays I have lately been enjoying: Kitsvla's Canon, Skeena River. 10 Snapshots from the North Pacific. ' ' I am writing this in a canoe on a quiet reach of the Skeena River, twelve days distant from my lodging (not having yet found a home), and last Sunday was the tenth since March I have spent on the sea or river, or in the forest. My hearers have been people of all sorts and conditions. There have been the downright sort, some Heathen, some Christian ; and Christians who are heathen at heart, and Heathen who are all but Christians. The first were so ignorant of Jesus Christ that the one who asked whether He was a man or a woman was not behind the rest, but only more inquisitive. The downright Christian often, or as often as I met with such, made me value the communion of saints. The other sort of Christians, the greater number of them white men, moved my heart towards them, for they care as little for their own souls as they have been cared for, and truly they have been as sheep without a shepherd. No wonder if they sometimes outsinned the worst of the Indian Heathen, and placed a stumbling-block in the Native Christian's way. The Heathen who are almost Christians are those unbaptized Indians who have learnt so much of Christianity that they have renounced the ancient devilry and learnt to pray to God through Jesus. Intercourse with the Native Christians is working this beneficial change among them. ' My hearers have been sailors, traders, loafers, miners, Greeks, Germans, and Norwegians ; French, Maltese, and Britons ; Russians, Kanakas, and Yankees ; Chinese and Canadians ; Jews and Gentiles ; whites and greys, browns and blacks, Caucasians, Semites, and Mongolians ; Indians of the salt water, and fresh-water Indians ; hunters, fishers, packers, and nondescripts ; round heads, flat heads, and peaked heads, all beautifully supplied with hair as black as jet, sometimes short and clean, sometimes foul, greased, and matted. ' I have preached on the beach and on shipboard, in the miner's cabin and trader's log hut, in the Indian branch- built hunting lodge, and his larger but less agreeable village A Summer's Journey and a Winter's Campaign. 11 home, where the smoke fails to subdue the pervading ill odour ; also amid the tangled forest on the coast, and clouds of mosquitoes on the prairie. My churches have been decorated in season and out of season, bxit have had neither pulpit nor prayer-desk, belfry nor organ. The care of Nature called for no help or scrutiny from Archdeacon or Rural Dean, Churchwarden or Verger. And oh the joy of it ! There Hazelton, on the Skeena. h.ive been no church expenses, no collections or painful pleading for subscriptions, and no newspaper reporters pre- sent to make a hash of the proceedings. Of most of my churches the builder and maker is God. He raised the lofty pillars of cedar and spread out the branches, and Himself formed the arches, grained, fretted, foliated, and coloured the whole in befitting tints. His, too, was the music, or rather, He used His winds and waters as ministers in His Snapshots from the North Pacific. An Encampment on a River Bank. beautiful temple. At His command the waves of the sea, the roaring cascades and splashing waterfalls, lifted up their voices. His fingers touched the clattering torrents, and evolved music from the big river where it rushed down be- tween the granite rocks that force the angry rapid foaming through their narrow throat. The high wind at sea somewhat risked the harmony when it made the steamer's funnel howl and her rigging shriek, but never marred it really ; while nothing could be softer or more sustained than its notes ashore as it played on the top of the forest trees. Unwearied the orchestra poured forth the music that Divine skill alone can discourse to the listening heart. ' ' But it has been a far higher pleasure to see proofs of God's Spirit awakening dead souls through the power of Jesus' name.' " Later on, the Bishop wrote from Hazcltoii, iip the Skeena River : " I shall describe my winter's work as a winter campaign. It was preceded by seven months of seafaring among the many A Summer's Journey and a Winter s Campaign. 13 maritime tribes of Indians. Last May (1880) I paid my first visit to the inland tribes of Indians. It was a novel experience, and much pleasanter than tossing about the open sea in a ' dug-out/ as canoes are called. Oh, for the com- parative luxury of my stout steam launch ! My voyage up lasted a fortnight. Fourteen days breasting the rapid Kshia or Skeena. River ; fourteen days amid fine scenery ; thrice fourteen, camps beneath forest trees beside a river, in some places two miles broad, dotted with innumerable islands. Working from dawn to sunset, often soused, as sailors say, by the angry-looking rapids, we enjoyed our hard-earned rest each night. With bran- ches from the same friendly cedar that spread its arms over us, our bed was soon made. My crew were no sooner out- stretched than they sunk into deep sleep un- disturbed by each other's snoring. This, like the wild rapids, that twist and twirl our canoe as if she were a nut-shell, one soon becomes accustomed to. Fresh air aided A Medicine-Man. 14 Snapshots from the North Pacific. sleep, and each morning saw us thrust out into the current with a relish for battling with it. How I should have laughed at pity. I rather pitied my former self wrestling with the work and worry of a large Yorkshire parish. " My purpose took me into every cluster of Indian lodges. I advise the lovers of the picturesque to content themselves with a distant view. Dirt prevails over all. It partly accounts for the Indians' roving habits. A few years of staying at home would immure them within a rampart of dirt. They make a new home rather than cleanse the old one. " I saw no time should be lost when I came here in the spring. As I could send no teacher I changed my own plans, and instead of settling in my newly-built house at Fort Simpson came up here, and though ill-prepared, began opera- tions in the heart of the enemy's country. Mrs. Ridley came, too, and is the first Englishwoman who has navigated the Skoena. Horrors and calamities were predicted, but. happily, were falsified by the event. " On arrival I rented a cabin, but finding the rent heavy and the property for sale, I bought it, lest it should get into hands inimical to Missions. After building a fireplace and putting in glass windows, we got some native bark mats and nailed them over the logs to keep out the wind and snow. Fairly lodged, we feared not 'the cold that has kept the mercury frozen. " My first operation was to open a day-school. So the battle began. My pupils were my infantry. Few or many, I drudged away daily at A, B, C, and 1, 2, 3. The school grew nearly two hundred attended. The medicine-men, who are the priests of this heathenism, took alarm. A band of the painted wretches danced round the entrance to the school. As the din stopped work I stepped quickly up to the chief performer, took him by the shoulders, and before he could recover his self-possession, had him at the river's brink, assured him I should assist him further down the next time he interrupted my work. This prompt action seemed to A Summer's Journey and a Winter's Campaign. 15 unnerve the party. After loud talking they withdrew, and ever after kept their distance. This also seemed to encourage the pupils. It intensified the hatred of the enemy. When the school-bell was rung through the village, out would rush one of the foe on the ringer. But ring, ring, ring goes the bell daily, and in flock my infantry. They have don famous havoc in the enemy's ranks. Bolts of truth have been shot into their camp. The three R/s have been taught. The first class have read half through the Second Bookj First Series, and the writing of some is remarkably good. While the teaching proceeded the background would be filled by interested and wondering spectators. Thei pictorial Bible lesson was a great attraction. The school has been a marked success. I have great faith in my infantry. "Now I must describe my artillery practice. The medicine chest is my ammunition tumbrel. Stoppered phials have been my Armstrong guns, and my shells were hurled on the foe from pill boxes. During school hours bodies of the wounded would accumulate, and, school over, my artillery would be plied. Five hundred and fifty applications for healing have been made, and if, as the medicine-men say, I have killed some, I have relieved so many that I am the most famous medicine-man known to the nation. So raged the battle. You may like to hear of one particular encounter. I was called to see a sick woman, but the native practitioner was there before me. My rule was to have nothing to do with cases where native treatment was also applied. So I would not treat this case that night. About fifteen feet apart, with the blazing fire between, sat twelve brawling men with sticks like yard measures in their hand. With these they kept good time in striking the resonant cedar planks laid before them. The drummer was between me and the fire, and the doctor standing over the patient was the other side of the fire. So the party formed a square with the friends of the patient interspersed. Over her stood the doctor, a strapping fellow painted red, the colour of his only clothing. In his right hand was his gourd-shaped rattle, and with his left hand he 16 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. made mesmeric passes, and stroked the woman energetically, even frantically, from head to foot at each stroke. Though the cold was great the prolonged effort caused the perspira- tion to stream down and damage his paint The din was fearful, but good time was maintained throughout, and by degrees the woman became quiet, and appeared to lose con- sciousness. I turned away in sorrow and pity. Next day I was called again, but found it too late to do aught but afford temporary relief. She died that night. On my next visit the corpse was surrounded by th* poor creature's valuables, the most prized, an accordion, being placed on her face. For weeks afterwards the mother made the valley ring with her plaintive lamentations at the grave, over which the same valuables and instrument still dangle. " Space would fail (time, too) to narrate all the exciting events of this winter. Nothing interfered with steady school work and my medical practice. Young men gathered round me. An undercurrent of rebellion against the heathen abominations became apparent. The old men complained of their loss of influence. Indications of a better state of things grew clearer. The dog-eating rites were performed less boldly. The time had come, I thought, for a bold step on my side. I invited the four chief men of each Indian con- federacy, and thirty-two responded favourably and came to my feast. After the eating and drinking came the speaking. I addressed them, and seven responded. The older orators announced their resolve to finish their course on the old lines. The younger demurred. This was most promising for the Gospel. The children first, then the young men, and these secured, the old men will follow the younger eventually. The week following I was invited back, and was received by about five hundred men with much distinction. Again the old men stated their case. Their spokesman held aloft the mask and other symbols of the past, and said, ' These were my fore- fathers. These are my Bibles. Would you give up your Bible ? Why then should you require me to give up mine ? ' But again a better feeling was abroad. This happened on A Summer's Journey and a Winter's Campaign. 17 the last day of the feast. The crowds melted away, but re- assembled at a village eight miles distant before the final break up. Before this took place I was invited to meet them again. When the same invitation was repeated I walked up the frozen river, and a great lodge containing about four hundred men was prepared for my reception. Then I took solemn leave of them, urging them to turn to God and forsake, the evil of the old ways>. This has been the largest gathering of Indians that has taken place for a generation, and placed an opportunity for doing good in my reach, worth not only the labour it involved, but more than it is possible to compute. The place is now well-nigh emptied of its people. They are scattered in all directions, some carrying stores to the gold mines, some going to their hunting-grounds, and some to the coast to be ready for the fishery. " What are the results of the winter campaign ? you will ask. It is impossible to state this fully, for God only knows. But this we know, much suffering has been alleviated, much ignorance removed, and much enmity overcome." The gold fever, which during the last few years has so suddenly populated the former solitudes of the north-western corner of the Dominion of Canada, had already attacked some persons in 1881, and the influx of Europeans foreseen by the Bishop before he left England was beginning. As a sad rule where whites have come in contact with native races there has been a quick deterioration of the latter, so it is a pleasure to find on reading the next letter that this is not always the case. Probably the advent of Mission work almost simultaneously with the miners had much to do with this. The restraining influence of the former on the latter would prevent many of those excesses which have ruined both dark-skinned and white people together. Writing again from Hazelton, in October, 1881, the Bishop said : " The community here is mixed. The Indians have worked D 18 Sna^ishots from the North Pacific. for the gold-miners during the summer, and both live here during the winter. This steady employment has told advantageously on the Indian's character. He is above all things naturally fickle and indisposed to steady work. As a rule the miners have paid them well, and taught them the value of labour. He-nce these people, formerly the lowest of the low, and called the dogs of the Skeena, have, through the material advantages they have enjoyed, risen in the scale, and now have better houses than their neighbours, better food, and better clothing. They are therefore healthier, stronger, less dirty than the rest, arid the proportion of children greater. Contact with the whites therefore has not produced the deplorable results that one too often hears of. Now that a Mission has been established here, and stress laid A Mining Camp. A Summer's Journey and a Winter's Campaign. 19 upon education, this community of Indians is likely to advance rapidly. Their progress is stirring up envious feelings among the other tribes of this nation. Deputations have come to me begging me to send them teachers, but we cannot support them if we had them. " Our services have' been crowded by attentive congre- gations, especially the regular daily evening service. The miners, too, come, and I rejoice to see them, not only for their own sakes, but for the sake of the Indians, on whom they exercise much influence. When in the spring they left for the mines, it was a pleasant sight. In returning they looked worn and weatherbeaten. When they started, all looked smart. The white men with braided leggings and ornamen- tal snow-shoes, and the Indians with streamers fluttering from their caps of ermine, marten, and other furs, looked quite picturesque ; even the dogs harnessed to the birch- wood sleighs seemed proud of their tinkling bells and gay adornments. " Never before was Sunday kept on the long marches. I had given prayer and hymn books to some of the whites, and suggested that one of them should minister to the rest, but none ventured. The Indians had prayers every day, and spent the Sunday in a most profitable manner. The whites attended the services, and though they could not understand the prayers, they joined in the hymns and encouraged the Indians. " I had not appointed any leader ; but J , a catechumen, last winter a dog-eater, came forward as a natural leader, and said the prayers, and exhorted the listeners. He is a splended fellow, square built, of great muscular strength, having a large head, and intelligent, though unhandsome, face this man cannot but attract attention. During the summer he paid a visit to Hazelton, and the days spent here could not be quiet. His attentions to Mrs. Ridley, then here alone, were almost comical. Ho hung f bout her all day long. The clock would not go fast enough to hasten school or service-time, that he might ring 20 Snapshots from the North Pacific. the bell and gather in the people. He was the terror of gamblers, and hated of medicine-men. " Last Saturday morning J came to me with something weighty on his mind, I could see at a glance. He was full of plans. ' To-morrow is Sunday,' he said ; ' at the lower village they do not serve God. May I go down and hold services ? ' ' Yer, go, and be gentle, as Jesus was,' I said . " ' May I take a bell ? ' " ' Yes, take a small one, because you have only a little knowledge.' " ' True, but I will tell them all I know.' " So he packed his Bible, hymn-book, salmon, and rice in his blanket with the small bell, and trudged away. Before he returns he means to go to the second lower village to see the five Christians who live there whom I baptized last spring. He will have had a journey of seventy miles at his own charges for Christ's sake. " It was he who conducted service on the miners' march. " At the mines the best building was cleared on Saturday and placed at the Indians' disposal for Sunday services, much to the credit of the miners, who always attended and enjoyed the singing, if nothing else. One Sunday morning an Indian family reached the miners' camp, and would have passed forward with their packs. ' What/ asked the miners, ' travelling on Sunday ! Is this what the Bishop teaches you?' 'We are short of food, and must press on.' 'No, you need not; we will give you food.' So they travelled on together from Monday morning to the end. " I had intended to follow them and go to the Fraser River, but was providentially hindered. The interval between that appointed start and my real start for the coast was full of blessing. Then came the resolve to build small houses. Privacy is impossible. Those of strong character, who, when converted, become mighty men of God, are able to resist the flood of persecution rolled on them by the evil-disposed ; but not so the weaker folk. One evening a quiet fellow, since A Summer's Journey and a Winter's Campaign. 21 baptized, was reading his Bible by the fire-light. One of the evil ones interrupted him again and again. He stood in his light, rudely questioned, abused, and finally assaulted him. ' Why read that book ? Your fathers did not, nor do we. Would you be wiser than all ? ' When the book was struck from the reader's hand he nimbly recovered it and meekly walked away from the jeering circle round the cheerful fire. "The whole clan live in the same large and undivided house. In old times such herding together was a defence, but now that imperial law is gaining respect, order is being established, so that it will be safe to break up the old-time clan into families, and each family live apart from the rest in small cottages. This will be a great upward step, and the beginning of a higher morality. Now we are in a transition state. Not ten minutes ago a wild-looking fellow came to complain of his sister's thieving. ' I would have killed her,' he said to me, ' but now you are our chief, and have brought laws from the great Shigitumna,' i.e., Queen. " I must summon J before you again, the man now on his way to hold services at the lower villages. I had called a council to discuss the whisky drinking at the mines. J '& turn to speak came. He proposed strong measures. An Indian I will call A dissented. J -became impatient. ' Did force make you good ? if not, how can you expect to force any man to be good ? ' asked A . " J 's temper got beyond his control, and, dashing his New Testament on the table, he walked away full of anger. This exhibition damaged our council. A remarked, after the silence of surprise was passed, ' He is a good man ; I am sorry I provoked him.' " I said, ' If he is good ho will return and show his con- trition.' " After some hours of bitter grief he returned with a parcel under his arm. He found me alone. ' What do you want 1 ' I somewhat coldly said. ' I want to see A here before you/ "' Why?' 22 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. ' To give him this/ holding out the parcel. ' He wants no gift,' I said. " Away he went and soon brought in A . They stood near together, A - waiting to hear why he was called, and J trying to master the emotion the twitching of the corners of his mouth betrayed. At length, in tones of contri- tion, he began : ' I have sinned against thee against the chief against God. Thou art good thy words wisdom thy heart large. I am a fool, my enemy is myself.' " The apology was ample, the confession noble in its ful- ness. The bundle was opened. It contained a propitiation that cost him perhaps eight or nine dollars. There was un- folded a new garment of black cloth that, matched with coat and vest, would make the wearer respectable in the best company. But J stopped the whisky drinking. " This Hotspur is a tender-hearted being. He found an old Heathen dying the day after he had heard me speak of the penitent thief. At once he pressed the mercy of Christ upon her. Not satisfied with his own skill, away he ran to fetch the only Christian then here. ' Hurry up, hurry, hurry up, the old woman is nearly dead.' Almost dragging his friend towards the house of death, he urged him to tell the poor creature what I had told them the day before. ' Make it plain, very plain, hurry up, Jesus may yet save her make it very plain.' But it was too late. The spirit had fled. " As soon as navigation on the river was resumed, I left Mrs. Ridley behind to do what she could, and right well she carried on the Mission for months single-handed. Mr. and Mrs. Faulconer have arrived, and by degrees, I am passing the work into his hands, so that there may be no great change next spring when I go down the river to Fort Simpson on the break-up of the ice. " The breaking up this past spring I was fortunate enough to witness. It was not the immediate action of the sun that effected it, but the south wind and the consequent downpour of ice-cold water from the mountains, where the snow lies A Summer's Journey and a Winter's Campaign. 23 fathoms deep. The floods uplift the ice by slow degrees till the weight of water starts the ponderous mass that winter laid on the river's bosom. I have seen the rivers of Ger- many break up, but the scene was tame compared with the tumult on these swift rivers of North America. " I was on the ice when the movement first took place. It moves ! What moves ? The banks seem to glide up stream. Then came a slight tremor beneath my feet, and I sprang to the shore. The sensations were like those produced by shocks of earthquakes. The stone-like surface I had often walked on was in motion from bank to bank. At no great distance the channel narrows, and the greater breadth of ice from above was here caught as in a vice. The river is in agony groaning, gurgling, sighing, surging, tilting, hissing, roaring deep and loud like subterranean thunder. What can ever dislodgo this piled up mass ? The flood is rising at the rear foot by foot. Crack, crack, crack ! Look ! there go the trees falling inward. The forest king, that has drunk life from the river at its roots, is quivering. There it lurches ! Down, down, flat on the ground without axe or tempest, all its roots now exposed to the ice in motion. The rising mass scalps the rner's bank as an Indian would his foe. At last, with a sullen groan rising into a terrific roar, away goes the stupendous obstruction, and down sinks the river as if to rest after its splendid victory. Then succeeds the ministry of the south wind ; then triumphs the gracious sun in his royal progress northwards. As the baffled ice king retreats, the snow-clad heights are melted as with the joy of freedom. The tears trickling from under the snow-fringe swell the cascades that furrow the mountain's face. Down they roH, swelling the river until its volume sweeps away all obstacles, and leaves it ready to bear the traveller seaward. " So is the Gospel ministry dissolving hard hearts around me ; uplifting the dread incubus drawn over them by Satan, and setting free those streams of faith and love that remove all barriers between man and his rest in God/' CHAPTER III. STORMS FULFILLING HIS WORD "All storms His voice obey, Cloud shadows pass away. But Jesus comes to stay, And peace bestow." FROM 1881 to 1887 the community of Metla- katla was passing through a time of testing. The secession of Mr. Dun- can from the Church Mis- sionary Society's work caused an upheaval among the Indians, many of whom naturally sided with him. He and they withdrew finally northward to Alaska, in the territory of the United States. It is unneces- sary to go into the details of the schism here. They were painful, and may well be forgotten, except as a matter of thanksgiving to Him Who " out of seeming evil, still educes good." One great good was that whereas until now the Indians had not had any part of the Scriptures in their own language, but had depended on the translational gifts and powers of their teachers, they now had in their hands the Gospels and parts of the Prayer-book in Zimshian and one or two other dialects. The Bishop wrote of this as follows, in January, 1886 : " The spirit of prayer that sprang up amid our misfortunes has been steadily maintained. The persevering attention to the consecutive reading and exposition of the Gospels has Storms Fulfilling His Word. 25 edified the hearers in a marked manner. ' We had some links,' said one intelligent, man, when the reading of St. Matthew was complete ; ' now we have the chain.' Another remarked at the same time, ' We saw through a narrow slit ; now the door is wide open ; we see the whole picture!' These are results to be expected from a larger knowledge of Holy Scripture. The translations into the vernacular will make it impossible to any false teachers to impose their errors on a people who can themselves read the words of the Great Teacher. " Lack of knowledge has been their curse, and the trans- 1-itional and fducational labours of the missionaries are lifting it off them. The four Gospels and most of the Prayer-book, including its extracts from the Epistles, and some hymns, are translated into Zimshian. The Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John, some hymns and prayers are put into Kwagutl, St. John's Gospel, and portions of the Prayer-book and some hymns into Nishka. Portions of the Prayer-book are being printed in Haida. These works indicate solid progress." Some letters written to the Rev. Canon W. W. Gibbon, of Bipon. in December, 1887, and January 1888, at the close of the seven years of trial, show the spirit of the little community of Christian Indians, when they had learned the lesson of that time of sifting, and also tell of more of those voyagings which are the necessary means through which direct missionary work is carried out in British Columbia. From the nature of their office, the Bishops have even a larger share of these than the other workers. "Dec. 31st, 1887. " We have now to try to forget our past miseries, and to lose no time in restoring what is necessary for the advance- ment of Christ's cause. We stand in sore need of help. Those who have extended to us their sympathy will, \ hope, make some sacrifice on our behalf. " It is natural to put these our sorrows to the front, but it is not because we have no progress to record. God has been using His pruning-knife, and consequently the plant of Jfis 26 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. own planting has borne precious fruit. Our Christians have attained greater ripeness of character ; their knowledge of the Scriptures has increased. This has placed sin more distinctly before them as transgression against God's law. Instead of mere shame at being found otft. there is now the sorrow of true repentance. Since I first administered the Holy Communion I have not had to exclude any one. They have excluded themselves whenever there has been a quarrel. Con- science has been awakened. Conduct has been so excellent, compared with that of other Indians, that the Government Commissioners sent last November to report on the condition of these disturbed districts state that our Church Indians are in happy contrast with all others, and aro a credit to their instructors. The magistrate and Indian agent lately appointed selected four Indians to bo constables in different places, and, without exception, all are Churchmen. " Quite recently, some hundreds of converts in communion with another denomination have revived one of the worst of heathen customs, so that there is a dread among their teachers that they will relapse into Heathenism. I am thank- ful that our Christians, as soon as they heard of it, held a council on the subject, and drew up a most kind letter of remonstrance to send to their backsliding fellow-Christians. In this way they are witnessing for Christ, just as they have been true to their earthly sovereign during seven years of alluring temptation to assert their independence of all State control. " With many perils around them, their constancy and faithfulness is very remarkable, and, I am convinced, is a proof that God is in their midst, keeping them in this their hour of temptation, and will keep them." " Jan. 3rd, 1888. " Our Christmas and New Year's festivities are happily over. That part provided by the Indians has been more pro- fuse and entertaining than ever, and the reason they assign is. that they hope that I shall have such a pleasant recollection of it when next Christmas I shall be in England, that I shall wish myself back. It is pleasant to be loved and trusted. Storms Fulfilling His Word. 27 " On Monday, the 26th ult., we distributed the garments kindly provided by the Belvedere and Park Chapel working parties, besides the residue of what Colonel Martin, that holy man, purchased for us. I can truly say I have no< other like- minded. He always understood our position, was my best counsello^ and never ceased to write frequent wise and affectionate letters. He is enjoying the rich reward of his countless private and public services for the Lord he so greatly loved. " Mrs. Ridley sent a share of those gifts to the other stations that she knew had no helpers. In this way many hundreds of Indians have had their poverty relieved, who would otherwise have shivered through the winter. We always feel thankful to be able to afford them little comforts. " My Indian students you have heard of. I have ten now, and they are making good progress. Not long ago I was walking with one of the seniors, Peter Haldane, and was imparting to him some astronomical knowledge, when the subject of the tides was adverted to. He asked why it was high tide at the same time on opposite sides of the globe, if the moon, which could be only on one side, is the chief cause of tides. I gave him the usual answer, but the doubtful way in which he listened infected me with his doubts. I mention this to show you how thought- ful the lad was. Several of them are clever, and now have reached the station of men. Not long henoe I expect to see them the leading minds among their countrymen. Their general behaviour is most satis- factory. I encourage all kinds of athletic amusements, and they are capital sailors. In this capacity I sometimes find them useful. They, however, had a scare a little while ago. To save the expense of constantly using my little steamer, I bought a cutter-rigged yacht, twenty-four feet long by seven feet beam, to use when the wind should be favourable. One early morning at dawn, I started with five of my lads as crew, and had a light, but fair wind, to a small settlement about twenty miles distant, where I occasionally 28 Snapshots from the North Pacific. go to minister to the few white people. On our return we rowed a couple of miles, because, it was calm, after which an adverse gale sprang on us. For miles our course lay between an extensive reef to seaward and a rocky coast, from which in three places dangerous reefs stand out. While the day- . light lasted our hearts were light, and we enjoyed the A >ace at which, under close-reefed canvas, we raced over the waves. But to beat to windward amongst those rocks in thi? darkness that became black, and to be drenched with the cold spray blown from the wave-crest, was a very different thing. Except close to the reef or in-shore, the water is from sixty to a hundred fathoms deep to us unfathomable. I had no sounding-line on board. But with a fishing-line and a large j ick-knife at its end we sounded, and the moment we got soundings we put about on the other tack. I tried to buoy up the spirits of the lads, but at last we all became as silent as fish, excepting when I gave orders to handle the sheets for going about on obtaining soundings. We often heard the breakers, but could see nothing in the darkness. It was past midnight when we felt our way into a shel- tered cove to anchor for the night. There we thanked God, and huddled un- der the decked- in part forward, where on very hard boards we stretched ourselves in our drench- ed clothes, and indiffer- Sepulchre at Massett. enfc to the Storms Fulfilling His Word. 23 roaring gale outside, we slept till daylight. As soon as the storm abated we again put. to sea, and surprised our people by entering the harbour under full canvas and flying colours. Our arrival relieved many anxieties. " Since then, when I was on my southern voyage, she was in a more perilous condition. She was at her moorings when an unusually fierce westerly gale snapped her chain, and away she danced across the inlet towards some rocks. Before she could strike, my lads, with great promptitude, put off in the long boat, and boarding her, skilfully steered her round and under the lee of the rocks, that first threatened, but finally protected, her. I bought her from two Norwegian sailors, who thought gold-mining would fill their pockets. Losing what they had, they were glad to sell the craft that had conveyed them over 1,800 miles of sea. I gave them letters to the managers of salmon canneries, where they earned 12 a month instead of the 4 in Europe. They found fishing more profitable than gold-mining. One became a total abstainer, and made me caretaker of his savings. " All sorts and- conditions of men drift towards me. A few days ago I sent out some of the lads to bring in pine and other branches to decorate the church and house. Instead ol bringing the evergreens they came back with an American, a Norwegian, and their Chinese servant, whom they found in distress on an island, having been wrecked. The Chinaman has remained here ; the others were helped on their way. " A wealthy English sportsman dropped in one day. He had come here to add some specimens of bighorns to his trophies, and succeeded. Before going south to get buffalo, he imprudently sallied forth after prayer on Sunday to shoot. A heavy sea got up and swamped his canoe. He lost his firearms, and but for help would have lost his life : he was taken out of the water unconscious. The Indians thought God had taught him it was Avrong to break the Sabbath when he had plenty to eat." "Jan. 5th, 1888. " You will be interested in reading of my last visit to Mas- 30 Snapshots from the North Pacific. sett. The distance is a little over 100 miles. As the weather seemed settled, I preferred sailing to steaming, and also because it is much less expensive. The wind was light and shifty, so that at sundown we had arrived off a small harbour in an island only eighteen miles distant. There we put in, intending to sail again at daybreak next morning. But the weather changed, and it blew so heavily that we dragged our anchor, and there we were, wind bound three days. As game abounded, food was plentiful. One of my crew told me why the harbour was called Lthazit (pronounced nearly like Clad- zeet, the last syllable long drawn out). You will notice it is almost a hissing sound. " Once upon a time the bloodthirsty Haidas of Queen Charlotte's Islands tried to surprise and murder or enslave a party of Zimshians, who were encamped here, gathering food of various kinds. It was night, still and starlight. View of Massett. Storms Fulfilling His Word. 31 Several families were sleeping in. the huge but roughly-built hunting-lodge. Beyond the promontory that protected them the heavy ocean swell rolled past and broke occasionally on some outlying sunken rocks with a sullen roar. A solitary Zimshian was fishing at the harbour mouth, when he heard a hissing sound as if one man was signalling another. Snatching up a sharp mussel shell he cut away his long fishing line, and with a few deft and silent strokes of his paddle took his canoe in shadow, close under the rocks, and so reached his sleeping relatives unobserved. He put his hand on the mouths of several sleepers, and told his fears into their waking ears. They in their turn waked the rest, and all glided into the dark forest, taking what movables they could with them. But one little old blind man was overlooked and forgotten. He was roused and alarmed by the war-whoops of the Haidas as they made a rush on the lodge, and knowing an empty cedar-box, in which grease was kept, stood in the corner, with great presence of mind he turned it over his head, crouched down, and awaited the worst. Furious that they were dis- appointed, the Haidas went round the lodge, smashing every- thing, and knocked in the bottom of the grease-box without discovering the old man. At last they moved off, and took to their canoes. After listening carefully, and thinking his enemies clean gone, he ventured out, and crept away to where he thought his friends were hidden. But he heard most awful cries, which soon ceased, and only a single voice reached his ears. He told his friends, who then reconnoitred and found a youth clinging, half-drowned, to some seaweed on the rocks. They dragged him up, and finding who he was, intended to kill him, but the Zimshians who saved him found he belonged to the same crest brotherhood, and at great risk stood between him and their angry fellow-Zimshians. In course of time they handed him over to his father, a Haida chief, whom they met on neutral ground. Some slaves were offered as a ransom, but rejected. Thereupon a peace was made, which lasted until the pale faces came and for ever rolled away the red tide of war. Such, in brief, was the story, and the 32 Snapshots from the North Pacific. Mission-house at Massett. hissing was the signal made by the Haidas from their canoes to one another. The youth was the only one saved of a crew of a canoe that, unobserved by the rest, struck a sunken rock and was smashed to pieces. " At length we reached Massett, the home of these former terrors of the North Pacific. Only about 450 of them reside there now. We had a missionary among them in 1874, and at intervals up to this date. The village stands back a little way from the beach, agate strewn, in front of which flows an arm of the sea two miles wide, extending southwards thirty miles, forming an inland sea of exquisite beauty, fringed with the largest forest trees. Standing before the houses is a serried line of magnificent trees, carved artistically with grotesque figures representing the fortunes of the family each belongs to. The Indian scholar can read from these the valorous deeds of the heroes of their nation. Behind the houses on a slight elevation, where last year I gathered delicious wild strawberries, now stands the prettiest church in the diocese. Not far off is the plainest of school-houses, Storms Fulfilling His Word. 33 and further back, embosomed in forest trees that dwarf it, stands the mission-house. " Up went flags when I was seen approaching, and as I stepped on shore all the Haidas then in the village pressed round with the missionary to shake hands. At once three canoes were dispatched to call in the people from their seal and otter hunting. For two days they paddled in the teeth of a strong westerly breeze, and even then could not meet witli all. They came back, some 200 of them, on the wings of the wind. On Saturday I consecrated the pretty church. At the west entrance I was met by the principal men. The churchwardens and sidesmen carried long gilded and carved staves of their own workmanship. In the proces- sion was a choir of thirty voices that sang an anthem in perfect time and harmony. I counted 264 Indians and six white men in the church at the consecration. Then came some church- ings, seventy-two baptisms, and sixty-three persons were confirmed. There seemed to be a swarm of babies, who piped and crowed and cried, unheeded by all but myself. Lastly, I married eighteen couples. I was tired out that Saturday night, and the weariness almost banished sleep. " Next day I preached three times, administered the Holy Communion, assisted by the missionary, to ninety com- municants, and as some candidates had arrived too late for the Saturday confirmation, I held another on Sunday. The offertory amounted to ijt>150=,30, of which at least 20 came from the Indians. On Monday, when the three crews that had called the rest came to be paid, they received their wages, and handed it back again at once as their offering to God. " It will prolong my letter, but I must introduce a small incident. Just at the end of the line of candidates came a young man in his workaday clothes, in marked contrast with the well-dressed multitude. He knelt before me, was confirmed, and turned back to his seat. He was barefooted, and left a track of blood along the chancel aisle. " I had observed that a churchwarden had taken the mis- sionary's place in marshalling the candidates, but until later E 34 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. was not aware that the young man had entered the church in haste, bathed in perspiration, and had appealed to the missionary in distress lest he should be passed by. He had been prepared for baptism, and the missionary, having appointed the churchwarden to his post in the chancel, took the young fellow to the font at the west end, baptized him, and was in time to present him for confirmation. The baby choruses throughout the church had barred from my ears the sound of the service proceeding as I was confirming. " When the canoe arrived to call his comrades on the western coast he was separated from them, and did not return to the rendezvous until nightfall. He guessed the reason of its emptiness, and at daybreak set off for Massett, twenty miles distant, wore off his boots: on the trackless and rocky coast, and, as I have written, reached the church in a torn and worn condition. " I doubt not but that the heavenly gift bestowed upon him was in blessed proportion to his earnestness in seeking it. " Foremost among the principal men was a former high- priest of Heathenism, a clever man who believed in himself. Formerly, so he told me, he held converse with demons, who would come at his call ; but now angels come unbidden, and so fill his mind with bright thoughts that he cannot help smiling, and people often ask him why he laughs when alone. He is a good druggist, draughtsman, carver, and counsellor. Better than all, and the crown of all, he is an energetic and consistent Christian. " Only twelve years before, the first missionary to the Haidas stepped on the shore where I was so kindly wel- comed. He found Heathenism in full possession, and in the height of its degrading power over souls and bodies. For the first year the missionary, his brave wife, and their infant found shelter in the corner of on of the great Indian houses, objects of curiosity at first, then on the part of the medicine-men hostility, but now of affection and respect. " On reaching home, the first man I met was a Christian Indian from a village fifty miles distant, where there are Storms Fulfilling His Word. 35 only twenty-three Christians among 204 heathen. These, under the late delusion, rose, burnt down the church, and since then made the lives of the Christians a burden to them. This man has an unconverted grown-up son, who begged his father to give him some money to pay the fees of graduating in some heathen mysteries. In a weak moment the father acceded. So deep was his sorrow that he came all the way here for counsel. He confessed his sin ; and so deep was his emotion and distress that he suddenly dropped on his knees, and continued some time in silent and apparently agonising prayer. I was also moved by his spiritual agony. As he rose from his knees I took his cold and trembling hand and assured him that God had put away his sin. ' I have prayed so long for pardon/ he said, ' that my whole body is sick.' " Since then he has come again with another sin on his conscience. He had been in the circle of his band sitting round the fire when the intoxicating cup was passed on. To avoid singularity and to conceal his scruples, he put the cup to his lips without drinking. ' I was a coward/ he said to me, ' and twice I have encouraged sin by my weakness, and helped the devil ; but I feel happier now that I have told you.' " Such was his simple story the outcome of a sincere heart, self-tortured as well as sorely tempted. " To me it is a great delight to perceive any signs of con- science ait all amor* g the Heathen ; a,nd when it does appear, great tenderness and skill are needful to train it by gradually forming a right judgment as its groundwork. How many things we ought to lay before God ! " I commend my work to you, and beg your prayers. Next July I hope to attend the Lambeth Conference of Bishops, after which I shall try to raise some money towards the support of the many interests I am bound to uphold." Journeyings such as those described in the last letter are not without their perils, and on February 25, 1888, the Bishop had to send the Society for tho Propagation of the Gospel 36 Snapshots from the North Pacific. the sad news of the death by drowning of one of their missionaries working in his diocese^ the Rev. A. H. Shel- don, who was ordained by the Bishop of New Westminster in 1881. " You will share my grief when you read that our dear brother Sheldon is drowned. Immediately after morning service on Monday he embarked in a new canoe, and set off with four Indians for Fort Simpson. Before he lost sight of his earthly home he was on the threshold of the heavenly. He was going on a forty-mile voyage, partly for medical and partly for ministerial work. About three weeks before he had gone to Fort Simpson for similar reasons. There were many sick there. You will like to know the full particulars. With Mr. Sheldon were four Indians one the wife of the trader here, Mr. Cunningham. She was the ardent and most efficient helper of her pastor. Another, his Indian boy, about seventeen years old, who for some time was one of my youngest students. He was a good lad, named George Provost. Besides these, were the captain of the canoe, and a young man, named Libagait Neuk, the sole survivor. The cause of the accident was a sudden gust of wind. The lever- age of the mast split the canoe almost from end to end. She was a dug-out, about forty feet long and five feet beam. The water came in through the split much faster than they could bale it out, and to avoid sitting in the water both Mrs. Cun- ningham and Mr. Sheldon rose (this was the mistake) and sat on the thwart. No one had the presence of mind to let go the sheet. Consequently the pressure of the wind, now that the centre of gravity was so much higher, capsized the canoe, and all were in a moment immersed and struggling for dear life. The canoe was now bottom up, but the split enabled all to hold on excepting Mrs. C., who put her arms round the captain. This was the position for half an hour, when the captain lost his hold and sank ; Mrs. C. soon followed him. For another hour the ether three held fast, and the canoe all this time was drifting towards the shore, a mile distant at )east v Storms Fulfilling His Word. 37 " These particulars I elicited from the survivor. " He tells me that ' Mr. Sheldon did not cry out. He only prayed for us boys. He asked the God of heaven to save us boys.' 'How do you know?' I asked for he cannot speak English. " ' George translated for me. He said, " Listen, he is praying God to have mercy on us." ' " So was this untaught youth brought near to God in that hour of agony. He had seized a paddle that floated near, and then pressed it wedge-wise into the split that alter- nately opened and shut with the action of the waves. It also eased the vice-like pressure on the fingers of the others. A doubtful benefit. " Then the survivor scrambled astride the canoe, and so was secure. Then also Mr. Sheldon's hand was withdrawn ; but he did not sink at once, because he had jammed the edge of his cloak into the split, and this held him fast. He had put his hands together in his ever-devout attitude of prayer. ' His eyes were shut,' said the survivor, ' he spoke not. I saw the blood on his hand, and the flesh was torn from his fingers.' This was caused by the alternate opening and closing of the split by which he held. This loss of blood, and the icy coldness of the water, probably made him almos. insensible to pain. " Then came a huge wave and washed him off. Up-borne by his fur-lined coat, he floated away, half his head remaining for a long time above the water. To the last his hands were touching his face. It was George, who had also found a paddle, who gave it to his master. The survivor pulled his paddle from the split when he saw Mr. Sheldon washed off, and pitched it towards him. It struck his face. The youth cried out, ' Chief, chief, take the paddle the paddle ! ' But he gave no sign of hearing or seeing. The noble lad who threw the paddle towards his master gave up the only means he had of saving his own life. " Here I am in Mr. Sheldon's house, letter-writing, but sadly hindered by the company of women and old men, who 38 Snapshots from the North Pacrfic. think they are comforting me. Last night George's mother came in, and burst into loud wailing. It is most distressing to witness her grief. As soon as the crying was nearly spent I pointed out to her a photograph of Mr. Sheldon's mother. In a moment she became calm, and gazed upon it with pity in every feature. Her motherly heart poured sympathy on the more aged mother. It was evidently a relief to her. As if she saw her fellow-sufferer, she began to softly speak in most loving tones : ' 0, dear lady, your son led my son along the way to God. Both now see Jesus, see God. It is bitter to us to you, lady, and to me but sweet to them. Do not die, lady ; only their flesh lies in the river. It is well, all is well. God's will is good. Oh (here she moaned), my heart is broken. But it is all, all well with them. The grief stays here. None gets into heaven. They are with Jesus. We suffer because they are gone, but not they. They left pain behind to us. They feel no cold, they cannot be wrecked (capsized), they see God. All is well, nothing ill, nothing wanting with Jesus. Dear lady, you look older than I am. God knows which will first see our sons, mine with bright light over him, yours near Jesus. I may first see them. Do not die, lady. You will see your son, because the mother of so holy a priest must be good.' The pathetic words and sympathetic tone of this illiterate but true Christian moved me almost to tears. They comforted me. The simplicity and faith were so evidently genuine that I was thereby helped to bear my own burden. " I pray God to raise up one to worthily succeed our departed brother." CHAPTER IV. A CRY AND A RESPONSE. " I pray to God, to Whom belong All souls of every race on earth." IN 1889 the Bishop attended the Lambeth Conference, returning to his Diocese in May, 1890. Six months later he wrote the letter now to be quoted. His account of the death-bed of one of his Indians seems an echo of the words " O death where is thy sting? " and proves that the Gospel is able now as of old to lighten the dark valley to those passing through it, and to comfort the hearts of those left behind. Such a scene lends fresh emphasis to the appeal from u.n Indian chief who longed that his own tribe should have the same privileges, and which had, for the time at least, to be refused. No wonder that the Bishop writes with a sense of shame; but one can- not but ask, whose should the shame be? Theirs who go, or theirs who stay away ? However, this time! Christians in England responded, as will be seen from the next letter. Immediate steps were taken to send the necessary funds, and two days after the telegram arrived the Evangeline was ready to carry the good news to tho waiting chief. " Mfthikatla, Nov. 5th, 1800. " Tho widow of Moses Venn, one of the best old men I have known, paid mo a visit to-day. I had administered the Holy Communion to him last night, after Evening Prayer. He was then dying, but fully conscious, and with signs of inward peace stamped upon his wan face. When 40 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. I had duly prepared, I asked how many present wished to communicate with the dying chief. In answer, ten knelt at once on the floor. The dear old wife sat still where she was, beside the sick man on the bed. She is a woman of strong mind, but withal most tender and affectionate. My voice, I am sure, betrayed my own emotion, though I strove to check it. I knew how worthy the old chief was. His life has been unblemished from the time I learnt to honour him ten years ago. True and steadfast in the faith, wise in his household, and a peacemaker in the settlement of unavoidable disputes, it was to be expected that his death- bed would be attended by many. Hence the house-door had to be locked before I began the service, to prevent crowding. I do not know a people who honour the Lord's Table more consistently than these. The Spirit of the Lord was with us as we broke the bread. There meekly kneeled the faithful, by whom the Body and Blood of Christ were verily and indeed taken. I am not a stranger here, nor a novice. After a ministry in many lands for a quarter of a century, I count it a high privilege to minister to. such a company of disciples as knelt around me last night. Moses' old widow came in just as we were assembling in the chapel for Morning Prayers, and joined us. Then she came with me into my study. She seemed so composed, that I thought the sick one had rallied. Her opening words fixed that idea. Thus she spoke, very calmly, ' Chief, you saw Moses last night, and how he rested free from pain and full of heart peace. As this morning dawned, that best half of my flesh slept soundly.' I thought she meant natural sleep, and said in reply, ' Wonderful ! ' ' I had not watched the clock, because I loved to look on his smile.' " It dawned on me that he was dead. ' I said to our sons and daughters and their children, I said it slowly, " Make no weeping ; is he not now peacefully going away with Jesus with Jesus ! " By this time I was sure the old man was dead. " Do you not see the shadow A Cry and a Response. 4l of his soul resting on him ? " She meant the smile on his face. She continued her story in exact detail. " His soul left its work. Look on his face. Notice the smile. Make no weeping. Look out at the window. The sky is cloudless so his face. Will you with tears bring in clouds? Make no mist arise. His soul is joyful. The half of my life no, the whole of my joy is gone ; no, no, I must not say so. Some of his joy stays in my heart." So I stopped weeping, but our hearts were tearful. My words could not wipe away tears from our hearts, though we knew how he was with Jesus in heaven/ " I then remembered that the dear old man had entrusted me with his will. Mr. Collison had written it at his dicta- tion, and Messrs. McCullagh and Hall had witnessed it with their signatures. She asked me to translate it for her. I will transcribe a part of it. Thus it runs : ' This is to testify that after my death, my tribe or any member of it may not erect any large stone or monument over my grave or in any other place as a record of my chieftainship. I only desire a nice stone not exceeding four feet in height, and a tablet in marble or brass erected in the church suited to record the memory of one who has departed in the faith of the Gospel.' ' ' La! Aabuku: uwhaf ' (' Ha ! I remember : certainly ! ') so she said when I had finished. Then she told me this story. ' At that time (in 1888) there was a turning back to former evil ways at Fort Simpson. The sin reached Kincolith. My uncle, chief R. Gokshau, was dying. He called his tribe to his side, and exhorted them to raise four lofty stones over his grave, and to spare no ancient ceremony at the installation of his successor. Then Moses called his household together, and told them of all these things. He was a strong man, but as he spoke he cried like a woman, because of the report. Thereupon he further exhorted his sons Peter and Charles to take good heed that after his death he should be buried as a Christian, without any sign of pride or waste. So he commanded. Then he went to Mr. Colli- 42 Snapshots from the North Pacific. son, and dictated that law you have now translated in my ears. He said he would do so. He said he had done it. He never changed. So shall it be as his heart desired.' Certainly it was a noble testimony! " Last Sunday we had our harvest festival. The Indians tried in vain to catch some salmon for decoration purposes. They brought all kinds of foods from sea shore and river, from forest and garden. Mr. and Mrs. Gurd superintended, and I believe suggested the whole thing. But I was shocked or thrilled through as I entered the church from the vestry. A burst of brass-band music resounded through the church (the largest in the province). It ceased as I knelt in the chancel to say a silent prayer, and was not resumed. The surprise sent the blood coursing along from my heart. It was an innovation. I had not been consulted. ' Why should they,' etc., etc. Then pleasure arose in my mind because I knew they would not have done it if they had not thought I should be pleased. Therefore I was pleased, and I am bound to say that the suddenness of the musical outburst so affected my heart that more of it than usual leaped out and got into the service, and kept in to the very close ! Mr. Gurd preached in Zimshian in the afternoon, I in English in the evening according to our custom, for the benefit of the English and the English-speaking people. I saw three Chinese there also. The Sunday before there were several Japanese. " Just before my last long journey a Japanese called and asked to see me. I was occupied elsewhere, and was not to be found. So he shyly told Miss Dickenson (the young lady trained as a nurse who has come out to help us without salary) that he loved Jesus ; he belonged to Him as she did. Then he took 3 dols., equal to 12*. 6e thalt it will forward the settlement of immigrants on the excellent land I saw in different places. In one dis- trict I walked in one day thirty miles over a splendid country fit for the plough, where in years to come there will be fine farms. "Dec. 16th. " The district assigned to the Rector of Essington formerly reached the Hudson Bay Co.'s forts, a month's travel from the coast, and the gold mines yet more distant. The expense of travelling has so increased that I cannot provide the money to send a mis.sionary the round annually. My autumnal visit has to do double duty. One little bit of my experience will interest you. As soon as the miners who had married Indian women knew that I had determined on In Journeyings Often. 55 instituting a Girls' Home on my return to the coast, they wanted to give me their little girls. I brought away with me one little mite, and another came on soon after, and are now, with others, comfortably settled in the new home. The child I brought with me shrank from my Indians, saying she did not like to sleep with Siwashes, a corruption of the French snuvage. But my tent measures eight feet by six only, and into it are stowed my kitchen-box, pro'/ision-caso, valise, gun, and bed! The walls are 18 inches high, and my head just clears the ridge-pole ! A less lavish enjoyment of space must content me that I may entertain the rosy-cheeked little maiden who objected to Siwashes. I stow her away to leeward, with my waterproof and overcoat as a bed and my thin coat as pillow. She had two blankets, but one was so iking wet. The single one I doubled over her, and then tucked her up with one of my own. ' Where is your pillow 1 ' I asked. ' Me and Eddie (her smaller brother) had one, and I gave it to him.' This made me love the little soul. She slept better than I did, for that night the frost was, I thought, bitter. I was also short of wraps, which partly accounted for it. But the tent, which was dripping when I pitched it, was so stiff with the frost next morning that we had to drag it into the river to thaw it before we could safely fold it. To fold canvas tightly when hard frozen is to break the fibre ; so also a frozen rope can easily be broken. That night I had other company. The sudden change from a wet southerly wind to the sharp nor'-wester made the tent sought after by the many forest mice. They kept me awake most of the night, though I was accustomed to their intrusion. Now and then one would be swept suddenly from my face. One sought his way to his nest through my ear, but he was too fat to get far in. Another nestled in my beard, and might have had a comfortable berth if it had not been so restless. As bedfellows they are not objectionable so long as they keep their feet still, but they will not. The most worrying was he who kept scraping under my pillow among the springy branches of the hemlock pine. I scuffled, 56 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. turned over my pillow, pounded it and spoke angry words, and all in vain. I was trying to sleep in his forest, and he would not stop nibbling his favourite bark to allow a tired bishop to be there without taxing his patience. He was an unfeeling little republican, and I still have a grudge against him. But they are not as obnoxious as rats. " Late on Saturday night, long after dark, we reached a village that has long been deserted as a winter residence The gardens are very good, and some families came from Essington and Metlakatla to plant potatoes there. We had to climb some rocks for about two hundred feet before \ve came to the plain trail. Leaving our canoe moored, we struggled up the steep, bearing only what we wanted over Sunday. My load was my bedding. The lantern-bearer was next in front of me. After about a half-mile walk we came to the houses. Two were lighted up. From one, as we neared it, floated sounds of song. We stopped and listened, and through the wooden walls we could hear every word uttered in prayer. These praying Indians had assem- bled as they were accustomed to on the coast, and though a week's journey from their coast homes, and unconscious that their Bishop was within a yard of the leader, they observed their duty to God as duly as if they were within the sound of the church bell. My heart throbbed with gratitude to God for shining into these simple souls and making them more Christ-like than myriads at home satiated with privi- lege. " We slept that night in a house belonging to my Indian captain, who formerly lived here, but for years past has been at Metlakatla. We soon had a blazing fire, a-nd after supper sought rest. Before I lay down my captain asked me to climb up the ladder into a small attic. ' Look/ said he. ' Well, I only see potatoes. Then he gave me one, and pointed out the marks of some small rodents' teeth. ' Poor rats ! poor rats ! Alas ! your labour is lost. I shall bag these potatoes.' So the captain seemed to pity the bushy-tailed rats which had duo: out from the garden all the small-sized In Journeyings Often. 57 ones they could mouth, and had managed to carry them one by one between the outer and inner lining of the wooden house straight up from the foundations to the attic. There must have been two hundredweight there spread out to dry in readiness for a hard winter. " I pitied the rats, and more so when as I awoke I found one dead in a trap. In his agony he had dragged the trap close to my bed, and so seemed to appeal for justice against his murderer. They are the bravest little animals I know. They are absolutely fearless. At the next village, where 1 slept in another deserted house, they swarmed ; and though I kept a lantern burning all night, they vainly attempted to get on a table on which my breakfast was spread over- night so as to have no delay next morning. Thaib night I wished all rats were trapped. I had been teaching a school- room full of Indians for three hours up to 11.30 p.m., and then came the rats. Before daylight I was again in my canoe, and I have not forgiven them. But they are surpassed in wanton cruelty by mosquitoes. They keep their victim in a fever, but by their blood-letting prevent it from reaching a dangerous height, only to preserve him alive for further sport. I know from experience that they are to be reckoned among the enemies to the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Perhaps you smile and think them feeble folk. They have made me black in the face. I have shut up my tent with swarms of these plagues, like such as worried Pharaoh. Then I have lighted a fire and produced the most 4 disgusting of smoke nuisances, until my eyes filled with tears that made channels down my sooty face. I have then lain down and seen these monsters cling to the tent until asphyxiated and then drop off dying, and I gloating over this wholesale destruction. Some few revive, but they are then tamor than an English gnat. " When travelling o-_ the rivers a mid-day halt is called by the captain of the canoe, who can tell the time by God's great clock. ' Look out for drift wood,' is his order to the Indian in the bow, who, as soon as he sees some on the bank, 58 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. calls out, ' Lak O ! lak O ! ' which means, ' Fire O ! fire O ! Quickly the axes are swung by ready hands, and soon the kettles boil. Off go our hats, grace is said. Dinner over, we start afresh to struggle onward against the swift current. '' One day several canoes hauled alongside to get the benefit of our fire just as we were about to push from the bank. Out poured a crowd of Indians, young and old, with their many wolf-like dogs. The moment I was recognized many were suddenly seized with hacking coughs. On they came, the lameness of some increasing every moment. Sores are unbound, hands pressed on those, parts that suffer from indigestion, the symptoms are graphically described. I gravely listen as 1 open my medicine chest, taking care to have a kettle full of pure river water at hand ; pots of ointment become lighter, sticking-plaster is disposed of ; pills are wrapped in fresh leaves, teacups brought for cough mixture ; salts and senna are begged for. The serious cases ere carefully attended to ; the half real pretenders, without a sound organ (so they say) in their bodies, are treated with grave sympathy, and large, doses of medicated water made nasty. Faith they mix with it and get cured, so they say. I am known for hundreds of miles as a medicine-man. " Among this crowd was an Indian whose head I put together eight years ago, after he had been most shockingly cut and bruised by a fall over the steep bank of the frozen river from a height of quite four hundred feet. He was sitting on his sleigh drawn by his dog team ; the trail was very slippery, and sloped towards the steep. He could not stop it, and away he went, sleigh, dogs, and all, with ever- increasing velocity, until his head came in contact with rough stones at the bottom, and there he lay senseless and bleeding. I was called and set him to rights, for which he thought himself a hero ! Now he remembered my surgery, and regarded me as a sort of property, walking round and round me, muttering all the time something I could not distinguish, and then stopped and declared he was quite ready to hear me preach ; he would listen long and go far, he would hear no In Journeyings Qften. 59 one else ! So I had my reward, you see. The picture I saw in him is not to be forgotten. I suppose he was dressed. He was covered from his nock to his knees with rags of many colours, toned down with a rich brown of pervading dirt. I saw no buttons he was knotted together, like the old woman whose coating of loathsome garments, in rags, had to Bishop Ridley at Uiatwangak, 60 Snapshots . -from the North Pacific. be peeled off before I could set the stethoscope on her chest. Then it-he odour ! Such poor old Heathen never change or cleanse their clothes until, for obvious reasons, the torment becomes past endurance. My ragged friend had not reached that stage. The Christians are never in such case ; cleanli- ness with them attends on godliness. " I never choose to encamp beside such a crowd but at a distance not too far to be traversed after supper by lantern light. In such cases I spend an hour beside their camp fire speaking of the kingdom of God. Sometimes my crew go with me, and then we sing as well as pray, which is very delightful on the river's bank or in among the forest trees when it is stormy. " Their dogs are villainous thieves because ill-fed ; they howl, they cannot bark like our faithful companions. One night, while I slept, they entered my tent, and before I was quite roused by their noise they had gnawed through my provision box. I awoke in time to save my victuals, and drove them helter skelter from the tent. But they are dangerous brutes to attack with bare feet. When the canoes are deeply laden the dogs have to find their way along the banks, which are sometimes very precipitous. Then their sagacity is remarkable. In winter they are used to draw the sleighs, and therefore are valuable. We met an old man seeking his lost dogs, which wo had seen the day before and tried to entice them to follow. Delighted was the old man when he heard his dogs were not miny miles below, and on he trudged to save thorn. " This was kinder than some other Indians we passed one day in their camp. They told a sad story of three hunters being lost high up among the mountains, but they made no search, which surprised me. Towards sundown that day wo were pushing on in-shore, under some steep cliffs, when we heard strange sounds overhead. There were the three lost men laden with parts of mountain sheep, so that they could not starve. The fresh snow had covered their tracks so that they became bewildered. We set them right with much In Journeying s Often. 61 pleasure, and they pushed on with revived hopes. How gladly would we direct them to a heavenly rest! " Another day we overtook a canoe with a party ashore towing it. For tho sake of a stretch I gob out of mine and had a long walk. Harnessed with two Indian women was a white man from Glasgow, who had lost his money in the gold- mines, and was now working his passage and dependent on Indians for food. " Another day I met one of my clergy, and he waded with his long indiarubber boots on from the bank to my canoe, and we transacted a good deal of missionary business while his crew were skinning and cutting up some venison. The day before I had in his absence been among his people, ministering to and advising them in matters they had kept open for my decision. The day before that, at another station, I had confirmed seven candidates, the first company of confirmees in the interior. For the first time were Indians of that nation admitted to the Holy Communion. " It is often very lonely on these large Canadian rivers. Yet there are ceaseless matters of interest occurring, sucn as meeting with wild beasts, at very close quarters some- times ; finding rare plants, shooting ducks, geese, and frequently swans, which means abundance of fresh food, no small matter to hard-working men living and sleeping in the open air. One night after I Lad got between my blankets I heard a loud outcry, and jumped up to see what was the matter. The captain had gone to the beach to see if the river was swelling or falling, and, returning, stumbled over a porcupine. A few minutes later I smelled, as I thought, a burning blanket, and called out a warning. ' No, we are roasting the porcupine,' was the answer. I tried it next day, but it was too tough for me. Young bear is really nice, so also young mountain sheep, but the mature ones have a flavour that one must be educated up to before it can be enjoyed. " The scenery will yet become famous. If my crew were asked what irnpresf-ion that trip made on them they would 62 Snapshots front the North Pacific. use- one word ' rain, rain, rain.' Perhaps they might add ' wind, wind/ For one whole week it rained day and night. We camped amid the trees, whose tops were bent by the gale, while at the roots we were sheltered. Now and then one would fall with a loud crash a very unpleasant sound to one in a tent close by. But, at last, during the night, the change came ; instead of great drops falling on my bare head when I thrust it out to see to the camp fire, I looked up and saw between the branches stars shining as they only do on frosty nights. The river gliding past made soft music with which harmonized the muffled tones of the distant rapid. How much better than a roaring tempest ! Next morning a thick mist rose from the river and had encrusted everything with beauty, holped by Father Frost. What a lovely robe had been woven under the twinkling stars ! Then rose the sun and mastered the power that wrought such loveliness in the dark. But greater glories are now revealed. The eastern sun made the mountains blush. Swift is the transformation as the sun scaled the sky. There stood the lordly mountains, lately enshrouded by black clouds of tempest, but now from base to summit wrapped in purest snow, their pinnacles rising miles into the blue expanse. " How I rejoiced in the vastness of the translucent blue hung over a world of beauty, in the spotless whiteness adorning the mountain crests, and in the bewitching beauty of the autumnal foliage that exhibited Divine skill in painting oven the trembling leaf ! " Then came night again, and with it higher delights. Across a branch of the river a cemp fire shot up among the trees. After our evening meal, as we sat gazing into our own friendly fire, we heard, borne on the still night air, sweet sounds of holy song. There, we then knew, were Christian Indians, praising the Lord Jesus we also loved. Then followed silence. We knew they then were praying. We prayed in our hearts. Sweet is the communion of saints. What was the river between ? Our hearts were one in faith In Journeyings Often. 63 and hope and love. No delight like this on earth. Talk about missionary perils and hardships ! there is not a drawing-room in London where heaven seems so nigh as it does to us sometimes in our wanderings. " On our side we lifted up our thankful voices, tuned all the better because of the emotion caused by the song beyond the river. Across there our praise would kindle holy thoughts in the hearts of the tired Indians as they lay stretched out to sleep. I then prayed with my crew, and we all lay down without a care to rest and sleep, though the beasts of the forest move and seek their meat from God. From God, therefore we were safe. " So pass days and nights till the work is done. But the perfect rest remaineth to the people of God. Whoever would enter into the rest ought first to labour, not to win it, I ut to please Him who offers it freely to all who love Him." CHAPTER VI. A TRIUMPH SONG. / ' " God's tools cut through a knotty will, I And turn by turn He drove His drill, Until His light flashed clearly through And so the soul saw all things new." THE story of Sheuksh, the Indian Chief, contained in the following letter, is now well known as one of tlio most wonderful triumphs of grace in the history of Christian Missions. After eight years of fervent, believing prayer, tho answer caine, so complete, so glorious, that the letter announcing it was well headed in the G .M. Gleaner " A Triumph Song from the North Pacific." He who had been " a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious," became by the grace of God a humble follower of Christ, and his after life bore witness to the reality of the change. On February 7th, 1901, the Christian Chief, after ten years of consistent witnessing for Christ, passed away to his rest : " Metlalatla, Nov. 19th, 1891. " Four stout Indians came into my study an hour ago, newsladen. Their greeting was quiet, and their faces afforded no token of the nature of their embassy. They sat full in front, and distant the width of my writing table. There was A Triumph Song. 65 an earnest expression, but the closest scrutiny failed to penetrate their secret, or lift the veil of mystery. I may not ask, ' Why have you come ? ' or, ' Is all well ? ' I am as Indian-like as they, so far as my impassive countenance is concerned, but I am burning with anxious curiosity all the time, because I remembered how many have been the vicissi- tudes of the Mission to these Kitkatlas. " Six winters ago a half-drowned crew came here from the same place, and sat in like manner on the same chairs. Their tale was woeful and laconic. I cannot forget it. Our Native teachor was spokesman then. This was his lamentation : ' They have burnt the church, they have torn up the Bibles, they have blasphemed the Saviour. Only the ashes remain, and a great victory for the devil.' Then they relapsed into a gloomy silence. My turn then came. ' No, never/ said I, '" the war is only just begun. Jesus Christ will win. You are not burnt. The devil has laughed before. God Will laugh at him, and you will laugh. Be strong.' " For more than a year no teacher was suffered to land among the Kitkatlas. No public service could be held. The most strenuous efforts were made to stamp out the work of grace, but the hotter the persecution, the purer the life. I cannot say how many dated their change of mind from that Saturday night which wa.s turned into a brief day by the flames they kindled in the witnessing House of God. If every church in the land were burnt, with similar spiritual results, the loss would be gain. " While the latest news rings and thrills within me before I enter upon any other pursuit, if I can command the leisure I will write it down, and send it at once, if the already overdue mail steamer does not arrive to-day. " Luke, a Christian of a year's standing, is the chosen spokesman. How his face was transformed as hei related his beautiful message ! Mrs. Ridley had come in to hear it. We both listened to the answer of a prayer of eight years' duration. We had long wrestle/d for it. Now we have it. I have for years past expressed to the Committee, c 66 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. in my letters, the settled conviction that a great blessing was in store for the Kitkatlas. It was no fancy picture, but one drawn by the reasonable faith that time has justified. Now, as we attend to Luke's recital, our hearts are aglow with gratitude. Affliction is justly regarded as the most potent factor in humbling the soul, and revealing to us the Saviour ; but the sympathetic gladness that turns to His throne, because it glorifies the Victorious King, also melts the soul and shapes it to lowliness. " ' Ltha gcnidi eshk gish Sheuksh,' were Luke's first words, which, being interpreted, is, ' He has perfected his promise, has Sheuksh.' Had Ave a peal of bells I would have them rung because the most able, most stubborn, and boldest warrior of Satan has submitted to Christ, and publicly, before his own tribe, has promised to serve Him as long as He keeps him alive on earth. Outworks, one by one, have been taken during the last two years, now the banner of the Crucified floats above the citadel ! " Sheuksh is a man of powerful build, with a very massive head, in which arc set eyes that never look below yours, a mouth with jaws like a vice, but which easily smiles and breaks into a hearty laugh, dimpling his plump cheeks. He i.H a fine fellow a chief of chiefs. He was not by birth the heir to this leading position, but has won it by capacity for affairs and oft-tried courage, although the chief once in power, and still alive, shrank not from murder to maintain it But this Sheuksh, chief of the Kitkatlas (more cor- rectly spelled Giatkatlas), the last to rally round him the braves of an old system, that made them as proud and ruth- less as Moslems, lias bowed Iiis head before the Cross. " Their island home, Laklan, breasts the western ocean, and is the outermost of an archipelago sheltering the three mouths of the Skeena river. Yet farther seaward, standing alone as a sentinel, is an islet called Lak-Kul, fifteen miles from Laklan. Out there go the fur-seal hunters each summer, and thitheir, for the first time, our hardy mis- sionary, Mr. Sftephenson, followed thtem<. Their leisure A Triumph Song. 67 hours were employed in felling trees and shaping logs, to set up the framework of a church, 45ft. by 40ft. The women sewed sail-cloth together for walls and roof, and, when all else was finished, brought white sand from the beach for the floor. Thus was God's house planned, and built, and fitted by themselves at their o\vu expense. Then came that pes- tilent la. grippe, and none escaped ; some died. The missionary bestowed all his provisions, excepting a little flour, on his stricken flock. He would have died had not I sent to fetch him hero alive or dead. We nursed him ; God The Village of Kitkatla. restored his strength. But he did not return to that post, because his people were soon scattered far and wide. At this moment he is tending a sick wife, but is expecting to return to Kitlan at the first opportunity. This, the winter home of the Kitkatlas, is in a wild and exposed situation. A rocky point juts out north-eastward, on which, in grim disorder, stands the central part of the village. On either side a sandy cove sweeps back in graceful curves. Above the bank stand, in a crescent, several very massive houses, but of some only the bare frames. Nearly in the midst is the home of Sheuksh, its low-pitched gablei seaward, and in 68 Snapshots from the North Pacific. front a monolith of great size, concerning which the strangest tales are told. " The, floor of his house covers 3,600 square feet, a space without a post or pillar within the walls to support the low- pitched split-cedar roof. The floor is of solid cedar. In the midst is the sand-strewn hearth, from which the smoke ascends and escapes by the central aperture abovo it. The daylight is dim within on the brightest day. Therein no books vexed or delighted the generations past. Could they declare it, what a strange history would these smoke-stained walls recount! Had I the time I could put on record and rescue from oblivion many an oft-recited tradition there that would please the lovers of ancient things things that would have been old to Abram among the Chaldeans. But I have something new and true to tell, better than all the strange tales of old. " The summer toil and autumn peril are past. The furs are sold. The winter's provision laid in. All, or nearly all, of this most numerous tribe are at home. Last Sunday the church was too small, though the standing room was thronged. On Tuesday the chief invited all the adult males to meet him. His secret was well kept. The many thought the meeting was to be assembled to discuss the plans for winter. As daylight faded they gathered at the chief's great house. A large stack of fuel betokened a long discus- sion. A pile of logs was on the hearth, and over them oil was ladled now and again. Up shoot the brilliant tongues of fire, which cast a dark shadow behind each illuminated face. The flames leap aloft as the crowd increases- a wondering crowd. There is Sheuksh, arrayed in a scarlet robe, bedecked with mother-of-pearl and curious embroideries, and seated alone on a low kind of settle ; his people on the other three sides of the great square, awaiting the opening of the Parliament. Christians are mingled with the unbaptized. Nearer than the rest to the chief are seated six of his leading men his faithful supporters in vainly resisting the progress of the Gospel. These were declared enemies of the Church. A Triumph Song. 69 It seems strange to say that I admire their constancy and moral courage. " Up rose Sheuksh grandly, and though the Christians are too numerous to apprehend any serious attempt to curtail their liberty or power, yet they anticipated an attempt to do so. He stretched out his arms, as if to display his sturdy person and the robe thaib had figured in many heathen orgies. ' I wear,' said ho, ' the outward sign of former ignorance and of ancient customs, that never changed until the white man's faith was preached. I thought I ought to keep them, for I am not wiser than the ancients who kept them and did great deeds. I loved them. So did you. I have struggled to maintain them. I have defied the Queen's officers. They threatened me as late as this last springtide with prison and disgrace. I told them I would not avoid them. I also resisted the Bishop, and suffered not his teachers to land. I concealed not the wish of my heart. You know to what lengths I went. Most of you approved my doing. But the end has come. Let the waves tell the story of our fathers. Our children's lips will form no fit words. Where do dead things go ? This goes with them.' Here he threw off his scarlet robe and the other insignia of a heathen chief. ' I am naked, but can clothe my body with the white man's clothes.' This he there and then proceeded to do. What will cover my heart? I can wrap nothing round it. God sees it, and He knows all the past and the present. He knows I am ignorant and sinful. He has this summer made me know it. I am now dressed like a Christian. Those tokens of the dark past I will never touch again. What shall I do next? I am too old to go to school. I cannot read. I am like a child, knowing little, but wanting to learn. Will Jesus Christ have me? Will He help me? I will never turn back. I give myself to God. Now pray for me pray, pray ! I want to know what will please Him. I must know. Begin at once to pray ! ' " So the whole company bowed their heads in silence until one of the earliest converts, named Stephen Gaiumtkwa, 70 Snapshots from the North Pacific. broke it with uttered words of earnest supplication. This ended, a Christian of the same standing, the most diligent in the Scripture, his name Samuel, started Wesley's hymn, ' Hark ! the herald angels sing.' and many voices took it up. Then Samuel recited a verse of Holy Scripture, and as Luke described it, ' broke it small for Sheuksh to eat.' James Dakaiya prayed, after which Samuel said the first verse of the hymn, 'Praise, my soul, the King of heaven,' and after it had been, sung, expounded another passage of Scripture. Daniel Whadibo prayed, and next was sung ' Safe in the arms of Jesus.' Charles Luahaitk prayed, and then was sung ' Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove.' Prayer and Praise and Holy Scripture followed in like succession for seven hours and a half. ' ' But, were you not tired ? ' I asked. " ' No, nobody went out but to go round and tell the women, and when they heard the chief was converted they also prayed and the children too.' ' Was there any noise or rushing about? ' " ' No, nothing but praying and singing ; and when we returned after midnight to our own houses, we told the women, who had kept the lamps burning, and they were not extinguished all night. At daylight we again assembled to pray in the chief's house and left some praying when we were sent away to tell you the truth.' " Such is the story. I have quite forgotten another point of interest. The men who had held to Sheuksh in the pro- longed struggle with the Christians, one by one between the intervals of prayer rose- and solemnly renounced the past and professed themselves catechumens if they could be received as such. Not a shred of outward Heathenism exists in what till lately was its one stronghold. Not a soul remains that is not pledged in this wonderful manner to live and die as a Christian. " What if some of this should prove ephemeral ! It will not differ from the purest religious movement, except in degree, even if it should (as doubtless it will) be followed by A Triumph Song. 71 the carel essness we are familiar with in England of the only nominally Christian. This great demonstration was nob without a divine effusion of spiritual power. It was as real as in the nature of such a movement it could be. Doubtless not long hence many will be baptized, but it does not follow that all will wear more than the outward profession of Christianity. " The least thing gained is a public acceptance of Christ Jesus as Lord, and that is a great thing in itself. Heathenism is demolished. Now follows missionary building up, which is proceeded with everywhere amid difficulties. The kingdom of darkness has been conquered in one of its most ancient strongholds. The cross of Christ has done it, and may be trusted to hold the fort just won. " I can write no longer because the interruptions during the day have forced me into the morning hours, and yet I have not finished. "Nov. 20th. " There has been a heavy gale of wind all night with frequent lashing showers of hail. This has detained the steamer, I think, so that there may be time to finish my narrative and mail it. Not long after the arrival of the canoe of which Luke was the captain, a second arrived, and I had to admit the crew to a two hours' interview, though I was uneasy at the interruption. They confirmed the good news, adding a few details which I have woven into my letter. Pencil in hand, I noted points of interest. One was, that after the first canoe had been dispatched the British ensign was hoisted on the chief flagstaff ; the firemen and other organized com- panies attired themselves in their uniform, then fired a salute from the two cannon, and, accompanied by the band, sang ' God save the Queen.' This was most significant. Religion and loyalty are aspects of the same spirit, one as it. relates to heaven, the other to earth. " During the day many of our Metlakatla people dropped in to speak of the great event, Samuel Pelham among them. He was the first native teacher I sent to the Kitkatlas the 72 Snapshots frcm the North Pacific. true pioneer of the Cross under his instruction the first converts were prepared for baptism. Our young men educated under my roof have advanced in knowledge beyond him and others who were formerly native teachers, so that the latter, through consciousness of their comparative ignorance, cannot be induced to teach as of old. He and Matthew sometimes preach, and do so with conspicuous ability without any thought of remuneration. Samuel Pelham is a natural orator, and now is a churchwarden here, and devotes much time to his office. " ' Ah ! ' said he, ' I remember soon after you arrived (this was in 1879) being captain of the great canoe that took Captain Plevo (he meant Admiral Prevost) and Mr. Duncan to Laklan. No good grew out of it. Sheuksh mustered all his people and ordered a dance and a feast of wickedness to mock Mr. Duncan, who did not want to go there because he had no power to force the Kitkatlas to obey him. They laughed and howled and danced the shameful dance, and we came home again vexed and angry. Two years later you gave me slates and copy-books, salts and senna, a bell and Bibles, and I went alone in my own canoe. I was received by G-aiumtkwa. After I had eaten, Sheuksh and Nishweuksh came in and told me I was not wanted to teach them. " If you come as a chief's son [which Samuel is], come to my house and be my guest. But let me hear no bell ; drums are better. Let us see no books ; biscuits are more nourishing." Then said I, " Shimoigiat [chief], I have not come to the sound of the drum or to feed on biscuits. I have tasted better food ; money cannot buy it. The son of our fathers cannot take it into his hand [he meant the child of ignorance'], or see it with his eyes, or hear it with his ears, or taste it with his mouth. The sun of the new day [meaning Christ's light] loves it, eats it, speaks it, dreams it, keeps it, gives it. You can have it, and will love it because it is beautiful and sweet, its silence heard above drums, its dimensions exceeding the clouds. God, it is God ! " Then they left me, and I remained all the winter teaching the A Triumph Song. 73 children and the young men. I cooked my own food, and often entertained visitors who came secretly. Now Sheuksh is converted. What cannot God do ? Wonderful ! That lord of iniquity converted ! That root of mischief plucked up ! That right hand of the devil broken ! Wonderful ! who can resist Him if Sheuksh cannot ? God has shaken the mountain. God's auger has bored through him. [Here Samuel imitated the movements of a carpenter using an auger.] God turned and made it cut into him. Slowly through knots as hard as stone. So, so, so [suiting the action to the words]. Oh, the tools of God ! They go through men's hearts. They are sharp, but oiled, a,nd let in the light. God knew his work. Now we see it.' " After musing awhile Samuel, in an undertone, remarked as if to himself : ' The devil has lifted up his head at Fort Simpson, and here has struck a blow (he alluded to a case of drunkenness), but at Kitlan I see his mouth in the sand. It is hard for him to meet with Jesus, the Son of God.' " Now I have finished. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost ; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." Mission-house at Kitkatla. icene on the Stikine River. CHAPTER VII. NEW WORK AND OLD. " Wave on wave, a courier be, Carrying tidings joyfully, Spread, O Spirit, idle sails, Pilling all with steady gales.'' LATER letters will tell of the work on the Stikine River. Although much on the Bishop's heart, it was up to this time almost untouched, till the fund pi-ovided in answer to the appeal of one of the Indian chiefs [See page 48] made it possible to go forward. Even so, it was only a beginning. The work did not really develop until later years, when it became a memorial to Mrs. Ridley, whose Iffe was devoted to the Indian's, and whose death made such a deep impression on them. The Bishop wrote at ilie begin- ning of 1892 : " Ten years ago I made an attempt to go among the Stikine River Indians, but just as I reached the mouth of the river the only steamer on it was wrecked on a bar. So I returned. Since then I have several times been on the point of making another attempt, but the troubles near at hand always New Work and Old. 75 hindered me. Now I could not go because my walking powers have been sapped by la grippe. Still I feel bound to try to lead them to Christ. If I cannot go I must send. " These Indians, unlike all others I have yet met with, have no settled homes, but are hunters, and live entirely by the chase. No white man knows anything of their language. The gold- miners tell me they are very shy, especially their women, which is as commendable as unusual among Indians. They have no belongings beyond what they and their dogs can carry on their backs. Their powers of endurance are said to be extraordinary. The cold they seem to defy. The summers are delightful. Whoever undertakes the duty of missionary pioneer must be a great itinerant. I should license him to a district as large as the two Provinces of Canterbury and York, with Scotland thrown in. He must be sound in wind and limb as well as in the faith. He must not have a wife. During the winter a log hut will be home. Servants will not be required, therefore accommodation for one will suffice. As soon as the confidence of the Indians is won, then some of the boys of the tribes can be received as boarder pupils, and the hut enlarged to admit them. Eventually the Indians will settle down near the missionary for part of the year, and so become civilized as well as evangelized. This work is really heroic and requires a man inspired with spiritual fervour strongly flavoured with common sense. " Where to find him God alone knows at present. I pray that he may quickly obey the King's command." The above letter was soon followed by one telling of the Bishop's serious illness, and of his need of change. He determined if possible to reach England in time for the May meetings of 1892. The following touching account is given of the affection of the Indians for their Bishop : " I must tell you of a beautiful thing. When the Indians were no longer allowed to see me, they met every afternoon in the church for special prayer on rny behalf. Men and women prayed in succession, eight or nine at every meet- 76 Snapshots from the North Pacific. ing. They did not tell our Mission party of it, who heard of" it accidentally. I saw Mrs. Ridiley slip out of the room every afternoon, and heard her leave tHe house. Curiosity led me to inquire the meaning of it. Thus I learnt of their love for me. I knew it was there before, but not to this affecting extent. I suppose I was weak at the time, which accounts for the> narrow escape I had from tears. It was some time before I recovered from the melting mood. No pastor at home could be better loved I think." In 1893 the Bishop wrote to the S.P.G-. on his return to his diocese from England, and an extract from the letter will show that the maintenance of the Evangeline proving too costly, she had to be relinquished, and passages taken in any steamers that might be plying up and down the coast a proceeding which, it will be seen, was not always satisfactory! " In the spring, as soon as the doctor thought me suffi- ciently recovered from a long attack of inflammation of the lungs, brought on by long exposure to inclement weather, he sent me off for a year's rest and change, recommending California. But I chose the old country, and spent four months there, of which three were spent in inactivity caused by extreme debility. " I returned within the six months to my post, but very unfit for work, waiting for the healing hand of Him Who has been more precious to me than ever before. Because I have been unfit to buffet with storms, I have not attempted to use my own open boats in visitation, but did thei best I could by taking my chances on the trading vessels that ply on these waters. My own diocesan steamer, my Evangeline, I was forced shall I confess the truth ? by poverty to sell. Could I have kept her, I should, I think, be hale now instead of an invalid. I had to choose between the extension of the Gospel, and a safe and expeditious means of keeping in touch with our work and workers that has cost me from 200 to 400 per annum, and with occasional costly repairs some- times exceeding my income. " My last effort to reach Mr. Price, working among the New Work and Old. 77 Kitlaup Indians and whites in Gardner's Inlet, was, like several preceding ones, a failure. " A steamer was advertised to call there on her homeward voyage, and I accordingly embarked. Before we reached 78 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. the entrance of this long inlet the ship had gathered up her full complement of passengers and freight. With many apologies the captain told me he could not then go up the inlet (two days' sail there and back), but would proceed thither on his outward voyage. So I was taken to Victoria, and stayed at an hotel until she again sailed northward. Again I embarked. On the voyage we met with frequent storms which detained the ship at various anchorages, and just before we reached the entrance of the inlet again the captain made his apologies, saying that he was extremely sorry (as he really was) he could not proceed to the head of the inlet, because of the impatience of the crowd of passengers to reach their destinations farther along the coast. " I was set down eventually at the same point from which I had embarked, having sailed 1,200 miles, wasted nearly a month at sea or in an hotel, and spent about 20 ! " The Bishop succeeded in reaching England just before the Anniversary, but his stay was a very brief one. Jn Septem- ber of the same year, 1892, he returned to his diocese. The year 1893 was marked by much blessing along the Naas River. At Kincolith there was a great increase of earnestness, manifested in a desire, of the Christian Indians to reach their heathen brethren. The work begun in the winter was continued when Archdeacon Collison followed them to the spring fishing. Many were brought in, backsliders reclaimed, and permanent results followed the efforts made. No wonder that the good news so rejoiced the Bishop's heart that it improved his bodily health, rendering him once more able to resume active labour. He wrote in July of that year : " It would not be fair for me to tell you the good news I have heard from the lips of our brethren in the North Pacific Mission, especially from Archdeacon Collison and Mr. McCullagh. The story should come from the pens of the chief actors themselves. It will be no small loss to you if they find no leisure to record the work of the Holy Spirit on the Naas River, where the Christians have been power- New Work and Old. 79 fully energized in trying successfully to win the* Heathen for Christ. From time to time written accounts reached me and cheered my seclusion as with spiritual tonics. " The joy of these tidings, I believe, really improved my A Christian Chief, Kincolith. 80 Snapshots from the North Pacific. health, which you know has been broken for about two years. During the winter I have been an unwilling prisoner, so that the pastoral care of this place has been entirely in Mr. Gurd's hands, and they have been efficient. This enforced seclusion has been ordered for the best. The discipline must have been required or it would not be imposed by the Divine Bishop of souls. No longer do I impatiently chafe as a caged bird, though I am glad to be on the wing, set free to go and come by the same kind Hand that shut me in. " Sympathy is very sweet, and of this I have had innumerable proofs. But my weather-tanned face and hands hardened by the paddle make no further claim. Since April my writing desk has been rarely opened because of my con- stant voyaging. My fingers, lately so thin and pliable, now are stiff and scarred and blistered. On the twenty-seventh 'anniversary of my wedding-day I paddled sixteen hours in steady rain, and during the week's travelling slept two nights in the bottom of the open boa,t anchored close in shore. As I dozed I was startled by what I at first thought was a steamer's whistle, but it was only the buzz of a bold mosquito exploring my ear, which I smartly boxed to kill the poisonous intruder. He did me a service, however, for being wide-awake I became conscious that on my right side my blankets were soaking in the rain water that accumulated in the boat. Wringing thorn out I tucked them more tightly round me for the night, and next day, on my arrival at Kincolith, Mrs. ,C'ollison hung them round her kitchen to dry.. i " I can scarcely realize that I am the same man that spent the winter months watched and tended as an invalid. It had its advantages, for though often weary with bodily in- firmity I was able to devote an average of six hours daily to linguistic work, which has already proved valuable to my brethren, and will be yet more useful to new missionaries. As long as I was able to follow my out-of-door episcopal work I could make no leisure for the literary department, so God enforced the leisure, and it has borne as good fruit as the most active winter I have ever spent in this country. New Work and Old. 81 " Another effect of seclusion is in keener sensibilities and perceptions towards Nature as showing forth the glory of our God. Long absence enhances the delights of once more wandering among the sweet solitudes of forest, and river, arid ocean. How many voices harmonize in the concert of praise ! The birds are envied no longer, for I have wings, too, stronger and more than they. The mountain ridges stoop down, not only to faith, bufc to fancy and imagination to form the sub- stratum of the mountain of the Lord's house, with the ensign of redemption crowning all. " I must add yet another pleasure I have enjoyed, and that is the meeting amid their work our honoured brethren who are God's instruments in winning souls and building up His Church in regions where a sympathetic visitor is welcomed as an angel of God. " How little does even the true Church, much less the crowd of self-centred Christians and the world, know of the travail and joy of the missionary 1 Not that he thinks of this ; his one concern is his Avork, a commerce directly between him and his Master, Who makes His servant's life as full and complete asi may be possible amid the city's con- course, and much more healthy. It makes him self-contained, and this tends to make him reticent and to restrain his pen when a full record of the common incidents of his work would be as fuel to kindle sacrifice of praise in many a pure and devout heart at home. Often do I wish they would write just what they tell me, for though it is the fruit of faithful endeavour, it has the bloom that only the sunshine of heavenly grace can paint. "The real romance of Missions is not yet written, and never will be, because God's greatest works are like the diamond and the dew perfected in the secret places of the Most High, and await the great day to reveal them. Then will they go to swell the praises of eternity. God is a true economist, giving sufficient but not wasting His grace on us, shedding gleams of His glory now to cheer, but concealing more in order to reveal it when He shall have accomplished the number of His elect. it 82 Snajishots from the North Pacific. " Rarely do I write of those who die in the Lord, because a consistent life is a greater triumph than a happy death ; but the latter is sometimes worthy of remark. The most inclement winter we have ever known here has been wonder- fully conducive to health. Alb our Naas River stations not a death occurred. Here we lost a young man who had been long ill. The day he died he asked for writing materials, and though he was in a state of exhaustion he intended to write a letter to his brother living on the Skeena. So he wrote, ' My dearest brother, I am going to Jesus, and I want you to come.' His task on earth was done ; he could write no more. " An old chieftainess, a woman of great force of character, who gave to the Society the land on which the Mission premises are built, had been ailing for more than a year, and after much suffering passed away. Just before she died, after having lain many hours in silence, she began to recite the Apostles' Creed in Zimshian. Her strength failed before she could finish it, but ?he proceeded, I believe, as far as ' He sitteth at the right hand of God.' " At present nearly all our staff are concentrated at the mouths of the Skeena and Naas Rivers, ministering 1 to all classes of people engaged in the great industry of canning salmon for foreign markets. Formerly as the Indians dis- persed from their winter homes the missionary remained behind and ministered only to the mere handful of feeble people unable to accompany the rest on their hunting expedi- tions. Half the year was spent in a solitude. " In 1886 I outlined a plan of following the people. Now the rule is that the whole year is economized. Services and school work go on with redoubled energy. Already is plainly evident the solid results of this continuous labour. Our young people are steadier and the children more advanced. Formerly they forgot in summer what they learnt in winter, and so the work had to be done over and over again. Now there is a marked contrast between the behaviour of our Christians and others, so the employers of labour say, and New Work and Old. 83 of course we see it yet more plainly. Our school children are far advanced beyond all others. I am most glad to hear and see such testimonies. " Dr. Ardagh, from Essington as headquarters, is expected to regularly visit all the other little fishing towns, so render- ing good service. The work is arduous. Mr. Gurd has been most successful at Claxton, where he has been instrumental in building a very pretty and substantial church to seat 150 persons. The S.P.C.K. has kindly made a grant of <20 towards it. Mrs. Gurd's activity has largely contributed to the success. Miss Dickensoii and Mr. Keen, in succession after Miss West, and now Mr. and Mrs. Hogan, have worked at Sunnyside, chiefly among the Indians, who come over annually from Mr. Duncan's ill-fated station in Alaska to work in this diocese. Many of them call on me and behave most courteously. They deplore the blunder they made, and cannot understand why they may not be allowed to enjoy the privileges their brethren here possess. Not only is the Holy Communion forbidden them, but also Baptism. Several infants of theirs were baptized by Mr. Gurd. Last week they asked Miss West to write to Mr. Duncan on their behalf Ito obtain his consent to her instructing their children with ours. " Miss West has sprit already three months at the Inver- ness fishery, where she has won many hearts. Until Sunny- side could be supplied she held school there once a day and once at Inverness, rowing her own boat over the mile and a half between the two places. Swift are the tides and often difficult the landing on the slippery rocks ; but in all weather she pursued her steady course, so that she has become an expert sailor, handling her sixteen-foot boat all alone as well as any man on our staff. She had it all to learn to her cost. Once she got into serious difficulties, being capsized in deep and rough water, and was half drowned before she could climb back into the boat. It was a risk to appoint a lady to such a station single-handed where there are some hundreds of Indians, Chinese, Japanese, and a band of white men unaccustomed to social or religious restraints. The issue has justified the methods. The sick have been assiduously 84 Snapshots from the North Pacific. nursed, the children regularly taught twice daily, and Bible- classes held for adults. For the Sunday services a band of suitable Indians was organized, and what is more important, carefully instructed in the subjects of the ser- mons. The Divine blessing has manifestly sealed these strenuous efforts with a success that disarms criticism. At first the white men asked what they had done to have a woman sent among them, forgetting they had threatened (though they were idle words and not really meant) to drown the parson if he ever came again among them. It was the old outcry, ' Let us alone, what have we to do with thee.' This is all changed now. Frowns have been turned into smiles and rudeness to respect. They saw how true womanliness accorded with self-sacrificing service for Christ, and therefore dropped their scornful arguments, ashamed to use them against this type of ministry. " Miss Appleyard, our latest arrival, entered on similar work the week after her arrival, and will continue it to the close of the fishing season. " It must riot be inferred that only the unmarried ladies actively promote the great work. The missionary's wife in several instances resists the tendency of absorption by domestic affairs. In these instances they have succeeded in speaking the native language, and so become valuable yoke- fellows with their husbands in spiritual husbandry. But those who do not attain to this standard often prove them- selves valuable accessories in their vocation. '' You will again exclaim at the length of my letter if I proceed further, but as I have more to write I will stop here and begin afresh when I can make the leisure. This is the fourteenth anniversary of my consecration, and now I stand seventh in chronological order of Canadian Bishops instead of sixteenth, as in 1879. I have had seven years of storm and seven of fair weather, but fourteen of guidance gratia Dei. " July 26th, 1893. " The only fiction about this is the calling it a second letter. I wrote the former pages Avorking till nearly mid- New Work and Old. 85 night yesterday, and resume my task this morning because I am in the humour, and on Friday must start again on further voyaging, when letter writing will be impossible. " On the 10th inst. I started to the Naas River station, via Foiit Simpson, and back. Rowing and sailing, we only accomplished on the first day thirty- seven miles, between two in the afternoon a,nd ten at night. Them we had some trouble in finding water shallow enough to an choir in, because it was a dark night, and the narrow sea was hemmed in by lofty mountains that added to the gloom. As soon as we found anchorage we dropped the anchor and moored also to the shore. It was perfectly still. At two a.m. we were aroused by our uncomfortable position. We had not reckoned rightly the condition of the tide at this distance from the ocean. As further sleep was out of the question, I lighted our little petroleum stove, got ready the oatmeal, and water for the coffee. The pots we had to lash to the stove to keep them from slipping off, on account of the list of the boat. Then my cook took it in hand, but as our kitchen box was under his bed boards, it was difficult to get at a spoon. But burnt porridge is un- palatable. Stirred it must be, for we cannot take off the pot without unlashing both. It was too hot for a finger and too deep for a rowlock. My umbrella stowed away for use on shore was within reach, and after looking in vain for anything else, I handed it to the cook, who first washed the ferrule, then stirred the porridge. " At 2.30 a.m. we were afloat, and the sea like glass. Fortified with our repast and prayer, we bent to our oars, and after about nine miles' rowing got a breeze, which, as the day advanced, grew stronger, until we had to shorten sail, and then run before the half gale, with the crests of the waves flush with the gunwale. On we bounded exultant, my hand for nine hours on the tiller and eye on the stem, the wind steadily rising, until twelve hours distant from our weighing anchor we ran into the river at the back of Kinco- lith, and received such a welcome that we soon forgot we had been hungry. 86 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. " From Kincolith, next day we sailed to Echo 'Cove, the summer residence of Mr. and Mrs. McCullagh. During the fishing season they, with their little daughter, contrive to be happy and extremely useful in a hut consisting of one room with a narrow lean-to, as we call this kind of shed. Wonderful parsonages some of them are ! I will suppose your committee room is at least say 55ft. by 28ft. Into that space you could set up the two parsonages at Echo Cove and Sunnyside, my picturesque old palace at Hazelton, and leave a choice of situations to pitch my tent on. A cab- man's shelter would make a commodious parsonage by divid- ing it into two parts, thus adding a luxury. " We called again at Kincolith on returning, where con- trary winds detained us two days, which our hosts would gladly have seen extended to many more. This detention gave us a chance of recruiting our strength, for the short nights and long days induce weariness." The last extract of this chapter, written November, 1893, relates to an interesting opening among another tribe : " I have had but a glimpse of the Kitkatlas this year, but enough to see that there is continuous progress. It is probable that one of the first baptized of the Kitkatla Christians will bo sent as missionary to the Kitlaups. I visited the latter in June, and found them willing to put themselves under his instruction. They are a very backward tribe, residing at the head of one of the most beautiful inlets I have ever seen, distant about 180 miles. Several of them are able to speak Zimshian very well, and through them I communicated with the rest. The chief is an enormous man, larger than Sheuksh, who married his brother chief's sister. I cannot but think that Sheuksh's influence is powerfully felt for good by his brother-in-law, and this may account for the tribe's readiness to receive a native teacher and ereclt a school- house.'' The Saw Mill, from Metlakalla, low tide. CHAPTER VIII. PERILS BY WATER. " Thunder rolls, Yet peace is singing in their souls." ' A A ^^ * s immortal till his work is dona." The truth I V I f these words is often brought home to us as we read of the dangers encountered by missionaries in pursuance of their work risks run, not from love of adventure, or even in the cause of science, but for the sake of Christ and of His poor wandering sheep, of whom He said, " Them also I must bring." The Bishop's account of a journey up the Skeena River in a steamer is more exciting than many of the contests with Nature described in books of travel, and one cannot but praise and admire the wonder- ful providence of God, Who has harnessed science to His chariot wheels, which roll for the furtherance of the Gospel. The Bishop wrote : " July 27th, 1893. " It may be cruel to inflict further pages of manuscript on you, but I hope and think it is not, because you must be habituated to it. Do not be scared when I assure you that I have not written a line of what at the beginning I intended to say. My first voyage this year was to Hazelton, and that braced me for those ths-t succeeded. All have 88 Snapshots from the North Pacific. been full of the goodness of the Lord. Nine times I have ascended the Skeena River by canoe : this time by steamer. The unexpected has happened. I thought the fierce rapids would baffle science, which has really scored a victory. Some of the rocky impediments have been removed by dynamite, but even now the struggle is fierce. The ship's speed of fourteen knots art hour allows her to drop astern hopelessly. In the swiftest places strong cables hooked to ring-bolts in the rocks are hove in on the steam, capstan, when slowly inch by inch science masters blind force and surmounts the down rush of the torrent. " But the swiftness is a difficulty rather than a peril. Not so the whirls and cross currents at the confluence of some of the largest tributaries. At these points skill and nerve are summoned to the contest, and exciting it really is. Let me try to describe one such. I was in the pilot house by permission. Charley, an Indian, is at the wheel, and the captain with his binocular surveying the water ahead. ' There she is, that nasty Copper river. What do you think of her, Charley ? ' asks the captain. But Charley deliberates as he gazes on the murky torrent sweeping into the lighter Skeena.. 'Black and white' is the best English he can muster to speak his thoughts. Like a dark arrow it sped into the main river, curving downwards at last until suddenly checked by some rocks which broke it into angry waves that danced past like a living frill of foam embracing them. We have to venture between this turbulent stream and those grim rocks. Slowly at half-speed we creep towards the difficulty, storing up power for use at the critical moment. Three strong men are stationed at the wheel, which controls three rudders close to the great stern paddle-wheel. The steam presses 1401bs. to the square inch. All is ready. Fenders hang over the bow and port. side. We edge up to the cross current and the signal is given, ' Full steam ahead.' The ship seems to leap into the torrent. Words now are useless, drowned by the dashing water's roar. The captain's jaws seem firmly looked together, his eye measuring the Perils by Water. 89 water's behaviour as well as his ship's. We appear to climb the torrent which breaks over the bow by tons per second, making the vessel lurch ominously. Sweeping through the water we shall soon overcome the difficulty. Indeed no. The rocks seem rushing on us. Really we are being swept towards them. What had looked like a frill of foam, now at close quarters looks like mad furies trying to engulph the panting ship. To avoid them the captain offers his port bow to the masterful current, and we are swept backward, almost brush- ing the rocks on our downward drift. Failure aumber one, but something learnt. We try again, and at last push beyond the roaring torrent and steam easily over a long reach of smooth water. Tongues wag again. The captain drops into a chair, mops his head and neck, looks round showing a face puckered by a smile and asks, ' Ain't she a beauty ? ' " Shortly after he is again struggling through what, he called ' the wickedest bit of all.' But the greater the struggle the greater the gain until wo attain our goal at Hazelton, where the old men, looking from the bank at the moored View of Ha/elton 90 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. pioneer of science, say to one another, ' It is time for us to "die.' They did not realize that a force greater than steam had reached them twelve years earlier by a frail canoe. Then the Spirit of the living God owned the work of His ministers, since which sixty souls have, we humbly hope, been con- verted ; more than that number having been baptized, and many entered into rest eternal. At first we had been objects of curiosity, then suspected, hated by the medicine fraternity, then respected, and now loved, when commerce has become an instrument and science a giant in making a highway for our God. " I had intended to bring down Mr. and Mrs. Field to the coast to assist at the canneries before they left for England in the autumn on furlough, but after hearing of the station work I fully agreed that they would do better to wait until a locum tenens could be found. I brought away with me an Indian girl for Missi Dickenson's home, the fourth from Hazelton. The poor child caught cold directly she reached the wet and chilly coast, and had to be nursed safely through a long and dangerous illness. Here it is that Miss Dickenson's skill as a trained nurse is of so much value. She is a most successful girls' home directress, keeping the girls together as no one else has been able to. I thank God for her devotion and liberality. " At intervals the steamer stops to load fuel from the long stacks of firewood cut by the Indians, and at every village. Wherever there are Indians I am recognized in a moment, and as the fuel is piled on the ship's deck I am dis- pensing medicine on the river's bank, surrounded by the sick or their attendants. Time is most precious, as the steamer cannot afford to linger. So the Indians press around me, pouring a clatter of woes into my ears. ' I have a hacking cough ; ' ' I have ulcers ; ' ' my eyes are nearly blind ; ' ' I want Epsom salts (maunum Kuldas) ; ' ' I want eye lotion ; ' ' give me ointment ; ' ' my child is dying ; ' ' look ! give lini- ment, all my joints are swollen ; ' ' this man's arm is broken ; ' ' my mother is withering ; ' ' my heart is sick ; ' Perils by Water. 91 etc., etc. I call out, ' Bring bottles, cups, cans, or any vessel at hand.' The wise who had them at hand are first served. With as much precision as under the circumstances is pos- sible, I dispense and direct as rapidly as I can, praying in my heart all the time. To each I try to speak, if but one word for Jesus. " Scream, scream goes the steamer's whistle. I look round in dismay, for many are still waiting anxiously. I roar at the top of my voice, ' Hold on, captain ; wait a bit/ Taking grace from the stopping of the whistle I work faster than ever. The captain is a man of heart and takes in the situation ; but time is precious, so at last the whistle screams again. I bundle the drugs into my convenient cassock, a sailor standing by picks up the medicine-chest and rushes for the ship. We are off and away from the downcast remnant, who are wailing because I left them without the help hoped for. God help them. The next business is to return bottles and pill boxes to their compartments, and once more I shall have eyes for the glorious work of the Creator. As I stand and gaze I see outlined on the face of Nature the forms of the sufferers, the withered limbs, the ophthalmic eyes, the hectic cheek, and foul ulcer. But time slowly dims the vision. Insensibly it fades, displaced by the infinite completeness and splendour of the scene as if displayed on a canvas hung out from heaven. " We steam along almost under the branches of the tall cotton-wood trees, their spring verdure reflected in the mirror that bears us on its surface. The leafage of the birch and maple brush our smoke stack. Across the river, from the fringe of tender herbage to the forest-clad foot- hills, and beyond to the pinnacled background, built up of lofty, snow-clad, cloud-tipped mountains, the glory of the Lord is revealed, arid one's heart is ravished with it. But memory sketches features of faces, each line traced by un- alleviated suffering despite all the inspirations of Nature. The contrast starts a train of thought that ends in a sigh. " A bend in the river gives a fresh direction to these 92 Snapshots from the North Pacific. reflections. Here stands another village, the smoke ascend- ing from many an Indian lodge, and there rising above them is the symbol of our redemption. What are all the voices of Nature to the voice from the cross of Christ? That tells of sympathy with suffering, hope for the 1 elpless, and escape from sin. This small cross reveals another world, creates a higher joy, speaks a language of its own, understood as well by the Indian who worships under it as by me who just before was only concerned with the skirts of His glorious clothing that He stripped off to wear our nature and die for both alike. " Here is a native teacher and one of my old boys as Exterior of a Heathen Chief's House. Perils by Water. 93 schoolmaster, both of them members of the tribe they are striving to save. Twelve years ago I left there a Zimshian teacher I brought from Metlakatla. Now the Native Church has produced its own first stage of .ministry. Three adults during the winter were prepared by them for baptism and are now baptized. . Others are coming forward. There was not a single Christian in the nation among any of the tribes when I first saw them ; now though only a few are found it is rare to find any body of Indians without some Christians among them. On the coast from the Skeena to the Naas Heathenism has been conquered by the Cross, and a similar process is in progress in the interior. " Is it not an unspeakable joy that heaven is nearer and brighter to them than their sunlit mountains ? The sense of this abides as tempest and calm succeed each other. The word of the Lord that is turning light on dark souls will endure when river, forest, and mountains shall have passed away, and the heavens overhead be rolled up as a scroll. Then shall the full glory of the Lord be revealed, and the immortal fruit of our mortal endeavours be His joy and crown. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen." The history of another stormy voyage is given in the next letter, written in December, 1893, but the disappoint- ment Avhich it entailed must have been, to the Bishop, the most serious part of it. After much careful preparation, the Chief Sheuksh was pronounced ready for baptism, and he earnestly wished that the Bishop would come from Metlakatla, and admit him into the visible Church of Christ before Christmas Day. The attempt was made with what results will be seen : " How to get there is the difficulty. Not that the distance is great not farther than from the Isle of Wight to Cherbourg, or from Holyhead to Dublin. The difficulty springs from the inclemency of the winter, and the exposure in a cockle-shell of an open boat, though I ought not to disparage my Rescue. But really nineteen feet by five feet 94 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. eight beam does look small in a gale of wind in the open sea. Just try it, my friends, across the strip of twenty-one miles from Dover to Calais, any day in December. We are here in yet a higher latitude, where winds are just as wilful, and waves as high. I am getting up in years, only lately convalescent, and too matter-of-fact to love risks and revel in tempest as in my younger days. " Without exciting opposition by expressing the intention of trying to go, I quietly got things ready. What con- cerned me most was the leakiness of the Rescue through being laid up in a loft for the winter. The wind and frost had opened her seams, and for at least the first day afloat she would leak through every seam like a sieve. As soon as I was forced to divulge my secret intention, my wife's solo soon changed to a full chorus of dissuasiveness. She said, ' Tis madness ; ' they said, ' You ought not to think of such a thing.' She said, ' Don't go ; ' they said, 'Wait a little while.' What she further said I may not say, because I should not shine in the controversy. I never tried to argue, because I knew my arguments would in a moment be torn to shreds. I had my eye on a good crew of light, wiry Indians, a good little tent of No. 1 canvas, and provisions for a fortnight, in case of being driven by contrary winds into the woods. " Perhaps you do not realize that, with the mercury any- where below zero, every drop of spray is frozen as it pelts you, and all the water from the crests of the waves, or perco- lating through the leaky seams, freezes in the bottom of the boat, steadily increasing her displacement, and diminishing her freeboard, which adds to our discomfort in choppy seas, and danger in tide rips. The solitary advantage of the icy wind is, that, being from the north, it is fair, which makes it just possible to sail from point of departure to destination in one day, between dawn and nightfall. " As long as it lasts, however, we cannot return ; and if we should be detained days or weeks, as we may be, our chief occupation is felling for fuel the forest trees, and our only Perils by Water. 95 comfort burning them night and day till the wind changes. How delightful, say my juvenile friends. Well, yes, they would enjoy it for half a day, perhaps until they began to get blue when sent, axe in hand, to find a frozen streamlet, and chop out a big block of fresh water ice to make the coffee for breakfast ! Then thaw out the bread and butter. Look out on the sea ! It is steaming like a geyser. Take a bath if you dare. You would come out coated with ice, and must dress before you could be thawed. Indeed, you must wash your face with circumspection, first, because water is scarce, and then, because you could only dry yourself on the side facing the crackling logs. People don't wash much in camp in the interior with the thermometer, say, twenty degrees below zero, ai.d a northerly blizzard. Neither do they undress, but coil up in all the blankets procurable on trying to sleep. Among the big trees, however, the fierce wind is not much felt, but the snow comes down from the branches in patches flop into your frying-pan, or on your neck. This is worse after a calm, when the tongues of flame loosen the overhead snow from the branches. It is only delightful to read about. When it smothers a man who looked happy as he gazed into the fire, his countenance changes, and, though he tries to grin after the first surprise, he does not really like it. It does not hurt him. Cold weather is a tonic, but has its drawbacks. " On the very day when I had intended to call my crew to fix terms there was a most unexpected cry of ' steam- boat! ' Like the snow falling into a camp fire, my plans dissolved, and at mid-day I was on board an ugly sloth of a steamship bound for Kincolith, thence to the Queen Charlotte Island, and thence back to Metlakatla. The captain was kind, nnd considerately agreed to return via Kitkatla, only half a day's divergence from his proper course, and to give me two hours on shore to baptize the chief. This involved a round trip of 360 miles instead of from fifty to sixty and back, dependent on the course taken by the Rescue, but I regarded this change of plans as providential, and therefore eagerly came to terms. 96 Snapshots from the North Pacific. " Away from the wharf we proudly sailed, for the sea was smooth in the inner harbour. On hour brought us face to face with a strong northerly wind and swell. The old tub made her obeisance to the sea with low curtsies, but Neptune was implacable. We pitched, and kept pitching into the sea, but the longer it lasted the fiercer the battle, and the worse we fared. The sun was setting arid we were still struggling. The elements were winning ; we were drifting astern after all our efforts. ' About ship ! ' was the word. Look out everybody ! Won't she roll in the trough of the sea! So she did, to the clatter of crockery and the smashing of the companion rails by the shifting of the deck load. Back again to the outer harbour of Metla- katla, where, three miles further in, blinked, the lights, the only sign of the town, for darkness had fallen on us. Off came some canoes, and in them returned the Indian passengers, who had had enough pitching and rolling for the year. Nearly all of them had been sea-sick. " Before daylight next morning we weighed anchor and again strove to proceed to Kincolith, but the gale would not suffer us for it had increased in violence. Once more we put aboutship and headed for Queen Charlotte's Island. What a dismal day we had ! The wind abeam enabled us to carry a little sail to steady the ship, but with her heavy tophamper she so rocked in the cradle of the deep that some feared the creaking old thing would roll too far over. No meal could be served that day. I jammed myself in a recess of the pantry and managed to drink a basin of soup and eat a chunk of bread. Then I robbed some unoccupied berths of their pillows, and with them contrived in my own berth a sleepy hollow, where once made snug, I spent the rest of the day reading, admiring the all-round correction of ' Working Substitutes,' by his Grace of Canterbury, and the doctrinal tracery of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, in their recent charges. " It was quite dark before we moored at Skidegate, a distance of rather more than 100 miles from JMetlakatla. Perils by Water. 97 All night through the steam winch whirred as we discharged cargo and loaded a new one. The snow was here said to be five feet deep. It snowed all night, so that what it was when we left could only be guessed. Next morning we reached a harbour forty-five miles to the southward, called Clue. Again unloading and loading day and night. The next day the wind shifted and blew hard, so that we dared not leave our moorings. The next night it ceased not till six in the morning, when it moderated. " Now then, at last, we are off in the direction of Kitkatla, with a strong beam wind, but a heavy sea. Before the island shores astern of us sank below the western horizon, we sighted the tops of the mainland mountains peeping over the eastern, but set in a saffron sky betokening foul weather. Slowly, but defiantly, the wind backed to the eastward, roll- ing up before it a heavy swell, precursor of a fresh gale in store for us. The foresail shook, and was stowed ; higher and higher rose the swell, until the ship's way nearly ceased. There stood the mountain behind Kitkatla. I could locate the village to a nicety, but my hopes of seeing it that day faded. The captain beckoned to me. I knew what he wanted, because I had worked out the problem myself with the fateful elements. ' Very sorry, Bishop, I can't make Kitkatla.' ' I have known this, captain/ I said, ' for some time, and thank you for your goodwill in trying.' " From Monday to Friday I have endured this useless tossing, and the loss of precious time, and now when my destination was almost reached, and the joy of admitting Sheuksh into Christ's Church by baptism, filled my heart, the one word, ' starboard/ spoken to the man at the wheel, filled me with keen disappointment. I grudged this victory to the wind and waves, and found a grim kind of satisfaction in making up my mind to go to Kitkatla by my own Rescue as soon as possible. " For the present our old ship was driven before the wind, until just as darkness began to thicken around us, we came to a sheltering bay, and rode all night at anchor, with the 98 Snapshots from the North Pacific. heavy gusts evoking shrill music from the rigging. At day- break we weighed anchor, headed for Kincolith, and anchored off the village about nine o'clock next morning, Sunday, having had a rapid passage before a fair wind. " I was assured of three hours ashore, and after receiving a large number of Indians, and settling some diocesan affairs with Archdeacon Collison, I was in the pulpit preaching in Zimshian to a crowded congregation. How I then grieved over the loss of the capacious new church by fire! The drip from the roof drove me out of the pulpit. I stood outside it, and during my sermon shifted my position again and again to avoid the water dropping from the ceiling. Poor lawn sleeves, how your pride is humbled ! And the satin in the rear, how its beauty is departed ! I do hope the Archdeacon's friends will promptly help him to build a new church not for my sake, oh no ! but for the poor people made destitute by the destroying fire. Before I returned to the ship the Archdeacon expressed his 1 great thankfulness, because what I had said in my sermon was, he thought, as a message from God, to set at rest some hurt- ful ideas among the more ignorant and fanatical part of his people, which had caused him much uneasiness. I began to see why I had not gone to< Kitkatla ; had I done so I could not have reached Kincolith on Sunday. " At mid-day we sailed for Fort Simpson and arrived at evening service time, but found the rector there so ill of la grippe that he could not take any service. Here is another reason for missing Kitkatla, for I was able to spend many hours at Fort Simpson. On Monday, just a week after sailing from Metlakatla, I returned, having done what I had not intended to do, and left undone what I meant to do, showing how man proposes and Gk>d disposes." The chief was baptized by the Rev. F. L. Stephenson just before Christmas Day, CHAPTER IX. VISITATION WORK. "Unseen a life divine Is felt to intertwine Their hopes with God's design." IN" 1894 the Bishop and Mrs. Ridley came to England, returning The Saw Mill, Alyansh (See pages 108-111). to the Mission in May, 1895. The health of the latter was failing by this time, and the days were not far distant when, for her, earthly toils would be over. A long letter from the Bishop gives an account of a journey he undertook as soon as he reached his diocese. " Metlakatla, July llth, 1805. " Yesterday I returned from a round trip to the Skeena River, and feel disposed to give you some account of it. Four weeks from sailing from Liverpool we steamed into the Skeena on the 6th of June, twenty-eight miles from home. It was a clear morning, and before sunrise 1 I opened the port. The little bits of cloud set in the calm sky at dawn might have been gates of pearl. As Chatham Sound opened up, the sierra of the Western Isles was steeped 100 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. with radiance by the rising sun, which was concealed from our view by the adjacent eastern heights. " My dear invalid was lying in the lower berth, and could not see the blushing sunrise ; but without knowing we were near the river, recovered in from my rhapsody by saying, ' I smell the Skeena and feel better. I must get up.' ' Wait a little, the Claxton wharf is not more than nine miles distant/ She really did revive, and much more so when Mrs. Gurd came on board at Claxton to see her and tell of all the good news. But she soon became weary. " Both Mr. and Mrs. Gurd looked fagged by the long winter work at Laklan, chief Sheuksh's home among his Kitkatlas. We spent a whole day in the Skeena, and next morning were warmly welcomed at Metlakatla at three o'clock. After seeing my wife, Miss West and Miss Tyte safely landed, I re-embarked and went on to the Naas River to bring back the Archdeacon, and next day we opened a very pretty church at Fort Simpson, on the spot where the Gospel was first preached in this district by our missionaries thirty-seven years ago. Then all was dark and savage. " Next came the C.M.S. Conference, and my heart glowed with praise for all the gracious showers of blessing on all our workers. I praised them too for their faithful labours during my year's absence, for they richly deserved it. I wish you could have listened to our brethren's wonderful stories of the victories of the Cross over Heathenism. At these conferences there is no restraint. I get the cream. It cannot be sent by post. We ought to have a steno- grapher to save the words that come from the speakers' lips. This would fix the richness of local colouring and prevent the revision that only polishes away the soul from off the sentences new-born from glowing hearts. You know the Indians say the soul is not contained within, but is shadowlike ; and the spirit is as the fragrance of a flower within and without. " The break up of the Conference left me in clerical and Visitation Work. 101 medical charge of Metlakatla with three sick Haidas in the hospital. Happily Miss Tybe has had some training in nursing, and volunteered to take temporary charge of the patients with me as an amateur physician. After I had discharged two of the patients I decided to pay a visit to all the canneries on the Skeena and see how our brethren fared. " So the Rescue was launched and left at her moorings two days, to tighten her leaky seams. At 4.30 a.m. on the third day I drew my blind up. A light breeze sprang up, and away we slowly sailed for a couple of hours. The srea was like a mirror and the sun scorching. Fortunately I had on board my wife's old garden hat with broad brims. In this I cut two holes and passed through them a piece of twine, tying it under my chin to keep the structure on my head. Of course I couldn't tie it without tying in part of my beard, which hurt me almost as much as the clutching of it by baby fingers when I baptize the lively ones. I wore this thing without remembering what I had on, and a lady who saw me thus hatted regretted she had not a Kodak ! I am rather glad she hadn't, or you might have had my poor picture to illustrate this page. " The monotony of our passage was relieved by the frequent bobbing up of gentle-eyed seals ; the salmon leap- ing, and splashing, and glistening lustrously ; the porpoises rolling lazily along as if on strike ; eagles wheeling in great circles or descending like a flash into the water, and strenuously rising out of the sea with their talons gripping a salmon whose weight taxed the bird's strength to the utmost till it reached the bar. There I counted nineteen of them feasting together on their prey later in the day. " Away ahead stood two rocky islets which, when we neared them, became alive with white wings and grey. The sea-fowl, mostly gulls, screamed in myriads, ' Let us land,' said I. What an uproar ! ' Lots of eggs/ said my Zirn- shian, as we clambered up. It was a pleasant change to all but the birds. Better still, we espied from the top a 102 Snapshots from the North Pacific. blue line on the sea, a proof of a coming breeze. So we hurried back to the boat, and before we could push off the cat's-paw reached us. How it cooled our brows ! My broad brims shaded me from the sun's direct rays, but their reflections from the sea-mirror came up from the deep to tan us. Indians used to believe that spirits lived under water, and during storms, especially in a tide race, caused the trouble. Here was a sun-god, as fishlike as Dagon, bathing in the calm deep, but the breeze brings him to the surface. The light sparkling on the waves in the lino of the sun they call shium giamuk, or the feet of the sun. " The only sound now breaking the ocean silence since we parted from the birds was from the wavelets lapping against the bow of the boat and the creaking boom. We lapsed into silence. I was steering. Near me sat the Haida counting eggs, and beyond sat the Zimshian, one of my former pupils who had lived under my roof nearly eight years. ' May I read ? ' he asked. ' Certainly,' I replied. He was absorbed, ' Let me hear what you read ; what is it?' Turning the back of the octavo towards me he said, ' Pearson on the Creed. I am reading the second article.' So there we were borne slowly along on the broad Pacific by the gentle breath of heaven, while an Indian, whose parents had been Heathen, read with intelligence to 1m Bishop the proofs that ' Jesus is Lord ' and ' our ' Lord ! He would occasionally stop to ask the meaning of hard words, such as 'presage,' ' invalid,' ' economical,' ' immarces- sible.' Suddenly looking up, he asked, ' What is the differ- ence between attrition and contrition?' 'Why do you ask? It is not on that page.' ' Oh, I came to them in my reading some time ago, and my dictionary said both meant "rubbing." I couldn't understand it.' 'Well,' said I, ' attrition .moans fooling a little sorry about some bad thing : contrition is real sorrow for felt sin.' ' Ah, one is the crying of the eyes, the other of the heart.' I assented. ' What are thc> tripods of Vulcan ? ' ' What ? ' I exclaimed. ' The Visitation Work. 103 tripods of Vulcan.' ' TYipods of Vulcan,' I muttered; ' tripods of Vulcan ; a lame dog on three legs. Anything on three legs is a tripod. Vulcan was one of the gods of whom poets wrote nonsense. Let me see the book.' I found he had been dipping into Pearson's Notes, and was puzzled, as was I until I saw them. Then memory recovered. As I handed back the book I looked round and then said, ' The wind dies ; let us row.' So we stowed our sail and our studies together and found relief in our oars. Many of my grey-bearded readers would have done the same if they happened to be in a boat with Pearson on the Creed and an inquiring youth catechizing them on his Notes. " It was a very gloomy evening, and getting dark when we arrived. We all had intended to spread our blankets on the church floor, as my men did, but Mrs. Ardagh kindly insisted on giving me some supper and offered me a bed. Her Chinese cook, a recent convert, hearing of my arrival, hurried back to the house and seconded his mistress's endeavour to show me hospitality. Not until my men we.re asleep, and too late to go off to my anchored-out boat for my blankets, did I find I was turning the Chinaman out of his bed. I felt a sort of shiver as I lay down, but the conversation I had with him reconciled me to my situation. " The lamp was on thci floor, and the man, standing with his back to the wall, had his face lighted up. What a study it was ! He is a comely Celestial, with a plump oval face and almond-shaped eyes full of liquid light and sympathy. I sat on the edge of the bed, the only seat in the room, listening with grateful delight to his broken but burning words. Would that I could reproduce them in full ! He described his visits as a Christian with another Chines Christian to the China-house, as we call the ugly buildings the Chinese crowd into for the fishing season. ' I pray long time,' he said. ' I read book of God. I read Luke to them, 15th chapter to-night. They hear it all ; they smoke, they lie down, they hear all the time, they speak not. Then we sing hymn in China words, then plenty sing ; they sing 104 Snapshots frotn the North Pacific. hard. You know, Bishop, Chinaman not much know God. Some know little, plenty not know nothing. China country dark, very dark.' So he ended in a slow, serious manner of speaking as if he remembered how the darkness felt. Then he opened wide his arms till they touched the wall he stood against, and began to try to express God's all-embracing love. He looked as saintly as artist ever painted. There was a far-offness in his eyes ; his lips parted as if unable to express the feeling flooding his soul. Had I been a French- man I would have sprung to my feet and embraced him as he tried and tried to tell me how much God loved dark China, ' Oh, you know, you know, Bishop.' Then, bringing his extended arms together, he clasped himself to show how God had lifted him out of darkness into light. Relapsing again from his rapid utterances to slow, solemn tones, he said, ' I know God, I love God, I love God very much.' " What a sight it was ! I could hardly restrain myself from saying, ' And I love you.' I spoilt it by saying, ' I am very glad you know and love God.' I think my voice by its tone expressed more than the poor words. I hope so God's grace makes all races lovable. I could not but reverence this Chinese servant because of his beautiful confession. I kept awake many hours meditating on the transforming power of this grace and love. I no longer envied my men the church floor. " The Chinaman waited on me most assiduously, and I found on embarking that he had prepared for my dear invalid a delicacy, because, as he said, Mrs. Ridley ' not eat too much/ meaning that she had a very poor appetite. His last words were to commend my new Chinese servant to my sympathy, saying, ' He know God only very much little, but by-an'-by know Him more and be very good Chinaman/ His great object was to stimulate me to take a spiritual interest in my servant. " Away we went, rowing out of the river with the remain- ing ebb tide and into the offing, until by close sailing we Visitation Work. 105 could lay on our proper course back to Metlakatla,, thank- ful for all God had shown us." The following letter, dated Metlakatla, January 17th, 1896, is a long one, and is particularly graphic in its descrip- tion of ithe Indians. It contains an account of the Bishop's visitation, and of the steady advance which he found along the entire line. " No missionary can be dull among the Zimshian Indians, unless failing in his duty he keeps them at arm's length. Whore they give their confidence they give no rest. They have an alertness of mind and purpose which forbids stag- nation. This is my seventeenth year among them, and yet I rarely pass a day without hearing something of interest or being presented with some strange problem to puzzle over. . . . When news of the Ku-cheng massacres came, how pitifully these Indians ?t our daily prayers besought the Lord to have mercy on the Chinese ! ' Say again, dear Jesus, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Oh, gracious Spirit, Thou art not quenched by blood. Let it make Thy garden soil strong to grow Chinese believers in.' " At home great orators are rare whose lips drop wisdom ; the rest of us tremble with self-consciousness when forced to hem and haw. Out here all adult Indians, like the fear- less wild flowers everywhere, blossom out at a moment's notice in ready and florid speech with becoming modesty. I do not deny the inconvenience of this fine gift when the listener's time is precious, or his breakfast interrupted through its exercise. For instance, this very morning twenty-six Kitkatlas (counting, like them, the small boy as nobody) were just about to embark in their canoe, when, as an afterthought, the chief, Sheuksh, sent up a few of his leading men to ask some questions and obtain a written introduction to a distant band of Indians they were about to visit, as I shall relate. " The breakfast begun must wait. We are not here to eat, but to work. Having satisfied my untimely visitors, 106 Snapshots from the North Pacific. I returned to chilled coffee and porridge to finish it while discussing with my Indian churchwarden, who had just then come in, how to go on with the church roof repairs now that two of the sheets of zinc had sunk in deep water between the ship and the wharf. On the entrance of the bride of the week he withdrew. Three Kitikshans from the Skeena River awaited her departure to ask for my sanction to a new branch of the diocesan Church Army. Every detail must be gone over. To urge brevity increases prolixity. " This is the way they proceeded after a respectful pre- face : ' Chief, the work of God is no light thing. All parts are weighty. Small things are parts of large things. Little things differ not from large in things of God. God makes no difference. If otherwise thou wilt explain. In our ignorance so we think, but thou art older and wiser than we. What thou sayest we will do. Now listen, chief.' Of course I listen. " Among other greater things such questions as these were put, ' When praying in the street must we kneel when it is muddy ? ' ' Look out for the clean spots,' was my reply. ' We will never look on strong drink, but must we give up tobacco 1 ' ' I do not smoke ; you are free men. Drunkards do not enter heaven. Nothing is said about smokers. I cannot afford it.' ' Now, chief, we ask no trivial questions. When we are ready to burst with emotion may we find relief in crying out in church " Amen," or " Alleluia " 1 ' This I saw to be Salvationist infection, ancl asked, 'Do you know the meaning of those words?' 'No.' ' Then don't say words without meaning. God looks for sense from men and noise from dogs. Say aloud the responses for relief.' ' May women preach in a loud voice on the streets?' 'Yes, if they speak wisely.' 'Then, why not in church ? ' ' Because St. Paul says " No." ; ' Suppose men on the street laugh at us ? ' ' Pay no heed.' ' Suppose they make a row in our house-meeting ? ' ' Turn them out.' 'May we appoint men to do this?' 'Yes, the strong and good-tempered ones.' Visitation Work. 107 " While this colloquy was going on there came in one of our lady workers for consultation, and before concluding the doctor came on business. He departed as an Indian entered to explain that he gave his wife a black eye in play by accident. She agreed, and I found it was true. Only once, and then in the delirium of fever, have I known an Indian strike a woman, and then, though blameless, his fellows degraded him from his chief -constableship. " A widow has just one word to say. ' Chief, Thunder wants to marry me. What do you think 1 ' ' Well/ said 1, ' do you love him 1 ' 'I hardly know.' ' Does he love you ? ' 'I hardly know.' ' Then don't.' ' Chief, I won't.' " When I resolved to write to you, the two main ideas wore to exhibit the spiritual energy of our new converts and also the spiritual activity of our younger Indians of the second generation, baptized in infancy and trained as Christians. The latter we have no right to expect to be more zealous than the corresponding class at home. But we shall see. " As I write I am constantly interrupted by Indians. Since I wrote the last paragraph an Indian entered. Ex- communicate for a long time, she is now penitent. I could read her deepest thoughts almost at a glance. She poured out her eoul in burning words. ' I last night knelt before God confessing my sin after five months' misery in the dust. God knows all, and you know part of my shame.' ' Yes,' said I, ' do not tell me more. I know enough. I know also the cleansing power of Jesus' blood on all sin.' She began again by saying that the whole day would be too short to tell of all her sin. There she broke down. I said the comfortable words in the Communion Service, and by God's own Word ministered absolution to this broken heart. Recovering her composure she said, ' There are crumbs for dugs ; one has dropped from your lips, and I find it sweet to my heart sweet, sweet.' She quite broke down again, but found relief in tears. I knelt beside her and prayed, then rose, took her hand, .and said softly, ' The Lord hath 108 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. The Saw-Mill. pub away thy sin ; go and sin no more.' By this time she has reached her home I think, restored, forgiven. You will not mind this digression I hope. Now I can confidently say that in this whole community, where we have eighty-six communicants, there is not a single dhankard, thief, or unclean person. Ever since I returned from England I have prayed for this one now standing in God's light, her withered heart absorbing it. Glory be to God ! " My last visitation was complete excluding Massett, which I could not find means to reach. I have travelled more during the last half-year than in any previous year. " Arriving at Aiyansh, on the Naas River, after inspect- ing the Indians' steam saw-mill on the opposite shore two miles below, I climbed up the steep bank, expecting to find Aiyansh as I last saw it, but it was nowhere to be found. I stood in speechless amazement. All things had become new. Instead of the old narrow trail in front of a single row of huts I saw fine broad roads, with really beautiful cottages dotted about, set in the lovely autumnal foliage, Visitation Work. 109 each with a large garden separating house from house so widely that a fire in one could not damage its next neighbours. " The little old Mission-house, built, I think, and furnished by Mr. McCullagh himself, was quite lost amidst the well- planned adjuncts. Within and without it is now a perfect model. I wish I had such a dwelling, and see why we must not covet our neighbour's house. " The house stands close to the river's bank. Looking from it northward, the lofty mountains hedge in the inter- vening rich plain called Aiyansh, meaning evergreen ; before me stretched the long new road ending at the church under construction. It has a deep, broad ditch on either side, from which the soil cast up makes a roadway that must be always dry. The trees, hewn into square sills, lie on the ground ready for making the side walk. It is, I think, or will be, the best piece of road-making in the diocese. The women did it all of their own free will to make it easier for ; "Grist for the Mill." 110 Snapshots from the North Pacific. men to go to church Remember, women are not drudges here to the men. " On the east side of the church, if my bearings are correct, stands the prettiest school-house I have seen. The interior arrangements and external decorations of all these new build- ings, private and public, expressed the ideas of a single mind. Visitation Work. Ill 3* View of Aiyansh. It is a model village, planned by an artist's eye and pleasing in every feature. It expresses the thought of a Christian, the civilization that springs from the resurrection, apart from which in our day solid progress is impossible. Let those who deny it disprove it. They lack the motive power for experimenting, and discharge thedr theories, like blank cartridge, into our camp harmlessly. " The Indians themselves bear the entire cost of this material advance. The saw-mill is theirs, and they alone work it. All is done by them excepting what Mr. McCullagh does in designing and superintending. Not one penny of C.M.S. money has been spent excepting on the first Mission- house. The Government gave a grant to the school, and the S.P.C.K., I hope, will grant 50 towards the church. All the rest is done by the people on the spot. Nor is this a singular instance ; it is the rule. " In travelling on the river I stop at every village. In the 112 Snapshots from the North Pacific. Christian villages one meets troops of healthy, well-clad children who fearlessly meet our gaze. The dwellings are either new or in good repair, and full of modern furniture ; the gardens fenced in ; the roads not mere tracks. One sees signs of comfort, cleanliness, and ambition ; one hears the school-bell and whir of the sewing machine, and after the day's work is done music right and left, unless drowned by the volume of sound from the public hall, where the band practises each week-day evening almost all the winter through. " The Heathen are dirty, ragged, dispirited, and jealous of the Christians. To avoid treading in filth one must walk on the crooked trails with circumspection. The children stand at a distance huddled together. I have seen two, even in the biting blast of winter, wrapped in a single piece of blanket, their only covering! The houses are rotting, propped up, and patched. Squalid within and dismal without, they truly show the moral and physical condition of their ignorant and superstitious inhabitants. These cling with a passionate resolve to the yaok, or potlach. ' That is our mountain,' say they, ' our only joy, dearer than life. To prison and death we will go rather than yield.' Yet this is their ruin. It is impossible to heighten the contrast between the Christless and the Christian people of the same tribes. Great is our present reward in seeing the elevating, as well as saving, effects of a pure Gospel. The things endured in the process are forgotten in the joy that abideth. " The spiritual state of the Christians compares most favourably with that of the whites. We missionaries know each member of the community intimately, and grieve at any lapse from a standard that would be impossible at home. These Aiyansh people and those of Kincolith, Christians of much older standing, are zealous in extending the Gospel. A band of volunteer preachers from each place go among the Kitikshans over the winter trail for a hundred miles each way at their own charges. No one sends them or pays them, nor have they any other object in going than to preach Visitation Work. 113 114 Snapshots from the North Pacific. the Gospel. This test* their devotion and self-denial in great reality. Nor are these itinerations without fruit, as I will now show. " In July, 1895, I was visiting the upper Skeena, and some Indians from Gishgagas, sixty miles north-east from Hazelton, who had heard those preaching itinerants, begged me to send them a teacher ; and to impress me more with their need, got some one to send me a written petition from nineteen chiefs and principal men. " After treating it as Hezekiah did the Assyrian's letter, I thought it right to rely on the money specially contributed by some friends of the Society for extension work. At Hazelton was Mr. E. Stephenson, who had been locum tenens for the Rev. J. Field for the past year. He had done well in the language, and now had. been working in the Society's Missions in the diocese about three years. As soon as I asked if he could venture on so arduous and distant a work, he said he was ready to go anywhere he was sent, and do his best at anything he was required to try. I bid him go and God-speed. There he is now alone, sternly enfolded by the strong arms of the most violent winter we have had for many years. The Gishgagas tribe is the flower of the Kitikshan nation, and I hope will soon be won for Christ. ' Speak vnto the children of Israel that they go forward.' " Last Friday the mail steamer arrived from the south at four o'clock, and brought news picked up by the way of Sheuksh's death. A cartridge swept into the fire, exploded, it was said, and hit him fatally in the forehead. I was so grieved that my thoughts turned to a visit of condolence to his tribe. At six o'clock two Ki f katlas came just as we were about to sit down to dinner and announced the arrival of the chief. It sounded ghostly. I went and found him standing outside the door. Taking him by the hand, I led him bodily in and gave him a seat at my table. I said to his crowd of followers, ' The chief will eat with me ; provi- sion will be made for vou elsewhere. You will meet the Visitation Work. 115 116 Snapshots from the North Pacific. chief at prayers.' I found that four men had been injured by gunpowder on New Year's Day. " Sheuksh behaved as if he had been born to the use of knife and fork. As soon as I had told him of the false report of his death, he said, ' The steamer is at the wharf. If you will write I will send a letter to my brother chiefs to turn away their grief for my death.' So in the interval be- tween dinner and prayers, he dictated these words : (Trans- lation.) ' Be not sorrowful ; I am not dead, most certainly not. I salute you in the name of Jesus. Further I say this, I am on my voyage of reconciliation to Lakgagugwalum- amsh. Greet all the brethren and all the chiefs, I pray you. Carefully lead your people into ithe way of God. W. E. G. SHEUKSH.' " Last month I spent some days among the Kitkatlas, going by the steamer that was bound there, for a wonder, and returned by a hired sailing boat. On board the steamer I met an accomplished man on his way to Victoria, and greatly appreciated his society. He was a professor travel- ling for the furtherance of science. Before we arrived at Kitkatla he told me he had visited all the Presbyterian Missions in Alaska and the Missions of the Methodists and of the Church along the coast in this diocese. After very careful inspection he came to the conclusion that our system is the best for the natives, as it elevated them all round, besides taking special pains in education. I was not aware he was a Methodist at the time, and value his testimony the more highly because unlikely to lean in our favour. Great was his surprise as we first saw the Kitkatla village. Only about half of it could be seen from the ship's deck, and yet there in sight stood twenty-four new houses being built, and on a spur in a fine situation stood the frame of a sub- stantial church roofed in, and men busy working at it. I grant I was highly pleased, but my companion was profuse in his admiration. ' Such a sight I never saw,' said he ; ' that is astonishing ! ' In a short time the Kitkatlas came off in great numbers. ' Wh-it fine fellows these are I I Visitation Work. 117 never saw such a bustling set of Indians in my life. I con- gratulate you, Bishop.' These and many more such appre- ciative remarks were made by my friend the professor, which were fairly deserved by what he saw. " Many were my engagements while there, among them the confirmation of twenty-eight adults. " These Kitkatlas are the best hunters in the province. On their return from otter-hunting they hung up three of the best otter skins in the old church as a thankoffering to God. They sold for 50 apiece. Besides this they sub- scribed nearly $700, or 140, for the new church, and are giving their labour without wages in its erection. In addi- tion, they collected cash to buy food for the builders, and the women cooked it for them. " What a life these people lead their missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Gurd ! They are not expected to be ever tired, or resting, or doing anything that is not for them and the work among thorn. The great stress would quickly kill men in tropical climates. Happily this is exceptionally fine. " You now understand how they can start off on a long canoe voyage, spending at least a fortnight away from home, and that in the very depth of a severe winter unusually stormy in order to obey what they felt a call from God. They are the same men who about ten years ago burnt down the church, drove away the missionary, and blasphemed the sacred Name. ' Old things are passed -away ; all things have become new.' " Scholars at Fort Simpson (See pa has had a year's medical training and is a tried linguist, an offer of service. He had read my letters in the February G. M . Intelligencer, and at once wrote to me stating that if I agree he will go to the Stikine Indians this summer. Having found all I could to satisfy me of his fitness I have told him to go and to expect to see me aftoir him in August next, if he cannot wait till then #n the sea -coast. He is animated with a burning desire to devote himself to those poor degraded and sinned against Indians. He was ordained to an English curei of souls, but having (in 1892, I think) heard me speak at Plymouth of the work in my diocese he felt called to the Mission-field, went as far as the Province of Ruperfcsland, gaining valuable experi- ence, and now goes to the farthest west as a pioneer, a most honourable distinction. " Do my readers perceive how it has all comet about? It 142 Snapshots from the North Pacific. is an instance of a seed falling into the earth, dying, and then bringing forth fruit. It is life out of death ; the outcome of sacrifice. Until she died who with me sought the Lord on behalf of those* long-neglected Indians, the door seemed barred tightly and could not be darkened by the shadow of the mis- sionary of Christ. Now that on earth her prayers are ended the door is opening. I have lately received a pathetic petition from the Indiana begging for a teacher. His feet will be thither tending and soon, I hopei, will pass the threshold. " Is it not a sign of life out of death ? It may be life through the interest of a higher life. If she can read the heart of Him which was pierced for these Indians, it may be as in a mirror that can only reflect the pure and good, she sees His plans and glories in them with adoration, just as we below, tracing His will through His works, bow down in blessed hope. " I likei to think a missionary whose earthly toil is over may still in spirit remain one as long as there is an unsaved soul on earth, and then with the angels share in the rejoicing over the last penitent when the number of God's elect shall be accomplished. Then the interest in the salvation of sinners may be swallowed up in the greater joy of welcoming the home- coming of the last trophy of the Cross, the complete triumph of the Redeemer. " This should be the Church's aim, for she is the appointed agency to effect it up to the point in time when Christ's re- entrance on the scene of His humiliation will magnificently complete in person what He is now by His Spirit enabling us to do in extending His Kingdom. " This forward movement to the Stikine is to hasten this glorious consummation. It is a small part of a perfect whole in which each member of Christ's body is privileged to claim a share. What if Arctic cold clasps the river, the .mountains, and valleys, in icy folds ! Christ's ambassador will not be bound. His feet will be free, his voice heard over the awful silences telling of his Lord's great pity for his lov>ed, but too long neglected, Indian brother and sister. A Memorial Mission. 143 " I shall think of the solitary man of God and plead his wants daily before the Throne. So can my readers with equal effect. Think of him toiling over that far-off, lone land of distances ! What faith in his Master's word ; what hope of winning against all odds ; what love for wandering, sin-stained, and unlovely souls ! He will be, of all in my vast diocese, the most out of touch with all on earth that the average man counts precious as life and absolutely necessary to it. To visit him from my house at Metlakatla the probability is that I shall often have to sail 560 miles to Victoria to embark on the American steamer to Alaska, 700 miles distant, then proceed up the river 180 miles to the head of navigation, and then walk I know not how far. Then comes the returning, so that the total distance travelled to see him and his work may be 2,500 miles ! Yes, God's road-makers must work without stint in making His path straight. " So far as the journey is concerned the> enterprising traveller might well be satisfied. The river scenery itself is very striking from end to end ; but the first fifty miles is unique in my experience. The course of the river is nearly at right angles to the three great ranges of mountains it cuts through the Rockie,s, the Selkirk, and the Coast. The latter is higher than the two beyond and culminates in Mount St. Elias., that monarch of the northern continent at the extreme north-west of my diocese where its snowy head looks pre-eminently grand from the western ocean. " Such treasures of snow I have never seen as on this range near the Stikine mouth. There the vapoury ocean tribute, brought by the south-west and south-east winds for most of the year, is transformed into fairy crystals that fall and fall over this treasure-house of snow until the mass, compactly pressed, glides gravely down the mountain steeps and fills the valley with glaciers. " Happily our missionary has no mission here because no man there abides. He presses forward until he reaches the great divide, and then for a parish has a sparsely peopled region larger than Ireland. He must be the shepherd seek- 144 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. ing the lost on a sea of mountains, among awful solitudes. Excepting in the linguistic notes I made last year the language is quite new to science and unwritten. It is no easy task to master the language." The next letter is dated from Glenora, on the Stikine River. It is more in the form of a journal, for an attack of influenza^ and the subsequent weakness which lasted for three months, entailed arrears of work which made letter writing a difficulty. The Bishop's rule of writing, when possible, while everything was fresh in his memory, accounts for the vividness of his descriptions, and for his power of transferring his impressions to others. "June llth, 1898. " Before I write of my present doings, your readers will like to hear of a visit in midwinter to Sheuksh and his tribe. I had a letter on the stocks describing it, but illness overtook me, so that it was never launched. It would be ancient history to me now, so that I could not put any heart into its revival. It shall now fall into the form of a log. " Jan. 1st. Dr. Webb, who was wintering with Mr. Gurd at Kitkatla, arrived at Meiblakatla. Miss West was, we feared, too ill to recover ; but one evening two Indian women came to ask my advice on some question, and as they were leaving I casually expressed a wish that Dr. Webb were present. They went off to the Church Army meeting then going on and spoke of my wish. At once ten men volunteered to fetch him. One of them came to me announc- ing this resolve, and said they would start next morning. Off they went, battling with a head wind that rose to a half gale, but on the third day they reached Laklan, Sheuksh's town, fifty miles across the sea. Two days sufficed to bring them back, with the doctor. After he had spent some time in charge of the case, they took him back again, thus completing a distance of at least 200 miles on the high sea in a canoe. Not a cent would they take as payment. Do you think that such a thing could be done at homo? Would any parish provide A Memorial Mission. 145 ten volunteers and an open boat to cross, say, from Dover to Boulogne, twice and back again, to get medical aid for a sick worker in the Church '? Impossible. Love and gratitude nerved those Indian hearts to do this, and to feel proud to do it. They did a precisely similar thing the winter before. We thank God for sparing Miss West's life. She is now recovering, after a journey to England. I never thought she would survive. I quite look forward to her return. Though somewhat frail in health, her rich experience and natural energy will be of great value in helping on the work and advising the other ladies of the Mission, who naturally look to her as their head, and miss her now vecry much. " Jan. 17 th. I embarked in a big canoe with nineteen Indians from the Fort Simpson Church Army, now a body of about 130 people, who. regard me as their general. A delegation from our Metlakatla Church Army came along in another large canoe with twenty paddles. We were off on a sort of ten days' mission to the Kitkatlas, and to consecrate the new church built by them at their own expense. But for the rain it would have beon pleasant. We sang and sang, hour after hour, a.s we paddled along with a moderate head wind. Our voyage over, we halted about four hundred yards from the shore; no one in the village discovered us in the dark- ness. The lights twinkled in the street lamps and from many a window, but all was silent until we burst out in song. This signal opened doors and attracted crowds to the shore to receive us as we paddled landwards. Our baggage was picked up by many hands. I was led to the Mission-house, arid my party to Sheuksh's, whose guests they became. " Next day I consecrated the new church, held a confirma- tion, preached throe times, and received many visitors. Then the Indians who came with me began their mission. From dawn to late in the evening the sound of prayer, sacred song, and preaching was heard, excepting at meal times, and even then the grace expanded into long intercession. Mr. Gurd called it a religiousi epidemic. Nothing else was done. God and the soul were the only topics. From day to day the M 146 Snapshots from the North Pacific. number of awakenings was brought to me. There was excite- ment, but no extravagance that I knew of. A day was fixed for our leaving, but when the morning dawned the pressing requests to stay another day prevailed, to my regret. The weather was then favourable, and the fair wind strong enough to take us home in one day. " Next morning was calm, but very ominous of dirty weather approaching. After a few miles of paddling, the gale burst on us, and we ran before it with reefed sails at a piping rate. As we got into open water a fearful sea rolled after us, threatening every moment to poop us. Twemty miles further brought us to two islands with, a narrow and winding channel dividing thean. A large steamer loomed up ahead. The pilot mistook the channel and ran his ship ashore. It was a Ie3 shore, and we dared not attempt to approach her and her 400 passengers. There was no danger of their destruction because the shore was close and water deep. All safely landed, but their experiences were distressing on shore, camped on the deep snow without protection for a long time. We sailed along to thei far end of the island, eight miles distant, where under the shelter of the land we beached our canoes and then camped in hardly less discomfort than the wrecked folk at the other end of the island. " We were on the deep snow, with the falling snow turning to sleet, trees uprooted by the howling gale falling with a crash. Two lanterns were hung to the branches of a tree, and swung about in the wind. To kindle a fire was almost impossible, and therefore cooking was out of the question. Everything became soaking wet. I suppose wo ought to have been miserable, but we were not. Before lying down for the night we had prayers. I own to have been weary and longing to observe ordinary limits, but no less than thirteen hymns were sung, the words from memory, and a short prayer between each hymn. It took a little over two hours! All were cheery but myself, and I kept as bright a face as I could as men and women prayed on and on. After forty-eight hours we put to sea, which remained rough, but we safely revelled Metlakatla. A Memorial Mission. 147 "On the Sunday spent among the Kitkatlas an interesting ceremony took place. The wife of chief Sheuksh had been elected by the Kitkatla band of the Church Army as. one of their officers. At one point of the service in the church Samuel Walsh, the blind captain, led by a sergeant, presented Sheuksh's wife to me for admission to the office. On the holy table the red ribbon had been placed. She knelt at the chancel rails. I then charged her to be faithful to Jesus, to be an example of holiness, to watch over the women of the tribe, especially the young ones, and to remember she must give a final account to Jesus at the great day. Then I placed the ribbon round her neck and told her to think of it as a token of being bound as a servant to our Master. Old Sheiuksh was in the front pew all the time on his knees, his lips moving as if in prayer, and his, eyes fountainsi of tears. What a contrast with the savage past ! " Soon after this I was at Claxton trying to get the hospital a bit shipshape. The gold fever has reached the Indians, so that I think but few will remain for the fishing, and therefore the hospital will not be in much request this year. But this fever will not last, and there stands the hospital ready for its blessed mission of healing. " On the 6th of May I started for the Skeena River, en route to Hazelton, and was delighted to get into the bright sunshine of the interior, away from the weeping skies of the coast. The winter had been mild, but the snowfall on the mountains very heavy. Instead of a gradual blending of spring with summer, the warm, weather rushed upon us. During the latter part- of April the thermo- meter in the shade in my garden rarely fell below 60 degrees Fahrenheit between eleven a.m. and five p.m. The conse- quence of this charming and unusual weather was the swelling of the river a fortnight earlier than the average. Instead of finding it at a good stage for sailing on we met the freshet, which gave us endless trouble and caused some risk. When we got to the canyon it was full of a raging flood, so that we had to moor below it for a long time. As soon 148 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. as a few cooler nights came, which checked the thaw on the mountains and diminished the downrush, we entered the canyon. " But it was a fearful sight. Fixed in the rocky sides are ring-bolts here and there. The sailors, like cats, climb the rocks, and pass on long cables with iron hooks at the ends. One was of steel wire 1,300 feet long. As soon as it is hooked on to the ring-bolt the steam capstan on the bow revolves, and on we go afc the rate of nearly a yard a minute ! The great stern whecj revolves as rapidly as the engines can work it, and churns the water with fury as it rushes past us at the rate of more than twenty miles an hour. " The speed is not the only serious feature. Worse than that are the boiling whirls that rise from beneath, you know not where beforehand, springing like the beginning of a giant geyser, then pouring a flood of water from below to spread from a centre with force enough to sweop aside our steamer, 125 feet long by thirty feet beam, as if it were a bit of drift wood. One blow made by a rock, as we were swept against it, brokei through the planks, happily just above water mark, rolling up an iron plate as if it had been a piece of leather. The greatest skill, courage, and resource are necessary to over- come such difficulties. " God is most merciful in sparing me from disaster amid these frequent perils. Some people have called it a charmed life ; it is rather a living in the hollow of God's hand. " I was much touched by the Indians at Hazelton coming to comfort me, as they said. They had not seen me since my bereavement. The Heathen seemed as much concerned as the Christians, and all wanted photographs of my late wife. I had several with me and gave them to some women who had been blessed in their souls through her ministry. How they handled them ! So tenderly ! Tears were brushed aside. Few words were spoken, but there was much squeez- ing of my hands in token of sympathy. I had to promise to send some move copies of her photograph, especially to the native teacher, who told Mr. Field she was the first who ever taught A Memorial Mission. 149 him saving truth. Many might truly say the same. The most refined Christians in England could not have behaved with greater delicacy. " Now leit us talk about the Stikine River. It took me moie than a month to reach my present quarters' from Metla- katla. I sltepped on board ship very feebly, but full of the hope of full restoration to health as I journeyed on. Thank God I am making steady progress. Last Sunday 1 administered the Holy Communion in a large shed belonging to a :v.ihvay contractor. At 10.30 I preached to two hundred soldiers en route to Klondyke or, to be more exact, going to Fort Selkirk, in the diocese of that name. It is but a name now, being, I am. told, deserted, but as it is at the junction of two great rivers it is a good place for barracks. There are four Victorian nurses proceeding under the militarv escort. Like the soldiers, they have to walk more than 180 miles to Lake Teslin, and then go by rafts or boats, there to be built, right on to their destination. All the party seemed to value the unexpected means of grace, and lodid were the cheers as I waved to them this morning at seven o'clock a parting salute at their embarkation on a steamer for Telegraph Creek, where the long walk begins. " Mr. Palgrave heard of my arrival and walked on here to seo me. Twenty-six miles did not seem much of a walk to him. Last Sunday he took a service near here, then walked to Telegraph Creek, a distance of thirteen miles, for a five p.m. service for the Indians and a seven o'clock service for the whitos. That over, he walked back to my tent, and arrived at midnight. It is as easy to walk at night as in the day because of the clear sky and light. You can read at any hour of the night without artificial light. Indeed, it is easier to travel by nigh/, than by day because of the heat. In my tent, though it has a doublet roof, the thermometer stands at 91 degrees Fahrenheit. This sun bath is trying in some respects, but my health is improving steadily. " There are about 2,000 white men in my neighbourhood, and on the wholei very steady and well-behaved men they are. 150 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. The hardships endured in getting here, partly on the frozen river (now in flood) and partly in boats rudely made on the banks, have been fearful. Many have died from them. The transportation companies have grossly misrepresented the easiness of the routes. I pity the poor feillows very much. Many are in distress because the exorbitant charges for trans- portation have exhausted their funds. They are selling their food supplies at 150 per cent, less than their cost, to realize a little mrney to pay their way onward. Unless they meet with rapid success in mining they will be in dire distress next winter. " Mr. Palgrave will pursue his arduous work at Taltan, the chief Indian centre of the vast district. I earnestly plead for him your prayerful sympathy, and for the benighted Indians, that thev may receive the message of salvation effectually." Indian Boys, Klondyke District. CHAPTER XIII. ENLARGED OPPORTUNITIES. " O heavenly gale supply the force To waft us nearer to the -source Of grace abounding." THE territory covered by the Dioceses of Caledonia and Selkirk was now about to rise into world-wide im- portance. For years, as we have seen, gold had been found by a few enterprising miners, but now there came a gigantic rush for the newly-discovered gold fields, and the name of Klondyke became familiar to many who would have been puzzled if asked to point it out on the map. It was decided that Bishop Ridley should take the entire superintendence of the work in Lake Atlin and Lake Bennett district, and the S.P.G. made a grant for that purpose. In 1899 he journeyed there to make the necessary arrangements. He gives the following account of what he saw : "Lake Bennett, July 21st, 1899. " The easiest and perhaps the clearest way of helping you to locate me on your map of British North America is to 152 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. givex you my latitude and longitude. Look out the 60 parallel and note whero the 135th meridian crosses it, then descend southward ten miles on the meridian. There stands my tent, the samp, I have often described as measuring ten feet long and eight wide. Last November I came within forty miles of the same spot, but was not well enough to face the White Pass in the teeth of the driving blizzards that then prevailed. I turned back before the raging elements. Lately they invited me forward with their smile. " I embarked on a steamer from Vancouver called the Cutch, because she was built for the Rajah of Cutch, who tired, I suppose, of his beautiful and staunch steam-yacht. So she was bought for the China trade, and eventually crossed the Pacific, where she is a favourite. She picked me up at Metlakatla on her voyage; from Vancouver to Skagway, where she landed me, after a very enjoyable voyage along the smooth channels that separate the countless islands from the mainland of British Columbia and Alaska for a thousand miles. " The November voyage was a rough one, not so much because of heavy seas, but on account of the unpleasant gales. All the other vessels at that time sought sholter, ours braved the northern blast and reached Skagway, at the head of the Lynn inlet (or canal as we call these inlets), thickly coated with ice, looking like a fairy ship, but to us on board like an iceberg disguised as a ship. To those on the dock as we made fast, she must have been a vision of beauty, if they had eyes for it. On board that pleasure was denied us. The cold wind was terrible. Below we were comfortable' enough, but I prefer the deck in all weathers. " It was necessary to use axes to free the cables, before the ship could be moored. As we passed up Lynn Canal we crossed the seaward end of one of its branches called the Taku Arm. The blizzard here was abeam, and my cabin on dock was to windward. The sea was one mass of short, stinging v/aves, and from their foaming crests the gale licked off the briny water and hurled it at the ship's broadside with a Enlarged Opportunities. 153 tornado-like howl. Whore it struck it stuck. The moment the water reached my cabin window, a good eighteen feet from the leadline, it froze and froze until light was shut out. These northern winter's gales can be cruel ! The colder interior is nearly always calm when the cold is intense, say from 30 to 60. It does not there distress one at all ; but he>re on the sea it goes to the marrow, and makes one consider how long one could face it and live. Last week Bishop Bompas complained of the cold here at Bennett. " From the ship's berth at the Skagway wharf is a bridge- way I thought a mile long, but it is rather more than a quarter of that perhaps. I really felt that if there had not been a handrail I would never have dared it for fear of being blown off. It was the worst cold I ever met, though not much below zero. " The Church people of the town seem to be a very hos- pitable folk. I found myself at their choir practice in the evening, tired as I was, and their apparent devoutness, and grief at having no resident clergyman, so touched me that I promised to either come back on Saturday for Sunday from Bennett, forty-two miles, and give them the benefit of the Church's ministration, or else send the S.P.G. clergyman stationed at Bennett. The latter was so charmed that he almost lost his heart among them. " I was fortunate in reaching Skagway after the railroad was opened to Bennett. The ordinary cars ran nearly half- way when we had to ride on the platform set on wheels and called here ' construction cars.' We got up among the bag- gage and each chose for himself the package that made the best seat, and to that we held fast. But this I felt thankful for, because I am getting too old to walk long distances now. This reminds me that to-morrow is my sixty-third birthday. The figures makei me look older than I feel. Now that my health is so much improved by this dry climate, I seem to feel as young as when I came here twenty years ago. But when a week's walk looms in front, my grey beiard pleads for pity for my feet. The Rev. F. Stephenson I sent in before 154 Snapshots from the North Pacific. the snow was removed by the April sun, and he had a six days' walk from Skagway to Atlin, having, besides the land journey, to walk about 100 miles over frozen lakes that now bear a fleet of steamers and hundreds of boats on their bosom. " My journey by rail from Skagway was first along the level delta bearing a dense forest. In its heart were the railroad workshops, a Swindon or Crewe in miniature. After a few miles we began to climb the eastern mountain slope, gaining on the white thread of a river at the bottom of the valley. In ten miles we ascended 2,900 feet, and certainly it is a thrilling experience that would be trying to the nerves but for the surprise and admiration called forth by the grandeur of the mountain gorge. The fir-trees grew to a very moderate size for half the distance, then became scrubby, and finally ceased, unless apologies be accepted for trees. " Having made the ascent in one gulch so narrow that the switchback plan was adopted we found ourselves among nature's paving-stones, great round backed granite rocks that looked like a troubled ocean turned to granite at a peremptory word of command. We snaked between the billows, or skirted bogs and lakelets due to the melted snows, or over the glacial deposits left in many a vast hollow that otherwise would have held a lake. Some miles beyond rose the ancient mountains, ti-eeless and naked but that the snow remaining in the fissures and gloomy gorges cross-stitched the sullen range. " It was a scene of awful desolation that chilled the soul and made one ready to pity the puny flora while one admired its daring to live at all. Tiny firs, bearing all the marks of decrepit old age, bent by the northern furies and gnarled by the awful winters, looked up pathetically into one's face, in- stead of offering to the traveller a welcome under sturdy branches, such as I am accustomed to in the southern parts of this vast diocese. The juniper humbly crawled from rocky hollows and crevices, but rarely ventured above the highest parts of the granite dome that gave it scanty shelter against the black tempests from the weird north, the terrific north. Enlarged Opportunities. 155 When the train stopped I slipped off my perch and made a rush for the nearest flowers, and surprised myself by their variety. These, like the mountains, attain to a maturity denied everything else ; the latter as if in pride as earth's pillars, the former as sharers of a faith in resurrection, live their short life of beauty to please Him who clothes them, and therefore rise to perfection through the ages that weai* away the mountains. You should see the puny trees ; then you would form some idea of the cruelty of the fierce winters. I gathered a pine with cones on it and placed it, root and all, among the flowers in my left hand to mingle a little extra greenery among the bright flowers. Its record on this page is happier than if I left it to its cradle a baby tree, until it slowly died. " As we descended from the White Pass towards the lakes we met timber again, of small dimensions, and at the Pack Horses crossing a Bridge over a Tributary of the Stiklne River. 156 Snapshots from the North Pacific. margin of the lakes I found so great a variety of ferns and flowers that it would take several pages even to name them. It is a bright compensation for the terrors of winter to those who endure them. " All along the route skeletons or carcases of pack-horses lie in gruesome numbers, telling of the toil and agony of the thousands that struggled on over the snow before the railway was built. Twenty thousand are said to have been stabled on the frozen lake this spring, to rest a while, on the road to Klondyke. A few yards behind my tent is a perfect skeleton, from which I have learnt more of the anatomy of the horse than I ever expected to obtain. It is the relic of sacrifice to the average miner's god. But justice as well as a love of adventure compels me to own, though compulsion does not express the pleasure of it, that many of them are not only strong but godly men. " Well, here I am with the desolation miles away, among the granite hillocks and mountains, and with the lake about 200 feet below and in front. I look out on a scene of char- acteristic attraction. The mountains that embrace the lake remind me of the eastern shores of the Red Sea, dismal enough in dismal winter ; but the bridge of azure and the rippling turquoise lake below impart a charm to the granite setting of the gem that only needs the glory of the rising or setting of the sun to complete a picture of rare beauty. " I am rambling on as if it were easy to sketch it with my pen, which would be presumption indeed if I thought it pos- sible. This is really an introduction to letters that may hereaftejr be written of work done. I am now exploring, so far as the Indians are concerned, and ministering to the whites with two clergy here for the summer. " In about an hour I embark for Atlin City, 109 miles distant. There, I am told, are three tribes of Indians that, till gold was found, were inaccessible from the coast. After rny week at Atlin I may add some further information, but for the present my pen must rest." Enlarged Opportunities, 157 " Bennett, Aug. 2nd. " I arrived hero from the gold-mines, 125 miles distant, a.bout two hours ago, and hasten to finish my observations before I strike camp again. " This is a much more windy place than Atlin, 118 miles farther on, and therefore the open-air guards one from the mosquito pest to some extent. It is a very bracing place, rocky and dry. No fault can be found with thei climate here. " The O'nly Indians in the place are Zimshians whom many years ago I baptized on the coast. They sought me out, j.nd never miss a service. Boat-building is their trade, and very well paid they are in it. Some of these boats are mere barges, flat bottomed and square ended, but they run the rapids safely and carry large cargoes and horses to Dawson on the mighty Yukon River. It is possible to embark in boats not more than thirty miles, as the crow flies, from the sea at Taku Arm of Lynn Canal, and proceed along rivers and lakes for nearly 3,000 miles to Behring's Sea, and thence to any shore washed by the ocean. This groat waterway is now open to the globe-trotter. From Liveqjool he could reach Dawson, the Klondyke capital, in twenty days ! " The Bishop of Selkirk, Dr. Bom pas, has the full tide of civilization forced upon him to his sorrow. He lives three miles from Dawson, and therefore must see his heaven lighted up at night by the electric demon. A week before my arrival he stood where I now write. Would that he waited the few days that I might have had the honour of welcoming him to my diocese ! He thought Bennett and Atlin were within his, and therefore ventured so far. Arriving here he found ho had trespassed beyond his jurisdiction no less than four- teen miles ! The newspaper man who reported an inter- view with him states that he hurried northwards and buried himself once more in the frozen north, that no man knows as he does, and no other man loves but for the sake of its gold. This report, copied into an American 158 Snapshots from the North Pacific. paper, added striking glosses to the account. What would the dear Bishop think if he saw himself described as the most devoted of Catholic (meaning Roman Catholic) bishops in the wide world ! This gloss evidently was by a Roman newsman who covertly hit at the snug and comfortable lives of Protestants who assumed episcopal authority. Bishop Bompas, the paper said, was so modest that he would not talk of the countless hair-breadth escapes from awful peril and death, treating them, as phases of everyday life not to be counted worthy of notice. Now that Rome can no longer take the credit of such splendid heroism, you may bei sure it will cease to be admired in that quarter. " I must not further enlarge on this subject or I shall not again get so hearty an invitation from the Bishop as the one now before me, dated July 6th, and written on this spot. At Dawson, on my way to his Indian Mission, he says Mr. Naylor, then clergyman there, 'will be only too happy to lodge me either in the Mission-house or in the church, where we sometimes find quarters.' I quote this to show the use we sometimes, yea of'ten, put our churches to, such as they are. Then, he adds, ' Access from Dawson is only by boat.' How he must rejoice over thoise three miles of water between the Indians and himself and the noise and riot of drinking saloons and gambling hells at Dawson ! Yet this habitual retirement and shrinking from civilization must seem strange to many of you. " I cannot now accept my next-door neighbour's invitation, and this grieves me. I could get to his side in three daysi! Could I spare them, the journey would be full of pleasure without an hour of toil, unlike the one I have taken since I began this letter. I am so stiff and sore from this, that I am glad to sit down, and find an excuse for sitting, in writing this. " Just over the border and within my brother Bishop's diocesei are some Indians at Tagish and also some whites, whom he asked Mr. Appleyard, our clergyman settled here Enlarged Opportunities. 159 for six months, to go over and minister to. So Mr. A. went and I took his duty here. " Ten days ago I started for Atlin City and thence to the gold-diggings. There I spent a busy and happy time. The day after my arrival I went to hunt Indians, and found a number of huts where they live. The first thing I did was to write all the numerals up to a thousand a queer way of beginning missionary work you will say. It is important to do no harm at the start, and to ask questions easy to answer. Next came thei names of the fingers from the little finger of the left hand to the thumb of the right. " Before I got through, I had planted a little confidence among the youths from whom I sought information. Later I met at the ranche an Indian from the coast who claims that he has some white man's blood in his veins. He came to me a few days later and brought four young Indians with him. Knowing a little English we could talk. As he talked he turned back my coat to look for something. What do you think it was for 1 He had met on one occasion a Roman bishop who passed through the country with a priest and baptized many as they went. So said my friend, pointing to himself, ' Me Catholic.' He had turned back my coat to look for a pectoral cross. Catholic or Heathen I was in- terested in him, but later on the whites bade me to be careful how I trusted him, because ' he is a smart but worthless fellow, the worst of the whole crowd,' meaning the Indians. " He is a burly fellow, and rude enough for any rough. Yet he may have some good qualities and be worth digging for. He knows no more of Christ than the other what shall I call them ? Heathen. He towered above his companions, and is evidently, though a foreigner among them, a man of much influence corresponding with his energy. His humour, too, is grim enough for anybody. Pointing to the largest of the hotels in the city, he said it would be his when all white men leave the country. He looks forward to this yet did not wait idly for it, but got some gold claims into his possession, and sold them for a sum of money that makes him 160 Snapshots from the North Pacific. rich. I fear he will be a hindrance in teaching the Indians he lives among. One of the objects I had in view in getting hold of their numerals was to find out whether their language has any affinity with those I already know, and this is one of the readiest ways of ascertaining. " My impression is that these three bands of Indians, called by the whites Tagish, are related to those Mr. Pal- gravo is bravely working among on the Stikine : if so, this may bo regarded as an out-station of that. One of them, a small man, not more, I think, than 4ft. 8in. in height, with hair reaching lower than his knees, marched through the streets as unconcerned as if white men were tree. Pride in him stood on tiptoe. He was a medicine-man, followed at a distance by a boy as tall as himself. How strange for him to see white men building in the midst of his forest, fishing in his streams, hunting on his mountains, and he all the time believing himself the largest man and perhaps the happiest : certainly he was the dirtiest, which would count with him among tho cardinal virtues, pride coming next, and then gluttony. Most people saw him with amusement. I know one who pitied him, but what could he do ? He prayed that the Light of the world might reach the dark avenues and shine through his heart. The problem with me now is how to evangelize these wanderers. They do not remain long in the same place, but go after game from place to place. " I sailed along this group of lakes 109 miles, walked over the ridge for two miles to Lake Atlin, then crossed the six miles over that to Atlin City. There I was accommodated in a room belonging to a bank, and went to a cafe for my meals. In this city I bought a house for the missionary, the Rev. F. Stephenson, spending 100 on that and the beginnings of a church. At present service is held in a large tent. " Then I went forward to the gold diggings, went down by the creek-sides into the ' claims,' as the 100-foot squares of land are- called, and ' panned out ' a pan full of ' paying dirt/ earning five shillings in fifteen minutes. I saw plenty of Enlarged Opportunities. 161 nuggets and handled bricks of gold, each worth about 600. Strange to say, in the midst of this wealth sought among rocks and soil there is much destitution. I held service in a big tent hero also. One hundred and seventy were present, and twenty-five horny-handed miners received the Communion there. " In the evening, seven and a. half miles distant, I recognized three men who were present at the morning service, which shows at least, by their fifteen-mile walk over stumps and stones, how much they relish the Gospel. I saw a 'few Indians at the diggings;, but could not talk to them. Gold has a strange fascination for men. I confess that as I washed out the ' dirt ' from my pan and saw the yellow sediment, I had a slight tremor of pleasure as if I had found the philo- sopher's stone. When, there is no gold at the bottom the dirt is said to be ' dead.' The gold gives it life. It is in a small way related to the joy of finding souls after toil for Jesus. This gold is living indeed. " The country I have travelled over is the most beautiful I have yet seen. No one from these parts need go> to Italy for blue skies, and lakes ; soft airs, or mountain umbrageous to the snow-line, where the green glaciers are fountains of streams that laugh all through the summer- they have them all after windy Lake Bennett is crossed and lovely Atlin is seen. The climate is all one could wish the days bree/y, the nights calm, cool, yet most genial beyond anything even Devo heaven such lustrous eyes when interpreting a prayer, was a sight that reminded me of the Magdalene at the cross, one of Scheffer's lovely pictures in the Dresden Gallery. When Christ revealed to her His love, it filled her with devotion, lighting up her countenance with tho beautiful glow that made one praise the grace that works such wonders. I am surprised at the man deserting her. Perhaps he felt her too good for him. " Just before I rose to baptize them Matilda asked if she might put on the white dress she had made for the occasion. There was no one to suggest such a thing. It was an innate piece of refinement. " Mr. Palgrave had not his surplice with him, so I put on my chimere and lent him my rochet. 'Twas a novel vesting in a curious vestry a small log-cabin in tho forest at the edge of a mountain torrent. " The old medicine-man pledged himself to ever abstain from offering for the dead and pot-laching, and ordered that at his death no one should make an offering to promote his First-fruits from the Stikine River. 173 happiness after death, because ' Jesu Chreest would see to that.' Mr. Pal grave teaches then to pro- nouiice the holy Name thus, in order- to differentiate it from the common way of saying it in its general blasphe- mous use among whites. " The font was a common basin so wreathed with wil- lows and flowers as to disguise the home- liness of the utensil. The old man held his head over it as I thrice poured water over him in baptism, and he prayed all the time. His name is Istadaga Degulli. His wife's Stagul- thet Kahalti. Her head was oval, un- like the Mongolian type of which the Indian is a variety. Her nose was aquiline, brow broad and lofty, sur- mounting fine black and gentle eyes. Telegraph Creek, on the Stikine. 174 Snapshots from the North Pacific. Her mouth was slightly sensuous, with rows of teeth so regular that among whites they would be attributed to the arts of the dentist. It was a noble head to delight an artist. " When Matilda, the interpreter, came forward she took a second name, Aye-diga, and behaved as if ladyhood had developed into saintlincss. The natural dignity of these people, coupled with a frank manner that is at once brave and simple, leaves nothing to be desired. These children of the forest grow into fine types of humanity until animalized by contact .with lustful whites, who disgrace their Christianity and degrade the barbarian. " As soon as the baptisms were performed I proceeded with confirmation. That completed, Ayediga took off her. white dress a.nd sat down to listen to my instruction in the matter I wanted her to interpret at another service. " Because the old man Istadaga was suffering a good deal from influenza he could not walk to Telegraph Creek, where the next two sel^ices were to be held. I therefore had a special service in the log-cabin which he could attend. , " That ovor, Ayediga walked off in her green skirt under a check bodice, her thick and long blapk hair hanging in a plaited tress behind her, and tied up at the end with a bit of red ribbon. I wonder whether she knew her dark skin harmonized with her simple, dress. She was innocent of hat or bonnet. Away they went, the tottering old man leading and Ayediga bringing up the rear, her precious bundle con- taining the white dress under her arm, to be ready for wear at the next services. The old man soon rested under a tree. He is .much more be-whiskered than most Indians, and age had silvered his wiry locks. Round his head he wore a black band before baptism, but I did not see him resume it. Per- haps 1 it was an official badge that he put off for ever. He had sacrificed his gains as a medicine-man. Little can we enter into the tremendous trial of discarding a position of tribal importance, of profit and honour all for the sake of the Gospel. Some of the evil whites, as if to justify their con- duct, try to undermine the missionaries' influence' by telling the Indians they are paid for converts so much per capita. First-fruits from the Stikine River. 175 " One of the good signs of progress was the coming on foot to me of the fine old chief of these Indians and his wife from their fishery sixteen miles distant. It is no small sacri- fice during the salmon fishery to cease fishing for nearly a week. Like most of the elderly people, his behaviour is digni- fied in contrast with that of the young men, who think the rude whites are the pink of perfection, and imitate them. This chief, named Nannook, is a man of medium height, and, though I think over sixty years of age, is straight as an arrow. His head like the medicine-man's wife's, is oval rather than round, which is the Mongolian type. His long black hair hangs over his ears, but is cut short and nearly straight across a forehead so< broad and lofty as to indicate much power behind it. Beneath his side locks gold earrings dangled as he moved his head in gesticulation that marked the orator. I could, from the natural grace of the movement, often read the meaning of the words rippling or racing from a voice remarkably sweet and rich in tone. The rather thin lips, close pressed when at rest, bespoke resolution true to the man and honourable to the chief. Between deep-set and yet capacious eyes arched forward a powerful nose that told the same tale as the lips, and the man's history has exhibited tb.3 quality. His long oval nails, cresting delicate fingers, were like tongues, speaking their own language to the eye, and only needed music to appeal to the ear. I had before me a courtly gentleman, to refinement Nature's heir. " How do you account for this ? H lives a nomadic life. So did Abram, my noblest type of gentleman. Though his shadow never darkened Porch or Academy, yet no Alcibiades could behave with more grace than my vis-a-vis. He has no- thing to learn as to deportment, tone, or gesture. I admire and envy these' fine qualities, and can no more regard myself as his superior than as the equal of royalty. There is not a single sign of the barbarian or savage, yet we call him one or the other because he dresses without a looking-glass or goes well-night undressed, till winter as his valet suggests a blanket or fur in which to meet King Frost. 176 Snapshots from the North Pacific. " My hour's interview with him through Ayediga as inter- preter was a singular pleasure and entertainment. He spoke to me as if he credited me with power to understand him, and not to the interpreter yet he paused for her as gracefully as he spoke. His eyes sparkled with confidences, and his finger-tips played his thoughts from the instruments of silence. He could not grin, if he tried, or smirk, but smiled as gra- ciously as a peer of the rea^ when trying to conciliate and engage the superior talents of a useful commoner. " I was so charmed with the man that I could hardly take my eyes off him to jot down his words, as I often do in meet- ing with strange Indians. My memory, a poor oae, might eke out my notes, but it is safer to record only what I noted : ' You have come with good words from the west [coast]. A voice from the east [Roman Catholic] bids us but too late now that we are awake to face the sunrising for light. But we find tho sun does not set in the west it shines on high and conquers night. Let the day shine on. Darkness is before light, and we slept. The sv.n is not rising, but has risen. We want no more night. The light you sent awoke us. The words from the cast made the heart sick. Now it is strong because I see your face. Let it shine always and not set. Our youths began to build a school-house. Some stopped. Let them finish it to prove their obedience. From my father I learnt much of the past, of which part was true wisdom : "To the woman whom thou choosest be not wrathful but kind, and she will serve thee and make thee happy. Remember when I am dead that I prayed and made offerings, becauso 1 wished to live in the great home of heaven's good Chief." Yes, my father prayed and danced moderately be- fore the sacred fire. He sang hymns known to the ancients but not to us. But though wo know not the meaning of the words, the great Chief [God] knows and likes to hear them. My last word to thee, my chief, is this : We now know a new thing. It is this : for all chiefs and all their people in all the world there is but one God,' first-bruits -from the Stikine River. 177 " After this came, in the vernacular, a service of prayer and praise in the cabin. I could not understand it, yet I enjoyed and shared in it. It was a solemnizing thing to watch this company of about thirty souls worshipping in their tongue our glorious God. His light, apart from Nature's, had not reached them three years ago. They stand facing the same* way, chanting the Te Deum and other canticles : they sing ' Nearer, my God, to Thee ' and ' Gentle Jesus, look on me,' both so slowly and solemnly that a new meaning super- vened, adding more than ever a heavenly force and spirit to human productions. " After the others had filed out, Ayediga waited a brief space to thank me for saving her body from the grave (allud- ing to my medicine), and then sending God's man to teach her things to save her soul. 'He taught me much before I was baptized ; tell him to teach me much more now that i am within His family, that I may know how to please Him. I want to know more of God's Son, Jesu Chreest. When I know what is right I shall not do the wrong. Now I am not afraid to die. God's Son makes all safe and sure.' 'That evening I went to Telegraph Creek and held a ser- vice in a trader's store, where I baptized five Indian children whose parents are catechumens. The youngest, an infant about a year old, I baptized first, and called her Jane Ezyuta, after the name of her to whose dear memory this Stikine Mission is diedicated. If she can see the cause of Christ's joy over these converts, she shares it. The other children ranged from six to nine years of age, and were presented to me by their parents, whom I hope to baptize if spared till next year. They, as catechumens, learn the Creed and Lord's Prayer, but are not taught to use them publicly in the services. Of course they learn many other things, and publicly join in other parts of the services. I have never seen this plan used before. It originated with Mr. Palgrave, and has much that can be said in its favour. " Finally came a feast in my honour given by Mr. Palgrave, and speeches followed. I have already written more than I o 178 Snapshots from the Not-tli Pacific^ meant to, and therefore will not give further details. When all was over Mr. Palgrave and I retired to the upper roonl of the store among furs, blankets, bale on bale, with Other articles of merchandise-. He was soon audibly asleep, and, after nlany Iiours of rather distressing heart irregularity caused by the day's strain, I, too, slept and recovered strength for further journeying. " Instead of attempting to ride back, I meant to hire a team and drive in the spring-less waggon over the eighteen miles of rough road that winds between the mountains, far from the horse trail that is often at the edge of fearful preci- pices. Then someone said, ' Why not go down in a canoe ? ' Happy thought ! In ninety minutes I ran through the rapids, and returned to Glenora to await the arrival of the steamer from the coast. Mr. Palgrave came down here with, me, and we spent all the time we had together in discussing the terms to bo used in translating certain religious ideas. All at once he asked what time it was. His watch had been stopped for two years. On hearing the time lie started up, saying, ' I must go at once.' ' Stay/ said I, ' to dinner.' 'I cannot.' Off he wa.s going, when I said, ' Take some food for your twenty-six mile walk.' He cut off a two-inch hunch from the mouldy loaf, stuffed it into the one pocket of his Cardigan, and glided off ; but not until he asked for my blessing, and received it on his knees. God bless him ! " The Bishop's Sailing-boat off Metlakatla-the Bishop Steering. CHAPTER XV. MORE PERILS IN THE SEA. " I learnt That fears by flames of love are burnt." ONE more letter, and the series must close. It tells of perhaps greater peril than any the Bishop had yet encountered in his constant journeyings, but its con- cluding sentence, " God keeps watch and ward," recognizes the protecting Hand that for more than twenty years guided him safely through them all. The occasion of this voyage was a visit to Kinoolith to consecrate a new church, erected there by Archdeacon Collisooi and to hold a confirmation : " Sept. 29th, 1900. " Whom to thank, from Mamertus to Cranmer, for that suffrage in the Litany, ' That it .may please Thee to preserve all that travel by land or by water,' I know not. It ought to find a place in the prayers of all who pray for us. 'Ti& hard to say who travel over a wider area, or in more varied ways. Others walk through African forests, are carried 180 Snapshots from, the North Pacific. along Asiatic paths, sail in Polynesia ; but out here we are amphibians. During the summer I was afoot or on horse- back threading the forests ; sometimes on the lovely lakes or rivers. Now in the autumn I am on the high seas, or penetrating the fiords or estuaries of this magnificent coast. " I have my Polynesia-islands by the hundred stretching row beside row along the indented coast. They form a labyrinth of very deep salt-water channels, along which the tides race furiously, especially in the winding narrows. Again they expand into sounds from five to fifteen miles wide, and perhaps sixty miles long ; long enough to suffer the gales to run riot and madden the waves. Then more islands, and the countless islets, all pine clad, have each a beauty of their own, which is often overlooked because so common. " The tides are less puzzling than the wayward winds that bend and glance from height to height in the crooked channels, till maddened they dash as a whirlwind on some doomed spot and twist the trees out from the soil and leave a wreck. In this way the latest church was lifted this winter, carried from its foundations and dropped, no longer pointing heaven- wards, as churches ought. Jackscrews and rollers must put it back again. Behind the church on the mountain slope there is not a tree standing. The ruin looks like a battle- field of Nature. In the face of these terrible gusts no human skill can insure safety ; but an old hand generally knows how to meet the ordinary perils of the sea. Risks he must take, or stay at home with his slippers polishing the fender, and pitying the poor things travelling by land or by water. " The last twenty-one years have been overwhelming me with merciful providences, so comforting to look back on and thank God for. " The night before last, Sept. 27th, another enriched my experience, and afterwards sweetened life. Until thi voyage I have used for the autumnal itineration of 1900 an open centre-board boat, 25 feet by 7 feet, schooner rigged. In calms such a craft can be rowed and so time saved ; but with the equinoctial gales impending I got ready my forty More Perils in the Sea. 181 footer, a pretty a,nd fast cutter. She has good accommoda- tion, is well equipped with new sails, good running gear, and very heavy ground tackle. " My crew consists of one good Indian sailor, his son, a dull fellow of about sixteen years, and a lanky lad of fourteen full of the spirit of adventure. He is lent to me by Miss West. None of them ever before sailed in a decked vessel, and know nothing of her management, but they are good boatmen. On Wednesday last we embarked at Metlakatla for Kincolith, and slept on board, so as to get out of the harbour with the ebb tide should it be calm. So it happened. We rowed for the sake of getting steering way, and drifted for three miles till we reached the open sea, when a gentle south wind began to ripple the ocean. Then more wind, and more, until we took in a single reef. Ah ! that is the trim I like, with the lee scuppers under water, the foam bending over from the flare, and a smooth lane of creamy water swiftly left astern. I wish you could have been there. So we sailed all day till evening approached, when the wind failed us, so that we could not get into a safe anchorage, and were glad to get into seven fathoms outside the bar rather than drift all night as an alternative. " The barometer was rising rather too fast to be trusted. It was calm, but the sky seemed congested and looked unpro- pitious as darkness fell. After turning in I rose and paid out more cable, letting go a second anchor. Then I couldn't sleep, though my crew did. The swell increased, and played upon pots, pans, and crockery, music not found even in Wag- ner's erratic compositions. Again I went on deck and paid out more chain, and crawling back to my cabin, half-dressed before I turned in. Then arose a furious din on deck. The pitching and rolling loosened the water-cask's lashings, and I found it a ticklish thing to capture in the darkness which the masthead light only seemed to thicken. " Then came gusts of wind. I called up the crew and went be;low to put on dry clothing and overalls to be ready for contingencies. To leeward we could hear the sea break- 182 Snapshots from the North Pacific. ing on the uncovered bar. Then came the hurricane. We had done all we could, and felt sure that He Who has been our Refuge before would watch over us now. Hour after hour the tumult waxed wilder in the gloom. I was wearing long rubber boots and holding on abaft the companion. The seas often swept the deck. My boots filled, so I dragged them off. You can't swim in them. The cutter struggled with the waves like a terrier in battle. The water-cask had crushed a finger. The greasy blood made it a little more difficult to hold on to rope or spar, but the mental tension kept the pain out of my consciousness. " Archdeacon Collison had recognized the cutter, and as his house rocked so much in the hurricane that he felt it safer to be up than in bed, he watched my masthead light most anxiously ; partly because of the height of the waves and the pitching of the vessel he sometimes lost sight of it, and thought we had foundered. Finally he saw it reappear in another place, and thought we had dragged our anchors over the bar, but the speed of its movements soon revealed the truth. About 4 a.m. a star shone through a rift and carried its gleam into my heart. Then more rifts and more stars, but the gale still roared. We could now see the broken water around us. The straining sprang a leak. God saw it all ; and we saw His stars that lent light enough to make the frowning mountains guarding the estuary to leeward visible. We had furled our sails with a single reef in, so we had to close reef her and get all ready to hoist before we weighed anchors. Sailors will understand the difficulty of this under the circumstances. " As soon as I felt assured there was water deep enough to cross the bar, we made sail. ' Up jib, a mere handker- chief : peak halliards, be smart ! Away we go. Ease off the main sheet a bit. Make fast/ With the wind on our star- board quarter we crossed the bar in the midst of flying foam. If in the trough of the sea we had struck we must have perished. That peril left behind, I breathed again. " How we swept along ! I was at the wheel, the adult More Perils in the Sea. 183 Indian handling the main sheet, his son pumping for dear life (because the fluke of the swinging anchor started a new leak in the bow), and my lanky lad standing by the jib sheet. Under these lofty and precipitous mountains, one has to be prepared for a sudden shift of wind. I knew of a little harbour about seven miles from the mouth of the estuary, and headed for it. As we got to its entrance we found the high land diverted the wind, which now met us in heavy gusts. How- ever, wo beat in, and dropped anchor into smooth water. We first patched the leak in the bow, then warmed up and ate some oatmeal porridge, and turned in. My crew snored and finger throbbed, but we were safe and in peace. It was the past peril that sweetened peace ; so will our calm future be indebted to our present liability to pain and peril for some of its joys. What a contrast between Thursday's) fury and Friday's serenity ! To-day, Saturday, the waves sparkle, every ripple borrowing its living glory from its fount in heaven. " I love the sea, and have no choice between its rocking me in my long sleep and the readiness of mother earth to cover me with flowers. Both will be ready to> yield their treasures in the day of reunion. Two days ago the glaciers wore their summer robes of glistening blue, or green, as they appear under varying circumstances ; but now they are white so white in their frame of heavenly azure under the bright sun, that one learns what mean those words, ' whiter than snow ' God's light on His robe covering earth's stains. " The tempest that shook its terrors over the sea brought a beauty to the mountains less transient than a,utumnal flowers, and there it remains to brace faith for seeing charms in October and glory in midwinter. So passes life. My summer past ; the bronze of autumn's trials is powdered by December. Who would dye the snows of life's approaching winter ? Rather would I rejoice in the greyness that grows whiter at each recurring storm as a prelude to the glory every tempest and trial brings nearer, till the last, the most blessed and friendly of all, shall burst and issue in endless day. 184 Snapshots from the North Pacific. " In the meantime each rift in the storm-cloud is to be welcomed as God's eye seeking and finding a path for its light over the mountain barriers of sin into the hearts of the weather-beaten. We struggle on, but how much longer ? Long enough to do what God appoints to each, and to learn that He does it all with or without us by His all-sufficient grace. In the very nature of things to some of us the shades are near when we shall hear God's voice at close of evensong breathing softly words of loving welcome home. " Last night I was delighted to sleep in the Archdeacon's spare room. Sleep? Yes, but not in a hurry. I was hardly ensconced among the blankets at 8.30 p.m., when an excel- lent brass band began to serenade me. I could have excused this courtesy. Fifty hours of wakefulness made the downy pillow my friend. At daybreak came first the bugle call to wake everybody for the prayer-meeting, and then more music. I showed myself, and again pressed the pillow. Before I was dressed the cannon boomed as if our beloved Queen had arrived rather than one of her humble and faithful subjects and some Indians. Canoes full of visitors from up river were welcomed with due ceremony. Then I heard the grue- some howling of a steamer's siren. It must have alarmed the bears and wolves in the dense surrounding forests. It was the Mocking Bird, the sternwheel steamer with Mr. McCullagh and his candidates for confirmation from Aiyansh on board. " The spiritual side of his remarkable mission does not seem to suffer from the development of the secular. I have seen one great big scheme wreck a great work and a much greater reputation., but I trust Mr. McCullagh's judgment and sincere devotion to our Master, who faithfully blesses talents faithfully used. Industrial missions in the charge of agents who profit by their commercial success spell spiritual ruin to their promoters. Mr. McCullagh rightly courts publicity, and is most scrupulous in never letting it serve his private interest. I can therefore confidently commend his More Perils in the Sea. 185 sensible but enterprising schemes for benefiting his Indians materially as well as spiritually. " To-day I have discussed with him his road-making and farm-stocking projects. Here I used to see savagery; now, civilization growing out of Gospel teaching. He built the sawmill, the Indians own and work it ; he bought the steamer, the Indians subscribing for shares ; as soon as she is paid for (let friends subscribe !) the Indians will own and work her. So it is with everything. The missionary initiates and directs, and then hands over the whole to his people who share his enthusiasm. He will share no profit that is likely to accrue. But I must prepare for to-morrow's functions. Later. " Saturday was a day for entertaining strangers. These Indians are go-a-head! They fetched four fat steers from Massett, a distance by sea of 120 miles, to feed their visitors gratuitously with fresh beef. They tax themselves to cover the cost of these great festivities. In the evening the Town Hall was crowded by a prayer meeting. Next morning at 7 o'clock a bugle call to another prayer- meeting which again filled the haill. Then the public breakfast, which, being cleared away, the workers prepared dinner in good time to be present at the church consecration. Even the children were in thd spirit of it. The girls wore bright bows in their swarthy hair, and the boys showed each other the pockets in their new clothes. The oldest man and women, who had reached middle age as pagans, now slowly move about as in a dream, muttering thanks to God as if they belonged to another world. And so they do. As I accost them tEey look up and say, ' God, God.' " The tissue of their thought is wholly changed. God is more consciously in it than with us who inherit a creed. I do not mean that they are more consecrated in life, but more godly in attitude of rnind. Our standard is not quite theirs, but they live nearer to it. What they know is less, but it is> I fancy, more real and definite, and held with a child's sweet simplicity. This is less obvious among the younger and better 186 Snapshots -from the North Pacific. instructed Indians, because they look out upon a much larger 'circumference of knowledge, but their self-sacrifice and .'greater self-control prove that they are not less Christlike. I, too, point up and say, ' God, God/ " The consecration service began at 10 a.m. In the mean- time the sun shone brightly, and flags fluttered from every mast and pole. Bunting and earnest faces everywhere. As w^ clergy emerged from the parsonage, we were charmed by a beautiful sight. not the snow-clad mountains, or rippling sea reflecting heaven's blue, but many hundreds of bright yet solemn faces, that formed the avenue we marched through to reach the new and really beautiful church. Headed by the chiefs was the band in bright home-made uniform ; then the choir, the churchwardens and clergy, the female members of the choir, and a stream of men marshalled by stewards bear- ing wands tipped by tiny flags. Ancient silk chimney-pot hats that only see the light on festivals adorned many a head, and coloured scarves were worn by others according to their social standing. The oldest nobility in Europe is not more exclusive than that among Indians, and money is no factor. Then came the ' Church Army Corps,' with a rather pro- nounced military bearing. The band accompanied the choir, and the general public joined in the hymns, which were magni- ficently rendered. " The square in front of the west end of the church was crowded with a sea of faces intensely interested. The prin- cipal chief handed the petition of consecration to a young man who read it fairly well. The phraseology, I dare say, puzzled all. Then an anthem burst forth, ' Open ye the gates/ and as the last words died away the western doors were flung open, and we marched in singing, ' Onward, Chris- tian Soldiers/ Music held a large place in the service. What a delight it was ; and how solemn. Only the singing was in English. It was the brightest day in the people's lives. They were proud of their church; they had built More Perils in the Sea. 1*87 it with their own hands, and 90 per cent, at their own cost. After my sermon the offertory was made, which eventually reached about 40. I saw silver bracelets, a watch and chain, rings, and a handkerchief, which a woman redeemed with five dollars one pound sterling ! I seemed to see a soul in everything. " If the consecration of the building stirred the greater interest, especially among the pagans present by special in- vitation, the confirmation on Monday morning was the more solemn. I forget the exact number of candidates, about sixty, of whom thirteen were from Aiyansh, and all adults. Some were aged, and they the most awed by the renewal of their baptismal pledge. " A few of the Christian visitors were from the only Methodist mission among the Nishgas. They wondered why they could not come for a blessing too, seeing it was apostolic and, aa they said, they revered the Apostles. It is obvious that our liturgical forms appeal more successfully to the Indian's instincts than any other. " Two years ago I was benighted on the river and intended to camp at the first suitable place, but the kind Methodist missionary I called on insisted on my accepting his hospitality. It was Saturday night. Before going to bed I said I should IK? glad to take a class in his Sunday-school. ' I haven't got any,' he replied ; ' but with you here I don't mean to take any service. You must do it, and there are to be three baptisms and a wedding.' ' If I were to do so I should use no other than the Anglican form of prayers.' ' Certainly ! ' ' But it would be a shock to your people.' ' I hope so.' ' But what will your circuit superintendent say ? There is his daughter.' ' Oh, I don't mind what he says ; I want my people to have the benefit of your visit.' ' Very well, then ; I pronounce this to be a Church Mission till Monday morn- ing, and you are my curate for the nonce.' He smiled : I don't think I did. So for the first time these Methodist Indians assisted at services in the vernacular (they don't understand English), and I married, baptized, and ministered 188 Snapshots from the North Pacific. according to our Church rites and ceremonies. The upshot of it was a general clamour that I would stay and continue to help them to a more full knowledge of Divine things. The confirmation they now witnessed renewed that desire. " Recently the Methodists appointed an inspector of their missions, and I found him a charming and cultured companion on a voyage we took together. He owned that he greatly admired our literary successes in the vernacular, and resolved to urge on his ministerial brethren the duty of copying it. I feel flattered. " In 1881 I started Indian boarding-schools, then got a nurse, a doctor, and a hospital ; they followed suit with much larger expenditure, and their Medical Missions are now an easy first. I wish them all success, but do not like the second place in any department. I feel sore, but it roa.y do good to suffer in one's conceit. " Archdeacon Collison's new and noble church is not only handsome but storm proof in its sturdy strength. The S.P.C.K. has made a grant we feel very grateful for. She deserves the heartiest thanks of Colonia.1 branches of the Anglican Church, and the cordial sympathy of Churchmen everywhere. Besides this grant and the small sums we mis- sionaries can afford to give, the churches and church halls are built and maintained entirely by the great liberality of Indians. So, too, what is called church expenses and Church Army operations. The C.M.S. does not give aught to such things. A fortnight since two of our MetLakatla Indians induced me to sanction their itineration among the Kwagutl pagans, three hundred miles distant. All the help they got was five dollars from me to pay part of their steam- boat fare to Alert Bay. At this moment they are diligently going from tribe to tribe to tell of God's dear love in Christ Jesus. For the new church, a woman who earns her living by filling tins with salmon in a cannery went on saving until she had 20, with which she bought a brass lectern. Some- body else gave the pulpit; a family gave a stained glass memorial window for the chancel. Their gifts exceed in value More Perils in the Sea. 189 any I know, if measured by the labour and self-sacrifice en- abling the donors to offer them. " These Indians are proud, but their pride often runs in veins where God, I believe, sees much fine gold. They are entirely self-supporting. Fire half-destroyed their town three years ago. They rebuilt it better than ever, not only their private houses which are better both inside and out than the average working man's on the coast but also the present fine church, the new town hall, band room, firemen's hail, and Church Army hall. They work as well as white men, and hunt much better. Public spirit is a passion with them, so that they readily tax themselves for all public pur- poses. The Government of the province does absolutely no- thing for them. " Music is also a power for good. In competition with whites their bands excel. The money they spend, say 100 on instruments and music, another 100 for a band room, besides the cost of light and fuel, is well spent in providing an amusement of a pure and elevating kind. When their bands meet for competition, their transcribed music is handed to the judges, who require each band to play from the scores of the other without knowing what it is until they so receive it. Therefore it is competition of the most trying kind, playing strange music at sight. " This spread of musical knowledge started from my first Indian boarding-school, when she who loved them began to teach them the rudiments of this lovely art. It has spread now even among the pagans, who will pay our young and skilful performers as much as 5 a month, with board and lodging for a whole winter, to instruct the ambitious youth. This devotion to harmony is very wonderful. What a bless- ing the C.M.S. has been in every way to these manly and interesting people ! . . . . " But I must tell how I gob back to my house. On Monday morning it was clear and calm. Coming out of church and seeing that the wind was fair and strong, I an- nounced my determination to get away as soon as possible. 190 Snapshots from the North Pacific. The Indians vainly pointed to the white horses outside. We embarked, and at 3 p.m. weighed anchor. At 7 p..m. we anchored thirty-six miles nearer Metlakatla in a sheltered nook. That is over eight knots an hour. We flew forward under a reefed main-sail before the wind. Before daylight on Tuesday we started off with the gentlest of catepaws which took us six miles, and then rather than drift back we anchored in a perfect calm. Lalcr in the day a puff encouraged us to proceed, and at sunset we were again becalmed, only seven miles from, our destination, so we towed the cutter into what my mate said he knew was good anchorage. It became pitch dark before we anchored in five fathoms. The swell from the oc?an was heavy, but as smooth as glass. I could see no sign of the shore, but Indian sight is more catlike than mine, and the mate felt sure we were in a good place. After hoisting ooir anchor light we all turned in. To my horror, about midnight, we struck heavily on rocks. We all rushed on deck in night attire, shortened the cable, launched the boat, up anchor, and towed into deeper water. We pounded away as the hollows of the swell let us down at low water on the rocks. Happily I have four inches of iron, weighing some tons, bolted on the keel of the cutter. This received the blows, and saved us from breaking our back. " When the day dawned we saw we had not been able to locate the exact whereabouts of the mouth of a small stream the mate knew of well, and had chanced on a berth too near the rocks that, stretch out on either side into the sea with about the same depth of water from side to side. With the turn of the tide we had swung round on the rocks. This might have ended in disaster, but God keeps watch and ward ; so we got safely back at last, very thankful." After writing the above letter the Bishop paid, in 1901, an unexpected visit to England, brought home by a disaster which roused the sympathy of all interested in missionary More -Perils in the Sea-. 191 Work. He was at Victoria, about to start for the Atliu gold- fields, when be received the appalling news of a terrible fire at Metlakatla on July 22nd. He returned at once to the spot, and found smouldering ruins where lie had left a happy and prosperous Mission Station church, schools and liis own home all gone. He wrote the following par- ticulars three days after the conflagration : " At this season the whole population outside our mission- ary institutions is away at the salmon fishery on the Skeena River, so there was no one to use the fire engine. As fast as the children were sheltered in one building the firei chased them to another until no place remained to go to. The buildings destroyed are the great church, the two day-schools, the boys' industrial school, the' Indian girls' home, the white home (Miss West's), the Church Army Hall, the Guest Hou:e, tLe chapel, and my own house, as well as many out- buildings, among them the boathousas, containing all our boats, including my schooner. Nothing of it is saved. Only a few Indian houses were burnt. " All the buildings were of cedar, hence the frightful rapidity of the great conflagrations. The loss is not less than 7,000 worth. " I mourn for my library, all niy manuscripts the work of many years on subjects that are peculiarly my own trans- lations of Scripture, folk-lore, poems, two grammars one very complete, my best work and material for a book on the origin, habits, traditions, and religions of Indians. 'Tis, I think, a real loss to literature, seeing that I cannot live long enough, and have not the energy to try to reproduce even some of it. It is my second great bereavement." Through God's blessing on the Bishop's untiring efforts, he returned to his diocese with the necessary 7,000, but of course no money could restore the valuable MSS. nor the little treasured mementoes that become more dear each year, as they recall those who have gone before. This " second great bereavement," as the Bishop called it r 192 Snapshots from the North Pacific. and the strain of work which it entailed, finally broke down his health, and after returning to Metlakatla with the con- tributions of generous friends in England, he felt obliged finally to sever his connexion with a diocese where the name of the first of its Bishops will always remain as a household word, to be loved and revered through succeeding generations. But, though workers change, fruit is still being gathered in those far-off regions, to the glory and praise of God. These letters, we must remember, do not tell the story of finished work, and it is hoped that their collection and republication will awaken fresh interest in that portion of the great harvest- field, so that more earnest prayer may arise that the Indians of the far West may be among those who shall come to " sit down in the kingdom of God," and that voices once raised in the wild revelry of the heathen pot-lach may join with the multitude of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues in the glad acclaim : '' Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne>, and unto the Lamb." New Girls' Home, Rebuilt since the Fire. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-Series 4939 tHAW. BV2813. R43A3 1 .