e should not talk of things
that _are_ comprehensible. Let us turn to these."

At this point a middle-aged man with a burly frame and resolute
expression started up, and said in an excited yet somewhat reckless
manner--

"I don't believe a word that you say. Everything exists as it was from
the beginning until now, and will continue the same to the end."

"Who told you that?" asked Egede, in a prompt yet quiet manner.

The man was silenced. He resumed his seat without answering.

"You have talked of the `end,' my friend," continued the missionary, in
the same quiet tone. "When is the end? and what will come after it? I
wait for enlightenment."

Still the man remained dumb. He had evidently exhausted himself in one
grand explosion, and was unable for more. There was a disposition to
quiet laughter on the part of the audience, but the missionary checked
this by pointing to another man in the crowd and remarking--

"I think, friend, that you have something to say."

Thus invited, the man spoke at once, and with unexpected vigour. He was
a stupid-looking, heavy-faced man, but when roused, as he then was, his
face lighted up amazingly.

"We do not understand you," he said sternly. "Show us the God you
describe; then we will believe in Him and obey Him. You make Him too
high and incomprehensible. How can we know Him? Will He trouble
Himself about the like of us? Some of us have prayed to Him when we
were faint and hungry, but we got no answer. What you say of Him cannot
be true, or, if you know Him better than we do, why don't you pray for
us and procure for us plenty of food, good health, and a dry house?
That is all we want. As for our souls, they are healthy enough already.
You are of a different race from us. People in your country may have
diseased souls. Very likely they have. From the specimens we have seen
of them we are quite ready to believe that. For them a doctor of souls
may be necessary. Your heaven and your spiritual joys may be good
enough for you, but they would be very dull for us. We must have seals,
and fishes, and birds. Our souls can no more live without these than
our bodies. You say we shall not find any of these in your heaven; well
then, we do not want to go there; we will leave it to you and to the
worthless part of our own countrymen, but as for us, we prefer to go to
Torngarsuk, where we shall find more than we require of all things, and
enjoy them without trouble.