iration of
visitors, some of whom thought it next to a miracle that, by the light
of the gospel, a savage race should be brought to live together in peace
and harmony, and above all devote themselves to religion. The people
residing in the neighborhood of those places were also intimate with
these Indians, and both were serviceable to each other; one instance of
which is here inserted. In February of the year 1761, a white man, who
had lost a child, came to Nain weeping, and begging that the Indian
Brethren would assist him and his wife to search for his child, which
had been missing since the day before. Several of the Indian Brethren
immediately went to the house of the parents, and discovered the
footsteps of the child, and tracing the same for the distance of two
miles, found the child in the woods, wrapped up in its petticoat, and
shivering with cold. The joy of the parents was so great that they
reported the circumstance wherever they went. To some of the white
people, who had been in dread of the near settlement of these Indians,
this incident was the means of making them easy, and causing them to
rejoice in having such good neighbors.
... The war being over, the Indians who had been engaged in it freely
confessed to their friends and relations, and to some white people they
had heretofore been acquainted with, that "the Brethren's settlements
had been as a stumbling-block to them; that had it not been for these,
they would most assuredly have laid waste the whole country from the
mountains to Philadelphia; and that many plans had been formed for
destroying these settlements."
[Footnote 33: Prominent among the Moravian clergy for his experience of
missionary life among the American Indians, for his knowledge of the
Indian languages, and for his lifelong devotion to the missionary work.]
* * * * *
=_Jeremy Belknap, 1744-1798._= (Manual, p. 490.)
From "The History of New Hampshire."
=_113._= THE MAST PINE.
Another thing worthy of observation is the aged and majestic appearance
of the trees, of which the most noble is the mast pine. This tree often
grows to the height of one hundred and fifty, and sometimes two hundred
feet. It is straight as an arrow, and has no branches but very near the
top. It is from twenty to forty inches in diameter at its base, and
appears like a stately pillar, adorned with a verdant capital, in form
of a cone. Interspersed among these are the
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