whom we
wished again to see, and to relieve from the anxiety they must be
feeling on our account.

We should have worked on Sundays, but Andrew Thompson urged us to
desist. Some of the men answered that we were working in a good cause,
as we should the sooner be able to return home.

"It is the Lord's day, and He says we shall not work on it," answered
Andrew. "Therefore it is wrong to work on it; and depend upon it He
never intends us to do wrong that good may come of it. We are building
a vessel, which we think may be the means of saving us; but He may have
arranged differently, and after all our labour it might prove our
destruction."

Terence, Tom, and I at once said we would follow Andrew's advice; and
one or two of the others added that they were not going to work for us
if we chose to be idle, so the Sabbath became a day of rest. The
Esquimaux wondered when they observed this, and inquired why every
seventh day we desisted from work, though so anxious to get our ship
built.

Andrew then explained to them that we were commanded to do so by the God
we worshipped, and that if we disobeyed His laws He would be angry with
us, and that we could not expect to prosper.

Our knowledge of their language was unfortunately far too imperfect to
enable us to impart any of the great tenets of Christianity to them; but
I do believe that this reply, and the exhibition of obedience to the
commands of a Being whom none of us saw, yet willingly obeyed, opened
their minds, more than any sermon could have done, to receive those
truths whenever they may be offered to them.

Many a time in their snow tents will those untutored savages, during the
long night of winter, talk of the God of the Kabbinae (the Europeans),
and worship Him unknowingly in His works. They are people of inquiring
minds, very capable of receiving instruction; and from their habits and
dispositions, I feel assured that were the great light of the gospel
placed before them, they would gladly receive its truths, and be brought
into Christ's flock of true believers.

Should there be no other result from the gallant attempts making to
discover a north-west passage round the continent of America, than that
by those means people have become acquainted with the condition of vast
tribes hitherto little known, and thereby it has been put into the
hearts of some of Christ's true soldiers to carry His gospel among them,
glorious indeed it will be.

Who can say