give them courage
to proclaim the tidings of thy love, which was stronger than
death--Dear brethren and sisters, the Saviour is present, he certainly
hears us when we join together to call upon him for ourselves and
others The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God be
with you all. Amen."
On the 8th of May they left London in the ship Amity, commanded by
Captain Mugford, and on the 9th August reached the place of their
destination, after a passage of peril and danger. They had constructed
a wooden house while in London, and had been kindly furnished by their
friends with household furniture, and a number of implements for
enabling them to work in carpentry, in iron, and for gardening.
Immediately upon landing they commenced their operations, by
surrounding the spot upon which they had fixed, and to which they gave
the name of Nain, with pallisades, and on the 20th of August laid the
foundation of their wooden house; they soon found their fortification
was unnecessary, as the natives, so far from offering any obstruction,
appeared eager to forward the building, which, on the 22d September,
was so far finished as to be habitable. As on the former occasion, so
on this, the Governor of Newfoundland issued a proclamation in their
favour, declaring the missionaries under the immediate protection of
the British; and at the same time he conveyed to themselves the
strongest assurances of his personal regard for their characters and
wishes for their success, as what would so materially tend to
tranquillize the country.
Among the excellent regulations adopted by the brethren, one, and not
the least important, was, in their transactions with the savages,
while they did them every kind office, to offer them nothing which
might appear in the shape of a bribe to induce them to embrace their
religion: they sometimes built boats for them, and sometimes improved
and repaired those they had, and furnished them with iron pots, and
arrows and lances for seal hunting, but they always required payment,
which the Esquimaux could easily render in whale fins, seals' blubber,
or such other articles as their dexterity could procure. Very soon,
instruments of European manufacture became so necessary, that the
natives were rendered industrious by the desire to possess them, while
they enabled them to render that industry doubly advantageous. In this
traffic the annual visits of the Society's vessel were important, and
the greater
|