I cannot send them away. He was again put in
remembrance of the letter in the following year, when he assured the
brethren it had made such an impression on him that he could not sleep
for three nights; but he continued in his evil course of conduct, and
still kept the mother and the daughter among his wives. He went
afterwards to the south, where he remained two or three winters, but
whether he ever obtained repentance must remain a secret till "that
day."

Reports of many horrible murders committed in the north in the year
1790 having reached the brethren, they were not a little comforted by
the remark of an Esquimaux living at one of the settlements, "As many
murders," said he, "would have been committed here if you had not come
and brought us the good word of our Creator becoming our Redeemer, of
his great love to us, and of our duty to love him and our neighbour."

A strong desire to travel to the south became again prevalent among
the Esquimaux in the summer of 1791; they said one could get a large
boat there for a small price, and plenty to eat, as the Europeans
caught the seals in nets and gave away the flesh for nothing, and they
gave them also bread and rum at a low rate, and all this was good for
the _Innuit_. A hundred persons, of whom fifteen were baptized, and
three candidates for baptism, went from Nain and Okkak in eleven
boats. The sad experience of former years had shewn the brethren the
destructive effects that the frequent dispersion, and the constant
intercourse with their heathen countrymen and careless Europeans, had
in bewildering the Esquimaux, and erasing all their religion; they
therefore determined at parting to give them a serious and
affectionate admonition. In this they reminded them that the members
of the congregation, in going away, were departing from what they had
heard of the Saviour, and what they had promised at their baptism, and
from what the ordinance of the holy supper required them to be. That
they--the missionaries--ever since the time of their backsliding, had
never ceased to cry to the Saviour, as they well knew that he was
merciful and gracious, and would again receive repenting sinners; that
though they would not now follow the counsel of their teachers, and
would separate from them, yet it might be, that when they were in
necessity or affliction, they might think on what they had heard of
Jesus, and take refuge in him; and then, though their bodies should
return to th