ave
the district, under the distressing conviction that the natives, who
had been observed lurking behind some of the small islands, had risen
on the unsuspecting party, and murdered them for the sake of their
property.

This intelligence threw the brethren into the greatest perplexity, as
the person on whom the charge of the Hope now devolved pressed them
earnestly to give him their boat, and return with him to Europe,
because, from the loss of his best seamen, without additional hands,
it would be impossible to navigate the ship. Having come thither at
the expense of the merchants, the missionaries could not allow them to
suffer in their temporal concerns; and although they would willingly
have risked their own lives in the cause, they did not see it equally
their duty to risk the lives of others, and the property of the
merchants, on an unknown coast and a tempestuous ocean, and therefore
agreed to comply with the new captain's request. Leaving provisions in
the house, from which they departed with sorrowful hearts, in the
feeble hope that perhaps some of those missing might yet be alive,
and might be able to find their way thither, on the 20th September
they bade adieu to the station, reached St John's, Newfoundland, on
the 31st, and about the latter end of November arrived in London.

An issue so disastrous to an expedition so well planned, which
apparently carried within itself every rational promise of prosperity,
was calculated to throw a damp upon any renewal of missionary
enterprize in that quarter; and it did so with those who imagined that
they themselves could command success, if their projects were
judiciously concerted, and the means sufficiently supplied. It had no
such effect on that eminent servant of God, Count Zinzendorff. When
the mournful accounts of the uncertain fate of Erhardt and his
companions reached that nobleman, he was grieved, yet not
distressed--perplexed, yet not in despair; for he saw much mercy
mingled in the dispensation, and was thankful to God that four
brethren had returned safe. Next year the vessel Hope re-visited the
coast of Labrador, under the command of Captain Goff. He heard that
some dead bodies had been found and buried, and that the missionary
station had been burned, but no further particulars were ever learned.
In this manner ended the first commercial adventure and first mission
to Labrador--enforcing, in a salutary and impressive manner, the
fundamental maxim of t