merciful God and Lord for his compassion and assistance, and felt
revived with the hope that he would hear and help us. Some of the sick
began to recover: but on the evening of the 31st the Saviour took
Abel's wife, Benigna, home to her blessed rest, and on the following
morning, August 1, she was laid in her grave; at seven o'clock in the
evening we held a meeting with the Esquimaux, especially with regard
to improve the solemn warning given in that harvest the Lord had
gathered from this church. From conversations held with several of the
sisters on the 12th, we clearly perceived that the removal of so many
of our number had made a deep impression on them, and had brought them
to reflect on the necessity of constantly depending on the Saviour,
and being ever ready to meet him when he shall come to gather them
also into his garner."
But to their great grief the missionaries discovered that this was not
the happy state of all. When the disease abated they learned with the
utmost pain, that some, even of their communicants, in their agony and
terror, had had recourse to their old heathenish practices; and what
was worse, had endeavoured to appease their consciences by attempting
to assimilate them to Old Testament rites imperfectly understood. They
had killed a dog, and cut the ears off many others, that by sprinkling
themselves with the blood of the dog they might prevent death from
approaching them. Under the influence of a fanatical delusion, they
compared this with the offerings of the Jews, and particularly with
the slaying of the Paschal Lamb, and sprinkling the blood on the
lintel and posts of the door. "Our situation we feel very difficult,"
complained the anxious missionaries, "as the enemy uses all his
ingenuity to blind the poor people, and knows how to employ their fear
and distress to harden their hearts, and to prevent them from
discerning their sins and repenting. It appears as if he exerted every
power to destroy this little congregation, but we hope that God will
shortly bruise Satan under our feet, and not allow his attempts to
prosper."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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