With the Harmony to Labrador: Notes of a visit to the Moravian mission stations on the north-east coast of LabradorLa Trobe, Benjamin
History
With the Harmony to Labrador: Notes of a visit to the Moravian mission stations on the north-east coast of Labrador
La Trobe, Benjamin
Indians of North America -- Missions; Inuit -- Missions; Labrador (N.L.) -- Description and travel; Moravian Indians -- Missions
Over rock and moss, variegated with lovely little flowers, we reach
the path which skirts the old heathen sites. Little more than the
outline of the former turf houses is visible. The turf roof has fallen
in, or been carried away, but the low mounds which formed the walls
remain, as also the roofless curving porch, which in each opened out
to the sea. More than one hundred persons of both sexes and all ages
are said to have inhabited these three houses, and their heathen life
here, with its cruelties, sorceries, and other unhallowed phases, can
better be imagined than described. It must have been a great advance
for them in every respect when they moved to the mission-station,
established nearly half a mile away, and began to learn the faith and
hope which have given it its name. In those days there must have been
a good many such heathen villages along this coast with a nomad
population far more numerous than now.
Thence we easily ascend the ship hill, over rock and moss, and
occasional patches of snow. The view is really grand, though bleak and
bare. Hundreds of rocky islands lie between us and the seaward
horizon, while to north and south one can scarcely distinguish them
from the bold headlands which stretch out into the ocean. Northward,
the white sails of from thirty to forty fishing schooners are gleaming
white in the sun. Hundreds of these craft pass up the coast from
Newfoundland every summer, and the spiritual interests of their crews
are faithfully sought at Hopedale. Sometimes the Sunday afternoon
English service is attended by more than two hundred such visitors. As
we descend the hill and return to the station past the well-kept
gardens, we make our first acquaintance with mosquitoes, but they do
not trouble us much to-day.
JOYS AND SORROWS--A MARRIAGE AND A FUNERAL
Each mission-station is a little world in itself; it has its own joys
and sorrows, and complete cycle of events in the human lives lived
here for a time by the will of God, who has His purposes of love in
each and all. I have touched many of these joys and sorrows during my
brief stay here.
In the godly family of this Hopedale mission-house, it is a time when
the clouds return after the rain. Little Hildegard Kaestner has been
lying for some days between life and death, but at last we can rejoice
with her parents in a degree of hope. The child has even shown a faint
interest in her toys. (I am grieved to hear on my return that the
little one passed away while her father was absent with me on duty.)
Our English missionary sister has also been passing through woman's
time of trial and honour, and we are now able to rejoice with her and
her husband in the gift of a little girl, their firstborn. God bless
and keep mother and child!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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