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LIVES OF MISSIONARIES. 
 
 GREENLAND. 
 
 HANS EGEDE. 
 MATTHEW STACK, 
 
 AND niS ASSOCIATES. 
 
 -•0*- 
 
 PtTBLISHED UKDER THE DIRECTION OP 
 
 rEE COMSIITTEE OF GENERAL UTEEATUKE AND EDUCATION, 
 
 APrOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOB rKOMOTIKG 
 
 CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS; 
 
 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET J AND 48, PICCADILLY. 
 NEW YORK: POTT, YOUNG, & CO. 
 
MEMOIR OF HANS EGEDE, 
 
 THE NOEWEGIAN mSSIONARY IN GREENLAND. 
 
 1686—1758. 
 
 " One man sowetli, and another reapetli." 
 
 Amo^'GST the servants of Christ to whom it has 
 been appointed to sow the seed hnt not to reaj) 
 the harvest, few perhaps, in modem times, have 
 had their faith and hope so severely tried as 
 Hans Egede, the father of Greenland Missions. 
 
 Hans (or John) Egede was born in Norway, 
 in the year 1686. The simple, hardy habits 
 which characterize the domestic life of the Nor- 
 wegians early accustom the young to join in 
 the occupations and sports of their elders, both 
 on land and water. But the toils and pastimes 
 in which Egede was allowed to participate did 
 not lessen his fondness for reading : he was eager 
 to acquire knowledge, and the long winter nights 
 of the north afforded him abundant leisure for the 
 pursuit of his favourite studies. His disposition 
 had ever been loving and hopeful, ready to help 
 and quick to sympathize ; and as his years lipened 
 into manhood, it was seen that the love of God 
 
6 llANB EG£DE. 
 
 was the main-spring of his kindness to his neigh- 
 bour, and the governing motive which was to 
 actuate his life. He had remembered his Creator 
 in the days of his youth, and heartily desired to 
 spend all his days in serving Him. At the age 
 of three-and-twenty he was appointed to the 
 charge of the parish of Vogen, in the north of 
 Norway; and it might well have seemed that 
 this was the place in which his best hopes and 
 aspirations were to receive their accomplishment. 
 He had before him a life of labour, but it was la- 
 bour which he loved ; he was the stay and comfort 
 of aged parents ; and he had united himself to a 
 wife who was every way worthy of him. And in 
 spite of the anxieties and discouragements which 
 must sometimes sadden the heart of every faithful 
 pastor, Egede esteemed himself, and was esteemed 
 by his neighbours, a happy man. But God had 
 selected him for a post of greater trial and less 
 cheering labour. 
 
 It may be proper here to remind the reader 
 that, at the period to which this narrative refers, 
 the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway were united 
 under the government of the same sovereign. 
 The reigning king, Frederic IV., had, a few years 
 before, set an example of godly enterprise by 
 establishing a mission for the conversion of the 
 heathen at Tranquebar, in the East Indies. Some 
 tokens of success were already cheering the hearts 
 of the faithful men who had gone thither; and 
 the letters in which they nari'ated their proceed- 
 
COLONIES OF THE NORTHMEN. 7 
 
 ings, and described the manner in which the 
 Gospel was received by the idolatrous natives of 
 the country, were read with lively interest by 
 pious members of the Danish Church, and found 
 their way also into the sister-kingdom of Norway. 
 Nowhere, perhaps, did these records of missionary 
 labour awaken more interest and sympathy than 
 in the secluded parsonage of Vogen. Rejoicing 
 much that Christ was preached to the heathen on 
 that distant Indian shore, Egede began to inquire 
 if there was no way by which the same blessed 
 message might be carried to the benighted men of 
 other lands. 
 
 The foreign dependencies of Denmark were few 
 in number. Tranquebar in India, and some small 
 islands in the West Indies, constituted the whole. 
 In earlier ages, however, the men of Denmark and 
 Norway had been amongst the most daring and 
 successful of European adventurers and colonists. 
 Spreading themselves east and west, north and 
 south, they had conqiiered territories and king- 
 doms, and had bequeathed to their descendants 
 wealth and dominion in lands wider and more 
 fruitful than their own. 
 
 But Egede remembered that there had been 
 one little colony of Norwegians whose history 
 presented a melancholy contrast to that of their 
 more favoured brethren. In the days of the Sea- 
 kings, and about the same time that our own king 
 Alfred was obliged to retreat for a while before 
 the swarms of Northmen who invaded England^ 
 
8 IIA^'S EGEDE. 
 
 a company of Norwegians, led by Earl Ingolf, liad 
 taken possession of Iceland (a.d. 874). From 
 thence, a century afterwards, Eric the Eed sailed 
 out in quest of a new home, and discovered in the 
 west an uninhabited country, which he called 
 Greenland (982). A name which appears singu- 
 larly inappropriate, since fields of ice, naked rocks, 
 and snow- covered mountains are the most conspi- 
 cuous objects which meet the eye of the mariner 
 as his vessel nears the coast. Yet even on these 
 ice-bound shores there are slopes and valleys lyiwg 
 beneath the shelter of the rocks, which the short 
 arctic summer clothes with verdure. Birds innu- 
 merable build amongst the cliffs and islets, rein- 
 deer browse in the valleys, and herds of seals 
 bask on the shore. It seemed a desirable land to 
 Eric and to the companions whom he induced to 
 share his fortunes. They established themselves 
 on the west coast, gradually extending their 
 settlements north and south as their numbers 
 were increased by fresh colonists from Iceland 
 and Norway. 
 
 Hitherto the inhabitants of these countries had 
 been heathens ; worshipping Thor and Odin, the 
 gods of Scandinavia. But the Christian religion 
 penetrated into Norway. The king, Olaus, ranged 
 himself on the side of the believers, and being 
 zealous for the extension of the faith which he had 
 espoused, sent a Christian teacher to convert the 
 Norwegians of Greenland. Eric listened, and de- 
 clared himself a Christian, and most of the colo- 
 
THE SONS OF EEIC DISCOVER AMERICA. U 
 
 iiists followed his example. His sons, bold, 
 adventuroTis navigators, trod in their father's 
 steps, and sailed from Greenland still farther to 
 the west, to find a new territory. They reached 
 the shores of North America, and spent the greater 
 part of two years in a well- wooded country, be- 
 lieved to have been a portion of what is now called 
 Canada. The sons of Eric called it Wineland, be- 
 canse of the wild grapes which grew in the forest. 
 Hitherto they had encountered none of their own 
 kind ; the birds of the air and the beasts of the 
 wood appeared to be the only tenants of this 
 goodly region. But in the third year, sailing 
 farther to the north, they fell in with a diminu- 
 tive dark-skinned people (evidently a tribe of 
 Esquimaux), whom they called, in derision, 
 Skrcelings, or dwarfs. These newly converted North- 
 men, though they had to a certain degree adopted 
 the Christian religion, had learnt little or nothing 
 of its lesson of peace and goodwill to all men. 
 The scorn with which they beheld the Skrcelings 
 did not restrain them from more active mani- 
 festations of enmity : the}'" attacked and killed 
 several in mere wantonness, and thus provoked 
 a struggle with the whole tribe, in which the 
 Norwegian leader was slain. 
 
 Notwithstanding this inauspicious commence- 
 ment, however, emigrants from Greenland, Ice- 
 land, and Norwa}^ repaired to the newly dis- 
 covered land, founded a settlement, and for a time 
 prospered. Could they have lived in peace with 
 
10 HAKS EGEDE. 
 
 one anotlier, the Wineland colonists might have 
 become the fathers in America of a nation of Euro- 
 pean origin, more than four centuries before the 
 great discoveries of Columbus. But they were a 
 fierce and quarrelsome race; and the progress of 
 the new settlement was soon arrested by discord 
 and bloodshed. Some of the survivors of these 
 broils remained in the country, but the colony was 
 dispersed, and Wineland ceased to be resorted to. 
 In the following century, indeed, a zealous mis- 
 sionary from Greenland undertook a voyage 
 thither, in the hope of finding out the descendants 
 of his countrymen, and converting them to Chris- 
 tianity. But it does not appear that his bene- 
 volent expedition was rewarded with any success. 
 The ancient discoveries of the Northmen gi-adu- 
 ally faded from recollection, and the fate of their 
 American brethren was never certainly known. 
 In this respect the history of Wineland was like 
 a foreshowing of the doom which some centuries 
 later awaited the Greenland Norwegians. 
 
 During four hundred and fifty years Greenland 
 maintained a regular, though infrequent, inter- 
 course with Norway. A magistrate deputed by 
 the king administered the civil government of the 
 country ; and a succession of bishops, appointed 
 by the Archbishop of Drontheim, presided over 
 the Greenland Church. It paid also its annual 
 tribute to the Pope ; not in money, which was 
 very scarce in the colony, but in the ivory tusks 
 of the walrus. Like their countrymen in Norway, 
 
THE BLACK DEATH. 11 
 
 the people were hunters, fishers, and herdsmen ; 
 but, iinlike their enterprising forefathers, they 
 concerned themselves hardly at all with navi- 
 gation, the difficulties of which appear indeed to 
 have increased as years rolled on. Enormous 
 icebergs, floating along the coast, and often filling 
 the inlets, had been seen with wonder by the 
 first discoverers of Greenland ; but now the ever- 
 accumulating belt of ice which had formed along 
 the shore entirely blocked up, during many 
 months of the year, the entrance of the fiords on 
 the shores of which the colonists dwelt. Years 
 occasionally intervened between the arrival of 
 vessels from Norway. Yet, infrequent as was 
 the communication of Greenland with the more 
 civilized portions of the world, its remoteness did 
 not exempt it from the awful scourge of the 
 Black Death which ravaged all Asia and Europe 
 in the middle of the fourteenth centuiy. This 
 dreadful pestilence was especially fatal to the 
 inliabitants of Northern Europe. Not only men, 
 but cattle fell beneath its baneful influence ; and 
 even the vegetable world is said to have been 
 blasted by its breath. A year before the Black 
 Death appeared in Greenland, the colony had 
 been visited for the first time by a party of 
 Skroelings or Esquimaux. The Norwegiajis, proud, 
 like their fathers, of their superior strength and 
 stature, and forgetting that God hath made of 
 one blood all nations of men to dwell on the 
 earth, contemned their dwarfish visitors, and drove 
 
12 HAKS EGEDE. 
 
 them away with insult. A skirmish ensued, in 
 which the arrows of the feeble strangers proved 
 fatal to several of their assailants. They retired, 
 nevertheless, but returned in greater numbers 
 some years afterwards, when the population of the 
 colony, never veiy large, had been greatly thinned 
 by the plague. Some of the most desirable valleys 
 had lost all their inhabitants. Of these the new 
 comers took possession, and gradually advanced 
 upon the enfeebled Norwegians. The people of 
 Korway had themselves suffered terribly from the 
 plague. Absorbed in their own troubles, the}' 
 ceased for some years to bestow any thought upon 
 their brethren in Greenland. And when they 
 renewed their intercourse with the colony, the 
 times were not favourable. The crowns of Den- 
 mark, Sweden, and Norway had fallen (1397) to 
 the same sovereign, Margaretta, " the Semiramis of 
 the North." The cares of three kingdoms left her 
 and her successors little leisure to attend to the 
 concerns of that small remote possession. About 
 the same time several vessels freighted for Green- 
 land by the merchants of Bergen, were suc- 
 ■cessively lost by storms. Utterly discouraged, 
 they at length abandoned the trade altogether ; 
 and a rumour grew that all the people in Green- 
 land had been exterminated by a hostile fleet, 
 ooming no man knew from whence. But although 
 this report was not generally credited, one 
 hundred years passed away, and nothing more 
 was done to relieve the unfortunate colonists. 
 
ENGLISHMEN VISIT THE COAbT, 13 
 
 Then Walkendorf, the Archbishop of Drontheim, 
 moved with pity for their forlorn condition, pro- 
 jected the renewal of intercourse with Green- 
 land ; devised means of providing the people with 
 pastors, sought out suitable persons to emigrate 
 thither as colonists, and collected all the infor- 
 mation that could be obtained for the guidance of 
 the mariners who were to take part in the enter- 
 prise. Unhappily, Walkendorf fell into disgrace 
 with his sovereign, and going into voluntary ba- 
 nishment, died in a foreign land, and his benevo- 
 lent schemes perished with him (1521). 
 
 In the space of sixty years three kings in suc- 
 cession formed plans for the recovery of their lost 
 colony, and even began to fit out ships and make 
 preparations for the undertaking ; yet none of 
 these projects were carried into effect. In the 
 ilieantime, the English navigator, John Davis, in 
 the course of three voyages which he made to 
 search for "a north-west passage to India and 
 Cathaye" (1585-1587), repeatedly visited the 
 west coast of Greenland, where, however, he saw 
 only Esquimaux, who willingly came to barter 
 skins of seals, reindeer, and white hares for such 
 things as his men had to give them. From this 
 time English vessels often touched on the Green- 
 land coast, and their representations of the profits 
 which might be obtained by trading ships stirred 
 up the Danish sovereigTis to make a fresh attempt 
 for the re-discovery of their ancient settlements. 
 King Christian II. engaged an English seaman, 
 
JA HAXS EGEDE. 
 
 experienced in tlie Greenland voyage, to pilot an 
 expedition which he sent out for that purpose. 
 The ships reached their destination safely, and 
 saw several spots which appeared pleasant and 
 fruitful, producing abundance of grass, brushwood, 
 and berries. But the Danes alarmed and ex- 
 asperated the Esquimaux, by making some of 
 them prisoners, to carry them to Denmark ; and 
 in their subsequent visits to the coast they found 
 the people resolute in rejecting all intercourse, 
 and prepared to repulse them if they attempted to 
 land. Thus the object of the expedition was 
 frustrated. Voyages to Greenland were imder- 
 taken by several succeeding monarchs ; but the 
 ice prevented some of the ships from reaching 
 the coast, and those which did so brought back 
 no satisfactoiy information. At various times 
 the Danes brought away some of the Esquimaux ; 
 but as no one understood their language, it was 
 impossible to obtain any information from them. 
 The fate of these poor people was most unhappy ; 
 some Joining themselves to death with grief at the 
 separation from their country and kindred, and 
 some escaping from captivity by throwing them- 
 selves into the sea. By the time the seventeenth 
 century came to an end, the Danes had given u-p 
 their researches in despair ; and veiy few even of 
 the Norwegians themselves remembered that a co- 
 lony of their countrymen and fellow-Christians had 
 a home in Greenland in old times, and that some of 
 their descendants might even now be living there. 
 
THE LOST COLONISTS. 15 
 
 Egede, however, musing "upon the subject, 
 began to ask himself what couki have become of 
 thoso poor forsaken people. Moved, as he sup- 
 posed, by mere curiosity, he wrote to a friend who 
 had made several whaling voyages to Davis' Strait, 
 and begged that he would tell him all that he 
 knew about the present state of Greenland and its 
 inhabitants. The answer of his correspondent 
 led him to believe that the men of Norwegian 
 descent, long abandoned by their countrymen, 
 and left without Christian teachers, had sunk into 
 paganism. Egede knew that even in Norway, 
 where the word of God was openly read in every 
 parish church, fragments of heathen superstitions, 
 handed down from the old idolatrous times, still 
 survived in the rural districts, and affected in 
 some degree the minds of the people. In Green- 
 land it could hardly be hoped that the light of 
 truth had ever shone so clearly as it now did 
 in the parent kingdom, for intercourse with the 
 colony had ceased long before the refoimation of 
 religion, at a time when the Gospel of Christ 
 was overlaid and obscured by human traditions 
 and inventions. He pictured to himself the 
 remnant of Christian Greenlanders, gradually 
 losing the little light which their fathers had 
 possessed, mingling with the heathen who had 
 taken possession of their deserted dwelling-places, 
 and becoming by degrees altogether like them, 
 without any hope on which to stay themselves in 
 life or death. Deep compassion for these forlorn 
 
IG nAlJJS EGEDK. 
 
 people now took possession of his lieart. It 
 seemed to him the duty of eveiy Norwegian to 
 do something towards searching out his unhappy 
 countrymen, and publishing to them the glad 
 tidings of the Gospel ; and his mind was con- 
 stantly at work devising measures by which this 
 charitable design might be accomplished. Soon 
 the desire to be himself a messenger of salva- 
 tion to those lost ones arose in his heart. But 
 at this point many difficulties presented them- 
 selves. God had already given into his charge 
 a flock to feed and tend ; would it be right for 
 him to abandon them ? Moreover, he had not 
 only a wife and infant child whom he dreaded to 
 expose to the dangers of the seas, but an aged 
 mother and other near relatives depended en him 
 for sustenance ; how would these be adequately 
 provided for, if he were away? Perplexed by 
 these thoughts, he endeavoured to drive Green- 
 land quite out of his mind, or to remember it only 
 in order to commit the objects of his compassionate 
 conceni to the pity and care of the Almighty, 
 
 This, however, he found to be impossible. 
 Urged to proceed in the work by an inward im- 
 pulse which grew stronger every day, yet with- 
 held by attachment to his parish, by care for his 
 family, and by the fear lest he should be thmsting 
 himself upon a work for which he was not qualified, 
 he had no rest in his spirit. 
 
 For many months his mental conflicts were 
 known only to himself. To those around him 
 
GBEENLAND MISSION PROPOSED. 17 
 
 he appeared occupied, as ever, in the duties of his 
 parish, in study, or in the kindly offices which 
 gladdened the daily life of those who depended 
 upon him. Encouraged at length by the zeal 
 with which king Frederic promoted the mission at 
 Tranquebar, Egede, in the year 1710, ventured to 
 direct the attention of his superiors to the long- 
 forgotten Greenland colony, in the hope that some 
 of his brethren in the ministry, more conveniently 
 situated and better qualified than himself, might 
 be willing to seek out these poor sheep wandering 
 in a land of darkness. He addressed to the king 
 a memorial, in which he humbly, but with much 
 earnestness, urged the claims of the Norwegian 
 Oreenlanders to the compassionate consideration 
 of their countrymen. But, sensible that the pro- 
 posals of a young unfriended man like himself 
 were little likely to receive much attention from 
 the iTilers of the state, he sent copies of his 
 memorial to his diocesan, the Bishop of Drontheim, 
 and to the Bishop of Bergen, the port which was 
 chiefly concerned in the trade with the northern 
 seas, accompanied by letters entreating them to 
 use their influence to recommend the case of the 
 Oreenlanders to the favourable consideration of 
 the sovereign and the council. In answer to this 
 appeal the bishops, having taken time to de- 
 liberate on the subject, replied that they heartily 
 approved of the object which Mr. Egede had in 
 view, and would do their best to promote it; but 
 they pointed out various obstacles which must at 
 
 c 
 
18 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 present impede any attempt to commence a mis- 
 sion in Greenland. Egede himself had been 
 a\rare of some of these, and in particular, that the 
 Tvar which the king of Denmark was then carry- 
 ing on against Sweden might make it veiy diffi- 
 cult to provide money for any new missionary 
 enterprise. But he hoped that this obstacle might 
 soon be removed by the return of peace ; and feel- 
 ing that he had done all that was possible under 
 present circumstances, his mind was at rest. 
 
 Soon, however, his tranquillity was disturbed by 
 the expostulations, entreaties, and even reproaches 
 of his own household. Hitherto he had said 
 nothing to them on the subject in which he was 
 so deeply interested. But his memorial, and the 
 letters which he had addressed to the bishops, 
 began to be talked about at Drontheim and Bergen. 
 Some of his acquaintances who about this time 
 visited the latter city, were amazed when they 
 heard that theh' neighbour, the young minister of 
 Vogen, had proposed a mission to Greenland, and 
 was willing, if necessaiy, to take paii; in it himself. 
 They reproached him vehemently with what they 
 were pleased to call his foolhardiness, and setting 
 before his wife and kindred, in the strongest light, 
 all the privations, dangers, and distress which 
 would attend their removal to a countiy so frigid 
 and difficult of access, they urged them to inter- 
 pose all their influence to prevent Mr. Egede from 
 carrying into effect his preposterous scheme. 
 Egede always looked back to this period of his 
 
egede's conflicts. 19 
 
 life as one of peculiar suffering. He was a man 
 of strong affections, and the tears and entreaties 
 of his wife and mother ahnost overcame his reso- 
 lution. For a little while, indeed, they did suc- 
 ceed in persuading him that he had been in error 
 in supposing that it could be right for him to en- 
 gage in such an undertaking. He even gave 
 thanks to God for having delivered him from 
 what he now believed had been a temptation of 
 Satan, designed to divert his mind from the duties 
 of his own charge. His family were greatly re- 
 joiced at the change in his sentiments, and for a 
 little while he was able to share their joy. But 
 ere long the words of his Heavenly Master, 
 " Whoso loveth father or mother more than Me is 
 not worthy of Me," pierced his heart like a sword. 
 His wife observed his deep distress, and strove to 
 soothe him, but in vain. Neither the endearments 
 of his home, nor the most diligent discharge of his 
 pastoral duties, could afford him any comfort 
 until he felt that he had surrendered his own 
 will in this matter to the will of God. But his 
 wife's distress caused him much sorrow. She 
 could not bear to hear Greenland mentioned ; and 
 was unable to believe that it could ever be her 
 duty to engage in a project which would separate 
 her from her own mother and oblige her to expose 
 her infant children to hardship and danger. 
 
 Until this time Egede and his family had en* 
 joyed much outward peace and prosperity. They 
 were now visited with a succession of troubles, the 
 
20 ZL\NS £G£D£. 
 
 heaviest of whicli arose from tlie envy and ill-will 
 of some persons from whom they might have hoped 
 for better things. These trials and persecutions 
 afflicted Mrs. Egede so deeply that she began to 
 wish her husband might be removed to another 
 parish. He exhorted her not to think so much of 
 the mere outward causes and instniments of their 
 troubles, but to regard them as the means by 
 which God was weaning both her and himself from 
 a home whicli they had loved too dearly, that they 
 mightbecome willing at His command to leave all, 
 and go out into the wilderness. " He in saying to 
 us, ' Arise and depart : this is not your rest.' " 
 Following her husband's counsel, Mrs. Egede 
 brought her sorrows, fears, and perplexities to 
 God ; and poured out her heart before Him in 
 prayer. She received strength and comfort, and 
 also the firm conviction that these trials were de- 
 signed to animate her to a more resolute self-denial 
 in the service of Christ. Henceforward, instead 
 of opposing her husband's missionary plans, she 
 encouraged him by her symjoath^^ He greatly 
 needed it, for several years of delay and disappoint- 
 ment awaited him. He might almost have taken 
 for his motto, '" I have great heaviness and con- 
 tinual sorrow in my heart .... for my brethren, 
 my kinsmen according to the flesh." But he stood 
 alone. He had hoped that some clergyman of 
 wisdom and experience would offer himself for the 
 mission. Diffident of his own ability to fill an 
 untried and difficult post, he desired to labour in 
 
UNPOPULARITY OF MISSIONS. , 21 
 
 it under the direction of another, rather than to be 
 left entirely to his o^^^l discretion. But no one 
 appeared willing to engage in the work. A 
 numerous party in the kingdom objected even to 
 the maintenance of the mission in India, firmly 
 established as it already was, and distinguished 
 by marks of the Divine favour. The proposal to 
 establish a mission in Greenland was by almost 
 all men either ridiculed or condemned as imprac- 
 ticable. 
 
 In the year 1715, Egede published a small 
 treatise in which he examined the various objec- 
 tions alleged against his design, and proved their 
 futility by arguments drawn from reason and 
 Scripture. But if Egede's opponents were con- 
 futed, they were not silenced ; and when they could 
 no longer raise a laugh at the folly of his schemes, 
 they were not ashamed to cast suspicion upon the 
 purity of his motives. Although they had pre- 
 viously reproached him with cruelty to his wife 
 and children, in proposing to exchange comfort 
 and competence at home for privation and danger 
 in a strange and savage land, they now accused 
 him of hiding a spirit of discontent under the cloak 
 of religion ; and insinuated that his anxiety to esta- 
 blish a mission in Greenland sprang from a desire 
 to rise in the world, and not from any motives of 
 piety or benevolence. He, however, held patiently 
 on his way ; fulfilling with diligence the duties 
 of his parish, but still pleading the cause of his 
 Greenland brethren at every fitting opportunity 
 
22 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 by letters and memorials addressed to persons in 
 authority, and to the College of Missions, a council 
 which the king had established for the direction of 
 affairs relating to the Indian mission. But when 
 seven or eight years had passed away without 
 any advance being made, he perceived that he 
 must prosecute his design in person if he would 
 have it succeed. During the time which had 
 elapsed since the desire to be a missionary first 
 arose in his heart, his family circumstances had 
 undergone a sufficient change to make it possible 
 for him to give up his parish without injury to the 
 relatives who had depended on his assistance, 
 though not without impoverishing himself. 
 
 But he saw that this sacrifice was required of 
 him ; and in the year 1718, with the consent of his 
 bishop, he resigned into other hands the parish 
 of Vogen. The final parting with his flock, and 
 with many dear friends and kindred who resided 
 amongst them, was a very sore trial. His solicitude 
 for the conversion of the Greenlanders had in no 
 degree lessened his attachment to the people of 
 his charge ; and when he was to preach to them for 
 the last time, and to bid them farewell, he was 
 almost overpowered with sorrow. Under God, his 
 wife was his support now. She resigned the com- 
 forts of home and the society of beloved friends 
 with such a cheerful serenity and acquiescence in 
 the Divine AYill, that her husband was animated 
 by her example, and inspired with fresh strength 
 to persevere in his self-denying course. 
 
THE king's MISSIONAKY SCHEME. 23 
 
 One of the chief obstacles which might have 
 prevented the King of Denmark from entering 
 upon any new missionary enterprise, was at this 
 time removed by the death of Charles XIT. of 
 Sweden, who perished by a random shot while 
 besieging Fredericshall, in Norway : December 
 11th, 1718. It was foreseen that peace, on terms 
 honourable and advantageous to Denmark, would 
 now be concluded. Egede seized the favourable 
 moment, repaired to Copenhagen, petitioned the 
 College of Missions on behalf of Greenland, and 
 had an audience of the king, who listened atten- 
 tively to his statements, and dismissed him with 
 the gracious assurance that he would consider the 
 matter with care, and endeavour to find some means 
 of maintaining the proposed mission. 
 
 Accordingly King Frederic devised a plan for 
 settling colonists in Greenland, and establishing a 
 regular intercourse between the colony and the 
 mother-country, for which purpose a meicantile 
 company was to be chartered. It appeared to him 
 that this scheme might probably answer the double 
 purpose of defraying the expense of the mission, 
 and also of planting amongst the Greenlanders a 
 civilized Christian community, from whose example 
 they would learn some of the arts and refinements 
 of life, at the same time that they were receiving 
 from the missionaries the knowledge of the Gospel. 
 And it was confidentl}' hoped that by this means 
 the ancient Norwegian settlements might not 
 only be recovered, but restored to more than their 
 
21 UANS EGEDE. 
 
 former prosperity. A royal mandate was transmit- 
 ted to the magistrates of Bergen, requiring them to 
 examine the captains and pilots who had been en- 
 gaged in the whale fishery on the coast of Green- 
 land, in order to obtain all the information the}'' 
 could give for the guidance of settlers in that coun- 
 try. The king desired also that anj' persons willing 
 to join in founding the new colony would consider 
 what privileges they would desire to have assured 
 to them, and promised to grant every reasonable 
 request. Egede was full of hope now, but it was 
 quickly disappointed. Kot one of the seamen who 
 were examined by the Bergen magistrates had a 
 good word to say for Greenland. They all con- 
 curred in representing the voyage as so dangerous, 
 and the country as so drearj^ that the most sanguine 
 adventurer could feel no inclination to become 
 a colonist. Not long before, indeed, a report 
 had reached Korway that the crew of a wrecked 
 whaling vessel, who had escaped in a boat to the 
 shore, had all been butchered and devoured by the 
 savage inhabitants. And although this report was 
 not altogether true, it was so in part ; and being 
 fully credited at the time, the horrors of canni- 
 balism were added to the other uninviting circum- 
 stances of a residence in Greenland. Egede had 
 one argument which to himself was a sufficient 
 answer to every objection : " Our Lord has said, 
 ' Go ye into all the world, and j)reachthe Gospel 
 to every creature. I am with you alway, even 
 unto ths end of the world.' If He be for us, who 
 
PEE SEVERANCE REWARDED. 2? 
 
 can be against ns?" But this was not a consi- 
 deration whicli liad any weight with men -who 
 looked npon emigration to Greenland merely as a 
 means of obtaining a comfortable maintenance.. 
 Egede, however, whose long consideration of the 
 subject had led him, like the philanthropic arch- 
 bishop AValkendorf, to seek for information of 
 every kind concerning the country, knew that 
 the merchants of other nations, the Dutch 
 especially, derived considerable advantage from 
 their trade with Greenland ; and why should it 
 not be equally profitable to his own countrymen ? 
 He failed not to press this question at every op- 
 portunity on the mercantile men to whom he 
 could procure access ; and though he met with, 
 many rebuffs and much ridicule at first, his inde- 
 fatigable perseverance was at length rewarded with 
 success. A few merchants were moved by his 
 entreaties to venture something for the good of 
 their country and the spread of the Gospel, and 
 their example had its effect upon others. In the 
 end it was determined to attempt a ti-ading settle- 
 ment in Greenland ; and a company was formed, 
 each member of which contributed £40 and up- 
 wards towards forming a capital. Mr. Egede 
 himself gave £60 out of his small fortune ; and the 
 contributions of the bishop and clergy of the 
 diocese raised the sum to £2000 — a much larger 
 amount in that age and country than a similar 
 sum would be in our own. 
 
 With this money a ship was purchased, and 
 
26 UA2sS EGEDE. 
 
 suitably equipped for conveying Mr. Egede and 
 his companions to Greenland. It was named the 
 ' Hope.' A factor, or manager, was appointed to 
 conduct the trade ; and several artisans and per- 
 sons accustomed to rural occupations were selected 
 by the company to begin a settlement. Two 
 smaller vessels were to accompany the ' Hope ;' 
 one for the whale-fishery, the other to return to 
 Korway with tidings of their arrival and welfare, 
 as soon as the settlers were fairly established on 
 Greenland ground. Before the arrangements were 
 quite completed, a joyful message arrived from the 
 College of Missions, stating that the king had sig- 
 nified his approval of the undertaking, aixl that he 
 appointed Mr. Egede Minister and Missionary in 
 the new colony, with a j'early salary of 60?. ; he 
 had also given orders that 100?. should be pre- 
 sented to him immediately for the outfit of him- 
 self and his family. 
 
 Eleven years had elapsed since Egede began to 
 solicit the attention of his countrymen to the spi- 
 ritual destitution of the Greenlanders. Many 
 times during those years he had almost said, " All 
 these things are against me !" and he tells us that 
 he was sorely tempted to murmur against God, who 
 had kindled in his heart an luiquenchable desire to 
 preach the Gospel in Greenland, and yet defeated 
 every attempt which he made to carry the design 
 into effect. But he was full of joy and gratitude 
 now. On the 2nd of May, 1721, accompanied by 
 his wife and four yoimg children, he went on board 
 
DAliGEES OF THE VOYAGE. 27 
 
 the ' Hope,' and was presented to the seamen and 
 emigrants (about forty in number) as the super- 
 intendent of the future colony. But the ships 
 were not able to leave the harbour until ten days 
 afterwards. On the 12th May they finally departed 
 for their destination, and for the first eighteen 
 days were favoured with tolerable weather. On 
 the 4th June they passed Staatenhuk, the 
 south-eastern extremity of Greenland, and in- 
 dulged the hope that their voyage would soon be 
 at an end. The weather however changed, and 
 became exceedingly tempestuous, and the ships 
 encountered enormous quantities of ice. The 
 whaler had parted company with them at the 
 beginning of the voyage, and they saw her no 
 more. She had been overset in a squall, but 
 having righted again, with the loss of her masts, 
 had been driven on the coast of Norway : an in- 
 auspicious beginning of the mercantile operations 
 of the company. The ' Hope ' and her consort 
 were beating about for three weeks, without 
 drawing any nearer to their destination ; and the 
 captain, despairing of a favourable termination to 
 the voyage, had almost made up his mind to return 
 to Bergen, when they descried an opening in the 
 ice. But having ventured into it for some dis- 
 tance, they found that they could advance no 
 farther. They would gladly have got back now to 
 the open sea, but the wind was contraiy, and 
 blowing with great violence. The smaller vessel 
 was driven on the ice, and sprang a leak; and 
 
23 
 
 HANS EG EXE. 
 
 both ships were in imminent danger of destniction 
 from the ice floes which drove violently against 
 them. To add to their distress, a thick fog sprung 
 up, and shrouded every object from view. In this 
 
 THE " KUFE " m THE STOBM. 
 
 extremity the captain of the ' Hope ' bade hu 
 passengers prepare for death, which he expected 
 every moment would overtake them. But they 
 looked unto God, and were lightened. Unseen by 
 them, His Providence was working out their de- 
 liverance by the stoim which appeared to threaten 
 their destruction. It broke and dispersed the ioe, 
 
LA>{DING OF TUE SETTLERS. 29 
 
 and when the veil of fog was lifted they found 
 themselves, to their astonishment, in open water. 
 Day by day the eyes of the emigrants were turned 
 anxiously in the direction of their new country, 
 but it was the 3rd July before they finally made 
 the shore at Baal's Eiver, in lat. 64° N. The coast 
 reminded them in some degree of the land which 
 they had left, but only the sternest features of 
 Norwegian landscape were to be seen here ; the 
 numberless islets and rocks, the firths and inlets 
 indenting all the shore, the majestic outlines of 
 mountains in the background. But the snow, the 
 glaciers, the bare sterile ruggedness of Greenland, 
 told them that they were far indeed from their 
 own magnificent coast, with its noble fiords, 
 widening and narrowing in a thousand cui'ves and 
 channels — now enclosed between the mighty gra- 
 nite cliffs, now opening into lake-like expanses 
 where the shores smiled with verdure, and the 
 cheerful farmsteads and pastures were inter- 
 mingled with the wild crags, forests, and water- 
 falls. 
 
 Baal's Eiver (the name subsequently given by 
 the colonists) is a creek or firth which runs into 
 the land from sixty to seventy miles in a north- 
 westerly direction. A cluster of islands, somo 
 hundreds in number, lies in its estuary, and on 
 one of these, named Kangek, the emigrants erected 
 their first dwelling, a house of stones and earth, 
 lined with boards. On the 3rd of August it was 
 completed, and after a short thanksgiving service, 
 
30 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 in which Egede exhorted his companions from the 
 words of the 117th Psalm, they joyfully removed 
 into it from their narrow quarters on board the 
 ship. Although it was so early in the season, 
 t^e nights were already very cold. The settlers 
 erected also a blacksmith's forge, and other neces- 
 sary buildings for their stores and workshops, and 
 named the place Godhaab ; /. e., Good hope. An 
 Esquimaux encampment was seen on the neigh- 
 bouring shore. The people were from four to five 
 feet high, and had broad flat faces, coarse black 
 hair, and a \evy swarthy complexion. They were 
 clad in seal-skin garments from head to foot, and 
 their tents were also of seal-skin. The proceed- 
 ings of the Europeans were watched by them with 
 much curiosity ; and by their gestures they ex- 
 pressed great surprise at seeing women and 
 children amongst them. They were still more 
 astonished when they perceived that the strangers 
 were building a house, as if they intended to 
 remain in the country : they made signs to them 
 that their house would be buried under the snow ; 
 they pointed to the sun, and to the horizon, 
 shivered, closed their eyes, and laid their hands 
 under their heads, intimating by all this that 
 when the winter came they would be all frozen to 
 death, and therefore had better take their depar- 
 ture in good time, before the season of cold and 
 darkness arrived. But when they found that 
 their warnings produced no effect, they became 
 afraid, retired to a more distant part of the coast. 
 
DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE ESQUIMAUX. 31 
 
 and would not suffer tlie Europeans to come into 
 their tents. Gifts and kind treatment allayed 
 their fears after a time ; but several months elapsed 
 ere they would admit the strangers into their 
 houses, or would venture to return their visits. 
 It must be confessed that, excepting for the sake 
 of doing them good, few Europeans would have 
 desired to enter a Greenland house, or to admit 
 the natives into their own. In the concise but 
 expressive language of one of their early acquaint- 
 ances, "their clothes dripped with grease and 
 swarmed with vermin;" and their hands, faces, 
 fuiTiiture, and cooking utensils were alike smeared 
 with oil, dirt, and seals' fat. The houses in which 
 they spent the greatest part of the year (the tents 
 being only used for summer habitations) were long 
 nan'ow huts of stone and turf, just high enough 
 for a man to stand upright. Curtains of seal- skin 
 served instead of walls to divide the dwelling into 
 several small compartments, each of which shel- 
 tered a separate family. There was no fire, but a 
 lamp, supplied with filaments of moss for a wick, 
 and fed with train oil, diffused heat and light 
 around each compartment. Over each lamp hung 
 the stone kettle in which the family meals, con- 
 sisting chiefly of fish, blubber, and seals' flesh, 
 were cooked. The seal was indeed the one inva- 
 luable possession of these poor people, supplying 
 them with food and clothing, dwellings and boats. 
 And it was the daily employment of the women to 
 tan and dress the skins, and to manufacture them 
 
32 
 
 IL&NS EGEDE. 
 
 into garments and articles of use and furniture. 
 The intestines also they made useful, fonning with 
 them a close network which supplied the place of 
 glass in the windows of their huts, admitting 
 some degree of light, while it effectually excluded 
 wind and weather. 
 
 Egede took every opportunity of visiting the 
 natives ; and as soon as he found out that " Itina " 
 meant What is this ? he said Una ? hna ? of every 
 object he saw, and committed the answers to 
 paper. In this way he learnt the names of many 
 things, but in other respects his progress was very 
 slow at first. The pronunciation of the language 
 was particularly difficult to Europeans, on account 
 of the guttural r, which was sounded very deep 
 in the throat, and often pronounced like h. A 
 more serious difficulty arose from the nature of the 
 language itself. The Greenland tongue was most 
 copious in words expressive of common objects and 
 occupations, distinguishing the slightest shades of 
 difference by appropriate terms, but it had no 
 words for abstract ideas of anj- kind. "Words were 
 provided with numerous affixes and suffixes (the 
 whole number of inflections in each verb, for in- 
 stance, amounting to one hundred and eighty), 
 and many words were connected together, so that 
 the natives could express themselves wdth strength 
 and brevity ; but this peculiarity occasioned great 
 trouble to the strangers who wished to learn their 
 language so as to speak it with ease and fluency. 
 Perceiving that a native named Arok had attached 
 
THE ANGEK0K8. 83 
 
 Siimsolf to one of the settlers called Aaron^ on 
 account of the similarity of their names, Mr. Egede 
 left Aaron, with his own consent, amongst the 
 Esquimaux for a few months ; hoping that he 
 might gain some knowledge of the language, and 
 might ascertain from his hosts something of the cir- 
 cumstances of the country, and especially whether 
 they knew of other inhabitants of a race different 
 from their own : for his heart yearned after the 
 long-lost countrymen whom he had come so far to 
 seek. Aaron, however, leanit very little from his 
 native acquaintances, whose continued attempts at 
 thieving irritated him so greatly, that he en- 
 deavoured at last to reform them by blows. 
 They in return fell upon him and beat him 
 severely, taking away his gun, lest he should do 
 them mischief with it. But afterwards, becoming 
 afraid, they tried to soothe and coax him, en- 
 treating, above all things, that he would not tell 
 his Angekok, lest they should be punished. An- 
 gekok, in the Greenland tongue, signified Wise Man. 
 It was the name given by the natives to certain 
 persons amongst them who assumed the office of 
 diviner, or sorcerer, and of whom they stood in 
 awe. Since the coming of the white men several 
 Angekoks had exhausted their spells upon them, 
 and more particularly upon Mr. Egede, as he 
 appeared to be the person in chief authority ; in 
 order, as they said, to bring evil upon the foreigners, 
 and force them to quit the country. But seeing 
 t2iat their sorceries availed nothing, they gave 
 
34 
 
 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 out that Egede himself was a very powerful 
 Angekok. 
 
 During the first year the colonists were not 
 very successful, either in their hunting or fishing. 
 
 BLACK AUKS ON COAST IN TH0USANT>8. 
 
 The shores of Baal's Eiver were a great resort of 
 reindeer, and there were many white hares, but 
 
EARLY DIFFICULTIES. 86 
 
 both deer and hares were excessively shy. In 
 February, when the frost became veiy severe, 
 and the sea smoked like an oven, black anks 
 flocked in thousands to the shore ; but their 
 flesh was not very acceptable to the Europeans, 
 though better flavoured than that of the other sea- 
 fowl. They had chiefly depended on the fishery 
 for a supplement to the stock of provisions which 
 they brought with them from Norway ; but for 
 this year at least they found it less productive 
 than the abundance of the seas in their own 
 country had led them to expect. Seal-catching 
 they were unused to, and they were moreover 
 prejudiced against the use of seals' flesh as food. 
 The extreme cold, which rendered it difficult to 
 stir out of doors without having the hands and 
 face frozen, the want of sufficient exercise, and 
 the long-continued use of dry and salt provisions, 
 induced a general listlessness and depression 
 amongst the colonists, and several were attacked 
 by scurvy. The factor found, much to his morti- 
 fication, that the natives declined to barter their 
 superfluous oil, skins, &c., for the goods he had 
 brought from Bergen ; but that in the spring, 
 when a Dutch ship passed Godhaab, and ran into 
 the harbour, the people on board bought more ir 
 half an hour than he had been able to obtain froni 
 the Greenlanders during the whole winter. The 
 reason of this was, that the Dutch, by many years' 
 commerce with Greenland, had won the confidence 
 of the natives, and knowing exactly what kinds of 
 
36 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 commodities were most acceptable to the Esqui- 
 maux, they stocked their ships accordingly. 
 
 May had now returned ; the earth was be- 
 ginning to thaw, and though the snow still fell in 
 frequent showei^, the welcome light of the sun 
 was only withdrawn for three hours out of the 
 twenty-four. A profusion of mosses, grass, and 
 various small herbs and flowers showed them- 
 selves, and the invaluable scurvy-grass, which 
 had sprung up beneath the snow, restored the 
 health of the invalids. But the non-arrival of the 
 ship which had been expected in the course of 
 this month, with fresh stores of provisions and 
 necessaries from Norway, occasioned extreme dis- 
 content. Most of the settlers broke into murmurs 
 against the minister for leading them to that 
 dreary wilderness, and all declared their determi- ■" 
 nation to return to Norway by the ship ' Hope,' 
 which had wintered at Godhaab. Egede was 
 thrown into gi'eat perplexity and trouble. He 
 could not remain alone in the country, with a 
 wife and little children, to see them perish before 
 his eyes ; yet he could not bear to think of aban- 
 doning the work he had as yet scarcely begun, 
 and of giving up that opportiinity of publishing the 
 Gospel in Greenland, which he had obtained by 
 the unremitting exertions of many years. All 
 he could obtain of the settlers, however, was to 
 wait until June for the arrival of the store-ship. 
 June came, and three weeks of it passed away, 
 and still no ship ari'ived. The people now began 
 
WELCOME NEWS. 87 
 
 to collect all their goods, tools, &c., and to de- 
 molisli their habitations. With a very sorrowful 
 heart Egede watched these preparations for de- 
 serting the country, for he felt almost constrained 
 to go away too. But his wife withstood this 
 resolution with so much fiimness that, as his 
 narrative tells us, he even felt ashamed to be so 
 far her inferior in faith and courage. From the 
 time of their arrival in Greenland, she had 
 looked upon it as the place which God had 
 appointed for her husband and herself, and with 
 cheei-ful contentment made light of the privations 
 and discomforts which they all had to endure. 
 She was so firmly persuaded that the ship would 
 arrive sooner or later, that she earnestly remon- 
 strated with the people who were pulling down 
 their houses, assuring them that they were giving 
 themselves needless trouble. They laughed at 
 the predictions of " the new prophetess ;" but their 
 incredulity was soon put to the blush. On the 
 27th June the long-expected vessel entered the 
 harbour, bringing abundance of provisions, and 
 conveying to Mr. Egede the welcome assurance 
 that the king intended to support the mission to 
 the utmost of his power. 
 
 Encouraged by these joyful tidings, Egede ad- 
 dressed himself with fresh hope to the instruction 
 of the natives. His little boys were already able 
 to make themselves understood ; and although the 
 pronunciation, which they acquired almost in- 
 sensibly, was still extremely difficult to their 
 
BS HANS EGEDE. 
 
 father, lie liad laid up a large stock of Greenlandio 
 words, and thought that with the help of his chil- 
 dren he might begin to discourse more freely 
 upon religious subjects. Paul, the eldest of 
 the boys, could di'aw a little, and his father 
 directed him to sketch as well as he could some 
 of the chief occurrences recorded in Scripture. 
 Paul himself, describing in after-life these first 
 pictorial attempts at missionary work, assures us 
 that they were of the very mdest description; 
 but rough and imperfect as they might be, they 
 answered in some degree their purpose, which 
 was that of illustrating Mr. Egede's meaning 
 when he attempted to relate to the natives the 
 History of the Creation, the Fall, the Deluge, the 
 miracles of the Lord Jesus, His death, and resur- 
 rection. The Greenlanders were pleased with 
 anything in the shape of a story ; but the mii'acles 
 by which Christ healed the sick and raised the 
 dead found the quickest entrance into their 
 minds ; and as Mr. Egede came to them in the 
 character of a messenger from this mighty and 
 beneficent Lord, they imagined that he too 
 could do many wonderful works. Sick persons 
 were frequently brought to him, with the request 
 that he would blow upon them, for that was the 
 way in which the Angekoks pretended to cure 
 diseases. Egede was very careful to tell them 
 that he was but a man like themselves ; he could 
 sometimes direct them (he said) to medicines 
 useful for their sickness ; but God only, his 
 
EGF.DE TEACHING IN ESQUIMAUX HUT. 
 
THE 6ICK BllOUGHT TO EGEDE. 41 
 
 Maker and theirs, could cure them. They must 
 look to Him for health and every good thing 
 which they desired. After speaking thus, he 
 would kneel down and pray for the sick. Several 
 persons by whom he thus prayed, recovered, and 
 the confidence of the natives in the good inten- 
 tions of the missionary was greatly strengthened, 
 so that they gladly received him into their houses. 
 But when he tried to teach them that there were 
 diseases of the soul as well as of the body, and that 
 all men needed to be healed of that sickness, they 
 had no ears to listen : or, if he prevailed on them 
 to give heed to his words for a little while, they 
 would presently answer, that it was very likely 
 Europeans might have sick souls, but that Green- 
 landers had no such sickness. Let the great God 
 of whom he spoke give them healthy bodies, and 
 send them plenty of seals, and they wanted 
 nothing more. 
 
 In order to gain more frequent opportunities of 
 instructing them, and a more accurate knowledge 
 of their character and customs, as well as of their 
 language, Egede took his two boys with him, and 
 lived amongst the natives during a portion of the 
 second winter which he spent in Greenland. It 
 required no little self-denial on the part of the 
 father and his children to bear with patience the 
 many annoyances of such a situation. The strong 
 rancid smell of the train-oil burning in the 
 lamps, and that of the fish and blubber boiling 
 in the kettles, the odour of half-putrid seals' flesb 
 
42 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 (esteemed a most delicate viand), the sickening 
 effluvia of the skins which the women were tan- 
 ning, constantly pervaded the huts, and rendered 
 the atmosphere almost unbearable. The genera^^ 
 dirtiness of everything and everybody has been 
 already alluded to ; the food was no exception. 
 It was cooked and served up without the slightest 
 regard to cleanliness, and torn in pieces with 
 the teeth and fingers. If the natives wished to 
 show particular honour to their visitor, they pre- 
 sented him with a piece of meat or blubber 
 from which they had carefully licked the dirt, 
 and the refusal of this inviting gift was regarded 
 by them as a great affront. Notwithstanding all 
 these unpleasant circumstances, however, Mr. 
 Egede laboured patiently and indefatigably 
 amongst them ; and his children, who had caught 
 something of the spirit which animated their 
 parents, endured good - humouredly the many 
 things which they did not like. They soon made 
 companions and playmates of some of the Green- 
 land children, and by constant intercourse with 
 them became quite familiar with their language. 
 They were able now to help their father to 
 translate some portions of the Gospels. The 
 Greenlanders were at first much afraid when he 
 read to them, thinking that he used some kind 
 of witchcraft, and heard a voice proceeding from 
 the book though they did not ; and it was long 
 before they would venture to touch a book or 
 a piece of paper with writing on it. But when 
 
"OAKBTING A VOICE." 43 
 
 they saw that no harm happened to them from 
 contact with these formidable things, their fears 
 were succeeded by great admiration, and they 
 esteemed it an honour to carry a letter for any of 
 the settlers ; " carrying a voice," they called it. 
 
 The missionary observed no trace of religious 
 worship amongst them, excepting that the hunters 
 sometimes, on returning from the chase, laid a 
 piece of the first reindeer which they had killed 
 on a block of stone, to insure (the}^ said) success 
 on a future occasion. They calculated the seasons 
 with tolerable accuracy, by observing the times at 
 which the eider-fowl brOoded, and the seals, fishes, 
 and birds returned to their customary haunts. 
 In the summer they divided the days according to 
 the shadow cast by the sun on the rocks and moun- 
 tains ; and in the winter they distinguished the 
 time by the rising and setting of certain stars. Some 
 of their notions about the heavenly bodies were 
 rather poetical, and they gave names of their own 
 to the more conspicuous constellations. Thus 
 the Great Bear was called " Tukto " — the reindeer ; 
 the Pleiades were dogs hunting a bear the whole 
 night through ; Orion was Sirhtuk — the Bewildered 
 Ones ; that constellation consisting of certain seal- 
 hunters, who lost themselves on their way home, 
 and were changed into stars. They computed 
 with sufficient exactness the time of the winter sol- 
 stice, and celebrated it by a great feast in honour 
 of the sun, to attend at which the natives assembled 
 together from distant places, as to a fair, bringing 
 
4:4: HANS EGEDE. 
 
 with them eider-down, skins, horns of the nar- 
 whal, and especially vessels of weichstein, a soft 
 smooth stone of which the Greenlanders made 
 their lamps and kettles. The days were devoted 
 to traffic ; the nights, which the brilliancy of the 
 stars and the light of the moon, reflected by the 
 ice and snow, rendered bright as day, were spent 
 in feasting and dancing, reciting the exploits of 
 their ancestors in the seal-hunt, and singing songs 
 of joy because the sun was about to return. But 
 there was no act of worship. After Egede had 
 become much more intimately acquainted with 
 the people, he learnt that their forefathers had 
 rendered honour to a Being w^ho lived above the 
 clouds, and that they themselves believed in 
 the existence of a Spirit pei-vading all things 
 in Heaven and earth, whom they called Silla. 
 They believed also in a great multitude of lesser 
 spirits, good and evil ; but especially in one who 
 was both good and powerful, and whom they 
 called Torngarsuk. But they thought it not worth 
 while to pay him any religious worship, alleging 
 that he was too benevolent a being to require to 
 be entreated to do them good. Of their own 
 natural condition, as sinful, and exposed to the 
 anger of a Holy, Almighty Creator, they had not 
 the smallest apprehension. 
 
 Although there was much that was disagreeable 
 and even disgusting in their household economy, 
 Egede could not help admiring the quietness with 
 which in general they carried on their daily 
 
OCCUPATIONS OF THE NATIVES, 45 
 
 occupations ; each family in the narrow compart- 
 ment allotted to them, without intruding on their 
 neighbours, or quarrelling among themselves. 
 They were rarely idle; to the women, indeed, 
 idleness would have been scarcely possible, for 
 they were at once the butchers, cooks, sempstresses, 
 tanners, tailors, shoemakers, and builders of the 
 community ; the men concerning themselves only 
 with hunting and fishing, and the manufacture of 
 the necessary implements, in which they displayed 
 great ingenuity. The missionary hoped at first that 
 their usually quiet and inoffensive deportment arose 
 from natural kindness and gentleness of heart; 
 but when he had resided longer in the country, 
 he was compelled to take a far less favourable 
 view of their character. Its most pleasing feature 
 was the strong affection which the parents enter- 
 tained for their children. While young, they 
 would scarcely suffer them to go out of their sight ; 
 and instances were known in which, the child 
 having been drowned, the mother had destroyed 
 herself, unable to endure the anguish of her be- 
 reavement. But the strength of their parental, 
 and in many cases, of their filial affection, was 
 strangely contrasted with their hard, careless 
 indifference to the sorrows and suff'erings of per- 
 sons less nearly connected with them. Egede had 
 admired their readiness to entertain strangers, but 
 he discovered that this apparent hospitality rarely 
 proceeded from other than selfish motives ; they 
 literally gave to "receive as much again," and to 
 
4G HANS EGEDE. 
 
 the needy were extremely tiiigeiierons. Orphans, 
 and -widows whose children were too young to be 
 serviceable in seal-catching, rarely met with 
 assistance and compassion. On the contrary, they 
 were commonly plundered of their most valu- 
 able goods as soon as their natural protector was 
 dead, and after protracting a miserable existence 
 as long as they could by means of fishes, mussels, 
 and sea-weed, fell victims to cold and starvation. 
 Often, when a kayak was overset at sea, the people 
 on shore would stand and look on with the utmost 
 unconcern if its occupant was not a friend of 
 their own; they could even amuse themselves 
 with watching his struggles as he vainly buffeted 
 with the waves, and would rather see him sink 
 and perish before their eyes than take the trouble 
 of putting off in another kayak to save him. In 
 these and other respects a wonderful and beauti- 
 ful change of character was observable when the 
 light and love of the Gospel was shed abroad 
 in the hearts of the Greenlanders. But there 
 was yet a long time to wait for that day of 
 blessing, and Egede, labouring still in patient 
 hope, looked in vain for the first streaks of the 
 dawning. 
 
 At times they resented the endeavoui*s of the 
 missionary to teach them, and would interrupt 
 him by their noisy merriment, or turn what he 
 said into ridicule. Some of the colonists, incensed 
 at these impertinences, threatened to chastise them 
 severely ; but Egede preferred the milder method 
 
PATIENT LABOURS. 47 
 
 of forbearance and friendly expostulation, and 
 effected so much that the Greenlanders entirely 
 desisted from their nnseemly interruptions, though 
 hearing they heard, and did not understand. He 
 had invited two orphan lads to come and live with 
 him, and by dint of many presents and much kind- 
 ness prevailed on them to begin to learn to read 
 and write. Seeing, however, that a quiet life, 
 such as Europeans led, was very irksome to them, 
 he did not forbid their going to sea, or visiting 
 their native acquaintances when they desired to 
 do so ; but notwithstanding this freedom, they 
 soon became tired even of the slight degree of re- 
 straint which their new occupations imposed upon 
 them, and objected that there was nothing to be 
 gained by looking on a book or making marks 
 upon paper with a feather, whereas they could get 
 both food and amusement by catching seals and 
 shooting birds. Mr. Egede took great pains to 
 set forth the advantages of being able to read and 
 write, that men could thus know the thoughts of 
 an absent friend, and as it were speak to him ; 
 and, above all, that by this means they might learn 
 the goodness of God and His will from the Bible. 
 But these were benefits which they had no desire 
 to enjoy, and as soon as thej'' had obtained every- 
 thing that they wished for, they stole away with- 
 out telling the missionary that they were going. 
 Several persons asked him to take them in for a 
 time, and though this was very inconvenient to 
 himself and his wife, who had little more room 
 
48 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 than they needed for the accommodation of their 
 own famil}', they would not refuse, for they hoped 
 that their unbidden guests might gain some good 
 from living in a Christian household. Sometimes 
 as many as eight or ten Greenlanders would take 
 up their abode at Godhaab ; but their motive for 
 coming was only that they might be comfortably 
 provided for while the season was not favourable 
 for hunting and fishing. They listened, indeed, 
 while Egede endeavoured to teach them out of 
 the Scriptures, and some of them could even 
 answer correctly several questions relating to 
 Christian doctrine ; but not one appeared to have 
 the least real understanding or feeling of the 
 truths which their lips uttered. And when the}* 
 had received food and shelter as long as they 
 desired, they took their leave. 
 
 The winter proved to be the time in which Mr, 
 Egede had most opportunity of pursuing his mis- 
 sionary labours. From time to time the company 
 of merchants at Bergen, and also the king, sent 
 directions that the country should be explored, in 
 order to find out the dwelling-places of the old 
 Norwegians, and to plant new settlements in the 
 spots which seemed most favourable for hunting 
 and fishing ; and the labour of planning and con- 
 ducting these voyages of discover^" fell principally 
 to the lot of Egede, as superintendent of the 
 colony. Often, therefore, during the short sum- 
 mer he was obh'ged to leave his family at God- 
 haab, while he accompanied exploring parties to 
 
THE COUNTRY EXPLORED. 49 
 
 various parts of the coast. His first object was to 
 find out a more suitable spot for the Godhaab set- 
 tlement on the mainland, and where the ground 
 admitted of cultivation. South of Baal's Eiver 
 he passed under a lofty three-peaked mountain, 
 visible from one hundred miles at sea, and enti- 
 tled Q'Hiorte Tuk ") The Stag's Horn ; and beyond 
 this came to a fine creek, where there was great 
 abundance of herbage and brushwood, a salmon 
 Elv or brook, and excellent pasturage. The colo- 
 nists named this place Priester Fiord (the Priest's 
 Firth), and were well pleased to remove to so ver- 
 dant a valley. But after they had dug stones, and 
 made preparations for building, they were obliged 
 to desist, for the creek proved too difficult of en- 
 trance to be safe for ships. Close by the mouth 
 of this fiord there was another, on the shores of 
 which both seals and reindeer were seen in abun- 
 dance ; and here Egede discovered the first traces 
 of his lost countrymen, the ruins of ancient Nor- 
 wegian villages. The remains of the churches 
 were easily distinguished; they had evidently 
 been very solidly built of the freestone which was 
 plentiful in that neighbourhood. In other places 
 similar remains were found from time to time. 
 Ascending Baal's Paver, to view a spot where the 
 Greenlanders informed him seals might be killed 
 by hundreds, Egede came to a very pretty valley, 
 in which stood the lower portion of a square 
 tower, and a large long heap of ruins near it, 
 which appeared to be the remains of the church 
 
 E 
 
50 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 where, four hundred years before, the inhabitants 
 of the valley had assembled to worship God. 
 Many lesser buildings were met with ; and the 
 ground was thickly clothed with grass, and over- 
 grown with dwarf elder-trees, birch, willow, and 
 juniper. The bright blossoms of the creeping 
 crimson azalea, and many small but beautiful wild 
 flowers, enlivened the scene, and looking sea- 
 wards, it appeared as pleasant a spot as man 
 might hope to find in those far northern regions. 
 But the prospect on the land side presented a 
 dismal contrast ; it was a waste of ice stretching 
 as far as eye could reach. In succeeding years, 
 Egede and other Europeans, going farther towards 
 the south, discovered many such places, and found 
 traces of cultivation. Fragments of earthen ves- 
 sels, bones, and many pieces of the bells which 
 had once called the people to public worship, were 
 picked up amongst the ruins and herbage. But 
 of the people themselves, none remained. Those 
 children of his countrymen whom Egede had been 
 so desirous to succour- had long since passed away 
 from the face of the earth. How they perished 
 )DOuld never be known ; but the tradition of the 
 (natives respecting their disappearance was pro- 
 bably not far from the truth ; though the hereditary 
 \iatred of the Esquimaux for the enemies of their 
 ancestors had invested the story with supernatural 
 features, as that the Kablunaet (or foreigners) were 
 dogs transformed into the likeness of men. The 
 forefathers of the Esquimaux, whom they proudly 
 
TITE COUNTRY EXPLOBED. 61 
 
 termed Innuit, that is, Men^ were brave hunters ; but 
 they were treated with contempt by the Kablunact, 
 and in revenge they waged war against them, and 
 after a long while destroyed them all. In Denmark 
 it was long supposed that more important remains 
 of the ancient settlements existed on the. east coast, 
 and Mr. Egede was early directed to send some 
 resolute sailors to explore that part of the country. 
 Being much concerned to see this commission 
 faithfully executed, he set out himself with two 
 shallops, and reached Staatenhuk. But the voyage 
 proved difficult and dangerous; and the seamen 
 were so alarmed by the tempestuous weather that 
 the missionary could not prevail on them to ad- 
 vance any farther. Soon after returning from this 
 expedition he accompanied a party northwards, 
 to seek a good situation for the whale fishery. He 
 was able, though not at the first attempt, to 
 accomplish this object ; but the season was un- 
 usually rigorous, and the missionary and his com- 
 panions did not reach home again until after 
 several weeks of excessive fatigue and exposure 
 to the piercing cold, the ice having blocked up 
 the sounds, and extending also in immense fields 
 over the open sea. Many stations of Greenlanders 
 were visited in the course of these expeditions. 
 At first they were afraid of the foreigners ; but 
 when the native pilot who accompanied them told 
 his countrymen that the great Angekok of the 
 Kablunaet was with them, they received the ex- 
 plorers with singing and shouts of joy, and followed 
 
52 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 them from place to place, hoping to see some won- 
 derful thing done. They even conducted the mis- 
 sionary to a grave, begging him to raise the corpse 
 which it contained. At another place a blind 
 man was led in by his friends, to have his sight 
 restored. Egede, however, perceived that this 
 was not a case which required the exercise of 
 miraculous power, and having exhorted the man 
 to trust in God only to make the means he was 
 going to use eifectual for his cure, he applied to 
 the eyes something which he thought would do 
 them good. Several years afterwards the man 
 came to Godhaab to thank the missionary for 
 having restored his sight. 
 
 In the summer of 1723, Mr. Egede was joined 
 by another missionary, Albert Top, who ministered 
 to the colonists at Godhaab in his absence, and also 
 applied himself very diligently to learn the native 
 tongue. Egede had already prepared as well as he 
 could some lielps for his fellow-labourers and suc- 
 cessors, and he improved them from time to time as 
 his knowledge of the language increased. He drew 
 up a translation of the Creed, the Ten Command- 
 ments, and some short prayers in Greenlandic ; he 
 also prepared some short easy lessons in Scripture 
 truth, illustrating them by similes and parables, a 
 mode of instruction which he perceived to be par- 
 ticularly acceptable to the natives. They were 
 greatly pleased to hear of the soul's immortality, 
 and of the resurrection. They had received from 
 their Angekoks vaiious descriptions of the futuro 
 
MANNER OF TEACHIXG. 63 
 
 state of the soul; some affiiining that it succes- 
 eively inliabited several bodies on earth; and 
 others, that it went to a happy hunting-ground, 
 covered with everlasting verdure, and peopled 
 with animals innumerable ; but this pleasant 
 world, they asserted, could only be reached by 
 a rough and painful journey. They listened 
 eagerly while Egede spoke of tlie resurrection, 
 when soul and body should again become one, 
 never more to be separated ; and were delighted 
 to hear of that fair land Avhere there would be no 
 more cold, or darkness, no hunger, sickness, 
 sorrow, or death. But of the crowning happiness 
 of Heaven, that there is no sin there — they had no 
 appreciation whatever. When they had become 
 tolerably familiar with the subjects on which the 
 missionary discoursed to them, they would say, 
 *' We believe all that — tell us something new." 
 They were surprised and angry when he assured 
 them that indeed they believed it not, or they 
 would be quite differently affected by it: they 
 would stand in awe of the Holy, Almighty, and 
 Most Merciful God who had made them; they 
 would see that they were sinful men before Him ; 
 would be sorry and ashamed, and would long to 
 have their sins forgiven, and their hearts so 
 -changed that they might please Him, and obey all 
 His commandments. One day when Egede was 
 speaking of the command which the liord Jesus 
 gave to His disciples, that they should go and teach 
 .all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
 
54 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 
 the whole company flocked about him, desiring to 
 be baptized ; and were astonished that he refused. 
 He had but too many proofs that their readiness 
 to hear the doctrine which he preached, and . to 
 profess their belief in it, was only prompted by 
 motives of covetousness : they desired to recom- 
 mend themselves to the missionary and his coun- 
 trymen, that they might share more largely in the 
 gifts and advantages which the Europeans had to 
 bestow. The Angekoks, who saw plainly that, if 
 the doctrine preached by Mr. Egede were generally 
 believed, their craft would come to an end, were 
 foremost in stirring up opposition and ridicule. 
 Yet when great trouble overtook them they could 
 not help betraying their belief in the God of the 
 missionary. An Angekok whose child was very 
 sick, brought it to Egede, that he might ask his 
 God to cure it. The missionary saw that the 
 infant was dying, and told the father so ; but he 
 added, if you will suffer me to give up your child 
 to God, He will receive it, and will give it a better 
 life in Heaven. The man assented, and Egede bap- 
 tized the little one, who breathed its last shortly 
 afterwards. AVhen the parents had mourned for 
 it, after the manner of the Greenlanders, with loud 
 cries and wailings, they entreated the missionary 
 to carry it to the grave, for the father thought no 
 one else was worthy to do so now. He willingly 
 complied with their request, and interred the poor 
 babe as a member of the Christian family, with a 
 
KATIVE YOUTHS VISIT DENMARK. 
 
 65 
 
 feeling of thankfulness that it was placed beyond 
 the reach of harm. "When the funeral was over, 
 the Angekok and his wife desired to be baptized 
 too. He explained to them that they, being able 
 to understand the Word of God, must believe it 
 heartily, and be willing to give themselves up to 
 the service of Christ, and then he would joyfully 
 baptize them. But this sa;>^ng was too hard for 
 them, and they went away. 
 
 Amongst the natives whom Egede had received 
 at Godhaab with much kindness, and whom he 
 had instructed in the Gospel as far as he had 
 opportunity, were two youths who became so 
 fi-iendly with the Europeans, that they were 
 willing to go to Denmark by one of the ships 
 which'visited Godhaab. He promoted this visit, 
 in the hope that their minds would be opened and 
 quickened by the sight of so much that was new, 
 and that they would on their return convey to 
 their countrymen a clearer notion of European 
 life and civilization than the Greenlanders would 
 ever obtain from the conversation of foreigners. 
 One of these young men died at Bergen, on his 
 way home ; but the other, whose name was Poek, 
 returned after a year's residence in Denmark, to 
 astonish his countrymen with his account of the 
 royal state of the king, and the splendour of his 
 court, of the great buildings of the city of Copen- 
 hagen, the fine ships, and the multitude of soldiers 
 he had seen. He had been very kindly entertained, 
 and had brought back with him many valuable 
 
56 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 presents, which pleased his countrymen. But the 
 description of the king's military power struck 
 them most forcibly ; for hitherto they had es- 
 teemed the man who could catch the most seals 
 as the greatest and mightiest lord on earth; and 
 when they heard from Poek that the monarch 
 who possessed all this wealth, and had so many 
 thousand fighting men at his command, listened 
 respectfully to his pastors, though they were his 
 own subjects, when they declared to him the will 
 of the Almighty, the natives began to form some 
 new and awful ideas of the greatness of God. 
 
 Pleased, however, as Poek had been with Den- 
 mark, he quickly relapsed into the Greenland way 
 of living, and even meditated a migration towards 
 the south, where he would have been quite out of 
 the way of instruction. After many expostula- 
 tions he was prevailed on to remain and settle at 
 Godhaab ; but his European friends as well as 
 himself were obliged to plead for his acceptance 
 with the young woman whom he proposed to 
 marry, so averse was this Greenland damsel to 
 take for her husband a man who had degraded 
 himself by his outlandish way of living. It may 
 be observed, in passing, that the Greenlanders 
 had a remarkably high opinion of themselves; 
 when they wanted to express high approbation of 
 a foreigner, they would say, " He is almost as well 
 behaved as we are ;" or, " He begins to be a man," 
 meaning a Greenlander, 
 
 After Poek and his companions had departed to 
 
NATIVE PUPILS. 57 
 
 Denmark, Mr. Egede took two younger lads into 
 his family. They were of promising disposition 
 and good capacity, and he hoped by God's blessing 
 to train them up to be teachers of their countiy- 
 men. One of them died while still very young ; 
 the other grew up a thoughtful, docile youth, and 
 became a useful helper in the work of the mission. 
 After a year's residence at Godhaab, he accom- 
 panied Mr. Egede's colleague to the spot selected 
 for a whaling station on the island of Nepisene ; 
 where, after careful instruction, he was baptized 
 by the name of Frederic Christian. 
 
 The charge imposed on Egede, of rendering the 
 colony profitable in a mercantile point of view, 
 greatly added to his labours and anxieties. The 
 colonists were still but very moderately successful 
 in their trading, hunting, and fishing pursuits. 
 Egede tried the experiment of cultivating the 
 ground in several places. He thawed the earth 
 to a sufficient depth by setting the long grass 
 which covered it on fire, and then sowed the grain, 
 which grew very well till it was in ear, but was 
 invariably destroyed by night frosts before it had 
 time to ripen. He also caused search to be made 
 for ores and minerals ; but although Greenland is 
 by no means wanting in these, nothing could be 
 obtained which was commercially valuable. The 
 settlement at Kepisene proved another source of 
 disappointment. As soon as the winter was over, 
 Mr. Egede made a voyage thither, and found all 
 the people in good health - though they had as yet 
 
68 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 done little or nothing in fishing, owing, they said, 
 to the extreme severity of the weather. But the 
 men who had emigrated to Greenland were not, for 
 the most part, well suited for the career they had 
 chosen ; and when they found that they must labour 
 as hard as at home, and endure more hardship if 
 they wished to prosper, they became discontented. 
 
 The summer had no sooner set in than the 
 colonists at Xepisene, instead of exerting them- 
 selves to turn the season to account by diligent 
 attention to' the fishery, determined with one con- 
 sent to abandon the settlement. A ship bringing 
 stores and provisions from Norway arrived just at 
 this time ; but the people were so bent upon re- 
 linquishing their undertaking, that this seasonable 
 supply of their wants had no effect upon them; 
 and to the extreme grief and vexation of Mr. 
 Egede, they returned in this very ship to Godhaab, 
 pleading as an excuse that the provisions were not 
 in sufficient quantity to last for twelve months. 
 
 The trouble and expense laid out in the pre- 
 ceding year upon the buildings at Nepisene, which 
 had been constructed with materials brought from 
 Norway, were thus entirely thrown away; and 
 soon afterwards news arrived at Godhaab that 
 the Dutch, or other foreign traders, had wantonly 
 destroyed the whole. Egede could not but fear 
 that the company of merchants would soon grow 
 weary of an undertaking which had hitherto proved 
 so unprofitable ; for not only had much money been 
 wasted upon the Nepisene settlement, but several 
 
DAiiaEROUS CONSPIRACY. 6^ 
 
 vessels despatched by the company to Godhaab had 
 been wrecked or driven back by storms. 
 
 For the present, however, the minds of the 
 missionaries and their companions were occupied 
 by apprehensions of an evil nearer at hand. 
 During a trading voyage to the south, the factor, 
 Jentoft, encountered an Angekok who was practis- 
 ing his magical arts against him and his people. 
 Irritated by the man's impostures and insolent 
 demeanour, he was so indiscreet as to strike him. 
 The enraged Angekok instantly seized his bow 
 and arrows, but was restrained by his countrymen 
 from attempting any violence at that time. By 
 the factor the circumstance was quickly forgotten ; 
 but the Angekok, longing for revenge, formed 
 a plan for cutting off all the Europeans in the 
 country. He had obtained by his reputed suc- 
 cess as a magician, great influence over his coun- 
 trymen in the south ; and by promising them the 
 plunder of the strangers, and representing that it 
 would be easy to destroy them when divided into 
 small parties, he easily induced a considerable 
 number of the natives to engage in the plot. It 
 was known that the factor, with part of the people, 
 would soon be proceeding to the north; his as- 
 sistant, with another party, would be engaged in 
 a trading voyage southwards ; and but a few men 
 would be left with the missionary at Godhaab. 
 The conspiracy might probably have succeeded, 
 had it not come to the knowledge of a Greenland 
 boy, whom Egede had taken into his service 
 
€0 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 some time before. Not liking the restraints im- 
 posed on him in a civilized household, he had run 
 away, and migrated with some of his people to 
 a distant part of the coast. Here he heard the 
 plot talked over, and was sufficiently shocked and 
 alarmed by it to steal away from his companions, 
 and return secretly to Godhaab, where he revealed 
 all to the missionary. Egede immediately set a 
 watch to patrol the settlement day and night, 
 and took all other precautions which were in his 
 power, until the return of the factor from the 
 north relieved him of a portion of his anxieties. 
 He was still, however, not a little disquieted by the 
 protracted absence of the factor's assistant ; but he 
 too returned in safety, having been unusually de- 
 layed, and warned repeatedly by friendly natives 
 not to have any dealings with their countrymen 
 at certain places on the south. The Angekok, 
 finding the Europeans on their guard, had been 
 obliged to forego his proposed revenge for the 
 present at least ; and he being afterwards captured 
 by the factor, his adherents were eifectually intimi- 
 dated. He was not, however, punished otherwise 
 than by imprisonment : and on making submission, 
 with promise of good behaviour for the time to 
 come, he was set at liberty. No sooner were their 
 fears on this account dissipated, than the settlers 
 found cause for apprehensions of another kind. 
 
 The accustomed yearly supplj^ of provisions had 
 not yet arrived from Norway, though the season 
 was far advanced. The watchers, looking out 
 
SCAHCITY or FOOD. 
 
 61 
 
 anxiously day by day for the store-ship, were 
 alarmed at observing the wreck of a vessel, sur- 
 rounded by quantities of ice, driving near the shore. 
 Fearing that this might be the ship which had 
 been loaded with provisions, and that possibly no 
 other might reach them, that year, Mr. Egede 
 went one hundred leagues northwards, to the 
 rendezvous of the Dutch whalers, hoping to pur- 
 chase food from them. The Dutchmen, however, 
 were bound for the American coast, and expecting 
 to be several weeks at sea, were afraid to part with 
 more than a very small portion of their stock of 
 food. For a short time the colonists were almost 
 in a state of famine ; eight persons being obliged 
 to put up with the allowance of one. They tried 
 to obtain seals from the Greenlanders, to boil with 
 their oatmeal ; but the natives, with their usual 
 selfishness, took advantage of their needy con- 
 dition, and refused to sell them any. Happily the 
 scarcity did not continue long. Late in the year 
 a vessel arrived, having on board ample supplies ; 
 but the captain infoimed them that a ship previ- 
 ously despatched had been wrecked ; and his own 
 progress had been so much impeded by the ice, that 
 he would not venture back to Norway until the fol- 
 lowing spring. By this time the merchants at 
 Bergen were, as Egede had foreseen, tired of an 
 undertaking which had involved them in so many 
 losses and disappointments. The ships which 
 arrived in the summer of 1727 brought word that 
 the company had disengaged themselves from the 
 
62 H.\^'S EGKDE. 
 
 Greenland trade ; but they also brought the en- 
 couraging assurance that the king was resolved to 
 support the mission notwithstanding the present 
 unpromising aspect of affah's. He had therefore 
 sent out a commissaiy, charged to confer with the 
 factor upon the best methods of promoting the 
 mercantile progress of the colon}'. B}^ this arrange- 
 ment, Mr. Egede gladly found himself relieved from 
 the harassing secular business which had demanded 
 so large a portion of his time ; but he was deprived 
 at this period, of the assistance of his colleague, 
 Mr. Top, who had laboured with exemplary dili- 
 gence during his four yeais' residence in the coun- 
 try. His health had now become so enfeebled that 
 he was forced to seek a less rigorous climate. 
 
 Deprived of other help, Egede availed himself 
 more largely of the seixices of his son Paul, who 
 was now^ about eighteen years of age, and was 
 looking forward to be himself a missionary at 
 some future day. His father saw with pleasure 
 that he had entirely won the goodwill of the natives, 
 and from his early familiarity with their language, 
 was able to render his conversation and instnic- 
 tions acceptable to them. But the missionary had 
 still the grief to see, that although a certain 
 knowledge of Scriptiu'e truth had been imparted 
 more or less to many persons, and by their con- 
 stant joumeyings and migrations had become 
 pretty widely diffused along the coast, it was a 
 merely historical knowledge, which did not affect 
 ihe conduct or the feelings. Of all the adults to 
 
KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT FAITH. C3 
 
 whom he had declared the Gospel during the 
 ;3paoe of seven years, but one man had appeared 
 really to believe it ; this was Poek, whoso visit to 
 Copenhagen has been mentioned on a former page. 
 In 1728, Egede baptized him and his wife. Ho 
 had observed more hopeful results among the 
 young, many of whom had been attracted by his 
 kindness to listen regularly to his teaching ; and 
 «ome he thought had received the truth into their 
 hearts. At present it was still but the seed-time ; 
 hardly could he perceive, here and there, one 
 tender blade beginning to sprout upwards ; but he 
 remembered that it had been often thus : for " one 
 man soweth, and another reapeth." 
 
 King Frederic had embraced the cause of Green- 
 land with remarkable zeal. He was making dis- 
 positions not only to uphold the mission as at pre- 
 sent, but to plant missionaries at various points 
 of the coast, and colonies for the cultivation of 
 the land. Four vessels were despatched from Co- 
 penhagen in ihe year 1728. They brought two 
 missionaries and a large party of colonists, con- 
 sisting of masons, carpenters, and mechanics of all 
 descriptions ; herdsmen also, with flocks of sheep 
 and cattle to be pastured in the sheltered valleys 
 during the brief summer, and housed and tended 
 within doors through all the nine months' winter. 
 There were also building materials for erecting a 
 settlement and a port ; with cannon and am- 
 munition, and a sufficient garrison under the 
 charge of two superior officers, one of whom was 
 
64 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 to be governor, and the other commandant. It 
 appeared, however, that the nature of the country 
 was still very imperfectly understood at Copen- 
 hagen, for the officers were provided with horses, 
 with which to travel over the mountains, recon- 
 noitre the inland country, and if possible discover 
 the principal settlements of the ancient colonists, 
 which then, and for one hundred years afterwards, 
 were confidently believed to have been on the coast 
 facing Iceland. 
 
 The first care of the governor was to remove the 
 settlement of Godhaab to the mainland, about ten 
 miles farther to the east, and to enlarge it with the 
 necessar}'^ buildings. But the ill success which 
 had hitherto attended the efforts made for the 
 advancement of the colony, followed the well- 
 conceived plan of the king, and defeated his 
 benevolent intentions. The authorities at Copen- 
 hagen had made an unwise selection of emigrants. 
 Some, indeed (and the most useful), were artisans 
 and labourers who had volunteered for the enter- 
 prise ; but others were convicts, who had been 
 taken out of the house of correction, provided 
 with wives, and sent over to cultivate the country. 
 To both classes of emigrants the confinement and 
 inaction of their life on ship-board had been 
 sufficiently trying; and the wet, unwholesome 
 weather which they encountered on landing served 
 still farther to nourish a spirit of depression and 
 discontent. The season was unusually cold 
 and rainy ; its evil effect upon their health was 
 
N2W COLONISTS. 66 
 
 aggravated by the irregular living in which they 
 found opportunity to indulge, while the arrange- 
 ments of the intended colony were still unsettled 
 and the regulations for its government not put into 
 force. The consequence was a contagious disorder, 
 which quickly extended itself, and carried off, not 
 only the unruly and intemperate members of the 
 community, but the most useful mechanics and 
 workmen. In the general sickness and mortality 
 which prevailed, the cattle failed to receive the 
 care which was indispensable for their preservation 
 in such a climate, and they also perished. These 
 troubles were greatly enhanced b}^ a mutiny among 
 the soldiers. Disgusted with a country which 
 afforded them so much less scope for indulgence 
 than they had been used to at home, they broke into 
 a rebellion which threatened not only the lives of 
 their officers, but those of the missionaries, for they 
 regarded them as the authors of their banishment. 
 The malady which was raging ended the mutiny 
 by cutting off the ringleaders ; but it was not until 
 the spring of 1729 that the health and peace of the 
 settlement were restored ; and by that time, the 
 greater number of the emigrants had found a grave 
 beneath the snow. The death of many useful and 
 well-disposed labourers was a heavy blow : with 
 respect to the mutinous and disorderly characters 
 who had perished, it was felt that their prolonged 
 life would probably have been a greater evil to the 
 colony than the contagious sickness which had 
 carried them off. Certain of the women, especially, 
 
 F 
 
66 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 wlio had accepted tlie offer of emigration to escape 
 from prison, had misconducted themselves so 
 grossly as to call forth the contemptuous scoffs 
 of the natives, who, whatever their real character 
 might be, were seldom guilty of unbecoming con- 
 duct in public. 
 
 As soon as the sickness was at an end, and order 
 had been restored, the governor, Major Paars, 
 with a few of the men who remained to him, made 
 an attempt to cross the mountains, and penetrate 
 to the east side, as the king had enjoined him. 
 The horses were all dead, but that was of the less 
 consequence, since the explorers quickly disco- 
 vered that it would have been impossible to travel 
 over such ground on horseback. The whole country 
 was overspread with ice so slippery and uneven 
 that they could not even stand upon it, and rifted 
 in clefts of various width, out of which the water 
 gushed in torrents with a loud roar. A recent 
 English navigator. Sir Leopold M'Clintock, has 
 found reason to believe that by observing the 
 variations in the surface of the glacier, avoiding 
 the clefts, and following the windings between 
 them, the interior of Greenland might be reached. 
 But at the point where Major Paars and his com- 
 pany attempted to cross, this seems to have been 
 impracticable ; and after an absence of nearly a 
 fortnight, they returned, hopeless of success, to 
 Godhaab. Foiled in the endeavour to discover 
 a suitable spot on the east side of the country, the 
 governor and commandant now took measures for 
 
FRESH ENCOURAGEMENT. 
 
 t7 
 
 KAPPAKOKTOLIK GLACIEK. 
 
 re-erecting the abandoned settlement on the island 
 of Nepisene, and strengthening it with a fort. 
 And they were gratified by an encouraging mes- 
 sage from the king, who sent them also ships laden 
 with timber, and other necessaries. 
 
 Missionary operations had been greatly impeded 
 during the last year. The Greenlanders had been 
 alarmed by the influx of Europeans; and the 
 arrival of the soldiers in particular had aroused 
 their fears and suspicions. It was a great relief 
 to them when they saw so many of the newly- 
 arrived emigrants carried off by the sickness ; and 
 
68 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 they attributed this happy result to the incan- 
 tations of a famous Angekok who had persuaded 
 them that he could destroy the Kablunaet. But 
 seeing that some of the fighting-men whom they 
 so much dreaded remained alive, the greater 
 number of them migrated to Disko Bay, far to 
 the north of Godhaab ; and thus, to the great grief 
 of Egede, placed themselves for the present quite 
 beyond the reach of Christian instruction. There 
 were, however, many natives living on the islands 
 in Baal's Eiver, and not a few of these professed 
 their belief in the word which the missionarj^ 
 preached to them, though he could see no evidence 
 that it was a belief unto righteoiisness. He thought 
 that if these people would suffer him to baptize 
 their young children, on the understanding that 
 they would not remove them afterwards from the 
 neighbourhood of the mission, he, and the col- 
 leagues who had lately joined him, might be able 
 to train up these little ones in the knowledge and 
 fear of God, and perhaps the children in their 
 turn might help to bring their parents within the 
 fold of Christ's Church. He submitted this plan 
 to the College of Missions at Copenhagen. They 
 agreed to it, on condition that the parents should 
 distinctly understand that Baptism was offisred to 
 their children as a means of blessing to the soul, 
 not as a means of health or strength to the body ; 
 and that they should freely consent to their 
 Baptism and instruction in the Christian religion, 
 without being in any way allured by presents or 
 
LITTLE CATECHUMENS. C9 
 
 prospects of temporal advantage. In the year 
 1729, Mr. Egede began to put this design into 
 execution by baptizing sixteen little children 
 belonging to families who dwelt in the isles of 
 Kookornen ; the parents being not only ready to 
 oifer them, but even requesting to be baptized 
 themselves — a request which the missionary would 
 have been but too happy to grant, had he seen 
 any reason to believe that it proceeded from an 
 enlightened heart. From these islands he pro- 
 ceeded to others, and had soon a little flock in 
 several places, whom he visited and taught. The 
 native children were by no means deficient in 
 quickness. They were very volatile, but if their 
 attention could be secured they made rapid 
 progress ; and Egede was rejoiced to find that 
 some of his young disciples readily retained the 
 lessons he taught them, and appeared to com- 
 prehend them quite as well as could be expected 
 at their tender age. Mr. Egede's beloved pupil, 
 Frederic Christian, was of great use to him 
 now. Often when he would have visited his 
 little scholars he was detained from them hy 
 other calls of duty. At such times he deputed 
 Frederic to give them a lesson, and sometimes also 
 sent him to read the portions of Scripture which 
 he had translated to their parents. 
 
 The second summer after the arrival of the 
 governor was distinguished by a scarcity similar 
 to that which had occurred in 1726, and owing to 
 a similar cause — the detention of the store-ship by 
 
70 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 ice and storms. When it at length arrived, it 
 was found to be laden not only with the necessary 
 provisions, but with all kinds of building materials, 
 for the erection of houses in the valleys formerly 
 peopled by the Korwegians ; and it was the 
 design of the king to transplant families from 
 Iceland to inhabit them. Hardly, however, had 
 the vessel unloaded her cargo, and the governor 
 been made aware of the king's intention, when the 
 spring which set in motion all these plans for 
 the benefit of Greenland was suddenly stopped 
 by the death of Frederic IV. His successor, 
 Christian VI., seeing that all the schemes of 
 colonization and commerce which had been at- 
 tempted had disappointed the hopes of their 
 projectors, and that little success had attended 
 the efforts made for the conversion of the natives, 
 issued a mandate that the settlements of Godhaab 
 and Nepisene should be abandoned, and all the 
 colonists should return to their own country. It 
 was left to Mr. Egede's own choice to return with 
 them or to remain in Greenland. In case he re- 
 mained, he might keep as many of the people as 
 chose to stay with him, and provisions to last for 
 one year ; but he was warned to expect no farther 
 assistance from Denmark. This was indeed a 
 grievous discouragement to the long-cherished 
 hopes of the missionary. None of the colonists 
 were willing to remain ; and of the sailors who 
 would have been of real use to him, the captains 
 of the ships declared they could not spare one. 
 
ABANDONMENT OF THE COLONY. 71 
 
 He would tliiis have been left alone to provide 
 for the sustenance of his family, without other 
 assistance than that of his second son, Niels, a 
 youth of eighteen or nineteen. Paul had gone to 
 Copenhagen in 1728, and was still there, pursuing 
 his studies for the ministry. Under these cir- 
 cumstances there seemed little hope that Egede 
 could continue his labours for the good of the 
 natives. Yet he could not bear to relinquish 
 them, and least of all could he make up his mind 
 to desert the little flock of children whom he had 
 baptized and taught. Happily there was not 
 room in the ships to carry away all the goods be- 
 longing to the inhabitants of the two settlements, 
 and as it was apparent that everything which 
 was left behind, not excepting the buildings them- 
 selves, would become a prey to the Greenlanders 
 or to foreign traders as soon as the ships had 
 departed, Mr. Egede prevailed on the captains to 
 leave ten seamen for their protection. He under- 
 took, with the assistance of his son Niels, to carry 
 on the trade with the natives, that the govern- 
 ment might receive some compensation for the 
 expense of sending a ship to Greenland in the 
 following year. His two colleagues and the rest 
 of the people now took their departure, and six 
 Greenlanders accompanied them to Copenhagen. 
 
 Soon after they had sailed, and before Egede 
 could provide for the removal or safe custody of 
 the buildings and stores left at Nepisene, a party 
 of Dutch or other foreign traders, finding the 
 
72 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 place unpeopled, and prompted as before by 
 mercantile jealousy, set fire to it, and consumied 
 the whole. This was bad; but a more serious 
 cause of sorrow and vexation was the conduct of 
 the parents whose children had been baptized. 
 Unmindful of their promise to remain near God- 
 haab, they yielded this year to the love of 
 wandering, which was a marked feature of the 
 native character, and migrated to distant parts of 
 the coast. For some time before this migration 
 took place, Egede had found imusual diflBculty in 
 collecting the children for instruction ; the parents 
 frequently hiding them, and refusing to let them 
 go to the missionary, on the pretext that they 
 were afraid he meant to carry them away. They 
 were perhaps afraid lest their children should 
 become too well affected to European notions, and 
 refuse to conform to Greenland habits when they 
 grew older. 
 
 The series of toils, vexations, and anxieties 
 through which Egede had passed since his 
 arrival in Greenland had greatly impaired his 
 bodily strength. His mental vigour might well 
 have failed also ; but he possessed an tmfailing 
 source of refreshment in the loving sympathy of 
 his famil}^ and above all in the Christian hope 
 which animated the spirit of his wife. This 
 truly excellent woman had endured much in the 
 course of her Greenland life ; had been subjected 
 to many privations, and at times to much actual 
 suffering; but she had never repined, never 
 
HOME SUNSHINE. 73 
 
 uttered a word which savoured of discouragement, 
 or breathed regret for the loss of former enjoy- 
 ments. However oppressed her husband might 
 be by the multiplied obstacles which beset his 
 path and defeated his efforts for the spiritual 
 welfare of the natives, his burdens were lightened 
 and rendered tolerable by her livel}^ sympathy 
 and enduring fortitude. " Our God called lis 
 away from our country and our father's house to 
 come hither ; and He will never fail us," was the 
 thought which soothed all her fears and sorrows. 
 By her tender ingenuity and watchful care her 
 children found their ice-surrounded Greenland 
 home full of happiness ; and all who came within 
 her reach, whether Europeans or natives, had a 
 part in her benevolent deeds. 
 
 Niels Egede was an invaluable helper to his 
 father at this time ; both in conducting the neces- 
 sary traffic with the Greenlanders, and in taking 
 pains to instruct the natives whom he met with on 
 his trading excursions. And by his exertions, and 
 those of the sailors who had been left in the 
 country, and who were content to act under his 
 command, a larger cargo of oil and blubber was 
 procured this year than in any of the former ones, 
 in which so many more persons had been engaged 
 and so much expense incuiTed. Niels and his 
 crew w^ould have been more successful still, had 
 they not lost two of their largest boats in a storm, 
 just at the season when the trade was in its fullest 
 activitv. 
 
74 ' HAKS EGEDE. 
 
 Meanwhile, the new king, Christian VI., though 
 he had not promised any farther aid to the mis- 
 sion, had come to the conclusion that Mr. Egede's 
 persevering and strenuous exertions deserved some 
 support. He sent him, in 1732, the necessary 
 supplies for one more year, and when that was 
 expired, and he was in much suspense as to the 
 future, his heart was rejoiced by the a.rrival of 
 a ship bringing the welcome intelligence that the 
 king meant to recommence and uphold the Green- 
 land mission. In this ship arrived two young 
 Moravian missionaries from Germany, accompa- 
 nied by an older brother, who came to assist them 
 in preparing a dwelling, and otherwise providing 
 for themselves. They had obtained the king's 
 permission to labour in Greenland, and brought 
 with them a letter wi'itten by his own hand, in 
 which he recommended them to the fiiendly offices 
 of Mr. Egede. Even without this token of the 
 royal favour, their desire to promote the best in- 
 terests of the natives would have insured them 
 the regard of the veteran missionar}'. He received 
 them with cordial goodwill, and gave them all the 
 a.ssistance in his power towards the acquisition of 
 the language, as well as all the little additions to 
 their necessary comforts which he and his wife 
 had it in their power to bestow. These missiona- 
 ries (Frederick Boehnioch and Matthew Stach) 
 were destined to take an important part in the 
 evangelizing of Greenland (and an account of 
 their labours, and of the success with which they 
 
THE SMALL-POX IN GREENLAND. 75 
 
 were rewarded, will be found in another memoir, 
 that of Matthew Stach) ; but the first year of their 
 residence in the country was marked by a darker 
 and deeper cloud than any which had yet rested 
 upon Greenland. Of the six natives who had 
 been carried to Denmark in 1731, two only sur- 
 vived ; and to these, also, the change of climate, or 
 of living, seemed to be so injurious, that they were 
 sent back to their own country by one of the 
 ships despatched from Copenhagen in the summer 
 of 1733. One died on the voyage ; the other re- 
 covered health and strength, and landed at God- 
 haab to all appearance perfectly well. He set 
 off almost immediately to visit his friends and 
 kindred, who were scattered in various islands 
 and along the coast ; and nothing more was heard 
 of him until two or three weeks afterwards, when 
 he was brought back to Godhaab, dying. Mr. 
 Egede saw at once that he had the small-pox, and 
 sent messengers instantly to all the places round 
 Godhaab to warn the inhabitants not to come 
 within reach of infection, or if they had unhap- 
 pily already caught it, not to leave their own 
 homes. But no warnings proved of any avail. 
 The poor boy had already unconsciously commu- 
 nicated the disease to several persons; but the 
 natives had never seen the small-pox before, and 
 could not at first believe that they must take any 
 particular precaution against the spread of the 
 disorder. The disease, however, quickly assumed 
 its most virulent form. Scarcely one of the 
 
76 
 
 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 natives in that part of the country escaped the 
 infection, and very few of those who were attacked 
 recovered. The first who died was Frederic 
 Christian, to the great sorrow of Mr. Egede, who 
 had instructed him and watched over him with 
 fatherly kindness for the last nine years. But of 
 this, his son in the Gospel, ho could hope that he 
 had but fallen asleep in Christ. Ko such hope 
 cheered the sad scenes of which he was now the 
 daily witness. It was in vain that he, his son 
 Niels, and the German missionaries continually 
 went about, carrying with them such means of 
 relief as they possessed, and imploring the people 
 to abstain from things which they knew must be 
 hurtful to them. The unhappy creatures would 
 listen to no persuasion. Impatient of the excru- 
 ciating pain, heat, and thirst which they were en- 
 during, they could not be restrained from con- 
 tinually drinking iced water ; and owing, Egede 
 thought, to this, they seldom outlived the third 
 day. Several stabbed themselves, or plunged into 
 the sea, to put a speedier end to their sufferings. 
 While her husband and his companions were 
 visiting the people at their houses, Mrs. Egede 
 turned her house into an hospital, and received all 
 who fled to her, till every room was filled with 
 the sick and dying, whom, with the help of her 
 family, she nursed night and day. Between the 
 months of September and January five hundred 
 persons died in the neighbourhood of Baal's Eiver, 
 and but eight recovered. Wherever the mission- 
 
RAVAGES UY SMALL-POX. 
 
 77 
 
 MRS. EGEDE KDESING SICK AT HEB HOUSE. 
 
 aries went, they were shocked by the sight of 
 houses tenanted only by the corpses of their 
 former occupants, and of dead bodies lying un- 
 buried on the snow. To these they rendered the 
 last charity of a grave, by covering them with 
 stones. The Greenlanders were in general par- 
 ticularly solicitous about the burial of their dead, 
 but in the present distress these cares were for- 
 gotten. One remarkable instance of calm fore- 
 
78 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 tliought on the part of a dying man came to the 
 notice of Egede. The only living creatures found 
 on one island were a little girl, covered with 
 small-pox, and three younger brothers. The 
 father had buried all the rest of his family and 
 neighbours ; and feeling that he had not long to 
 live, had prepared a grave of stones, in which he 
 laid himself down, and bade his little daughter 
 cover him over with skins, first telling her that he 
 had provided a supply of food for her and her 
 brothers, consisting of two dead seals and some 
 dried herrings, upon which they were to live till 
 they could get to the place where the Europeans 
 were. The sickness lasted till the summer of 
 1734, extending over a considerable portion of the 
 country. More than two thousand persons died, 
 and for many leagues north and south of Godhaab 
 the land was depopulated. The pity and care 
 which the sufferers experienced at the hands of 
 Egede and his family touched the hearts of some 
 amongst them. One who had been bitterly 
 opposed to the missionary and his teaching, said 
 to him in his dying moments, " You have been 
 kinder to us than we have been to one another. 
 You have tended us in our sickness, fed us when we 
 were famishing, buried our dead, who would else 
 have been a prey to dogs and ravens. And you 
 have told us of God, and of a better life to come." 
 In some of the children whom he had baptized 
 and taught, Egede was much comforted to perceive 
 a spirit of patient resignation, and a happy hope 
 
DEATH OF MRS. EGEDE. 79" 
 
 of the resuiTection to life. But amongst tlie older 
 natives, too many refused all exhortation and com- 
 fort. " We have called on God to help," said some 
 of these, " and no help came ;" and they vented 
 their despair in wild cries and revilings. 
 
 The pestilence was hardly over, when a ship 
 arrived from Denmark, having on board three 
 missionaries, one of whom was Paul Egede. He 
 was to be stationed at a new settlement about to 
 be founded at Disko Bay. For the present, how- 
 ever, he remained at Godhaab, to comfort and 
 assist his parents, who were almost worn out with 
 the distressing scenes of the last nine months. It 
 appeared very improbable that Mr. Egede would 
 ever recover sufficient strength to resume the 
 laborious duties of his mission ; but it was thought 
 that a change of climate might in part at least 
 restore his health and that of his wife. Both of 
 them desired to take their young daughters to 
 Europe, that they might enjoy some advantages 
 of education which could not be afforded them in 
 Greenland. But before any arrangements could 
 be made for their departure, Mrs. Egede was at- 
 tacked by a painful and lingering disease. After 
 several months of suffering, borne in the same 
 spirit of faith and patience which had governed 
 her life, she entered into rest, December 21st, 
 1736. This last and heaviest sorrow almost over- 
 whelmed the spirit of her husband. Utterly 
 broken down in health, he fell into such a state of 
 depression as greatly alarmed his children. He 
 
so HANS KGKDE. 
 
 says of himself that a great darkness fell upon 
 him. He felt as if he were so far from God that 
 he could not even bear to hear the Scriptures 
 read, or to be present at Divine worship. But he 
 suffered in silence, and none knew how deep his 
 distress was, until one night when his children 
 overheard him lamenting in tones of anguish 
 that his God had forsaken him. They came about 
 him with anxious affection, and brought his fellow- 
 labourers to comfort him with prayers and good 
 words ; but his soul refused comfort. After a time 
 these seasons of mental agony became less frequent 
 and acute. He exerted himself as well as he was 
 able for the benefit of the people ; and before 
 leaving the colony, recovered sufficient strength 
 to preach to them for the last time, taking for his 
 text these words: "I said, I have laboured in 
 vain ; I have spent m}^ strength for nought, and in 
 vain ; yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, 
 and my w^ork with my God." (Isaiah xlix. 4.) 
 
 He yet had hope that God would make His ways 
 known to this people ; and there were some indi- 
 cations, scarcely perceived as jet, that the Word 
 of Truth, which had so long been preached to 
 them, was beginning to excite serious thoughts in 
 a few at least. Not many weeks before, a stranger, 
 cjoming from a distant spot on the south coast, 
 liad visited Mr. Egede, who received him with his 
 usual kindness, and strove to lead him into some 
 understanding of the things belonging to his peace. 
 The man's attention had been awakened. After 
 
VISIT FROM A STRANGER. 
 
 81 
 
 leaving Godhaab he pondered over what he had 
 heard, and could not rest satisfied without knowing 
 more. His business carried him to a spot where 
 the Moravian missionaries' had pitched their tent 
 
 NATIVE IXQUIBING OF MOEAVIAKS. 
 
 for the purpose of fishing ; and he sought them 
 out, as they supposed, for the sake of exchanging 
 a portion of his provisions for some of their iron 
 ware. But after remaining silent and thoughtful 
 for some time, he told them that he had been with 
 the Pellesse (the Greenland mode of pronouncing 
 the Danish word Praetz-^wiest or minister), who 
 
 G 
 
.S2 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 had told him wonderful things concerning One 
 who had created Heaven and earth, and whom he 
 called God. Did they know anything about it? 
 If they did, would they4ell him ; for he could not 
 remember all that the Pellesse had said, and he 
 wanted to know more. They repeated to him the 
 wonderful story of man's first creation in spotless 
 purity and perfection, the happy ruler of a world 
 where all things were " very good ;" of his fall 
 into a state of sin and condemnation ; of his re- 
 covery through the atonement made by a Divine 
 Redeemer. The stranger listened with fixed at- 
 tention, remained with them the rest of the day, 
 was a quiet, respectful spectator of their evening 
 worship, and slept all night in their tent. The 
 thoughtful, reverent demeanour of this man, so 
 different from that of his countrymen generally, 
 made the missionaries hope that he was not far 
 from the kingdoui of God. 
 
 In the beginning of August, 1736, just fifteen 
 years from the time when he had entei'ed his 
 .first Greenland dwelling, Mr. Egede quitted the 
 -country which had been the scene of so many 
 toils and sorrows, accompanied by his daughters 
 and his son Kiels. The storms which had assailed 
 them on the outward voyage were exceeded in 
 violence by those which they encountered on 
 their return, and the ship narrowly escaped the 
 fate of thirty others which, in one short hour, 
 were dashed to pieces on the coast of Norway. 
 Delivered from these dangers, the missionary ana 
 
EGEDE RETURNS TO DENMARK. 88 
 
 his companions arrived safely at Copenhagen on 
 the 24:th September. He was received with much 
 respect and sympathy by the pious members of 
 the Church, and by the king himself, who con- 
 ferred with him about the best means of promoting 
 the spiritual good of the Greenlanders ; and soon 
 afterwards placed him in a position to carry out 
 his views. He was appointed superintendent of 
 the mission in Greenland, and empowered to 
 found a seminary for the education of students 
 and orphan youths, from amongst whom future 
 missionaries and catechists were to be chosen. 
 They were to be instructed in the Greenlandic 
 tongue, and in other branches of knowledge 
 requisite to fit them for service in that country. 
 In the climate of Denmark, Egede recovered in a 
 considerable degree his former health, and was 
 spared through many years of useful labour. Long 
 before his death the fields which he beheld so 
 barren were whitening to the harvest, and his 
 own beloved sons were not the least active and 
 useful among the labourers. Shortly before his 
 father's departure from Greenland, Paul Egede 
 had gone to the newly-formed station at Disko 
 Bay. He continued for some years in this mission, 
 and was greatly esteemed by the natives. He 
 afterwards succeeded his father in the charge of 
 the seminary at Copenhagen ; and employed him- 
 self in preparing various works for the assistance 
 of the students and missionaries, and in trans- 
 lating a portion of the Scriptures. Before leaving 
 
di EANF VOEBE. 
 
 Greenland he had translated some of the Books of 
 Moses, but was induced to suspend the work hj 
 the representations of some Christian natives who 
 assisted him, and who imagined that their country- 
 men would make a bad use of some of the facts 
 recorded in the sacred narrative ; instancing, 
 particularly, the murder of Abel by his brother 
 Cain, the deceit of which Jacob was guilty 
 towards his father, and various other instances of 
 human frailty and crime which stained the lives 
 of the patriarchs. That these worthy men, newly 
 converted from heathen darkness, should entertain 
 such fears, might be very natural ; but it seems 
 strange that Paul Egede should have been so 
 much influenced by them as to withhold from the 
 native converts the translation which he had 
 made. AVe might have supposed that he who 
 from a child had known the Scriptures would 
 have had no fear that the study of any book in the 
 Bible would make sin appear excusable or desir- 
 able. He however laid aside his translation of 
 the Old Testament, and began to translate the 
 New, which Avas finished and published after his 
 return to Denmark. 
 
 Niels Egede continued to an advanced age in 
 the seafaring and mercantile occupations upon 
 which he had entered in his youth ; but blended 
 with them so diligent a care for the religious 
 instruction of the natives, that they and his own 
 countrymen also looked upon him as being quite 
 as much a teacher and catechist as he was a 
 
DRACHART. 
 
 85 
 
 PAUL EGEDE. 
 
 merchant and sailor. One of tlie first missionaries 
 whom Mr. Egede had the happiness of sending 
 out, was a man of remarkably devout and affec- 
 tionate spirit, named Drachart. He was appointed 
 to Godhaab, and arrived there in 1739, about a 
 year after the beginning of that work of God 
 which, gradually extending its gracious influence, 
 brought a multitude of Greenlanders out of dark- 
 ness into light. Drachart (whom the natives 
 called Pelissmgoak — the little minister^ to distinguish 
 him from one who was taller) was much beloved 
 both by the Greenlanders and Europeans; and 
 
86 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 Ms preaching had a most salutary effect tipon the 
 traders and seamen employed in the service of the 
 colony. Manj^ who at their first coming to 
 Greenland knew little more of the Eedeemer 
 whose name they bore than the heathen them- 
 selves, were converted to earnest Christian men 
 by the blessing of God on his instructions ; and 
 the marked change in their conduct produced a 
 very happy effect upon the natives who were as 
 yet unenlightened. They perceived now that 
 there was something in the religion preached to 
 them which went far deeper than that outward 
 hearing and assent, which was all they had 
 hitherto given to it. One little incident in 
 Drachart's missionary labours, which occurred in 
 the third year after his coming to Greenland, may 
 be added here. Amongst the catechumens whom 
 he was preparing for Baptism, were two young 
 women, whose father, when he heard that they 
 were to be baptized, went to the missionary, and 
 asked if he might not be baptized too ? " It is 
 true," said he, " I can say but little, and very 
 probably I shall never learn so much as my 
 children, for thou canst see that my hair is quite 
 grey, and that I am a very old man ; but I believe 
 with all my heart in Jesus Christ, and that all 
 thou sayest of Him is true." So moving a 
 petition could not be refused, though the old man 
 could no longer retain in his memory the cate- 
 chetical instruction given to younger candidates. 
 He was deeply affected, and the tears ran down 
 
NATIVE DISCIPLES. 87 
 
 his cheeks like rain while Baptism was adminis- 
 tered to himself and his children. 
 
 Sometimes the natives, coming in their accus- 
 tomed wandering way of life to the Godhaab 
 district, and soon leaving it again, were not seen 
 for many years ; yet it was found that some had 
 carried away with them a portion at least of that 
 which had been taught them, and notwithstanding 
 the evil communications of surrounding kindred 
 and neighbours, they led a different life from the 
 heathen, and entered eternity after a different 
 manner. Several years after Mr. Drachart had 
 quitted Greenland for another field of labour, a 
 missionary, journeying in a distant part of the- 
 country, came to a hut in which he found only a 
 sick man with his wife and two children. Making 
 some friendly inquiries of the poor woman about 
 her husband's illness, she replied, " My husband 
 used to put confidence in the Angekoks, but now 
 he minds them no more. When he is in great pain, 
 he says, Ah ! pray to our Saviour for me. But I, 
 alas ! can hardly pray ; I am very ignorant. Once, 
 indeed, I heard something from Pelissingoak, at 
 Godhaab, but whither is it fled !" And as she said 
 this she wept much. Very gladly the missionary 
 encouraged and comforted these poor people, 
 praying with them, and recalling to their memories 
 the instruction they had formerly received. 
 
 In 1756, King Christian VI. died, and was 
 succeeded by Frederic V., who continued the 
 favour and protection which his predecessors had 
 
88 HANS EGEDE. 
 
 bestowed on the Greenland mission. The vene- 
 rable Mr. Egede had retired from his post of 
 superintendent some years before the death of 
 Christian. His old age was full of peace and 
 honour. He had taken up his abode with one of his 
 daughters who lived in the Island of Falster ; and 
 there, on the 5th November, 1758, and in the 73rd 
 year of his age, he departed to be with his Lord, 
 
 From the time that Egede procured the esta- 
 blishment of a mission in Greenland, the Danes 
 never wholly lost sight of the country ; though, as 
 the preceding narrative has shown, the failure of 
 their first attempts at colonization led them for a 
 few years to abandon the settlements they had 
 fonned. Greenland has now long been wholly a 
 Danish colony ; about a thousand Danes residing 
 at various points of the coast, to manage the trade 
 with the mother-country, which consists chiefly 
 in the exchange of European articles for oil, and 
 skins of seals, reindeer, &c. The Greenlanders, 
 or Esquimaux (as they are now generally called), 
 are not subject to the Danish laws, but they are 
 much attached to the Danes, and wholly under 
 their influence. A clergyman, a doctor, and a 
 schoolmaster, whose duty it is to give gratuitous 
 instruction and relief to the natives, are stationed 
 in each district, and paid by the government. All 
 the people of West Greenland have become 
 Christians, and many are able to read and write. 
 
89 
 
 MATTHEW STACH AND HIS ASSOCIATES ; 
 
 THE FOUNDERS OF THE MORA VI AIT MISSIONS IN 
 GREENLAND AND LABRADOR. 
 
 At tlie beginning of the eighteentli century, a few 
 descendants from the ancient Unitas Fratrnm still 
 lingered in Moravia, amongst whom were the 
 parents of the missionary brethren whose labours 
 form the chief subjects of th*e following pages. 
 Sheltered in some degree from persecution by 
 their poverty and obscure condition, they were 
 nevertheless exposed from time to time to the 
 operation of penal statutes, which were made to 
 bear more or less hardly upon them, according to 
 the inclination of the reigning emperor, or the 
 political circumstances of the times. The public 
 exercise of their worship had long been pro- 
 hibited ; neither might they safely allow it to be 
 known that they possessed any other than the 
 Eoman Catholic version of the Scriptures, or any 
 copies of their liturgy, or other religious works. 
 The forefathers of Matthew Stach and his brethren 
 had been all subjected to exile, imprisonment, 
 toi-ture, and death itself, for their profession of the 
 
90 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 faith ; which they claimed to have preserved 
 (though not always in equal purity), ever since 
 the Gospel had been introduced into their country, 
 by missionaries of the Greek church, in the course 
 of the ninth century. But under the silence and 
 concealment which persecution had compelled 
 their descendants to observe, with regard to their 
 religious doctrines, many, especially of the 
 younger people, were in danger of losing their 
 faith altogether. To obviate this evil, a few 
 zealous men began to act as missionaries to their 
 brethren, travelling up and down in the districts 
 where they chiefly resided, to exhort them not to 
 Bwerve from the faith for which their predecessors 
 had suffered so severely, and endeavouring, above 
 all, to awaken in tTiem a spirit of greater earnest- 
 ness and devotion. Nor were their labours un- 
 fiuitfiil. At the end of a few j^ears, a powerful 
 religious movement began to make itself felt among 
 the brethren in Moravia. But the harsh treat- 
 ment to which they were always liable, and 
 which at this time was inflicted upon some of 
 their number, caused many to long for a retreat 
 where they might serve God in peace, and revive 
 the religious discipline and ritual of their ances- 
 tors. 
 
 Having heard that there was greater liberty of 
 conscience in Saxony and Silesia, many sought an 
 asylum in those countries. A small body, who 
 emigrated in 1722, were kindly received in 
 Lusatia (a territory lying between the two above- 
 
EAKLY HISTORY OF THE MISSIONARIES. 
 
 91 
 
 named countries), where Count Zinzendorf, the 
 owner of the estate of Bertholsdorf, encouraged 
 them to settle on his land. Accordingly, on a 
 hill called Hutberg, they erected a small village, 
 
 UEERNHUT IN 3I0EAVIA. 
 
 which they named IleiTnhut (the Lord's Watch.) 
 The leader of this little band was a man of much 
 energy and piety, named Christian David. Hav- 
 ing found so secure an asylum for his people, he 
 ventured repeatedly to return to Moravia, for the 
 purpose of guiding and encouraging other emi- 
 grants to escape thither ; since the severity with 
 which their rulers prohibited emigration, rendered 
 the enterprise difficult and hazardous. Many 
 
52 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 were arrested ere they had crossed the frontier, 
 and punished by scourging and imprisonment; 
 but at the end of ten years, the population of tho 
 colony at Herrnhut amounted to six hundred per- 
 sons, and it was at this time that the brethren 
 entered upon their first missionary undertakings. 
 A few words concerning the early life of the chief 
 Greenland missionaries, Matthew Stach, Frederic 
 Boehnisch, and John Beck, may fitly precede the 
 history of their mission. 
 
 In the great persecution of 1 620, the ancestors 
 of Matthew Stach were compelled to quit their 
 native land, and flee into Saxonj^. Many years 
 afterwards, some of their descendants ventured 
 back to Moravia, amongst whom was Christian 
 Stach, the father of Matthew. He was a man of 
 exemplary life, so much esteemed by his neigh- 
 bours for his meek and benevolent disposition, 
 that, although stigmatized as a heretic, and known 
 to be warmly attached to his religion, he remained 
 during several years almost unmolested. Chris- 
 tian Stach bent all his efforts to train wp his child- 
 ren in the fear of God. " The first time," said 
 Matthew, " that I ever had any serious thoughts, 
 they arose in this way. AVhen I was about four 
 or five years old, my father one day found me cry- 
 ing bitterly because, in the general distribution of 
 the cake, a very small slice had fallen to my share. 
 He gave me a larger piece, saying, at the same 
 time, ' My child, if thou wouldst thus weep over 
 thy sins, it were better.' These words sank into 
 
CHRISTIAN STACH. 
 
 93 
 
 my heart." In his sixth year the little boy began 
 to herd the cattle in summer time, but in the 
 winter was carefully instructed by his father; 
 who was well read in the Scriptures and in the 
 writings of the Keformers, though he had had 
 little opportunity of acquiring secular learning. 
 " My father," writes Matthew, " took particular 
 pains to teach me to pray, often telling me what 
 I should ask of my Father in Heaven. In my 
 childish days, I was much concemed about the 
 salvation of my soul, and often very unhappy 
 because I could not feel that God was well-pleased 
 with me. But going from home at twelve years 
 of age, to enter into service, these serious thoughts 
 were almost banished by new scenes and occupa- 
 tions. I now made many acquaintances of my 
 own age, and would gladly have shared in their 
 pastimes ; but for the most part they rejected my 
 company, and treated me with contumely, because 
 I was, said they, ' a heretic: In my next situa- 
 tion, I met with more friendly comrades, and 
 enjoyed much more liberty. My master was, 
 however, a pious man, who failed not to admonish 
 me when he saw that I was turning aside to evil ; 
 but I had become too fond of company, and eager 
 for amusement ; and though conscience reproached 
 me for mnning into temptation, I often joined the 
 band of men and boys who frequented the village 
 tavern to drink, dance, and divert themselves." 
 
 In the course of a year or two, however, all his 
 early religious impressions were revived in full 
 
^4 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 force. " My master," lie says, " had been speak- 
 ing to me very seriously on the course of life 1 
 was leading. His words went to my heart, as 
 those of my father had done, twelve years before ; 
 and a voice in my inmost soul said, Thou must pray. 
 I did so, and from that time never again suffered 
 the day to pass by without prayer." Even in his 
 most careless days, Matthew Staeh had sometimes 
 longed that he and his kindred could escape from 
 the severe restraint in which they were held by 
 their popish rulers, to some spot where they might 
 worship God after the manner of their forefathers. 
 The wish now acquired fresh force, and, hearing 
 the settlement at Hermhut spoken of, he resolved 
 to go thither whatever difficulties might beset his 
 way. But his father did not at first approve of 
 this scheme. " I have long toiled for your benefit, 
 my son," said he, "and I hoped that now yon 
 would soon be able to take my place, and become 
 the stay and comfort of your mother and sisters." 
 Matthew loved his parents too sincerely to oppose 
 his own wishes to theirs. The father, however, 
 perceiving that his son continued somewhat sad 
 and anxious, said to him, " My dear son, if you 
 think that you cannot serve God faithfully in this 
 land, and are really animated by the desire to do 
 His will and save your soul, go to Hermhut. I 
 would not for the whole world keep you back." 
 Upon this Matthew set out with a glad heart, but 
 secretly, and by night. He gained the frontier 
 without accident, and in due time arrived safely 
 
SOUGHT AND FOUND. 95 
 
 at Hermhut, but with only a few pence in his 
 pocket. At first, he could hardly, by the most 
 diligent labour, gain a sufficient quantity of the 
 necessaries of life. This, however, was a small 
 trouble, compared with the sorrow occasioned by 
 sad tidings from home. A cousin of Matthew's 
 had joined him at Hermhut, and the fathers of 
 both the young men had been severely punished 
 for the flight of their sons ; laid in irons, and 
 sentenced to hard labour. The father of Matthew 
 was released after a short captivity, but his uncle 
 remained a prisoner almost to the day of his death. 
 The two youths set out again for Moravia, deter- 
 mined to effect the escape of their relatives, if 
 possible ; and although they could not at that time 
 accomplish their purpose, all the surviving mem- 
 bers of the family were eventually reunited at 
 Herrnhut; but in deep poverty, for they had 
 been obliged to leave all their goods behind 
 them. 
 
 His chief earthly wish was thus fulfilled, yet 
 Matthew Stach was still far from peace. Not- 
 withstanding his religious education, his eyes 
 were not yet opened to see clearly the true mean- 
 ing of the Gospel, and he was labouring to obtain 
 repose of mind by his own righteousness. His 
 anxiety was aggravated by a mistaken notion 
 which prevailed amongst his brethren at that 
 time, that a Christian must necessarily enjoy the 
 full assurance that his sins are forgiven. To 
 obtain this, he fasted, and watched, and prayed 
 
96 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 whole niglits tliroiigb, till his strength gave way. 
 Eediiced now almost to despair, he cried out, " Ah 
 Lord, take pity on me, I am lost!" "But," said 
 he, " in this time of utter distress, the Friend who 
 had sought and found me, though I dared not 
 believe it, drew near to my soul, and my ears 
 were opened to hear His voice, saying. Peace be 
 unto thee. From that time I walked in peace, 
 and gave thanks to God in my heart continually, 
 though I said nothing to any man of my great 
 happiness." 
 
 Frederic Boehnisch was the son of a miller at 
 Kunewald, in Moravia. Like Matthew Stach, he 
 enjoyed the blessings of a good example and a 
 religious education in his father's house. Although 
 forbidden the public exercises of Divine worship 
 according to the manner which their consciences ap- 
 proved, so that they could participate in no other 
 services than those of the Eoman Catholic church, 
 the parents of Frederic Boehnisch, and a few of 
 their neighbours who held the same faith as them- 
 selves, were accustomed to meet secretly, from 
 time to time, to join in the prayers and hymns 
 hallowed by the memory of pious forefathers, and 
 endeared to the Unitas Fratrum by centuries of 
 persecution. At these meetings the Scriptures 
 were read and explained, according to their 
 ability, by some of the brethren who have already 
 been described as acting the part of missionaries 
 among their dispersed fellow-religionists. When 
 Frederic was about tw^elve years old, he was per- 
 
FKEDERIO B<EHNISCH. 97 
 
 mitted for the first time to attend one of these 
 meetings, and was so deeply moved by the prayers 
 and exhortations which he heard there, that the 
 impression was never effaced from his mind. 
 From that day he resolved that, as soon as the 
 opportunity should be granted him, he would 
 leave his native place, and seek out some spot 
 where with his fellow-believers he might worship 
 God openly, and as frequently as he would. " I 
 asked," he says, "where such a place could be 
 found, and the answer was, ' In Saxony, which 
 lies towards the west.' After that, I went every 
 da}^ into our garden, and kneeling down with my 
 face towards the west, prayed earnestly, and often 
 with tears, that God would bring me to that 
 place." Two years had passed away when one of 
 the missionary brethren, whose words had so 
 deeply moved the heart of Frederic, came again 
 to Kunewald. He was about to visit other places 
 where families of the brethren lived, dispersed 
 amidst the Eoman Catholic population. The lad 
 besought permission to accompany him; but he 
 was as yet too young for full reliance to be placed 
 on his stedfastness and discretion ; and his father, 
 knowing from experience how closely the move- 
 ments of the brethren were watched, and fearing 
 lest his son might by any means bring their friend 
 into trouble, would not consent to his going. 
 
 Shortly afterwards, however, tidings of the 
 infant colony which had just been planted at 
 Bertholsdorf, reached the dwellers at Kunewald. 
 
 H 
 
98 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 A little company, one of wliom was a near kins- 
 man, of Boeliniscli's, determined to migrate thither, 
 if possible ; and Frederic entreated tliat lie might 
 go with them so earnestly, that his father and 
 mother were induced to consent. " We set off," 
 he says, "on Palm Sunday, after night-fall, and 
 by Easter-day had reached in safety a town where 
 Protestants were allowed to celebrate their public 
 worship. Here for the first time in my life I 
 heard a sermon from a pastor of the Eeformed 
 Church. On the following Sunday, we came in 
 sight of Bertholsdorf. Only three houses had yet 
 been erected on the Hutberg, and these were not 
 finished. But my heart overflowed with joy and 
 gratitude, for God had granted my petition and 
 brought me to dwell amongst brethren." The 
 strength and sincerity of the boy's religious 
 principles were now to be tested by trial. He 
 had left the homely plenty and comfort of his 
 father's house to cast in his lot with a very poor 
 people, but he never repented of his choice. 
 "Working at any occupation which he could find, 
 sometimes as a linen weaver, sometimes as a 
 gardener, he was contented and happy with the 
 hardest fare. He had been living at Hermhut 
 between three and four years when Matthew 
 Stach arrived there ; they were nearly of the same 
 age, and a warm friendship soon sprang up 
 between them. 
 
 The family of John Beck had suffered with 
 peculiar severity for their adherence to their 
 
JOHN BECK. ^ 
 
 faith. His grandfather, crippled by the tortures- 
 inflicted on him, died young, leaving two sons- 
 who were taken from their mother to be brought 
 up as Eoman Catholics. But in the mind of the 
 elder boy the instructions of his parents had taken 
 root too deeply to be eradicated. The fruit of 
 them appeared in the diligence with which in 
 after-life he searched the Scriptures, and sought out 
 amongst his neighbours all who had any desire 
 to serve God, that he might persuade them to 
 join with him in the pursuit of sacred knowledge, 
 and other works of piety. More particularly he 
 took pains to instruct his little son John in the 
 word of God. When the boy was old enough to 
 enter into the service of strangers, his father 
 dismissed him with these words: " My son, have 
 the blessed God always before thy eyes, so shall 
 it be well with thee, in time and eternity." " And 
 for a time," said John Beck, " I laid this injunc- 
 tion much to heart ; though, by degrees, I forgot 
 it, and became very indifferent about pleasing 
 God. One day, however, while about my master's 
 work, I happened to look into a New Testament, 
 and lighted upon these words, ' I know thy works, 
 that thou art neither cold nor hot.' I read the 
 verses which follow, and the words were like 
 fire, they pierced my very heart." This proved 
 the turning point in the life of John Beck. The 
 shame and sorrow with which he was filled, on 
 account of his lukewarmness and ingratitude 
 towards the Saviour, were succeeded by a lively 
 
100 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 faith in the atonement. " I saw Him," he says, 
 " as it were cnicified before me, and for my sins, 
 and was filled with inexpressible thankfulness 
 and desire to glorify Him." 
 
 The change which had passed npon the young 
 man quickly attracted the observation of his com- 
 rades, to whom, indeed, he spoke freely, warning, 
 and entreating them to turn with their hearts to 
 the Lord. Some were gained by his exhortations, 
 and in their turn began to speak of the Gospel 
 among their neighbours. In course of time, many 
 were awakened to consider more seriously the 
 things that belonged to their peace ; and began 
 to meet together to pray and read the Scriptures. 
 Amongst their neighbours, some approved, others 
 derided this new zeal for religion ; but the au- 
 thorities of the neighbourhood were deeply of- 
 fended, and put an end to the meetings by arresting 
 John Beck and another young man who had taken 
 a prominent part in them. The two young men 
 Avere sentenced to be separately confined in irons, 
 and to be fed on just so much bread and water 
 as was necessary to keep them alive. Beck, in 
 particular, was most severely handled, but he 
 received grace to be stedfast, and has left it on 
 record, that the abiding consciousness of God's 
 presence made his prison seem like a home to 
 him. When their captivit}- had lasted some time. 
 Beck's fellow-prisoner obtained a little indulgence 
 from his gaoler, and was even permitted to walk 
 about a little within the gaol. He made use of his 
 
ESCAPE FROM PRISON. 101 
 
 liberty to visit the cell where his friend was lying 
 in fetters, and together they found means to con- 
 cert a plan of escape, as well as to loosen the 
 irons. They scaled the walls of the prison snc- 
 cessfull}^, but their flight was discovered before 
 they had got half a mile from the town. Though 
 hotly pursued, however, they contrived to creep 
 into the thickets and hide themselves, and, in the 
 ♦ind, made good their escape. Having neither 
 money nor food, they begged their way towards 
 Breslau, where one of them had some Lutheran 
 acquaintances, amongst whom they hoped to find 
 shelter. But while they were still far from that 
 town, a poor farmer, stnick with pity at their 
 famished way-worn appearance, took them to his 
 house, and charitably entertained them for some 
 days. Finding that they were refugees from 
 Moravia, he spoke to them of Herrnhut. It was 
 the first time they had heard of the settlement 
 formed there, but they at once resolved to go 
 thither rather than to Breslau ; and after en- 
 countering many more hardships, arrived safely 
 at the asylum of their brethren, in the summer 
 of 1732. 
 
 Count Zinzendorf, the benevolent benefactor of 
 the community at Herrnhut, had already begun 
 to direct their attention to the deplorable state 
 of the heathen world. An earnest desire to be 
 instrumental in spreading the word of life among 
 pagan nations had taken possession of his mind 
 during his studies at the university, but was not 
 
102 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 called into exercise until the year 1731, when he 
 attended the coronation of Christian YI. at Copen- 
 hagen. In that city he met with two Greenlanders 
 "who had been baptized by the venerable Mr. Egede, 
 and learned with pain that the mission to Green- 
 land was to be relinquished. His domestics also 
 conversed with a baptized negro from St. Thomas, 
 who earnestly entreated that Christian missionaries 
 might be sent to his enslaved countrymen. He 
 appeared deeply interested in the fate of his sister, 
 whom he had left behind in that island, and who, 
 he said, frequently besought the great God to send 
 some one who might show her the way to Him. 
 The count afforded him an opportunity of stating 
 his case in a public meeting of the brethren at 
 Herrnhut, where his representations and en- 
 treaties proved so effectual, that two of those 
 present, Leonard Dober and another, offered to 
 go to St. Thomas, though under the persuasion 
 that they would be obliged to sell themselves 
 for slaves in order to gain access to the negroes. 
 They set sail August 21st, 1732, ten years after 
 the foundation of Herrnhut. 
 
 At the same time the plan of a mission to 
 Greenland was also agitated. As that country 
 was under the protection of the Danish govern- 
 ment, which was very friendly to the brethren, 
 it appeared the more eligible for the establishment 
 of a mission. Matthew Stach and Frederic Boeh- 
 nisch, had both, unknown to each other, formed 
 the design of offering themselves for this service. 
 
MISSION TO GREENLAND. 103 
 
 After a minute inquiry into their motives for such. 
 an undertaking, the offer was accej)ted, but the 
 mission to St, Thomas having exhausted the 
 resources of the little community for that year, 
 the commencement of the Greenland mission was 
 deferred until January, 1733. In the mean time 
 Frederic Boehnisch had been despatched on a long 
 journey to transact some business for his brethren, 
 and in his absence, Christian Stach consented to 
 accompany his cousin Matthew. Christian David 
 went with them, on account of their youth and 
 inexperience, intending to return to Europe, as 
 soon as he had seen the mission fairly established. 
 With scarcely any provision for their journey 
 beyond the most necessary articles of clothing, 
 our missionaries travelled by way of Hamburgh to 
 the Danish capital. Here they met with a kind 
 reception from Professor Ewald, member of the 
 College of Missions, and other friends to whom 
 they had been recommended. Their intention of 
 going to Greenland was, however, regarded as 
 a visionary scheme, particularly while the fate 
 of the Danish mission at Godhaab was yet in 
 suspense. But they took little notice of the 
 gloomy forebodings which met their ears, believ- 
 ing that He who had called them to the work, 
 would support them in the prosecution of it. 
 They learned shortly after that his majesty had 
 granted leave for one more vessel to sail to 
 Godhaab, and applied to the king's chamberlain 
 for permission to take their passage in her. 
 
104 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 Their first audience of this minister was not a 
 little discouraging. Indeed, it might well seem 
 strange to him that young men, who possessed 
 no advantages of study or experience, should hope 
 to succeed, where the indefatigable exertions of 
 the pious and learned Egede had accomplished 
 so little. But being convinced, by a closer ac- 
 quaintance, of the solidity of their faith, and the 
 rectitude of their intentions, he became their 
 firm friend, willingly presented their memorial 
 to the king, and exerted all his influence in their 
 behalf; making use, it is said, of this argument, 
 that God hath, in all ages, employed things which 
 are weak, unlearned, and of no account, in the 
 world's estimation, as instruments in the accom- 
 plishment of His great designs, in order that man 
 might ascribe the honour to Him alone, and not 
 rely on his own power and sagacity. The king, 
 moved by the representations of his minister, con- 
 sented to their request, and wrote with his own 
 hand a recommendatory letter to Mr. Egede. The 
 chamberlain also introduced them to several 
 persons distinguished by their rank and piety, 
 who generously contributed towards the expense 
 of their voyage and intended settlement. Being 
 asked one day how they proposed to maintain 
 themselves in Greenland, they answered that they 
 depended on the labour of their own hands and 
 God's blessing ; and that, not to be burdensome to 
 any one, they would build themselves a house 
 and cultivate the ground. It being objected that 
 
THE DAILY WOKl). 105 
 
 they would find no wood to build with, as th& 
 country presented little but a face of barren rock ; 
 " Then," replied they, " we will dig into the 
 earth and lodge there." "No," said the cham- 
 berlain, "you shall not be reduced to that ne- 
 cessity. Here are fifty dollars ; buy timber, and 
 take it out with you." With this and other do- 
 nations, the}^ purchased poles, planks, and laths ; 
 instruments for agriculture, masonry, and car- 
 penter's work ; several sorts of seeds and roots ; 
 implements of fishing and hunting; household 
 furniture, books, paper, and provisions. 
 
 Thus equipped they took a grateful leave of the 
 court where they had been so hospitably enter- 
 tained, and embarked on board the king's ship 
 Caritas, on the 10th April. The congregation 
 at Herrnhut had adopted the custom of annually 
 compiling a collection of Scripture texts for exery 
 day in the year. This text was called the Baili/ 
 Word; it supplied a subject for private meditation 
 and a theme for the public discourses. It was 
 long remembered by the brethren that the Daily 
 AVord for that 10th of April, when their mis- 
 sionaries embarked upon an undertaking which 
 so often appeared to baffie all hope, was (Heb. 
 xi. 1), " Faith is the substance of things hoped 
 for, the evidence of things not seen." In that 
 faith they set sail, nor were they confounded by 
 the unspeakable difficulties of following years, 
 until, at last, they and their brethren in Europe- 
 beheld the fulfilment of their hopes. On the 
 
106 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 tliiiiy-third day of the voyage they came in sight 
 of the coast of Greenland, but a violent tempest of 
 four days' continuance, preceded by a total eclipse 
 of the sun, drove them back sixty leagues. On the 
 20th May, they cast anchor in Baal's Eiver, and 
 joyfully welcomed the snowy cliffs and savage in- 
 habitants of a country which had so long been the 
 chief subject of their thoughts. 
 
 Immediately on landing they repaired to Mr. 
 Egede, who received them with a Cordial wel- 
 come, and confirmed their hope that, dark as 
 was the present aspect of affairs, the light of 
 the Lord should yet dawn upon Greenland. 
 Their first care was to find a spot on which to 
 plant their intended habitation. They selected 
 a piece of ground between the harbour and the 
 factory or village of Godhaab, on the south-west 
 side of a small peninsula, the outermost edge of 
 which formed ' three strands, between which the 
 rocks projected into the sea. Between the rocks 
 the beach was fenced with a dam of pebbles 
 thrown up by the waves. It rose with a gradual 
 acclivity, and ended in a small valley watered by 
 a rivulet. Here, about a mile distant from the 
 edge of the sea, they determined to fix their 
 abode, and as the erection of the house, for which 
 their friends in Denmark had presented them 
 with timber, would be a work of time, they 
 raised a hut of turf and stones, Greenland fashion, 
 to shelter them during its progress. It waf 
 now June, yet the weather was so piercingly 
 
A. missionary's lettees. 107 
 
 cold that the sods froze in their hands while they 
 built. 
 
 In the middle of the month the Caritas sailed 
 on her homeward voyage. From the letters 
 which Matthew Stach sent by it to the congre- 
 gation at Hermhut, a few passages are here 
 extracted. " Brethren and sisters, beloved in 
 Jesus, through whose grace we have life : God 
 who is rich in loving-kindness has brought us in 
 peace to this land. That which we sought we 
 have found; a people knowing nothing of their 
 Maker. They care for nothing excepting to catch 
 seals, fish, and reindeer, and in quest of these they 
 wander up and down continually. We long to 
 learn their language and tell them of God, of His 
 Son Jesus, of the Holy Spirit; we long to seek 
 them out and make them our friends, but know 
 not how to come at them, for to-day they are here, 
 to-morrow there; on the islands, on the shores, 
 away beyond our reach. Did we foresee how 
 many difficulties would obstruct this undertaking 
 when, at Hermhut, we resolved to attempt it? 
 To that question I answer, there is a true saying, 
 * The man who keeps his faith cannot lose his 
 way.' Our way is shut up, so that we see it not. 
 But it is our daily lesson. To be still in the Lord. 
 All is well with us outwardly, but our hearts long 
 to win souls, and towards this we can as yet do 
 nothing. By the grace of God, we will not 
 despond, but watch for the Lord. When His 
 time comes to favour this land, its darkness shall 
 
108 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 be turned into light, and the ice-cold hearts of its- 
 people shall be thawed. While our way is up- 
 right before Him, we are not troubled though men 
 esteem us fools, and truly we are fools in the 
 eyes of many who know this land and its in- 
 habitants." 
 
 To the young men who had been more especially 
 his companions, he writes: "I address you, my 
 brethren, from a land where the Name of Jesus is 
 not yet known. Here the Sun of Eighteousness 
 has not shined, but you live in the light of His 
 meridian beams. Has He yet warmed your 
 hearts ? or are some of you still frozen ? It 
 were better to have lived in Greenland and 
 never heard of Jesus, than to have the light 
 shining all around you, and yet not to arise 
 and walk as children of the light. But you 
 who have known the Saviour, may you be es- 
 tablished in grace. My heart is listed with 
 yours under the banner of the cross. To Christ 
 will I live, to Him will I die. Let us animate 
 each other to follow the Lamb without the camp. 
 The salvation is great, and the harvest will be 
 glorious, when we have sown much seed and 
 watered it with many tears. Eemember your 
 meanest brother constantly in your prayers." 
 
 All the honest warmth and confidence expressed 
 by the writer were needed to sustain himself 
 and his brother missionaries under the various 
 difficulties which lay before them, and which were 
 greater in some respects than thosp* which had 
 
DANGEB8 AND HARDSHIPS. 109 
 
 obstructed the labours of Egede. It was necessary, 
 in order to the very existence of their mission, 
 that they should toil much, both with head and 
 hand in occupations which were new to them. 
 Natives of a country which lay remote from the 
 sea, they were totally inexperienced in navigation. 
 Nor were they much better acquainted with the 
 arts of the fisher and fowler. Now, however, 
 fish, birds, and reindeer must be caught, to eke 
 out their slender stock of European provisions ; 
 and drift-wood must be gathered on the shores 
 and islands during the summer months, to provide 
 firing for the long Arctic winter. The mis- 
 sionaries had purchased an old boat from the 
 captain of the Caritas, and whenever the weather 
 would permit, they went out in search of food 
 or fuel. But, as may easily be imagined, they 
 encountered many dangers and endured many 
 hungr}"- days of disappointed labour, before they 
 learnt how to manage a boat in those stormy 
 ice-encumbered seas ; or became sufficiently 
 expert in hunting and fishing to obtain an 
 adequate ■ supply of food. They were the more 
 desirous to acquire some skill in navigation, 
 because it was only by means of boat voyages 
 that they could hope to become acquainted with a 
 wandering people, scattered along the shores of 
 a hundred creeks and fiords. These occupations, 
 however, needful and onerous as they were, 
 did not cause them so many anxious thoughts 
 as the study of the native language. Mr. Egede 
 
110 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 kindly put into their hands the grammar and 
 vocabulary and other papers which he had drawn 
 up, that they might make copies of these 
 manuscripts for themselves ; and his sons fre- 
 quently assisted their studies by explaining the 
 grammatical rules and remarks which their 
 father had wiitten down. But when it is re- 
 membered that Matthew Stach and his associates 
 had never before seen a grammar, and knew not 
 the meaning of the terms employed ; and moreover 
 that they were obliged to learn Danish before 
 they could understand their instructors; it will 
 not be thought wonderful, that the difficulties 
 which had proved formidable to Egede appeared 
 to these unlearned students to be almost insur- 
 mountable. 
 
 Christian David was too old to engage in the 
 study of the language with any hope of success. 
 He occupied himself with matters of household 
 economy, and with the building of the mission 
 dwelling, which was sufficiently advanced to be 
 habitable before the winter set in. The hut 
 which had hitherto served the brethren for a 
 home, was preserved, in hope that by the time 
 the}' had acquired a sufficient knowledge of 
 Greenlandic to converse with the natives, in- 
 quirers would often visit the station, to whom 
 the hut might afford a temporaiy shelter, if the 
 missionaries could persuade them to remain a 
 while. The mission-house contained, besides 
 the necessary rooms for the brethren a larger 
 
BAVAGES OF SMALL-POX. Ill 
 
 apartment designed to be used as a chapel and 
 schoolroom ; and ardently the young men hoped 
 and longed to see it filled with native scholars 
 and worshippers. Chiistian David sympathized 
 in their desire, but was far less sanguine in 
 hope. " I built the first dwelling for the mis- 
 sionaries, and the first school-house for the natives," 
 he said, when better days had come, " but little 
 expected that the dwelling would continue to 
 be inhabited, or that the school-room would 
 ever become too small." At present, the station 
 which the missionaries, in remembrance of their 
 German home, called New Herrnhut, was visited 
 not unfrequently by a few natives, but they came 
 only^ to beg or to purloin such articles as suited 
 their fancy, and, as if inspired by the very spirit 
 of mischief, they stole away the manuscripts on 
 which their hosts were bestowing so much labour. 
 Both house and hut, however, were soon to be 
 filled even to crowding, but it was with sick and 
 dying sufferers, not with scholars in the Word of 
 God. 
 
 The first and most terrible outbreak of small- 
 pox in Greenland, and the manner in which 
 the country round Godhaab was depopulated by 
 it, have been described in the memoir of Egede. 
 Following the example of that venerable man, 
 the Moravian brethren went from place to place 
 to visit and succour the sick, many of whom 
 they received and nursed under their own roof. 
 There were very few instances in which the 
 
112 MATTHEW STACn. 
 
 care bestowed on the suflferers was rewarded 
 by their recovery, and of all those who caught 
 the fatal infection, scarcely one in a hundred 
 survived. From nurses, the brethren became 
 patients. Their health had been much impaired 
 by the fatigue and other distressing circum- 
 stances which attended their care of the sick, 
 and as winter advanced the extreme cold caused 
 them to be attacked with scurvy, so that they 
 could at times hardly move their limbs. But 
 they accounted it a great instance of God's 
 merciful care over them that they were never 
 all three reduced to helplessness at the same 
 time. Each in his turn was able to wait upon 
 the others. In these scenes of sickness and sor- 
 row the winter months passed away. \Yhen spring 
 returned, the invaluable scurvy-grass, which had 
 shot up plentifully beneath the snow, proved 
 an effectual remedy for the disorder of the 
 missionaries. But the small-pox linge:^ed among 
 the natives far into the summer, and for many 
 leagues around Godhaab and New Herrnhut, 
 the land was without inhabitants. AYhen the 
 Danish factors made their customary trading 
 voyages they found only empty huts, and un- 
 buried corpses, often half devoured by foxes 
 and ravens. And at the various sealing and 
 fishing stations, to which, at that time of year, 
 numerous companies of Greenlanders from distant 
 places usually resorted, not a tent was to be seen 
 on the shore, or a kayak upon the waters. The 
 
LECK AND BGEHNISCH SAIL FOR GREENLAND. 113 
 
 natives shunned all that coast, and the islands 
 which lay near it, as the nest of the plague. 
 
 Christian David, and Christian Stach, seeing 
 that the country had thus become a mere wilder- 
 ness, thought it would be useless to remain, 
 and resolved to take the first opportunity of 
 returning to Europe, and seeking a more promis- 
 ing field of labour. But Matthew Stach, notwith- 
 standing all discouragements, was determined 
 not to abandon his post, even though long years 
 of disappointed hope should be his portion, as 
 they had been that of Egede. And before his 
 companions could put their resolution to quit the 
 country into effect, their drooping hearts were 
 cheered by the arrival of fresh labourers. The 
 king of Denmark had expressed a wish that 
 the number of missionaries from Hermhut might 
 be increased. Accordingly, John Beck and 
 Frederic Boehnisch were chosen, and willingly 
 undertook this work. They repaired first to 
 Berlin, where Dr. Jablonsky, a senior, or bishop 
 of the United Brethren, who was also the king's 
 chaplain, received them with much kindness, 
 and set them forward on their way with prayer. 
 At Copenhagen, where they were detained two 
 months, they found a good friend in Baron 
 von Soelenthal, Governor of the Crown Prince. 
 Through his interposition they obtained a pas- 
 sage to Greenland, free of expense, in a ship which 
 was proceeding thither, laden with materials for 
 the erection of a new colony at Disko. He pre- 
 
 I 
 
114 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 sented them also with, a quantity of meal, and 
 other articles of food necessary for their support. 
 A portion of these valuable stores they took 
 with them ; but there being very little room on 
 board the ship, they were obliged to leave the 
 remainder to be forwarded by another vessel. 
 Now began their first experience of the outward 
 trials of missionary life. The friendly feeling 
 which had been manifested towards them in 
 Copenhagen had no existence on board the ship; 
 and their voyage, though less tempestuous than 
 that of their predecessors, was rendered very 
 painful by the mockeries, abusive language, and 
 hard treatment which were their daily portion. 
 Glad indeed were they when the friendly coun- 
 tenance of Christian David greeted them at 
 Disko. The vessel which preceded theirs had put 
 in at Godhaab, and brought tidings of the new 
 settlement about to be founded, and Christian 
 David had been engaged to assist in the erection 
 of the buildings. To this good work Beck and 
 Boehnisch also lent a hand ; till the ship sailed 
 again for Godhaab, where their arrival caused great 
 joy to the Stachs, and dispelled all Christian's 
 desire to quit the country. 
 
 Encouraging one another to pray and labour, 
 the missionaries diligently pursued their out- 
 door occupations and their study of the language. 
 By practice they became tolerably skilful fisher- 
 men, and supplied themselves with food ; and not- 
 withstanding several misadventures from stormy 
 
WANT OF AN INTERPEETER. 115 
 
 weather, they visited various parts of the coast, 
 and increased their knowledge of the country and 
 its inhabitants. But their longest voyages, one of 
 which extended one hundred miles to the south, 
 and another an equal distance northwards, were 
 undertaken in company of the traders, to whom 
 their assistance was not unwelcome in a perilous 
 navigation, attended with storms of rain and snow, 
 and contrary winds. The natives whom they met 
 with in these distant excursions appeared more 
 inclined to welcome their visits than any with 
 whom they had yet made acquaintance. At first, 
 seeing that the missionaries assisted readily in 
 every kind of manual labour, the Greenlanders 
 supposed that they were the factor's servants, and 
 treated them with contempt ; but finding that this 
 was not the case, and observing the gentle friendly 
 demeanour of the strangers, the natives invited 
 them to come into their tents, and sought to con- 
 verse with them. Without an interpreter neither 
 party was very intelligible to the other, yet the 
 people were pleased; they desired the mission- 
 aries to repeat their visit another year, and pro- 
 mised to return it when, in the course of their 
 journeyings, they came into the neighbourhood of 
 Oodhaab. These expressions of goodwill cheered 
 the brethren in their application to the language, 
 which they still found full of difficulties. The 
 pronunciation, the numerous affixes and inflections, 
 the great variety of words expressive of common 
 objects and ideas, so that the slightest shades of 
 
IIB MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 difference in a thing were distinguished by appro- 
 priate terms, all these required long patience, and 
 the practice of j^ears. They received valuable 
 help at this time from Paul Egede, who had lately 
 returned from Denmark. He set apart time every 
 week for teaching them to speak and translate; 
 and it was not long before they found themselves 
 able to talk about the common objects and affairs 
 of life with sufficient accuracy to be easily under- 
 stood by the natives. 
 
 When the brethren attempted to enter upon 
 religious subjects, they discovered, as Mr. Egede 
 had done before them, that it was hardly possible 
 to find appropriate words by which to express 
 their meaning. They wisely resolved to refrain 
 from speaking upon sacred things, until they were 
 better acquainted with the language, lest they 
 should confuse the minds of the natives, and 
 expose the Christian doctrine to ridicule, by the 
 employment of incongruous or equivocal words. 
 Notwithstanding their adherence to this rule,, 
 some misunderstandings arose. For instance, a 
 curious misconception was caused by their use of 
 the Danish word Gud, which signifies God. When 
 the brethren began to speak to the Greenlanders 
 of the Almighty Creator of all things, not know- 
 ing by what native word to express with sufficient 
 solemnity the name of the Divine Being, they had 
 recourse to the Danish Gud, which was likely to 
 be already known to some of the people through 
 their frequent intercourse with the Danes. But 
 
NATIVES VISIT NEW HEERNHUT. 117 
 
 the missionaries did not know that the Greenlandic 
 possessed a word precise!}'' similar in sound, signi- 
 fying rivers. They learnt afterwards that many of 
 the natives were much astonished that the strangers 
 should speak so earnestly about the existence of 
 rivers, which no one ever doubted ; and one man 
 being asked if he believed in Gud, answered, in- 
 dignantly, " Why should I not believe in that ? 
 I have heard its voice ;" meaning the roar of the 
 torrents which gush from the glaciers. While 
 unable to speak on religious subjects, the brethren 
 took such opportunities as they could find, of 
 reading to the people portions of Scripture, short 
 prayers, etc., which Mr. Egede had translated. 
 One day, when Matthew Stach had been reading 
 a prayer to a party of natives, they told him 
 that he had spoken good Greenlandic, but added, 
 " We do not understand what you mean ; ' Being- 
 redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ,' ' knowing 
 Christ,' — this language is too high to enter into 
 our ears." 
 
 Two years had now elapsed since the terrible 
 visitation of small-pox, and the natives no longer 
 shunned the neighbourhood of Baal's Kiver. The 
 people frequenting the fishing stations near God- 
 haab paid frequent visits to New Hermhut. Some 
 ■came to ask for food, some for a night's lodging, 
 others for knives, needles, fish-hooks, etc. ; not 
 one in fifty had any higher motive for resorting to 
 the mission-house than curiosity, or the hope of 
 ,gain. Some of them, indeed, openly declared, that 
 
118 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 if the missionaries did not continue to give them 
 stock-fish, they would no longer listen to their 
 words. But selfish, and thievish also, as were 
 most of their visitors, the missionaries would not 
 drive them away. By persevering kindness they 
 hoped to win, sooner or later, some of these people 
 to better things; and they were pleased to see 
 that a few who had remained with them till the 
 hour of their evening worship, and had witnessed 
 their meeting for prayer and psalmody, seemed to 
 be unusually interested, begged permission to 
 come again, and asked many questions as to the 
 intention of the missionaries, desiring to know 
 why they knelt down? to whom they spoke, &c., 
 &c. Besides their daily meetings for prayer, the 
 brethren set apart an hour every evening for con- 
 versing together respecting their mission, and 
 communicating the various difficulties, hopes, and 
 apprehensions which the subject suggested to their 
 minds, that each might profit by the experience of 
 all. And that nothing might prevent the closest 
 union between them, as brothers engaged in one 
 common work, they resolved each to examine him- 
 self — whether he believed that his call to this 
 mission was of God, and was resolved never to 
 abandon it, what trials soever he might have to 
 endure, until he could conscientiously say that he 
 had fulfilled his duty as a faithful servant to the 
 utmost possible extent ; or until God, in His pro- 
 vidence, should remove him from this field of 
 labour ? They revolved these questions in their 
 
SOLEMN AGREEMENT. 
 
 119 
 
 mincis during some weeks before they comnmni- 
 cated to one another the results of their self- 
 inquiry. 
 
 It then appeared that Christian Stachhad never 
 considered himself bound to devote the whole of 
 his life to the service of the heathen; he had 
 rather undertaken the voyage to Greenland upon 
 trial, and to supply the place of an absent 
 brother. Nevertheless he would remain in his 
 present position till God should remove him, or 
 till called away by the congregation of the breth- 
 ren in Europe. Christian David had been sent 
 to Greenland, for the purpose of aiding his two 
 young inexperienced brethren to lay the founda- 
 tion of a mission settlement ; and as this had now 
 been done, he intended the next summer to re- 
 turn to Herrnhut, and again place his services at 
 the disposal of the brethren there. Soon after- 
 wards he took his departure, not without the pro- 
 mise that the Greenland mission should have a 
 chief place in his prayers, as well as every service 
 which he could render it by his exertions in 
 Europe. Matthew Stach, Erederic Boehnisch, and 
 John Beck had given themselves to the mission, 
 for life or for death, resolving to believe where 
 they could not see, and to hope even against hope. 
 Nor would they relinquish their enterprise, till 
 they could appeal to God, with the testimony of 
 their conscience, that they had done all that man 
 could do. And they bound themselves at this 
 time by a solemn agreement: 1. To keep in 
 
120 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 mind that they had come to that country, resting 
 themselves upon God their Saviour, in whom all 
 the nations of the earth shall be blessed. 2. To 
 labour both by word and deed, as God should give 
 them ability, to make known that Jesus hath 
 redeemed mankind by the shedding of His own 
 blood; that by this doctrine the hearts of the 
 heathen might be brought to the obedience of 
 faith. 3. To dwell together in brotherly love, 
 each acknowledging the spiritual gifts bestowed 
 by God upon his brethren, in honour preferring 
 one another. 4. To perform their various secular 
 labours diligently and heartity, as unto the Lord, 
 but not to give way to anxious thoughts about the 
 supply of their temporal wants, casting their 
 cares upon Him who feeds the spaiTows and 
 clothes the flowers of the field. They sealed this 
 agreement by partaking together of the Lord's 
 Supper. 
 
 Soon did the missionaries need all the comfort 
 that could be derived from their consciousness of 
 unanimity, for the sincerity and strength of their 
 faith was about to be severely tested. The libe- 
 rality with which an eminent benefactor at the 
 Danish court provided for the supply of their 
 wants in a former year has been mentioned. Since 
 that time no provisions had reached them. Even 
 the stores which Frederic Boehnisch and John 
 Beck had left behind, were forgotten by the per- 
 sons who should have forwarded them, and were 
 never sent to Greenland. The fishing and hunt- 
 
EXTREME PRIVATIOKS. 121 
 
 ing seasons of 1735 had been extremely unfavour- 
 able ; there was a general scarcity of food in the 
 colony, and the missionaries had been unable to 
 lay up any stock of fish or reindeer's flesh. Their 
 salted provisions were exhausted, and nothing re- 
 mained to them but a veiy small quantity of meal 
 and pease, and a few ship biscuits. Christian 
 David, who was now on his voyage home, would 
 make known their need to the brethren at Herrn- 
 hut ; but winter was close at hand, and many 
 months must necessarily elapse before any ships 
 would reach the colony. The Danish settlers 
 compassionated their distress, but were powerless 
 to relieve it, being themselves straitened for pro- 
 visions. 
 
 The only resource left to the brethren was to 
 purchase seals' flesh from the Greenlanders, if 
 they could prevail on them to part with any. For 
 none of the Europeans were at all expert at 
 catching these creatures ; only the natives, in 
 their kayaks, which they managed with inimitable 
 dexterity, were successful in the seal-hunt. But 
 the Greenlanders were most unwilling to part 
 with any portion of their spoils ; and even the men 
 who, during a former winter, had been most 
 liberally relieved by the bounty of the mission- 
 aries, refused now to sell them a morsel of food at 
 any price. In extenuation of this ungrateful sel- 
 fishness, it must be remembered that the natives 
 ordinarily passed their lives (and especially dur- 
 ing the winter) in alternate fasting and feasting. 
 
122 
 
 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 When provisions were plentiful, the people would 
 prolong their repasts through whole nights, gorg- 
 ing themselves to a degree which appeared in- 
 comprehensible to Europeans. But when tem- 
 
 aEAIi-FISHING IN GKEENLAND. 
 
 pestuous weather, or excessive accumulations of 
 ice, prevented them from obtaining seals, or other 
 food, they were forced to sustain life, for days and 
 weeks together, by eating seaweed, the leather of 
 their boots, old tent skins, &c., &c. Nor was there 
 a year in which many persons did not die of want. 
 The brethren now esteemed themselves happy if 
 they could find a suflSciency of mussels and sea- 
 weed to allay the pangs of hunger. The small 
 
MANY PEEILS ENCOUNTERED. 123^ 
 
 remnant of their meal they eked out, as far as 
 possible, by boiling it with some of their old 
 tallow candles ; and revolting as this mess would 
 have seemed to them but a few weeks before, they 
 were thankful for it now. In the extreme cold of 
 the Arctic regions, some portion of animal fat or 
 oil, however coarse its nature, appears absolutely 
 necessary to sustain man's life. 
 
 They encountered many perils in searching for 
 food. Their boat was so worn out that it was 
 hardly fit for use, even in the calmest weather, 
 but the urgency of their need compelled them to 
 venture out in it. One day when they were 
 returning home, and had nearly reached the 
 shore, a sudden squall drove them back several 
 miles, and obliged them to take refuge on a rocky 
 island, where, the wind continuing contrary, they 
 were forced to remain four nights, wet to the 
 skin with rain and spray. Another time, their 
 strength failing them after long plying at the oar, 
 they halted for the night at an uninhabited spot, 
 which afforded them no other shelter than a hole 
 which they dug out in the snow, and in which 
 they lay down till they were sufficiently rested to 
 keep themselves warm by running. Happily for 
 them, it was yet too early for the extreme cold of 
 winter. The natives who witnessed the poverty 
 and privations of the brethren, were astonished 
 that they should choose to live at a distance from 
 their own country, in so mean and miserable a 
 condition, and were not sparing in their expres- 
 
124: MATTHEW STACn. 
 
 sions of contempt for this folly, as it appeared to 
 them. " Your countrymen," they would often 
 say, " must be worthless people, since they send 
 you nothing, and you will be fools if you stay 
 here." In all this time of adversity, the hope and 
 fortitude of the brethren were sustained by the 
 belief that their heavenly Father would not for- 
 sake them. " We know not," they wrote in their 
 journal, " what He intends to do with us. We 
 •can only observe that other trials await us. As 
 little do we comprehend what His secret hand has 
 been doing among the heathen. Gross darkness 
 appears still to cover their hearts and minds. 
 Yet we believe that at length the work shall pros- 
 per ; and when He has tried and proved us, He 
 will not fail to let us see His glory." 
 
 Many instances of God's providential care are 
 gratefully recorded in the journals of the mission. 
 For example, the finding of a dead " white whale," 
 which the missionaries and the boatmen of the 
 Danish settlement shared between them, and found 
 the flesh " red like beef, and not unlike it in 
 ^flavour." The gift of a young porpoise, bestowed 
 on them by a Greenlander who had caught the 
 •dam. The being driven by a contrary wind to 
 some rocks where they espied an eagle sitting 
 upon its nest, shot it, and having with some diffi- 
 culty clambered up, found four large eggs, as well 
 as the dead bird, which, besides food, supplied 
 them with quills, an article of which they were 
 greatly in want. But more than by all these 
 
PROVIDENTIAL SUPPLIES. 12 & 
 
 reliefs and alleviations, their distress was miti- 
 gated, and their hearts were comforted, by the 
 seasonable kindness of a native, named Ippegau, 
 who came from a distance of thirty leagues south- 
 ward to visit them. They had seen him only 
 once before. During one of their summer excur- 
 sions, when they had lost their way, and were row- 
 ing about bewildered amongst islands unknown 
 to them, they accidentally encountered Ippegau, 
 He behaved to them in a very friendly manner, 
 and set them on their way homewards ; and now, 
 in the time of their deep distress, though he knew 
 not of it, his heart was moved to seek them out, 
 and to oifer to sell them regularly all the seal's 
 flesh he could spare. As spring advanced, this 
 resource failed them, and they became so feeble 
 for want of proper nourishment, that they could no 
 longer row their boat. Still they trusted in God, 
 and their confidence was not put to shame. 
 
 One day in May, when they had just returned 
 hungry and weary from an unsuccessful search 
 after food, word was brought them that a Dutch 
 ship had arrived off the coast, having on board a 
 cask of provisions consigned to them. This most 
 welcome gift came from a friend in Amsterdam, to 
 whom they were personally unknown. It was 
 accompanied by a letter from the donor, who re- 
 quested that the missionaries would inform him of 
 their circumstances and wants ; and in after years 
 the mission was materially assisted by the contri- 
 butions of this generous benefactor and his friends. 
 
126 MATTHEW STACK. 
 
 The supplies wKicii he had now forwarded, not 
 •only relieved them from present distress, but 
 helped to avert similar sufferings in the succeed- 
 ing winter. For the community at Herrnhut, 
 composed as it was of poor exiles labouring for 
 tbeir daily bread, was able to forward but a scanty 
 stock of necessaries to the brethren in Greenland, 
 where, however, the mission household was about 
 to be augmented by the arrival of Matthew Stach's 
 widowed mother and his two sisters, the elder of 
 whom was twenty-two, the younger only twelve 
 years of age. They came out to take charge of the 
 domestic concerns of the mission, and to labour 
 in any way which might be opened to them for 
 the good of the Greenland women and children. 
 Matthew immediately began to teach his sisters 
 Greenlandic, in which their progress, and espe- 
 cially that of Anna, the youngest, surpassed his 
 expectations. Both eventually became wives of 
 missionaries, and were spared to labour to old age 
 in the service of the mission. 
 
 Towards the close of summer, Christian Stach 
 embarked for Europe, that he might take counsel 
 with the brethren at Herrnhut, and elsewhere, 
 about the state and prospects of the mission. 
 Having first visited Germany, he proceeded to 
 England and Holland, in both of which countries 
 resided some principal friends of the brethren. 
 To these he communicated all that had been done, 
 and prayed for their advice concerning the future 
 prosecution of the work. Some useful suggestions 
 
A NSW MISSIONARY. 127 
 
 were offered, but it was the general opinion that 
 much must be left to the Christian discretion of 
 the labourers, in so new and distant a field. The 
 only rule laid down was, that when the mission- 
 aries should, at length, be so favoured as to gather 
 souls from amongst the heathen unto Christ, their 
 m.inistrations in the native congregations should 
 be conducted, as nearly as possible, in conformity 
 with the ritual and discipline which were ob- 
 served by the United Brethren in Europe. With 
 respect to the temporal circumstances of the mis- 
 sion, Count Zinzendorf and other friends lost no 
 time in taking the necessary steps to prevent the 
 recurrence of such seasons of privation and dis- 
 tress as Christian and his companions had en- 
 dured the last year. 
 
 Although the present aspect of the mission was 
 so unpromising, Christian Stach's account of it 
 awoke lively sympathy in many hearts. In 
 Holland a young man named Margraf, desired 
 permission to join in the work. He was accord- 
 ingly set apart for missionary sei'vice, and tra- 
 velled with Stach to Copenhagen, whence they 
 sailed for Greenland, after receiving an assurance 
 of the king's approbation couched in very gracious 
 terms. Margraf, however, was not able to labour 
 long in that rigorous climate. The hard bodily 
 as well as mental toil, which fell to the lot of each 
 of the missionaries, joined to the extreme cold, 
 proved too much for his strength. The first year 
 of his residence in the country was remarkable for 
 
128 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 the Tinusual severity of tlie winter. The journal 
 of one of the European residents records, that 
 spirits froze like water though placed near the 
 fire ; the salted meat was hewn out of the barrels 
 like lumps of solid ice, and when put into the pot 
 the outside was thoroughly boiled before the in- 
 side could be pierced with a knife. In the chimney 
 of his room the ice extended down the pipe to the 
 very mouth of the stove, though a fire was kept 
 burning all day, and when he rose in the morning 
 the pillows of the bed were thickly coated with 
 hoar frost from the congelation of his breath during 
 the night. 
 
 Before the frost set in, the brethren had voyaged 
 southward among a multitude of islands, where 
 they found some natives whom they had seen 
 before, and also their old friend Ippegau. He 
 gave them a friendly reception, but when they 
 endeavoured to discourse with him on religious 
 subjects he was little inclined to listen. The 
 other Greenlanders plainly intimated, that al- 
 though they were well pleased to receive a visit 
 from the missionaries, they did not wish them to 
 remain long in that neighbourhood. Matthew 
 Stach, however, anxious to improve his know- 
 ledge of the language, prevailed upon them to 
 allow him to continue amongst them for a few 
 weeks. He found his hosts very changeable : 
 *' Sometimes," he writes, " they listen while I 
 read a passage of Scripture, tell me they believe 
 all I say, and desire me to remain longer, that I 
 
CHRISTMAS AT NEW HEERNHUT. 129 
 
 may tell them more. At another time they turn 
 angrily away, and bid me hold my peace." Worse 
 than this, they frequently made the sacred things 
 of which he spoke the subjects of profane ridicule 
 and jesting. "My soul," he says, "is often in a 
 flame when they mock my God." All the children 
 were his friends, and would run to meet him 
 whenever he appeared. Sometimes a little group 
 gathered round him to listen quietly while he 
 talked, and asked them questions, striving to in- 
 sinuate into their young minds some notions of 
 Christian truth. But these fits of attention were 
 short-lived, as may be supposed. 
 
 Matthew returned to New Herrnhut in time to 
 celebrate the Christmas festival with his brethren. 
 Xever had they been more keenly sensible of the 
 contrast between the joyful remembrances and 
 hopes which inspired their own hearts at that 
 sacred season, and the cheerless ignorance and 
 unbelief which pervaded the minds of the Green- 
 landers. Yet the missionaries were not without 
 a lively expectation, almost a presentiment, that 
 the long night of heathen darkness was drawing 
 to its close. " Let us believe," they write to 
 their friends in Germany, " that the Lord will 
 still do glorious things in Greenland. Do not 
 cease your supplications that God would display 
 His power in the hearts of this poor people." It 
 may be mentioned here that the brethren had 
 hitherto supposed it necessary to declare to the 
 natives in the first place, the being and attributes 
 
130 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 of God, His rigliteous laws, and the punishment 
 which must overtake those who transgress them. 
 They had, indeed, laid it down as a rule, that 
 their chief object should be to proclaim the re- 
 demption of fallen man by the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 but they thought it necessary first of all to im- 
 press the minds of the Greenlanders with a sense 
 of accountability to an Almighty, All-just Creator, 
 and with a conviction that they were deeply 
 guilty and sinful in His sight. Little or no effect 
 had, however, been produced by this mode of 
 instruction, and the brethren were about to be 
 taught by experience that there was a wiser, 
 more effectual way, of reaching the hearts of their 
 hearers. 
 
 At the beginning of June, a party of South- 
 landers on their way to some of the summer fish- 
 ing-stations, called at Kew Herrnhut. They were 
 strangers to the missionaries, and came from a 
 part of the country where neither the Christian 
 teachers, nor the things w^hich they taught, had 
 yet been heard of. All the brethren, excepting 
 John Beck, were absent, engaged in various out- 
 door occupations ; Beck w^as waiting out a trans- 
 lation of the Four Evangelists. The strangers 
 watched him for a little while with surprise, 
 and then asked what he was doing. He ex- 
 plained the nature of his employment to them, 
 as well as he could, upon which they further re- 
 quested that he would tell them what he had 
 written. He read a few passages to them, and 
 
STKANGERS COME TO BECK. 181 
 
 then entering into conversation with them, asked 
 if the spirit within them, which understood, and 
 thought, and hoped, and feared, would die when 
 the body died. All answered, "No." "But," said 
 John Beck, " where will the spirit be when the 
 body has perished?" Some said, "Up yonder," 
 pointing to the sky; others, "Down beneath the 
 sea." For the Greenlanders entertained various 
 notions concerning the abode of departed spirits ; 
 some placing it under the earth, or in the depths 
 of the ocean, and supposing the deep chasms in 
 the rocks to be the avenues which led to it ; . and 
 others fixing it on high, above the rainbow. 
 "And who," continued John Beck, "made the 
 body which dies, and the spirit which dies not, 
 and the earth, and sea, and sky ?" They replied, 
 " We do not know ; no one has ever told us. But 
 it must certainly have been some very great and 
 mighty one." " Truly," said John Beck, " it was 
 One who has all might, all wisdom, all goodness, 
 who created the heavens, and the earth, and all 
 things that are therein. He made all things good, 
 and last of all He created man in His own image, 
 to love Him and to be perfectly happy in obeying 
 His commandments. But man disobeyed his 
 Maker, and became lost in wickedness and misery. 
 Yet his Creator had pity on him, and the Al- 
 mighty Son of God even became man that He 
 might redeem men from destruction, by enduring 
 the punishment due to their sins." The people 
 listened gravely and silently, and John Beck;^, 
 
122 
 
 MATTHEW SlACn. 
 
 with a glowing heart and a tongue loosed as it 
 had never been before, told them at large how 
 Jesus had suffered for men's salvation. Then 
 taking up his book again, he read the account of 
 our Lord's agon^^ in the garden of Gethsemane. 
 As soon as he had finished, one of the Green- 
 
 JOHN BECK TEACHIKG THE GREEKLANDr.BS. 
 
 landers, named Kajarnak, stepped up to the table, 
 and said wdth great earnestness, " How was that? 
 tell me that once more, for I would fain be 
 saved too !" " These words," says the missionaiy, 
 *' the like of which 1 had never hoard from a 
 
LABOURS KEWARDED. 133 
 
 Greenlander before, melted my heaii, and made 
 my eyes overflow with joyful tears, while I re- 
 lated the history of the Sayiour's life and death, 
 and stroye to explain to my hearers the way of 
 salvation by faith in Him." His auditors were 
 A'ariously afiected by this discourse. Some, in- 
 deed, when their curiosity was satisfi.ed, began to 
 And the subject too serious for them, and slunk 
 silentl}^ away, but many remained. Some laid 
 their hands upon their mouths, according to the 
 custom of the Greenlanders when struck with 
 surprise, and several desired that the missionary 
 would teach them what they should say to this 
 great Lord and Saviour, and repeated the prayer 
 they were taught, again and again, lest they 
 should forget it. Meanwhile the other mission- 
 aries had returned from their several employments 
 out of doors, and saw, with delight and astonish- 
 ment, a crowd of natives listening eagerly to the 
 story of man's redemption. At taking leave, the 
 Greenlanders said, " We shall soon visit you again 
 to hear more of these things, and we shall tell our 
 neighbours what you have been saying to us." 
 
 Accordingly, a few days afterwards, some of the 
 joarty returned, and were so much interested that 
 they remained all night to hear more. Kajarnak, 
 especially, had retained a lively recollection of 
 the things which he had heard, and of the peti- 
 tions which he had been instnicted to offer to 
 God ; and he declared that he often felt his heart 
 inclined and, as it were, hidden to pray. All that 
 
134 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 he heard from the missionaries he repeated to his 
 tent companions, but took especial delight in 
 teaching his wife and little son. After a short 
 time he removed, and pitched his tent close to 
 New Herrnhut, that he might be daily within 
 reach of his instructors. " It is evident," write the 
 missionaries at this time, "that the Word of God 
 has made a very deep impression on the mind of 
 this man. While we explain to him the Scrip- 
 tures, words of prayer rise to his lips, and he is 
 often moved to tears. His quick apprehension 
 and affectionate reception of the truth are as- 
 tonishing, compared with the supine indifferent 
 temper which characterizes the natives of this 
 country generally. Kajarnak seems to devour the 
 words which we utter, and the truth no sooner 
 enters his ears than it finds a lodgment in his 
 understanding and memory." The change which 
 had passed over their countryman aroused the 
 curiosity and interest of several other Green- 
 landers, who also came and pitched their tents 
 near the mission-house in order, as they said, to 
 hear the joyful news of a Eedeemer ; and when 
 the missionaries, addressing their native hearers, 
 hesitated for want of suitable expressions, Ka- 
 jarnak, out of the fulness of his heart, suggested 
 appropriate words. " If we are teaching him to 
 think," say the brethren, " he in return is teach- 
 ing us to speak rightly concerning divine things." 
 In these new and happy occupations the summer 
 wore on. The season of the reindeer hunt, which 
 
BEIN-DEER HUNT. 135 
 
 was pnDsecuted with great vigour and success in 
 the neighbourhood of Baal's Eiver, was now come. 
 A number of families usually united in the chase ; 
 the women and children surrounding a district in 
 which the reindeer were known to be plentiful, 
 ^nd gradually moving onwards till they closed 
 round them, and drove the timid creatures into 
 the narrow central space, where they were easily 
 killed by the hunters. Another way was for the 
 women to chase a number of reindeer into a 
 narrow bay where the men had stationed them- 
 selves in their kayaks, ready to dispatch them 
 with bows and arrows. The labours of the day 
 were frequently succeeded by a feast or dance in 
 the evening ; and the hunt was in great favour 
 among the Greenlandei'^, as an occasion both of 
 profit and amusement. The missionaries were 
 consequently more sorry than surprised, when 
 most of the attentive listeners who had lately 
 gathered round them took their leave to join in 
 the chase, promising, however, to return to New 
 Herrnhut, as soon as the hunting season was over. 
 Kajarnak alone refused to go. He could not bear 
 to deprive himself during some weeks of all re- 
 ligious instruction, and he feared that when sur- 
 rounded only by his heathen fellow-countrymen, 
 he might become indifferent to the glad tidings 
 he had so lately learnt to prize. This was too 
 truly the case with his companions. They re- 
 turned, indeed, to the mission station towards the 
 beginning of winter, but the religious impressions 
 
13G 
 
 JIATTHEW STACil, 
 
 which had seemed so vivid, had faded from thei^ 
 minds, and after some weeks they finally left the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 They did their utmost to persuade Kajamak to 
 depart with them, representing in strong terms 
 the difficulties he would have to encounter, and 
 contrasting the restraints imposed on him by his 
 new associates and pursuits, with the wild un- 
 bounded freedom of native life. Their arguments 
 had no effect, for he had found a prize, for the sake 
 of which lie was willing to endure greater trials 
 than any which his companions had suggested. 
 By the desertion of his partners, Kajarnak was 
 deprived of the large boat, tent, and other posses- 
 sions in which he had an equal share with them- 
 selves, and was reduced for a time to great straits ; 
 but he bore the loss patiently. The missionaries 
 discovered that this was the third time he had 
 been thus impoverished, owing to his opposition 
 to the evil practices of his comrades ; and they 
 concluded from thence, that even before he had 
 heard of a Saviour, the Holy Spirit had been pre- 
 paring his heart for the kingdom of God. Besides 
 Kajarnak and his wife, about twenty natives 
 settled at New Herrnhut for the winter. They 
 were assembled daily for prayer and catechising ; 
 and on Sunday, a larger portion of time was. 
 devoted to these exercises, and to the reading and 
 careful explanation of a portion of Scripture. By 
 degrees, the brethren rendered into Greenlandie 
 several poitions of the Moravian liturgy. They 
 
NATIVES AT NEW HERRNHTTT. 137 
 
 also translated some German hymns for the nse of 
 their catechumens, and found that the lessons of 
 the Gospel expressed in verse, made a deeper im- 
 pression on the minds of the natives than the same 
 Divine truths conveyed in the foim of prose. 
 
 The number of their hearers was increased after 
 Christmas, b}^ the extreme severity of the weather. 
 The excessive cold which marked the beerinninc: 
 of the year 1738 has been already noticed ; the 
 frost which ushered in the year 1739 was not less 
 .severe. The surrounding seas were blocked up 
 with ice. Fishing and seal-hunting were entirely 
 suspended during several weeks. Many persons 
 perished of hunger ; many of cold, because they 
 could get no seal-oil to replenish the lamps which 
 warmed their dwellings. Some fled to Godhaab, 
 entreating the Danish colonists to relieve their 
 distress, and from fifteen to twenty needy persons 
 were sheltered and fed at New Hermhut. The 
 men of this company, finding their provisions 
 exhausted while they were still far from the 
 settlement, took their kayaks upon their heads, 
 and travelled over the ice with all the speed they 
 could make, to entreat succour for their wives and 
 children. The brethren, accompanied by a party 
 of boatmen from Godhaab, immediately set out 
 upon this charitable service; but tempestuous 
 weather and the ice interposed so many obstacles 
 to their progress, that a week elapsed before they 
 could reach the poor creatures, who had been 
 lying on the snow for the last ten days, and had 
 
188 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 barely sustained life by eating some of the old 
 «kins wliicli covered them. 
 
 Many times this winter, the missionaries were 
 constrained to render hearty thanks to God for the 
 change in their circumstances. But two years 
 before, they had been suffering the utmost distress 
 from hunger, accounting themselves happy if they 
 could buy such bones and offal as even the Green- 
 landers were ready to throw away. Now they had 
 not only enough for their own wants, but daily fed 
 a company of famishing persons from their table. 
 They prayed and endeavoured that the souls of 
 these poor people might be nourished. Several 
 listened attentively when the Gospel was preached 
 to them, and when spring returned, and most of 
 the fugitives went back to their homes, one family 
 chose rather to fix their abode near the mission- 
 aries. All promised to settle, during the follow- 
 ing winter, in the neighbourhood of New Herm- 
 hut, that they might be further instructed in the 
 things of God. As. soon as the weather would 
 permit, Kajarnak and several of the catechumens 
 went over to Kangek, and took up their abode there 
 for a short time, in hope to capture seals. John 
 Beck accompanied them, to watch over his own 
 little flock, and also to proclaim the Gospel to the 
 numerous heathen who dwelt there, and in the 
 neighbouring islands. The seal-hunting proved 
 very successful, but the party from New Hermhut 
 were eager to bring it to a close as soon as 
 possible. The change which had passed on 
 
BARBARISM OF NATIVES. 139 
 
 Kajamak, and in a less degree npon others, who 
 had not made equal progress in religious know- 
 ledge and experience, was very plainly seen, now 
 that they were obliged daily to associate with the 
 untaught heathen. The latter celebrated the 
 success which crowned their labours with noisy 
 feasts and dances, almost every night. For these 
 revelries the catechumens had lost all taste, and 
 when their daily work was ended, they withdrew 
 quietly, finishing, and, if possible, beginning, every 
 day with prayer, and a few words of exhortation 
 from the missionary. John Beck found some 
 opportunities of speaking with the heathen ; and 
 from this time he and his brethren frequently 
 visited the islands. 
 
 They found that, by constant practice, they 
 spoke and preached much more easily to them- 
 selves, and more intelligibly to the natives, who 
 often welcomed their visits, and at times displayed 
 considerable emotion whilst listening to their 
 discourse, but gave no evidence, at present, that 
 the truth had found entrance into their hearts. On 
 the other hand, the brethren were often shocked 
 and distressed by the barbarous actions com- 
 mitted amongst these people. The best and worst 
 features of the native character were displayed in 
 their parental and filial relations. In general, 
 parents evinced great fondness for their children ; 
 and the children, when grown to maturity, treated 
 their parents with gratitude and respect. But 
 there were frightful exceptions; and various 
 
140 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 instances of a decrepit father or mother being 
 buried alive, by their unnatural offspring, came to 
 the knowledge of the missionaries. Whenever an 
 opportunity of interference was afforded them, 
 they endeavoured to prevent the commission of 
 these atrocities. But Greenland was, in the 
 strictest sense, a land without judges, and without 
 hiws ; and the barbarous sons and daughters who 
 were capable of intending parricide, usually found 
 means to carry their wicked design into effect, 
 when no Europeans were near at hand. The 
 journals and letters of the missionaries record the 
 thankfulness with which they turned from these 
 bitter fruits of the unrenewed heart, to mark the 
 fear of sin, the gratitude to God, and goodwill to 
 their neighbours, Avhich appeared in the little 
 flock under their care. Kajarnak was deeply con- 
 cerned for his imbelieving countrymen, often 
 entreating them no longer to remain in darkness, 
 ignorant of their Maker, who had now sent His 
 word to them. Sometimes, with irrepressible 
 earnestness, he would pour forth a short fervent 
 prayer that God would enlighten them by the 
 knowledge of Himself. He had dail}^ some fresh 
 inquiries to make concerning the things contained 
 in the Scriptures. One day, when speaking with 
 his teachers, the conversation turned upon the 
 conflict which every Christian has to wage with 
 the sin of his own heart. " When an evil 
 thought arises in my mind," said Kajarnak, 
 *' wherever I am, I raise my heart silently tu 
 
BAPTJSM OF KAJARNAK AND FAMILY. 141 
 
 Jesus, and ask Him to deliver me from it by His 
 blood." 
 
 The missionaries were extremely slow and 
 cautious in administering baptism to their cate- 
 chumens, knowing that all eyes would be on the 
 new converts, and that the course of the Gospel 
 would be giievously impeded, should the sub- 
 sequent conduct of the baptized be inconsistent 
 with their Christian profession. But they could 
 no longer delay compliance with the request of 
 Kajarnak, that he and his family might be in- 
 corporated into the Church of the Eedeemer. On 
 Easter-day, 1739, Kajarnak and his wife, who now 
 leceived the names of Samuel and Anna, made a 
 distinct confession of their faith in Christ, before 
 a full congregation of Europeans and Greenlanders. 
 Having declared that they utterly renounced all 
 heathenish customs and superstitions, and were 
 resolved, by the help of God, to live in obedience 
 to His commands, they were baptized, with their 
 two little children, by Matthew Stach. The 
 words of the baptismal formulary, "I baptize thee 
 in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
 the Holy Ghost, into the death of Jesus," made a 
 deep impression upon the other catechumens, who 
 expressed an earnest desire to share the privilege 
 which had been bestowed upon their friends. 
 Thoughts of gratitude, and joyful hope of blessings 
 yet to come, cheered all hearts in the little com- 
 munity at the mission settlement. But these pleas- 
 ing anticipations were soon very sadly obscured. 
 
142 MATTHEW STAGE. 
 
 It has been already observed that Greenland was 
 a land without laws. But there was little fierce- 
 ness or passion in the character of the natives, 
 generally, and there would have been few out- 
 breaks of violence and murder, had it not been 
 for the blood-feuds which descended from father 
 to son, sometimes through several generations. 
 Occasionally a man slew his neighbour in a sudden 
 fit of resentment, or even in deliberate malicious 
 ill-will, but a blood-feud most commonly originated 
 in a suspicion of witchcraft, when some man or 
 woman was accused by the Angekoks (or sorcerers) 
 of having caused the death of another by charms 
 and conjurations. In any of these cases, however, 
 the relatives of the deceased person held them- 
 selves bound to avenge his death. They usually 
 watched for an opportunity of killing the slayer of 
 their kinsman secretly ; and would nourish their 
 design for years, if necessary, in order to make 
 more sure of their revenge. Nor was it only the 
 actual murderer whose life they sought ; his 
 children, parents, kinsmen, even his neighbours, 
 were sometimes sacrificed by the avengers of 
 blood, and thus the tragedy was prolonged 
 through a series of murders, persons who were 
 entirely innocent frequently falling victims. 
 Among the kindred of Kajarnak, who abode with 
 him at New Herrnhut, was his wife's brother, 
 Innungeitsok. Some years before this time, 
 Innungeitsok had been accused by an Angekok of 
 having conjured his son to death. The Angekok 
 
EEVENGEFUL HABITS OF NATIVES. 14S 
 
 had, however, settled at a great distance in the 
 north, and the accused man (who was perfectly- 
 innocent) had ceased to take any precaution 
 against his malice. But the sorcerer, whose 
 name was Kassiak, came this summer to Kangek, 
 accompanied by several followers whom he had 
 engaged to further his evil designs. Some of 
 these men invited Innungeitsok, who suspected 
 nothing, to go fishing with them, and when out at 
 sea stabbed him with a harpoon. He drew it 
 from his body, plunged into the water and swam 
 to shore. Eut the murderers followed and over- 
 took him, covered him with wounds, and threw 
 him over a cliff, at the foot of which his corpse 
 was found, by his sorrowing relatives, some days 
 afterwards. The malice of Kassiak was not 
 satiated by this murder. It became known that 
 he threatened to take the life of Okkomiak, the 
 brother of his victim, and also that of Kajarnak. 
 The Danish colonists, however, exerted themselves 
 to apprehend him, and he was captured with 
 several of his gang. Kassiak confessed that he 
 had committed three murders with his own hand, 
 and had been an accomplice in four more. But as 
 he was not amenable to any human tribunal, and 
 was entirely ignorant of the Divine law, the 
 Danes dismissed him again. Two of his followers, 
 who had formerly resided at Godhaab, and had 
 been instructed in the Word of God, they punished 
 with flogging. The apprehensions of the threat- 
 ened persons were rather increased than allayed 
 
144 MATTHEW STACn. 
 
 by these proceedings, which appeared to them 
 more likely to irritate than to intimidate their 
 adversaries. Okkomiak, especially, felt himself 
 to be in great danger ; and Kajarnak sorrowfully 
 came to the conclusion that he ought to reconduct 
 his kinsman safely back to his own people in the 
 south. The other members of their family w^ere 
 unwilling to be left behind, and in a short time 
 but very few individuals remained of the little con- 
 gregation on which the missionaries had looked 
 with so much hope and satisfaction. ' ' Our hearts,"' 
 say they, "were very heavy; and the mission 
 station, deserted by so many of its inhabitants, 
 appeared suddenly to have become a desert." 
 
 But ere long the solitude was enlivened by the 
 arrival of twenty-one boats of southerners, who 
 had met Kajarnak and his company on their wa}'-, 
 and had (they said) heard from them such wonder- 
 ful things concerning God, that they desired to be 
 farther informed upon the subject. Towards the 
 close of the summer, Simek, one of the fugitives, 
 returned with all his household, and his arrival 
 was followed by that of the Greenlanders who had 
 been sheltered and fed during the dearth at the 
 beginning of the year. A numerous native con- 
 gregation was thus gathered, and abode at the 
 mission station during the winter months. There 
 was a general willingness to be taught, mingled 
 with much levity. "At one time," say the 
 missionaries, " our hearers are sleepy and indif- 
 ferent, W'hen we strive to instruct them from the 
 
BETURN OF KAJARNAK. 145 
 
 Scriptures; at another, their attention is awake 
 and lively, and they are eager to become pious all 
 at once." The children afforded them the most 
 satisfaction. Some of them learnt to read tolera- 
 bly well in the course of the winter : they became 
 much attached to their teachers, and when in the 
 spring the parents quitted the mission settlement, 
 to repair to the distant fisheries, the children car- 
 ried with them the books which the missionaries 
 had prepared and written out for their use, and 
 which, besides easy reading lessons, contained 
 short prayers, and rules of conduct suited to their 
 age. 
 
 Early in the summer of 1740, Frederic Boehnisch 
 was married to Anna Stach. In the midst of the 
 wedding festivities, to the joyful surprise of the 
 mission family, their dear convert and friend, 
 Kajarnak, made his appearance among them. He 
 had been absent a year, and had made known to 
 many of the Southland heathen the good tidings 
 which he had received. At first, he said, they 
 listened with wonder and pleasure, but when, after 
 a while, they grew tired, and turned all to ridi- 
 cule, he left them undisturbed. He had carefully 
 endeavoured to instruct his owti household, and 
 had found in solitude access to his God and Saviour. 
 But towards the end of his stay, an ardent longing 
 for the instruction and society of his teachers took 
 possession of his mind, and he was now come back, 
 resolved never again to settle at a distance from 
 them. It appeared, in the end, that Kajarnak's 
 
i46 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 words and the silent eloquence of his blameless 
 life had produced a far greater effect than he was 
 aware of. Between three and four hundred per- 
 sons eventually forsook their homes in the South, 
 to place themselves under the instruction of the 
 missionaries, who attributed to the words and ex- 
 ample of Kajarnak their first desire to be taught 
 the way of salvation. But most of these came to 
 New Hermhut, after Kajarnak himself had been 
 called to his rest. 
 
 Shortly after his return to the mission settle- 
 ment, the number of hearers and catechumens was 
 increased by persons coming from the neighbouring 
 islands, and also from places farther north. One 
 of the new-comers was a young woman who had 
 repeatedly begged that she might be taken into 
 the service of the missionaries. But they, sup- 
 posing her to be actuated rather by the desire of 
 temporal benefit than that of religious instruction, 
 had hitherto declined to comply with her request. 
 Now, however, she came again, saying, with tears, 
 that she could not bear to live among her heathen 
 companions, who hated her because sbe would no 
 longer conform to their customs. She was kindly 
 received and cared for, until the brethren could 
 find admission for her into the household of one of 
 the Danish colonists, where, under the instruction 
 •of Mr. Drachart, the Danish minister at Godhaab, 
 she made satisfactory progress in Christian attain- 
 ments, and at the end of a few months was 
 baptized. Two other young women, having them- 
 
A FEMALE CONVERT. 147 
 
 selves laid hold of the truth, took every oppor- 
 tunity of recommending it to their neighbours. 
 One of them was endowed with considerable natural 
 ability, and proved a very useful assistant in the 
 missionary work among her countrywomen. She 
 was the only person amongst her own kindred and 
 companions whose heart was opened, at once, to 
 receive the Gospel. When the missionaries first 
 visited these people, they perceived that, while 
 all besides listened to their discourse with indif- 
 ference or aversion, one daughter of the house had 
 covered her face with her hands to conceal her 
 tears, and heard her softly sob forth, "Oh, Lord ! 
 Let thy light break through the very thick dark- 
 ness." From that time she was wont to retire to 
 solitary places among the rocks to pray. One of 
 the brethren, who chanced to see her kneeling 
 half hidden behind a cliff" in a lonely spot on the 
 shore, asked her why she knelt. " Because," 
 reiDlied she, " I now begin to believe. I pray 
 every day to God to be gracious unto me." Her 
 petitions breathed the desires of a contrite heart. 
 " Lord Jesus !" she was heard one da}^ to say, 
 " Thou knowest that my heart is thoroughly 
 depraved. Make me truly sorry for it, take away 
 the bad thoughts, and form me according to Thy 
 pleasure. And as I yet know but little of Thy 
 Word, give me Thy Holy Spirit to instruct me." 
 Her constant care to avoid evil, and her value for 
 the instructions of the missionaries, were resented 
 by her relatives, who felt that her example was a 
 
148 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 reproof to themselves, and they treated her with a 
 degree of harshness, and even cruelty, which was 
 of rare occurrence in a Greenland household. She 
 escaped from them, at last, and found an asylum 
 with Anna Kajarnak, at New Herrnhut. 
 
 The missionaries now began to prepare her for 
 baptism. Her joy at being made acquainted with 
 the nature and design of that holy ordinance was 
 very great. "Now," said she, "I believe that 
 Jesus is the friend of sinners, not because you 
 have told me so, but because I feel it in my own 
 heart." She received at her baptism the name of 
 Sarah, by which she is frequently mentioned in 
 the journals of the mission, as visiting and ex- 
 horting the heathen strangers who came into the 
 neighbourhood. " Kajarnak and Sarah," say the 
 brethren, " have rendered us material assistance 
 in the translation of the ' Harmony of the Four 
 Gospels ' into Greenlandic, frequently directing 
 us to the use of apt expressions which no gram- 
 matical knowledge would have enabled us to 
 discover." " The testimony of our baptized Green- 
 landers," they add, " and especially of Kajarnak 
 and Sarah, is producing a powerful effect upon 
 their heathen fellow-countrymen, who cannot 
 make the same objections to it which they have 
 often done to ours ; saying, for instance, ' You are- 
 a different sort of people from us; these things 
 may be very good for you, but we do not need 
 them ;' or, ' We have no time to leam these 
 things; they are too high fcr us; we must go a 
 
SEKD CK GOOD GliOUND. 149 
 
 fishing.' The heathen now see their own country- 
 men and equals so changed that they may well 
 be called new creatures, and hear them declare, 
 freely and gladly, the praises of the Eedeemer, 
 who hath called them from their former darkness 
 into light." The migratory habits of the people 
 caused the news to spread far and wide. A party 
 who came from a considerable distance (it was 
 supposed from the east side, as their dialect was 
 not perfectly intelligible) listened with surprise 
 and eagerness to the Gospel narrative. With 
 most of them these things, new and strange as 
 they accounted them, served only to gratify cu- 
 riosity ; but there were two, an orphan brother 
 and sister, in whose hearts the seed took deep 
 root. Their change of sentiments and conduct so 
 offended their neighbours, that when all were 
 engaged in fishing at a great distance from home, 
 the rest of the company secretly rowed off and 
 abandoned them. The two young people, thus 
 deserted by their earthly kindred, sought and 
 found a new home amongst their Christian coun- 
 tiymen at New Herrnhut. 
 
 A party of Northlanders, also, whose curiosity 
 was excited by the rumours which had reached 
 them, pitched their tents close to Xew Herrnhut 
 for a short time. They were above all astonished 
 at the prayers of their converted countrymen, and 
 inquired whether they also could be taught to 
 speak such words. "0 yes," was the answer; 
 ^* when you feel yo-ur great need of a Saviour, you 
 
150 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 will not be able to help praying to Him to help 
 you. You will be like hungry children, who 
 naturally ask their parents for food." During the 
 winter following his return to the mission-station, 
 Kajamak was particularly active in endeavouring 
 to turn his countrymen from their evil ways. He 
 began to visit the various winter settlements 
 within reach, " to tell them," as he said, " some- 
 thing of Jesus, the Kefuge of sinners." Being on 
 a journey a short time before Christmas, several 
 persons prayed him to remain a little while 
 amongst them, and join in the feasts and re- 
 joicings with which they were about to celebrate 
 the yearly sun-feast. He replied, " I have another 
 joy now, for a brighter sun has risen in my 
 heart. I am hastening to my teachers to keep 
 with them a great festival, in token that the 
 Creator of all things was bom into the world as a 
 poor infant for our redemption." 
 
 His useful course was soon arrested by death. 
 In February, 1741, he was attacked with pleurisy, 
 and after a few days of acute suffering fell asleep. 
 He uttered no complaint; and seeing his wife 
 and kindred weeping, he said to them, " Do not be 
 gi'ieved for me. Have you not heard that believers 
 when they die go to our Saviour, and partake of 
 His joy ? You know that He chose me first of our 
 nation to know Him, and now He calls me first 
 home to Himself. Only continue faithful to Him, 
 and we shall all meet again before the throne of 
 the Lamb." " All things," he said afterwards. 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL OF KAJARNAK. 151 
 
 " which I heard in tlie days of my health are 
 much clearer to me now." The excellent character 
 of Kajarnak had won him much respect from th& 
 European settlers ; and the two Danish ministers, 
 factors, and other inhabitants of the colony joined 
 the missionaries and his own people in attending 
 his remains to the grave. Behind the station, at 
 a little distance towards the north, the brethren 
 had prepared a burial-gTOund as neatly as the 
 rocky nature of the soil would permit. Here they 
 laid the corpse of their beloved son in the faith,, 
 after one of the Danish missionaries had addressed 
 the assembled people from the words, *'I am the 
 resurrection and the life," and told them that a 
 believer does not die, but at his departure out of 
 this world begins truly to live. *' We then," say 
 the missionaries, " kneeled down on the snow 
 under the open sky, and gave back to our Saviour 
 this our firstling, with fervent thanks for the 
 grace He had conferred upon him." 
 
 The remembrance of the kinsman and friend 
 who had thus happily departed produced a bene- 
 ficial effect upon many of the survivors. His 
 brother's wife was not of the number who profited 
 by it ; and her death, which occurred soon after- 
 wards, was marked by a very different spirit to 
 the humble, tranquil confidence in which Kajarnak 
 had committed his spirit into the hands of his 
 Eedeemer. Her husband and, yet more, her chil- 
 dren, had listened with much interest to the 
 preaching of the Gospel ; but the former could not 
 
152 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 bring himself to give up the roving life to which 
 he had been accustomed. In one of his expedi- 
 tions to the North, about a year after his wife's 
 decease, he lost his life. His son Kuanak, a boy 
 of ten or eleven years old, was much endeared to 
 the missionaries by his ingenuous and affectionate 
 disposition. He was obliged to attend his father 
 in his journejnng from place to place, but seldom 
 missed any opportunity of visiting his teachers 
 when they were within reach. He had a great 
 fear of losing the things he had learned, and 
 falling into the ways of the heathen. "I pray 
 often to my Saviour," said the poor boy, " not to 
 let me wander away from Him." And the praj'er 
 Was answered, though he had much to suffer frou'. 
 the violent character of the man who undertook 
 his guardianship after his father's death. He was 
 able at last to return to New Herrnhut, but ar- 
 rived there a cripple, owing to the ill usage lie 
 had undergone. His sister, who was a year or two 
 older than himself, had been taken care of by the 
 wives of the missionaries, and was one of the best 
 pupils in their school. Several of Kajarnak's 
 relatives now came from the south. They said 
 that their kinsman had told them many things 
 about one whom he called Jesuna (Jesus) ; things 
 which they did not at that time understand ; but 
 since then they had frequently thought upon them, 
 and were now come to be more fully instnicted. 
 Nor were these empty words ; for not satisfied 
 with attending the meetings of the congregation 
 
kajarnak's successor. 153 
 
 daily to hear the Scriptures explained, they often 
 came singly to the missionaries to have their 
 doubts and difficulties removed, and generally 
 concluded with some such ejaculation as this : 
 *' Oh, that God would open my eyes, and purge 
 my ears, that I might rightly understand this 
 matter and be happy !" 
 
 The children of Ippegau, who had, six years 
 before, been the means of preserving the brethren 
 from starvation, joined themselves to the believers ; 
 and also a young man named Arbalik, whose ex- 
 cellent capacity and warmth of heart, joined to the 
 simplicity with which he received the Gospel, 
 made the missionaries hope that he would be a 
 worthy successor of Kajarnak. The event justi- 
 fied their anticipation. Even befoie his baptism, 
 the ready zeal of Arbalik rendered him a valuable 
 helper to his teachers. While engaged in his 
 daily labour he related to a woman, whom he met, 
 the history of her of Samaria, and spoke of Christ's 
 words, " If thou knewest the gift of God, and who 
 it is that saith to thee. Give me to drink, thou 
 wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have 
 given the© living water." The Holy Spirit was 
 pleased to apply these words to the heart of the 
 stranger, and like the woman of Samaria, but with 
 a deeper meaning, she said, " Give me this water." 
 A few weeks later the missionaries visited the 
 island where she lived, and she came to them with 
 eager desire to hear more. It seemed indeed that 
 she could hardly be satisfied ^rith hearing, for 
 
154 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 after listening to their discourse the whole day, 
 she sent her son to them at night, to pray that, as 
 soon as they had taken needful rest and refresh- 
 ment, they would come to her house and tell her 
 more. Though unable to remove from the abode 
 of her kindred, to live in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of the missionaries, she proved a diligent and 
 docile learner in the school of the Gospel. Her 
 obedience to the truth exposed her at first to per- 
 secution ; biit she was enabled to persevere, never- 
 theless, and recommended her new faith by her 
 consistent conduct. 
 
 Matthew Stach, who had been absent on a visit 
 to Europe, returned in the summer of 1742, bring- 
 ing with him an assistant, who was to have the 
 care of the children. He was rejoiced to find 
 a numerous company of catechumens under the 
 charge of his brethren. They were still exceed- 
 ingly slow in admitting any to baptism. (Too 
 slow, many of their friends in Europe thought. 
 But some perhaps will think the long probation 
 to which they subjected their catechumens suffi- 
 ciently justified by the fact that, at the end of 
 twenty- eight years, but two persons out of nearly 
 a thousand baptized had relapsed into heathenism, 
 and one of these shortly repented and returned.) 
 The missionaries found that self-conceit was the 
 weed which most frequently sprang up in the 
 hearts of their people, and choked the seed of the 
 Word. Even Sarah was at one time ensnared by 
 this intruder. Her successful diligence among 
 
BAPTISM AFTER PROBATION. 155 
 
 the heathen led her to entertain high thoughts of 
 herself. Being reminded of the miserable condi- 
 tion in which her Lord had fonnd her and taken 
 pity on her, and of the sense which, at that time, 
 she had entertained of the evil of her heart, she 
 burst into tears, and said, "Ah! now I plainly 
 feel that I have gradually lost the happiness I 
 used to enjoy. Something separates me from the 
 Saviour. I pray, and yet do not find the way to 
 Him." But from this time she was led to watch 
 and pray especially against this besetting sin, and 
 in the exercise of a lowly contrite spirit her former 
 peace of mind was restored. 
 
 At the same time with Arbalik, Matthew Stach 
 baptized four other young people who had been 
 for a considerable time under instruction. One 
 of them was Issek, the sister of Sarah, whose 
 mother, in her dying moments, had charged this 
 daughter to follow the example of the elder 
 sister whom they had persecuted, and join her- 
 self to the Christians. Issek accordingly, after 
 her mother's death, repaired to New Herrnhut^ 
 and prayed to be taught concerning the things she 
 should believe. She received at her baptism the 
 name of Judith, and, like her sister, proved an 
 active helper in the instruction of her country- 
 women. Arbalik, some months afterwards, was 
 maiTied to Sarah — the first couple whom the 
 missionaries had united in Christian matrimony. 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1743 there were 
 symptoms of an universal awakening amongst the 
 
15G MATTHEW STACII. 
 
 Greenlanders on the shores and islands of Baal's 
 River. Many, indeed, who for a time listened 
 with mnch interest to the preaching of the Gospel , 
 could not resolve to live near the missionaries and 
 receive the instmction necessary to jn-epare them 
 for baptism, because this would have obliged them 
 to give "up the distant hunting-places to which 
 they were accustomed to resort. And owing to 
 this their first ardour gave way to comparative 
 indifference. Yet of those who removed to a dis- 
 tance, several came back in after years to New 
 Hermhut, others prosecuted their inquiries after 
 truth in the various settlements erected by the 
 Danes, and were there received into the Chi'istian 
 church. Some, too, who never joined the con- 
 gregation of believers appeared by their lives to 
 have yielded something more than a mere outward 
 hearing and assent to the word preached by the 
 missionaries. From this time the whole nation 
 held foreigners in far higher esteem than before ; 
 a change which was to be attributed chiefly to the 
 impression left upon the wandering Greenlanders. 
 The children participated in the general desire for 
 instruction. One of the brethren, who was out 
 with his gun in quest of rypen, found some little 
 girls fishing at a hole in the ice. " Pray stay," 
 said they, " and teach us something. Cannot j-ou 
 leave your shooting for another day ? for we were 
 so glad when we saw you coming. \\e cannot 
 come to your house to be taught, and we want 
 yon to tell us something about Jesus, the Saviour." 
 
ISCHEASING SUCCESS. 157 
 
 By the people on the neighbouring islands, the 
 visits of the missionaries were now always wel- 
 comed. Hearing one day that a native Christian 
 had been accidentally drowned at Kangek, one 
 or two of tlie brethren immediately rowed thither, 
 accompanied by some of their baptized Green- 
 landers, to assist in interring the corpse. On 
 arriving, they found that Arbalik had already has- 
 tened to the place, and was speaking to an atten- 
 tive company of listeners of faith in the Son of 
 God, by whom life is imparted to the dead soul. 
 *' I, poor creature," he concluded, "have but little 
 experience, but here are my teachers, who can tell 
 you more." The missionaries accordingly ad- 
 dressed the people on the subject of the Eedeemer's 
 incarnation and death. All were moved, and 
 said, "What strange thing is this? That which 
 you say now aflfects us very differently from what 
 you used to tell us about God and the two first 
 parents. We continually said we believed it all, 
 but we were tired of hearing it, and thought, 
 AV'hat signifies this to us ? But now we find that 
 there is something which interests us much." On 
 this voyage, the brethren could not but thank and 
 praise God who had so turned the hearts of the 
 people, that those who had formerly despised and 
 reviled them, now came to ask pardon ; and some 
 who had most obstinately refused to listen to 
 them stood by the shores as their boat passed by 
 entreating them to land. On their return the cold 
 was intense. Their boat was covered with so 
 
168 BLA.TTHEW STACH. 
 
 thick a coat of ice that, although they were 
 seven in number, they could scarcely row it, and 
 the spray whieh dashed over congealed so suddenly 
 that it would have sunk them had they not used 
 unremitted exertion to bale it out. 
 
 Amongst the heathen who had witnessed the 
 interment was an Angekok, who, when the funeral 
 was over, declared his intention to forsake the 
 practice of his art. He had been brought to this 
 resolution, he said, by a startling dream. He 
 thought that a little child came to him out of 
 heaven, and led him first to a place of extra- 
 ordinary light and beauty, where his ears were 
 enchanted by the sound of many voices singing 
 melodiously. From thence his infant guide con- 
 ducted him to a place of darkness, where were a 
 multitude of unhappy prisoners who could find no 
 way of escape from their misery. " Here," said 
 the child, " you also must dwell if 3'ou do not turn 
 from evil ;" and at these words horror took posses- 
 sion of his soul. But his conductor brought him 
 forth again into the light to a company assembled 
 at a feast, and the food which they ate made men 
 cease from evil. All the guests sang and rejoiced, 
 so that he too began to sing, but one awoke him, 
 and it was a dream. The brethren were little 
 disposed to lay much stress upon dreams ; but 
 they knew that God is sometimes pleased to 
 speak " in a dream .... when deep sleep falleth 
 upon man, then He openeth the ears of men, and 
 sealeth their instruction, that He may withdraw 
 
CONYERSION THROUGH A DEEAM. 159 
 
 man from liis purpose, and hide pride from man." 
 And several instances occurred among the natives 
 of a soul halting between two opinions being 
 finally determined, by a dream, to break off from 
 €vil and follow after instruction in the Gospel. 
 Such was the effect in this case. The Angekok 
 utterly renounced the practice of his art, in which 
 he acknowledged that much had been mere fraud 
 and imposture, but declared that there had also 
 been an interference of some supernatural agency, 
 which he now, indeed, abhorred, but was unable 
 to describe. He received with docility the in- 
 structions of the missionaries, and after a long 
 period of probation was baptized. His course of 
 life afterwards was quiet and blameless, but less 
 marked by a thirst after increasing knowledge and 
 enjoyment of Christian truth than that of many 
 of his fellow-converts. And it was the opinion 
 of the missionaries that those members of their 
 flock who had been first led to embrace the truth 
 by impressions acting upon the imagination rather 
 than upon the heart, rarely attained to so much 
 maturity in the Christian character as others. 
 
 From the accounts given both by natives, and 
 Europeans who harl occasionally been present 
 when the Angekoks were engaged (as they pre- 
 tended) in intercourse with the world of spirits, 
 it would appear that ventriloquism and various 
 conjuring tricks were largely employed. But 
 several of these men, who, in after years, joined 
 the Christian church, stedfastly asserted that, be- 
 
160 MATTHEW STACn. 
 
 sides the deceits which they had practised, and 
 of which they were now heartily ashamed, some 
 agency, independent of themselves, had acted 
 upon them, and assisted them to delude their 
 disciples. It is certain that some amongst the 
 Angekoks proved themselves by their crimes to 
 be the children of him who was a murderer from 
 the beginning. Kassiak, who had caused the 
 death of Innungeitsok, and had since then con- 
 trived the murder of several other innocent per- 
 sons, had for some time past taken up his abode 
 in Kangek. Notwithstanding his infamous cha- 
 racter, he was looked up to with superstitious 
 awe by many of his countrymen. But in propor- 
 tion as the truth made progress, his credit and 
 his trade declined. He had more than once 
 threatened that the missionaries, to whom he 
 attributed the change in his fortunes, should not 
 live much longer to injure him. One day in May, 
 when all the men of the mission settlement, and 
 all their teachers, excepting Matthew Stach, were 
 absent hunting, Kassiak came to New Herrnhut, 
 accompanied by so many of his followers that 
 they quite filled the dwelling of the missionaries. 
 Matthew knew what they had threatened, but he 
 felt no fear, and quietly pursued the occupation 
 in which he was engaged. After sitting still for 
 some time, Kassiak said, " We are come to hear 
 something good." " I am glad of it," replied the 
 missionary; and with a short prayer that God 
 would open their hearts, he repeated a portion 
 
KASSIAK HUMBLED. 161 
 
 of St. Paul's discourse to the men of Athens. 
 " Now," said he, " I need not say anything to 
 prove that there is a Creator, for this jou all 
 know." To this they agreed, with the exception 
 of one man. " You also know that you are 
 wicked people." They uuanimously assented. 
 " Now then, I come to the main point, that you 
 and we have a Saviour, the same great Being who 
 created all things in the beginning. He lived 
 upwards of thirty years on earth to instmct and 
 bless mankind, after which He was nailed to a 
 cross, and slain by His countrymen, who would 
 not believe His words. But on the third day He 
 rose again from the grave, and afterwards ascended 
 up into Heaven. The time is now approaching 
 when He will come again in the clouds of heaven, 
 and all the dead will rise and appear before Him, 
 as the righteous Judge, to receive sentence, every 
 one according to his works. But thou, poor 
 man !" continued Matthew, turning to the Auge- 
 kok, " how wilt thou stand aghast, when all the 
 souls whom thou hast hurried out of the world 
 shall say unto Him that sits upon the throne, 
 ' This wicked wretch murdered us just as Thou 
 hadst sent Thy messengers to publish to us the 
 way of salvation !' What answer wilt thou then 
 return ?" Kassiak was silent and downcast. Ob- 
 sei'ving that a tremor pervaded the whole com- 
 pany, Matthew Stach proceeded : " Hearken to 
 me ; I will put thee in a way to escape this tre- 
 mendous judgment — but delay not, lest death 
 
 M 
 
162 JIATTHEW STACn. 
 
 anticipate tliee, for thou art old. Fall, tlien, at 
 the feet of Jesus. Thou canst not see Him, yet 
 He is everywhere. Tell Him that thou hast 
 heard that He loves the human soul exceedingly, 
 and rejects no one who cries to Him for grace. 
 Pray Him to have mercy on thee, poor, miserable 
 man, and wash out thy sins in His own blood." 
 With seeming emotion the Angekok promised 
 that he would do this. He remained with his 
 company for some hours, in a thoughtful and 
 silent mood, and gave ear to a few words spoken 
 by Anna Kajarnak, whose brother they had mur- 
 dered. Towards evening, they departed again to 
 their place ; but from this time Kassiak's enmity 
 towards the missionaries disappeared, and he had 
 many subsequent interviews with them. Yet he 
 never could resolve to seek God in earnest. His 
 life was prolonged yet many years ; and he desired 
 that his family might receive frequent visits from 
 the Christian teachers to be instnicted in the 
 things which concerned their souls. He also re- 
 paired frequently to New Hermhut. " Kassiak," 
 say the missionaries, " comes often to visit us, 
 and listens to the Word of God with a wonder- 
 fully devout mien ; but his conversion, alas ! 
 goes no farther. When we pray him to set a 
 good example to his children, for whose welfare 
 he seems anxious, by turning with his whole 
 heart to the Lord ; he replies, ' I am never 
 without some inclination to do it, but my will is 
 too weak.' " In the course of time his two sons 
 
OBDUEACT OF KASSIAK. 1G3 
 
 resolved to abandon the conjuring arts in which 
 he had instructed them, and removed to the 
 mission station, that they might profit more con- 
 stantly by the teaching of the missionaries. Both 
 of them were eventually baptized, and now, more 
 earnestly than ever, the brethren besought Kassiak 
 to embrace, before it was too late, the message of 
 salvation. But he always answered, " I am too 
 old to learn, and have been too wicked a man to 
 be converted. Let the young people join you 
 that they may become wiser and better. If I 
 could change, I would join your company, because 
 I see that you yourselves do the things which 
 you teach, but I am too old now. T must go on 
 in my old way." 
 
 The growing numbers of the people who came 
 under their charge rendered their necessary dis- 
 persion during the summer months a cause of 
 increasing solicitude to the missionaries. As far 
 as possible, they accompanied, or frequently 
 visited, their scattered flock ; but it was not 
 possible to provide for all, and everywhere, the 
 regular instruction and opportunities of public 
 worship, which they enjoyed while dwelling 
 together at New llerrnhut, during the winter. 
 And much the brethi'en feared that the weak 
 might be turned out of the way, and that those 
 even who were stronger in the Christian life 
 might fall from grace when surrounded by heathen 
 associates, and placed in the way of many tempta- 
 tions to evil. This fear had even withheld them 
 
164. MATTHEW STAGE. 
 
 from affording to their converts one of tlie most 
 essential requisites and privileges of a Christian 
 congregation. Seven years had elapsed since the 
 first Greenland converts had been admitted hy 
 baptism into the Church of Christ. Many of 
 their nation had since then been added to the 
 flock ; of w^hom some had already finished their 
 course on earth, while of others the missionaries 
 were able to say, " We rejoice and thank God 
 for the transfonnation of a wild, heathenish set 
 of people into a well-ordered family of Christians. 
 Above all, we praise Him for the gifts of His 
 grace manifest in the conduct of some of our 
 baptized Greenlanders." Yet not one of these 
 converts had hitherto been admitted by them to 
 the Lord's Supper ! At length, however, the 
 enduring character of the good work which had 
 been w^rought, was become too evident to allow 
 the missionaries longer to deprive their Green- 
 land brethren and sisters of so great a blessing. 
 Perhaps, too, we may say their own faith in the 
 grace and faithfulness of God was stronger, so 
 that they could more unreservedly trust in Him 
 to sustain the spiritual life which He had im- 
 parted. They began, therefore, carefully to pre- 
 pare their more advanced converts for admission 
 to the Holy Communion. The gratitude and joy 
 of the native communicants were affecting. " 0, 
 how is it possible," said they, " that our Saviour 
 can love poor men so exceedingly !" 
 
 From this time, the festivals of the Church wero 
 
SERVICES ON CHURCH FESTIVALS. 165 
 
 invested with new interest. The special services, 
 •by which the great events of the Gospel history 
 were commemorated, proved the means of much 
 edification to the Greenlanders. During the 
 season of Lent, the humiliation, sufferings, and 
 'death of our Lord, formed the constant subject^ 
 of reading and illustration, but especially in 
 Passion Week, when the missionaries strove to 
 lead their people, step by step, through the last 
 solemn scenes of their Kedeemer's life on earth. 
 On Easter Eve, they were reminded that by His 
 ^bode in the tomb the Son of God had sanctified 
 the grave, and made this last house (otherwise 
 so gloomy and frightful) a place of blessed rest 
 for those who die in the Lord. On Easter Sun- 
 da}', the congregation assembled in the chapel 
 before sunrise, and proceeding from thence to the 
 burial-ground, they called to mind, by name, the 
 brethren and sisters departed during the pre- 
 ceding 3'ear ; aud, in the words of their burial- 
 service, prayed for " everlasting fellowship with 
 them and the church triumphant around the 
 throne of the Lamb." 
 
 Hymns, chants, and anthems, which constitute 
 3, large portion of the public services of the 
 Moravians, became a source of great delight to 
 the Greenlanders. Almost every evening during 
 the winter, several of the people assembled to 
 repeat and practise, and those who could not read, 
 learnt the words from the lips of their better- 
 instructed companions. Some of the brethren 
 
166 
 
 MATTHETW STACH. 
 
 who, from time to time, came out from Germany 
 to assist in the affairs of the mission, could play 
 
 sixGixG scnooi. 
 
 on the flute, violin, or other instruments. Fiiid- 
 ino; that several of the native youths had a sood 
 ear for music, and were capable of learning to 
 play well enough to accompany the singing of the 
 congregation, they formed amongst them a little 
 band. The singing was remarkably pleasing ;. 
 the women and children possessing, in general, 
 sweet voices, which melted into perfect harmony. 
 In the morning, at eight o'clock, and also in the 
 evening, when the men had returned from the 
 
THE CAPLIN FISHERY. 167 
 
 sea, sei-vice was held daily in the chapel, and at 
 die or other of these times one of the missionaries 
 explained a passage of Scripture, or delivered a 
 short exhortation. On Sundays, a sermon was 
 preached in the afternoon, and many of the 
 neighbouring heathen frequently joined the con- 
 gregation. A short, special service was held on 
 Sunday, for the benefit of the children, who were 
 too young to participate in the more protracted 
 devotions of their elders, and they were daily 
 assembled to be catechized. 
 
 Before Whitsuntide, the congregation broke Tip 
 for the summer, to repair to the fisheries. One 
 or more of the missionaries usually accompanied 
 them, and a few brief extracts from their journals 
 will describe the kind of life led by the teachers 
 and their people at these times. " On the 19th 
 May," says John Beck, " I set off for the Caplin 
 Fishery with most of our people, in twenty-two 
 large boats and a great number of kayaks. In 
 two hours it began to snow so thickly that not 
 one of us could see twenty paces before him, but 
 the good angels guided us, and no one suffered 
 harm or was separated from his company. We 
 were able also to pitch our tents sufficiently near 
 together, so that until the sealing party left us 
 none were prevented by distance from joining in 
 oiu' daily worship. We all had an opportunity 
 of learning by experience that the presence of the 
 Lord is not confined to place ; and I endeavoured 
 to impress upon the minds of the people the 
 
168 
 
 MATTHirW STACU. 
 
 assurance that the grace of our Saviour is to be 
 sought and found not only in the house of prayer, 
 and in the solemnities of worship, but every- 
 where. At sea, or on the icy mountains, or in 
 the thickets, wherever a soul, sensible of its need, 
 applies to Him for relief, there is the ear of the 
 Lord open, and His arm stretched forth. 
 
 During the sennon on Whitsunday, we had a 
 numerous and attentive auditory, though the 
 snow fell in great quantities upon us; for the 
 church at Pisiksarbik has no roof but the firma- 
 ment, its walls are the snow-white mountains, the 
 pulpit is a large stone, and a ledge of- rock the 
 substitute for benches. After the service, I gave 
 the Greenlanders a dinner of reindeer's flesh. 
 Two of them, who had been guilty of some mis- 
 conduct recently, now appeared ashamed, but one 
 was very shy of me, and I knew he had been asso- 
 ciating with bad companions. I sought an oppor- 
 tunity of conversing with him, and represented 
 how grievous and dishonouring such conduct was 
 to his heavenly Master. This appeared to move 
 him much; he wept, and I could not refrain from 
 weeping with him." 
 
 On the 28th, the tattarets* gave notice that the 
 fish were approaching, and the first shoals of 
 caplins came near the shore. All hands were 
 soon busily engaged in catching them. " On the 
 
 * The tattaret, a beautiful little bird with sky-blue plum- 
 age. IS a species of gull, which spends the winter in warmer 
 countries, returning to Greenland early in thesprin- It fol- 
 lows the shoals of caplins into the fiords ° 
 
FISHERY PROSPEROUSLY COMPLETED. 1Q[) 
 
 8th of June, a great many heathen came to us, 
 and heard a sermon on John iii. 17 — 21. The 
 same evening our sealing party came back with 
 the melancholy intelligence that one of their 
 number, young Bartholomew, was missing. 1 
 despatched several men immediately to search 
 for him. After much labour they found the poor 
 youth in a bog, quite dead. He had tried to 
 carry his kayak across it, seemingly, but the 
 treacherous soil giving way beneath his feet, he 
 had sunk in and was suffocated. He came to us 
 last year and was baptized, and we had derived 
 much satisfaction from his good conduct. We 
 laid him in a grave, and raised some stones for 
 a monument on a rock near the spot. Four days 
 afterwards, our fisherj^ being prosperously com- 
 pleted, with songs of praise we set out in fair 
 weather for New Herrnhut." 
 
 The last night of the year was a season marked 
 by special prayer and thanksgiving, in which 
 were remembered the remarkable occurrences of 
 the past twelve months ; and few, if any, years 
 passed in which some of the native Christians, 
 and the brethren themselves, had not to irive 
 thanks for preservation in circumstances of great 
 peril, or to own with submission the chastening 
 hand which had removed from them one and 
 another of their kindred and friends. Many 
 instances of dangers and escapes at sea, when 
 overtaken by sudden fogs, or inclosed amidst the 
 floating ice fields, are recorded in the journals of 
 
170 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 the mission ; aud also some perils of a less ordi- 
 nar}' kind, of which the following may serve as 
 an example. In the month of May, 1745, while 
 everything was still frozen, and the ground covered 
 with snow, the brethren were startled one morn- 
 ing by a loud noise like the roar of a tempest. 
 They had scarcely time to run out of the house 
 before it was filled with water, which, for a 
 moment, they supposed must proceed from a 
 sudden thaw, melting the snow and causing the 
 brook which watered the valley to overflow. 
 But the frost was as hard as ever, and all around, 
 without, continued solid as marble. In about an 
 hour the water subsided, and they were able to 
 re-enter their house. They then found that both 
 there and in the storehouse the water had gushed out 
 of the earth like a fountain. But they were never 
 able to account for so strange a circumstance. 
 
 The year 1747 was happily distinguished by 
 the erection of a new and larger church. The 
 brethren had already enlarged their former place 
 of meeting as far as possible, and for some time 
 past had been obliged, for want of room, to preach 
 and baptize in the open air, or if the weather was 
 extremely cold, to separate with their flock into 
 two or three little congregations, assembling in 
 different apartments. This uncomfortable state 
 of things was remedied by the liberality of their 
 friends in Holland, who sent out timber framed 
 ready for erecting a building seventy feet long and 
 thirty broad. It contained, besides the church, 
 
MATTHEW VISITS EUEOPE. 171 
 
 some rooms for the missionaries ; and two wings 
 on the north and south sides comprised school- 
 rooms and storehouses. While the erection was 
 in progress, Matthew Stach proceeded to Europe. 
 1'he brethren there thought it advisable that the 
 missionaries stationed in Greenland should, from 
 time to time, revisit their native climate, to recru.it 
 their strength, and rest awhile from the various 
 labours incident to their situation. Accordingly, 
 each of the Greenland missionaries had in turn 
 paid a short visit to Germany. Matthew Stach 
 was now rejDairing thither for the second time. 
 He had been requested to bring with him some 
 of the Christian Greenlanders, who had expressed 
 a strong desire to see " the European land," and 
 the friends who had cared for their souls, and 
 sent teachers to show them the way of salvation. 
 
 In compliance with this request, the missionary- 
 was accompanied by Arbalik and his wife Sarah, 
 her sister, Judith Issek, Matthew, the son of 
 Kajarnak, a boy of fourteen, and another youth 
 about the same age. The journey proved of great 
 advantage to them. Their minds were enlarged 
 by the introduction to civilized nations, to new 
 modes of living, new forms of animal and vege- 
 table life, while the simplicity of their religious 
 feelings remained unimpaired. But two of the 
 travellers did not live to return to their native 
 land, and the journeyings of the others lasted 
 much longer, and extended over a much larger 
 portion of the world, than either thev or their 
 
172 MATTHEW STACK. 
 
 European friends had foreseen. They arrived in 
 Europe towards the end of summer, and spent 
 the autrmin and winter in Holland and North 
 Germany. Fearing that a longer continuance 
 in a climate so unlike their own, and the de- 
 privation of Greenland diet, might injure their 
 health, the missionary proposed to return with 
 them before the heats of summer commenced. 
 Various obstacles, however, arose and prevented 
 him from carrying this design into effect. In the 
 meantime Sarah peacefully ended her life at 
 Herrnhut, in May, and her husband Arbalik 
 followed her, not many weeks afterwards, to 
 the gi'eat grief of their teachers, who lost in 
 them two very valuable assistants. Matthew 
 Stach was now, more than ever, anxious to take 
 the survivors safely back to their own country ; 
 but no opportunity of doing so was afforded him 
 until, towaids the close of the j^ear, the master 
 of the ship Irene, just arrived at Amsterdam 
 from New York, expressed his willingness to 
 reconduct the whole party to Greenland. It 
 was, however, by a most circuitous route, the 
 ship being bound to London and Philadelphia 
 before she could perform the Arctic voyage. 
 They an-ived in London in the beginning of 
 1749. George II. being told that some Christian 
 Greenlanders were in England, expressed a wish 
 to see them, and they were accordingly presented 
 to the king and the rest of the royal family at 
 Leicester House. After remaining in port a short 
 
ACCOUNT OF TSCHOOPE's CONVEhSIO?*. 173 
 
 time, the Irene sailed again fur Philadelphia, 
 where the captain purposed remaining some 
 weeks. During this time Matthew Stach and 
 his companions visited the settlements formed 
 by some of the Moravian brethren in Pennsyl- 
 vania, and their missions amongst the American 
 Indians in the backwoods. Much kind feeling 
 and brotherly sympathy was elicited by the inter- 
 course which took place between the American 
 converts and their Greenland brethren. With 
 the help of the missionaries to interpret between 
 them, they interchanged accounts of the progress 
 of the Gospel amongst their respective nations, 
 and of their very different modes of life and 
 occupation. The Indian first converted by the 
 brethren was a Mohican, named Tschoope, a 
 man who had been notorious for his evil and 
 ferocious life, but who possessed much influence 
 over his companions. The account he gave of 
 his conversion deserves to be recorded. Having 
 been frequently amongst the Dutch settlers, he 
 understood their language, which induced the 
 Moravian missionary, Christian Eauch, who could 
 speak Dutch, to address himself to him in the 
 first place. ' The effect produced by his discourse 
 is best described in Tschoope's own words, when 
 addressing the other missionaries who had come 
 to visit him. " Brethren," said he, " I have been 
 a heathen, and have grown old amongst them, 
 therefore I know how the heathen think. Once, 
 a preacher came and began to explain to us that 
 
174 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 there was a God. We answered, *Dost thou 
 think us so ignorant as not to know that ? Re- 
 turn to the place from whence thou earnest.' 
 Then another preacher came, and said, * You 
 must not steal, nor lie, nor get drunk,' &c. We 
 answered, ' Thou fool, dost thou think us ignorant 
 of this ? First teach the people, to whom thou 
 belongest, to leave off these things. For who 
 steal, lie, or are more drunken than thine own 
 people?' And thus we dismissed him. After 
 some time brother Eauch came to my hut, sat 
 down, and spoke nearly as follows: ' I am come 
 to you in the name of the Lord of heaven and 
 earth. He sends to let jou know that He will 
 make you happy, and deliver you from the miser}^ 
 in which you lie at present. For this end He 
 became a man, gave his life a ransom, and shed 
 His blood for sinners.' Something more he said 
 concerning the preciousness of the blood which 
 ]'edeemed us ; then, being tired with his journej^ 
 he lay down, and slept soundly. I thought, what 
 kind of man is this ? There he lies and sleeps ; I 
 might kill him, and throw him into the wood, and 
 who would regard it? But this gives him no 
 concern. However, I could not forget his words. 
 They constantly recurred to my mind. Even when 
 asleep, I dreamt of the blood Jesus Christ shed for 
 us. I found this to be entirely different from 
 anything I had heard before, and I interpreted 
 Ranch's words to the other Indians. Thus, through 
 the grace of God, an awakening began among us. 
 
BETUllN TO GREENLAND. 175 
 
 1 say, therefore, brethren, speak of Christ our Savi- 
 our, of his sujfferings and death, if you would wish 
 your words to gain entrance among the heathen." 
 
 Letters, speaking the Christian friendly feeling 
 of the writers, were sent by these Indian converts 
 to their Greenland brethren ; and the congregation 
 at Bethlehem, hearing that they were often re- 
 duced to straits for want of timber, sent them 
 also a quantity of wood and shingles, sufficient 
 to build storehouses in which all the dried fish, 
 reindeer's flesh, &c., gathered by the labour of 
 the summer, could be safely laid up for winter 
 consumption. With this homely but valuable 
 present, Matthew Stach and his companions took 
 their leave, the Irene being now ready to depart. 
 They arrived in Greenland late in the summer of 
 1749, and were joyfully welcomed back to Kew 
 Herrnhut. The Greenlanders were never tired of 
 interrogating their travelled brethren concerning 
 all that they had heard and seen in strange 
 countries. The travellers had so well conformed 
 to European dress and customs, that, during the 
 latter portion of their journeyings, no one, until 
 told who they were, suspected them to be natives 
 of a heathen and uncivilized land. They now 
 resumed without repugnance the laborious life of 
 Greenlanders, with all its inevitable hardships ; 
 but retained through the rest of their days the 
 superior esteem of their countrymen, as persons 
 wiser than their brethren. 
 
 Judith was very desirous to promote among her 
 
17 G MATTHEW STACU. 
 
 young countiywomen the order and decorum 
 whicli characterized the Moravian sisters in 
 Europe. Nor were the young people or their 
 elders averse to co-operate in her plans. Ac- 
 cordingly, she erected with their help a dwell- 
 ing large enough to furnish accommodation for 
 the unmarried young women of the settlement, 
 and took them to live with her. By day each 
 fulfilled her duties in the household to which 
 she belonged, but returned in the evening to 
 her companions. Judith was directed and as- 
 sisted in her charge by the wives of the mis- 
 sionaries, and though young herself, proved a 
 kind and vigilant superintendent. She con- 
 tinued to labour for the temporal and spiritual 
 welfare of her countrywomen for ten years, after 
 which a lingering illness brought her to the grave. 
 Ever since their return to Greenland, the natives 
 who had been in Europe had kept up a corre- 
 spondence with their friends there. Some of their 
 letters were preserved and inserted afterwards in 
 the history of the mission. One, written by Judith 
 in the ver}'" near prospect of death, breathes a 
 spirit of patient submission, of humble assured 
 faith, and joyful anticipation of life everlasting 
 in the presence and service of her Eedeemer, 
 which may be well described in the words of 
 the Prophet, " Thou wilt keep him in perfect 
 peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he 
 trusteth in Thee." 
 
 The missionaries found much to encourasre them 
 
MISSIONARY SCHOOLS. 177 
 
 in their schools. School was kept only during 
 the winter; and but for half the day. For the 
 girls were early inured by their mothers to the 
 various labours which fell to the lot of a Green- 
 land woman, and the boys, while still very young, 
 began to practise rowing the kayak, darting the 
 harpoon, &c. Much time was necessary to acquire 
 proficiency in these exercises. Amongst the 
 heathen Greenlanders, dexterity in their arduous 
 occupations was reckoned the highest virtue, and 
 nothing would have been more apt to deter them 
 from giving ear to the Gospel, than an appearance 
 of inactivity-, negligence, or unskilfulness, in those 
 of their countrymen who had embraced it. But 
 short as was the portion of each day devoted to 
 school, the children, in general, made good pro- 
 gress. Many learnt to read well in the course of 
 one winter ; and amongst the elder scholars, there 
 were several who read and wrote both Greenlandic 
 and German correctly. They were sedulously 
 taught to regard their superior attainments as the 
 means of benefiting others who had not enjoyed 
 the same advantages ; and their teachers were 
 pleased to see that they often employed their leisure 
 hours in reading to the old people who had never 
 learned. 
 
 As a nation, the Greenlanders were, by na- 
 ture, careless and improvident. The missionaries, 
 therefore, constantly bent their efforts to form 
 habits of economy and forethought in their 
 people. " To mind diligently their own busi- 
 
178 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 ness and labour, tliat they might walk honestly 
 toward all men, and might lack nothing. To 
 labour, that they might have to give to him that 
 needed. To waste nothing." These lessons were 
 not only inculcated by the lips of the teachers, 
 but taught by all the regulations which they in- 
 troduced among the inhabitants of the mission 
 settlement, and to which the latter willingly 
 consented. For, it may be said here, even had 
 the missionaries desired to impose any rules by 
 constraint, the attempt would have been hateful 
 to the Greenlanders, who were jealous of their 
 liberty. But with their entii-e consent, such 
 orderly methods of industry and prudent fru- 
 gality were established among the Christian na- 
 tives, that besides maintaining a number of help- 
 less orphans, aged, and destitute persons, whom 
 their heathen kindred had rejected, they had 
 always a larger quantity of produce to dispose 
 of to the Danish factors than the latter could 
 procure elsewhere. " Indeed," sa^'s the old his- 
 torian of the mission, " if any temporal advantage 
 must be confessed to have an influence in inducing 
 heathen Greenlanders to join the believers, it is 
 the prevalence of honesty and good order in our 
 congregation, where every one is sure of his 
 property, friendless widows are relieved, none 
 are obliged to marry against their inclination, 
 no wife is turned away, or husband permitted 
 to marry more than one wife, and all fatherless 
 children are maintained and educated." 
 
MISSION TO LABEADOB. 179^ 
 
 Cheered by the increase with which God had 
 blessed the seed sown by himself and his brethren^ 
 Matthew Stach began to look with a longing eye 
 towards the south-west. There, beyond the spread- 
 ing waters, an Esquimaux people, akin in race and 
 language to his Greenland converts, wandered 
 over the cold barren wastes of Labrador. To 
 introduce the Gospel amongst them became now 
 the desire of his heart. The account which the 
 mariners, who had visited the coast of Labrador, 
 gave of its inhabitants, was not of a character ta 
 invite men who were impelled by other motives- 
 than those of love to God and man. " Thieves and 
 murderers," were the terms in which almost every 
 one who spoke of these people, described their 
 character. " But the more depraved they are by 
 nature," said the missionary, " the more need is 
 there that we should make known to them the 
 way of salvation." His brethren in Europe cor- 
 dially entered into his views, and authorized him 
 to proceed to England, in order to solicit per- 
 mission from the Hudson's Bay Company to begin 
 a mission in Labrador by preaching the Gospel to 
 the natives belonging to their factories. His ap- 
 plication, however, though seconded by persons of 
 wealth and influence in London, proved unsuc- 
 cessful. Some pious merchants who shared in the 
 wish of the missionary to make known the Word 
 of God in that countiy now devised another plan. 
 They agreed to fit out a ship for trading on th©- 
 coast of Labrador. Missionaries, it was though*,. 
 
180 MATTHEW 8TACH. 
 
 miglit, by this means, visit the people and fonu 
 an acquaintance with some of them, and, in the 
 end, a mission station might be established. While 
 Matthew Stach was waiting i]i England for this 
 project to be carried into effect, the Moravian 
 brethren in Germany deputed one of their bishops, 
 Johannes de Watteville, to visit the Greenland 
 congregation. De Watteville, who had just re- 
 turned from visiting and inspecting the missions 
 in North America and the West Indies, willingly 
 undertook this new commission, but desired for 
 his companion Matthew Stach ; and the latter, 
 foreseeing that some time must elapse before 
 anything could be done in Labrador, gladly re- 
 turned meanwhile to his flock in Greenland. 
 
 The voyage occupied six weeks. After having 
 been hemmed in by ice-fields during many days, 
 they discerned, on the 12th June, the snow- 
 clad tops of the Greenland mountains, being then 
 about twenty leagues distant from the shore. 
 Presently afterwards, the voyagers were gratified 
 by the appearance of one of the phenomena of 
 polar skies, thi'ee parhelia, or mock suns, encircled 
 by six luminous halos. *' The following day," 
 says Bishop Watteville, " we entered Baal's Eiver, 
 and were met near the outermost island by two of 
 our Greenlanders, but the wind being too high for 
 them to get on board, they kept before us swim- 
 ming through the waves on their kayaks like 
 wateifowl, and with such velocity as to be always 
 ahead of the ship, though they were often half 
 
BISHOP WATTEVILLe's VISIT. 181 
 
 buried under water. The wind rapidly increased 
 to a hard gale, and we flew past island after island 
 like an arrow. At length Now Herrnhut came in 
 isight, moving my heart with joy and gratitude. 
 It stood like a garden of the Lord amidst the 
 VN'ildemess". All around were bare rocks thinly 
 interspersed with sand, bnt the land adjacent to 
 the church and dwelling of the missionaries was 
 clad with verdure most refreshing and gi'ateful to 
 the eye. In front of the church, the brethren had 
 laid out a garden, in which they pleased them- 
 selves with raising such salads and other vege- 
 tables as could be reared in a climate where the 
 ground was frozen during nine months in the 
 year. On either side were the huts of the Green- 
 landers, built on the rocks ascending from the 
 shore. Scurvy -grass, mountain sorrel, and other 
 indigenous plants, grew in the greatest abundance 
 round the buildings ; and the plain between the 
 little village and the beach was carpeted with 
 grass, and dotted over with the summer tents of 
 the people. A large magazine, standing alone 
 on a height, served as a beacon to ships approach- 
 ing the shore. 
 
 The bishop soon made himself acquainted with 
 all the inhabitants of the settlement, visiting the 
 various stations to which they had dispersed for 
 fishing; and with the help of one of the mis- 
 sionaries to interpret, instructing them all both 
 publicly and privately, he entirely won the 
 esteem of the Greenlanders. They were accus- 
 
182 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 tomed to distinguish persons by some epithet 
 descriptive of their bodily or mental qualities, 
 and he was long remembered among them as 
 Johannes Assersok^ i. e., the loving. He joined his 
 missionary brethren in all their labours; and 
 records, with pleasure, some of the expeditions 
 in which he accompanied them to collect drift- 
 wood, and turf, or the eggs of the eider-fowl, 
 which formed an important part of their sus- 
 tenance during the summer months. One of 
 these voyages was to Kanneisut, about ten miles 
 distant on the other side of Baal's River ; a tract 
 of land broken with high rocky hills, interspersed 
 with thickets and plots of grass, and watered by 
 many streams and pools of clear water. This was 
 a great resort of reindeer ; but it was yet more 
 valuable for the abundance of trout which might 
 be caught in the brooks, several hundred being 
 sometimes taken at one haul of the net. The 
 banks of the water, however, and the thickets, 
 were infested with swarms of mosquitoes. They 
 were not, the bishop assured his companions, 
 nearly so tormenting as those which abounded 
 on the banks of the Delaware, or in the island of 
 St. Thomas, whence he had lately come. The 
 interest and sympathy of the native Chiistians 
 were strongly excited by Bishop Watteville's ao- 
 count of the American brethren, who had shown 
 them so much goodwill a few years before ; and 
 by his recital of the sufferings and difficulties 
 which harassed the converted negro-slaves of St. 
 
NATIVE INSTRUCTORS. 183 
 
 Thomas. *' flow liappy we are," exclaimed they, 
 " in being free to serve God every day in peace !" 
 One of the subjects concerning which the 
 brethren most desired to take counsel v/ith the 
 bishop, was the establishment of a mission- 
 station in South Greenland, the most populous 
 part of the country, and that from which most 
 of their converts had originally come. These 
 people were ardently desirous that the Gospel 
 should be preached in their native district, and 
 the missionaries longed to lay the foundation 
 of another Christian settlement in the midst 
 of the heathen. There appeared at present no 
 prospect of their being able to do this, the means 
 of the Moravian brethren being already tasked 
 to the utmost to maintain the numerous missions 
 they had planted during the last twenty years. 
 Bishop Watteville could only join his hopes 
 and prayers to their own, in regard to this more 
 distant sphere of labour, but he visited wdth 
 them various heathen settlements within reach of 
 New Hermhut. By his advice, the missionaries 
 began to prepare some of their converts for more 
 extensive usefulness, committing to them the 
 duty of instructing their fellow-believers in the 
 Word of God, during the absence of the people 
 at their hunting and fishing-places. Matthew 
 Kajarnak, Johanan, his friend and fellow-traveller 
 in the visit to Europe, and several older brethren, 
 whose exemplary conduct and progress in religi- 
 ous knowledge entitled them to confidence, were 
 
184. MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 formed into a company of " National Assistants." 
 Each, had a certain number of families placed 
 more particularly under his charge, to watch 
 over them and catechise the children. In the 
 absence of the missionaries, the National Assist- 
 ants presided over the daily assemblies for 
 worship, led the prayers of the people, and 
 read and explained the Scriptui^es. They were- 
 also called upon to preach from time to time, 
 in the mission-church. For all these duties 
 they were carefully instructed by the mission- 
 aries, to whom they rendered account of their 
 proceedings every week. They were encouraged 
 also to publish the Gospel to the heathen wher- 
 ever they found opportunity. One or two speci- 
 mens of their discourses may be quoted here. 
 Having spoken to a company of heathens of 
 the Son of God who had died for fallen man, 
 the teacher continued very earnestly, *' So dead 
 and stupid as you now are, I, too, was formerly ; 
 out when I heard that there was a Saviour who' 
 has purchased life for poor miserable men, I 
 rejoiced at the good news, and prayed to Him 
 to give me open ears and an open heart to hear 
 and understand. And now you may easily see 
 that I am happy, and I can wish you nothing 
 better than that you also may submit to be made 
 happy." Another assistant said, "It is with 
 us, as when a thick mist covers the land, which 
 hinders us from seeing and knowing any object 
 distinctly. But when the fog disperses, we get 
 
THE "national ASSISTANTS." 185 
 
 sight of one corner of the land after another ; 
 and when the sun breaks forth, we see every- 
 thing clear and bright. Thus it is with our 
 hearts. ^Vhile we remain at a distance from 
 our Saviour, we are dark, and ignorant of our- 
 selves ; but the nearer approaches we make to 
 Him the more light we obtain in our hearts, and 
 thus we rightly learn to discover all good in Him 
 and all evil in ourselves." 
 
 That not only the foreigners — whom they 
 regarded as different people from themselves — 
 but their own countrymen, should speak of an 
 invisible, almighty Saviour, Intercessor, and 
 Friend, with the tone of men who knew Him in 
 whom they believed, made a powerful impression 
 upon many. " Hast thou seen the God of whom 
 thou speakest ?" said a heathen man to one of the 
 brethren. He replied, "I have not seen Him 
 yet, but I love Him with my whole heart, and T 
 and all true believers shall one day see Him 
 with our bodily eyes." The inquirer went away 
 thoughtfully, and pondered the answer he had re- 
 ceived. Afterwards he came to New Herrnhut, 
 and prayed to be admitted into the number of 
 catechumens. After receiving suitable instruc- 
 tion, he was baptized, and led a life consistent 
 with his Christian profession. The cheerfulness 
 of his piety was remarkable, and his example 
 was the more valuable, because he was the head 
 of a numerous family, and a man much esteemed 
 among his countrymen for sense and uprightness. 
 
18G MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 Witliin a short time after the appointment 
 of the National Assistants, a fatal sickness broke 
 out in the neighbourhood of the settlement. 
 Thirty of the native Christians, amongst whom 
 were some of the brethren so recently selected to 
 serve as helpers, died, and also many of the 
 heathen dwelling on the islands. Above all, the 
 missionaries were grieved at the loss of Matthew 
 Kajarnak, beloved for his father's sake and his 
 own. " His activity and sound judgment," they 
 write, *' made him a very valuable fellow-labourer. 
 We rejoice indeed with him that he is at rest, but 
 his name will never be mentioned among us 
 without exciting a feeling of affectionate regret." 
 His end, like his father's, was full of peace, 
 though attended with much bodily suffering. 
 The breaches which death had made in the con- 
 gregation were much more than filled up in the 
 succeeding twelve months. Amongst those who 
 now joined themselves to the believers, was a 
 man named Kainaek, a wealthy Southlander, 
 of a family esteemed noble in Greenland, since 
 during three generations the men had been re- 
 nowned seal-catchers. But Kainaek was even 
 more conspicuous for his unbridled violence of 
 oharacter, than for his skill and wealth. He 
 had been long acquainted with the missionaries, 
 but his feelings towards them in former years 
 had been anything but friendly. A young 
 woman whom he sought in marriage was so 
 terrified by his furious temper, that she fled 
 
BAPTISM OF KAINAEK 
 
 187 
 
 from lier own friends to the mission settlement, 
 entreating the white people to protect her. The 
 missionaries pitied her distress, and gave her 
 an asylum, which so incensed Kainaek, that 
 he attempted to take the lives of some of the 
 native Christians. In this evil design he was 
 frustrated; but he found an opportunity, after 
 some time had elapsed, of carrying off his in- 
 tended bride. His union with her proved the 
 means of his conversion. During her abode at 
 New Herrnhut she had heard something of the 
 Word of God. She desired to hear more, and 
 she acquired sufficient influence over Kainaek 
 to make him a frequent listener to the discourses 
 of the missionaries. But it was long before he 
 could bring himself to embrace the humbling 
 doctrine which they preached. Eestless and 
 unhappy, he wandered from south to north, and 
 from north to south again, but could not fly 
 from himself. At last, one terrible winter's day, 
 the inhabitants of New Herrnhut were rejoiced by 
 the arrival of Kainaek and his whole family. 
 The travellers were covered with ice as with 
 a coat of mail, but tbe fire was kindled within, 
 and they had come with humble minds, earnestly 
 desiring to be taught and baptized into the 
 obedience of Christ. 
 
 Kainaek became as remarkable after his baptism 
 for his quiet humble course of life, as he had 
 been formerly for unrestrained vehemence. He 
 had occupied so conspicuous a place among his 
 
188 MATTHEW STACU. 
 
 countr)'meD, that his conversion awakened atten- 
 tion and curiosity in many who had as yet heard 
 little or nothing of the Gospel. And now, for 
 some months, there were few weeks or even days 
 in which strangers did not visit New Herrnhiit, 
 to inquire what these new things were ? The 
 interest with which some of the new-comers 
 listened to the Word of God excited lively joy 
 and hope in the breasts of their Christian coun- 
 trj^men. One of the national assistants, Daniel 
 Agusina, became inspired with an ardent desire 
 to visit his kindred and former acquaintances, 
 who were living three hundred miles to the 
 northward, that he might declare to them the 
 things he had learned. 
 
 The missionaries feared the temptations to 
 which he would be exposed when surrounded 
 by the heathen, and deprived of public worship 
 and pastoral instruction. But seeing that his 
 heart was set upon going they gave their consent 
 and provided him with a companion, one of 
 his fellow-assistants, named Jonas, who also had 
 kindred in the north. The two travellers set 
 out, full of hope, and turned their voyage into 
 a missionary excursion, by making known the 
 tidings of a Eedeemer wherever they could find 
 hearers. In some places they were much ridi- 
 culed and reviled ; in others, they met with 
 attentive listeners ; and at the end of two months 
 they returned with grateful hearts, accompanied 
 by several of their kindred. Daniel had per- 
 
DANIEL AGUSINA. 
 
 189 
 
 BTiaded all the surviving members of his family to 
 come with him to New Herrnhut, and eventually 
 all were converted to the faith. He possessed no 
 ordinary qualifications as a teacher; and of all 
 the national assistants he appears to have been 
 the one who possessed most influence, and whose 
 labours were the most blessed. By birth he 
 was a Southlander, the son of a rich and prudent 
 man, who led, according to the custom of the 
 country, a roving life, residing one year in the 
 south, another at Kangek, a third at Disko, &c. 
 Ao-usina was the oldest of a numerous family, 
 and was born about the time that Egede, the 
 father of Greenland missions, landed in the 
 country; but he had grown to manhood before 
 the tidings of a Saviour reached his ears. His 
 father being at that time in Kangek, was visited 
 by Mr. Drachart, the Danish minister at God- 
 haab, who preached the Gospel to him and his 
 family. Agusina was so impressed by what he 
 heard that day, that he determined at once to 
 become the property of the Saviour who had 
 redeemed him. But he could not at this time 
 join himself to the believers, as he desired to 
 do. His father required his services, and Agu- 
 sina was obliged to accompany him through 
 a long course of wanderings. At length the 
 family came again to Kangek, and Agusina, 
 who was now a married man, with children of 
 his own, claimed his right to act independently. 
 His brothers had grown up, and were able to 
 
190 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 take his place in assisting their father ; he now, 
 therefore, bade adieu to his kindred, and removed 
 to Godhaab to place himself under the instruction 
 of M. Drachart, by whom, in the year 1747, he 
 was admitted into the Church, receiving at his 
 baptism the name of Daniel. But one of his 
 uncles having settled at New Herrnhut, and 
 become a Christian, Daniel became very desirous 
 to join him, and with the willing consent of 
 Mr. Drachart, and the permission of the Moravian 
 missionaries, he placed himself under the pas- 
 toral care of the latter. He was soon afterwards 
 admitted to the Holy Communion, and from 
 that time became ardently desirous to publish 
 to his countrymen the good news which he had 
 himself received. Having been received into 
 the company of assistants about the year 1753, he 
 gave himself with all his might to the work. 
 *' Out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth 
 overflowed, early and late," write the missionaries. 
 Sometimes his heathen countrymen received his 
 words with mockery, but more often they mani- 
 fested a particular esteem for him, and veneration 
 for his words. For he showed discretion as 
 well as zeal in his efforts to instruct them. 
 When addressing men who had never heard 
 the Word of God, he would enter into friendly 
 discourse with them, interest himself in their 
 affairs, and by degrees, giving a different turn to 
 the conversation, would draw forth the thoughts 
 they had concerning a Creator, and a future 
 
ZEAL AKD PIETY OF AUGUSmA. 191 
 
 state. In this manner lie often led them to 
 acknowledge that man was by nature prone to 
 evil, and could not find favour in the eyes of 
 a perfectly pure and righteous Lord. Then with 
 a burning heart, and often with tears in his eyes, 
 he used to speak to them of Jesus. " What 
 happiness it was," said he, looking back on his 
 death-bed to these seasons, — " what joy it was 
 to lead my countrymen to the Saviour, and to 
 see them as happy as He, through mercy, has 
 made me!" He was much respected by the 
 Danish colonists and factors, who commonly 
 spoke of him as " the man of God." Sometimes, 
 during the busy season of the trade and fisheries, 
 Daniel was obliged by necessary business to 
 remain for a day or two at some station, where, 
 excepting the factor and his boat's crew, all 
 around him were heathens. At these times, the 
 Greenlanders generally asked him to discourse 
 to them, when their day's work was over, and 
 he never refused. " But, " said the factors, 
 relating these things afterwards to the mission- 
 aries, " without any hesitation because of the 
 presence of Europeans, Daniel used to uncover his 
 head, fold his hands reverently together, and, 
 after first pra^'^ing, would speak to the heathen in 
 so earnest ancl affecting a manner, that they were 
 often moved to tears, and used to remain together 
 conversing about what they had heard till a 
 late hour of the night. Daniel spoke much in 
 similitudes, knowing that this mode of teaching 
 
192 MATTHEW STAGE. 
 
 was most acceptable to his countrymen. In 
 winter, when he had much leisure, he would place 
 himself in his kayak, and go to visit heathen 
 villages inaccessible to the boat of the missionaiies. 
 Of a lively intrepid spirit, he was not to be 
 deterred by danger, especially if he knew that 
 any soul had been awakened to desire instruction. 
 In all these labours he appeared to be guided by 
 a spirit of unaffected humility. " In all places," 
 said he one day to the missionaries, " I pray to 
 the Saviour to lead and direct me ; for I know that 
 I am a poor and wretched man if He is not con- 
 tinually near me. My faults and infirmities are 
 numberless, but my Lord knows them all, for He 
 knows my heart, and therefore, I at all times address 
 Him as a sinner. But the Holy Spirit directs my 
 heart to the sufferings of Jesus, and I feel that He 
 loves me who always chooses the poorest of men." 
 But after persevering in his course of humble zea- 
 lous diligence for several years, Daniel said, per- 
 haps, in his heart, " I shall never be moved," and 
 too soon had occasion to say "My feet were almost 
 gone, my footsteps had wellnigh slipped." " By 
 a trivial circumstance," write the missionaries, 
 *' the door was opened for self-complacency at the 
 great and excellent gifts which Daniel really 
 possessed, though he had always appeared un- 
 conscious of them ; and we could not but perceive 
 that his love for Christ and souls had lost some- 
 thing of its former eaniestness and simplicit}-, 
 and that his discourses no longer went home, as 
 
DEATH OF AGUSINA. 193 
 
 heretofore, to the hearts of the hearers." The 
 Master, whom, notwithstanding all infirmities and 
 defects, he sincerely served, did not permit him to 
 continue in this state of spiritual declension. He 
 brought him back by trial. His only daughter, 
 Beata, a very dutiful and promising child of 
 fifteen, died after a few days' illness, to the 
 extreme grief of her father, whose dearly beloved 
 companion and helper she had been. His distress 
 in mind was at first so great, that he withdrew 
 from participation in those ordinances of divine 
 worship which had been his greatest joy. But 
 after a few weeks the agitation of his spirit was 
 calmed. He recognized the justice and mercy of 
 G od's dealings with him, humbled himself beneath 
 the chastening hand of his Heavenly Father, and 
 found peace. "For His anger endureth but a 
 moment; in His favour is life." 
 
 Yeiy soon afterwards, Daniel was seized with 
 mortal sickness. But the prospect of death no 
 more distressed him ; and when the disease left 
 liis mind clear, almost all his words were of 
 grateful praise. " That my Lord hath chosen me 
 from among the heathen — that He has washed me 
 from my sins — that he has given me His body to 
 eat, and His blood to drink ; and has kept me in 
 fellowship with Himself, even until now — oh, 
 how will I thank and praise Him !" 
 
 In bringing to a close the history of Daniel 
 Agusina, we have passed over a period of nine or ten 
 years, during which the work of the missionaries 
 
 o 
 
194 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 continued on the whole to prosper, though not 
 'without many disappointments — some of which 
 arose from the death of native converts who had 
 proved themselves faithful brothers and sisters in 
 Christ, and some from the speedy effacing of reli- 
 >gious impressions in hearts which had appeared 
 to be touched by Divine grace. " I know not 
 how it is," said a woman : " we always uill le con- 
 Terted, yet nothing comes of it ; we still prefer 
 •other things before our Saviour." Like the men 
 who refused to come to the marriage feast, the 
 Oreenlanders had many excuses for declining to 
 give heed to the Gospel. " I would gladly come 
 to this Saviour," said one young man, " but my 
 relations always keep me back." Another had 
 bought a great deal of powder and shot, " which,'* 
 said he, " I must first use up in the South, where 
 there are many reindeer." Some men who would 
 fain have settled within reach of the missionaries, 
 were hindered by their wives, who could not bear 
 to give up the feasts and meriy -makings they had 
 been used to share with their neighbours. One of 
 these women came afterwards in great sorrow to 
 the brethren. Her husband, she said, had lately 
 died, praying earnestly for the pardon of his sins, 
 and had entreated, as a last favour, that his corpse 
 might be carried to New Herrnhut, and buried 
 ■near the Christians, with whom he had desired to 
 live. She bitterl}'" lamented now that she had 
 •opposed his wishes, and prayed that the mission- 
 aries would take her into the number of their 
 
A daughter's successful appeal. 195 
 
 catecliumens. In general, the young people re- 
 ceived the word with most readiness, and were 
 often the means of drawing their parents to join 
 the believers. A man, to whom the brethren had 
 often spoken in their missionary excursions, but 
 who could not resolve to leave his native place to 
 obtain more full and regular Christian instruction, 
 accidentally met his daughter at the caplin fishery. 
 She had removed from home some time before, 
 and had become a Christian. He angrily re- 
 proached her with separating herself from her 
 father and kindred, and taking up with new 
 friends ; but she met his reproaches by modestly 
 stating the reasons which had induced her to take 
 this step ; and having spoken of the peace which 
 was obtained by obeying the "Word of God, she 
 said, " You too, my father, may share in this hap- 
 piness; but if you will not, I cannot stay and 
 perish with you." These simple words appeased 
 his wrath, and softened his heart. And not long 
 afterwards he repaired to New Herrnhut, bring- 
 ing with him his two sons, and the rest of his 
 family. " I wish that my children may be bap- 
 tized," he said to the missionaries, " for they are 
 young, and they desire to belong to Jesus. As 
 for myself, I dare not think of such a favour, 
 being very bad, and old too. Yet I will live and 
 die amongst you, for it refreshes my heart to hear 
 of the Saviour." 
 
 But there were also several cases in which the 
 parents could not be persuaded, and either en 
 
196 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 deavoured by force to carry away their children 
 from the mission settlement, or angrily renounced 
 all farther intercourse with them. 
 
 Some of the years now under review were dis- 
 tinguished by seasons of excessive cold and 
 scarcity. In 1767, all navigation being stopped 
 for some months by the ice, a famine prevailed, 
 accompanied by the usual shocking consequences 
 among the heathen, of old, helpless persons being 
 buried alive, and very many persons perishing of 
 liunger, especially orphan children. The brethren 
 liad always many applicants for relief in times of 
 dearth, and nothing tended more to recommend 
 llie Gospel to the hearts and consciences of the 
 heathen than the generous kindness they met 
 with from their converted fellow-countrymen. By 
 their newly-formed habits of forethought and 
 prudent economy, the Christian Greenlanders 
 were prepared for such seasons of distress, and 
 they were the more frugal in supplying their own 
 needs, that they might spare some of their stores 
 to the destitute, hungry crowds who daily flocked 
 to the settlement. "It is very good to be here," 
 said one of the heathen, " because the people love 
 one another so much." Nor was the compas- 
 sionate liberality of the converts confined to their 
 own countrymen. Nothing ever touched them 
 more deeply than the account of the destruction 
 which had Mien upon some of the mission set- 
 tlements in America. When they heard that a 
 party of savage? had suddenly attacked one of the 
 
RETURNS TO GERMANY. 197 
 
 stations, iiiUrdermg and burning, according to 
 their cruel customs, and that the poor Indian 
 Christians who had escaped with their lives had 
 lost their all, the whole congregation burst into 
 loud weeping. *' I have a fine reindeer skin to 
 give them," said one ; " And I have a new pair of 
 boots," cried another ; " And I have some oil," 
 said a third, &c., &c. All contributed according 
 to their ability, and the money procured by the 
 sale of their gifts was duly forwarded to the poor 
 refugees in Pennsylvania. 
 
 The thoughts of Matthew Stach were still bent 
 towards Labrador on the one hand, and on the 
 other to the establishment of a mission in South 
 Greenland. The poverty of the Moravian com- 
 munity threw, indeed, many difficulties in the 
 way of any new undertaking ; but in faith and 
 prayer they had encountered many difficulties, 
 and overcome them, and their long-tried mission- 
 ary had a good hope that in this case also the way 
 would be made plain before them. The mission 
 at ISew Herrnhut was well supplied with labour- 
 ers, additional missionaries having come out from 
 Europe ; and his early companions, John Beck and 
 Frederic Boehnisch, carrying on the work with 
 undiminished zeal, and an activity very little 
 impaired by years. It appeared to Matthew 
 Stach that the time was come when he might law- 
 fully hold himself in readiness for service in 
 another field; and at the end of twenty-one years' 
 labour in Greenland, he returned to Germany to 
 
198 MATTHEW STAOH. 
 
 place himself at tlie disposal of his brethren. 
 Shortly before his departure, the Danes had 
 founded another trading settlement in Fisher's 
 Bay, a narrow fiord about thirty- six leagues south- 
 ward of Godhaab. Kear the mouth of the bay ar& 
 two islands, from twelve to sixteen miles in cir- 
 cumference, on the southernmost of which the 
 Danes had established their factory. It so hap- 
 pened that Matthew Stach was obliged to take 
 shipping for Europe at this new settlement. Be- 
 fore embarking, he took a ^newof the surrounding 
 country, amongst the inhabitants of which were 
 many families who had occasionally spent the sum- 
 mer fishing season near New Herrnhut, and had 
 become acquainted with the missionary. They 
 prayed him that teachers might be settled in their 
 district also, and he imdertook to convey their 
 request to his brethren in Europe. Accordingly, 
 on arriving in Germany he laid the matter before 
 the congregation at Herrnhut, and applicatioQ 
 was made to the Danish government for permis- 
 sion to found the proposed mission. It was 
 promptly granted; but the Moravian Brethren 
 were not able to avail themselves of it until two 
 or three years had elapsed, during which the 
 inhabitants of the Fisher's Fiord still urged their 
 request for teachers as often as any of them visited 
 the missionaries. In the year 1757, however, it was 
 determined that Matthew Stach should undertake 
 this new mission, planting a little Christian settle- 
 ment at once, on the plan of that at New Herrn- 
 
FOUNDERS OF THE NEW SETTLEBIENT. 199 
 
 hut, with the help of some of the native families 
 from that place. Amongst the brethren in Ger- 
 many who had, in heart, devoted themselves to- 
 missionary labour was Jens Haven, who, like 
 Stach, cherished an ardent desire to proclaim the 
 Gospel in Labrador. But as it was not at that 
 time practicable to attempt anything for the 
 Esquimaux of that country, Jens Haven and his 
 brother Peter willingly agreed to accompany 
 Matthew Stach. They could make no extensive 
 preparations — a boat was almost the only article 
 of use and comfort which they carried with them. 
 They set out in March, 1758, crossed the 
 theatre of war unmolested, and proceeded to 
 Copenhagen ; but the ship lying there bound for 
 Fisher's Lodge and Godhaab was already so full 
 that they could not get a passage on board of her, 
 and were obliged to wait a month till another 
 vessel, bound for the Danish factory at Zukker- 
 top, one hundred leagues northward of their des- 
 tination, should sail. At Zukkertop they em- 
 barked for Godhaab in their open boat, and 
 reached it safely on the fourth dsij, after a rough 
 passage. Their arrival caused great gladness at 
 Is ew Herrnhut, where a consultation concerning 
 the proposed mission was quickly entered upon. 
 Tour native families, numbering in all thirty-two 
 souls, were selected to be, with the missionaries, 
 the founders of the new settlement, for which the 
 whole party set sail in July. But the first care 
 was to explore the fiord for the most suitable spot,^ 
 
200 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 The immediate neighbourhood of the Danish 
 factory was very congenial to European tastes, 
 being well watered, and covered with luxuriant 
 grass. But the missionaries knew that, desirable 
 as this spot appeared to themselves, it would be 
 far less agreeable to the Greenlanders, because 
 less suitable for their pursuits. And they en- 
 deavoured to find a place which should combine 
 these two advantages — a spring which was never 
 frozen to the bottom, and a strand which re- 
 mained open in winter, and was not at too great 
 a distance from the ocean, that the Southland 
 Greenlanders, who were mostly accustomed to 
 live near the open sea, might not be deterred, 
 by the dread of starvation, from frequenting the 
 new settlement and hearing the Gospel. Jso 
 such place was to be found in the fiord, excepting 
 Akonemiok, an island about three miles from the 
 ocean; and though it was so closely environed 
 with mountains that they could not catch a 
 glimpse of the sun, the missionaries, with their 
 usual self-denial, chose this spot for the sake of 
 the natives. They pitched their tents there on 
 the 24th July ; and the first care of all was to 
 erect more permanent dwellings, the missionaries 
 contenting themselves for the present with a 
 Greenland house, as they had no timber with 
 which to erect one after the European fashion. 
 So devoid was the site of building materials, that 
 they were forced to roll the stones to the spot, 
 bring the earth in bags from one place, and fetch 
 
ENCOURAGING PROSPECTS. 201 
 
 tht sods by water from another. They had, how- 
 ever, brought some laths for the roof from New 
 Ilerrnhut, and the sea wafted to them two large 
 pieces of timber, such as they needed to complete 
 it. Besides a small apartment for domestic pur- 
 poses, the house contained a room fifteen feet 
 square, which, until they could procure a church 
 and school, served for both. The roof was nearly 
 six feet high, without ceiling, and supported by 
 two pillars ; the laths covered with a double 
 layer of sods, cemented with earth to keep out 
 the rain, and old tent-skins being spread over 
 the whole ; the walls also were lined with skins. 
 
 At first the Greenlanders found it difficult to 
 maintain themselves, but afterwards discovered, 
 not far from home, a strait through which the seals 
 ran into a narrow bay, where they might be taken 
 in great numbers. It was not long before some of 
 the heathen dwellers in the neighbourhood came 
 to visit the new settlers, some instigated by curi- 
 osity, but more by a desire to hear the Word of 
 God. Most of them lived in places wliich in- 
 volved a journey of some miles over rugged rocks 
 before they could reach the mission station ; yet 
 they came frequently, especially at Christmas, 
 when the Christian natives and their teachers met 
 more often for public worship, and celebrated 
 their festival with joyful hymns and anthems of 
 praise. The first winter was so mild that neither 
 storms nor ioe hindered the people from going 
 out constantly to catch seals, &c.j in the neigh- 
 
202 MATTHEW STAOH. 
 
 bouring bays and creeks, by whicb means they 
 procured abundance of provisions, and were not 
 obliged to leave the station until the season for 
 the caplin fishery arrived, and all betook them- 
 selves to the teeming seas. The missionaries 
 who accompanied them frequently found attentive 
 hearers amongst the heathen natives who v^^ere en- 
 gaged in the same pursuit ; and if the mission- 
 aries were not present, the heathen frequently 
 invited their converted fellow-countrymen to 
 come into their tents, and speak to them the Word 
 of God. Nor was the simple testimony of these 
 native Christians without effect. By it manv 
 individuals, and even large families, were induced 
 to change their abode, and come to live near the 
 missionaries, though the removal was, in many 
 cases, detrimental to their temporal comfort. 
 Other native families, stopping at the station on 
 their migration northwards, heard the word of 
 God, their Creator, and the tidings of redemption 
 by the blood of Christ, for the first time, and with 
 great astonishment, and even emotion. They 
 could not, however, decide to stay and settle in 
 that neighbourhood; but the missionaries were 
 glad that they had got some intelligence of the 
 Gospel, and knew where to seek for it when they 
 wanted consolation. 
 
 The missionaries had named their settlement 
 Lichtenfels, i.e., Light-rock, from the colour of 
 the rocks which surrounded it. "-No one," says 
 the historian of the mission, " would conceive 
 
CHURCH AT LICHTENFELS. 
 
 20S 
 
 such a nook to be fit for the habitation of human 
 beings." Xor was any abundance or Tariety of 
 food to be obtained on the land, reindeer, eider- 
 
 LICHTENFELS. 
 
 fowl, &c., not frequenting the neighbourhood. 
 But the sea yielded cod and halibut, which the 
 natives stored for winter provision. The second 
 winter was very long, and excessively severe. 
 Looking from the mountain tops, towards the end 
 of May, the sea was still ice-locked as far as the 
 eye could reach. Both missionaries and natives 
 were now reduced to great straits, and though not 
 totally without food, owing to their prudent fru- 
 
204 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 gality, they were rarely able to satisfy their 
 hunger. But no one complained, and each helped 
 the others as far as he was able. All were much 
 encouraged by the accession, in the course of this 
 year, of several heathen families, numbering in 
 all fifty-five souls, who came to settle at Lichten- 
 fels, "in order," as they said, "to be converted.'' 
 In the third year from the foundation of the 
 settlement, the congregation consisted of one hun- 
 dred and thirty-seven natives. This increase in 
 their numbers made the missionaries long for a 
 church in which their people could assemble, for 
 they had no place of meeting large enough, and 
 bad weather often prevented them from holding 
 their services in the open air. Their brethren in 
 Europe had not been unmindful of their need, and 
 in the summer of 1761 materials ready framed 
 for a church and dwelling-house reached the 
 mission-station. The captain of the ship which 
 had brought them out lent some of his men to 
 assist in the erection ; and when the Greenlanders 
 had all returned from their fishing expeditions, 
 and were duly settled for the winter at Lichten- 
 fels, the church was solemnly dedicated to the 
 worship of God on the 1st November, being the 
 24th Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 After the services of the day were concluded, a 
 feast was held, in which all participated, and the 
 general spirit of cheerful thankfulness and good- 
 will made up for the simplicity of the fare, which 
 consisted chiefly of dried caplins. A hymn of 
 
A I'ECULIAR KAINBOW. 205 
 
 5)raise, composed by John Beck for this occasion, 
 and sung with great spirit by the Greenlanders, 
 closed the festivities. The church was larger than 
 that at New Hermhut. A dwelling-house of six 
 rooms immediately adjoined it, and behind it the 
 missionaries had industriously converted a boggy 
 piece of ground into a garden. In front Avere 
 the native houses ; on a height, at some distance, 
 lay the place of burial. Kidges of rock rose 
 around the station, and beyond them the wall of 
 ice-clad mountains. 
 
 In the following year the mission at Lichtenfel& 
 being now, by the blessing of God, well-esta 
 blished, and John Beck having come to assist 
 Matthew Stach in the charge of the congregation, 
 Jens Haven resigned his post. An opening ap- 
 peared now to be made for commencing a mission 
 in Labrador, and he returned to Germany that he 
 might prepare to enter upon his long-desired field 
 of labour. On the voyage homeward he was 
 o-ratified by the unusual appearance of a rainbow 
 which did not consist of the usual colours, but 
 was quite white with the exception of a pale grey 
 stripe in the middle. Shortly before the sailing 
 of the ship from Greenland, an equally unusual 
 but more beautiful sight had been presented to 
 some of the brethren who were near the Kook- 
 ornen islands, in Baal's Eiver. The islands ap- 
 peared, at first, much magnified as if seen through 
 a telescope, so that all the rocky points and 
 chasms filled with ice, were plainly discernible. 
 
206 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 After some time all the islets seemed connected 
 together, and took the shape of trees ; then the 
 scene shifting once more, a charming display of 
 ships in full sail with flying colours, mountain 
 castles with ruined turrets, and numberless other 
 objects, rose to view, which, after deluding the 
 eye for a short time with their fanciful imagery, 
 all either rose aloft, or receded in the distance till 
 they vanished out of sight. 
 
 Until the summer of 1763, death made no breach 
 in the band of brothers who had solemnly bound 
 themselves, twenty-eight years before, to the ser- 
 vice of the Gospel in Greenland ; but in that year 
 Frederic Boehnisch rested from his labours. His 
 course had been marked by unflagging persever- 
 ance. Watchful over everything which conceraed 
 either the temporal or spiritual interests of the 
 people, he could hardly be prevailed upon to 
 intermit smy of his accustomed duties, even when 
 sickness was visibly wasting his strength. The 
 latter months of his life were greatly cheered by 
 the presence and assistance of his son, who, having 
 been educated in Germany, and prepared for use- 
 fulness in the mission, returned to take part in 
 the work under the direction of his father. A 
 severe fall from a rock hastened the dissolution 
 of the elder Boehnisch. Feeling that his end drew 
 nigh, he desired that his friend Matthew Stach 
 might be sent for. To him he bequeathed the 
 care of the flock at New Herrnhut, until addi- 
 tional missionaries should arrive from Geimany, 
 
JOUENEY TO SOUTH GREENLAND. 
 
 207 
 
 His last earthly duty being now fulfilled, and 
 having received for the last time the Holy Com- 
 munion, Frederic Boehnisch tenderly bade farewell 
 to his wife and children, and departed, full of 
 hope and peace, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. 
 He was greatly lamented by the Christian Green- 
 landers, and many reproached themselves, now it 
 was too late, that they had not profited more by 
 the instructions of one who had so assiduously 
 cared for their souls. 
 
 In 1765, three additional missionaries anived 
 from Europe ; and Matthew Stach, still intent on 
 carrying the Gospel to South Greenland, proposed 
 to explore all the coast from Lichtenfels to Cape 
 Farewell, to discover the fittest spot for the mis- 
 sion settlement which he hoped to see eventually 
 planted there, and to preach the Gospel in every 
 place where he could find hearers. He calculated 
 that a year or more would be thus spent ; but the 
 many dangers, foreseen and unforeseen, with which 
 the expedition would probably be attended, made 
 his brethren and himself feel that it was indeed 
 uncertain whether they would ever meet again 
 in this life. He took an affectionate leave of the 
 conoi-egations at New Hermhut and Lichtenfels, 
 and begged their prayers that the Word of God 
 mio-ht be made known to the Southland heathen. 
 He was accompanied by several native converts 
 who had originally come from the South, and 
 who hoped to find out their kindred and persuade 
 them to listen to the glad tidings of a Eedeemer, 
 
208 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 Several months were spent in searching out the 
 
 coast; sometimes amid scenes of wild desolate 
 
 grandeur, where 
 
 " Drear Cold for ages 
 Thrones him ; and, fixed on his primaoval mound, 
 Kuin, the giant, sits." 
 
 But the dreaiy aspect of wildernesses of rock and 
 precipice would often have made the heart of the 
 missionary sink, had there not been, even in these 
 places, many immortal souls to whom he and his 
 assistants joyfully made known the message of 
 the Gospel. The spring of 1766 found them in 
 the warmest and most agreeable part of Green- 
 land, where numerous fiords wound thirty or 
 forty miles inland, having on their banks many 
 thickets and verdant spots, most refreshing to 
 eyes wearied with the monotony of ice and snow. 
 Several grassy levels showed traces of ancient cul- 
 tivation, and here also were iiiins of churches, 
 and even fragments of church bells. But the 
 heathen dwellers in the land had made the place 
 of Christian worship their cemeteiy, and its walls 
 were the quarry from whence they had taken stones 
 to close up the graves of their dead. Twenty 
 miles south of this series of fiords, lay the Eden 
 of Greenland, Isle Onartok ( Warmth). Here a 
 warm spring, perpetually bubbling up, in-igated 
 with its streams a luxuriant meadow-ground, ena- 
 melled with many-coloured flowers. On the oppo- 
 site coast many hundred heathen dwelt, amongst 
 whom the missionary found no small number of 
 
GREENLANDEIIS' IDEAS OF THE CREATOR. 209 
 
 heaiers. ITiat the seed so widely scattered in this 
 voyage found some hearts prepared to receive it, 
 appeared the next year, when many of the South- 
 land Greenlanders repaired to Lichtenfels. 
 
 And here it may be remarked, that although the 
 people, in their heathen condition, generally ap- 
 peared so engrossed with the cares and labours of 
 their hazardous mode of existence, as to have no 
 leisure for thought concerning things spiritual 
 and immortal, there were some amongst them of 
 a more reflective turn of mind ; men in whom 
 natural religion had spoken of an unknown God, 
 and who were ready to welcome the revelation 
 which He had given of Himself. A company of 
 baptized Greenlanders conversing together one 
 day, some of them expressed surprise that they 
 could have spent so many years of life in con- 
 tented ignorance and thoughtlessness, neither 
 knowing whence they came, nor whither they 
 were going. One of the party immediately re- 
 plied : " It is true that we were formerly ignorant 
 heathens, knowing nothing of God ; for who," 
 continued he, turning to the missionaries who 
 were present, "could have infonned us of Him 
 before your arrival ? Yet I have often thought, a 
 kayak, with the darts belonging to it, does not 
 exist of itself; it must be made with the trouble 
 and skill of men's hands, and he who does not 
 understand the use of it quickl}" spoils it. Kow 
 the least bird is made with greater art than the 
 best kayak, and no man can make a bird. But 
 
210 MATTHEW STACn. 
 
 man himself is yet far more artfully composed 
 than a bird ; who then can have made him ? 
 Some of our people say, that the first man rose 
 out of the earth. But I could never believe it ; 
 for if it were so, why do not men grow out of 
 the earth now ? And from whence did the earth 
 come ? and the sea, the sun, and moon ? Think- 
 ing upon all these things, I became sure that 
 there must be some One, far more mighty and 
 skilful than man, who had made them all. Yet 
 who has heard or seen Him ? Not one of us. But 
 I thought there might, perhaps, be, in some place, 
 men who had seen Him, or who knew something, 
 about Him ; and I wished that if there were any 
 such, I could speak with them. As soon, there- 
 fore, as I heard you speak of this mighty Lord, I 
 Avas glad, and I believed your words." Another 
 man added : " I, too, had such thoughts ; for it 
 seemed to me wonderful that we were so different 
 from other creatures, that they served us for food 
 and seemed made for our use ; and yet, although 
 there was no creature wiser than man, we often 
 felt afraid ; and when we thought of dying, we 
 feared lest some evil might come upon us after 
 death. I used to think, who can it be that we 
 are afraid of? we see no one above us in the 
 world. Can there be some Great One whom we 
 do not see ? Oh, if I could but know Him, and 
 '*\ave Him for my friend !" 
 
 In July 1766, the congregation at Lichtenfels 
 «rere rejoiced by the return of Matthew Stacb 
 
PIOUS EAGERNESS OF THE NATIVES. 211 
 
 from his exploring voyage. He was followed by 
 some of the strangers whom his exhortations had 
 awakened, and who now left their distant homes 
 to join themselves to the believers. In the fol- 
 lowing year many more came to hear a repetition 
 of the truths which the missionary had told them 
 during his sojourn in the South. Having re- 
 ceived permission to be present at the services of 
 the church, they attended with remarkable dili- 
 gence, and appeared to be greatly interested in 
 them, especially in those of Passion Week and 
 Easter. Sixty persons now joined themselves to 
 the inhabitants of the little Christian settlement ; 
 and a still larger increase took place at Kew 
 Herrnhut, where many of the natives who dwelt 
 on the neighbouring shores and islands, and had 
 heard the Word of God preached for years without 
 giving serious heed to it, now awoke, as it were 
 from slumber. Much to the surprise of the mis- 
 sionaries, messengers came also from a distance, 
 sent by an Angekok, named Immenek, a man of 
 wealth and consequence amongst his countrymen, 
 to bring him back, as he said, " good words." 
 He had grown gray in the practice of his art, bufc 
 had not been chargeable with the grosser crimes 
 of which many of its professors were guilty. 
 Kow, however, he was suddenly arrested in his 
 career by an alarming anticipation of future judg- 
 ment, and withdrew apart into a solitary place, 
 where he continued for several days, none know- 
 ing what had become of him. He had formerljj^ 
 
212 MATTHEW STACrr. 
 
 heard the missionaries preach, but had paid no 
 attention to their words ; but they returned i n 
 some degree to his mind now, and he came out of 
 his retirement, resolving to take up his abode 
 among the believers. Calling together all his 
 family and neighbours, he confessed that he had 
 been all his life imposing upon the credulity of 
 his countrymen, and declared that he would do 
 so no longer. As soon as the return of spring 
 enabled him to remove, with his children and all 
 that he had, he would go to New Herrnhut ; 
 meanwhile he sent three of his people to bring- 
 back, if possible, a teacher. Two of the national 
 assistants accompanied Immenek's messengers on 
 their return ; and were overjoyed at the recep- 
 tion which they met with, not only from the old 
 chief, but from all the inhabitants of his village. 
 They were scarcely allowed time to eat or sleep, 
 so eagerly did the people press to hear something 
 more of God and the Saviour; and it seemed as 
 if neither old nor young could be satisfied without 
 being told again and again, that " great wonder," 
 that the Almighty God came into the world to 
 die for fallen man. On the 1st of May, a long 
 procession of boats and kayaks was seen steering 
 towards New Herrnhut. Immenek. his kindred, 
 and neighboui's, were all come to learn the way 
 of life ; and the population of the settlement was 
 augmented by an accession of eighty persons. 
 ** In these," say the missionaries, " the parable of 
 tho sower and his seed was remarkably exempli- 
 
HIS IlETIllEMENT FROM THE MISSION. 213 
 
 Ged." From the hearts of some, the evil one 
 snatched away the seed of the A\'ord ; or the 
 weeds of earthly care stifled its growth. Others 
 leceived it with joy, but the ground was unpre- 
 pared by any deep conviction of sin, and the 
 quickly-springing plant was presently blighted 
 by temptation. But in the hearts of Immenek 
 and many others, the doctrine of redemption by 
 the blood of Christ became the root whence sprang 
 enduring fruits of righteousness. 
 
 In the year 1771 Matthew Stach closed his 
 long and successful labours in Greenland. The 
 infirmities of advancing age no longer permitted 
 him to take that active part in the mission which 
 liad been his delight ; and he returned to Ger- 
 many, to seek a post better adapted to the feeble- 
 ness of old age, yet where his remaining strength 
 might be spent in his Master's service. In a 
 letter addressed to him shortly before his depar- 
 ture, John Beck takes a grateful retrospect of the 
 years in which they had laboured together, and 
 of the increase which God had granted. From 
 this letter also we learn that the large addition 
 made of late years to the inhabitants of the mis- 
 sion stations was not an unmixed good. " We 
 two," he says, " have not yet put off the house of 
 clay from whence our beloved Frederic Boehnisch 
 departed, seven years ago, to the presence of Jesus. 
 AVe three it was who, in the year 1735, made that 
 solemn vow, one with another, wholly to follow 
 our Lord in this land ; to do all, and bear all, 
 
'214: MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 AS nnto Him ; and for His sake, and the souls of 
 these poor Greenlanders, not to love our lives 
 unto the death. He graciously accepted our desire 
 to serve Him, and in His unspeakable condescen- 
 sion and mercy has crowned our work with bless- 
 ing. He has kept His promise, though we have 
 often withstood Him ; for which I, for my part, 
 am truly ashamed, and do often with tears pray 
 Him to absolve me. These congregations, which 
 we have seen grow up from the very beginning, 
 and to which, according to the ability given unto 
 us, we have ministered ; how far do they exceed 
 all our early prayers, thoughts, and anticipations ! 
 How many times we besought Him, weeping, to 
 grant us even but one soul out of this nation; 
 because we knew that even one soul was more 
 precious than all the treasures of the earth in His 
 sight who had given His blood to redeem it. But 
 He stayed not at one. Already hath He gathered 
 into His treasure-house five hundred souls who 
 had fled to Him for refuge ; and nearly that num- 
 ber still dwell in the body at New Hemnhut, 
 while here also, at Lichtenfels, are three hundred 
 over whom His eye watches. Over these, on the 
 whole, I cannot but rejoice, and praise Him daily 
 for what He has done and is doing in their behalf. 
 For truly we have, in these our congregations 
 brethren and sisters in Christ whose heart's desire 
 it is to serve Him. Yet while we wander here 
 never will the wish cease to rise — Would to God 
 ye all might live before Him ! For we have now 
 
beck's letter; his death — stack's death. 215 
 
 amongst us too many wlio have outwardly joined 
 themselves to the believers, not knowing truly in 
 whom they believe ; and by these harm arises to 
 the others. In our early beginnings it was not 
 so. But now many of our people have come 
 amonsrst us because their kindred were become 
 Christians ; and while they conform to the regu- 
 lations of the settlement, and are not outwardly 
 blameable in conduct, I do not see that we ought 
 to exclude them. But I am sure that we do wrong 
 if we hastily administer to such careless souls the 
 blessings of the Church, and especially if we 
 encourage them to partake of the Lord's table. 
 For I have observed that such persons, after they 
 have been advanced to that privilege, settle down 
 careless and contented in their lukewarmness, 
 saying in their hearts, ' I have attained all now ; 
 there is nothing more for me to do.' " 
 
 The two elder sons of this excellent man de- 
 voted themselves to missionary service, and for a 
 few years laboured under his direction; at the 
 end of that time the brethren in Europe called 
 one- of them to join the mission in Labrador. His 
 father blessed him for the last time, and sent him 
 away. Soon afterwards, in the year 1777, the 
 veteran missionary fell asleep, having fulfilled 
 forty-three years of patient, faithful labour. His 
 last days were marked by much bodily suffering, 
 but no cloud darkened the peace and hope which 
 filled his mind. He had been permitted to see 
 the foundation of a third mission-station, so long 
 
216 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 the object of his prayers and those of his friend 
 Matthew Stach. It was situated on the shores of 
 a fiord a few miles distant from the Isle of Onar- 
 tok, amidst a large heathen population, some of 
 whom resorted to the missionaries with readiness. 
 Every year saw an increase in the number of con- 
 verts. This was joyful news to Matthew Stach, 
 who from his distant abode still looked constantly 
 towards the land in which he had fed his Master's 
 flock so many years. He had retired to one of 
 the American settlements of the brethren, en- 
 deared to him by the fraternal welcome extended to 
 himself and his Greenland converts twenty -three 
 years before. He occupied himself in the educa- 
 tion of the children ; but his warmest sympathies 
 were with the work which was being carried on 
 in Greenland and Labrador. The Christians of 
 another race who now surrounded him shared his 
 affection for their Esquimaux brethren, and in 
 the year 1783 joyfully celebrated with him the 
 jubilee of the Greenland mission. Four years 
 afterwards Matthew Stach rested from his labours. 
 The first attempt at planting a mission in 
 Labrador was made in the year 1 752, when some 
 London merchants assisted the brethren to fit out 
 a vessel for a trading voyage to the coast. Four 
 missionaries embarked in her, and also a Dutch- 
 man, named Erhard, who had* lately joined the 
 brethren, and who, in his previous occupation as 
 mate of a Greenland whaling-vessel, had acquired 
 some knowledge of the Greenlandic or Esqui- 
 
ILL-WILL OF THE ESQUIMAUX. 217 
 
 maux tongue. In July the ship arrived off the- 
 Labrador coast, and anchored in a large bay, 
 which the missionaries named Kisbet's Haven, 
 after one of the owners of the vessel. Here they 
 resolved to settle, built a wooden house — the frame 
 and materials for which they had brought with 
 them — and, in the cheerful anticipation of future 
 labour, called the place Hopedale. Erhard mean- 
 while proceeded with the ship farther north, for 
 the purpose of trading with the natives. As 
 they were afraid, however, to visit him on board 
 the ship, because of the guns which she cari'ied, 
 and pressed him greatly to come on shore to< 
 them, he went in an unarmed boat, with five of 
 the crew, into a bay where there were numerous 
 islands. None of the party returned again. The 
 boat which they had taken was the only one the 
 ship possessed, and the captain, after waiting some 
 days, and vainly endeavouring to ascertain what 
 had become of them, was obliged to return to 
 Kisbet's Haven, and to tell the missionaries that, 
 having lost so many of his best men, he could not 
 work the ship back to Europe unless they assisted. 
 him. They could not refuse, though they deeply 
 regretted to quit their work even before it was 
 begun. The following year the ship returned, and 
 tlie search made for Erhard and his companions re- 
 sulted in the melancholy discovery of their remains, 
 with evident marks of a violent death upon them. 
 This display of murderous ill-will on the part 
 of the Esquimaux forced the brethren to suspend. 
 
218 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 their design of planting a mission, thongli it was 
 never lost sight of. But in 1764 Jens Haven, who 
 had recently returned from Greenland, resumed 
 the enterprise. In England he was introduced to 
 Sir Hugh Palliser, Governor of Newfoundland, 
 who warmly approved of his design, and imme- 
 diately on arriving in the island issued a procla- 
 mation, requiring all persons whom it might con- 
 cern, to render Mr. Haven every assistance in 
 their power. Notwithstanding the Governor's 
 support, however. Haven had the greatest diJBfi- 
 culty in persuading the master of any ship to 
 land him on the coast of Labrador, so evil a 
 character did its inhabitants bear. He landed at 
 last in the Isle of Quirpont, off the north-east 
 extremity of Newfoundland, and had here his first 
 interview with the Esquimaux. " September 4," 
 he wi-ites in his journal, " was the happy day on 
 which I first saw an Esquimaux amve in the 
 harbour. I ran to him, and addressed him in his 
 own language, saying, ' I am your friend.' He 
 was struck with amazement to hear a EurojDean 
 speaking in his own tongue, but readily consented 
 to my request that he would go back and fetch 
 some of the chief men of his tribe, as I wished to 
 say something to them. Meanwhile, I put on my 
 Greenland dress, and met them on the beach, 
 inviting them to land. ' Hero is an Innuit ' 
 (countrj'man), exclaimed they, when they saw me. 
 I said, ' I am your countryman and friend.' They 
 -were much astonished, but behaved quietly, and 
 
MISSIONAKIES WELCOMED BY THE ESQUIMAUX. 219 
 
 we continued talking for some time. Then they 
 begged me to accompany them to an island about 
 an hour's row from the shore, where they had 
 left their wives and children, who would like, 
 they said, to see me. I hesitated for a moment, 
 for by going it was evident that I should place 
 myself entirely in their power. But it seemed so 
 essential to the commencement of a mission that 
 we should treat them with confidence, and become 
 better acquainted with the nation, that I confi:- 
 dently turned to the Lord in prayer, and thought, 
 ' I will go with them in Thy name. If they kill 
 me, my work is done, and I shall live with Thee ; 
 but if they spare my life, I will firmly believe 
 that it is Thy will they should hear and believe 
 the Gospel.' I went ; and as soon as we arrived 
 they all set up a shout, ' Our friend is come !* 
 They almost carried me to their encampment, 
 where I was so closely beset on all sides, I could 
 scarcely move, each man pushing forward his 
 family to be noticed. I prevailed with them, at 
 last, to sit down qaietly and hear what I had to 
 say. I explained my object in coming to visit 
 them, promising that if they were willing to be 
 taught I would return again next summer with 
 some of my brethren, build a house on their land, 
 and daily discourse with them of the way to hap- 
 piness and everlasting life. The next day eighteen 
 of the men returned my visit. I took this oppor- 
 tunity to inform them of the friendly disposition of 
 the British Government towards them, and promised 
 
220 MATTHirvV STACH. 
 
 that no injury should be done to them if they con- 
 ducted themselves peaceably; and to confirm them 
 in this assurance, offered them a written declaration 
 of Governor Palliser to the same effect ; but they 
 shrank back, supposing this writing to be alive ; 
 nor could I by any means persuade them to accept 
 of it. In the barter which they carried on with 
 the ship's crew, they constituted me their arbiter, 
 ' for,' said they, ' you are our friend.' " The fol- 
 lowing year Haven returned to Labrador, accom- 
 panied by three other missionaries, one of whom 
 had been long resident in Greenland. They were 
 welcomed in a most friendly manner by the Esqui- 
 maux, who praised Haven for being true to his 
 promise, and repeated much of what he had told 
 them in the preceding summer. On this occasion 
 the brethren had several opportunities of address- 
 ing the natives, and preached the Gospel to large 
 companies, who listened, at first, with eager curi- 
 osity, but when the novelty of the subject had 
 worn off, their interest in it quickly subsided. 
 Like their kinsmen, the Greenlanders, in their 
 heathen state, the people of Labrador cared 
 nothing for a subject which did not appear cal- 
 culated to assist them in their daily pursuits. 
 But they evinced the utmost confidence in the 
 goodwill of the missionaries ; and the latter de- 
 sired nothing more than to take up their abode 
 amongst them. Notwithstanding, however, the 
 favour with which Governor Palliser and several 
 persons of influence in England regarded the pro 
 
MISSION SETTLEMENT IN LABEADOR. 221 
 
 ject of a mission, difficulties were interposed by 
 others, which retarded the accomplishment of the 
 plan for several years. At length, in May, 1769, 
 an order in Council was issued, to the effect, 
 '• That the land desired in Esquimaux Bay should 
 be granted to the Unitas JFratrum, and their So- 
 ciety, for the furtherance of the Gospel among the 
 heathen, and they be protected in their laudable 
 undertaking." Again Haven sailed for Labrador, 
 and selected a suitable spot for the future mission 
 settlement, considerably to the north of the har- 
 bour which had been fixed upon in 1752. He 
 formally purchased the ground from the Esqui- 
 maux, who testified the highest gratification at 
 the proceeding ; and in the following year a com- 
 pany of fourteen persons, among whom were two 
 missionaries, a surgeon, and two or three men 
 well skilled in cai'pentry and smith's work, laid 
 the foundation of the little Christian community. 
 The place they called Nain. Some hundreds of 
 Esquimaux spent the summer in the neighbour- 
 hood of the station, but on the approach of winter 
 withdrew to various parts of the coast. Though 
 they had constantly visited the settlers, and list- 
 ened vdllingl}^ to the discourses of the mission- 
 aries, no lasting impression appeared to have been 
 made on their minds. But a few months after- 
 wards the brethren were agreeably surprised by 
 the tidings that Anauke, one of these savages » 
 being on his death-bed, had spoken of Jesus as 
 the Redeemer and Saviour of men, had continu- 
 
222 MATTHEW STACH. 
 
 ally prayed to Him, and departed in confident 
 reliance on His mercy. *' Be comforted," said he 
 to his wife, who began to shriek and howl, like 
 the rest of the heathen, at his approaching end; 
 *' I am going to the Saviour." His happy death 
 had a favourable influence on his countrymen, 
 who ever after spoke of him as " The man whom the 
 Saviour took to Himself" 
 
 Another instance of the effect produced by the 
 preaching of the Gospel was still more remark- 
 able, on account of the extreme youth of the 
 person affected by it, and her entire isolation 
 among the heathen during many succeeding years. 
 Among the natives who abode for a short season 
 near Nain were a man and his wife, with one 
 little daughter. The child heard the missionaries 
 speak of an Almighty Lord, who was also the 
 Friend and Saviour of men, and she never forgot 
 it. Her parents departed from the neighbour- 
 hood, and returned no more. They remained 
 contented in their heathen darkness. But the 
 little girl found a solitary place where, unknown 
 to her parents and her companions, she could go 
 and pour out her heart to that unseen Friend in 
 whom she had learnt to trust, though she scarcely 
 knew His name. The years of childhood were 
 hardly over when she became an orphan, and was 
 given in marriage by her kinsmen to a man of 
 most brutal character, who had already taken twa 
 wives. The miseries of this marriage did not 
 end with the death of her husband. By hi? 
 
DISASTROUS SHIPWEECK. 223 
 
 crimes he liad wronged many, who afterwards 
 revenged themselves upon his helpless widow 
 and children. The nnhappj children were so 
 miserably beaten that they died in consequence. 
 At this time of her deepest distress the poor 
 heart-broken mother was found by a country- 
 woman who had been converted, and who sym- 
 pathized in her sorrow. She conducted her suf- 
 fering sister to the missionaries ; and now, to the 
 joy of her heart, the poor woman heard again, 
 much more at large, of the Lord and Friend who 
 had redeemed her. She was shortly baptized, 
 and her exemplary conduct recommended the 
 Gospel to man}^. She learnt quickly to read and 
 write, and the missionaries looked forward to her 
 becoming veiy useful as a helper among her 
 countrywomen. But her days on earth were 
 short. By this time more than one little congre- 
 gation of converted natives had been formed. 
 The experience of a few years convinced the 
 missionaries that Nain was insufficient to serve 
 as a gathering-place for the Esquimaux dispersed 
 along six hundred miles of coast, and it afforded 
 them but scanty resources during the winter 
 season, when several would have been willing to 
 remain there. They resolved, therefore, to esta- 
 blish two other mission-stations, one to the north, 
 the other to the south. The voyage northward 
 was attended with disastrous consequences : the 
 ship was wrecked, and two of the brethren perished 
 in the waves. The survivors, however, set out 
 
224 MATTHEW STACK. 
 
 afresh the following year, and under the conduct 
 of Haven began a new settlement at Okkak, one 
 hundred and fifty miles north of Nain. A few 
 years afterwards the third station was founded at 
 Hopedale. In each of these places the mission- 
 aries met with many discouraging circumstances, 
 and encountered many dangers in the prosecution 
 of their work ; but their success, though not rapid, 
 w^as sufficient to animate them to perseverance. 
 *' In conclusion," says one of the annalists, from 
 whom the preceding particulars of the Greenland 
 and Labrador missions have been derived, " we 
 thank God who has raised up a seed to serve Him 
 in the deserts of the North. If the Lord of the 
 harvest, who has sent forth His labourers, con- 
 tinue to crown their w^ork with His blessing, we 
 may indulge the joyful anticipation that on the 
 great day when earth and sea shall render up 
 their dead, the frozen rocks and icy sepulchres of 
 Labrador and Greenland will yield no incon- 
 siderable proportion of their charge to swell the 
 choral shout which shall proclaim the finished 
 work of the Eedeemer, and the fulness of His 
 reward for the travail of His soul." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 •WTMAN AND SONS!, PEIXTI-ES, GREAT QUEEN STUEET, LONDOK. 
 
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