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Jacob came first to the brethren at Nain. He was in the beginning apparently very earnest in seeking his soul's salvation and was baptized in 1801.
Lazarus went up, while Dives went down; and there are candidates for Imperial splendors in the back alley, and by the peat-fire of the Irish shanty. King Jesus set up His throne in a manger, and made a resurrection day for the poor widow of Nain, and sprung the gate of heaven wide open, so that all the beggars, and thieves, and scoundrels of the universe may come in if they will only repent.
We got away from the noisy wretches, finally, dropping them in squads and couples as we filed over the hills the aged first, the infants next, the young girls further on; the strong men ran beside us a mile, and only left when they had secured the last possible piastre in the way of bucksheesh. In an hour, we reached Nain, where Christ raised the widow's son to life.
More than a hundred Esquimaux, during the summer, planted their tents round Nain, to whom the missionaries preached the gospel.
The widow Esther, however, deserves particular notice; she was bred at Kilanok north from Okkak, and when a child came on a visit to Nain in 1773, where she and her countrymen heard for the first time the missionaries speak of the Creator and Redeemer of men; this made a great impression upon her, and though a child, and surrounded only by the heathen, it constantly occurred to her mind, "It is he who made all things and knows all things; he, therefore, knows me and can help me."
The Nain Rouge may have been the Lutin that took Jacques L'Esperance's ponies from the stable at Grosse Pointe, and, leaving no tracks in sand or snow, rode them through the air all night, restoring them at dawn quivering with fatigue, covered with foam, bloody with the lash of a thorn-bush.
Then the grandmother sings the owl song in which Indian babies delight: "Ah wa nain, ah wa nain, Who is this, who is this, Giving light, light bringing To the roof of my lodge?" The singer changes her voice to imitate a little screech owl and answers: "It is I the little owl Coming Down! down! down!" As she sings, she springs toward the baby and down goes the little head.
In the following summer there were above two hundred Esquimaux in thirty-seven tents near Nain, and they were so assiduous in their attendance on the meetings, that the new hall could not contain the crowd that anxiously pressed to hear, and some were entered among the candidates for baptism. Liebisch brought with him a commission for Jans Haven to commence a new settlement.
When the accounts of Brazen's departure reached the Unity Elders' Conference, they appointed Samuel Liebisch superintendant of the mission, who, on the 16th August, the same year, arrived at Nain with some new assistants to the mission.
The immense abundance of these fish on all parts of the coast, would almost at any time save the Esquimaux from starving with hunger; but as seals furnish them both with food and clothing, it is of most consequence to them to attend to this branch of supply. At Hopedale and Nain, however, salmon-trout are caught only in the summer.
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