Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 27, 2025
Letter from a converted Esquimaux to his teacher. Industry of the awakened. Declension of religion at Nain, and Okkak. State of the children at Hopedale. Progress of the adults in knowledge, love, and zeal instances. Striking conversion of two young Esquimaux, its effects upon their countrymen. Awakening spreads to Nain and to Okkak. Zeal of the converts towards the heathen rouses backsliders.
We therefore now considered the business committed to us to be accomplished, and determined to return to Okkak, thankful to God our Saviour for the many proofs of His favour, and protection, experienced in the execution of our commission. Return to Okkak. September 1st. At ten A.M. we fell down the river with the ebb-tide, and about noon anchored near its mouth.
The increase of their number was gradual, and their advance in the Christian course quiet but perceptible; and at Okkak they had the pleasure of readmitting, upon their repentance and acknowledgment of their sin, the members they had been forced to exclude for their misconduct during the past season; and it is not the least among the mercies of God towards the brethren, nor one which ought to be passed over in silence, the benefit which their congregations derive from the kind and judicious, yet firm administration of church discipline; in a majority of instances it answers the ends for which it was instituted the brother is gained instead of being driven away to associate with the world, and to nourish a spirit of dislike, if not of hatred, towards those with whom he was formerly in fellowship a melancholy consequence when this ordinance of the Saviour is not attended to in the spirit of love.
They completed the journey on sledges in fifteen hours, of which they transmitted the following notes "May 19th, at eight in the evening we arrived at Apparnaviarsak, in the neighbourhood of Kangertluksoak; here we found four tents of our Esquimaux, and in three, others of the Nain people who had resolved the next summer to go to Okkak: all expressed the greatest joy at our coming, and all frankly reached out their hands to welcome us.
Several boats were here from Kittinek and Nachvak bound to Okkak. Kangertluksoak lies about sixty miles north of Okkak, is an agreeable place, and has a good strand, and safe anchorage. 30th. Being Sunday, the Missionaries went on shore, and visited all the Christian families, by whom they were received with the most lively expressions of affection and gratitude.
At last Rebecca, one of the baptized, had compassion on her in this disconsolate situation, and brought her to Okkak. Here the missionaries soon perceived such an earnest desire after salvation as they say they had never before seen in any Esquimaux, though she at first spoke but little. In 1789, she was baptized, and soon after was a partaker of the holy supper.
A hundred persons, of whom fifteen were baptized, and three candidates for baptism, went from Nain and Okkak in eleven boats.
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."
At the close of 1819, brother Schreiber returned to Europe, and brother Kohlmeister succeeded him as superintendant of the Labrador missions, for which he was well adapted, both by his knowledge of the country and the language. In the former year he had performed a voyage from Okkak to Nain, very different from that remarkable journey in 1804.
Though we wished to have some conversation with the Killinek people, as they cannot often come to Okkak, yet we thought it adviseable to lose no time, and, with the ebb-tide, passed through the Ikkerasak in perfect safety. 14th. Reached Oppernavik, where we first met Uttakiyok. 15th. Set sail with a gentle breeze, which permitted us to have our Sunday's service on deck.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking