196 THE LABEADOR PENINSULA. chap, xxxiir. 



families croucliing under the bark roofs of their 'tilts' on 

 the Labrador. 



At Quirpon, on the Newfoundland coast of the Straits 

 of Belle Isle, the Enghsh residents meet during the 

 winter season at the house of the only person who can 

 read the service and a sermon, and join him as they are 

 able in the services of the Church. To him they apply 

 to baptise their children, and it is not therefore to be 

 wondered at that they call him, though but a fisherman 

 like the rest, their minister.* The influence of the French 

 fishermen, who utterly neglect the Lord's day, and fish 

 and work commonly as on other days, is very pernicious ; 

 nevertheless the poor English people on this part of the 

 coast attend the service of their fisherman ' minister ' at 

 ' scattered times ' during the winter months, and do what 

 they can, according to their knowledge of right and 

 wrong, to preserve the worship of God amongst them. 



Such is a brief history of the Church on the Labrador 

 coast. The privations and trials of the missionaries are 

 not so great as one would suppose from the character of 

 the country. Every summer they are visited by thousands 

 of fishermen, who afford them the means of communicat- 

 ing with the outer world. 



In 1853, the Bishop of JSTewfoundland writes: — 'We 

 gladly accepted an invitation to drink tea in the Mission 

 House (Forteau Bay), and, saving the wooden walls of 

 the room, and the side of the Canadian stove flush with 

 the ^vall (the body of the stove being in the kitchen, and 

 serving for culinary purposes as well as warmth), we 

 might have fancied ourselves in one of the neat parlours 



* Bishop of Newfoundland 's Journal, 1853. 



