34 AN ESKIMO VILLAGE 



thusiasm. " If God wills," he said, " I will go as 

 a missionary to those same Eskimos." 



But the time had not come ; he must possess his 

 soul. Six years he waited, working at his carpentry ; 

 but through all the waiting his zeal was unquenched. 



At last, in the year 1758, Count Zinzendorf, the 

 head of the Moravian Church, suggested that this 

 little man should go to Greenland. Our little car- 

 penter may have been downcast at this. But he was 

 a hero ; he went to Greenland. Now, see the hand 

 of God in all this. Jens Haven this was the little 

 carpenter's name went to Greenland and became a 

 missionary there. He learnt to know the Eskimos 

 and their ways ; he learnt their language, which, 

 after all, is very like the language of the Eskimos 

 of Labrador. If the call should come for Jens to 

 go to Labrador, he was in every way fitted. After 

 four or five years in Greenland he returned home, 

 and after a while the call came. The little car- 

 penter's dream was coming true ; to Labrador he 

 went, with the Eskimo language on the tip of his 

 tongue and a suit of Greenland Eskimo clothes in 

 his box. 



There was a wonderful scene when Labrador was 

 reached. The sight of an Eskimo paddling about in 

 his skin canoe gave Jens the idea of dressing in his 

 Greenland clothes ; a sturdy, square-shouldered little 

 man, he looked every inch an Eskimo. He went 

 ashore, and greeted the folk in their own language. 

 "Aksuse," he said. "Be strong, every one of 

 you ' ' the real Eskimo greeting of friendliness and 

 brotherhood. The people were delighted ; they 



