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story " by natives from far and near, gives promise of the 

 light. Signs of morning are in the zenith, and soon the 

 earth itself will be glorious with its effulgence. Moreover, 

 through the mercy of God, the memory of it shall ever be 

 associated with the memorial of the first bitter disappoint- 

 ment and grievous anxiety. 



It is the Holy Week. Daily services, such as are cus- 

 tomary throughout the Moravian world, have been com- 

 menced on Palm Sunday. Twice or even thrice a day 

 there have been natives who are willing to listen for an 

 hour and a half to two hours at a time to what of the lan- 

 guage the missionary can command. It is Good Friday. 

 He has reached the crucifixion, and is explaining that the 

 blood shed by Jesus Christ on the cross was for the taking 

 away of all sin, when some of the older men (praise God !) 

 exclaim " Kou-ja-nah ! (Thanks). We, too, desire to have 

 our badness taken away by that blood." 



It is Easter Sunday, at day-break, and forty people have 

 gathered about the grave of Brother Torgersen. They 

 sing, in the native language, three hymns of the Resurrec- 

 tion. It seems the message, that He died for our sins and 

 rose again for our justification, is balm for the wounds of 

 the hearts of Eskimos, as well as of the Caucasians who 

 have sent the messenger and of the Indian messenger who 

 brings them the glad tidings. They leave the grave, hav- 

 ing sung, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." 



A number of natives soon apply for membership in the 

 Church — some have already months ago hinted at such a 

 desire, before they realized the full significance of this 

 step. A period of instruction and probation follows, and 

 on September lo, 1888, eight are gathered in as the first 

 fruits of the Moravian Mission amongst the Eskimos in 

 Alaska. 



And yet they were not strictly speaking the first fruits. 

 For at Carmel, on April 22 previous, a German sailor of 

 about forty-five years of age, Louis Giinther, who had been 

 left in charge of the property of the Arctic Packing Com- 

 pany at Nushagak, and who had been led by the missionary 

 to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, had been con 



