ON THE LABRADOR. 77 



time, between the visits of the Harmony, the mission 

 ship which keeps up the yearly communication between 

 England and the coast of Labrador. It is pleasant to 

 think that the Church of England has for many years 

 aided the Moravians by means of an affiliated society. 

 One thing at least is unquestionable that every 

 sovereign which the people of England and America and 

 Germany subscribe towards the Moravian Church is 

 made to do the work of two or three times that sum by 

 the single heartedness and the capacity with which it is 

 administered. 



The Moravians in Labrador have experienced one or 

 two strange difficulties in their task. Of these the 

 smallest is making the Old Testament, with its wealth 

 of pastoral detail, understandable to the Eskimo, not 

 one of whom has ever seen a horse. Sheep and cattle 

 they cannot realise or conceive of, for there are no 

 domesticated animals save dogs in that portion of the 

 peninsula. They comprehend the story of Esau the 

 hunter and that of Samson and the lion, which animal 

 can be translated as Polar bear, but of Abraham in the 

 land of Mesopotamia they can form no picture ; the 

 nearest approach to these ideas is drawn from the 

 harvest of the sea, seals and fish taking the place of 

 flocks and herds. So is the Bible interpreted to the 

 harsh meanings of northern life. 



One picture of Hopedale is still very vivid. On the 

 day after our arrival an old Eskimo hunter had died, 

 and his fellows bore his body to a wild high bluff along 

 the sides of which generations of their race have been 

 buried. At the head of the procession walked the 

 brother, who was conducting the service, and up the 

 steep path was strung out the entire population of 



