CHAPTER XXVII 



THE ESKIMO AND THE MISSION 



IT was in 1771 that the missionaries of the Moi 

 vian Church came to Labrador. Before that time 

 very little was known about the Eskimo people. 

 Vessels seldom braved the stormy waters of Labrador, 

 or, if they did, they ventured but little among the 

 numberless rocks and islands that fringe the mainland. 

 So it came about that the Eskimos were seldom seen ; 

 and the few reports that were brought to the civilised 

 world by returning fisher crews described them as a 

 totally savage and uncultured people. They seem to 

 have deserved the name ; for the first men who 

 landed from the Mission ships were killed. 



But this ministering to those who live in the 

 remote corners of the world seems to have been a 

 specially attractive thing to the Moravian Church, 

 from the very beginning of its missions to the 

 heathen ; and here was a race, far off indeed, but 

 none the less included in the old command, " Go ye 

 . . . and preach the Gospel to every creature." The 

 missionaries came, and began their quiet work of 

 preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ by word and 

 example, a work that has been carried on without a 

 pause through all the years since then ; and so it has 

 come to pass that the bleak and terrible coast of Labra- 

 dor is peopled by a Christian race. Only at the furthest 



north are there still heathen ; a tribe of wanderers 



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