246 LABRADOR 
tion, were all seen to be parts of a great, cruel, vicious 
circle in. which these thousands were living. Neverthe- 
less, from the very first, I was not a pessimist. With 
vastly more certainty to-day, I hold to the view that the 
circle can be broken, all these people freed and elevated, 
and a sterling race of workers happily preserved. 
The Deep-sea Mission has set itself to help solve this 
problem, not merely by telling these men of the tenets of 
the Christian faith, as new facts of which they have never 
heard. The solution appears to the Mission to lie rather 
in example than in precept. The method aimed at is to 
illustrate in practice the attitude Christ would assume to-day 
in the varying phases of the fisherman’s life. 
From the inception of this work no man has, therefore, 
ever been engaged by the Deep-sea Mission in the capacity 
of priest or clergyman. Its staff has been always confined 
to laymen and to women specially trained in the various 
departments of work allotted to them. 
To the sick the message has been, last year: four 
hospitals, three power-launches carrying medicine-cases, 
and in winter well-equipped dog-sleighs, stout teams, and 
many thousands of miles covered in visits from Natasquahan 
in the Gulf of Nain on the northeast coast, and from Port 
Sanders on the west to Whooping Harbour on the east coast 
of Newfoundland. 
Within reach of the naked, over $2000 worth of clothing 
has been placed, their independence being carefully pre- 
served by work demanded in return wherever the recipients 
were able-bodied. 
In relation to equity, complaints have been brought be- 
fore the medical officer as honorary magistrate, and as far 
