20 The Work. 
Nohoat, had a brother-inlaw—Topoe—next in dignity to 
himself. In 1850 he gave a great feast, and the following year 
the chiefs who had been his guests resolved to return the com- 
pliment. It occurred to them at the same time that they might 
take this opportunity of annihilating the mission. Small and 
insignificant as it was, they could not conceal from themselves 
the fact that it was daily growing in vigour. If it should over- 
spread the land, what would become of their poor Natmases ? 
and as they were all chief men, and makers of diseases, &c., 
what would become of their revenues? So they determined, 
under cover of this feast, to destroy or drive away the mission- 
ary. This plot came to Mr. Geddie’s ears. He found the 
danger to be a very real one. Round the festive board there 
would assemble some of the chiefs who had defied his influ- 
ence, and who were thirsting for the blood of his little flock. 
But the Lord brought the counsel of the heathen to nought. 
Topoe, it seems, had intimated his intention of joining the 
christian band as soon as this feast was over. He thought he 
could not, as a christian, keep a heathen feast. But God helped 
him to take a nobler course. He and his followers abandoned 
heathenism, and openly joined the christian interest before the 
feast. It would have been contrary to savage etiquette, I sup- 
pose, for the givers of the feast to assassinate their guests. At 
all events, they didn’t do it. And so this storm passed away, 
leaving a clearer sky, and a wider horizon round the rejoicing 
inmates of the mission house. A month after, Mr. Geddie 
wrote, “ We have had many accessions of late.” ‘“Nohoat pro- 
fesses a great desire for religious instruction. At his own re- 
quest I send a native every evening to conduct family-worship.” 
This was the chief who was going to strangle his dying child’s 
mother. The house of the murderer is becoming a christian 
home. 
The heathen were discomfited by Topoe’s apostacy—but 
not conciliated. They showed their enmity against every 
