CONFESSING CHRIST.

91

discern more and more that Kajarnak has got a hook in his heart, that he will scarcely lose again. He has always something in his mind, either a short ejaculation, or a text that he has heard of us. He also told us, that he was often reminded in his inward man to pray. From that time he visited us more frequently, and at last came to live entirely with us. When we speak to him, he is often so affected, that the tears roll down his face. He is a very particular man; whom we cannot but wonder at, when we consider the great supineness and stupidity of the Greenlanders, and that they can comprehend nothing but what they are daily conversant with. But this man scarce hears a thing twice, before he understands it, and retains it in his mind and heart. At the same time, he shews an uncommon love to us, and a constant desire to be better instructed; so that he seems to catch every word out of our mouths, which we have never perceived in any Greenlander before. 0 dear brethren, how many an agreeable hour have we now, after so much sorrow, when we speak and pray with this man! Help us to intreat the faithful Saviour that he would shed abroad his light all over this nation, and give them ears to hear, and hearts to understand, and that he would hasten his work of grace on this firstling, that we and you may soon see his glory in Greenland according to our hope; and as for us, we have now an antepast of it. The Lord be praised for the little he gives us to see, and for letting us attain the aim of our faith in a small degree, after having waited five years in a believing hope."

"With the heart," says the apostle Paul, "man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation;" David also well knew the connection between the enjoyment of God's pardoning mercy, and the confessing of His name, when he prayed, "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors in the way, and sinners shall be converted unto thee." And this was now realized in the experience of Kajarnak, his heart was full, and out of the abundance of his heart, bis mouth spoke; nor were his words without effect. His family, or tent-companions, consisting of nine persons, were the first that were brought

under convictions by the conversation and example of this converted heathen; and before the end of the month, three large families of Southlanders came, and pitched their tents by the brethren. They came to hear the joyful news of their redemption; and when the brethren could find no words sufficiently intelligible to express their meaning, Kajarnak helped them, out of the fulness of his heart. The heathen were all very much moved, and several, even of those that had been opposers at first, declared that they would now believe, and would stay at New Herrnhuth during the winter, though but few kept their word. Most of them went away soon after upon the reindeer hunt; they took leave with tears, and promised to come again towards winter. But Kajarnak would not go with them, for fear his soul should suffer harm, which, alas! was the case with the rest of them; for though they came again, yet they were grown very wild, and after some time they went quite away.

Poor Kajarnak, having no tent of his own, was brought into great difficulty. The Brethren offered him their own dwelling, though it was but very small. But he only desired a couple of skins for a tent, and said, that this was the third time his friends had shewed their displeasure at his refusal to conform to their heathenish practices, by forsaking him, and taking with them the women's boat and tent, in the building of which he had assisted them.

Indeed, the Brethren were always much concerned, lest his friends should entice him away; for they took all opportunities to exaggerate the difficulties of his new way of life, contrasting the bondage he would be under as a Christian, with their own supposed freedom in fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and of the mind, and at the same time they endeavoured to make the teachers contemptible, and their doctrines, morals, and friendship suspicious. But Kajarnak knew, that while they spoke these great swelling words of vanity, they themselves were the servants of corruption, he knew by the experience of his own heart, that the service of the master whom he had chosen was the only freedom, and that those only whom the Son of God makes free, are free indeed. As to his teachers, he believed them to be men

CATECHUMENS-A SCHOOL.

93

of God, their words had come to him in the demonstration of the Spirit, and the calumnies of his countrymen could not shake his confidence in them. To his teachers he ingenuously disclosed all which he had heard to their disadvantage among the heathen, with them he conferred about all his concerns and projects, and the sincerity and truth which characterized all his words and actions, confirmed the Brethren in the conviction, that the Lord had indeed begun a good work in his soul. The wisdom and fortitude with which Kajarnak met the taunts and reproaches of his unbelieving countrymen, were truly wonderful; when they poured contempt on him and his teachers, instead of long vindications, he only replied, "And yet I will stay with them and hear the words of God, which have once tasted so well to me." If they would hear him, he spoke; if they reviled him, he held his peace, after he had borne his testimony to the truth in a few serious words. At last he gained so much influence over his nearest friends, that they resolved to move again to the Brethren; and when the Brethren went to fetch them, some other families begged they would allow them a place, and assist them in building a house, which they cheerfully promised.

Thus, in the beginning of October, when the snow and frost set in, and the Greenlanders remove out of their tents into their winter-houses, above twenty persons were lodged together in two houses; one of these huts was, however, soon deserted by its inhabitants, but with the two remaining families of Kajarnak and his relation Simek, who occupied the other, the Brethren commenced a regular course of instruction. Every morning and evening they prayed with, and catechized these poor heathen; and on Sundays, a passage out of the Bible, was read and explained to them. Five of these persons, whom the brethren could look upon as the nearest candidates for baptism, were set apart for additional instruction: they also began a school with five children. Although the difficulty of fixing the attention of the Greenland children, and the apathy of their parents, who could not see what advantage was to be derived from reading and writing, rendered the management of this school in the beginning very laborious; yet

the toil of the Brethren was soon amply repaid, when they heard some of the Greenlanders reading in their own tongue the wonderful works of God.

When the Greenlanders were sick, the Brethren were obliged to be their doctors; and though they themselves were inexperienced, yet the Lord blessed their few medicines in various cases. Concerning this they write: "We have no wonder-working faith, nor do we desire it, but we see that God blesses the medicines which our brethren have sent us in kind love, not only to bodily cures on the Greenlanders, but to increase their confidence towards us; so that they are more attentive when we point out the human misery, and display the love of God; and can we be of any service to the bodily health of these poor people, it will without doubt, have a good effect upon their souls."

Two invalids expressed a desire to have a form of prayer adapted to their circumstances, and the Brethren indulged them in it, though they informed them, at the same time, that they might always, and in all places, spread their complaints before our Saviour, out of their own hearts. When they replied, that they did not know suitable words for it, the Brethren set their children as a pattern before them, who simply tell their desires to the parents without studying for words, and are directly heard. Through the power of the Gospel, these new comers were also kept from sinking under the trial of sickness; and though the common Greenlanders have a more dreadful fear of death than any nation, yet there was but little of it to be perceived even in these unbaptized beginners; Kajarnak declared, in a very bad fit of sickness, that he had no freedom nor inclination to beg of God for his bodily restoration, but was resigned to him to do with him according to his own will.

But, in the midst of these encouragements, a circumstance occurred, which shewed the Missionaries how easily these weak and inexperienced disciples might be drawn aside, to participate with the heathen in practices which are inconsistent with Christian sanctity. At the return of the sun at the winter solstice in December, the heathen living at New Herrnhuth were invited by some savages to a dance, and though they were warned

MISSIONARIES APPLY FOR AID.

95

against it, yet most of them went thither secretly. They were told, from Exod. xxii. and 1 Cor. x., how dearly it had cost the people of God to follow such worldly merriments, in former times. The greater part of them were convicted and ashamed, yet the Brethren were obliged to hear, to their grief, how readily some could justify themselves, by referring to the example of others, who had participated in such worldly

amusements.

This circumstance was not without its use, as it shewed the Brethren the necessity of constantly watching over their weak, inexperienced sheep, exposed as they were, to so many allurements and bad examples; that so the seed of God's word might not be choked in its earliest tender growth. They therefore went, as much as possible, with these heathen disciples on their fishing and hunting excursions. And when the Missionaries themselves went out with their boat to procure wood, turf, or other necessaries of life, they always left one at home with the Greenlanders, that their daily instruction might not be interrupted, and that the seed of divine truth might be sown among the strange heathen who occasionally visited New Herrnhuth.

The Brethren could not have accomplished these designs but for the kindness of their friends in Europe, who sent them a new boat, this useful present also enabled them to follow the people of the factory twice, in voyages which they made along the coast for the purpose of trading with the Greenlanders. The Brethren seized these opportunities to preach the Gospel to the savages, to explain those truths which they had formerly heard, to separate them from their national superstitions and fables, with which they had adulterated them in their own minds, and to spur them on to true conversion. Four men were not sufficient for all this spiritual and bodily labour, and they were but four, as Christian Stach was this year gone again to Germany, in pursuance of a call given him. The Brethren there

fore resolved to apply to the congregation in Europe for two additional helpers, at the same time requesting, that if it were possible, the frame-work of another house might be sent them; as their present habitation, besides being in a ruinous condition, had been originally inten