erected houses in a substantial fashion not far from the missionary
station, into which they received no Esquimaux except such as
expressed their sincere resolution to renounce heathenism. In Hopedale
they had often experienced the baleful consequences of being in the
neighbourhood of the heathen at Avertok. This was peculiarly evident
from a declaration of some of the baptized who had spent the winter
among them. A meeting was called on the 12th April 1786, to consult
about the subject, when all the men inhabiting the station attended;
it was held in the open air, and as the weather was exceedingly fine,
continued for upwards of three hours. Here the brethren were informed
of the transactions which had taken place the winter before, and one
professed believer thought himself bound to make a confession of the
superstitious and sinful practices in which he had formerly engaged.
As these were among the actions and deeds which ought not so much as
to be named among Christians, the brethren strictly forbade any such
confessions in future, but particularly in public, and before the
heathen; who being strongly addicted to the same abominations, and
unable to distinguish between a penitent confession and an actual
approval, might be hardened in their sins by hearing such narratives,
which they would naturally conclude proceeded from the pleasure the
persons still took in practices they delighted to talk of.

A new trial, of perhaps a more distressing kind, afflicted the
brethren, from an attempt made by a Roman catholic priest to seduce
the baptized and the inquirers, by presenting them with a form of
Christianity which had some appearance to that they saw among the
Moravians, while it permitted an indulgence in those vices which the
doctrines of the latter could not tolerate. A warm and a flattering
invitation sent by a Frenchman named Macko, from Canada, who had an
establishment in the south at Avertok, awakened with redoubled force