surrounded by a great crowd, who took the missionaries under the arm,
and shook them by the hands, and then conducted them from tent to
tent, where they proclaimed to them the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Mikak invited them into her large tent, and begged they might hold a
meeting in it. Soon upwards of seven hundred Esquimaux were collected
within and around it, to whom Drachart, for the first time, preached
the gospel, and was heard here, as elsewhere, with the utmost apparent
attention. When he had finished, Mikak and her husband began to
testify, in their own simple manner, how the Lord in heaven had become
man, and died for their sins. Supposing that this alluded to their own
murders, some of their countrymen appeared startled, and cried out,
"Ah! that is true, we are sinners, and old murderers; but we will
never more carry concealed knives, either under our arms or under our
clothes; and we shall never have bows and arrows hid in our kaiaks,
because the Lord in heaven has said, Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by
man his blood shall be shed. If we kill Europeans, as we did three
years ago, then we deserve that they should kill us and our
countrymen." But they seemed likewise alarmed lest the boats they had
then taken should be demanded back; but Mikak and her husband
explained that the Europeans did not come to desire them to give back
the boats, but that certainly if they did so any more they would be
punished. "That is good!" they replied "we believe your words, Mikak;
and shall also love the great and powerful chief you saw in London,
and his people, and will trade honourably with them;" and renewed
their protestations of affection for the missionaries, telling them,
"Now we are brethren." Drachart seized the opportunity of explaining
what he meant by brethren:--"Ye have heard that many of the
Greenlanders are our brethren; now you must learn rightly to
understand why we call one another brethren. Hear what the reason
is,--our hearts and the Greenlanders are fast bound together by the