Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission of the Church Missionary Society Part 4

"I first drew forth their views of the necessity of repentance, its details, and their own personal acquaintance with it. I then questioned them as to the Three Persons of the Trinity, and the special work of each, with allusion to the Judgment, and the state of the soul hereafter, inquiring into their private devotion, to learn their personal application of repentance and faith, I questioned their anxiety for baptism, and demanded proof of their resolution to keep the will of G.o.d for their guide, to speak for G.o.d, and to labour for G.o.d's way all their life long. I sought to find out the circ.u.mstances under which they first became seriously inclined, and to trace their steps of trial and grace. Admitting them to the promise of baptism, I exhorted them to earnest prayer and devotion, as a special preparation, until the time came.

"The examination concluded, the candidates, to the number of fifty-six, were a.s.sembled in the church, and ranged in a large circle, in the midst of which the ceremony was to take place.

"The impressiveness of the occasion was manifest in the devout and reverent manner of all present. There were no external aids, sometimes thought necessary for the savage mind, to produce or increase the solemnity of the scene. The building is a bare and unfinished octagon of logs and spars--a mere barn--sixty feet by sixty, capable of containing 700 persons. The roof was partly open at the top; and, though the weather was still cold, there was no fire, A simple table, covered with a white cloth, upon which stood three hand-basins of water, served for the font, and I officiated in a surplice. Thus there was nothing to impress the senses, no colour, or ornament, or church decoration, or music. The solemnity of the scene--was produced by the earnest sincerity and serious purpose with which these children of the Far West were prepared to offer themselves to G.o.d, and to renounce for eer the hateful sins and cruel deeds of their heathenism; and the solemn stillness was broken only by the breath of prayer. The responses were made with earnestness and decision. Not an individual was there whose lips did not utter in their own expressive tongue their hearty readiness to believe and to serve G.o.d."

The following are some of the Bishop's notes of the examination:--

"Legaic (princ.i.p.al chief), aged 40.--_Answers_:--We must put away all our evil ways. I want to take hold of G.o.d. I believe in G.o.d the Father, who made all things, and in Jesus Christ. I constantly cry for my sins when I remember them. I believe the good will sit near to G.o.d after death. Am anxious to walk in G.o.d's ways all my life. If I turn back it will be more bitter for me than before. I pray G.o.d to wipe out my sins; strengthen me to do right; pity me. My prayers are from my heart. I think sometimes G.o.d does not hear me, because I do not give up all my sins. My sins are too heavy. I think we have not strength of ourselves.

"Neeash-lakah-noosh (called 'the Lame Chief'; he is blind also of an eye; fine old man), aged 70--_Answers_:--When asked if he wished to become a Christian, said--For that object I came here with my people. I have put away all lying ways, which I have long followed. I have trusted in G.o.d. We want the Spirit of G.o.d. Jesus came to save us.

He compensated for our sins. Our Father made us, and loved us because we are His work. He wishes to see us with Him because He loves as. When asked about the judgment, said, The blood of Jesus will free those who believe from condemnation. _Remarks_--Under regular instruction for a year, and before that for some time by his daughter. Is most consistent, trying to do simply what is right. The other day was benighted on Sat.u.r.day, on his way to spend the Sunday at Metlakahtla, seven miles off. Would not come on, nor let his people gather herring sp.a.w.n, close under their feet, he rested the Lord's Day, according to the commandment.

"Lappigh k.u.mlee, aged 30--_Answers_--I have given up the lucrative position of sorcerer. Been offered bribes to practise my art secretly. I have left all my mistaken ways. My eyes have been bored (enlightened). I cry every night when I remember my sins. The great Father Almighty sees everything. If I go up to the mountains He sees me. Jesus died for our sins upon the cross to carry our sins away. _Remarks_--Dates his change from seeing a convert reading a book, and he felt ashamed that he knew nothing, and he determined to learn, and soon he found his own system false. In one case, when his spirit said there would be recovery, death came; in another, when he foretold death, life remained.

"Thrak sha kawn (sorcerer), aged 50--_Answers_--I wish to give up all wicked ways. Have been a medicine-man, and know the lies of heathenism. I believe in the great Father who made us, in Jesus who died on the cross that G.o.d would pity us. I want the Spirit of G.o.d to touch my heart. We must all stand before G.o.d. G.o.d will measure our ways. No one to be his master but G.o.d. I will not keep my eyes on the ground any more but will look up to heaven all my life. _Remarks_ --He has had to bear much scorn, and to go through much struggle.

"Wahthl (wife of Legaic), aged 40--_Answers_--I wish to put away evil and have a clean heart. Feel the pain of the remembrance of sin so bad I would sometimes like to die. I want to seek G.o.d's face, but feel little hope, still I determine to persevere, though miserable. Loss of relatives, and finding no peace and rest, and feeling in darkness led me to look to G.o.d. I know that G.o.d sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins. _Remarks_--About nine months under regular instruction. She is evidently anxious for her soul, knows the truth, but her sins are such a burden that she has not found peace. She has been anxious her husband should go forward in good.

"Loosl (widow of the cannibal chief who died penitent), aged 25-- _Answers_--I know how blind I have been. Was first turned to G.o.d by the news of the Saviour. Was struck that He came down amongst us.

G.o.d is a spirit full of love. Christ came to carry away our sins. We must pray for the Spirit to help us. I confess my sins to G.o.d and cry for pity. I pray for my friends. After death the judgment. We must stand before G.o.d. Jesus will answer for those who trust in Him.

_Remarks_.--Upheld her husband in his wickedness. Was turned by his turning at his death.

"Nishah-kigh (chieftainess of the Nishkahs), aged 45--_Answers_:--I must leave all evil ways. I feel myself a sinner in G.o.d's sight. I believe in G.o.d the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ, who died for our sins. G.o.d sends down His Spirit to make us good. Jesus is in heaven, and is writing our names in G.o.d's book. I feel G.o.d's Word is truth. Have been for some time accustomed regularly to pray. _Remarks_.--Two years ago she was found giving Christian instruction to a sick and dying person. Her husband tells me she pa.s.sed much time in devotion. When she first heard the Word of G.o.d her sorrow was great, and her penitence more than she could bear. Some five years she has been earnestly seeking G.o.d.

"Nayahk (wife of Lappligheumlee, a sorcerer), aged 25.--_Answers_: --Answers well and clearly upon the separate work of each Person of the Trinity. Prays for pardon--for the Holy Spirit. _Remarks_.--Suffered much from the mockery of her husband. At her earnest demand he gave up devilry. Been consistent in the midst of opposition; adhered to the Mission when many were against. Has been a blessing to her family, all of whom have renounced heathenism. Her husband, the sorcerer, laments his past life, and would be the first to put his foot upon the evil system.

"Ad-dah-kippi (wife of a Christian Indian), aged 25.--_Answers_:--I must put away sin. I know I have been making G.o.d angry, but must put away all my old ways, lies, and the evil of my fathers. G.o.d gave us commandments. G.o.d would not hear us till we put away our sins, Jesus would make peace for us and add His Spirit. Am resolved to endeavour to live to G.o.d all my life. Was much moved last fishing at my sinfulness, and then repented strongly, and resolved to walk with G.o.d. I pray morning, noon, and night for pardon and G.o.d's Spirit. _Remarks_.

--Had opposed her husband, who is a Christian."

One of those baptized, it will be seen, was the famous head-chief himself, Legaic, the same who had threatened Mr. Duncan's life four years before. He had been a ferocious savage, and had committed every kind of crime. After he first began to attend the school, he twice fell back; but the Spirit of G.o.d was at work in his heart, and when the removal to Metlakahtla took place, he deliberately gave up his position as head-chief of the Tsimshean tribes in order to join the colony.

Constant inducements were held out to him to return; and on one occasion he actually gave way. He gathered the Indians together, on the Metlakahtla beach, told them he could hold out no longer, and was going back to his old life--that he could not help it, for he was being pulied away--that he knew it was wrong, and perhaps he should perish for ever, but still he must go. In tears he shook the hand of each in turn, and then stepping alone into his canoe, paddled rapidly away from his weeping friends. He went a few miles along the coast, and then, as darkness came on, put the canoe ash.o.r.e. The night was one of such misery, he afterwards said, as no words could describe. "A hundred deaths would not equal the sufferings of that night." On his knees he wept and prayed for pardon, and for strength to return; and next day he again appeared at Metlakahtla, to the joy of all.

Legaic, who before was "a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious,"

was baptized by the name of Paul. In him indeed did "Jesus Christ show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them who shall hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting."

The Rev. R. J. Dundas, who visited Metlakahtla six months later, and baptized thirty-nine more adults and thirteen children, thus wrote of Paul Legaic and his daughter Sarah:--

"I paid a visit to the wife of the chief Paul Legaic. He it was who nearly took Mr. Duncan's life at the head of the medicine-band attacking the school. They were both baptized by the Bishop last April.

Legaic was the wealthiest chief of the Tsimsheans at Fort Simpson. He has lost everything--has had to give up everything by his conversion to Christianity. It was with many of them literally a 'forsaking of all things to follow Christ.'--His house is the nicest and best situated in the village. A very little labour and expense in way of internal fittings would make it quite comfortable. He and his wife have one child only, a young girl of fourteen. She was a modest-looking, pleasing child--very intelligent--one of the first cla.s.s in the school.

She did not look like one who had ever been 'possessed with a devil;'

and yet this is the child whom, three years ago, her teacher saw naked in the midst of a howling band, tearing and devouring the bleeding dog.

How changed! She who 'had the unclean spirit' sits now at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in her right mind."

On the occasion of a visit paid soon after this by Mr. Duncan to Fort Simpson, Legaic, again like his great namesake, boldly preached the faith which once he destroyed. Mr. Duncan wrote:--

"Feb. 6, 1864.--I have just returned from a visit to Fort Simpson. I went to proclaim the Gospel once more to the poor unfeeling heathen there. I laid the Gospel again distinctly before them, and they seemed much affected. The most pleasing circ.u.mstance of all, and which I was not prepared to expect, was, that Paul Legaic and Clah (the one in times past a formidable enemy and opposer, and the other one among the first to hear and greet the Gospel) sat by me, one on either side.

After I had finished my address on each occasion they got up and spoke, and spoke well.

"Legaic completely shamed and confounded an old man, who, in replying to my address, had said that I had come too late to do him and other old people good; that, had I come when the first white traders came, the Tsimsheans had long since been good; but they had been allowed to grow up in sin; they had seen nothing among the first whites who came amongst them to unsettle them in their old habits, but these had rather added to them fresh sins, and now their sins were deep laid, they (he and the other old people) could not change. Legaic interrupted him, and said, 'I am a chief, a Tsimshean chief. You know I have been bad, very bad, as bad as any one here. I have grown up and grown old in sin, but G.o.d has changed my heart, and He can change yours. Think not to excuse yourselves in your sins by saying you are too old and too bad to mend.

Nothing is impossible with G.o.d. Come to G.o.d; try His way; He can save you.' He then exhorted all to taste G.o.d's way, to give their hearts to Him, and to leave all their sins; and then endeavoured to show them what they had to expect if they did so--_not_ temporal good, not health, long life, or ease or wealth, but G.o.d's favour here and happiness with G.o.d after death."

Legaic had been well known to the traders and others on the coast, and the change in him caused the greatest astonishment among them. "Mr.

Duncan's Grand Vizier" they called him. One visitor wrote in the Victoria paper:--

"Take a walk near the church, and you may see the mighty chief of Fort Simpson (Legaic) standing under the porch of his well-built house, ornamented with fancy casing around where the gutters should be, but are not, and also around the windows. Legaic! why, I remember him myself, some ten years ago, the terrifying murderer of women as well as men, now lamb-led by the temperate hand of Christianity--a Church-going example--an able ally of the Temperance Society, though not having signed the pledge."

For seven years this once dreaded savage led a quiet and consistent Christian life at Metlakahtla as a carpenter. In 1869, he was taken ill at Fort Simpson, on his way home, after a journey to Na.s.s River. He at once sent this short note to Mr. Duncan:--

"Dear Sir,--I want to see you. I always remember you in my mind. I shall be very sorry if I shall not see you before I go away, because you showed me the ladder that reaches to heaven, and I am on that ladder now. I have nothing to trouble me, I only want to see you."

But Mr. Duncan, to his great sorrow, was quite unable to get away from his incessant duties at Metlakahtla. A second and third summons followed in quick succession, and presently came the news of his death, accompanied by a few unfinished lines:--

"My dear Sir,--This is my last letter, to say I am very happy. I am going to rest from trouble, trial, and temptation. I do not feel afraid to meet my G.o.d. In my painful body I always remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Well may we say, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

Reverting to the history of the Mission, we find that in 1866 the Bishop of Columbia paid a second visit to Metlakahtla, and after careful examination, baptized sixty-five adult converts on Whit Sunday in that year. "I truly believe," he wrote, "that most of these are sincere and intelligent believers in Christ, as worthy converts from heathenism as have ever been known in the history of the Church." And in the autumn of the following year Mr. Cridge, then Dean of Victoria, who had from the first manifested the deepest interest in the Mission, stayed for some weeks at the settlement, and on September 8th baptized ninety-six adult Indians and eighteen children.

Dean Cridge was struck by the advanced age of the candidates presented to him. Twenty-six were over fifty; and one man, who was sixty-five, said, "I feel like an infant, not able to say much; but I know that my heart is turned to G.o.d, and that He has given His Son to wash away my sins in His blood."

"When he entered the room to be examined, he knelt down and offered a silent prayer. While speaking of his sins he showed emotion, and covered his face. Amongst other answers, these are some of his words: 'I repent very much of my past sins before Jesus.' I asked why Christians were not afraid to die; he said, 'Faith in G.o.d will make us not afraid to die,' I baptized him Jeremiah; he is about forty years of age. His wife was not less satisfactory in the testimony she gave of a true conversion to G.o.d, and was added by baptism at the same time with her husband to the fold of Christ."

What can we say to such tokens of true knowledge and faith as these, but that the words of our Lord to Peter are still applicable to many even of the most degraded heathen in our own day?--"Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is it Heaven!"

VII.

METLAKAHTLA--MATERIAL PROGRESS AND MORAL INFLUENCE.

Metlakahtla is no hermit's cell in the wilderness, removed faraway from the haunts of men, and exerting no influence upon them. Rather is it a harbour of refuge, whose lights radiate forth into the darkness, inviting the bark in distress to seek its friendly shelter, and guiding even the pa.s.sing vessel in its course. Very rapidly it acquired a recognized position of importance and influence as the centre--one might almost say the official centre--of all good work of every kind among the coast Indians.

The growth of the settlement naturally added greatly to the heavy burden of acc.u.mulated responsibilities which Mr. Duncan found himself compelled to undertake. He was lay pastor and missionary, treasurer, chief trader, clerk of the works, head schoolmaster, and the father and friend of the people. In addition to this the Colonial Government appointed him a magistrate, in order that he might have legal power to dispense justice, not only at the Christian settlement, but along the whole coast, wherever his influence extended. Thee village council and constables referred to in the report already quoted (p. 4) were a great a.s.sistance at Metlakahtla itself. But outside the settlement magisterial duties brought sometimes a heavy burden of anxiety and responsibility upon Mr. Duncan. In 1864, for instance, the authorities desired him to arrest a smuggling vessel, from which some of the tribes on the coast were obtaining spirits contrary to the law. He sent five of his Indians to arrest the smuggler, but they failed in the attempt; and not only so, but one of them was shot, and three others wounded. In the following year a shocking incident occurred. The Indian camps at that time were "deluged with fire-water," and Metlakahtla, because it stood alone against "the universal tide of disorder," was threatened with the vengeance of its heathen neighbours. A quant.i.ty of liquor was landed there by a party of Kitahmaht Indians for sale. It was at once seized. In revenge for this, they stole a little boy belonging to the village while he was on a fishing expedition with his parents.

"Horrible to write, the poor little fellow was literally worried to death, being torn to pieces by the mouths of a set of cannibals at a great feast."

Nevertheless, Mr. Duncan's influence grew continually. In this very case its power was, exhibited in his successfully interposing to allay the exasperation of his people, and to prevent a war of extermination.

Even the white traders in fire-water themselves were sometimes touched.

The captain of one smuggling vessel, who was fined four hundred dollars by Mr. Duncan in virtue of his magisterial authority, "afterwards became one of his most active friends--a result partly due to the impression created by what he saw at Metlakahtla, and partly to the fact of Mr. Duncan having obtained rest.i.tution for him from the Indians at Fort Simpson for injuries done to his vessel."

The moral influence exercised by the Mission is most strikingly ill.u.s.trated by an incident related by the Bishop of Columbia. In 1862, H.M.S. "Devastation" sailed up the coast seeking the three Indian murderers of the two white men: The Indians gave up two, but would not surrender the third. Two lives for two lives was their notion of equal justice. But as soon as the ship was out of sight, the murderer left his tribe, went to Metlakahtla, and gave himself up to Mr. Duncan.

"Whatever you tell me to do," he said, "I will do. If you say I am to go on board the gun-ship when she comes again, I will go." Six months afterwards the "Devastation" again came up to Metlakahtla, and fired a gun to announce her arrival. The murderer heard it. Had his resolution broken down after so long an interval? He went straight to Mr. Duncan, and said, "What am I to do?" "You must come with me a prisoner." He went on board with the missionary, and delivered himself to the captain. "Thus," justly observed Bishop Hills, "what the ship of war with its guns and threats could not do for civilization, for protection of life, for justice, the simple character and influence of one missionary availed to accomplish." In due course this man was brought to trial for his crime, when it came out that he had been an unwilling partic.i.p.ator, and he was pardoned. On his release he went back to Metlakahtla, and was baptized by the Bishop in 1866.

A similar and very interesting case occurred in 1872. Some years before, an Indian from a tribe living thirty miles off had come to Mr.

Duncan, and with great emotion confessed himself a murderer, saying that having frequently attended the services, the burden of sin had become "too heavy for him to carry," and some Christian relatives had advised him to confess his crime and take the consequences. Mr. Duncan sent word to the Government at Victoria, but they thought it best not to prosecute the man for a crime which was not recent, and which had been done under the orders of a powerful chief who was still at large.

No further steps, therefore, were taken. But at the beginning of 1872, a magistrate who was visiting at Fort Simpson detected two men who had been concerned in another murder, and the excitement caused by this led to further inquiry about the Metlakahtla man's crime, and to the arrest of both himself and his chief. The four Indians thus in custody made severally a full confession of both crimes to Mr. Duncan and the other magistrate, and they were sent to Victoria for trial. They were found guilty, and, on being called upon to reply, made most affecting speeches in court, acknowledging the sin, and their just liability to punishment. Sentence of death was ordered to be recorded, but on the recommendation of the judges, it was commuted to five years'

imprisonment (not confinement) at Metlakahtla.