Over rock and moss, variegated with lovely little flowers, we reach the path which skirts the old heathen sites.  Little more than the outline of the former turf houses is visible.  The turf roof has fallen in, or been carried away, but the low mounds which formed the walls remain, as also the roofless curving porch, which in each opened out to the sea.  More than one hundred persons of both sexes and all ages are said to have inhabited these three houses, and their heathen life here, with its cruelties, sorceries, and other unhallowed phases, can better be imagined than described.  It must have been a great advance for them in every respect when they moved to the mission-station, established nearly half a mile away, and began to learn the faith and hope which have given it its name.  In those days there must have been a good many such heathen villages along this coast with a nomad population far more numerous than now.

Thence we easily ascend the ship hill, over rock and moss, and occasional patches of snow.  The view is really grand, though bleak and bare.  Hundreds of rocky islands lie between us and the seaward horizon, while to north and south one can scarcely distinguish them from the bold headlands which stretch out into the ocean.  Northward, the white sails of from thirty to forty fishing schooners are gleaming white in the sun.  Hundreds of these craft pass up the coast from Newfoundland every summer, and the spiritual interests of their crews are faithfully sought at Hopedale.  Sometimes the Sunday afternoon English service is attended by more than two hundred such visitors.  As we descend the hill and return to the station past the well-kept gardens, we make our first acquaintance with mosquitoes, but they do not trouble us much to-day.

JOYS AND SORROWS—­A MARRIAGE AND A FUNERAL

Each mission-station is a little world in itself; it has its own joys and sorrows, and complete cycle of events in the human lives lived here for a time by the will of God, who has His purposes of love in each and all.  I have touched many of these joys and sorrows during my brief stay here.

In the godly family of this Hopedale mission-house, it is a time when the clouds return after the rain.  Little Hildegard Kaestner has been lying for some days between life and death, but at last we can rejoice with her parents in a degree of hope.  The child has even shown a faint interest in her toys. (I am grieved to hear on my return that the little one passed away while her father was absent with me on duty.) Our English missionary sister has also been passing through woman’s time of trial and honour, and we are now able to rejoice with her and her husband in the gift of a little girl, their firstborn.  God bless and keep mother and child!