At Okkak, Solomon, a baptized man, thus complained to the brethren:  “I will now utter words of truth only.  I am unhappy because I cannot regain that state of mind I enjoyed when I was baptized.  There is as it were a dark shadow between me and our Saviour; this is the only thing that gives me pain at present.  I feel, ’tis true, some desire after Jesus, but I cannot always pray to him.  This is, alas, my case, for whole days together, and yet I cannot live without him.  I know, also, that it was he alone who first saved me from my evil ways, for neither you nor I could do it!” Here he was so much affected, that he burst into tears.  The missionaries encouraged him, and bid him not cast away his confidence in Jesus; for since he, according to his own confession, had bestowed such mercy upon him, he might believe and be sure, that he would not suffer him to weep in vain for a new manifestation of his love towards him.

There is not, perhaps, any surer test of a young woman’s Christianity than the choice she makes of an husband; and the missionaries were highly gratified in this respect, with the conduct of a young girl, a candidate for baptism.  When the winter meetings were resumed, she expressed her joy, for she was desirous of learning the doctrine of Jesus, and wished to know and love him more; and she said she was resolved never again to leave the fellowship of believers.  Her resolution was almost immediately tried; a heathen, from Kivalek, proposed marriage to her, but she at once declared she would never take a husband who would lead her astray from God and his people.  Some time after, her parents, Joseph and Justina, came from Okkak to Nain, to inquire whether Anauke, who seems to have been a rich Esquimaux, was a candidate for baptism, or had ever spoken to the missionaries on the subject of conversion; and when informed that he had not, they said that since their daughter had declared her attachment to the believers, and her purpose to live with Jesus, they would never bestow her upon a stranger.  On which the missionaries observe, “Whoever knows the natural dispositions and habits of the Esquimaux, will, from this instance, see that there is a manifest influence of the Spirit of God in their hearts, to cause them to act with such willing conformity to the doctrine of the Scriptures, and such attention to their souls’ welfare.”

As the century closed, the prospects of the missionaries brightened, and they therefore with greater earnestness entreated the prayers of their brethren.  “The more we perceive,” say they, “our own insufficiency, the more we perceive how much we stand in need of the support and prayers of God’s children, in this our important calling, to win to Christ, souls, harder than the rocks on which they dwell, and to be melted only by the fire of his love unto death.”  “We find every year,” was the report from Okkak, “when we receive the various accounts from our congregations, abundant cause to rejoice over all the manifold proofs of His