INDIANS AND THE BIBLE

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 21, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 49.

INDIANS AND THE BIBLE.

At the Thousand Islands meeting the first to speak was the Rev. Egerton R. Young, of Canada, for nine years a missionary amongst the Indians of the far north-land. His home was at Norway House, 400 miles north of the Winnipeg, and on the lake of that name. His circuit was 350 by 550 miles, the temperature falling sometimes as low as 55° below zero. Mr. Young told the following story:—

"At Norway House, on a certain occasion, a number of Indians came into my room noiselessly, after their fashion, so that the room was filled with them before I knew it. When I became aware of their presence I asked whence they were. 'From a journey of fourteen nights,' they replied; for they reckon distance by the number of nights they are delayed to sleep. 'We have got the Keesenaychen [the Great Book], but we don't understand it, although we can read it.' I thought they were joking, for the Indians cannot read unless someone has taught them, and I knew from their account that they must live far away from any missionary; but I asked them, 'From what missionary did you learn?' 'We never saw a missionary nor a teacher!' I took down from our shelf our Bible, printed in the beautiful syllabic character for the Cree language, and opened to Genesis; they read it with ease and correctness. I turned the pages, and they read in many places. I was amazed, and asked them again where they lived. They described it to me; it was far away north of Hudson's Bay, hundreds of miles from any missionary. Their hunting-grounds, it seems, adjoin those of some Christian Indians—they cover great distances in hunting—'and,' continued my visitors, 'we visited your Indians and found that they had the Keesenaychen. We got them to read it, and then to teach it to us; and we were so pleased with it that we all learned to read it during the winter.' Every soul in a village of three hundred population had thus actually learned to read the Bible without ever having seen any white teacher; and having providentially come into possession of some copies that happened to be in the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company's agent, these Indians had journeyed through the snow fourteen nights' distance that to them might be given instruction in the book they had thus learned to love."

—Record of Christian Work.