34 MICMAC MISSION

I was thirty-six years old. The Indians, so far as civilization was concerned, with very few exceptions, were in the same conditon that they had been for two hundred years before. Nominally they were Roman Catholics; they had great confidence in their priests, but as to the Bible they did not know there was such abook, and had they known there was such a book, there was no possibility of their knowing what was in it. Not more than one in a thousand could read English, even imperfectly, and that one—and others to my certain knowledge—could not understand what he read, even in the plainest spelling—book. Most carefully had they been guarded against attending the Protestant schools, and adopting the habits of the white people, and their priests carefully abstained from teaching them to read, lest-as we have their own statements to prove—they might read books that would undermine their faith. They have not only not given the Indians the Holy Scriptures, but have used all sorts of means, foul and fair, to prevent them from receiving them and learning to read them. Such was the condition of things forty years ago.

This shows of itself what were some of the chief obstacles we had to meet and overcome. But there were others, and these were formidable. To have attempted to instruct them through the medium of the English language would at the time have been simple folly. To have attempted to teach them our language without un- derstanding theirs, and while they had no wish to learn ours, and no possible means of learning it, even had they wished it, would have been simply the scheming of insanity. The task of learning the Micmac language under the circumstances, without books, without a competent teacher, and with all the zeal and ardor of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and the prejudices and the suspicions of the tribe aroused against us to prevent it needs only to be mentioned to be appreciated. With all the natural talent with which God had endowed me for the work, for which I am amply credited, if any one imagines the task was easily accomplished, I can only say he is wry mzrr/L Mistaken. If the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ had not been with me, encouraging and aiding me in a most marvellous manner, it never would or could have been done. But ft was done, blessed be His name forever!