Extracts from a Journal of a Voyage of Visitation in the Hawk, 1859 | Page 5

knew a letter of the alphabet. It was considerably after nine o'clock before we could dismiss our visitors, and sorry they seemed to be dismissed as I was to dismiss them. Poor people! the fair faces of the children would have moved the admiration of a Gregory; and the destitute, forsaken condition of all would move the compassion of any one who believed they have souls to be saved; how much more if those souls in any sense were committed to his charge. But what can I do more for them, and, alas! for many others almost equally destitute and forsaken. It is but too probable that never again, either myself, or by others, shall I be able to minister to their wants. To-morrow with the first dawn, the men and boys will be all out on their fishing-grounds, the women busy in their houses, the elder girls nursing the younger children; and I must be on the move to perform a like perfunctory service to others in the same state of ignorance, of whom I believe there are more than two hundred in this bay.
Tuesday, July 12th. At Bear Cove, at sea, at Jackson's Arm, and at Sop's Island.--We warped out of Bear Cove, there being then no wind, at five o'clock A.M., and stood over to Jackson's Cove, on the opposite side of the bay (about nine miles), which we reached by 8.30. It is a capacious and beautiful harbour, easy of approach and entrance. On coming to anchor, I sent on shore immediately, and found that all the men were gone to Sop's Island (about five miles off), except one poor fellow with a diseased hip, to whom I sent some wine and medicine. I proposed to take the only woman left behind, with her children, on board the Church-ship, to join her friends and relations at Sop's Island, to which she gladly assented, and they came on board accordingly. We then weighed anchor again at 12.30, to beat to Sop's Island, which we reached between three and four o'clock. We landed immediately with our poor fisherman's wife, who appeared an intelligent, seriously-disposed person, and she could read. Her children were very wild, hair uncut and uncombed, without shoes and stockings. She had come from the Barred Islands (in the Fogo Mission), and lamented the separation from her Church and clergy. She guided us to the residences and fishing rooms of the different residents and others in Sop's Island, and we appointed a service for them at five o'clock, not, however, expecting to get them together before six o'clock. We commenced at 6.15; seventeen children were received into the Church, and two couples married. We found that the parties whom we had missed at Coney's Arm (as well as those from Jackson's Arm) were in this island, and we sent word to them of our intention to hold service again to-morrow. Here was a repetition of the same melancholy anomalies and irregularities as those of yesterday, except that two or three of the women could read; and a Mr. M----, from St. John's, a small dealer or merchant, who has resided here for several years, has kept up some remembrance of God and his service by reading the Church prayers at a funeral. He resides, however, in the house of a planter, who has brought and lives with a woman from England, in the very neighbourhood of his wife, whom he deserted after she had borne him three children. She (his wife) is still living at Twillingate, and supports herself as a nurse and servant. By the woman he now lives with he has had seven children, most of whom are grown up, and several married. When he saw my vessel with a female on board, he thought his wife was come from Twillingate, and went and hid himself in the woods. Some of his children and grandchildren were among those admitted this day into the Church. After the prayers and two addresses from myself, one in connexion with the baptismal service, and one in place of a sermon, two couples were married. These services were not finished till nearly nine o'clock.
Wednesday, July 13th. Sop's Island, at sea, and at Gold Cove.--I had appointed the service at nine o'clock, being anxious to get forward, if possible, in the afternoon; but it was not till after twelve o'clock that the poor people could arrange their little (to them great) matters, and come with their children properly attired. Some had to go on board a trader lying in the harbour to purchase clothes; several came from a distance against a head wind. Two couples were married before, and two after, the prayers; six children of one of the pairs were admitted into the Church: all had been baptized by