Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian | Page 8

he used
sometimes to draw them for the amusement of children.
When on board the "Assistance," he made a good sketch of the coast
line of the region which his tribe frequented, from Cape York to
Smith's Sound.
The use which he made of the needle must not be forgotten. For a year
and a half, whilst at Canterbury, he went regularly for five hours a day
to a tailor to learn the trade, and was found very handy with his needle.
He proved to be of much use in the ordinary work of the trade.

Baptism of Kallihirua
We now come to an important event in the history of Kallihirua; his
Baptism, which took place on Advent Sunday, Nov. 27th, 1853, in St.
Martin's Church, near Canterbury. "The visitors present on the
occasion," said an eye-witness[6], "were, the Rev. John Philip Gell
(late Warden of Christ's College, Tasmania), accompanied by Mrs. Gell,
daughter of the late Sir John Franklin; Captain Erasmus Ommanney,
R.N. (who brought Kallihirua to England), and Mrs. Ommanney,

Captain Washington, R.N., of the Admiralty, and the Rev. W. T.
Bullock. The Rev. T. B. Murray, Secretary of the Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, who had been invited, was, in
consequence of engagements in London, unfortunately unable to be
present".
[Footnote 6: St. Augustine's Occasional Paper.]
[Illustration: St. Martin's Church]
"Towards three o'clock in the afternoon, small parties began to issue
from the College gateway in the direction of St. Martin's,--that
picturesque little church, looking from its calm hill-side over the broad
Stour valley, and over the cathedral and the steeples of the town half
emerging from the smoke. In the interior of this oldest of the English
churches there is an ancient font, which stands upon the spot (if it be
not the very font itself), where King Ethelbert, the firstfruits of the
Anglo-Saxon race, was baptized more than twelve hundred and fifty
years ago by Augustine.
"In the enclosure round this font sat Kallihirua, and his 'chosen
witnesses' Captain Ommanney, and the Subwarden, Mrs. Bailey, and
Mrs. Gell. The remainder of the church was quite filled with an
attentive and apparently deeply-interested congregation, many of them
of the poorer class to whom Kalli is well known either by face (as
indeed he could not well fail to be), or as the comrade of their children
in the spelling-class at school.
"After the Second Lesson, the Warden proceeded to the font, and the
Baptismal Service commenced. Kallihirua, as an adult, made the
responses for himself, and in a clear firm tone, which seemed to
intimate that he had made his choice for once and for ever, that he had
cast in his lot with us, and taken our people for his people, and our God
for his God, and felt with an intelligent appreciation the privilege of
that new brotherhood into which he was admitted.
"May his admission within the pale of Christ's holy Church be, (as was
the prayer of many, beyond the walls of St. Martin's, on that day,) both

to himself and to many of his race, an event pregnant of eternal issues!
'May the fulness of God's blessing,' to use the words of one of our most
valued friends, 'rest upon it, and make it the first streak of a clear and
steady light, shining from St. Augustine's into the far North.' The
Christian names added to his original Esquimaux name, were
'Erasmus,' after Captain Ommanney, and 'Augustine,' in remembrance
of the College.
"The service being concluded, an excellent sermon was preached by the
Rev. J. P. Gell, on the text, Isaiah lxv. 1: 'I am sought of them that
asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold
me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.'
Afterwards the same kind friend attended our Sunday evening meeting
in the Warden's house, and gave us some interesting details of the
missionary work (in which he had himself borne a part) in Van
Diemen's Land. The drift of his remarks was to give encouragement to
the principle of steady faithful persevering energy, undamped by early
difficulties, and not impatient of the day of small things; and to show
by convincing examples (especially that of Mr. Davis, a devoted
missionary in that country) how such conduct is sure in the end to meet
with a success of the soundest and most permanent kind, because
founded on the spontaneous sympathy of the people, and on the
blessings of the poor, 'not loud but deep.'
"Kallihirua had received a very handsome present in the shape of a
beautifully bound Bible and Prayer Book, as a baptismal gift from the
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge."
It may be interesting to add, that the water used in the