310 THE YOUNG FUR-TRADERS.

menced the laborious task of translating the Scriptures
into the Cree language ; and being an excellent musician,
he instructed his converts to sing in parts the psalms
and Wesleyan hymns, many of which are exceedingly
beautiful. A school was also established and a church
built under his superintendence, so that the natives as-
sembled in an orderly way in a commodious sanctuary
every Sabbath day to worship God; while the children
were instructed, not only in the Scriptures, and made
familiar with the narrative of the humiliation and exal-
tation of our blessed Saviour, but were also taught the
elementary branches of a secular education. But good
Pastor Conway’s energy did not stop here. Nature had
gifted him with that peculiar genius which is powerfully
expressed in the term “a jack-of-all-trades.” He could
turn his hand to anything; and being, as we have said,
an energetic man, he did turn his hand to almost every-
thing. If anything happened to get broken, the pastor
could either mend it himself or direct how it was to be
done. If a house was to be built for a new family of red
men, who had never handled a saw or hammer in their
lives, and had lived up to that time in tents, the pastor
lent a hand to begin it, drew out the plan (not a very
complicated thing certainly), set them fairly at work, and
kept his eye on it until it was finished. In short, the
worthy pastor was everything to everybody, “that by all
means he might gain some.”

Under such management the village flourished as a
matter of course, although it did not increase very rapidly
owing to the almost unconquerable aversion of North
American Indians to take up a settled habitation.

It was to this little hamlet, then, that our three
friends directed their steps. On arriving, they found
Pastor Conway in a sort of workshop, giving directions
to an Indian who stood with a soldering-iron in one hand