Brethren Archive

Tracts in Micmac





Comments:
Tom said ...

I wonder how London Gospel Tract Depot (ie. George Morrish) ended up publishing these?

As we were talking about over-priced books a couple weeks ago; one can buy 4 of these tracts for about £1,000 :s

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/Talekesuhsutaduks-saved-Waeokaeumayaan-thou-clean-Uktloowawoodeel/30038917881/bd

Though maybe the price is just a misype - I don't know!

(The Micmac were the "Native people of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada", according to Wikipedia.)

Saturday, Sep 22, 2018 : 00:24
Rodger said ...
In the second of the two volumes of supplement letters of JND, page 80, he writes: "The Catechist of the Anglicans among the "Indians of the six nations", a Mohawk by race, has received the full grace of the Gospel, and I believe that he will leave that system; he was already preaching in the chapel. He was my interpreter in a gathering of three or four hundred Indians - two of them, I hope, received blessing - he is very intelligent." (see also brief mentions in the letters preceding this one)

Perhaps this furnishes us with a hint?
Saturday, Sep 22, 2018 : 13:37
Tom said ...

That meeting with 400 Inidans must have been fascinating to behold! I don't anything really about missionary endeveours to the Indians (of which of course there were 100s of different tribes) but I think some books have been published, maybe in the John Ritchie series.

The Mohawk obviously were dwelling in the US (I think near to New York) whereas the Micmacs were up around Nova Scotia. Having a look on Google, I think I have found the answer; the guy who wrote these tracts, Rand Silus Tertius, joined with the Brethren for a while;

From http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/rand_silas_tertius_11E.html

Rand’s missionary routine included summer visits to scattered Micmac bands, supervision of the mission community at Hantsport where he moved permanently from Charlottetown in 1853, and an interminable search for funds to keep the mission in operation. Although the Halifax-based missionary society helped to publicize and finance Rand’s undertaking, the burden of fund-raising fell on Rand himself. He became increasingly disenchanted with denominationalism as he saw his enterprise suffer from Protestant pedantry and rivalries, and from the decline of vital religion. Two influences helped to sustain him in the 1860s. In 1864 he abandoned the practice of colportage or begging on which his mission had hitherto subsisted in favour of trusting in the Lord, the plan popularized by Georg Müller’s successful reliance on unsolicited funds for his orphan houses in Bristol, England. Rand’s refusal to ask Nova Scotians for donations to finance the mission led inexorably to his rejection of aid from the Micmac Missionary Society and its consequent dissolution in 1870. Meanwhile, in Halifax in 1869, during a religious revival led by a visitor from the Plymouth Brethren, Müller’s own sect, Rand succumbed to the beliefs of this evangelical movement which embodied for him “the good old Baptist doctrines to which I have been accustomed from my childhood.” He publicly denounced the Baptist denomination in 1872 and his Hantsport church replied with a formal excommunication as a member. Thereafter Rand remained a devotee of the “Plyms” and a fugitive from Nova Scotian denominationalism until the deeply divided Halifax Brethren expelled him in 1885 and he returned to the fold of the Baptist church.

 

There are other documents which give fuller accounts of his time with the Brethren, e.g. https://dalspace.library.dal.ca/bitstream/handle/10222/72802/Graham-Bridget-MA-HIST-March%202017.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y .. it seems he was chucked out in the end. 

Saturday, Sep 22, 2018 : 19:47
Rodger said ...
Good finds, Tom. Looks like AP Cecil was involved...
Sunday, Sep 23, 2018 : 00:56


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