A PIONEER MISSIONARY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13106, 17 October 1904, Page 3

A PIONEER MISSIONARY.

THE EEV. EGERTON R, YOUNG. The Rev. Egerton R. Young, the celebrated missionary of Northern' Canada, who is paying a brief visit to this, colony, returned from Oamaru on Saturday, and on Saturday evening addressed the members of tho University Students' Christian Union in Stuart Hall, when there was a large attendance of students. The Rev. Mr VToung .gavo some account of his mission work,'but his address was more distinctively confined to bints to those interested in mission work, and especially to those that might be themselves going out to mission fields. The advice coming from one of the Rev. Mr Young's experience was greatly appreciated, and at tho close of the address a number of questions were put by those desiring information, and .were answered at length. A very hearty vote of thanks was accorded the Rev. Mr Young for his address.

Yesterday afternoon,; in the Garrison Hall, the Rev. Egerton Young gave a missionary address to a large gathering. The Rev. W. A. Sinclair presided, and some enjoyable musical items were contributed.

The ltcv Mr Young has a robust personality, and liH speaks simply, but tellingly and to tho point. For close on an hour lie kept his audKiice completely.interested with an account of missionary work among the North American Indians. Ho did not go greatly into detail, but interspersed his re.marks with numerous anecdotes of personal experience that set vividly before his hearers tho nature of the work required, and enlisted I heir entire sympathy. He dea'.t mainly with mission . work in Northern Canada, 'where in winter a temperature of 60 degrees fclow zero was not to be unexpected, and where ho had laboured among llio Indian tribes bordering on the laud of the Eskimo. The American Indians, be said, though in tho past they had been treated badly in land mutters, were now being dcait with fairly, and were contented anil happy, and were being given the Gospel, so that now the Methodist Church alone could count Among them 50 or 40 thousand adherents. The former evil habits of the Indians, each as their cruelly to women and to tho aged, were described, end in contrast the present strict reverence of many of them for the Sabbath Day was indicated. The Rev. Mr Young staied that he and his wife went first out to this field in the year 186S, and to a place <00 miles distant from tho nearest white Christian family, so that his wife did not see it while woman for live years. Their abode was a log-lint. In a few years they had a congregation of 600 to 1200 Christian Indians. The hardships and trials of life in tho field were graphically .sketched—tho monotonous ami frequently scant diet (fish for 21 meals a week, for example), while Mr Young (-aid he lmd himself gone ouce without a meal for four days,—not, to speak of the perils and difficulties of travel, thousands of mile; every summer and winter, to outlying posls through blizzard and snowstorm, by dogtrain in winter, or over lake and river by canoe in summer. Some of his out-stations, tho speaker said, were 550 miles distant from his homo, and there was 110 vestige of a road. They must travel with snowslioes and dog-train in winter, and frostbite, snowblindness, mik! wet clothes for days together could not be avoided. Mr Young's narrative was one indicating much success in his work, and he suit! he found and believed that tho great mass of tho heathen world, the wide world over, were sick of their old religions, and were waiting for the Gospel and longm? for what it could give them. Tho normal condition of tho average Indian (ho found) was that ho was generally very hungry. Tho speaker paid it splendid tribute to the work done by women iu the foreign mission field, and ho did not omit to deal scathingly with those who introduced intoxicating liquor to the Indian, making of him a veritable fiend incarnate. New Zealand, he said, was one of tho grandest countries under the »un (and ho was not an Irishman), and it behoved its people to make it a sober country. Such is a. brief outline of the. Rev. Mr Young's discourse, but; above all, tho speaker's fluent conversational style and happy descriptions made his address delightful to listen to, wliilo his personality could not fail to mako an impression.

Last evening the Rev. Mr Young addressed a congregation that crowded Trinity AVesbyan Church, his text being "I am not aslmmecl of the Gospel of Christ.'' The prcaclict' gave a graphic exposition of the evidcncc of the power of the Gospel as seen in his own mission work among the Indians.

Tho liev. Mr. Young will lecturo this evening at Trinity Church, his - subject, which will he illustrated by a largo number of views, being "A Trip by Canoe and Dog-train into the Haunts and Homes of tho Indians of North America."