Thomas Crosby

“ Crossing the Gulf of Georgia on one occasion in a big storm, the old heathen captain and his wife, with whom we voyaged, prayed most appealingly, “Oh, you big storm, don’t you drown us; you are so strong and we are so weak; don’t you make such a rough sea. Why should we go down? We are all dirty, our clothes are dirty, we are very dirty; if you take us down we shall dirty your clear waters, they are so clear and blue. Don’t have us dirty your beautiful waters.”
The south men, as well as the north, would throw out food and even clothes as a sacrifice to appease the storm. ”

“ Let all the people in this great country know, you people from the south and the people from the north, that this young woman is a daughter of a great chief; she and her people have been in the line of chiefs for generations. They were a great people. All the tribes feared before them. And now her father is giving her into the hands of you people of the south. Let all the Cowichans, the Saanich, the Songees and all the people to the south know that this day the young chief takes her for his wife. ”

“ Years ago, Governor Simpson, visiting Fort Stickine, Alaska, says: “We met here fully four or five thousand people. One-third of the population were slaves. Many who were born slaves were treated in the most cruel way.”
Chiefs from the far north, to keep up this cruel system, would travel away to the south in their large war canoes, and for the most trivial thing would pick a quarrel with a tribe, fight, take away many slaves, and, going back to the north, sell them to enrich themselves, or would keep some of them as their own servants or slaves.
No value was put upon the life of a slave. ”

“ A conflict like that in which Thomas Crosby spent his life was no mere holiday parade. It was a grapple to the death with the powers of evil, in which no quarter was asked or given. He gave his life for the redemption of a people for whose souls no man cared, and fought—sometimes almost single-handed—a life-long battle against superstition, immorality, and godlessness of every kind. No marvel, therefore, if he incurred the bitter enmity of the witch-doctor, the whiskey-trader, and the libertine, and by “lewd fellows of the baser sort” was the best-hated man in British Columbia. ”

“ Robson and White, of my ability to speak to them in their own tongue, I made my way in a canoe across the Gulf of Georgia and up the river to New Westminster, where I found thousands of natives gathered for the celebration of the Queen’s birthday. This gave me the privilege of preaching to hundreds who would not have heard otherwise. One evening fully a thousand people were gathered on a square where two streets crossed, listening eagerly to the message of life, many for the first time, in their own language. ”

“ For twenty-five years I have sat on the bench of this colony, and I have invariably found liquor to be the chief cause of all trouble and serious infringement of the law. If an Indian shoots a white man, it’s been whiskey that has done it. If a white man shoots an Indian, whiskey is at the bottom of it. ”

“ As we look about us on the many lines of missionary need—Chinese, Japanese, Hindu and Indian—we cannot help feeling that our young people and Leaguers are missing an opportunity, which God has placed at their door, if they do not endeavor to reach out for these “strangers within our gates.” An opportunity, too, which, if made use of, brings its own reward—the joy of unselfish and successful service on behalf of others. ”

“ I am satisfied that every industry in British Columbia is only in its infancy. We have forests illimitable for lumber, land in millions of acres for agriculture, and the seven thousand miles of shore line are washed by seas teeming with fish. ”

“ Much of the old-time slavery was passing away when the missionary came, but a slavery in a new and more horrible form was being established. The advent of thousands of white men, miners and lumbermen, many of whom were vicious and depraved, brought temptation to their doors. The Indian’s love of display, and his ambition to be considered of importance, which found expression in his giving of great feasts and potlatches, led him to seize any ready and easy means of gain.
At one time among the Indians, as among all heathen people, the girls were counted of little value. ”

“ This garden spot, beautiful for situation, the joy of all those whose good fortune it is to live there, was at one time the home of great bands of Indians belonging to the Flathead nation. Where to-day there are eight small villages, there were thousands of people governed by certain great chiefs, whose authority was respected to a great extent throughout the whole valley. Their numbers have been reduced by disease and by their terrible tribal wars. ”

“ Such a story Crosby alone could supply, and many will be glad that he has been induced to begin it; and the hope will be general that other volumes may follow, covering what is by far the most interesting period of his life.
It is but seldom that men who lay the foundations of empire get credit for the achievement. Their work, for the most part, is done underground and out of sight. They are content to take up the work that lies nearest, leaving results with God, and are more concerned about doing their work faithfully than claiming credit for themselves. ”

“ Why don’t you help her?” she would say, “Oh, let him alone, sir; he is the chief,” as much as to say, “I am his slave.”
It was very common for men to have from two to four wives, and there was often a great deal of jealousy and quarrelling among them. This custom worked great injury to many of the young men, who could not get wives, and often led them to live reckless lives; while many a young woman has gone off to ruin for fear she would have to go and live with some ill-natured, dirty, lame old fellow whom she could never like. ”

“ In all my work since then I have experienced that in no way can one properly preach the truth to a people except in their own language. This knowledge of the language opened up my way to other tribes and bands of the same nationality.
On my first visit to the Fraser River, some years later, I came to a village early one morning, and, stepping out of my canoe, shouted out at the top of my voice in An-ko-me-num, “Why are all the chiefs sleeping like children so late this morning?” The old men rushed out to see the big Indian. ”

“ Having arrived at the bank of the river he saw an Indian on the other side, and called to him to come across and row him over with his canoe. The man, being a Roman Catholic, refused to do so, so David took off his clothes, tied them in a bundle, placed the bundle on the top of his head, plunged into the river and was soon on the other shore. He then dressed himself, and went on his way rejoicing that he was able to carry the blessed light to his heathen people. Nothing could daunt our young hero, nothing discourage his young heart. ”

“ To give an idea of the scenes witnessed on these dancing occasions: Old Sna-kwe-multh, a man who had been taken a slave by some northern tribe, but who had found his way home, wished to demonstrate his bravery. At a great feast he came rushing in half naked and danced before the people. As his frenzy increased he slashed at his thighs with some kind of sharp instrument, and then with both hands caught up his own blood and drank it, to prove himself a brave.
A number of white men, who had been witnesses of the shameful scene, ran out and cried, “The devil is in the man.” ”

“ Piercy referred to was the same George Piercy who, many years before, had left my native village in England and had gone as a missionary to China. His consecrated devotion had left a deep impression on my boyish mind, and I had ever since held him in the highest esteem as a missionary of the Cross.
How little we know of the far-reaching character of our influence. Here in the interior of British Columbia, thousands of miles from the scene of his labors, I met the gracious results of the work of this saintly servant of Christ. ”

“ John Douse, formerly a well-known figure in Canadian Methodism, and who, more than twenty years ago, went to his reward in the better land. During the next twenty-five years, in which I labored among the Indians, with headquarters at Port Simpson, she was a self-denying sharer in the toils and discouragements and the loneliness of that protracted period of missionary effort, and a delighted witness of the triumphs of the Gospel, as these poor benighted peoples gradually emerged from the darkness of heathenism and became sharers in the blessings of civilization and Christian hope. ”

“ In our judgment, if a law were enacted similar to one which was put in force in the State of Washington some years ago, compelling any white men living with Indian girls or women to marry them, or else the women must leave and return to their own people, we would to a large extent clear the country, as they did on the other side of the line, of this dreadful evil. ”

“ One of the most beautiful districts in Canada is that which is bounded on the west by the Sumas River, on the south and east by a spur of the Coast range of mountains, whose easternmost peak, Mt. Cheam, rises in majestic grandeur 8,500 feet, its summit crowned with perpetual snow, and on the north by the Fraser River, and known as the Chilliwack Valley. ”

“ To-day there is urgent need for more laborers in this department of missionary effort. Shall we listen to every other call, and close our ears to the cry of our Indian brothers and sisters, who appeal to us in the name of a common Saviour to help them into a noble Christian manhood and womanhood? ”

“ He was an earnest advocate of missions, and was in demand at the various missionary meetings held in the district.
During his last illness a big potlatch was held at his native village, which brought many hundreds of heathen together. And here he never lost an opportunity to urge all to give their hearts to Jesus. Just before his death he called all his children to his side, bade them good-bye, and urged them to be good and serve God. “All, all is peace. Jesus is very precious,” were among the final words of this devoted servant of Jesus Christ. ”

“ Whether that is true or not, certain it is that the natives of the Pacific Coast have a great variety of feasts. Indians, wherever you find them, are very hospitable to strangers—the travellers and miners of this vast country would all testify to this. They are most generous, even reckless, with their food. If you are invited to a feast among them the food is piled up before you, and after having satisfied [102] your appetite you are expected to take away all you cannot eat. If the visitor is a chief or important person, what he has left is sent home by messenger to his family. ”

“ If it be true that he is a benefactor of his race who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before, much more is he a benefactor whose spiritual husbandry transforms a savage into a citizen—a pagan into a saint. ”

“ Years ago, it is said, a man’s own sister, or, worse still, even his daughter or mother, might be among his wives. The more wives he had, the less work he would have to do. A great chief is reported to have said, “Women are made to labor; one of them can haul as much as two men; they pitch our tents, carry our wood, mend our clothes, and cook our food.”
Woman was always the slave or burden-bearer until the Gospel came and lifted her into her true social position. ”

“ She wails and calls up the looks of the little one, its acts and words. She will carry the clothes and playthings to the little grave, and cry and talk away to her lost darling, and pathetically plead for its return. ”

“ In all our mission fields we should make a more general use of the talents of our native converts. What matter if they are not educated. When their hearts are filled with love and zeal get them to work—as class-leaders, exhorters, local preachers, visiting the sick, in evangelistic efforts of every kind—and out of a full, happy heart they will tell, as did the early Methodists, what the Saviour has done for them, and what He will do for others. When Amos [235] Cushan, our first native preacher at Nanaimo, went out he could not read, but he could tell of the disease and the cure. ”

“ Me little Siwash, but me love Jesus; Jesus my friend, Jesus my King; Jesus save [216] me and help me to be good and not get angry. Cannot I read?” and taking out his Bible he turned to passage after passage, as if God had inspired and told him just where to turn the leaves, and read:
“Therefore, being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” “There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” And again, “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” ”

“ The incident, before mentioned, of the early planting of the Gospel among the Flathead people in Oregon, though somewhat removed from that section of this great nation with which we will have more to do, makes it clear that when God wants a man to do a special work for Him it does not take long to find him. It also shows that God by His Spirit will sometimes arouse a tribe or nation, so that they are ready for the Gospel light before the Church is prepared to carry the blessed truth. ”

“ Those who have spent years away from home and loved ones will understand the joy with which, after the twelve years of toils and triumphs which I have striven to describe, I once more turned my face to the East. ”

“ The old heathen house, from its very character, was the hot-bed of vice. Fancy a great barn-like building, sometimes one hundred feet long by thirty wide, made of split cedar boards fastened together with poles and withes and strips of strong bark, and occupied by as many as a dozen families, only separated from each other by low partitions. ”

“ When we tell them, after one more snow, in the big council, that we did not bring the Book, no word will be spoken by our old men, nor by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. Our people will die in darkness and they will go on the long path to other hunting grounds. ”

“ They would shoot them down at a moment’s notice. In the dreadful incantations of the sorcerers or medicine men, the accusation of witchcraft was easily fixed upon a slave, and he was sacrificed without mercy. In the north, when raising the large houses of the chiefs, it is said that every large post had a slave buried under it to hold the post in place, and often at the great potlatches a chief would slaughter a number of slaves to show how rich a man he was.
In time, of course, some were incorporated into the tribe, and, forgetting their own language, remained among their one-time captors. ”

“ This courageous action on the part of David fired the zeal and enthusiasm of all the Indians, and gathering together they commenced to sing a part of one of Wesley’s hymns, which they had learned at the camp:
“Jesus, the name high over all,
In hell or earth or sky;
Angels and men before it fall,
And devils fear and fly.” ”

“ The atrocities committed by the natives, moved by this dreadful superstition, are numberless and in many cases too dreadful to relate. How fervently we pray that the enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit may penetrate the gloom of heathen darkness and forever drive out all the nameless horrors which belong to paganism. ”

“ New Westminster was then a growing village, situated on Mary Hill, which was still partly covered with immense timber. To the east, looking up the Fraser River, nature presented another grand panorama of glorious mountains, upon whose lofty peaks the snow lay all the year round. ”

“ One could not but think there was much that was golden in those days of gold hunting, and yet many a poor fellow found out to his own sorrow that “it is not all gold that glitters.”
Thousands of men filled the streets of ’Frisco, nearly all bound for the Fraser River or Cariboo, as British Columbia was called in those days.
The steamboats, some of them not very seaworthy, were all overcrowded, bound north. A short time before the old steamer Republic, with eight hundred passengers, and the old Sierra Nevada, with nine hundred, had gone “up.” ”

“ The chief put his pole down in the mud and anchored his canoe, as he supposed, and we went to sleep on board the craft. Next morning we found we were high and dry in the mud on a bar that seemed to be miles away from any water. Oh, the mud, mud! There is nothing that compares with the mud of the Fraser for slimy stickiness when the tide is out. It was near noon the next day before the tide again reached us, and there we were all those hours in the scorching sun, a disconsolate crowd indeed.
At that time there was no white man to be found settled on the Delta lands of the Fraser. ”

“ We older men cannot easily change our ways, we will soon be gone, but you young men will be with the children who are growing up; to you God’s word has come. You must believe it and do God’s will; this will be best for you.”
I shall never forget Tsil-ka-mut and that awful night when, after I had preached to the white people in town and had returned to my cabin home in the Indian village, about half past ten o’clock, our native local preacher, Amos Cushan, came to my door, rapped quickly, and in an excited tone of voice said, “Did you not hear the war-whoop? ”

“ If the Church were only awake to her privilege, and the responsibility which God has thrown upon her by the wealth He has placed in her hands, and, as a faithful steward, would return a tithe of what He has given for the spread of His Kingdom, we should soon have enough to carry the Gospel to every creature. ”