CANADIAN HISTORY READERS

its rushing rivers with their cascades spark-
ling and alluring, its sparse settlements of
village and mining camp, known to-day as
British Columbia, was to be the scene of this
young priest's future missionary labors.
The finger of God pointed him thitherwards
te toil spiritually among the benighted chil-
dren of the forest wilds.

Perhaps in no other part of Canada was
mission work among the Indians attended by
greater danger, greater perils than in
British Columbia. In the first place this
country was inhabited by tribes of Indians
treacherous even for savages; Indians
whose moral code was low and degrading,
and whose character had been so warped by
debasing practices that in preparation for
receiving Christian truth and Christian bap-
tism, they had to be well-nigh made over
again.

The missionaries of the Northwest Plains
who undertook the Christianization of the
Crees, Blood and Blackfeet Indians, found
themselves among tribes that, at least, pos-
sessed a modicum of morals as well as a
certain sense of Indian chivalry; but there
was little of this among the nomads that

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