“After the revival meetings…. many became intensely interested in the study of the Bible. Every Sabbath morning after service the young people who could read a little met in the Church for what was called ” School-Tim-text.” They would find the text of the morning in the English Bible and read it over and over until they had it memorized in both English and Tsimpshean. It was a joy to see with what pleasure they went home, repeating the text as they went. Soon some of them had memorized as many as forty or fifty texts, so that when they were off at the fishing and logging camps they would always hold service two or three times a day, using these texts and what they remembered of the sermon connected with them.
” Wee-na-lke,” or old Susan, was a native Tsimpshean., and must have been about sixty years of age when she was converted. She belonged to the Kit-an-doo tribe at Simpson. She and a number of her children were converted about the same time in the revival. Among others, she applied herself very earnestly every Sabbath morning to learning the text. We often had as many as sixty old people at the ” School-um-text,” after the morning service, for the purpose of committing the text to memory in their own language. Old Susan rarely missed, hence she had a great many texts in mind; and a short time before the Missionary left on a visit to the East she came to the Mission House and asked if she might recite her texts. I said, ” Well, Susan, I will try and take time to hear you.” She opened out a little bunch of pebbles, tied up in a piece of rag, and took one in her hand. Looking at it, as if the shape of the pebble brought the text to her memory, she began to recite, and thus, one after another, picking up a new pebble for each, she recited forty texts of God’s Holy Word.”
UP AND DOWN THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST
Thomas Crosby 1910