FAINTING IN THE FOREST


It was among many perils that the early Moravian missionaries pushed their way in among the Indians of the Six Nations in the early colonial times. In his Life of Zeisberger, De Schweinitz says that Bishop Spangenberg, Zeisberger, and two Christian Indians were returning from a visit to Onondaga, the head town of the Six Nations Confederacy. Their food had given out, and a famine through all the country had almost depopulated it. At last they reached the Susquehanna and sank down on its banks exhausted. The historian

says:

“Faint and silent, the bishop and his young companions waited to see what God would do; while Shikellimy and his son, with the stoicism of their race, resigned themselves to their fate. Presently an aged Indian emerged from the forest, sat down among them, opened his pouch, and gave them a smoked turkey.

They could not but recognize in this meeting a direct interposition of their heavenly Father.”