While
all that is virile and forceful in it increases, there is less and
less of the rigid and formal.
Fourteen or fifteen years ago some Officers were set apart to visit
the Lapps who range over all the Territories to the north of
Scandinavia. This meant at first only months of solitary travelling
during the summer, and no little suffering in the winter, with little
apparent result. But gradually a system of meetings was established,
the people's confidence was gained, and at length it has been found
possible to group together various centres of regular activity amongst
these interesting but little-known people, and now experienced leaders
will see both to the permanence of all that has already been begun,
and to the further extension of the work.
In Holland, where our work has assumed the proportions of a national
movement, the beneficent effects of which are recognized by all
classes, the canal population is helped by means of a small sailing
ship, on which are held regular meetings for them. Our Norwegian
people also have a life-boat called the _Catherine Booth_ stationed
upon a stormy and difficult part of the coast, which not only goes out
to help into safety boats and boats' crews, but whose crew also holds
meetings on islands in remote fisher hamlets where no other religious
visitors come.
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