ly standing beside their flock, in vain tried to stem or turn the torrent of insult and abuse. All that they accomplished was to draw down the same insult and abuse on their own heads.
Nothing but the Indians’ marvellous patience and silence saved them from being murdered by this exasperated mob. To the worst insults they made no reply, no attempt at retaliation or defence. They afterward said that they had comforted themselves “by considering what insult and mockery our Saviour had suffered on their account.”
At last, after five hours of this, the governor, unable to compel the garrison to open the barracks, sent an order that the Indians should be taken to Province Island, an island in the Delaware River joined to the main-land by a dam, Six miles more, every mile in risk of their lives, the poor creatures walked. As they passed again through the city, thousands followed them, the old record says, and “with such tumultuous clamor that they might truly be considered as sheep among wolves.”
Long after dark they reached the island, and were lodged in some unused buildings, large and comfortless. There they kept their vesper service, and took heart from the fact that the verse for the day was that verse of the beautiful thirty-second psalm which has comforted so many perplexed souls: “I will teach thee in the way thou shalt go.”
Here they settled themselves as best they could. The missionaries had their usual meetings with them, and humane people from Philadelphia, “especially some of the people called Quakers,” sent them provisions and fuel, and tried in various ways to “render the inconvenience of their situation less grievous.”
Before they had been here a month some of the villages they had left were burnt, and the riotous Paxton mob, which had murdered all the peaceful Conestoga Indians, announced its intention of marching on Province Island and killing every In-
