The sacrament of the altar, of course, seemed in their eyes the most arrant witchcraft, and baptism likewise. One time, says Niels Egede, when they had seen some Europeans going through this ceremony, 'an angekok asked me why I was always denouncing those who practised witchcraft, when here was one of our own priests performing sorceries over us?' To which Egede found no better answer than that it was 'in accordance with Christ's command;' he did not think 'the dog had any right to know more.' Once, when the missionaries told a man 'that he should especially thank God who had given him many children,' he became very angry and answered, 'It is a great lie to say that God has given me children, for I made them myself. "Is it not so?" he said, turning to his wife.'
Their criticism of the doctrine and practice of the missionaries was sometimes so mordant that the intelligent and honest merchant Dalager has to admit that 'even the stupidest natives from far beyond the colony have often confronted me with such objections on these points as have made me groan, while the perspiration stood on my brow.'
Divine service seems at first to have bored them very much; they preferred to hear about Europe, and would ask many naive questions: 'Whether the King was very big? Was he strong? Was he
