ring to
learn the Dutch language, so as to be instructed in Christianity, and
to be among good Christians who live like Christians. That was all his
desire, thinking all the time about it, speaking always with Illetie
about it, who assisted and instructed him as much as she could, and
always with love, with which God much blessed her. His uncle, with
whom he lived, was covetous, and kept him only because he was
profitable to him in hunting beaver. He therefore would hardly speak a
word of Dutch to him, in order that he might not be able to leave him
too soon, and go among the Christians and under Christianity. He sent
him to the woods and among the Indians, for the sake of the devilish
profit of the world--these are the words of Robert Sanders, and
Illetie said not much less; yet this poor creature has, nevertheless,
such a great inclination and longing after Christianity.

Besides this inward desire, propensity and feeling, God, the Lord, has
given him outward proofs of His love and protection, and among other
instances I will relate these two which I well remember. It happened
once that his uncle went out a shooting with him in the woods, when
the uncle began to sneer at him, saying that he, a mere stupid Indian,
could not shoot, but a Christian was a different character and was
expert and handy: that he, Wouter, would not shoot anything that day,
but he himself would have a good hunt. To which Wouter replied, "It is
well, I cannot help it; I will have whatever God sends me." Upon this
they separated from each other in the woods, and each went where he
thought best. "Now when I was tired out," said Wouter, for we heard it
from himself, as well as from his aunt, "and had travelled and hunted
the whole day without finding any game, with the evening approaching,
grieved that I had shot nothing and troubled at the reproach of my
uncle, my heart looked up to God; I fell upon my knees and prayed to
Him, that although I was no Christian (he meant baptized), I loved
God, and only longed to learn the language in order to be instructed
in Christianity, and would receive it with my whole heart; that God
would be pleased to send to me a wild animal to shoot, so that the
slur, which my uncle had thrown upon me, might be wiped off." While
thus down on his knees, with his hat hanging upon a bough which was
bent down,[342] his prayer not finished, there comes and stands before
him a very young deer, not twenty paces off; it comes sof