In St. John’s Church, in the little town of Beverley, England,
one stormy evening in December, 1853, a meeting of the church
missionary society was being held at which a scant audience
was present, including just one young man, who on the Sunday
previous had been particularly invited to attend. The vicar
of the church, the Rev. A. T. Carr, suggested a postponement,
but the speaker, a venerable rector of a near-by town, replied
that those who had braved the storm were entitled to hear the
message intended for them. The service over, that lone young
man trudged homeward, when the thought came to him: “I was the
only young man there. Why should not I become a missionary? May
not the Lord have something for me to do in heathen lands?” The
resolution was made. That young man was William Duncan, now
known as “The Apostle of Alaska,” whose missionary triumphs
among the Indians of the Alaskan coast have won the admiration
of the world.