spoke of the torment of fire, said they should prefer it to frost. Egede, confirmed by his wife, resolved to re- main, and this resolution greatly increased his influ- ence over the Greenlanders, who knew that it could only proceed from zeal in their behalf. The king of Denmark, unable to resist his constanc}', sent another year's provision beyond what he had promised, and finally, in 1733, announced that Jie had changed his mind, and determined to devote a yearly sum to the Greenland mission. A dreadful trial was approach- ing. The Greenland children, of whom some had t)c- casionally been sent to Denmark, almost all died of the small-pox. Two of them v.'ere returning home from Copenhagen in the vessel which came in 1733 ; one of them died on the voyage, the other brought the disorder to Greenland, and the mortality was dreadful. From September, 1733, to June, 1731, the contagion raged to a degree that threatened to dejiopulate Green- land, ^^'hen the trading-agents afterwards went over the country, they found every dwelling-house empty for thirty leagues to the north of the Danish colony, and the same devastation was said to have extended still farther south : the number of the dead was com- puted at 3000. That winter in Greenland offered a combination of horrors which could seldom be equal- led, but they were met with admirable constancy by Egede and his indefatigable wife. The same ship that brought the small-pox had brought the assistance of some Jloravian missionaries. In the year 1734 his son Paul Egede returned from Copenhagen, whither he had been sent to studj', and the elder Egede, finding his , health begin to fail, applied for leave to return home. The permission reached him in 1735, but his return was I delaj'ed from the illness of his wife, wlio longed to see her native land again, but was denied that gratifica- ; tion, dj'ing finally in Greenland on the 21st of Decem- I ber, 1735, at the age of G2. Egede carried her coffin with him to Denmark, and she was buried in Copenha- \ gen, where she was followed to the grave by the whole of the clergy of the citj'. A seminary for the Green- land mission was established there in 1740, and Egede was appointed superintendent, with the title of bishop. In the same year he preferred a memorial for an expe- dition to be sent out to discover the lost ' eastern col- ony' of the old Norwegians, and offered to accompanj' it in person, but the proposal was not adopted. In 1747 Egede retired from his office at Copenhagen, and spent most of the remainder of his life at the house of his daughter Christine, who was married to a clergy- man of the island of Falster. While he was at Co- penhagen he had married a second wife, who accom panied him to Falster, but before his last illness he ex- pressed his wish that he should he buried by the side of his first wife at Copenhagen, and said that if they would not promise to carry this wish into effect, he would go to Copenhagen to die there. He died at Falster on the 5th of November, 1758" {Eng. C^clnp.). He wrote two books on the history of his life's labors. The first was. Relation angaaaide den Gronlandske Mis- sions Berjtjmlelse og forsMehe (Copenh. 1738 ; German, Hamb. 17^48). It is rich in materials, but dry in style. Its chief recommendation is its sincerity. The reader is disposed to give entire confidence to the missionary, who not only tells him that on one occasion he labored earnestlv in his vocation, but that on another he occu- pied himself for days in the study of alchemy ; who not only sjieaks of the ardor of his faith at times, l)ut tells us that at others he was seized with a hatred of his task and of religion altogether. Den gumle Gron- lands nye Perbistration (Copenh. 1741-4) was trans- lated into French (17(;3\ and into English in 1745, un- der the title of .4 Desrriptinn of Greenland. The trans- lation was reprinted in IMs. It comjirises his obser- vations on the geography and natural liistorv of Green- land, and the manners of its inhabitants. See Engl'sh Cyclopecdia, s. v. ; Herzog, Real-EncyU. iii, 659 ; Hoe- fer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, xv, 702 ; Brauer, Beitrag zur
EGEDE
Y3
EGINHARD
Gesch. der Heidenhehehrung (part iii, 1839) ; Rudelbach, Christl. Blogr. (part vi).
Egede, Paul, son of Han?, was born at Waagen, Norway; went to (Ireenland in 1720, in his twelfth year ; afterwards studied at Copenliagen ; returned to Greenland in 1734; linally left it in 1740, and was, in reward for his labors, appointed chaplain of the hospi- tal of the H0I3' Ghost, member of the College of Mis- sions, director of the Hospital of Orjjhans, and finally (1776) bishop of Greenland. Having retired to the house of his son-in-law, pastor Saabye, he did not cease to urge tlie Danish government to send new ex- peditions to that colony, and hud the joy of seeing his wishes finally complied with. He died June 3, 1789. He wrote and published a Greenland grammar (Grammatica Granlandico- Lat.-Dnn., Copenh. 1760) and dictionary (DicHunarium Granlandicum-Dano-La- tinum, Copenli. 1754), which have since been improved by Fabricius ; translated the New Testament into the language, and was the author of a woxXs., Efierretninfier om Gronland (^Infoi-mation on Greenland, Co^QXih. 1789), which is one of the most interesting in Danish litera- ture. It gives a history of the mission from 1720 to 1788 in a more interesting style than his father was master of. — Hoefer, Xouv. Biogr. Gener. xv, 705.