CHAPTER XXI.

1871-1877.--The Wilder Sioux.--Gradual Openings.--Thomas Lawrence.--Visit to the Land of the Teetons.--Fort Sully.--Hope Station.--Mrs. General Stanley in the _Evangelist_.--Work by Native Teachers.--Thomas Married to Nina Foster.--Nina's First Visit to Sully.--Attending the Conference and American Board.--Miss Collins and Miss Whipple.--Bogue Station.--The Mission Surroundings.--Chapel Built.--Mission Work.--Church Organized.--Sioux War of 1876.--Community Excited.--Schools.--"Waiting for a Boat."--Miss Whipple Dies at Chicago.--Mrs. Nina Riggs' Tribute.--The Conference of 1877 at Sully.--Questions Discussed.--Grand Impressions.

We had been long thinking of and looking toward the wilder part of the Sioux nation, living on and west of the Missouri River. More than thirty years before this, in company with Mr. Alex. G. Huggins, I had made a trip over from Lac-qui-parle to Fort Pierre. The object of that visit was to inform ourselves in regard to the Teetons--their numbers and condition, and whether we ought then to commence mission work among them. And since the Santees were brought to the Missouri we had made several preaching tours up the river, stopping awhile with the Brules at Crow Creek, and with the Minnekanjoos, the Oohenonpa, the Ogallala, and the Itazipcho of the Cheyenne and Standing Rock agencies. The bringing of our Christianized people into proximity with the wild part of the nation seemed to indicate God's purpose of carrying the Gospel to them also.

The field was evidently now open, and waiting for the sower of the precious seed of the Word. There was no _audible_ cry of "Come over and help us," nor was there in the case of Paul with the Macedonian. But there was the same unrest, the same agony, the same reaching out after a knowledge of God, now as then. We listened to it, and assuredly gathered that the Lord would have us work among the Teetons.

Thomas Lawrence was Mary's second boy. He could hardly be reconciled with the idea that his mother should go away to the spirit land, while he was down in Mississippi teaching the freedmen. Now he had been two years in Chicago Theological Seminary, and was asking what he should do when the other year was finished. The Prudential Committee of the American Board were looking around for some one to send to the Upper Missouri. Thomas had been born and brought up, in good part, in the land of the Dakotas; but they deemed it only fair that he should now with a man's eyes see the field, and with a man's heart better understand the work before committing himself to it. And so, in his summer vacation of 1871, they said to him, "Go with your father to the land of the Teetons, and see whether you can find your life-work with them."

We came to the land of the Teetons, and stopped for five or six weeks at Fort Sully, which was in the neighborhood of Cheyenne agency. There we found Chaplain G. D. Crocker, who had been much interested in our work among the Dakotas when stationed at Fort Wadsworth. We found also good and true Christian friends in Captain Irvine and his wife, and in the noble Mrs. General Stanley, the wife of the commandant of the post. In the mornings of our stay in the garrison, we often gathered buffalo berries--mashtinpoota, _rabbit noses_, as the Indians called them. During the day we talked with the Dakotas, and studied the Teeton dialect, and also the Assinaboine and the Ree. In our judgment, the time had fully come for us to commence evangelistic work in this part of the nation. Our friends at Sully thought so, and the prudential committee did not hesitate a moment. Indeed, they could not wait for Thomas to finish his seminary course, but sent him off in midwinter to Fort Sully. He was ordained by a council which met in Beloit.

The Indians of the Cheyenne agency, a portion of them, were distributed along down in the Missouri bottom in little villages and clusters of houses. In a village of this kind, a little below the fort, and on the opposite side of the river, T. L. Riggs erected his first house. It was a hewed log cabin, with two rooms below, one of which was a school-room. The garret was arranged for sleeping apartments. This was called Hope Station, so named by Captain Irvine's little daughter, who about this time came into the Christian hope.

Of this new enterprise, Mrs. Gen. D. S. Stanley sent a very pleasant notice to the _New York Evangelist_. "Six years ago," she says, "my lot was cast among the Sioux, or Dakota Indians, who inhabit the region bordering on the Missouri River, 500 miles above Sioux City, Iowa, and in the vicinity of Fort Sully, Dakota Territory. All this time it has been a matter of surprise to me that no Christian missionary was laboring among these heathens, while so many were sent to foreign lands. In reply to a suggestion to this effect, made to the American Board, it was stated that it is almost impossible to induce a competent person to undertake so difficult and dangerous a task.

"Meanwhile God was preparing the way. A boy had grown up among the Dakotas, speaking their language, understanding their customs, and identifying himself with their best interests. He was at this time in college preparing for the ministry, and last spring this young man, Rev. T. L. Riggs, son of the veteran missionary and Dakota scholar of that name, came to this place, and entered upon the work for which he seemed to be so peculiarly fitted. Almost unassisted, except by a brother, and some facilities for work afforded by the commandant of Fort Sully, he has erected two log buildings, and already schools are in operation on both sides of the river, attended by about sixty Indians, of various ages. Two native teachers were employed during the summer, and two are engaged for the winter. Mr. Riggs has surmounted great difficulties, inseparable from such efforts in remote and unsettled regions; but he is full of energy, and his heart is in the work."

From the beginning, it has been the aim at this station to do the work of education very much by means of native teachers. The first summer, a young man from the Yankton agency, Toonwan-ojanjan by name, was employed, and also Louis Mazawakinyanna, from Sisseton. The next autumn, James Red Wing and his wife Martha, and Blue Feather (Suntoto), were brought up from the Santees. Red Wing's wife taught the women in letters and the family arts, while the men taught the young men and children generally, and greatly aided in the religious teachings of the Sabbath. Afterward, Dowanmane, another Santee man, was employed in like manner. This was the commencement of educational and Christian work in this Teeton field.

At another point, some few miles below Hope Station, on the same side of the river, was another Dakota village, where Thomas immediately commenced holding a preaching service, and has kept up a school. It is one of his out stations, and called Chantier, from the name of the creek and bottom. While the opportunities for education and the new teaching were looked upon favorably, and gladly received by many, there were not wanting those who were savagely opposed. At different times, while Henry M. Riggs, who spent several years aiding in the erection of buildings and other general work, was present with Thomas at Hope Station, their house and tent were fired upon by Indians, and residence there seemed hardly safe.

When he had thus started the work, leaving it to be cared for and carried on by Henry M. Riggs and Edmund Cooley and the native teachers, Thomas went down to the States to consummate a marriage engagement with Cornelia Margaret Foster (known as Nina Foster), daughter of Hon. John B. Foster of Bangor, Me. It was winter, and not considered advisable for Mrs. Riggs to return with her husband to his home among the Teetons. She made a visit with her sister, Mrs. C. H. Howard, at Glencoe, in the vicinity of Chicago, and in the spring month of May I accompanied her up the Missouri. We had a particularly long voyage of eleven days, on the _Katie Koontz_, between the Santee agency and Fort Sully; so long that we picked up Thomas on the way, coming to meet us in his little skiff.

Thomas and Nina returned to Sully after our mission meeting at the Yankton agency, and then, in September, went to the meeting of the board at Minneapolis.

Sully was a far-off station. There were many reasons why a white woman should not be there alone. Miss Lizzie Bishop's election to go back with them, together with her beautiful life and early death, have been detailed in a preceding chapter.

She had fallen out of the working ranks, but others were ready to step to the front. In the previous spring, Secretary Treat had told me that there were two young ladies in Iowa who were anxious to engage in mission work. They preferred to go to the Indians, as they desired to labor together. It was a David and Jonathan love that existed between Miss Mary C. Collins and Miss J. Emmaretta Whipple. They were immediately sent out by the Woman's Board of the Interior to labor at Bogue Station.

This place, selected in 1873, had for various reasons become in 1874 the home station--thenceforward Hope was only an out-station. Bogue Station is on Peoria bottom, about fifteen miles below Fort Sully, and on the same side of the Missouri, called by the Indians "Tee-tanka-ohe," meaning "The place of a large house," so called from a house built years ago by an Indian. General Harney selected this bottom as the place for an agency, or rather, perhaps, where a scheme of civilization should be tried, and built upon it several log houses, which became the dwellings of Yellow Hawk and his people. The bottom has several advantages--considerable cottonwood timber, plenty of grass for hay, and as good land for cultivation as there is in this often "dry and thirsty land."[9]

[9] Now named _Oahe_.

The first winter Oyemaza, or James Red Wing, and his wife lived here with Henry M. Riggs, and taught a school. The second winter Thomas and Nina, with Miss Bishop, made it their abode. So that it was not quite a new place to which Miss Collins and Miss Whipple came, and yet new enough. The mission dwelling is made of logs--one series of logs joined to another, so as to make four rooms below, one of which has served as a school-room through the week and a chapel for the Sabbath. Additions have been made in the rear. The school-room has for a long time back overflowed on the Sabbath, and the women and children have been packed into the room adjoining, which is the family room. Hence a great and growing want of this station has been a chapel and larger school-room. The name of Bogue was given to the station for Mrs. Mary S. Bogue, a special friend of Thomas while he was in the seminary, who has gone to her rest. It was at one time expected that Mr. Bogue would furnish the means to erect a chapel; but the shrinkage in values and financial losses made him a broken reed. And so the desired building has been postponed from year to year. But a small contribution of fourteen cents, made by little Bertie Howard, was the nucleus around which larger contributions gathered, chiefly from Nina's native Bangor. About $400 of special contributions were thus received, and the prudential committee made a loan, which was afterward made a gift, of $500 toward it. The building is going up--August, 1877--a neat and substantial frame, the material of which was brought up from Yankton by boat. It is forty by twenty feet, and will have a bell-tower in one corner.

* * * * *

Let me now go back and take up the threads of the narrative which were dropped two years ago. The two young ladies who desired to work together in some Indian field found themselves here in Yellow Hawk's village. They entered into the labors of those who had been here longer. They grew into the work. The day schools in books and sewing, together with the night school, employed all hands, during the winter especially. A number have learned to read and write in their own language. Besides the school carried on at the home station, the two out stations have been occupied by native helpers. Edwin Phelps, from the Sisseton agency, with his mother, Elizabeth Winyan, have been valuable assistants for two winters past. Also for the winter of 1876-7, David Gray Cloud, one of the native pastors at the head of the Coteau, did valuable service both in teaching and preaching. He was sent to Standing Rock by the native missionary society, but, not being able to get a footing there, he came down here to preach to these Teetons salvation by Jesus Christ. In the spring, when he was leaving for Sisseton, they begged him to stay, or at least to promise to come back again.

The Word, during these years, has not been preached in vain. While in the main it has been seed-sowing,--only seed-sowing--breaking up the wild prairie-land of these wild Dakota hearts, and planting a seed here and there, which grows, producing some good fruit, but in most cases not yet the best fruit of a pure and holy life,--still, in the summer of 1876, one young man, the first fruits among the Teetons, _David Lee_ (Upijate) by name, came out as a disciple of Jesus. This was the signal for the organization of a church at this station, which was effected in August. Another native convert, the brother of the first, was added in the autumn following; and still more a year or so afterward.

For two winters past, several boys and young men, who have made a good commencement in education in these schools, have been sent down to enjoy the advantages of A. L. Riggs' High School at Santee. The Sioux war of the summer of 1876 produced a great excitement at all the agencies on the Upper Missouri. The Indians in these villages were more or less intimately connected with the hostiles. Many of those accustomed to receive rations here were during the summer out on the plains. Some of them were in the Custer fight. They say that Sitting Bull's camp was not large--only about two hundred lodges. The victory they gained was not, as the whites claimed, owing to the overwhelming number of the Dakotas, but to the exhausted condition of Custer's men and horses, and to their adventuring themselves into a gorge where they could easily be cut off.

When the autumn came, the victories of the Sioux had been turned into a general defeat. Many of them, as they claim, had been opposed to the war all along. The attacks, they say, were all made by the white soldiers. _They_--these Dakota men--were anxious to have peace, and used all their influence to abate the war spirit among the more excited young men. This made it possible for the military to carry out the order to _dismount_ and _disarm_ the Sioux. But in doing this all were treated alike as foes. Such men as _Long Mandan_ complain bitterly of this injustice. From him and his connections the military took sixty-two horses. He cannot see the righteousness of it.

As a matter of course, this excited state of the community was unfavorable, in some respects, to missionary work during the winter. The military control attempted to interfere with the sending away of Teeton young men to the Santee school. But on the whole no year of work has proved more profitable. In all the schools, Thomas reported about two hundred and forty scholars. They were necessarily irregular in attendance, as they were frequently ordered up to the agency to be counted. Still, the willing hearts and hands had work to do all the time. And so the spring of 1877 came, when the women folks of Bogue Station had all planned to have a little rest. Mrs. Nina Riggs was to go as far as Chicago to meet her father and mother from Bangor. Miss Collins and Miss Whipple were going to visit their friends in Iowa and Wisconsin. And so they all prepared for the journey and _waited for a boat_. By some mischance boats slid by them. They put their tent on the riverbank and waited. So a whole month had passed, when, at last, their patient waiting was rewarded, and they passed down the Missouri River and on to Chicago.

The ladies of the Woman's Board of the Interior had arranged to have them present and take an active part in several public meetings in and around Chicago. This was unwise for the toilers among the Dakotas. The excitement of waiting and travel--the summer season--the strain on the nervous system incident to speaking in public, to those unaccustomed to it--all these were unfavorable to the rest they needed. We must not quarrel with the Lord's plan, but we may object to the human unwisdom. So it was; before Miss Whipple had visited her friends she was stricken down with fever. Loving hearts and willing hands could not stay its progress. It is said, and we do not doubt it, that all was done for her recovery that kind and anxious friends could do. Miss Collins, her special friend, did not leave her. Delirium came on, and she was _waiting for the boat_. It was not now a Missouri steamer, but the boat that angels bring across from the Land of Life. She saw it coming. "The boat has come and I must step in," she said. And so she did, and passed over to the farther shore of the river.

The Teetons say, "Two young women went away, and one of them is not coming back. They say she has gone to the land of spirits. It has been so before. Miss Bishop went away, and we did not see her again. And now we shall not see Miss Whipple any more." So they mourn with us. But, while the workers fall, their work will not fail. It is the work for which Christ came from the bosom of the Father; and, as he lives now, so he "shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied."

Dear Miss Whipple's death came upon us like a thunder-clap. We are dumb, because the Lord has done it. Nevertheless, it has made our hearts very sad and interfered with our plans of work. But we can say, "Not in _our_ way, but in _Thy_ way, shall the work be done." A fitting tribute from Mrs. Nina Riggs will be found very interesting.

* * * * *

"Miss J. E. Whipple died of gastric fever at Chicago, August 11, aged 24. For nearly two years she had been connected with the Dakota Mission among the Teeton Indians. And she left her work there last spring, in order to take a short vacation and visit among her friends. On her way from her sister's home in Knoxville, Ill., to the home of her father at Badger, Wis., she was attacked by the disease which proved fatal. Through all her sickness to the end, she was tenderly and lovingly cared for by Miss Mary Collins, her intimate friend and companion in missionary labor. In the summer of 1875, Miss Whipple gave herself to the cause of missions, and entered upon her work in the autumn of that same year. She had little idea of what she should be called to do, but self-consecration was the beginning of all, and so, whatever work was given her to do, she took it up cheerfully and earnestly, yielding time and strength and zeal to it. Though it seemed small, she did not scorn it; though repugnant, she did not shirk it; though hard, she bravely bore it. Her merry smile, her thoughtful mind, her quick response, the work of her strong, shapely hands, all blessed our mission home. She came a stranger to us, but when she left us in the spring, only for a summer's vacation as we thought, she was our true and well beloved friend.

"They tell me she is dead! When the word reached us, already was the dear form laid away by loving hands to its last rest.

"Dead! The house is full of her presence, the work of her hands is about us, the echo of her voice is in our morning and vesper hymns, the women and children whom she taught to sew and knit, and the men whom she taught to read and write, gather about the doorway. Even now beneath the workman's hammer is rising the chapel, for which she hoped and prayed and labored.

"Dead? No! The power of her strong young life is still making itself felt, though the bodily presence is removed from us, nor can that power cease so long as the work she loved is a living work.

"'The children all about are sad,' said an Indian woman. 'I too am sorrowful. I wanted to see her again.' The little Theodore, whom she had loved and tended, folded his hands and prayed, 'Bless Miss Emmie up in heaven,--she was sick and died and went to heaven,--and bring her back some time.' Sweet, childish prayer that would fain reach out with benediction to her who is beyond the reach of our blessing, eternally blest.

"As she passed away from the fond, enfolding arms that would have detained her, she breathed a message for us all. Listen! Do you not hear her speaking? 'Work for the missions, work for the missions. Christ died for the missions.'

"On the wall of her room still hangs the Scripture roll as it was left. And this is the word of comfort it bears:--

"'I shall be satisfied when I awake in Thy likeness.'

"'His servants shall serve Him and they shall see His face.'"

THE DAKOTA CONFERENCE.

The sixth annual meeting of the Conference of churches connected with the Dakota Mission took place at T. L. Riggs' station on Peoria bottom, near Fort Sully, commencing on Thursday, September 13, 1877, and closing on Sabbath, the 16th.

The very neat new chapel, which had been in building only a few weeks, was pushed forward so that it made a very convenient and comfortable place of meeting. The Sabbath immediately preceding, it was occupied for religious service. It was very gratifying to see the house filled by the Indians living here. In the general interest manifested in religious instructions by the people of these villages, there is very much to encourage us. Old men and women, young men and maidens, flock to the new chapel, and express great gratification that it has been erected for their benefit.

On Wednesday, the 12th of the month, the delegates began to come in. The first to arrive were from the homestead settlement of Flandreau on the Big Sioux. They had come 260 miles and traveled ten days. Then came the delegation of more than twenty from the Sisseton reservation, near Fort Wadsworth. And in the evening came the largest company from the Yankton and Santee agencies. In all there were over sixty present, about forty-five of whom were members of the Conference, and all had traveled more than 200 miles. The last to arrive were John P. Williamson and A. L. Riggs, who, being disappointed in getting a steamboat, had to come all the way in the stage.

Our meeting was opened with a sermon by the youngest of our Dakota pastors, Rev. John Eastman of Flandreau. This was followed by greetings from T. L. Riggs and Mr. Yellow Hawk and Mr. Spotted Bear. Responses by S. R. Riggs, and pastors Artemas, John Renville, Daniel Renville, Solomon, David, Louis, and Joseph Blacksmith, followed by A. L. Riggs and John P. Williamson, who had just arrived. The meeting was very enjoyable and was followed by the organization. T. L. Riggs and David Gray Cloud were the English and Dakota secretaries, the only officers of the Conference. The roll contained fifty names, a number less than we have had present in years past, but quite large, considering the distance of the place from our churches, and the pressure of home work.

Friday, after a morning prayer meeting, at which the house appeared to be full, the Conference was opened with so large a gathering that it was found necessary to pack the house, when about two hundred were crowded in. As yet only a few of these Teetons have changed their dress, but they sit for three hours, and listen very attentively to discussions on the questions of "How to Study the Bible," and "Who Shall be Received to Church Membership?" To the Teetons it was all new, but the native pastors endeavored to put their thoughts into such forms as to reach their understandings. Chaplain G. D. Crocker of Sully was present with his family, and added to the interest. On Saturday, Dr. Cravens, agent at Cheyenne, with his wife, made us a visit.

The homestead question occupied us for a whole afternoon, and was one which attracted the most attention, as these Teetons even are greatly exercised to know how they shall secure a permanent habitation. Daniel Renville, Joseph Blacksmith, and Esau Iron Frenchman, all homesteaders, made eloquent appeals in favor of Indians becoming white men. But their stories of hard times showed that it had been no child's-play with them.

The report of the executive committee of the native missionary society was read by A. L. Riggs, and David Gray Cloud gave an interesting account of his last winter's work on the Missouri. Speeches were made by John B. Renville, Joseph Blacksmith, S. R. Riggs, and John P. Williamson. By vote of the Conference the same committee was re-elected for another year--A. L. Riggs, Joseph Blacksmith, and John B. Renville. The money now in the treasury is about $160, besides certain articles contributed and not yet sold. The committee expect to engage the services of one of the pastors for the coming winter.

Another question discussed was "Household Duties"; when the divine constitution of the family was made to bear against polygamy. This subject bore heavily upon the principal men of these villages, who were present and heard it all. It will doubtless cause some searchings of heart, which we hope will result in changed lives.

On Saturday afternoon a woman's meeting was held, which was peculiarly interesting in consequence of Miss Whipple's unexpected translation. She has worked herself very much into the hearts of these Teeton women.

Our whole meeting was closed by the services of the Sabbath. John P. Williamson preached an impressive sermon in Dakota; John Eastman led in the service of song at the organ; two of the native pastors administered the Supper of our Lord; Gray-haired Bear and Estelle Duprey were united in marriage; C. H. Howard of _The Advance_, made a good talk to the Dakotas on Christian work through the Holy Spirit's help, and led in an English Bible reading; and finally, John B. Renville gave us a wonderful series of pictures on the "Glory of Heaven"--what man's eye hath not seen--man's ear hath not heard--and man's heart hath not conceived. We shall long remember the meeting at Peoria bottom, and we shall expect to see results in the progress of truth in the minds and hearts of these Teetons.

The Forty Years are completed. In the meantime, many workers have fallen out of the ranks, but the work has gone on. It has been marvelous in our eyes. At the beginning, we were surrounded by the whole Sioux nation, in their ignorance and barbarism. At the close we are surrounded by churches with native pastors. Quite a section of the Sioux nation has become, in the main, civilized and Christianized. The entire Bible has been translated into the language of the Dakotas. The work of education has been rapidly progressing. The Episcopalians, entering the field many years after we did, have nevertheless, with more men and more means at their command, gone beyond us in the occupation of the wilder portions. Their work has enlarged into the bishopric of Niobrara, which is admirably filled by Bishop Hare. Thus God has been showing us, by his providence and his grace, that the red men too may come into the Kingdom.

APPENDIX.

_MONOGRAPHS._

MRS. NINA FOSTER RIGGS, REV. GIDEON H. POND, SOLOMON, DR. T. S. WILLIAMSON, THE FAMILY REUNION, AND OTHERS.

APPENDIX.

MONOGRAPHS.

MRS. NINA FOSTER RIGGS.

CORNELIA MARGARET, daughter of Hon. John B. Foster and Catharine McGaw Foster, was born in Bangor, Me., March 19, 1848. Very soon after she left us, on August 5, 1878, there appeared appreciative testimonials of her life and character in the _Advance_, in the _Iapi Oaye_, and in _Life and Light_. In preparing this monograph, the writer will make free use of all these materials.

Rev. R. B. Howard, while in the Theological Seminary at Bangor, knew her as Nina Foster, "a golden-haired, fair-cheeked, gracefully formed little Sabbath-school scholar of ten, at the Central Church. Her quick, laughing eye, her sensitive face reflecting every changing thought, her constant companionship of an only sister a little taller, her ready answers to all Sabbath-school questions, her intelligent appreciation of the sermons, and her sunshiny presence at school and at home, were among the impressions which her childhood gave.

"She lacked no means of cultivating the rare powers of mind which she early developed. Many things she seemed to learn intuitively. Her scholarship was bright, quick, accurate. Literature was her delight. Her mother's father, Judge McGaw, whose white locks and venerable presence then honored Bangor, was an interested and judicious guide in the home reading.

"In social life few shone more brilliantly, or were more admired and sought after. In those days, the beauty of person of the young lady was of a rare and noticeable type. Her conversational powers were fascinating. She had by nature genuine histrionic talent, and in conversation, reading, or reciting seemed to be completely the person she sought to represent. On one occasion, by a slight change of dress, voice, and manner, she appeared as an aged widow, pleading with a high officer of the government at Washington, to help her find her son, lost in the troublous times of the war."

The "only sister, a little taller," Mrs. Katie Foster Howard, thus testifies of Nina's early life:--

"When a little child, from eight to twelve years old, she and some of her companions formed 'a praying circle,' and had a little room in one of their homes which they called The House of Prayer. They met often in this room, and delighted to decorate it after their childish fashion.

"Another favorite occupation was the teaching of some poor children whom she and one or two friends brought out of their dreary homes to the church vestibule, and there taught to sew and read.

"When eleven years old she was examined by the pastor and church officers for admission to the church; they asked her how long she had loved Jesus, and she answered,'Oh, a great many years.'"

Mrs. Howard speaks of her sister as "the little girl in the Eastern home, whose _spirituelle_ face, with its halo of golden hair, seemed so much more of heaven than of earth as to cause the frequent, anxious comment that this world could not long detain her. An active, happy child among her playmates, her thoughts were often upon heavenly things, and her desire was to turn theirs thitherward, yet without anything morbid or unchildlike in her ways.

"As she grew to womanhood, she was the delight of the home which so tenderly shielded her from every rude blast, and of a large circle of attached friends. She possessed those charms of person and manners and qualities of mind which won admiration, and peculiarly fitted her to enjoy and adorn society. So when the time came for her to change this for a secluded life, many regretted that the fine gold should be sent where baser metal, as they thought, would do as well; that the noble woman, so eminently fitted for usefulness in circles of refinement, should spend her life among the degraded and unappreciative savages. But the event has proved that only such a nature, abounding in resources, could be the animating spirit of a model home in the wilderness; which should be an object-lesson of Christian culture not only to the Indian but to the army people, who were her only white neighbors, and who for her sake could look with interest on a work too often an object of contempt. And thus the reflex influence upon those who missed her from their number, or met her as she journeyed to her field of labor, has been in proportion to the grace of her refinement and the depth and breadth of her character. God, who spared not his own Son, still gives his choicest ones to the salvation of men."

While on a visit to Chicago, in the family of her sister, she first became acquainted with Thomas L. Riggs, then a student in the theological seminary. Their mutual love soon compelled her to consider what it would be to share in his life-work. She recognized its hardships and deprivations as could hardly have been expected in one so inexperienced in life's trials. She afterward often playfully said she was "not a missionary, only a missionary's wife." But it was a double consecration, joyous and entire, to the life of wife and missionary.

Thomas and Nina were married at her home in Bangor, December 26, 1872. It is said, "Christian people, and even Christian ministers, were inclined to say, 'Why this waste?'" Some did say it. Some spoke in bitter and almost angry condemnation of her course. That this beautiful and accomplished girl, eminently fitted to adorn any society, should devote herself to a missionary life, occasioned much comment in the social circle in which she had been prominent. What could she do for the coarse, degraded Indian women, that might not be better done by a less refined, sensitive, and elevated nature? Why shut up her beauty and talents in the log cabin of an Indian missionary? It was a shock to some who had preached self-sacrifice, and a painful surprise to many who had been praying the Lord of the harvest to send laborers. But none of these things moved her. There has seldom been a sweeter and more lovely bride. The parents too made the consecration, while they wrestled in spirit. The father writes: "I gave her up when she left us on that winter's night. It was a hard struggle, but I think I gave her unconditionally to God, to whom she so cheerfully gave herself."

At this season of the year, it was not possible for Nina to accompany her husband to Fort Sully, and so he left her at Gen. C. H. Howard's, near Chicago, to come on in the early spring. This was my first opportunity of becoming acquainted with "Mitakosh Washta," as I soon learned to call her. General Howard accompanied her to Sioux City, and then I became her escort by railroad and stage to Santee agency, and thence by steamboat to Sully. The boat was nearly two weeks on the way, and we took on two companies of United States troops at Fort Randall. The officers soon manifested a marked admiration for the beauty and culture of the Bangor lady; so that afterward, in alluding to this little episode, I used playfully to say to Nina that I was rejoiced when Thomas, coming down the Missouri in his skiff, met us and took charge of his bride.

We had but a few weeks to spend at Fort Sully, until we should start down to the meeting of our annual Conference, which was held in June that year, at the Yankton agency. But those weeks were full of pleasure to Nina. Everything was new and strange. She was devoid of fear when she sat in the iron skiff, and crossed the Big Muddy with her husband at the helm. The time came to go down. It was nearly noon on Monday when we were ready to start; but, by hard driving, we were able to reach Rev. John P. Williamson's--more than 200 miles--by the afternoon of Thursday. Secretary S. J. Humphrey, from Chicago, was there, and afterward wrote that for T. L. Riggs and the father, who were accustomed to hard traveling and sleeping on the ground, it was nothing very strange; but for one reared as Nina had been, it was simply wonderful.

This was the first meeting of Martha Riggs Morris with her new sister. When the latter had gone beyond our ken, Martha wrote an appreciative article for the _Word Carrier_: "Let me give something," she wrote, "of the little glimpses I have had of her brave, cheery life. I may first go back to the time when we first heard of Nina Foster--who thought enough of T. L. Riggs and the Indian work to help him in it. That was in the spring-time. A few months later, Thomas had a hard ride across from Fort Sully to Sisseton on horseback, accompanied by a soldier for guard and an Indian for guide. He came to attend the annual Conference of the Dakota churches, and he showed us a picture of the young lady herself. A beautiful face, we all thought it was. And from what we heard of Nina Foster, we were all prepared to take her into our hearts, as we did when we saw her afterward.

"It was in June of the year following that I had my first glimpse of her. I had myself taken a tedious journey of some three hundred miles, and the years as well as the journey had worn upon me. So I felt some trepidation about meeting the blooming bride. But, on seeing her, that soon vanished, and I had nothing left but admiration for the beautiful sister. She told so merrily how they had strapped her in, to keep her from falling out of the wagon, and other incidents of her unaccustomed journey. There was an evident determination to make the best of every experience."

A little while after this Mrs. Morris was called to lay away her blue-eyed boy out of sight. Then Nina's letter was very comforting. "I have wept," she says, "with you for the dear little baby form laid away from your arms to its last sleep; and I think of your words, 'Nothing to do any more.' Ah! my dear sister, He will not so leave you comfortless. He who forgot not, in the last hours of his earthly life, to give to the aching mother-heart a new care and love, will not forget, I think, to bestow on your emptied hands some new duty which shall grow to be a joy."

At the meeting of the American Board at Minneapolis in the autumn of 1873, Mrs. Nina Riggs was present, and addressed the ladies of the Woman's Board, asking for a young lady companion in her far-off field. To this call Miss Lizzie Bishop of Northfield responded, and gave the remainder of her bright, true life to help on the work at Fort Sully. Nina visited her sister in Chicago, and charmed them all by reciting her strange experiences of the summer. "Her buoyant spirits and faculty for seeing the droll side of everything helped to make the sketch a bright one. Her sense of humor and keen wit has lightened many a load for herself and others; the more forlorn and hopeless the situation, the more elastic her spirits. How often have those of her own household, wearied with severe labor and weighed down with care, been compelled to laugh, almost against their will, by her irresistible drollery, and thus the current of thought was turned and the burden half thrown aside."

In the summer of 1874 baby Theodore was born, and none from Fort Sully came to our annual meeting. On my way from a visit to Fort Berthold, down the Missouri River, I stopped off for a few days. They were then occupying Hope Station, across the river from the fort. Both Miss Bishop and Mrs. Nina Riggs I found very enthusiastic over their work for the Teeton women.

When another year had been completed, Lizzie Bishop had gone home to die, and Nina Riggs made a visit to her friends in the East. The Board met in Chicago that autumn, and Mrs. Riggs again addressed the ladies. "Two years ago," she said, "at a meeting in Minneapolis, I made a request which was promptly answered. I asked for a young lady to go back with me to the mission work. I find her name is not on the rolls. But if ever a brave life should be recorded, and the name of an earnest woman be loved and remembered by all, it is that of Miss Lizzie Bishop of Northfield, Minn. We had hoped that she might return, but the Lord has not seen fit to allow that. He calls her to himself soon. For the past two years I have been at different stations. I was at Hope Station, on the west side of the Missouri. Now I am at Bogue Station, fifteen miles below Fort Sully, on the east side. Since I have been there, I have met a great many women. At first they all seemed to me very degraded; but I have come not only to feel interested in many of them, but to love some of them with a very deep love." So spake Nina; and when she sat down, a telegram was read that the good and brave Lizzie Bishop had already entered in through the gates of pearl, into "Jerusalem the golden."

Two others, Miss Mary C. Collins and Miss Emmaretta Whipple, were ready to start back with Mrs. Riggs. So the vacant place was more than filled, and they all girded themselves for a hard winter's work.

A little before this time, Nina sent to the _Word Carrier_ a short bit of poetry, which seems to embody her own wrestling with doubt in others. The last stanza reads:--

"With daring heart, I too have tried To know the height and depth of God above; And can I wonder that I too walked blind, And felt stern Justice in the place of Love? Above the child, the sun shines on; Above me too One reigns I cannot see; Yet all around I feel both warmth and power; _If God is not_, whence can _their_ coming be?"

In September, 1876, the great gathering of the Dakota mission was held in the new Ascension church, on the Sisseton reservation. Mrs. Morris writes: "We looked out eagerly for the travelers from Fort Sully way. We hoped they would come a few days beforehand, so that we might have more of their companionship. But they did not come. And as we had to be on hand in the Ascension neighborhood, ten miles away, to entertain the missionaries that might come, we shut up our house, and went on without the Fort Sully friends. It was Friday noon when they arrived, and received a glad welcome from all."

Thomas and Nina and their little lad Theodore, now two years old, who amused every one with his quaint sayings, together with Miss Collins and Miss Whipple, with all their personal and camping baggage, had been packed for eight days into a small two-horse buggy. The journey of 250 miles, the way they traveled, over a country uninhabited, was not without its romance. "Not the least of the enjoyment of this 'feast of days,' were the bits of talk sandwiched in here and there between meetings, and caring for the children and providing for the guests. As we baked the bread and watched over the two cousins, Theodore and Mary Theodora, so nearly of an age, we had many a pleasant chat--Nina and I. She gave me an insight into their happy home-life, and I longed to know more. She told, too, of her special work in visiting the homes of the Teetons, and prescribing for the sick. At the special meeting held for the women, Nina made a few remarks, winning all hearts by her grace of manners, as well as by her lovely face. Now that she is gone, the Dakota women speak of her as 'the beautiful woman who spoke so well.'"

"To all who come I wish my home to seem a pleasant home," is a remark which Miss Collins accredits to Nina. So indeed we found it in the months of August and September of 1877. The dear Miss Whipple had just stepped into the boat at Chicago which carried her to the farther shore. Miss Collins was mourning over her departed comrade while making out the visit to her friends. By appointment I met on the way, Gen. Charles H. Howard of the _Advance_, who, with his family, was bound for Fort Sully. We were prospered in our journey up the Missouri, and gladly welcomed into the mission home on Peoria bottom. The two sisters met and passed some happy weeks in the home of the younger one. Mrs. Howard thus describes that home in those August days: "Its treeless waste lay under a scorching sun. Beneath a bluff which overlooks the river lowlands, nestled a solitary green enclosure around a long, low dwelling, whose aspect was of comfort and of home. The sunshine which withered the surrounding country was not the gentle power under which had sprung up this oasis in the desert. The light within the house, whose sweet radiance beautified the humble dwelling, and shone forth upon the wilderness around, was the fair soul, whose heaven-reflected glory touched all who came within its ray."

To the same effect is Miss Collins' testimony: "I think no one ever entered her home without feeling that the very house was purified by her presence. I remember well just how she studied our different tastes. She knew every member of the family thoroughly; and our happiness was consulted in all things." So we all thought. Nina presided in her own home, albeit that home was in Dakota land, with a queenly grace.

About the middle of that September our annual Conference met in their new and not yet finished chapel, on Peoria bottom. Miss Collins did not get back until the close of the meeting. Besides her guests, Mrs. Nina Riggs had a good deal of company from Fort Sully and the agency. But it was all entertained with the same quiet dignity. Of this visit to her sister, Mrs. Howard wrote afterward: "I do not know how to be grateful enough that we spent last summer (1877) together; it is a season of blessed memory."

To this I add: I too have one last picture of Nina in my memory. I was to return to Sisseton with the Indians who had come over to our annual Conference. They went up on Monday to Cheyenne agency to get rations for the journey. On Tuesday afternoon Thomas arranged to take me out fifteen miles to meet them. Thinking they would go out and return that evening a party was made up. The two sisters, Mrs. Howard and Nina, and little Theodore and Thomas and myself in a buggy, and Gen. C. H. Howard and "Mack" on ponies, we had a pleasant ride out. But it was too late for them to return. The Dakota friends gave us of their fresh meat, and with the provisions Nina had bountifully supplied for my journey, we all made a good supper and breakfast, and had an abundance left. The next morning we separated. That was my last sight of Nina.

In midsummer of 1878, the time for her departure came. She seemed to have a premonition of its coming. Miss Collins writes: "The last summer of her precious life seemed a very fitting one for the last. She labored earnestly for the conversion of her boy, and said: 'If I should die and leave my boy, I should feel so much better satisfied to go if he had that stronghold.'"

In the _Word Carrier_ for September appeared this notice: "Our beloved Nina Foster Riggs, wife of Rev. T. L. Riggs of Bogue Station, near Fort Sully, has heard the Master's call, and gone up higher. She was taken away in child-birth, on the 5th of August. Hers was a beautiful life, blossoming out into what we supposed would be a grand fruitage of blessing to the Dakotas. It is cut off suddenly! 'Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight.' _We are dumb, because thou didst it!_"

Two days after her death, Thomas wrote: "Dear Father--Mitakosh Washta has been taken from us. My good Nina has gone. She was taken sick Saturday night. Before the light of the Sabbath, violent convulsions had set in. We got the post surgeon and Mrs. Crocker here as soon as possible; but, though every effort was made, the spasms could not be prevented, and our dear one sank gradually out of reach. Early Monday morning, after child-birth, the mother seemed to brighten a bit; but soon our gladness was turned to sadness, for she did not rally. God took her. She was his. We buried the body--the beautiful house of the more beautiful spirit--in the yard near her window, yesterday. May God help us."

Only a few days before, a kind Providence had guided Arther H. Day, a cousin of Nina's, from his work in the office of the _Advance_, in Chicago, and Robert B. Riggs from his teaching in Beloit College, up to Peoria bottom, for a little rest. And so they were there to help and give sympathy. Of this event Mr. Day wrote: "Rarely is it the lot of one so blessed with loving relatives and friends to pass away surrounded by so few to sympathize, and to be buried with so few to weep. Three relatives and nine other white friends stood alone by her grave, and the many hundreds in the far East knew not of the scene. I say _white_ friends, because I would not ignore the presence of those many dusky faces which looked on in sorrow, because _their friend_ was dead.

"About noon on Tuesday, August 6, the funeral service was conducted by Chaplain Crocker. The same hymn was sung that, by Nina's own choice, had been sung at her wedding:--

"'Guide me, O thou great Jehovah.'

One room of the house was filled with Indians, and the service was partly in the native language. Her grave was made near the window of her room, where she so often had beheld the sunset; and as kindly hands laid her body there, surrounded by beautiful flowers, the chaplain said: 'Never was more precious dust laid in Dakota soil--never more hopeful seed planted for a spiritual harvest among the Dakota people.'"

This beautiful summing-up of her character appeared as an editorial in the _Advance_, by Rev. Simeon Gilbert:--

"Here was a young woman of extraordinary beauty of person, of still more noticeable symmetry and completeness of mental endowment, sweetness and nobility of disposition, brightness and elasticity of temperament; quickly, keenly sympathetic with others' joys and sorrows--but who had never known a grief of her own; converted in infancy, reared in one of the happiest of earnest Christian homes, and favored with as fine social and educational advantages as the country affords; with too much sense to be affected by mere 'romance,' yet deeply alive to all the poetry alike in literature and in real life; and withal, from early childhood, with a spiritual imagination exquisitely alive to the realness and the nearness of unseen things, and the all-controlling sweep of the motives springing therefrom;--rarely does one meet a young person better fitted at once to enjoy and to adorn what is best in American Christian homes. At the age of twenty-four she marries a young man just out of the seminary, and goes forth with him beyond the frontiers of civilization, into the very heart of savage Indian tribes. What a sacrifice; what a venture; what certain-coming solicitudes, perils, cares, deprivations, hardships, loneliness, and mountainous discouragements! And there for the short period of less than five years she lives, when suddenly the young missionary is left alone, longing for the 'touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still.'

"Now, a case like this must set one to studying over again what, after all, is the true philosophy of life, and what, on the whole, is the wisest economy of personal forces in the church's work of Christianizing the world. As helping to a right answer, let us note a few facts:--

"1. It costs to save a lost world; and nothing is wasted that serves well that end. God himself has given for this purpose the choicest, the highest, and the best which it was possible for even him to give.

"2. Heathen people, even savages, as we call them, are not insensible to the unique fascination, and power to subdue and inspire, which belong to what is really most beautiful in aspect, manner, mind, and character. Often it is to them as if they had seen a vision, or dreamed a startling dream of possibilities of which they had known nothing, and could have known nothing, until they _saw_ it, and the sight awakened into being and action the diviner elements of their own hidden nature. The Word of God is one form of revelation, but the work of God in a peculiarly complete and lovely character is another revelation, and one that unmistakably interprets itself. There is as much need of the one as there is of the other. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ must, in most cases at least, first be seen reflected 'in the face' of some of his disciples. The more dense the darkness, the more intense must be the shining of the love and the beauty of the truth which are to enlighten, captivate, lead forth, and refine. Among all the teepees and huts of that Indian reservation, as also throughout the barracks and quarters of the military post at Fort Sully, Mrs. Riggs was known, and the potent charm of her personal influence and home-life was deeply felt. It is largely due to such persons that the cause of missions, even among the most degraded, commands the respect, if not the veneration, of those who otherwise might have looked on derisively.

"3. Nor, again, are the lives of such persons wasted as regards their influence upon those who knew them, or shall come to know of them; at home. 'How far that little candle throws its beams; so shines a good example'; and in instances like these it shines more effectively than, perhaps, in any other circumstances would have been possible. If one were to mention a score of American women who have exerted most influence in determining the best characteristics of American women, half of them, we suspect, would be names of the women who, leaving home and country, went far forth seeking to multiply similar homes in other countries.

"4. Nor, again, is the strangely beautiful life wasted because cut short so early in its course. The ointment most precious was never more so than when its box was broken and the odor of it filled all the house. This that this young missionary has done, animated by the love of the Master and a sacred passion for lifting up the lowly, will be spoken of as a memorial of her in all the churches; and in not a few homes, of the rich as of the poor, will be felt the sweet constraint of her beautiful, joyous, consecrated life. She was not alone; there are many more like her; and, best of all, there are to be vastly more yet, who will not be deaf to 'the high calling.' The Master has need of them. The way, on the whole, is infinitely attractive. Thanks for the life of this woman who did so much, from first to last, to make it appear so!

"And thanks too for such a death, which, coming in the sweetest and completest blooming of life's beauty, when not a fault had stayed to mar it, and no wasting had ever touched it--an ending which transfigures all that came before it, and which now, in the mingling of retrospect and prospect, helps those who knew her to a deeply surprised sense of the fact that,

'To Death it is given, To see how this world is embosomed in heaven.'"

To us, who are blind and cannot see afar off, it is impossible to perceive, and difficult to believe, that the taking away in the vigor of womanhood of one who was showing such a capacity and adaptability for the work of elevating the Teetons can be made to subserve the furtherance of the cause of Christ. But we must believe that God, who sees the end from the beginning, and who makes no mistakes, will bring out of this sore bereavement a harvest of joy; and that that grave under the window of the mission house in Peoria bottom will be a testimony to the love of Jesus and the power of his Gospel, that will thrill and uplift many hearts from Bangor to Fort Sully. It was a beautiful life of faith and service; and it has only gone to be perfected in the shadow of the Tree of Life.

S. R. R.

REV. GIDEON H. POND.

A SUCCESSFUL LIFE.

Born and brought up in Litchfield county, in a town adjoining Washington, Connecticut, Rev. George Bushnell visited that hill country in his youth, and was deeply impressed with the manifest and pervading religious element in the community. Taken there by a special providence, more than a quarter of a century ago, and enjoying the privilege of a visit in some of the families, it seemed to me that it had been a good place to raise men. This was on the line of the impression made upon me years before that. When I first met, in the land of the Dakotas, the brothers Samuel W. and Gideon H. Pond, they were both over six feet high, and "seemed the children of a king."

In this hill town of Washington, on the 30th of June, 1810, Gideon Hollister, the younger of the two brothers, was born. His parents were Elnathan Judson and Sarah Hollister Pond. Gideon was the fifth child, and so was called by the Dakotas _Hakay_. Of his childhood and youth almost nothing is known to the writer. He had the advantage of a New England common-school education; perhaps nothing more. As he grew very rapidly and came to the size and strength of man early, he made a full hand in the harvest field at the age of sixteen. To this ambition to be counted a man and do a man's work when as yet he should have been a boy, he in after life ascribed some of his infirmities. This ambition continued with him through life, and occasional over-work at last undermined a constitution that might, with care and God's blessing, have continued to the end of the century.

He came to the land of the Dakotas, now Minnesota, in the spring of 1834. The older brother, Samuel, had come out as far as Galena, Ill., in the summer previous. The pioneer minister of that country of lead was Rev. Aratus Kent, who desired to retain Mr. Pond as an adjutant in his great and constantly enlarging work; but Mr. Pond had heard of the Sioux, or Dakotas, for whose souls no one cared, and, having decided to go to them, he sent for his brother Gideon to accompany him.

When they reached Fort Snelling, and made known their errand to the commanding officer of the post, Major Bliss, and to the resident Indian agent, Major Taliaferro, they received the hearty approval and co-operation of both, and the agent at once recommended them to commence work with the Dakotas of the Lake Calhoun village, where some steps had already been taken in the line of civilization. There, on the margin of the lake, they built their log cabin. Last summer Mr. King's grand Pavilion, so called, was completed on the same spot, which gave occasion for Mr. Gideon H. Pond to tell the story of this first effort in that line:

"Just forty-three years previous to the occurrence above alluded to, on the same beautiful site, was completed an humble edifice, built by the hands of two inexperienced New England boys, just setting out in life-work. The foundation-stones of that hut were removed to make place for the present Pavilion, perchance compose a part of it. The old structure was of oak logs, carefully peeled. The peeling was a mistake. Twelve feet by sixteen, and eight feet high, were the dimensions of the edifice. Straight poles from the tamarack grove west of the lake formed the timbers of the roof, and the roof itself was of the bark of trees which grew on the bank of what is now called 'Bassett's Creek,' fastened with strings of the inner bark of the bass wood. A partition of small logs divided the house into two rooms, and split logs furnished material for a floor. The ceiling was of slabs from the old government saw-mill, through the kindness of Major Bliss, who was in command of Fort Snelling. The door was made of boards split from a log with an axe, having wooden hinges and fastenings, and was locked by pulling in the latch-string. The single window was the gift of the kind-hearted Major Lawrence Taliaferro, United States Indian agent. The cash cost of the building was one shilling, New York currency, for nails used in and about the door. 'The formal opening' exercises consisted in reading a section from the old book by the name of BIBLE, and prayer to Him who was its acknowledged author. The 'banquet' consisted of mussels from the lake, flour and water. The ground was selected by the Indian chief of the Lake Calhoun band of Dakotas, Man-of-the-sky, by which he showed good taste. The reason he gave for the selection was that 'from that point the loons would be visible on the lake.'

"The old chief and his pagan people had their homes on the surface of that ground in the bosom of which now sleep the bodies of deceased Christians from the city of Minneapolis, the Lake Wood cemetery, over which these old eyes have witnessed, dangling in the night breeze, many a Chippewa scalp, in the midst of horrid chants, yells, and wails, widely contrasting with the present stillness of that quiet home of those

'Who sleep the years away.'

That hut was the home of the first citizen settlers of Hennepin county, perhaps of Minnesota, the first school-room, the first house for divine worship, and the first mission station among the Dakota Indians."

The departure of Mr. Pond called forth from Gen. Henry H. Sibley so just and beautiful a tribute, that I can not forbear inserting a portion, from the _Pioneer Press_ of St. Paul:--

"When the writer came to this country, in 1834, he did not expect to meet a single white man, except those composing the garrison at Fort Snelling, a few government officials attached to the department of Indian affairs, and the traders and voyageurs employed by the great fur company in its business. There was but one house, or, rather, log cabin, along the entire distance of nearly 300 miles between Prairie du Chien and St. Peters, now Mendota, and that was at a point below Lake Pepin, near the present town of Wabashaw. What was his surprise then to find that his advent had been preceded in the spring of the same year by two young Americans, Samuel W. Pond and Gideon H. Pond, brothers, scarcely out of their teens, who had built for themselves a small hut at the Indian village of Lake Calhoun, and had determined to consecrate their lives to the work of civilizing and Christianizing the wild Sioux. For many long years these devoted men labored in the cause, through manifold difficulties and discouragements, sustained by a faith that the seed sown would make itself manifest in God's good time. The efforts then made to reclaim the savages from their mode of life, the influence of their blameless and religious walk and conversation upon those with whom they were brought in daily contact, and the self-denial and personal sacrifices required at their hands, are doubtless treasured up in a higher than human record."

General Sibley mentions an incident belonging to this period of their residence at Lake Calhoun, which never before came to my knowledge:--

"Gifted with an uncommonly fine constitution, the subject of this sketch met with an accident in his early days, from the effects of which it is questionable if he ever entirely recovered. He broke through the ice at Lake Harriet in the early part of the winter, and as there was no one at hand to afford aid, he only saved his life after a desperate struggle, by continuing to fracture the frozen surface until he reached shallow water, when he succeeded in extricating himself. His long immersion and exhaustive efforts brought on a severe attack of pneumonia, which for many days threatened a fatal termination."

My own personal acquaintance with Mr. Pond commenced in the summer of 1837. He was then, and had been for a year previous, at Lac-qui-parle. In September my wife and I joined that station, and the first event occurring after that, which has impressed itself upon my memory, was the marriage of Mr. Pond and Miss Sarah Poage, sister of Mrs. Dr. Williamson. This was the first marriage ceremony I had been called upon to perform; and Mr. Pond signalized it by making a feast, and calling, according to the Saviour's injunction, "the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind." And there was a plenty of such to be called in that Dakota village. They could not recompense him, but "he shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."

Mr. Pond had long been yearning to see what was inside of an Indian. He sometimes said he wanted to be an Indian, if only for a little while, that he might know how an Indian felt, and by what motives he could be moved. When the early spring of 1838 came, and the ducks began to come northward, a half-dozen Dakota families started from Lac-qui-parle to hunt and trap on the upper part of the Chippewa River, in the neighborhood of where the town of Benson now is. Mr. Pond went with them and was gone two weeks. It was in the month of April, and the streams were flooded and the water was cold. There should have been enough of game easily obtained to feed the party. But it did not prove so. A cold spell came on, the ducks disappeared, and Mr. Pond and his Indian hunters were reduced to scanty fare, and sometimes they had nothing for a whole day. But Mr. Pond was seeing inside of Indians and was quite willing to starve a good deal. However, his stay with them, and their hunt for that time as well, was suddenly terminated, by the appearance of the Ojibwa chief Hole-in-the-Day and ten men with him. They came to smoke the peace-pipe, they said. They were royally feasted by three of the families, who killed their dogs to feed the strangers, who, in turn, arose in the night and killed the Dakotas. As God would have it, Mr. Pond was not then with those three tents, and so he escaped.

No one had started with more of a determination to master the Dakota language than Gideon H. Pond. And no one of the older missionaries succeeded so well in learning to talk just like a Dakota. Indeed, he must have had a peculiar aptitude for acquiring language; for in these first years of missionary life, he learned to read French and Latin and Greek, so that the second Mrs. Pond writes: "When I came, and for a number of years, he read from the Greek Testament at our family worship in the morning. Afterward he used his Latin Bible, and still later his French Testament."

In this line of literary work General Sibley's testimony is appreciative. He says:--

"Indeed, to them, and to their veteran co-laborers, Rev. T. S. Williamson and Rev. S. R. Riggs, the credit is to be ascribed of having produced this rude and rich Dakota tongue to the learned world in a written and systematic shape, the lexicon prepared by their joint labors forming one of the publications of the Smithsonian Institute at Washington City, which has justly elicited the commendation of experts in philological lore, as a most valuable contribution to that branch of literature."

While Mr. Pond was naturally ambitious, he was also peculiarly sensitive and retiring. When the writer was left with him at Lac-qui-parle, Dr. Williamson having gone to Ohio for the winter, although so much better master of the Dakota than I was at that time, he was unwilling to take more than a secondary part in the Sabbath services. "Dr. Williamson and you are ministers," he would say. And even years afterward, when he and his family had removed to the neighborhood of Fort Snelling, and he and his brother had built at Oak Grove, with the people of their first love, Gideon H. could hardly be persuaded that it was his duty to become a preacher of the Gospel. I remember more than one long conversation I had with him on the subject. He seemed to shrink from it as a little child, although he was then thirty-seven years old.

In the spring of 1847, he and Mr. Robert Hopkins were licensed by the Dakota presbytery, and ordained in the autumn of 1848. We were not disappointed in our men. Mr. Hopkins gave evidence of large adaptation to the missionary work; but in less than three years he heard the call of the Master, and went up through a flood of waters. Mr. Pond, notwithstanding his hesitation in accepting the office, became a most acceptable and efficient and successful preacher and pastor.

After the treaties of 1851, these Lower Sioux were removed to the Upper Minnesota. White people came in immediately and took possession of their lands. Mr. Pond elected to remain and labor among the white people. He very soon organized a church, which in a short time became a working, benevolent church--for some years the banner Presbyterian church of Minnesota in the way of benevolence. When, in 1873, Mr. Pond resigned his pastorate, he wrote in his diary, "I have preached to the people of Bloomington twenty years." He received home mission aid only a few years.

We are very glad to have placed at our disposal so much of the private journal of the late Rev. G. H. Pond as relates to the wonderful work of God among the Dakotas in prison at Mankato, Minn., in the winter of 1862-63. The facts, in the main, have been published before; but the story, as told so simply and graphically by Mr. Pond, may well bear repeating. Mr. Pond arrived at Mankato Saturday, January 31, 1863, and remained until the afternoon of Tuesday, February 3:--

"There are over three hundred Indians in prison, the most of whom are in chains. There is a degree of religious interest manifested by them, which is incredible. They huddle themselves together every morning and evening in the prison, and read the Scriptures, sing hymns, confess one to another, exhort one another, and pray together. They say that their whole lives have been wicked--that they have adhered to the superstitions of their ancestors until they have reduced themselves to their present state of wretchedness and ruin. They declare that they have left it all, and will leave all forever; that they do and will embrace the religion of Jesus Christ, and adhere to it as long as they live; and that this is their only hope, both in this world and in the next. They say that before they came to this state of mind--this determination--their hearts failed them with fear, but now they have much mental ease and comfort.

"About fifty men of the Lake Calhoun band expressed a wish to be baptized by me, rather than by any one else, on the ground that my brother and myself had been their first and chief instructors in religion. After consultation with Rev. Marcus Hicks of Mankato, Dr. Williamson and I decided to grant their request, and administer to them the Christian ordinance of baptism. We made the conditions as plain as we could, and we proclaimed there in the prison that we would baptize such as felt ready heartily to comply with the conditions--commanding that none should come forward to receive the rite who did not do it heartily to the God of heaven, whose eye penetrated each of their hearts. All, by a hearty--apparently hearty--response, signified their desire to receive the rite on the conditions offered.

"As soon as preparations could be completed, and we had provided ourselves with a basin of water, they came forward, one by one, as their names were called, and were baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, while each subject stood with his right hand raised and head bowed, and many of them with the eyes closed, with an appearance of profound reverence. As each one passed from the place where he stood to be baptized, one or the other of us stopped him and addressed to him, in a low voice, a few words, such as our knowledge of his previous character and the solemnities of the occasion suggested. The effect of this, in most cases, seemed to very much deepen the solemnity of the ceremony. I varied my words, in this part of the exercises, to suit the case of the person; and when gray-haired medicine-men stood literally trembling before me, as I laid one hand on their heads, the effect on my mind was such that at times my tongue faltered. The words which I used in this part of the service were the following, or something nearly like them in substance: 'My brother, this is the mark of God which is placed upon you. You will carry it while you live. It introduces you into the great family of God, who looked down from heaven, not upon your head, but into your heart. This ends your superstition, and from this time you are to call God your Father. Remember to honor him. Be resolved to do his will.' It made me glad to hear them respond, 'Yes, I will.'

"When we were through, and all were again seated, we sung a hymn appropriate to the occasion, in which many of them joined, and then prayed. I then said to them, 'Hitherto I have addressed you as friends; now I call you brothers. For years we have contended together on this subject of religion; now our contentions cease. We have one Father--we are one family. I must now leave you, and probably shall see you no more in this world. While you remain in this prison, you have time to attend to religion. You can do nothing else. Your adherence to the Medicine Sack and the Wotawe has brought you to ruin. Our Lord Jesus Christ can save you. Seek him with all your heart. He looks not on your heads nor on your lips, but into your bosoms. Brothers, I will make use of a term of brotherly salutation, to which you have been accustomed in your medicine dance, and say to you, Brothers, I spread my hands over you and bless you.' The hearty answer of three hundred voices made me feel glad.

"The outbreak and events which followed it have, under God, broken into shivers the power of the priests of devils, which has hitherto ruled these wretched tribes. They were before bound in the chains and confined in the prison of Paganism, as the prisoners in the prison at Philippi were bound with chains. The outbreak and its attendant consequences have been like the earthquake to shake the foundation of their prison, and every one's bonds have been loosed. Like the jailer, in anxious fear they have cried, 'Sirs, what must we do to be saved?' They have been told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, who will still save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by him. They say they repent and forsake their sins--that they believe on him, that they trust in him, and will obey him. Therefore they have been baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, _three hundred in a day_."

In the spring of 1853, Mrs. Sarah Poage Pond departed, after a lingering illness of eighteen months, and left a "blessed memory." There were seven children by this marriage, all of whom are living, and have families of their own, but George, who died while in the Lane Theological Seminary. In the summer of 1854, Mr. Pond was married to his second wife, Mrs. Agnes C. J. Hopkins, widow of Rev. Robert Hopkins. The second Mrs. Pond brought her three children, making the united family of children at that time ten. Six have been added since. And there are twenty-two grandchildren, six of whom are members of the Church of Christ, together with all the children and their companions. Is not that a successful life? Counting the widowed mother and those who have come into the family by marriage, there are, I understand, just fifty who mourn the departure of the patriarch father. A little more than two-score years ago, he was one; and now behold a _multitude_!

Mary Frances Hopkins, who came into the family when a girl, and afterward married Edward R. Pond, the son, writes thus: "To me he was as near an own father as it is possible for one to be who is so by adoption, and I shall always be glad I was allowed to call him father."

The members of the synod of Minnesota will remember with great pleasure Mr. Pond's presence with them at their last meeting at St. Paul, in the middle of October. For some years past, he has frequently been unable to be present. This time he seemed to be more vigorous than usual, and greatly entertained the synod and people of St. Paul with his terse and graphic presentation of some of the Lord's workings in behalf of the Dakotas.

During the meeting I was quartered with Mrs. Governor Ramsay. On Saturday I was charged with a message to Mr. Pond, inviting him to come and spend the night at the governor's. We passed a profitable evening together, and he and I talked long of the way in which the Lord had led us; of the great prosperity he had given us in our families and in our work. Neither of us thought, probably, that that would be our last talk this side the golden city. The next day, Sabbath, he preached in the morning, for Rev. D. R. Breed, in the House of Hope, which, probably, was _his last sermon_. In the evening he was with us in the Opera House, at a meeting in the interest of home and foreign missions.

"His health gradually failed," Mrs. Pond writes, "from the time of his return from synod, though he did not call himself sick until the 11th of January, 1878, and he died on Sabbath, the 20th, about noon." She adds: "His interest in the Indians, for whom he labored so long, was very deep, and he always spoke of them with loving tenderness, and often with tears. One of the last things he did was to look over his old Dakota hymns, revised by J. P. W. and A. L. R., and sent to him for his consent to the proposed alterations."

"His _simple faith_ in the Lord Jesus caused him all the time to live a life of self-denial, that he might do more to spread the knowledge of Jesus' love to those who knew it not." The love of Christ constrained him, and was his ruling passion.

Of his last days the daughter says:--

"He really _died of consumption_. The nine days he was confined to bed he suffered much; but his mind was mostly clear, and he was very glad to go. I think the summons was no more sudden to him than to Elijah. He was to the last loving and trustful, brave and patient. To his brother Samuel, as he came to his sick bed, he said: 'So we go to see each other die.' Some time before he had visited Samuel when he did not expect to recover. 'My struggles are over. The Lord has taken care of me, and he will take care of the rest of you. My hope is in the Lord,' he said.

"Toward the last it was hard for him to converse, and he bade us no formal farewell. But the words, as we noted them down, were words of cheer and comfort: 'You have nothing to fear, for the present or the future.' And so was given to him the victory over death, through faith in Jesus."

_Is that dying? He sleeps with his fathers. He has gone to see the King in his beauty, in a land not very far off._

As loving hands ministered to him in his sickness, loving hearts mourned at his death. On the Wednesday following he was buried. A half a dozen brothers in the ministry were present at his funeral, and, fittingly, Mr. Breed of the _House of Hope_ preached the sermon.

_This is success._

S. R. R.

SOLOMON.

In the summer of 1874 Rev. John P. Williamson made a tour up the Missouri River as far as Fort Peck. His judgment was that there was no opening at that place for the establishment of a new mission, but that something might possibly be done by native Dakotas. In the meantime, we had heard from the regions farther north than Fort Peck, where some of our church-members had gone after the outbreak of 1862. Somewhere up in Manitoba, near Fort Ellice, was Henok Appearing Cloud, with his relatives. His mother, Mazaskawin,--_Silver-Woman_,--was a member of the Hazelwood church, and his father, Wamde-okeya,--_Eagle Help_,--had been my old helper in Dakota translations. These were all near relatives of Solomon Toonkanshaecheye, one of our native pastors.

Dr. Williamson, by correspondence with the Presbyterian Board, obtained an appropriation of several hundred dollars to send a native missionary to these Dakotas in Canada. Solomon gladly accepted the undertaking, and in the month of June, 1875, started for Manitoba with Samuel Hopkins for a companion.

They were received with a great deal of joy by their friends, who entreated them to stay, or come back again if they left. But provisions were very scarce, and hard to be obtained; and hence they determined to return to the Sisseton agency before winter. While in Manitoba they had taught and preached the Gospel, and baptized and received several persons to the fellowship of the church. Solomon wrote, before he returned, "Indeed, there is no food; they have laid up nothing at all; so that, when winter comes, where they will obtain food, and how they will live, no one knows. But I have already found something of what I have been seeking, and very reluctantly I turn away from the work."

Solomon and Samuel returned to Sisseton, but their visit had created a larger desire for education and the privileges of the Gospel. In the March following, Henok Appearing Cloud wrote that he had taught school during the winter, and conducted religious meetings, as he "wanted the Word of God to grow." In much simplicity, he adds: "Although I am poor, and often starving, I keep my heart just as though I were rich. When I read again in the Sacred Book what Jesus, the Lord, has promised us, my heart is glad. I am thinking, if a minister will only come this summer and stay with us a little while, our hearts will rejoice. If he comes to stay with us a long time, we will rejoice more. But as we are so often in a starving condition, I know it will be hard for any one to come."

Rev. John Black of Keldonan Manse, near Winnipeg, heard of this visit of Solomon to Manitoba, and of the desire of those Dakotas to have a missionary. He at once became deeply interested in the movement, and wrote to Dr. Williamson, at St. Peter, proposing that the Presbyterian Missionary Society of Canada should take upon themselves the charge of supporting Solomon as a missionary among the Dakotas of the Dominion. But when the matter was brought before the missionary committee, they decided that the condition of their finances would not allow them to add to their burdens at that time. It was not, however, given up, and a year later the arrangement was consummated. In the _Word Carrier_ for December, 1877, appeared this editorial:--

"The most important event occurring in our missionary work during the month of October is the departure of Rev. Solomon Toonkanshaecheye, with his family, for Fort Ellice, in the Dominion of Canada. This has been under advisement by the Presbyterian Foreign Missionary Society of Canada for two years past. Rev. John Black of Keldonan Manse, Manitoba, has been working for it. A year ago the funds of the society would not admit of enlargement in their operations. This year their way has been made clear, and the invitation has come to Solomon to be their missionary among the Dakotas on the Assinaboine River. They pay his expenses of removal, and promise him $600 salary.

"He has gone. Agent Hooper of Sisseton agency furnished him with the necessary pass, and essentially aided him in his outfit, and so we sent him off on the tenth day of October, invoking God's blessing upon him and his by the way, and abundant success for him in his prospective work. From the commencement of negotiations in regard to this matter it has been of special interest to Dr. T. S. Williamson of St. Peter. He has conducted the correspondence with Mr. Black. And now, while the good doctor was lying nigh unto death, as he supposed, the arrangement has gone into effect. If this prove to be his last work on earth (may the good Lord cause otherwise), it will be a matter of joy on his part that thus the Gospel is carried to regions beyond, by so good and trustworthy a man as we have found Solomon to be all through these years."

Thus was the work commenced. Dr. Williamson did not pass from us then, but lived nearly two years longer, and was cheered by the news of progress in this far-off land. This being among our first efforts to do evangelistic work by sending away our native ministers, our hearts were much bound up in it. The church of Long Hollow was reluctant to give up their pastor, and to me it was giving up one whom I had learned to trust, and, in some measure, to depend upon, among my native pastors. But it was evidently God's call, and he has already justified himself, even in our eyes. Solomon found a people prepared of the Lord, and, in the summer of 1878, he reports a church organized with thirteen members, which they named Paha-cho-kam-ya--Middle Hill--of which Henok was elected elder.

In the next winter Solomon and Henok made a missionary tour of some weeks, of which we have the following report. The letter is dated "February 22, 1879, at Middle Hill, near Fort Ellice, North-west Territory":--

"This winter it seemed proper that I should visit the Dakotas living in the extreme settlements, to proclaim to them the Word of God. I first asked counsel of God, and prayed that he would even now have mercy on the people of these end villages, and send his Holy Spirit to cause them to listen to his Word. Then I sent word to the people that I was coming.

"Then I started with Mr. Enoch, my elder. The first night we came to three teepees of our own people at Large Lake, and held a meeting with them. The next morning we started, and slept four nights. On the fifth day we came to a large encampment on Elm River. There were a great number of tents, which we visited, and prayed with them, being well received. But as I came to where there were two men, and prayed with them, I told them about him whose name was Jesus--that he was the Helper Man, because he was the Son of God. That he came to earth, made a sacrifice of himself, and died, that he might reconcile all men to God; that he made himself alive again; that, although men have destroyed themselves before God, whosoever knows the meaning of the name of Jesus, and fears for his own soul, and prays, he shall find mercy, and be brought near to God. That is the Name. And he is the Saviour of men, and so will be your Saviour also, I said.

"Then one of them in a frightened way answered me: 'I supposed you were a Dakota, of those who live in cabins. It is not proper that you should say these things. As for me, I do not want them. Those who wish may follow in that way; but I will not. You who hold such things should stay at home. What do you come here for?'

"Walking-nest then said: 'You are Cloudman's son, I suppose, and so you are my cousin. Cousin, when we first came to this country there was a white minister who talked to us and said: "Your hands are full of blood; therefore, when your hands become white, we will teach you." So he said, and when you brought a book from the south, while they were looking at it, blood dropped from above upon it; and behold, as the white minister said, I conclude we are not yet good. Therefore, my cousin, I am not pleased with your coming,' he said.

"But there were only two men who talked in this way. We left them and visited every house in the camp. Many may have felt as those men did, but did not say it openly. The men said they were glad, and welcomed us into their tents.

"The next day I came into a sick man's tent whose name was Hepan, lying near to death. I talked with him, and prayed to God for him. Then he told me how he longed to hear from his friends down south, and mentioned over half a dozen names of his relatives. A woman also, who was present, said: 'I want to know if my friends are yet living.'

"Then we continued our visiting from house to house. Sometimes we found only children in the tent; sometimes there were men and women, and I prayed with them and told them a word of Jesus. So we came to the teepees in the valley. Then I met Iron Buffalo. There we spent the Sabbath, and held meeting, having twenty-three persons present. A chief man, whose name is War-club-maker, called them together.

"Our meetings there being finished, we departed and came to the Wahpaton village. They were making four sacred feasts. We did not go into them. But, visiting other houses, we passed on about five miles, when night came upon us. Still we went on to the end of the settlement, where we held a meeting. The teepee was small, but there I found a sick man who listened to the Word. This was Chaskay, the son of Taoyatedoota. He said he was going to die, and from what source he should hear any word of prayer, or any comforting word of God, was not manifest. But now he had heard these things, and was very glad, he said. This way was the best upon earth, and he believed in it now. So, while we remained there, he wanted us to pray with and for him, he said.

"We spent one day there, and the second day we started home, and came to Hunka's tent, and so proceeded homeward. When we had reached the other end of the settlement, we learned that the white ministers were to hold a meeting of presbytery. They sent word to us to come, and so in the night, with my Hoonkayape, Mr. Enoch, I went back. They asked us to give an account of our missionary journey among the Dakotas. And so we told them where we had been and what we had done. Also, we gave an account of things at Middle Hill, where we live. When we had finished, they all clapped their hands. Then they said they wanted to hear us sing a hymn of praise to God in Dakota. We sang 'Wakantanka Towaste,' and at the close they clapped their hands again.

"Then two men arose, one after the other. The first said: 'I have not expected to see such things so soon among the Dakotas. But now I see great things, which I like very much.' The other man spoke in the same way.

"Men and women had come together in their prayer-house, and so there was a large assembly.

"Then the minister of that church arose and said: 'White people, who have grown up hearing of this way of salvation, are expected to believe in it, and I have been accustomed to rejoice in the multiplication of the Christian church; but I rejoice more over this work among the Dakotas.'"

Both of these men came home to watch and wait by the sick-bed of dear children. Nancy Maza-chankoo-win,--Iron Road Woman,--the daughter of Henok, died April 28, 1879. She was thirteen years old, read the Dakota Bible well, and was quite a singer in the prayer assemblies. They say: "We all thought a great deal of her; but now she too has gone up to sing in the House of Jesus, because she was called."

From Middle Hill, near Fort Ellice in Manitoba, comes a letter written on May 20 by our friend Solomon. He reports _seven_ members added by profession of faith to his church in April, and ten children baptized. There, as here, the season has been a sickly one, and many deaths have occurred. For three months he has had sickness in his own family. His story is pathetic. "Now," he says, "my son Abraham is dead. Seven years ago, at Long Hollow, in the country of the Coteau des Prairies, he was born on January 12, 1872. And on the 23d of June following, at a communion season at Good Will Church, he was baptized. When Mr. Riggs poured the water on him, he was called Abraham. And then in the country of the north, from Middle Hill, May 9, 1879, on that day, his soul was carried home to the House of Jesus.

"Five months after he was born, I wanted to have him baptized. I always remember the thought I had about it. Soon after a child is born, it is proper to have it baptized. I believed that baptism alone was not to be trusted in, and when one is baptized now it is finished is not thinkable. But in Luke 18:16, our Lord Jesus says: 'Suffer the little children to come unto me'; and so taking them to Jesus is good, since his heart is set on permitting them to come. Therefore, I wanted this my son to go to Jesus.

"And so from the time he could hear me speak, I have endeavored to train him up in all gentleness and obedience, in truth and in peace. Now, for two years in this country he has been my little helper. When some could not say their letters, he taught them. He also taught them to pray. And when any were told to repeat the commandments, and were ashamed to do so, he repeated them first, for he remembered them all. Hence, I was very much attached to him. But this last winter he was taken sick, and from the first it seemed that he would not get well. But while he lived it was possible to help him, and so we did to the extent of our ability. He failed gradually. He was a long time sick. But he was not afraid to die. He often prayed. When he was dying, but quite conscious of everything that took place, then he prayed, and we listened. He repeated the prayer of the Lord Jesus audibly to the end. That was the last voice we heard from him. Perhaps when our time comes, and they come for us to climb up to the hill of the mountain of Jehovah, then we think we shall hear his new voice. Therefore, although we are sad, we do not cry immoderately."

That was a beautiful child-life, and a beautiful child-death. Who shall say there are not now Dakota children in heaven? To have been the means, under God, of opening in this desert such a well of faith and salvation is quite a sufficient reward for a lifetime of work.

S. R. R.

DR. T. S. WILLIAMSON.

The father of the Dakota Mission has gone. Thomas Smith Williamson died at his residence in St. Peter, Minn., on Tuesday, the 24th of June, 1879, in the _eightieth_ year of his life. My own acquaintance with this life-long friend and companion in work commenced when I was yet a boy, just fifty years ago in July. We were new-comers in the town of Ripley, Ohio, where Dr. Williamson was then a practising physician of some five years' standing. My mother was taken sick and died. In her sick-chamber our acquaintance commenced, which has continued unbroken for half a century.

The silver wedding of the Dakota Mission was celebrated at Hazelwood, in the summer of 1860. Dr. Williamson himself furnished a sketch of his life and ancestry for that occasion which has never been published. From this document, as well as from articles written by his son, Prof. Andrew Woods Williamson, and published in the _St. Peter Tribune_ and the _Herald and Presbyter_, much of this life-sketch will be taken.

Thomas Smith Williamson, M.D., was the son of Rev. William Williamson and Mary Smith, and was born in Union District, South Carolina, in March, 1800.

William Williamson commenced classical studies when quite young; but the school he attended was broken up by the appointment of the teacher as an officer in the Revolutionary army. When about sixteen years of age, while on a visit to an uncle's on the head-waters of the Kanawha, in Virginia, several families in the neighborhood were taken captive by the Indians, and he joined a company of volunteers which was raised to go in pursuit. After more than a week's chase, they were entirely successful, and lost only one of their own number.

When not yet eighteen years old, he was drafted into the North Carolina militia, and accompanied Gates in his unfortunate expedition through the Carolinas. After the war was over and the family had removed to South Carolina, William resumed his studies and was graduated at Hampton Sidney College--studied theology, and was ordained pastor of Fair Forest Church, in April, 1793.

The grandfather of Thomas Smith Williamson was Thomas Williamson, and his grandmother's maiden name was Ann Newton, a distant relative of Sir Isaac and Rev. John Newton. They were both raised in Pennsylvania, but removed first to Virginia and then to the Carolinas, where they became the owners of slaves, the most of whom were purchased at their own request to keep them from falling into the hands of hard masters.

Thus Rev. William Williamson was born into the condition of slaveholder. By both his first and second marriage also, he became the owner of others, which, by the laws of South Carolina, would have been the property of his children. For the purpose of giving them their liberty, he removed, in 1805, from South Carolina to Adams County, Ohio. Before her marriage, Mary Smith had taught a number of the young negroes to read. And of their descendants quite a number are now in Ohio. It should be remembered that the Smiths and Williamsons of the eighteenth century thought it right, under the circumstances in which they were, _to buy and hold slaves, but not right to sell them. They never sold any_.

Thomas Smith Williamson inherited from his father a love for the study of God's Word, and a practical sympathy for the down-trodden and oppressed, which were ever the distinguishing characteristics of his life. He was also blessed with a godly mother and with five earnest-working Christian sisters, four of whom were older than himself. He was converted during his stay at Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, Pa., where he graduated in 1820. Soon after, he began reading medicine with his brother-in-law, Dr. William Wilson of West Union, Ohio, and, after a very full course of reading, considerable practical experience, and one course of lectures at Cincinnati, Ohio, completed his medical education at Yale, where he graduated in medicine in 1824. He settled at Ripley, Ohio, where he soon acquired an extensive practice, and April 10, 1827, was united in marriage with Margaret Poage, daughter of Col. James Poage, proprietor of the town. Perhaps no man was ever more blessed with a helpmeet more adapted to his wants than this lovely, quiet, systematic, cheerful, Christian wife, who for forty-five years of perfect harmony encouraged him in his labors.

They thought themselves happily settled for life in their pleasant home, but God had better things in store for them. His Spirit began whispering in their ears the Macedonian cry. At first, they excused themselves on account of their little ones. They felt they could not take them among the Indians, that they owed a duty to them. They hesitated. God removed this obstacle in his own way--by taking the little ones home to himself. As this was a great trial, so was it a great blessing to these parents. This was one of God's means of so strengthening their faith that, having once decided to go, neither of them ever after for one moment regretted the decision, doubted that they were called of God to this work, or feared that their life-work would prove a failure.

In the spring of 1833, Dr. Williamson placed himself under the care of the Chillicothe Presbytery, and commenced the study of theology. In August of that year he removed with his family to Walnut Hills, and connected himself with Lane Seminary. In April, 1834, in the First Presbyterian Church of Red Oak, he was licensed to preach by the Chillicothe Presbytery.

Previous to his licensure, he had received from the American Board an appointment to proceed on an exploring tour among the Indians of the Upper Mississippi, with special reference to the Sacs and Foxes, but to collect what information he could in regard to the Sioux, Winnebagoes, and other Indians. Starting on this tour about the last of April, he went as far as Fort Snelling, and returned to Ohio in August. At Rock Island he met with some of the Sacs and Foxes, and at Prairie du Chien he first saw Dakotas, among others Mr. Joseph Renville of Lac-qui-parle. On the 18th of September he was ordained as a missionary by the Chillicothe Presbytery, in Union Church, Ross County, Ohio.

A few months afterward he received his appointment as a missionary of the A. B. C. F. M. to the Dakotas; and on the first day of April, 1835, Dr. Williamson, with his wife and one child, accompanied by Miss Sarah Poage, Mrs. Williamson's sister, who afterward became Mrs. Gideon H. Pond, and Alexander G. Huggins and family, left Ripley, Ohio, and on the 16th of May they arrived at Fort Snelling. At this time, the only white people in Minnesota, then a part of the North-west Territory, were those connected with the military post at Fort Snelling, the only post-office within the present limits of the State; those connected with the fur-trade, except Hon. H. H. Sibley, were chiefly Canadian French, ignorant of the English language; and Messrs. Gideon H. and Samuel W. Pond, who came on their own account as lay teachers of Christ to the Indians in 1834.

While stopping there for a few weeks, Dr. Williamson presided at the organization, on the 12th of June, of the First Presbyterian Church--the first Christian church organized within the present limits of Minnesota. This was within the garrison at Fort Snelling, and consisted of twenty-two members, chiefly the result of the labors of Major Loomis among the soldiers.

Having concluded to accompany Mr. Joseph Renville, Dr. Williamson's party embarked on the fur company's Mackinaw boat on the 22d of June; reached Traverse des Sioux on the 30th, where they took wagons and arrived at Lac-qui-parle on the 9th of July. There, on the north side of the Minnesota River, and in sight of the "Lake that speaks," they established themselves as teachers of the religion of Jesus.

Of the "Life and Labors" pressed into the next forty-four years, only the most meager outline can be given in this article. It is now almost two round centuries since Hennepin and Du Luth met in the camps and villages of the Sioux on the Upper Mississippi. Then, as since, they were recognized as the largest and most warlike tribe of Indians on the continent. Until Dr. Williamson and his associates went among them, there does not appear to have been any effort made to civilize and Christianize them. With the exception of a few hundred words gathered by army officers and others, the Dakota language was unwritten. This was to be learned--_mastered_, which was found to be no small undertaking, especially to one who had attained the age of thirty-five years. While men of less energy and pluck would have knocked off or been content to work as best they could through an interpreter, Dr. Williamson persevered, and in less than two years was preaching Christ to them in the language in which they were born. He never spoke it easily nor just like an Indian, but he was readily understood by those who were accustomed to hear him.

It was by a divine guidance that the station at Lac-qui-parle was commenced. The Indians there were very poor in this world's good, not more than a half-dozen horses being owned in a village of 400 people. They were far in the interior, and received no annuities from the government. Thus they were in a condition to be helped in many ways by the mission. Under its influence and by its help, their corn-patches were enlarged and their agriculture improved. Dr. Williamson also found abundant opportunities to practise medicine among them. Not that they gave up their pow-wows and conjuring; but many families were found quite willing that the white Pay-zhe-hoo-ta-we-chash-ta (Grass Root Man) should try his skill with the rest. For more than a quarter of a century his medical aid went hand in hand with the preaching of the Gospel. By the helpfulness of the mission in various ways, a certain amount of confidence was secured. And through the influence of Mr. Renville, a few men, but especially the women, gathered to hear the good news of salvation.

Here they were rejoiced to see the Word taking effect early. In less than a year after their arrival, Dr. Williamson organized a native church, which, in the autumn of 1837, when I joined the mission force at Lac-qui-parle, counted seven Dakotas. Five years after the number received from the beginning had been forty-nine. This was a very successful commencement.

But in the meantime the war-prophets and the so-called medicine-men were becoming suspicious of the new religion. They began to understand that the religion of Christ antagonized their own ancestral faith, and so they organized opposition. The children were forbidden to attend the mission school; Dakota soldiers were stationed along the paths, and the women's blankets were cut up when they attempted to go to church. Year after year the mission cattle were killed and eaten. At one time, Dr. Williamson was under the necessity of hitching up milch-cows to haul his wood--the only animals left him.

These were dark, discouraging years--very trying to the native church members, as well as to the missionaries. As I look back upon them, I can but admire the indomitable courage and perseverance of Dr. Williamson. My own heart would, I think, have sometimes failed me if it had not been for the "hold on and hold out unto the end" of my earthly friend.

As Mr. Renville could only interpret between the Dakotas and French, Dr. Williamson applied himself to learning the latter language. Through this a beginning was made in the translation of the Scriptures into the Dakota. Late in the fall of 1839 the Gospel of Mark and some other small portions were ready to be printed, and Dr. Williamson went with his family to Ohio, where he spent the winter. The next printing of portions of the Bible was done in 1842-43, when Dr. Williamson had completed a translation of the book of Genesis. We had now commenced to translate from the Hebrew and Greek. This was continued through all the years of his missionary life. So far as I can remember, there was no arrangement of work between the doctor and myself, but while I commenced the New Testament, and, having completed that, turned to the Psalms, and, having finished to the end of Malachi, made some steps backward through Job, Esther, Nehemiah, and Ezra, he, commencing with Genesis, closed his work, in the last months of his life, with Second Chronicles, having taken in also the book of Proverbs.

Before leaving the subject of Bible translation, let me bear testimony to the uniform kindness and courtesy which Dr. Williamson extended to me, through all this work of more than forty years. It could hardly be said of either of us that we were very yielding. The doctor was a man of positive opinions, and there were abundant opportunities in prosecuting our joint work for differences of judgment. But, while we freely criticised each the other's work, we freely yielded to each other the right of ultimate decision.

In the autumn of 1846, Dr. Williamson received an invitation, through the agent at Fort Snelling, to establish a mission at Little Crow's Village, a few miles below where St. Paul has grown up, and he at once accepted it, gathering from it that the Lord had a work for him to do there. And indeed he had. During the five or six years he remained there, a small Dakota church was gathered, and an opportunity was afforded him to exert a positive Christian influence on the white people then gathering into the capital of Minnesota. Dr. Williamson preached the first sermon there.

When, after the treaties of 1851, the Indians of the Mississippi were removed, he removed with them--or, rather, went before them, and commenced his last station at Pay-zhe-hoo-ta-zee, Yellow Medicine. There he and his family had further opportunities "to glory in tribulations." The first winter was one of unusual severity, and they came near starving. But here the Lord blessed them, and permitted them to see a native church grow up, as well as at Hazelwood, the other mission station near by. It was during the next ten years that the seeds of civilization and Christianity took root, and grew into a fruitage, which, in some good manner, bore up under the storm of the outbreak in 1862, and resulted in a great harvest afterward.

Twenty-seven years of labor among the Dakotas were past. The results had been encouraging--gratifying. Dr. Williamson's eldest son, Rev. John P. Williamson, born into the missionary kingdom, had recently come from Lane Seminary, and joined our missionary forces. But suddenly our work seemed to be dashed in pieces. The whirlwind of the outbreak swept over our mission. Our houses and churches were burned with fire. The members of our native churches--where were they? Would there ever be a gathering again? But nothing could discourage Dr. Williamson, for he trusted not in an arm of flesh, but in the all-powerful arm of God. He found that he at least had the consolation of knowing that all the Christian Indians had continued, at the risk of their own lives, steadfast friends of the whites, that they had succeeded in saving more than their own number of white people, and that those of them who were unjustly imprisoned spent much of the time in laboring for the conversion of the heathen imprisoned with them.

It required just such a political and moral revolution as this to break the bonds of heathenism, in which these Dakotas were held. It seems also to have required the manifest endurance of privations, and the unselfish devotion of Dr. Williamson and others to them in this time of trouble, to fully satisfy their suspicious hearts that we did not seek _theirs_ but _them_. The winter of 1862-63, Dr. Williamson, having located his family at St. Peter, usually walked up every Saturday to Mankato, to preach the Gospel to the 400 men in prison. "That," said a young man, "satisfied us that you were really our friends." Sometimes it seems strange that it required so much to convince them! History scarcely furnishes a more remarkable instance of divine power on human hearts than was witnessed in that prison. For a particular account of this the reader is referred to the monograph on Rev. G. H. Pond.

Ever since the outbreak, Dr. Williamson has made a home for his family in the town of St. Peter and its vicinity. For two years of the three in which the condemned Dakotas were imprisoned at Davenport, Iowa, he gave his time and strength chiefly to ministering to their spiritual needs. Education never progressed so rapidly among them as during these years. They almost all learned to read and write their own language; and spent much of their time in singing hymns of praise, in prayer, and in reading the Bible. They were enrolled in classes, and each class placed under the special teaching of an elder. This gave them something like a Methodist organization, but it was found essential to a proper watch and care. This experience in the prison and elsewhere made it more and more manifest that, to carry forward the work of evangelization among this people, we must make large use of our native talent.

The original Dakota presbytery was organized at Lac-qui-parle in the first days of October, 1844. Dr. Williamson and myself brought our letters from the presbytery of Ripley, Ohio, and Samuel W. Pond brought his from an Association in Connecticut. The bounds of this presbytery were not accurately defined, and so for years it absorbed all the ministers of the Gospel of the Presbyterian and Congregational orders who came into the Minnesota country. By and by the presbyteries of St. Paul and Minnesota were organized; but the Dakota presbytery still covered the country of the Minnesota River.

At a meeting of this presbytery at Mankato in the spring of 1865, when our first Dakota preacher, Rev. John B. Renville, was licensed, an incident took place which illustrates the meekness and magnanimity of Dr. Williamson's character. On its own adjournment the presbytery had convened and was opened with a sermon by Dr. Williamson, in the evening, in the Presbyterian church. He took occasion to present the subject of our duties to the down-trodden races, the African and the Indian. Doubtless some who heard the discourse did not approve of it. But no exceptions would have been taken if the Jewett family, out a few miles from the town, had not been killed that night by a Sioux war-party. Men were so unreasonable as to claim that the preaching and the preacher had some kind of casual relation with the killing. The next day, Mankato was in a ferment. An indignation meeting was held, and a committee of citizens was sent to the Presbyterian church to require Dr. Williamson to leave their town. Some of the members of the presbytery were indignant at this demand; but the good doctor chose to retire to his home at St. Peter, assuring the excited and unreasonable men of Mankato that he could have had no knowledge of the presence of the war-party, and certainly had no sympathy with their wicked work.

In years after this, I traveled hundreds of miles, often alone with Dr. Williamson, and while we conversed freely of all our experiences, and of the way God had led us, I do not remember that I ever heard him refer to this ill treatment of the people of Mankato. Like his Master, he had learned obedience by the things he suffered.

Never brilliant, he was yet, by his capacity for long-continued, severe exertion, and by systematic, persevering industry, enabled to accomplish an almost incredible amount of labor. His life was a grand one, made so by his indomitable perseverance in the line of lifting up the poor and those who had no helper.

From the beginning he had an unshaken faith in his work. He fully believed in the ability of the Indians to become civilized and Christianized. He had an equally strong and abiding faith in the power of the Gospel to elevate and save even them. Then add to these his personal conviction that God had, by special providences, called him to this work, and we have a threefold cord of faith, that was not easily broken.

No one who knew him ever doubted that Dr. Williamson was a true friend of the red man. And he succeeded wonderfully in making this impression upon the Indians themselves. They recognized, and, of late years, often spoke of, his life-long service for them. With a class of white men, this was the head and front of his offending, that, in their judgment, he could see only one side--that he was always the apologist of the Indians--that in the massacres of the border in 1862, when others believed and asserted that a thousand or fifteen hundred whites were killed, Dr. Williamson could only count three or four hundred. He was honest in his beliefs and honest in his apologies. He felt that necessity was laid upon him to "open his mouth for the dumb." They could not defend themselves, and they have had very few defenders among white people.

In the summer of 1866, after the release of the Dakota prisoners at Davenport, Dr. Williamson and I took with us Rev. John B. Renville, and journeyed up through Minnesota and across Dakota to the Missouri River, and into the eastern corner of Nebraska. On our way, we spent some time at the head of the Coteau, preaching and administering the ordinances of the Gospel to our old church members, and gathering in a multitude of new converts, ordaining elders over them, and licensing two of the best qualified to preach the Gospel. When we reached the Niobrara, we found the Christians of the prison at Davenport and the Christians of the camp at Crow Creek now united; and they desired to be consolidated into one church of more than 400 members. We helped them to select their religious teachers, which they did from the men who had been in prison. So mightily had the Word of God prevailed among them that almost the entire adult community professed to be Christians. Rev. John P. Williamson was there in charge of the work.

For four successive summers, it was our privilege to travel together in this work of visiting and reconstructing these Dakota Christian communities. We also extended our visits to the villages of the wild Teeton Sioux along the Missouri River. Dr. Williamson claimed that Indians must be more honest than white people; for he always took with him an old trunk without lock or key, and in all these journeys he did not lose from a thread to a shoe-string.

For thirty-six years the doctor was a missionary of the American Board. But after the union of the assemblies, and the transfer of the funds contributed by the New School supporters of that board to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, the question of a change of our relations was thoughtfully considered and fully discussed. He was too strong a Presbyterian not to have decided convictions on that subject. But there were, as we considered it, substantial reasons why we could not go over as an entire mission. And so we agreed to divide, Dr. Williamson and his son, Rev. John P. Williamson, transferring themselves to the Presbyterian Board, while my boys and myself remained as we were. The division made no disturbance in our mutual confidence, and no change in the methods of our common work. Rather have the bonds of our union been drawn more closely together, during the past eight years, by an annual conference of all our Dakota pastors and elders and Sabbath-school workers. This has gathered and again distributed the enthusiasm of the churches; and has become the director of the native missionary forces. With one exception, Dr. Williamson was able to attend all these annual convocations, and added very much to their interest.

While the synod of Minnesota was holding its sessions in St. Paul in October, 1877, the good doctor was lying at the point of death, as was supposed, with pneumonia. Farewell words passed between him and the synod. But his work was not then done, and the Lord raised him up to complete it. At the next meeting of the synod, he presented a discourse on Rev. G. H. Pond; and during the winter following he finished his part of the Dakota Bible. Then his work appeared to be done, and he declined almost from that day onward.

On my way up to the land of the Dakotas, in the middle of May, 1879, I stopped over a day with my old friend. He was very feeble, but still able to walk out, and to sit up a good part of the day. We talked of many things. He then expressed the hope that as the warm weather came on he might rally, as he had done in former years. But the undertone was that, as the great work of giving the Bible to the Dakotas in their own language was completed, there was not much left for him to do here. He remarked that, during the last forty-four years, he had built several houses, all of which had either gone to pieces, or were looking old, and would not remain long after he was gone. But the building up of human souls that he had been permitted to work for, and which, by the grace of God, he had seen coming up into a new life, through the influence of the Word and the power of the Holy Ghost, he confidently believed would _remain_.

When I spoke of the near prospect of his dissolution to his Dakota friends, there arose in all the churches a _great prayer cry_ for his recovery. This was reported to him, and he sent back this message, by the hand of his son Andrew: "Tell the Indians that father thanks them very much for their prayers, and hopes they will be blessed both to his good and theirs. But he does not wish them to pray that his life here may be prolonged, for he longs to depart and be with Christ." And the testimony of Rev. G. F. McAfee, pastor of the Presbyterian church in St. Peter, who often visited and prayed with him in his last days, is to the same effect: "He absolutely forbade me to pray that he might recover, but that he might depart in peace."

And so his longing was answered. He died on Tuesday, June 24, 1879, in the morning watch.

He had no ecstasies, but he looked into the future world with a firm and abiding faith in Him whom, not having seen, he loved. Of his last days, John P. Williamson writes thus:--

"He seemed to be tired out in body and mind, with as much disinclination to talk as to move, and apparently as much from the labor of collecting his mind as the difficulty of articulation. I think he talked very little from the time I was here going home from General Assembly (June 1) till his death, and for some time was perhaps unconscious.

"You may know that father had a special distaste for what are called death-bed experiences. Still, we thought that perhaps, at the last, when the bodily pains ceased, there might be a little lingering sunshine from the inner man, but such was not the case; and perhaps it was most fitting that he should die as he had lived, with no exalted feelings or bright imagery of the future, but a stern faith, which gives hope and peace in the deepest waters."

He lived to see among the Dakotas ten native ordained Presbyterian ministers and about 800 church members, besides a large number of Episcopalians, a success probably much beyond his early anticipations.

On the farther shore he has joined the multitude that have gone before. Of his own family there are the three who went up in infancy. Next, Smith Burgess, a manly Christian boy, was taken away very suddenly. Then Lizzie Hunter went in the prime of womanhood. The mother followed, a woman of quiet and beautiful life. And then the sainted Nannie went up to put on white robes. Besides these of his family, a multitude of Dakotas are there, who will call him father. I think they have gathered around him and sung, under the trees by the river, one of his first Dakota hymns:--

"Jehowa Mayooha, nimayakiye, Nitowashta iwadowan."

"Jehovah, my Master, thou hast saved me, I sing of thy goodness."

My friend--my long-life friend--my companion in tribulation and in the patience of work, I almost envy thee thy _first_ translation.

S. R. R.

A MEMORIAL.

ELIZA HUGGINS; NANNIE WILLIAMSON; JULIA LA FRAMBOISE.

ELIZA W. HUGGINS.

The Lord came to his garden, and gathered three fair flowers, which now bloom in the city of our God. We, who knew their beauty, come to lay our loving remembrances upon their graves.

Eliza Wilson Huggins was the third child of Alexander G. and Lydia Huggins. She was born March 7, 1837, and died June 22, 1873.

She early gave herself to Jesus, and her lovely life was like a strain of sacred music, albeit its years of suffering brought out chords of minor harmony.

This young girl, in the dawn of womanhood, with gentle step and loving voice, was a revelation to us who were younger than she. Huguenot blood ran swiftly in her veins, and grief and joy were keen realities to her sensitive soul. But she quieted herself as a child before the Lord, and he gave her the ornament which is without price. Though she wist not, her face shone, and we, remembering, know that she had been with Jesus.

Her sister, Mrs. Holtsclaw, writes: "We are of Huguenot descent on our father's side. Our great-great-grandfather was born at sea in the flight from France to England. Two brothers (in that generation or the one following) came to America, one settling in North Carolina, the other in New England. Our grandfather left North Carolina when father was a small boy, because he thought slavery wrong, and did not wish his children exposed to its influences.

"Grandmother Huggins was a sister of Rev. James Gilliland of Red Oak, Ohio. She was a very earnest Christian, and often prayed that her descendants, to the latest generation, might be honest, humble followers of Jesus.

"Eliza was converted, and united with the church in Felicity, Ohio, under the pastorate of Rev. Smith Poage. She was, I think, about twelve years of age."

She was a most loving daughter, sister, and friend, because she had given herself unreservedly to Him who yearns to be more than friend, mother, or brother to us all. When heavy bereavements came upon the family, Jesus kept their hearts from breaking. The dear father went the way of all the earth. Then a brother-in-law, who was a brother indeed; then the elder brother, tried and true, in an instant of time, speeds home to heaven; and again a younger brother, in his bright youth; these three were the family's offering upon the altar of freedom. A costly offering! A heavy price paid! "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."

For seven years Miss Huggins taught school as continuously as her health permitted. Her methods as a teacher were followed by peculiar success. She loved children, and had a most earnest desire to help them up to all that is best and wisest in life. Children know by instinct whose is the firm yet loving hand stretched out to lead them in the paths of pleasantness and peace. Some of this time she taught in the mission school. Her sister says:--

"I cannot write of her long sickness, her intense suffering, her patient waiting to see what the Lord had in store for her; all this is too painful for me. St. Anthony, where she first came with such bright hopes of finding health, was the place from which she went to her long rest. It was the place where she found cure.

"The Dakota text-book, which she and Nannie prepared, was a labor of much thought and prayer. It was not published until after she had gone home."

Mignonette and sweet violets may well be emblem flowers for this lovely sister. Would that I might strew them on her grave, in the early summer-time, as a farewell till we meet again.

NANCY JANE WILLIAMSON.

BY M. R. M.

When an army marches on under fire, and one after another falls by the way, the ranks close up that there may ever be an unbroken front before the foe. So in life's battle, as one by one drops out of the ranks, we who are left must needs _march on_. Yet, if we stop a little to think and talk of the ones gone, it may help us as we press forward. Then, to-day let us bring to mind something of the life of a sister departed.

Nannie J. Williamson was born at Lac-qui-parle, Minn., on the 28th of July, 1840. From her birth she was afflicted with disease of the spine, so that she was almost two years old before she walked at all, and then her ankles bent and had to be bound in splints. "Aunt Jane" mentions that Nannie was in her fourth year when she first saw her, and at that time, when the children went out to play, her brother John either carried her or drew her in a little wagon, to save her the fatigue of walking. So she must have truly borne the yoke in her youth. That the burden was not lifted as the years went by, we may judge from the facts that when away at school, both in Galesburg, Ill., and Oxford, Ohio, she was under the care of a physician; and she almost always studied her lessons lying on her back.

Though her days were stretched out to her 38th year, her body never fully ripened into womanhood, and her heart never lost the sweetness and simplicity of the child. It was not so with her mind. Overleaping the body, with a firm and strong grasp, it took up every object of thought, and filled its storehouse of knowledge.

"The date of her conversion is not known. She loved Jesus from a child."

In the fall of 1854 our family moved to within two miles of Dr. Williamson's new station of Pay-zhe-hoo-ta-zee, or Yellow Medicine. From that time we were intimately associated, and many delightful memories are connected with those days. In September, 1857, Nannie went to the W. F. Seminary at Oxford, Ohio. She made many friends among her school-mates, and all respected her for her consistent character, her faithfulness in her studies, and her earnestness in seeking to bring others to Christ. One with more thankful humility never lived. She was always so very grateful for the least favor or kindness done her, and seemed ever to bear them in mind. She was exceedingly thoughtful for other people, never seemed to think evil of any one, and never failed to find kindly excuses for one's conduct if excuses were possible. After the burning of the seminary building, the senior class, of which Nannie was one, finished their studies in a house secured for that purpose. Then followed the sorrowful days of '62, that broke up so many homes, ours among others. Some time after, Nannie wrote this: "It is a little more than a year since we left our dear old homes. I wonder if our paths will ever lie so near together again as they have in times past. Who can tell? But though we may _seem_ to be far apart, we trust we are journeying to the same place, and we shall meet _there_."

During the months that Nannie's mother waited to be released from earthly suffering, the daughter spared none of her strength to do what she could for the faithful, patient mother. After there was nothing more to do on earth for that mother, then indeed Nannie felt the effects of the long strain on body and mind. Even then her nights were painful and unresting. But, after recruiting a little, she entered upon the work to which her thoughts had often turned, that of uplifting the Dakota women and children. In 1873, "she joined her brother, Rev. J. P. Williamson, in missionary labor, at Yankton agency, Dakota Territory, under the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, and continued in it until her death, November 18, 1877."

"Her knowledge of the Scriptures was such that the minister scarcely needed any other concordance when she was by, and during her last illness every conversation was accompanied with Scripture quotations.

"Notwithstanding her physical weakness, she taught school and did much other work; and, as all was consecrated to the Lord, we are sure she has much fruit in glory. Many in the Sabbath-schools of Traverse and St. Peter received lessons from her, whose impression will last to eternity."

In the spring of 1876, she went to Ohio on the occasion of a reunion of the first five graduating classes of the W. F. Seminary, Oxford, Ohio. She desired with great desire to meet her class-mates, and the beloved principal, Miss Helen Peabody; and also to visit relatives, among them two aged aunts, one of whom crossed over to the other side a little before her. She took great delight in her visit, and yet her nights were wearisome, and she was probably not entirely comfortable at any time. But she did not complain.

On her last visit home her face bore the impress of great suffering. It was with difficulty she could raise either hand to her head, and could only sleep with her arms supported on pillows. They would fain have kept her at home, but she longed to do what she could as long as she could. So she went back, taught in the school, visited the sick, read from the Bible in the tents, and prayed. In her last illness some of these women came and prayed with her, and so comforted her greatly. She did not forget her brother's children, in her anxiety for the heathen around them, and they will long remember Aunt Nannie's prayerful instructions.

With so little strength as she had, it was not strange that, when fever prostrated her, she could not rally again. So she lay for nearly eight weeks, suffering much, but trusting much also. At times she hoped to be able to work again for the women, if the Lord willed. But when she knew that her earthly life was nearly ended, she sent this message to her aunt: "Do not grieve, dear aunt, Though I had desired to do much for these women and girls, the prospect of heaven is very sweet." For a while she had said now and then: "I wonder how long I shall have to lie here and wait," but one day she remarked, "I do not feel at all troubled now about how long I may have to wait: Jesus has taken that all away." When any one came in to see her, she said a few words, and as the school children were gathered around her one day she talked to them a little while for the last time. Two days before her death, she dictated a letter to her father, who had himself been very near death's door, but was recovering: "I do rejoice that God has restored you to health again. I trust that years of usefulness and happiness may still be yours. I am gaining both in appetite and strength. I feel a good deal better." But the night that followed was a sleepless one, and the next day she suffered greatly. About dark her brother said to her, "You have suffered a great deal to-day." She answered, "Yes, but the worst is over now." He said, "Jesus will send for you," and she replied, "Yes, I think he will, for he says, 'I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.'"

She spoke now and then to different ones, a word or two, asked them to read some Scripture texts from the "Silent Comforter" that hung where she could always see it, wanted it to be turned over, and, with her face to the wall, she seemed to go to sleep. She so continued through the night, her breath growing fainter and fainter. And at day-break on the morning of the Sabbath the other life began. "_That is the substance, this the shadow; that the reality, this the dream._"

JULIA LA FRAMBOISE.

Julia A. La Framboise was the daughter of a French trader and of a Dakota mother. When nine years of age, her father placed her in Mr. Huggins' family. In that Christian home she learned to love her Saviour, and, one year later, covenanted forever to be his. Her father was a Catholic, and would have preferred that his daughter remain in that church, but allowed her to choose for herself. His affection for her and hers for him was very strong.

After her father's death, Julia determined to use her property in obtaining an education. She spent two years in the mission school at Hazelwood, then going to the W. F. Seminary, Oxford, Ohio, and for a short time to Painesville, Ohio, and afterward to Rockford, Ill. Having taken a full course of study there, she returned to Minnesota as a teacher.

Our mother had a warm affection for Julia, as indeed for each of the others of whom we write. Julia called our house one of her homes, and, whenever with us, she took a daughter's share in the love and labor of the household.

A story of my mother's childhood illustrates the spirit of benevolence by which she influenced Miss La Framboise among others. Her surviving sister, Mrs. Lucretia S. Cooley, writes:--

"When the first missionaries from the vicinity of my early home, Mr. and Mrs. Richards of Plainfield, went to the Sandwich Islands, sister Mary was a little girl. She was deeply impressed by the story of the wants of the children, as portrayed by Mr. Richards, and expressed a strong desire to accompany him. She had just learned to sew quite nicely. Looking up to mother, she said, 'I could teach the little girls to sew.' Here was the missionary spirit. Those who go to the Indians, to the islands of the sea, to Africa, must needs be ready to teach all things, doing it as to the Lord."

When the call to teach among her own people came, Miss La Framboise gladly embraced the opportunity, laboring for them in season and out of season for two short years. Her health failing, she was taken to her old home in Minnesota, where she died, September 20, 1871, but twenty-eight years of age.

Mrs. Holtsclaw, one of her girlhood friends, went to her in that last sickness. She wrote: "I was with her when she died. It was beautiful to see the steady care and gentle devotion of her step-mother, of the rest of the family, and of the neighbors."

Miss La Framboise was thoroughly educated, thoroughly the lady; always loyal to her people, even when they were most hated and despised; always generous in her deeds and words; always to be depended upon.

Oh, could we but have kept her to work many years for the ennobling and Christianizing of the Dakotas!

Bring lilies of the prairie for this grand-daughter of a chieftain--ay, more, this daughter of the King!

I. R. W.

THE FAMILY REUNION.--1879.

Eighteen years had gone by since the family were all together on mission ground. That was in the summer of 1861. In the summer of 1858, Alfred had graduated at Knox College, Illinois; and Isabella returned with him from the Western Female Seminary, Ohio. They gladly arrived at home, in borrowed clothes, having trod together "the burning deck" of a Mississippi River steamboat. All were together then. That fall, Martha went to the Western Female Seminary, and was there when the school building was burned in 1860. After that she came home, and Isabella went back to graduate. In the meantime, Alfred had become a member of the Theological Seminary of Chicago. And so it happened that all were not at home again together until the summer of 1861. Then came the Sioux outbreak, and the breaking-up of the mission home. Though a new home was made at St. Anthony, and then at Beloit, it never came to pass that all were together at any one time.

Then new home centres grew up. Alfred was married in June, 1863. Isabella was married in February, 1866, and very soon sailed for China. Martha was married in December of the same year, and went to live in Minnesota. The dear mother went to the Upper Home in March, 1869. Alfred moved to the mission field at Santee Agency, Nebraska, in June, 1870. Anna was married in October of the same year and moved to Iowa. While Martha, the same autumn, removed to open the Missionary Home at the Sisseton Agency. In May, 1872, a new mother came in, to keep the hearthstone bright at the Beloit home. In February of 1872, Thomas went to Fort Sully to commence a new station, and was married in December of the same year. Meanwhile Henry, Robert, and Cornelia were growing up to manhood and womanhood, and getting their education by books and hard knocks. Henry was married in September, 1878, and Robert was tutor in Beloit College, and Cornelia a teacher in the Beloit city schools.

At these new home centers children had been growing up. At Kalgan, China, there were _six_; at Santee, Neb., _five_; at Sisseton, D. T., _four_; at Vinton, Iowa, _three_, and at Fort Sully, D. T., _one_. Another sister had also come at the Beloit home.

And now the Chinese cousins were coming home to the America they had never seen. So it was determined that on their arrival there should be a family meeting. But where should it be? Every home was open and urged its advantages. But Santee Agency, Nebraska, united more of the requisite conditions of central position and roomy accommodations. And, besides, it was eminently fitting that the meeting should be held on missionary ground. And so from early in July on to September the clan was gathering.

First came Rev. Mark Williams and Isabella, with their six children, fresh from China, finding the Santee Indian reservation the best place to become acclimated to America gradually. Father Riggs and Martha Riggs Morris, with three of her children, from Sisseton Agency, arrived the 18th of August. On the 27th came Anna Riggs Warner, with her three children, from Vinton, Iowa. Mother Riggs with little Edna arrived on the 29th, from Beloit, Wis. Mr. Wyllys K. Morris and Harry, their eldest son, came across the country by wagon, and drove in Saturday evening, the 30th of August. Thomas L. Riggs and little Theodore, with Robert B. Riggs, and Mary Cornelia Octavia Riggs, and their caravan, did not arrive from Fort Sully until Tuesday afternoon of the 2d of September. Alfred L. and Mary B. Riggs, and Henry M. and Lucy D. Riggs were of course already there, as they were at home, and the entertainers of the gathering.

Now the family were gathered, and this is the _Roll_:--

Stephen Return Riggs, born in Steubenville, Ohio, March 23, 1812; married, February 16, 1837, to Mary Ann Longley, who was born November 10, 1813, in Hawley, Mass., and died March 22, 1869, in Beloit, Wis.

I. Alfred Longley Riggs, born at Lac-qui-parle, Minn., December 6, 1837; married June 9, 1863, to Mary Buel Hatch, who was born May 20, 1840, at Leroy, N. Y.

Children: Frederick Bartlett, born at Lockport, Ill., July 14, 1865; Cora Isabella, born at Centre, Wis., August 19, 1868; Mabel, born at Santee Agency, Nebraska, September 11, 1874; Olive Ward, born at Santee Agency, Nebraska, June 13, 1876; Stephen Williamson, born at Santee Agency, Nebraska, April 28, 1878.

II. Isabella Burgess Riggs, born at Lac-qui-parle, Minn., February 21, 1840; married February 21, 1866, to Rev. W. Mark Williams, who was born October 28, 1834, in New London, Ohio.

Children: Henrietta Blodget, born at Kalgan, China, September 25, 1867; Stephen Riggs, born at Kalgan, China, August 22, 1870; Emily Diament, born at Kalgan, China, May 26, 1873; Mary Eliza, born at Kalgan, China, August 3, 1875; Margaret and Anna, born at Kalgan, China, May 30, 1878.

III. Martha Taylor Riggs, born at Lac-qui-parle, Minn., January 27, 1842; married December 18, 1866, to Wyllys King Morris, who was born in Hartford, Conn., September 11, 1842.

Children: Henry Stephen, born at Sterling, Minn., June 21, 1868; Philip Alfred, born at Good Will, D. T., August 4, 1872, and died at Binghamton, N. Y., August 18, 1873; Mary Theodora, born at Good Will, D. T., July 31, 1874; Charles Riggs, born at Good Will, D. T., June 21, 1877; Nina Margaret Foster, born at Good Will, D. T., May 30, 1879.

IV. Anna Jane Riggs, born at Traverse des Sioux, Minn., April 13, 1845; married October 14, 1870, to Horace Everett Warner, who was born January 10, 1839, near Painesville, Ohio.

Children: Marjorie, born at Belle Plaine, Iowa, September 29, 1872; Arthur Hallam, born in Vinton, Iowa, October 28, 1875; Everett Longley, born in Vinton, Iowa, July 15, 1877.

V. Thomas Lawrence Riggs, born at Lac-qui-parle, Minn., June 3, 1847; married December 26, 1872, to Cornelia Margaret Foster, who was born in Bangor, Me., March 19, 1848, and died August 5, 1878, at Fort Sully, D. T.

Child: Theodore Foster, born near Fort Sully, D. T., July 7, 1874.

VI. Henry Martyn Riggs, born at Lac-qui-parle, Minn., September 25, 1849; married September 24, 1878, to Lucy M. Dodge, who was born at Grafton, Mass., February 29, 1852.

VII. Robert Baird Riggs, born at Hazelwood, Minn., May 22, 1855.

VIII. Mary Cornelia Octavia Riggs, born at Hazelwood, Minn., February 17, 1859.

Stephen R. Riggs married, May 28, 1872, Mrs. Annie Baker Ackley, who was born March 14, 1835, in Granville, Ohio.

IX. Edna Baker Riggs, born at Beloit, Wis., December 2, 1874.

The sons and daughters brought into the original family by marriage contributed much to the success of the reunion. The cousins will not soon forget the inimitable stories of Uncle Mark. Horace E. Warner wrote a charming letter, proving conclusively that he was really present; while Uncle Wyllys must have gained the perpetual remembrance of the boys by taking them swimming. Mary Hatch Riggs was the unflagging main-spring of the whole meeting. Lucy Dodge Riggs presided hospitably at the "Young men's hall," where many of the guests were entertained; and the new mother, Annie Baker Riggs, won the love of all.

It would not have been a perfect meeting without seeing the face of John P. Williamson, the elder brother of the mission. Then, too, there was our friend Rev. Joseph Ward, whose home at Yankton has so often been the "House Beautiful" to our missionary pilgrims. We were also favored with the presence of many of our missionary women: Mrs. Hall of Fort Berthold, Misses Collins and Irvine, from Fort Sully, and Misses Shepard, Paddock, Webb, and Skea, of Santee. The children will long remember the party given them by Miss Shepard in the Dakota Home, and the picnic on the hill.

It is impossible to give any adequate report of such a reunion. The renewal of acquaintance, taking the bearings of one another's whereabouts in mental and spiritual advance, is more through chit-chat and incidental revelations than in any of the things that can be told.

And so we gather in as memorials and reminders some of the papers read at the evening sociables, and some paragraphs from reports of the reunion published in the _Word Carrier_ and _Advance_. First, we will have Isabella's paper, the story of that long journey home--By Land and by Sea:--

"Ding lang, ding lang, ding lang! Hear the bells. The litters are packed, the good-bys spoken. Thirteen years of work in sorrow and in joy are over. 'Good-by. We will pray for you all; do not forget us.'

"Down the narrow street, past the closely crowded houses of more crowded inmates, beyond the pale green of the gardens, on the stony plain, and our long journey is begun.

"Eight hours and the first inn is reached, we having made a twenty-five-mile stage. Over rocks and river, fertile lake-bed; desert plain, and through mountain-gorge, we creep our way, till, on the fifth day, the massive walls of Peking loom up before us.

"Here there are cordial greetings from warm hearts, and willing hands stretched out to help. Best of all is the inspiration of mission meeting, with its glad, good news from Shantung Province.

"By cart and by canal boat again away. At Tientsin we ride by starlight, in jinrickshas, to the steamer. How huge the monster! How broad seems the river, covered here and yonder, and again yonder, with fleets of boats!

"We ensconce ourselves in the assigned state-rooms, and little Anna's foster-mother keeps a vigil by the child so soon to be hers no more. 'Farewell, farewell.'

"Gray morning comes, and the ponderous engine begins his work. We move past boats, ships, steamers, past the fort at Taku, out on the open sea. No one sings, 'A Life on the Ocean Wave,' or 'Murmuring Sea,' for our 'day of youth went yesterday.' The enthusiasm of early years is gone. Instead, I read reverently the 107th Psalm, verses 23, 31. Then with the strong, glad, spray-laden breeze on one's face, it is fitting to read, 'The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.' 'Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof. Let the floods clap their hands ... before the Lord.' 'The sea is his and he made it.' 'The earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.'

"Five days, and we steam up through the low, flat, fertile shores of Woo Sung River to Shanghai.

"Ho for the land of the rising sun! Two days we sail over a silver sea; yonder is Nagasaki, and now a heavy rain reminds us that this is Japan. On through the Inland Sea. How surpassingly beautiful are the green hills and mountains on every side.

"At Kobe we receive a delightful welcome from Mr. C. H. Gulick's family, and on the morrow we meet our former co-laborer in the Kalgan work, Rev. J. T. Gulick. Ten days of rest, and our little Anna is herself again. She is round and fair and sweet, and every one laughingly says she is more like our hostess than like me.

"Again away, in a floating palace, fitly named City of Tokio. We glide out of sight of Japan, with hearts strangely stirred by God's work in that land.

"One sail after another disappears, until we are alone on the great ocean. Water, water, water everywhere.

"Our days are all alike. Constant care of the children and thoughts of home and beloved ones keep hand and heart busy. The events of each day are breakfast, tiffin, and dinner, daintily prepared, and faultlessly served by deft and noiseless waiters. We think it a pleasant variety when a stiff breeze makes the waves run high. The table racks are on, yet once and again a glass of water or a plate of soup goes over. We turn our plates at the proper angle, when the long roll begins, and unconcernedly go on.

"One day of waves mountain high, which sweep us on to our desired haven. On the eighteenth day we see the shore of beautiful America. How the heart beats! So soon to see father, brothers, and sisters! Thank God. Aye, thank him too for the manifold mercies of our journey.

"How strange and yet familiar are the sights and sounds of San Francisco. The children's eyes shine as they plan and execute raids on a toy store.

"There is yet the land journey of thousands of miles. By night and by day we speed on; across gorge, through tunnel and snow-shed, over the alkali plains, over fertile fields to Omaha.

"At last we arrive in Yankton, and a cheery voice makes weary hearts glad. 'I am Mr. Ward. Your brother Henry is here.' Ah, is that Henry! How he has changed from boyhood to manhood!

"'Over the hills and far away.' Here we are! How beautiful the mission houses look! And the dear familiar faces! Rest and home at last for a little while. 'For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.'"

But journeying may be done much more quickly by thought, and spirit may go as quick as thought. So here is the account of Horace E. Warner's thought journey to the family meeting:--

"If there has seemed to be any lack of interest on my part in the family reunion, it is only in the seeming. For my decision to stay at home was made with deep regret, and after the slaying of much strong desire. But, aside from the gratification which it would have given me to see you all, and which I hope it would have given you to see me, I do not think the idea of the meeting is impaired by my absence. Only this--I feel as though I had, not wilfully nor willingly, but none the less certainly, cut myself off from that sympathy--in the Greek sense--which I stood in much need of, and can ill afford to miss.

"I suppose you are now all together with one accord in one place, so far as that is possible. To be _all_ together would require the union of two worlds. And this may be, too,--shall we not say it is so? But if the dear ones from the unseen world are present, though you can not hear their speech nor detect their presence by any of the senses, can not you feel that I am really with you in some sense too? Of course, the difference is great, but so also the difference is great between the meeting of friends in the natural body and the spiritual body. If the mind, the soul, constitutes the man rather than the animal substances, or the myriad cells which make up his physical organization, why may not I leap over the insignificant barrier that divides us? As I write, this feeling is very strong with me. It is vague and indefinite, but yet it seems to me that I have been having some kind of communication or communion with you. At all events, my heart goes out strongly toward you all with fervent desire that the meeting will be full of joy and comfort--of sweetest and spiritual growth--the occasion of new inspiration, new courage, new hopes. It is not likely that there can be any repetition of it this side of the 'city which hath foundations.'

"So the memories of this meeting should be the sweetest, and should cluster thick around you in the years of separation. This much I must perforce miss. For though I do truly rejoice in your joys, and partake with you of the gladness of the meeting after so long a time; yet it is only by imagination and sympathy that I make myself one with you, and of this the future can have no recollection."

Now we will let others give their thoughts of the meeting, as it seemed to them from outside. And, first, a few words from Rev. John P. Williamson of Yankton Agency:--

"The first week in September, 1879, will long be remembered by the Riggs family, and by one or two who were not Riggses. From the east and the west, from the north and the south, and from across the mighty Pacific, they gathered at the eldest brother's house, at Santee Agency, Nebraska, for a family reunion. It was forty-two years last February since Stephen Return Riggs married Mary Ann Longley and came out as a missionary to the Dakotas; and now in his sixty-eighth year, his step still light, and his heart still young, he walks in to his son's house to find himself surrounded by nine children, three sons-in-law, two daughters-in-law, and nineteen grandchildren; with himself and wife making a company of thirty-five, and all present except one son-in-law.

"This roll may never be as interesting to universal mankind as that in the tenth chapter of Genesis, but it is almost extended enough to evolve a few general truths. If we were to pick these up, our first deduction would be that _like begets like_. This man has certainly given more than his proportion of missionaries. And why, except that like begets like? He was a missionary, his children partook of his spirit, and became missionaries. We heard some mathematical member of the company computing the number of years of missionary service the family had rendered. The amount has slipped our memory, but we should say it was over one hundred and fifty.

"Our other deduction would be that the missionary profession is a healthy one. Here is a family of no uncommon physical vigor, and yet not a single death occurred among the children, who are in goodly number. True, the mother of the family has finished her work and crossed the river to wait with her longing smile the coming children, but another ministers in her room, who has added little Aunt Edna to the list, to stand before her father when the rest are far away."

Next, we have the observations of Rev. Joseph Ward of Yankton:--

"Families have their characteristic points as well as individuals. The family of Rev. S. R. Riggs, D.D., is no exception to this. Their characteristics all point in one direction. It is notably a missionary family. It began on missionary ground forty-two years ago at Lac-qui-parle, Minn. From that time until the present the name of the family head has always appeared in the list of missionaries of the American Board. One after another the names of the children have been added to the list, until now we find Alfred, Isabella, Martha, Thomas, Henry, attached to the mission; and doing genuine missionary work, though not bearing a commission from the board, are two more, Robert and Cornelia.

"What place more suitable for the meeting together of father, children, and children's children--thirty-four all told, counting those who have joined the family by marriage--than Santee Agency, Nebraska, a mission station of the A. B. C. F. M.

"Though not of the family, I was honored by an invitation to attend the meeting, assured that a 'bed and a plate would be reserved for me'; and so, on the first Tuesday of September, I stood on the bank of the Missouri, opposite the agency, waiting for the ferry-man to set me across. I came at the right time, for presently the delegation from Fort Sully drove their two teams to the landing, and in a moment more Rev. J. P. Williamson, with his oldest daughter, from Yankton Agency, were added to our number.

"They came from the east and the west and the north. These from Sisseton, these from Sully, and these from the land of Sinim, for the oldest daughter and her husband, Rev. Mark Williams, have been for thirteen years in Kalgan, Northern China, and now for the first time come back to see the father and the fatherland. The personal part of the meeting I have no right to mention. I speak only of its missionary character. The very prudential committee itself, in its weekly meetings, cannot be more thoroughly imbued with a missionary spirit than was every hour of this reunion. And how could it be otherwise? All the reminiscences were of their home on missionary ground, at Lac-qui-parle, at Traverse des Sioux, and at Hazelwood. Did they talk of present duties and doings? What could they have for their theme but life at Kalgan, at Good Will, at Santee, and at Sully! Did they look forward to what they would do after the family meeting was over? The larger part were to go two hundred miles and more overland, to attend the annual meeting of the Indian churches at Brown Earth. And, besides, how to reach out from their present stations and seize new points for work was the constant theme of thought.

"Wednesday evening there was a gathering of the older ones and the larger children. The father read a sketch recalling a few incidents of the family life. The reading brought now laughter and then tears. Forty-two years could not come and go without leaving many a sorrow behind.

"The mother, who had lived her brave life for a third of a century among the Indians, was not there. A beautiful crayon portrait, hung that day for the first time over the piano, was a sadly sweet reminder of her whose body was laid to rest only a year ago among the Teetons, on the banks of the Upper Missouri. Then another paper of memories from one of the daughters, lighted with joy and shaded with sorrow, a few words of cheer and counsel from the oldest son, and a talk in Chinese from the Celestial member, were the formal features of the evening.

"As I sat in the corner of the study and heard and saw, there came to me, clearer than ever before, the wonderful power there is in a consecrated life. Well did one of them say that if they had gained any success in their work, it was by singleness of purpose. 'This one thing I do' could well be the family motto. They have not been assigned to a prominent place in the work of the world, but rather to the most hidden and hopeless part. But, by their persistence of purpose, they have done much to lift up and make popular, in a good sense, missionary work in general, and particularly work for the Indians. It is a record that will shine brighter and brighter through the ages. Eight children and thirteen grandchildren born on missionary ground, and a total of one hundred and fifty-eight years of missionary work.

"But the end is not yet. They have just begun to get their implements into working order. Their training-schools are just beginning to bear fruit. Most fittingly, a few days before the gathering began, came a large invoice of the entire Bible in Dakota, the joint work of Dr. Riggs and his beloved friend and fellow-worker, Dr. Williamson, who has just gone home to his rest. At the same time came the final proof-sheets of a goodly-sized hymn and tune book for the Dakotas, mainly the work of the eldest sons of the two translators of the Bible. The harvest that has been is nothing to the harvest that is to be. Dr. Riggs may reasonably hope to see more stations occupied, more books made, more churches organized in the future than he has seen in the past. When the final record is made, he will have the title to a great rejoicing that he and his family were permitted by the Master to do so much to make a sinful world loyal again to its rightful Lord."

Martha's paper, which was read on that occasion, is a very touching description of a missionary journey made under difficulties, six years before, from Sisseton to Yankton Agency.

"GOING TO MISSION MEETING.

"As I sit on the doorsteps in the twilight, the little ones asleep in their beds, I hear a solitary attendant on the choir-meeting singing. His voice rings out clearly on the night air:--

"'Jesus Christ nitowashte kin Woptecashni mayaqu'--

singing it to the tune, Watchman.

"That tune has a peculiar fascination and association for me, and my thoughts often go back over the time when I first heard it.

"It was in the month of roses, in the year '73, that, in company with some of the Renvilles and others, I undertook a land journey to the Missouri. I had with me the lad Harry, then five years old, and a sunny-haired boy of nearly a year, little Philip Alfred. He never knew his name here. Does he know it now? Or has he another, an 'angel name'?

"The rains had been abundant, and the roads were neither very good nor very well traveled. So some unnecessary time was spent in winding about among marshes, and we made slow progress. More than once we came to a creek or a slough where the water came into the wagons. The Indian women shouldered their babies and bundles as well, and trudged through, with the exception of Ellen Phelps and Mrs. Elias Gilbert. Their husbands were so much of white men as to shoulder their wives and carry them across. Being myself a privileged person, I was permitted to ride over, first mounting the seat to the wagon, holding on for dear life to the wagon-bows with one hand, and to the sunny-haired boy with the other.

"By the end of the week we had only reached the Big Sioux, which we found up and booming. I was crossed over in a canoe with my two children, the stout arms of two Indian women paddling me over. Then we climbed up the bank, and waited for the wagons to come around by some more fordable place down below. While waiting, I talked awhile with Mrs. Wind, who had been a neighbor of ours on the Coteau. Her lawful husband, a man of strong and ungoverned passions, had grown tired of her and taken another woman. So Mrs. Wind, who had borne with his overbearing and his occasional beatings, quietly left him. This was an indignity her proud spirit could not brook. She went to the River Bend Settlement to live with her son, and there I saw her. I said to her, 'Shall you go back to the hill country?' 'No,' she said; 'the man has taken another wife, and I shall not go.' I have since heard of her from time to time, and she still remains faithful.

"The Sabbath over, we went on again re-inforced by the delegation from Flandreau. Reaching Sioux Falls in the afternoon, we avoided the town, and went on to a point where some one thought the river might be fordable. But alas! we found we had been indulging in vain expectations. The river was not fordable, and canoe or ferry-boat there was none. But necessity is the mother of invention. The largest and strongest wagon-box was selected, the best wagon-cover laid on the ground, the boat lifted in, and, with the aid of various ropes, an impromptu boat was made ready. Long ropes were tied securely to either end, poles laid across the box to keep things out of the water, and then the boat was launched. The men piled in the various possessions of different ones and as many women and children as they thought safe. Then four of the best swimmers took the ropes and swam up the river for quite a distance, coming down with the current, and so gaining the other shore. This occupied some time, and was repeated slowly until night came on, finding the company partly on one side and partly on the other. The wagon, in which we had made our bed o' nights, not being in a condition for sleeping in, as the box lay by the river-side all water-soaked, Edwin Phelps and Ellen, his wife, kindly vacated theirs for our benefit, themselves sleeping on the ground. When the early morning came, the camp was soon astir, and, breakfast being hastily despatched, the work of crossing over was renewed. I watched them drive over the horses; the poor animals were very loath to make a plunge, and some of them turned and ran back on the prairie more than once before they were finally forced into the water. When most of the others were over it came my turn to cross. The so-called boat looked rather shaky, but there was nothing to do but to get in and take one's chance. So I climbed in, keeping as well as I could out of the water, which seemed to nearly fill the wagon-box. Some one handed the two children in, and, holding tightly to them, I resigned myself to the passage. At one time I heard a great outcry, but could not distinguish any words, and so sat still, unconscious that one of the ropes had broken, rendering the boat more unsafe still. At last I was safely over, thankful enough. When finally every thing and everybody were across, and the boat restored to its proper place, we started on our way, at about ten o'clock in the morning. To make up for the late starting, the teams were driven hard and long, and the twilight had already gathered when we stopped for the night. After I had given my children a simple supper, and they were hushed to sleep, I looked out on the picturesque scene. The great red moon was rising in the sky, and in its light the travelers had gathered around the camp-fire for their evening devotions. As I walked across to join them, they were singing:--

"'Jesus Christ, nitowashte kin Woptecashni mayaqu'--

"Jesus Christ, thy loving kindness Boundlessly thou givest me'--

to the tune Watchman. It struck my fancy, and I seldom hear it now without thinking of that night, and of the sunny-haired boy who was then taking his last earthly journey, and who has all these years been learning of the goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ in all its wonderful fulness. An incident of one day's travel remains clear in my mind. The lad Harry often grew tired and restless, as was not strange, and so sometimes he was somewhat careless too. In an unguarded moment, he fell out, and one of the hind wheels passed over his body. How I held my breath until the horses could be stopped and the boy reached! It seemed a great marvel that he had received no injury. It was surely the goodness of the Lord that had kept him from harm.

"On Wednesday we came into Yankton, where I bought a quantity of beef, wishing to show my appreciation of the labors of the men in our behalf. So when camp was made at night the women had it to make into soup, and, almost before it seemed that the water could have fairly boiled, all hands were called to eat of it, and it was despatched with great celerity.

"The next afternoon a fierce storm broke over us, and we were compelled to stop for an hour or more, while the rain poured down in torrents and the heavens were one continual flame of light. When again we started on, every hole by the road-side had become a pool, and the water was rushing through every low place in streams. The rain retarded our progress greatly, yet we came in sight of the Yankton Agency before noon of the next day. Just as we reached it, we found a little creek to cross, where a bridge had been washed away the night before. The banks were almost perpendicular, and we held our breath as we watched one team after another go down and come up, feeling sure that some of the horses would go down and _not_ come up again. But, to our great relief, all went safely over. And very soon we had arrived at the mission house occupied by Rev. J. P. Williamson and family, and were receiving the kindly welcomes of all. The hospitality there enjoyed was such as to make us almost forget our tedious journey thitherward.

"From my traveling companions I had received all possible kindness, yet in many ways I had found the journey quite trying. It was not practicable to vary one's diet very much, with the care of the little ones just large enough to get into all mischief imaginable. So I remembered with especial gratitude Edwin and Ellen Phelps, who used now and then, at our stopping-places, to _borrow_ the boy, so helping me to get a little rest or to do some necessary work which would otherwise have been impossible. At that time Edwin and his wife had no children, and their eyes often followed my boy with yearning looks. Since then the Lord has given them little ones to train for his kingdom, and they are happy.

"But of that little sunny-haired baby boy we have naught but a memory left--and this consolation:--

"'Christ, the good Shepherd, carries my lamb to-night, And that is best.'

"And this:--

"'Mine entered spotless on eternal years, Oh, how much blest!'"

During the meeting the tastes and needs of the children were not forgotten, but Aunt Anna held them attent to her memories of the old home-life, written for the grandchildren.

"Shut your eyes, and see with me the home place at Lac-qui-parle--a square house with a flat roof, a broad stone step before the wide-open door--cheery and sunshiny within. Welcome to grandfather's home!

"To the right, in the distance, is the lake Mdeiyedan, where, like a tired child, the sun dropped his head to rest each night. Between us and the lake was a wooded ravine, at the foot of which, down that little by-path, was the coolest of springs, with wild touch-me-nots nodding above it, and a little further on a large boulder on which we used to play.

"It seems to us as if we had but just come in from a long summer's walk, with our hands full of flowers, and each and every one must have a bouquet to set in his or her favorite window. The wind, blowing softly, brings with it a breath of sweet cleavers, and--well, so I must tell you what I remember.

"I can not stop to tell you of all the little things that made our home pleasant and lovely in our eyes; or of the dear mother who had it in her keeping, for I know all the grandchildren are waiting for their stories.

"Well, I will begin by telling the wee cousins about the family cat, Nelly Bly, and one of her kittens, Charlotte Corday. Kittens have some such cunning ways, you know, but Nelly Bly was one of the knowingest and best. She and her kitten were as much alike as two peas in a pod--jet-black, and with beautiful yellow-green eyes. Nelly Bly used to curl herself up to sleep in grandpa's fur cap, or sometimes in grandma's work-basket; and if she could do neither, she would find a friendly lap. One day poor pussy chose much too warm a place. Grandma had started up the kitchen fire, and was making preparations for dinner when she heard pussy mewing piteously--as she thought, in some other room. She went to the doors one by one to let pussy in, and no pussy appeared, but still she heard her mewing as if in pain. What could grandma do? She was neither down cellar nor up-stairs. She would look out-of-doors--but no--just then pussy screamed in an agony of pain. Grandma ran to the stove, opened the door, and pussy, as if shot out from a cannon's mouth, came flying past us--her back singed and her poor little paws all burned. I can't tell whether she learned the moral of that lesson or not, but I know she never was shut up in the oven again.

"Yet not so very long after, when the old house was burned, Nelly Bly and Charlotte Corday found a sadder fate. Poor little kittens!--we spent hour after hour searching for their bones, but with small success, and then we buried them with choking sobs and eyes wet with childish tears.

"Do not let me forget to tell you of Pembina and Flora, nor of the starry host that bedecked our barn-yard sky--every calf, however humble, was worthy of a name. There were our oxen, Dick and Darby, George and Jolly, and Leo and Scorpio, who used to weave along with stately swinging tread under their burden of hay. Then Spika and Denebola, Luna and Lyra--all worthy of honorable mention. Flora, gentle, but with an eye that terrified the little maid who sometimes milked her,--so, with wise forethought, a handful of salt was sometimes thrown into the bottom of her pail. You will hardly believe it, but she grew to be so fond of her pail that she found her way into the winter kitchen and anticipated her evening meal. How she ever got through two gates and two doors is a mystery still.

"And there was Pembina--how well we remember the day when grandpa brought home a new cow, and how we all went down to meet him, and named her and her calf, Little Dorrit, on the spot. She was the children's cow _par excellence_, and blessings on her, we could all milk at a time. She had several bad habits, one of which was eating old clothes and paper, or rubbish generally. Once I remember she made a vain attempt at swallowing a beet, and if grandpa had not come in the nick of time to beat her on the back she would have been dead beat.

"Our horses, too, were a part of the family. There were Polly and Phenie, short for Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine--Fanny and Tattycoram (we had been reading Dickens then).

"I remember hearing our own mother tell of the ox they had when they lived at Traverse des Sioux, their only beast of burden, and how he used to stand and lick the window-panes, and how when the Indians shot him she felt as if she had lost a friend and companion.

"If these stories of our dear animal friends grow too tiresome, I might remember about the Squill family at Hazelwood--how they all, including Timothy and Theophilus, contributed something every week to a family paper. I wonder if Theophilus remembers writing an essay for--with red ink from his arm--and how Isabella said, 'Now, be brave, Martha, be brave!' when she was letting herself down from the topmost round of the ladder--and how Isabella, when beheading the pope in her fanatical zeal, split her forefinger with a chisel.

"These are a very few only of the rememberings--some of them are too sacred and too dear to speak about--but even these little incidents seem endeared by the long stretch of years."

Some memories of former days were _revived_ for the older children, and _imparted_ to the younger ones, by the Father's Paper:--

I REMEMBER.

As one grows old, memory is, in some sense, unreliable. It does not _catch and hold_ as it once did. But many things of long ago are the things best remembered. Often there is error in regard to dates. The mind sees the things or the events vividly, but the surroundings are dim and uncertain. What is aimed at in this paper is to gather up, or rather select, some events lying along the family line and touching personal character.

The family commences with the mother. I remember well my first visit to Bethlehem, Ind., where I first met Mary, with whom I had been corresponding, having had an introduction through Rev. Dyer Burgess. That was in the spring. My second visit to the same place was in the autumn of 1836, when the school-mistress and I went on to New England together.

FIRST VISIT TO MASSACHUSETTS.

Of that journey eastward, and the winter spent in Hawley, I should naturally remember a good many things: How when the stage from Albany and Troy put us down in Charlemont, we hired a boy with a one-horse wagon to carry us six miles to Hawley. But when we came to going up the steep, rough, long hill, such as I had never climbed before, the horse could only scramble up with the baggage alone. How we reached the Longley homestead in a real November storm, only a few days before Thanksgiving, and were greeted by the grandparents, ninety years old, and by the father and mother and brothers and sisters--all of whom, except Moses, have since gone to the other side. How only a day after our arrival I was waited upon by a committee of the West Hawley church, and engaged to preach for them during the winter. How every Saturday I walked down to Pudding Hollow and preached on Sabbath, and usually walked up on Monday, when I did not get snowed in. How the first pair of boots I ever owned, bought in Ohio, proved to be too small to wade in snow with, and had to be abandoned. How the old family horse had a knack of turning us over into snow-drifts. How on our first visit to Buckland, the grandfather Taylor, then about ninety-five years old, when he was introduced to Mary Ann's future husband, a young minister from the West, asked, "Did you ever think what a good horseman Jesus Christ was? Why, he rode upon a colt that had never been broke." How the old meeting-house on the hill, with its square pews and high pulpit, creaked and groaned in the storm of our wedding day, February 16, 1837. How we left in the first days of March, when the snow-drifts on the hills were still fifteen feet deep.

March, April, May passed, and the first day of June we landed at Fort Snelling, in the land of the Dakotas.

When another three moons were passed by, and we had seen St. Anthony and Minnehaha, and made some acquaintance with the natives, I remember we took passage, with our effects, on board a Mackinaw boat for Traverse des Sioux. The boat was in command of Mr. Prescott, who accommodated us with tent-room on the journey, and made the week pass comfortably for us. From Traverse des Sioux to Lac-qui-parle we had our first experience of prairie traveling and camping. It was decidedly a new experience. But we had the company of Dr. Williamson and Mr. G. H. Pond, while we commenced to learn the lesson.

AT LAC-QUI-PARLE.

The long, narrow room, partly under the roof, of Dr. Williamson's log house, which became our home for nearly five years from that September, is one of the memories that does not fade.

On the 6th of December I remember coming home from Mr. Renville's, where we had been all the afternoon obtaining translations. Then there was hurrying to and fro, and the first baby came into our family of two. From that time on we were three, and the little Zitkadan-Washta, as the Indians named him, grew as other children grow, and did what most children don't do, _viz._, learn to go _down_ stairs before he did _up_, because we lived upstairs, and all children can manage to go away from home, when they can't or won't come back of themselves.

In those years our annual allowance from the treasury of the board was $250. This was more than the other families in the mission had proportionally. But it required considerable economy and great care in expenditure to make the ends meet. Not knowing the price of quinine, and thinking four ounces could not be a great amount, we were much surprised to find the bill $16. But Dr. Turner of Fort Snelling kindly took it off our hands.

Once we were discussing the question of how much additional expense the baby would be, when I said, "About two dollars." Thereafter Mr. S. W. Pond, who was present at the time, called the boy "Mazaska nonpa."

A PLEASANT TRIP.

In the second month of 1840, our _three_ became _four_. And when the leaves came out and the flowers began to appear, the mother had a great desire to go somewhere. But the only place to go was to Fort Snelling. And so, leaving Chaskay and taking Hapan, we crossed the prairie to the Traverse des Sioux in company with Mr. Renville's caravan. The expectation was that the fur company's boat would be there. But it was not; nor even a canoe, save a little leaky one, which barely aided us in crossing the St. Peters. The journey through the Big Woods was over logs and through swamps and streams for seventy-five miles. We had two horses but no saddle. Our tent and bedding and such things as we must have on the journey were strapped on the horses. The mother rode one,--not very comfortable, as may be supposed,--but the baby girl had a better ride on a Dakota woman's back. At the end of ten miles, "le grand canoe" was found, in which they took passage. That ten miles was destined to be remembered by our return also; for there where the town of Le Sueur now stands our bark canoe finally failed us, and, without an Indian woman to carry the baby, we walked up to the Traverse, through the wet grass. Altogether, that was a trip to be remembered.

One other thing comes to my mind about our first "little lady." There was only one window in our upstairs room. On the outside of that the mother had a shelf fixed to set out milk on. One morning, when every one was busy or out, the little girl, not two years old, climbed out of the window and perched herself on that shelf. It gave us a good scare.

JOURNEY TO NEW ENGLAND.

In the first month of 1842 our family of _four_ was increased to _five_. And when the summer came on, we took a longer journey, which extended to New England. This time Hapan was left behind and Hapistinna and Chaskay were the companions of our journey. The grandmother in Hawley saw and blessed her grandchild namesake Martha Taylor. "Good Bird" says he remembers picking strawberries in the Hawley meadow, where his uncle Alfred was mowing, in those summer mornings.

NEW STATION AT TRAVERSE DES SIOUX.

A whole year passed, and we came back to the land of the Dakotas, to make a new home at Traverse des Sioux, to experience our first great sorrow, and to consecrate our Allon-bach-uth for the noble brother Thomas Lawrence Longley. That was a garden of roses, but a village of drinking and drunken Sioux; and more of trial came into our life of a little more than three years spent there than in any other equal portion. There our _Wanskay_ was born, and started in life under difficulties. Our family of _five_ had now become _six_. Provisions of a good quality were not easily obtained. But it happened that wild rice and Indian sugar were abundant, and the laws of heredity visited the sins of the parents on our third little lady child. But, with all the disadvantages of the start, the little "urchin" grew, and grew, like the others.

SENT BACK TO LAC-QUI-PARLE.

Trouble and sorrow baptize and consecrate. The many trials attendant upon commencing our station at Traverse des Sioux and the oaks of weeping there had greatly endeared the place to the mother; and when, in September of 1846, the mission voted that we should go back to Lac-qui-parle, she could not see that it was duty, and went without her own consent. It was a severe trial. In a few months she became satisfied that the Lord had led us. What of character the boy _Hake_, who was born in the next June, inherited from these months of sadness, I know not, but as he came along up, we called him a "Noble Boy." The family had then reached the sacred number _seven_.

In the year that followed we built a very comfortable frame-house--indeed, two of them--one for Mr. Jonas Pettijohn's family--comfortable, except that the snow would drift in through the ash shingles. Some of the older children can, perhaps, remember times when there was _more snow inside than outside_. We were up on the hill, and not under it, where Dr. Williamson and Mr. Huggins had built a dozen years before; and consequently the winter winds were fiercer, though we all thought the summers were pleasanter. In this house our _sixth_ child was born, who has no Dakota cognomen. We shall call him Ishakpe. The half-dozen years in which we made that house our home were full of work, broken in upon by a year spent in the East--myself in New York City chiefly. Henry, who could say to enquirers, "I was two years old last September," and Isabella were with their mother in Massachusetts and Brooklyn--Martha and Anna in the capital of Minnesota, and Thomas at the mission station of Kaposia; Alfred, I believe, was at Galesburg, Ill.

EDUCATING THE CHILDREN.

It has been a question that we often discussed, "How shall we get our children educated?" The basis of allowance from the treasury of the board had been on the principle of the Methodist circuit riders. The $250 with which we commenced was increased $50 for each child. So that at this time our salary was either $500 or $550. It was never greater than the last sum until after the outbreak in 1862. We lived on it comfortably, but there was very little margin for sending children away to school. And now we were reaching that point in our family history when a special effort must be made in that direction. Before we went on East in 1851, the mother and I had talked the matter over--perhaps some good family would like to take one of the children to educate. And so it was, more than one good offer was received for the little boy Henry. But our hearts failed us. Mrs. Minerva Cook of Brooklyn said to me, "You are afraid we will make an Episcopalian of him." So near was he to being a bishop!

MISSION HOUSE BURNED.

Many remembrances have to be passed over. The last picture I have of those mission houses at Lac-qui-parle is when, on the 3d of March, 1854, they were enveloped in fire. The two little boys had been down cellar to get potatoes for their mother, and, holding the lighted candle too near to the dry hay underneath the floor, the whole was soon in a conflagration, which our poor efforts could not stop. The houses were soon a heap of ashes, and the meat and many of the potatoes in the cellar were cooked. The adobe church was then our asylum, and the family home for the summer.

BUILD AT HAZELWOOD.

While occupying the old church and making preparations to rebuild, Secretary S. B. Treat visited us. After consultation, our plans were changed, and we erected our mission buildings at Hazelwood, twenty-five miles further down the Minnesota, and near to Dr. Williamson's and the Yellow Medicine Agency. During the eight years spent there, many things connected with the family life transpired. First among them worthy to be noted was the rounding out of the number of children to _eight_--"Toonkanshena," so called by the Indians--just why, I don't know--and Octavia the Hakakta. In those days our Family Education Society had to devise ways and means to keep _one_ always, and sometimes _two_, away at school. By and by, Zitkadan-Washta graduated at Knox College, and Hapan and Hapistinna at the Western Female Seminary and College Hill respectively. How we got them through seems even now a mystery. But I remember one year we raised a grand crop of potatoes, and sold 100 barrels to the government for $300 in gold. That was quite a lift. And so the Lord provided all through--then and afterward. Nothing was more remarkable in our family history for twenty-five years than its general health. We had very little sickness. I remember a week or so of doctoring on myself during our first residence at Lac-qui-parle. Then, the summer after our return there, the fever and ague took hold of two or three of the children. The mother also was taken sick suddenly in the adobe church, and Dr. Williamson and I had a night ride up from Hazelwood. At this place (Hazelwood) the baby boy _Toonkanshena_ was sick one night, I remember, and we gave him calomel and sent for the doctor. But the most serious sickness of all these years was that of my "urchin" and Henry, both together of typhoid fever. I have always believed that prayer was a part of the means of their recovery.

QUARTER OF A CENTURY.

When the summer of 1862 came, it rounded out a full quarter of a century of missionary life for us. Alfred had completed his seminary course, and in the meantime had grown such a heavy black beard that when he and I sat on the platform together, in a crowded church in Cincinnati, the people asked which was the father and which the son.

While waiting in Ohio for the graduating day of Hapistinna to come, I ran up to Steubenville, where I was born, and walked out into the country to the old farm where my boyhood was spent. The visit was not very satisfactory. Scarcely any one knew me. Everything had greatly changed.

THE OUTBREAK.

The memories of August 18, 1862, and the days that followed, are vivid, but must in the main be passed over. I can not forbear, however, to note what a sorry group we were on that island on the morning of the 19th. How finally the way appeared, and we filed up the ravine and started over the prairie as fugitives! How the rain came on us that afternoon, and what a sorry camping we made in the open prairie after we had crossed Hawk River! How the little Hakakta girl, when bed-time came, wanted to go home! How, when the rain had leaked down through the wagon-bed all night upon them, Mrs. D. Wilson Moore thought it would be about as good to die as to live under such conditions! How Hapistinna and Wanskay wore off their toes walking through the sharp prairie-grass! How we stopped on the open prairie to kill a cow and bake bread and roast meat, with no pans to do it in! And how, while the process was going on, we had our picture taken! How many scares we passed through the night we passed around Fort Ridgely! How thus we escaped, like a bird from the snare of the fowler,--the snare was broken, and we escaped. How, when the company came to adjust their mutual obligations, nobody had any money but D. Wilson Moore! How those women met us on the top of the hill by Henderson, and were glad to see us because we had white blood in us! How on the road we met our old friend Samuel W. Pond, who welcomed our family to his house at Shakopee!

FAMILY IN ST. ANTHONY.

The memories of the campaign of the next three months may be passed over, as having little connection with the family. But I remember the night when, with more than _three hundred condemnations_ in my carpet-bag, I had a long hunt at midnight for the little hired house in which the mother and children had re-commenced housekeeping. The three years in St. Anthony were ones of varied experiences. Wanskay had gone down to Rockford. Hapan and Hapistinna taught school and kept house for the mother by turns. The three boys went to school.

The War of the Rebellion was not over, but it was nearing its end, as we soon knew, when one day the noble boy Thomas brought in a paper for me to sign, giving my permission for his enlistment. I had heard and read so much of boys of sixteen going almost at once into the hospital that I threw the paper in the fire.

WHAT WILT THOU HAVE ME TO DO?

The missionary work among the Dakotas was so broken up, the clouds hung so heavily over it, that I very seriously entertained the question of giving up my commission as a missionary of the American Board, and turning my attention to work among white people. In my correspondence with Secretary Treat I proposed a kind of half-and-half work, but that was not approved. Finally I wrote a letter of withdrawal, and sent it on to Boston. But the prudential committee were slow to act upon it. In the meantime, Rev. G. H. Pond came over and gave me a long talk. He believed I should do no such thing; that the clouds would soon clear away; that the need of work such as I could give would be greater than ever before. And so it was. To me Mr. Pond was a prophet of the Lord, sent with a special message. I wanted to know the way. And the voice said, "This is the way; walk in it." With new enthusiasm I then entered upon the work of meeting the increasing demand for school-books and for the Bible.

At the very beginning of the year 1865, having completed my three months' work at the Bible House in New York, in reading the proof of the entire New Testament in Dakota, and other parts of the Bible, as well as other books, I returned to our home in St. Anthony to find the mother away at the water-cure establishment. We remember that as a year of _invalidism_, of _sickness_. But the skilful physician and the summer sun wrought such a cure that in the autumn we removed to Beloit. Here, with comparative health, she had three and a half years of added life.

THE MOTHER CALLED AWAY.

Among the new things that took place in Beloit in the year 1866 was the marriage of Hapan and Hapistinna, the one starting off for the far-off land of the Celestials, so-called, and the other to the frontier of Minnesota. Wanskay was then our housekeeper, and the three boys were in school. By and by the time came for the mother to be called away. It was a brief sickness, and she passed from us into the Land of Immortal Beauty. It was a comfort to us that our first-born, Zitkadan-Washta, was residing near by that winter and spring of 1869. As I remember it, three children were far away, and five gathered around the mother's grave. Now, looking back over the ten years passed since that time, I seem to say:--

"My thoughts, like palms in exile, Climb up to look and pray For a glimpse of that heavenly country, That seems _not_ far away."

This is a good point to close and seal up the Memories. For the rest, a few words may be sufficient. Manifestly, as a family, God has been with us all the way, and the blessings of the Lord Jehovah have been upon us. Forty-two years ago we went out--two alone--into the wilderness of prairie; and now we have become _one_, _two_, _three_, _four_, _five_, _six_, or more bands.

* * * * *

Sabbath, September 7, wound up the precious weeks; and Sabbath evening was the transfiguration of the whole. May its blessed memories tenderly abide in all our hearts! For a year or more, we had looked forward to the family meeting that was to be; but now we look back and remember with growing pleasure the meeting that was. As the wagons clattered away on Monday morning, they broke the charmed spell, but each one went his own way richer than he came. A. L. R.